While they stood over Dora, Loney came creeping softly from the hallway where Dopey had left him, supposing him to be dead; and, unnoticed, he crept to the bench and crouched behind it unobserved, and silently wiped the blood that flowed from the wound in his head.
Pierson started with Dora toward the cellar-steps, but Dopey checked him, saying:
“Not that way, cull. De street is full of people. I know dis place like a book. Go out that door”—pointing to the door leading into the little stairway and hall. “You’ll find a gratin’ openin’ into an alley-way. I’ll go ’round and meet you dere wid Red Mike and his cab. Mike’s me pal, he is. Dere’s only one way to do a t’ing, an’ dat’s de right way. See?”
“Then, hurry! hurry!”
John then staggered out the way Dopey had indicated, with the insensible Dora in his arms, while Dopey sneaked cautiously up the cellar-steps to the street.
A few moments of silence passed in that little shop, then Loney sobbed once with the pain in his head and the knowledge that Dora had been carried off by that bad man, and he was powerless to save her. Then his senses left him and he sank back unconscious.
With a glad and resonant voice the happy shoemaker shouted down the steps as he made his appearance then:
“Dora, Dora, I have de nice present for you—from de Bennie. Your ring of betrothal. I tellet him I wouldn’t let you vear it now, and it is all fixet. Now, you get merrit on your eighteenth birthday, eh? Vot you say! Vy, vot is dot? De man mit de ‘stickers’! Yust deat drunk! Dot Bowery booze vos too much for him—efen him. Vake up, Mister; vake up! You can’t sleep here. Vat’s dot—ploot! Mein Gott! he is hurted!”
While the shoemaker was shaking and talking to “Bill,” the latter raised on his elbow, saying:
“My friend, I’m hurt to the death. Shot in the back by the Mexican who wronged my sister. I played fox until he had gone. I’m going over the range fast—fast, pardner, and the night is coming on. I can hardly see.”