“Well, right is on my side, and I can take the horses if I see fit in the furtherance of law an' order,” said Braider. “If Jabe was here he'd tell me to go ahead, an' so I'll have to do it anyway. Bill, you stay here on guard an' I'll bridle the horses an' lead 'em out.”
A queer look, half of anger, half of definite purpose, settled on the strong, rugged face of the woman, as she saw the sheriff stalk off to the barn-yard gate, enter it, and let it close after him.
“Bill King,” she said, drawing nearer the man left in charge of the bewildered prisoner, who now for the first time under the words of his defender had sensed his real danger—“Bill King, you hain't agoin' to lead that poor boy right to his death this way—you don't look like that sort of a man.” She suddenly swept her furtive eyes over the barn-yard, evidently noting that the sheriff was now in the stable. “No, you hain't—for I hain't agoin' to let you!” And suddenly, without warning even to the slightest change of facial expression, she grasped the end of the shot-gun the man held, and whirled him round Like a top.
“Run, boy!” she cried. “Run for the woods, and God be with you!” For an instant Pete stood as if rooted to the spot, and then, as swift of foot as a young Indian, he turned and darted through the gate and round the farm-house, leaving the woman and King struggling for the possession of the gun. It fell to the ground, but she grasped King around the waist and clung to him with the tenacity of a bull-dog.
“Good God, Mrs. Parsons,” he panted, writhing in her grasp, “let me loose!”
There was a smothered oath from the barn-yard, and, revolver in hand, the sheriff ran out.
“What the hell!—which way did he go?” he gasped.
But King, still in the tight embrace of his assailant, seemed too badly upset to reply. And it was not till Braider had torn her locked hands loose that King could stammer out, “Round the house—into the woods!”
“An' we couldn't catch 'im to save us from—” Braider said. “Madam, I'll handle you for this! I'll push this case against you to the full limit of the law!”
“You'll do nothin' of the kind,” the woman said, “unless you want to make yourself the laughin'-stock of the whole community. In doin' what I done I acted fer all the good women of this country; an' when you run ag'in we'll beat you at the polls. Law an' order's one thing, but officers helpin' mobs do their dirty work is another. If the boy deserves a trial he deserves it, but he'd not 'a' stood one chance in ten million in your charge, an' you know it.”