Cunningham stared from one to the other, but it was hard to think of anything when he looked at Maria. He had taken the Strangers seriously enough when he knew of the first man’s being killed. Now it looked as if he was called upon to prevent deadly serious trouble in the hills.
“I’ll try,” he said hopelessly. “Yes, I’ll try. Maria——”
The color mounted in her cheeks. Then she seemed to summon all her pride and met his eyes fairly. They told him many things, her eyes.
“I—I will wait for you,” she told him. And in the words she said much more than the words themselves.
Cunningham was tingling all over, at the same time that he felt a curious sense of absurdity in escorting callers to the window instead of to the door. But before they reached it a head appeared there. It was that of the young Stranger who had been the first to appear from the woods that afternoon.
“The sheriff,” he whispered. “He came. We hit him on the head. Shall we kill him?”
“No!” said Cunningham sharply. “Tie him up until you get clear away. Did he see you coming up to my window?”
“No.” The young man shrugged and disappeared. There were whispered instructions below. To Cunningham it seemed that the whispers were in a strange tongue. Maria and her father slipped out. Then there were little rustlings below. The ladder, probably, being taken down and carried elsewhere, and the marks it had made in the earth erased.
Cunningham sank into a chair and stared before him. His blood was still pounding in his veins. And Maria had glanced back at him as she disappeared from view. But there was no denying that a tremendous and unwelcome responsibility had been thrust upon him.
They were foreigners. They must be. They did not understand the laws of the United States—and they were hated now and would soon be subject to persecution. Why, otherwise, did Vladimir bribe the sheriff and try to keep both Gray and Cunningham away from the Strange People? Why, otherwise, had such unreasoning hatred been expressed that morning in Bendale?