“They picked him up, but I didn’t wait. Reckon they’re totin’ him back to Goose Crick this very minute. That’s where they’ll hide him—till they think up some slick way of losin’ him in the woods.”
“Say, Pete, you got this all straight now, have you? You ain’t been dreamin’ or nothin’ like that?”
“Don’t be a fool, Jard Hassock!” exclaimed Liza. “You got to do something now—simply got to—you and every man in this village. If you don’t, there’ll be murder done. Go tell the McPhees, and the Joneses and the Browns and the Wickets and the Haywards and the McKims and old man Pike—the whole bunch. Get your guns and pistols and light out for the Crick with a couple of teams quick’s the Lord’ll let you! But send Charlie McPhee, or some other lad with a fast horse, to Jim Bell’s to fetch him along too—and tell him to tell Jim to telephone over to Lover’s Glen for the deputy-sheriff. I’ll have coffee ready when you get back, Pete, you go too and help Jard stir ’em up. It’s got to be done this time, Jard—done and done for good and all—so it’s no use you scratchin’ your nose about it.”
“Reckon ye’re right, Liza,” admitted Jard reluctantly, “if Pete ain’t mistaken. But durn that Vane! Out runnin’ the woods all night, hey! Couldn’t he wait? Couldn’t he keep still till I’d thought out a way? Why the hell couldn’t he’ve let sleepin’ dogs lay?”
“Get out!” cried Liza. “Tell us that to-night. I’ll load your gun while you’re gone to scare up the men. Scare’s right.”
Half an hour later, Charlie McPhee set out in a red pung, behind a sorrel mare, for Jim Bell’s place a few miles below the village. Mr. Bell was the nearest constable. Half an hour after that again, two sleds set out for the Dangler settlement on Goose Creek. Each sled was drawn by a pair of horses, and crowded with men armed with many kinds and patterns of explosive weapons in their pockets and their hands. Snow was falling thick and soft and steady. There was not a breath of wind. The bells had been removed from the harness of both teams. The men whispered together, and peered nervously ahead and around into the glimmering, blinding veils of the snow. They spoke with lowered voices before the top of the hill was reached, as if those dangerous Danglers could hear their usual conversational tone across a distance of seven miles. They were not keen on their errand, not even the most daring and independent of them—but Liza Hassock had driven them to it. Liza had talked of murder, disgrace, and cowardice. She had threatened the most reluctant with ridicule, the law and even physical violence. She had sneered and jeered.
“I know your reasons for hanging back,” she had cried. “I know what’s at the bottom of all this ‘live and let live’ slush you’ve been handing out. One’s a reason of the heart—and that’s saying you’re afraid of the Danglers, that you’re cowards! An t’other is a reason of the gullet. Oh, I know! Now I’ll tell you men straight what’s going to happen if you don’t all crowd up to Goose Crick and save Mr. Vane. I’ll go to Fredricton, and if that’s not far enough I’ll go to Ottawa, and I’ll put such a crimp into that gin-mill up to Goose Crick that you’ll all be back to drinking lemon extract again, including Deacon Wicket. That’s what will happen! That will fix the moonshining Danglers, and then you’ll have to go farther and pay more for your liquor. That’ll fix ’em!—the whole b’ilin’ of them; murderers and moonshiners and bootleggers and all!”
Liza had won. Even Deacon Wicket had joined the rescue party with a double-barrelled shotgun.
Jard Hassock drove the leading team. The big, mild horses jogged along without a suspicion of the significance of their errand. Perhaps they wondered mildly why so numerous a company rode each ample sled—but it isn’t likely. Certain it is that they did not so much as guess that they were taking part in an historic event, lending their slow muscles and big feet to the breaking of a century-old tyranny, bumping forward through the obscuring snow to the tragedy that was to flash the modest names of Forkville and Goose Creek before the eyes of the world. Well, what they didn’t know, or even suspect, didn’t hurt them. Perhaps they missed the cheery jangle of their bells, and so sensed something unusual in their morning’s task—but if so they showed no sign of it.
The leading team drew up at the nearest Dangler farmhouse and the second team passed on silently toward the second house. Jard opened the kitchen door, and beheld Jerry Dangler and his wife and children at table eating buckwheat pancakes.