"There's nothin' of yers on my premises, inside nor out, an' never was; but if ye don't beat it before I count ten there'll be a dead corpse in the yard. Git!"
Jim got. He went around to the front door, stood his gun against the side of the house and kicked the door in with one terrific smash of the right heel against the lock. He entered the dark hall and was feeling his way toward the stairs with extended arms when his right hand touched something alive. Quick as thought, hard as iron, he grabbed and gripped with both hands.
"It's me, Jim! Leggo, for God's sake—an' run!" whispered the voice of Melchior. "I come down to warn ye. He's murderin' mad. Threw a knife at me an' missed by an inch—an' he'll shoot you. Here he comes!"
A light appeared at the top of the stairs. Jim turned and started for the open door on the jump, tripped over the threshold, and fell out on to the veranda and flung himself to one side at the very instant of touching the floor. And then a gun roared within and a shower of number two shot ripped into the flooring where he had been lying a moment before. Was that both barrels or only one? He didn't know. He scrambled to his feet, snatched his own gun from where it leaned and ran. As he jumped the fence, the gun banged again, but the charge went wide and high.
"He's off his nut and the gun's a breech-loader," he reflected; and he continued his flight.
A third bang proved the soundness of his reasoning and the wisdom of his course.
CHAPTER VII
NEW BUSINESS CONNECTIONS
The village was aroused from its slumber by the reports of Amos Hammond's gun, but by the time the villagers were out of their houses, Jim Todhunter was far out of sight, and even the flying beat of his heavy boots on the hard road was out of earshot.
Jim had forseen the disturbance and curiosity of the neighbors and felt in no mood to calm the disturbance or satisfy the curiosity. In fact, he had nothing to say. He was a fighter, but not a gun-fighter. He was sane, and he believed Hammond to be mad. He had run from a gun, though he had a gun in his own hands and ammunition in his pockets. He could have returned Hammond's fire, shooting to frighten rather than to hit, and closed with the fellow eventually and hammered him into submission. He had considered this course and dismissed it early in his flight. The truth is, he was glad to be rid of the responsibility to the Hammond family which he had assumed in promising Mrs. Hammond to stick to the household as long as possible. That promise no longer held. Even the most good-natured and altruistic person in the world would not be expected by even the least altruistic to continue to cling to a household against the efforts of the head-of-the-house to dislodge him with smokeless powder and swan-shot.