IFTEEN minutes later a spectral group in all truth filed out through the rear door of the store and paused for further orders in the shadow of the wall of the adjoining bank building. The sky was still darkly overcast and a drizzle as fine as mist was in the air.
With Carson and Pole in the lead, the party marched grimly two and two, a weird sight even to themselves. Straight down the alley behind the stores along the railway they moved, keeping step like trained military men. Pole, for visual effect, carried a coil of new hemp rope, and he swung it about in his white, winglike clutch with the ease of a cow-boy, as he gutturally gave orders as to turns and tentative pauses. Now and then he would leave the others standing and stride ahead through the darkness and signal them to come on up. In this way they progressed with many a halt, and many a cautious détour to avoid the light that steadily gleamed through some cottage window or chink in a door or some watchman at his post at some mill or factory, till finally they reached the grounds surrounding the court-house and jail.
“I don't know how soft-hearted you are, Carson,” Baker whispered in the young man's ear, “but thar's one thing a man full of feelin' like you seem to be ought to be ready to guard against.”
“What is that, Pole?”
“Why, you know, if we git the poor devil out he'll be sure he's done for, an' he'll be apt to raise an' awful row, beggin' an' prayin' an' no tellin' what else. But for all you do, don't open yore mouth. Let 'im bear it—tough as it will be—till we kin git to a safe place. Thar'll be folks listenin' in the houses along the way to the store, an' ef you was to speak one kind word the truth might leak out. To all appearances we are lynchers of the most rabid brand.”
“I understand that, Pole,” said Carson. “I won't interfere with your work.”
“Don't call it my work,” said Baker, admiringly. “I've been through a sight of secret things in my time, but I never heard of a scheme as slick an' deep-laid as this. If she goes through safe I'll put you at the top of my list. It looks like it will work, but a body never kin tell. Burt Barrett is the next hill to climb. I don't know him well enough to foresee what stand he'll take. Boys, have yore guns ready, an' when I order you to take aim, you do it as if you intend to make a hole in whatever is in front of you. Our bluff is the biggest that ever was thought of, but it has to go. Now, come on!”
Through the open gateway they marched across the public lawn covered with fresh green grass to the jail near by. A dog chained in a kennel behind the house waked and snarled, but he did not bark. There was a little porch at the entrance to the building, and along this the ghostly band silently arranged themselves.
“Hello in thar, Burt Barrett!” Pole suddenly cried out, in sharp, stern tones, and there was a pause. Then from the darkness within came the sound of some one striking a match. A flickering light flared up in the room on the right of the entrance; then the voice of a woman was heard.