Jerry began whistling gently to herself, for she had never been lost before, and it is not so bad when you have a good horse, a fair path, sweet, odorous woods, and the moon to keep you company. She forded a brook that was silver to eye and ear, and let her horse stand midway of it for joy in the sight and sound. She had kept no account of time, but rather imagined that it had not been more than half an hour since the Duke of Ballywinkle left her so unceremoniously.
Suddenly ahead of her through the woods floated the sound of singing—one of those strange, wavering pieux cantiques peculiar to the South. She rode on, thinking to find help and a guide back to Ardsley; then the music ceased, and lights now flashed faintly before her, but she went forward guardedly.
“I’m much more lost than I thought I was, for I must be away off the estate,” she reflected. She turned and rode back a few rods and dismounted, and tied her horse to a sapling. She was disappointed at not finding a camp of Ardmore’s woodcutters, to whom she could unhesitatingly have confided herself; but it seemed wise now to exercise caution in drawing to herself the attention of strangers. She did not know that she had crossed the state line and was in South Carolina, or that the singing she had heard floated from the windows of Mount Nebo Church.
She became now the astonished witness of a series of incidents that occurred so swiftly as fairly to take her breath away. A tall, loosely articulated man came from the direction of the church and walked toward her. She knelt at the tree and watched, the moonlight giving her a clear view of a rustic somewhat past middle age, whose chief characteristic seemed to be a grizzled beard and long arms that swung oddly at his side. The brim of his wool hat was turned up sharply from his forehead, and she had a glimpse of the small, keen gray eyes with which he swept the forest before him. He freed a horse which she had not before noticed, and she concluded that he would not approach nearer, for she expected him to mount and ride away to join others of the congregation whom she heard making off in a road beyond the church. Then, with a quickness and deftness that baffled her eyes, two men rose beside him just as he was about to mount; there was no outcry and no sound of scuffling, so quick was the descent and so perfect the understanding between the captors. In a moment the man was gathered up, bound, and flung on his saddle. She had a better view of him, now that he was hatless, though a gag had been forced into his mouth and a handkerchief tied over his eyes, so that he presented a grotesque appearance. Jerry was so absorbed that she forgot to be afraid; never in her life had she witnessed anything so amazing as this; and now, to her more complete bewilderment, the captors, after carefully inspecting their work and finding it satisfactory, seemed to disappear utterly from the face of the earth.
In the woods to her left she thought she heard a horse neigh; then she saw shadows moving in that direction; and again, from the road, she heard the brief debate of the two men as to the whereabouts of “Bill;” and it struck Jerry humorously that he would not soon see his friends unless they came and helped him out of his predicament.
It may help to an understanding of Miss Jerry Dangerfield’s character if it is recorded here that never in her short life had she failed to respond to the call of impulse. She was lost in the woods, and strange men lurked about; a man had been attacked, seized, and left sitting in a state of absurd helplessness on a horse presumably his own, and there was no guessing what dire penalty his captors had in store for him. He certainly looked deliciously funny as he sat there in the shadows, vigorously twisting his arms and head in an effort to free himself.
Quiet reigned in the neighbourhood of the church; the lights had blinked out; the bang of the closing shutters reassured Jerry, and she crept on her knees toward the unconscious captive, loosed his horse’s rein, and led it rapidly toward her own horse, a little farther back in the woods. Her blindfolded prisoner, thinking his original captors were carrying him off, renewed his efforts to free himself. He tested the ropes and straps with which he was fastened by throwing himself first to one side, then to the other, as far as his gyves would permit, at the same time frothily chewing his gag.
Jerry gained her own saddle in the least bit of a panic, and when she had mounted and made sure of the leading-strap with which her prisoner’s horse was provided, she rode on at a rapid walk until she reached the clearing, where the stumps again grimly mocked her. She stopped to listen, and heard through the still night first one cry and then many voices in various keys of alarm and rage. Then she bent toward the prisoner, tore the bandage from his eyes, and with more difficulty freed him of the gag. He blinked and spluttered at this unexpected deliverance, then blinked and spluttered afresh at seeing that his captor was a young woman, who was plainly not of his world. Jerry watched him wonderingly, then addressed him in her most agreeable tone.
“You were caught and tied by two men over there by a church. I saw them, and when they went off and left you, I came along and brought you with me, thinking to save your life. I want to get home as quickly as possible, and though I do not know you, and am quite sure we never met before, I hope you will kindly guide me to Ardsley, and thereby render me a service I shall always deeply appreciate.”
Mr. Bill Appleweight, alias Poteet, was well hardened to the shocks of time, but this pleasant-voiced girl, coolly sitting her horse, and holding his own lank steed by a strap, was the most amazing human being that had yet dawned on his horizon. He was not stupid, but Jerry’s manner of speech had baffled more sophisticated minds than Appleweight’s, and the sweet sincerity of her tone, and her frank countenance, hallowed as it was by the moonlight, wrought in the outlaw’s mind a befuddlement not wholly unlike that which had possessed the wits of many young gallants south of the Potomac who had laid siege to Jerry Dangerfield’s heart. But the cries behind them were more pronounced, and Appleweight was nothing if not a man of action.