Here Eben stepped further into the hall, followed by Donald.
"Let me into that room, will you?"
Donald, taking the key from his pocket, now threw open the door, with a "much good may it do you;" and, closing it again after Slade had entered, coolly locked him in the room. The blinds flew open. Don rushed out to the still deserted stoop, only to see Eben Slade's angry face glaring at him from the window. The man could have got through the window easily enough, but he preferred his present position. Leaning out, with his elbows on the sill, he said distinctly, in a passionate, low voice:
"You've baffled me this time, Donald Reed, but I'll carry the day yet. That girl, wherever she's gone to, is no more your sister than she is mine, and I can prove it to her! She's my niece—my own sister's child! I've a right to her, and I can prove it. She's going back home with me, out West, where my wife's waitin' for her. Now, sir, what have you to say to that?"
The poor boy, aghast at Eben's statement, stood at first as if stunned; but recovering himself, he made a rush toward Eben, not blindly, but with a fierce determination to clutch him by the throat and force him to unsay his terrible words.
Eben sprang from the window at a bound. A struggle ensued—brief, violent. Donald might have been mastered, had not a strong man sprung upon them and with one blow knocked Eben Slade prostrate upon the boards.
It was Sailor Jack, who had driven up unperceived and leaped from the buggy just in time.
Three or four men rushed from the bar-room, all calling out at once.
"What's the matter here?"
"Any one killed?—What's the row?"