They went, Brent needing to strike a sort of dog-trot to hold the long striding pace of the other.

The bank was closed for the day.

CHAPTER VIII

"Well, what next?" inquired Brent blankly.

"We might manage to seize and make a hostage of Lute Brown--and even the telegraph operator," began Halloway, somewhat haltingly. "But their disappearance would prove a sort of warning and they may not be the leading spirits. Did you gather from that telegram where they mean to hold her up?"

"No--nor even to whom the message went. He'd begun sending when I got in."

"Of course we couldn't prove that the operator understood the portent of the message but I know the fellow--his name is Wicks, and I think he's a bad egg."

"Where does the bank cashier live?" inquired Brent.

"Three miles out along Deephole Branch--and he has no telephone,"

growled the t.i.tan. Suddenly through the baffled perplexity of his eyes broke the light of dawning idea, and he spoke with a greater cert.i.tude.

"If these high-binders have used the wire once they may do it again,"

he exclaimed. "At all events that's the point to watch at present."

"I suppose you mean I must loaf around there and eavesdrop--for anything that may come over." Brent's tone was unenthusiastic. "It's logical enough too--but if the girl's started out alone, time is precious."

Halloway had straightened out of his doleful uncertainty. Plans were swiftly taking shape in his mind.

"No. You've been there once. If you went back it's just possible that into the fellow's dull mind might steal a ghost of suspicion. I'm ready to take my turn now, though I hate the d.a.m.ned inactivity. I am a presumed illiterate. I struggle over the printed page--and with me loafing in his office he would chat away over his wire undisturbed."

"And what shall I be doing?"

"There'll be enough to keep you busy, I should say. Get in touch with any of the bank employes you can locate. Try to learn whether or not Alexander has actually started. Have Lute watched and see with whom he talks. Get together a dozen men we can trust at a pinch. Have them ready, if necessary, to take the saddle on a moment's notice. It may come down to a race over the trail."

Brent's face fell.

"With my limited acquaintance," he objected, "how in G.o.d's name am I to pick such men?"

"No man who looked into the dog-like eyes of young Bud Sellers,"

a.s.serted Halloway, "could doubt that he'd give his life for that girl.

He can also keep his mouth tight. Tell him the whole story and take his orders. I'm off now to sit on my shoulder blades in the telegraph office."

About the post office loitered a small crowd drawn together by the instinct for companionship and to that gathering place Brent turned first in search of Bud.

It proved a happy choice and when he had, with a seeming of casualness, led his man into a quieter spot he demanded, "What has become of Alexander?"

He thought that the young mountaineer stiffened a bit and that his face became mask-like. But this may have been the jealous tendency of a hopeless pa.s.sion, and when Brent swiftly narrated all that he and Halloway had learned, the secretiveness of guise fell away from the listening face and the body trembled as if stricken with a chill, but a chill of rage and indignation which had no kinship with timorousness.

"Hit looks like hit would hev been safer an' handier fer Alexander jest ter ride on back home with ther same crowd thet come down-river with her--they're all got ter make ther same journey," was his first comment, but after a moment he shook his head. "Howsomever, I reckon thet they don't aim ter hasten back so d.a.m.n fast. They hain't been in a town fer a long spell an' they seeks ter tarry--an' quite several of 'em air fellers I mistrusts anyhow."

"Can't you pick out enough dependable men for an immediate start if need be?"

Bud laughed shortly. "Did ye 'low, atter hearin' what ye jest narrated that I'd be liable ter stand hitched fer long? I'll pick 'em out all right--an' speedily."

Into his suddenly narrowing eye shot a menacing gleam. "An' ef them fellers undertakes ter harm her, afore G.o.d, thar's goin' ter be some shovelin' of grave-yard dirt, too."

Brent sought out the bank president who lived in town and put his terse question as to whether Alexander had withdrawn from the safe, her package of money.

"She hadn't been there again up to the time of my leaving," the banker replied, "but, I came away before closing."

The telegraph office in the railway station was a dingy place of cobwebbed murk. It was also the express office, and in helter-skelter disarray lay a litter of uncalled-for plow-shares and such articles as go from the end of the rails into that hinterland where lies an isolated world of crag and loneliness.

Except for the operator--who was also ticket-agent and general factotum--it was now empty and dull of light with its smeared window gla.s.ses between its interior and the dispirited grayness of the outer skies. The dust-covered papers and miscellany which c.u.mbered the table long undisturbed, spoke of an idle office and of hours unedged with interest.

As Halloway's great bulk shadowed the door, Wicks glanced up, and nodded with a somewhat surly unwelcome.

"Did ye want anything," he asked shortly.

"No, just loafin' 'round," drawled the visitor as he settled indolently into a chair which creaked its complaint under his weight.

For a short while the two kept up a perfunctory semblance of conversation, but between these interchanges of comment, lengthening intervals elapsed.

Wicks sat inertly gazing at those familiar stains on the wall which long familiarity had made hateful to him. His expression was moody and only occasionally did he turn to glance at his unbidden guest.

Halloway's head had fallen forward on his chest and soon his heavy breathing became that of a man who is napping.

Finally the other opened his key and sounded the call for Viper, a hamlet ten miles away, though in practical effect it was more distant since the road between twisted painfully over ridge and through gorge.

It was on an infrequently used freight spur but it boasted communication with the world by wire--and it was important now because it was a town through which Alexander must pa.s.s on her way from Coal City to the mouth of Shoulder-blade Creek.

The metallic voice of the telegraph key subsided, and shortly came the response. Halloway still breathed heavily on--a sleeping giant whose ears were very much awake. This was no official message paying toll, but a private conversation between operators bent on whiling away dull moments. Moreover it was evidently the continuation of talk previously commenced so that to the eavesdropper it was like a continued story of which he had missed the opening chapters.

"Upward of four thousand dollars," tapped out Wicks. "That's big money, but the more men that split it the less each feller gets, so they don't want too many from Viper."

Halloway realized at once that this lantern-jawed operator had a swift and sure sending finger, and when the answer came it was, in contrast, labored and ragged. It was as if two men talked, one in rapid and clear-clipped syllables--the other in a stutter.

Said Viper, "There might be neck-stretching too if too many tongues make talk. Jess will have the boys ready at the place soon in the morning. They will wait for orders there."

"At the place!" Halloway in his counterfeited sleep cursed to himself.

If instead of those indefinite words the point had been named he would have gained something tangible. He knew now however beyond a doubt that both operators were conspirators and he had gleaned one comforting a.s.surance--the plans contemplated no joining of forces until to-morrow.

Those at the far end were still uninstructed. If it came to a race to-night that gave a better chance.

Then Viper cut off and Wicks, with a sigh of boredom, settled back in his chair once more and gave himself over to silence.

Finally Halloway stirred out of his slumber and stretched himself.

"I reckon," he admitted shamefacedly, "I must hev fell asleep. That d.a.m.n fire broke up my rest last night." With which comment he slouched, still sleepily, out of the place, rubbing his eyes as he went, with ham-like fists.

At the rafts he found Bud Sellers, and a round dozen men of Bud's selection. Looking them over, Halloway privately approved. There was not an eye in the number that was not hawk-clear; or a figure that was not nail-hard. These were fellows cut to a pattern of action, but even in their excellent average, one stood out with an individualism which immediately struck the observer.