It was the awakening that Phil dreaded, but risky as he knew it would be, he determined to give Sol a chance and leave him to wake up, without sending out to inform Royce Pederstone, who was home for a week to participate in the Christmas festivities, and the Mayor,––whose combined duty it was to see that Sol was properly secured against doing anyone any bodily injury.
But Phil’s good intentions were not allowed to fructify.
Brenchfield and Royce Pederstone rode into the yard together, as if they had been aware of every move of Sol’s.
They ordered Phil to lock the front door and come out by the back way. Phil pleaded Sol’s cause for a little, but only got called a sentimental fool for his kindly feelings; and he had no recourse but to obey instructions, for Brenchfield and Royce Pederstone had almost unlimited power in regard to Sol’s permanent freedom or confinement.
Brenchfield pitched some chunks of coal at Sol through the broken window. Sol woke with a start, cursed in a mixture of Swedish and English, then, with that terrible madness upon him––which Phil had witnessed only once before but would never forget,––he sprang for the back door, as Phil got round the gable-end of the smithy.
Sol wrestled for a few seconds with the back door and finally tore it completely from its hinges. He darted out into the yard, hurling the broken woodwork full at Brenchfield as the latter was swinging his lariat. Hanson followed his missile and, for a short space, it looked as if the Mayor’s last moment had arrived. But numbers 275 counted again and, fortunately for the big Swede, he could not be in two places at once. Royce Pederstone’s rope landed deftly over his head and brought him to earth gasping for breath, half strangled.
Brenchfield recovered. His rope whirled in the air and tightened over Sol’s uptilted legs. The rest was easy. Shortly afterwards, Hanson, foaming at the mouth and shouting at the pitch of his voice, was trussed securely to the stanchions supporting one of the barns.
The Mayor and Royce Pederstone were still inside the barn, and Phil was standing in the yard, when poor, little, distraught Betty came anxiously round the building, still on her quest for her man. She heard Sol’s voice, and her eyes grew wide and shone in fear and anger. She darted toward the out-house. Phil tried to stop her, but it was useless. Inside she went, and when she surveyed the scene before her––the two strong, calculating men standing watching her husband whom she loved with all the strength of her robust little being, and he roped and hog-tied like some wild animal––her whole womanly nature welled up and overflowed.
“What have you done?” she cried fiercely, her voice weakening as she went on. “Solly, dearie,––my own Sol!”
And Sol cursed, and shrieked, and struggled, unheeding. She ran forward to him and placed her arms about his great neck where the veins were swollen almost to bursting point. She patted his huge, heaving, hairy chest. She wiped away the perspiration from his forehead and the white ooze from his lips. She laid her face gently against his, tapping his cheek with her fingers; crooning to him and kissing him as she would a baby.