Saxton gave the reins to Raridan and jumped out. "No more smoking," he said, throwing away his cigar. "You stay here and I'll reconnoiter a bit." He walked swiftly toward the great barn which lay between him and the house. There was no sign of life in the place. He crept through the barb-wire fence into the corral. He had barred and padlocked the barn door on his last visit, and he satisfied himself that the fastenings had not been disturbed. There were no indications that any one had visited the place. He reasoned that if Snyder had sought the ranch house for a rendezvous he had not come afoot. Saxton was therefore disappointed to find the barn door locked and the corral empty; there was little use in looking further, he concluded; but before joining the others he resolved to make sure that the house also was empty. It was quite dark and he walked boldly up to it. The wind had risen and whistled shrilly around it; a loose blind under the eaves flapped noisily as he drew near. The great front door was closed; he pushed against it and found it securely fastened. He had brought with him a key to a rear door, and he started around the house to try it and to make sure that the house was not occupied.

At the corner toward the river, gla.s.s suddenly crunched under his feet.

The windows were deeply embrasured all over the house, and he could not determine where the gla.s.s had fallen from. The windows were all intact when he left, he was sure. He drew off his glove and tiptoed to the nearest panes, ran his fingers over the smooth gla.s.s, and instantly touched a broken edge. As he was feeling the frame to discover the size of the opening, the low whinny of a horse came distinctly from within.

He stood perfectly quiet, listening, and in a moment heard the stamp of a hoof on the wooden floor of the hall. He backed off toward the drive way, which swept around in front of the house, and waited, but all remained as silent and as dark as before. He ran back through the corral to the other men, who stood talking beside the blanketed ponies.

"There's something or somebody in the house," he said. He told them of the broken window and of the sounds he had heard. "Whoever's there has no business there and we may as well turn him out. I've thought of a good many schemes for utilizing that house, but the idea of making a barn of it hadn't occurred to me."

He threw off his overcoat and tossed it into the buckboard.

"I guess that's a good idea, John," said Raridan, following his example.

Wheaton stood m.u.f.fled in his coat. His teeth were chattering, and he fumbled at the b.u.t.tons but kept his coat on, walking toward the house with the others.

"We may have a horse thief or we may have a kidnapper," said Saxton, who had taken charge of the party; "but in either case we may as well take him with his live stock."

"Let us not be rash," said the bishop, following the others. "He may prove an unruly customer."

"He's probably a dude tramp who rides a horse and has taken a fancy to Poindexter architecture," said Warry.

"Quiet!" admonished Saxton, who had lighted a lantern, which he concealed under his coat.

"You two watch the corners of the house," he said, indicating Raridan and Wheaton; "and you, Bishop, can stand off here, if you will, and watch for signs of light in the upper windows. The big front doors are barred on the inside, and my key opens only the back door."

"I'll go with you," said Raridan.

"Not yet, old man. You stay right here and watch until I throw open the front doors."

"But that's a foolish risk," insisted Raridan. "There may be a dozen men inside."

"That's all right, Warry. It takes only a minute to cross the hall and unbar the front doors. There's no risk about it. I'll be out in half a minute."

Raridan felt that Saxton was taking all the hazards, but he yielded, as he usually did, when Saxton was decisive, as now.

"Good luck to you, old man!" he said, slapping Saxton on the back. He patrolled the gra.s.s-plot before the house, while Saxton went to the rear.

The door opened easily, and John stepped into the lower hall. The place was pitch dark. He remembered the position of the articles of furniture as he had left them on his last visit, and started across the hall toward the stairway, using his lantern warily. When half way, he heard the whinny of a horse which he could not see. A moment later an animal shrank away from him in the darkness and was still again. Then another horse whinnied by the window whose broken gla.s.s he had found on the outside. There were, then, two horses, from which he argued that there were at least two persons in the house. He found the doors and lifted the heavy bar that held them and drew the bolts at top and bottom. As the doors swung open slowly Raridan ran up to see if anything was wanted.

"All right," said Saxton in a low tone. "They're mighty quiet if they're here. But there's no doubt about the horses. You stay where you are and I'll explore a little."

Raridan started to follow him, but Saxton pushed him back.

"Watch the door," he said, and walked guardedly into the house again.

The horses stamped fretfully as he went toward the stairway, but all was quiet above. He felt his way slowly up the stair-rail, whose heavy dust stuck to his fingers. Having gained the upper hall, he paused to take fresh bearings. His memory brought back gradually the position of the rooms. In putting out his hand he touched a picture which swung slightly on its wire and grated harshly against the rough plaster of the wall. At the same instant he heard a noise directly in front of him as of some one moving about in the chamber at the head of the stairs. The k.n.o.b of a door was suddenly grasped from within. John waited, crouched down, and drew his revolver from the side pocket of his coat. The door stuck in the frame, but being violently shaken, suddenly pulled free. The person who had opened the door stepped back into the room and scratched a match.

"Wake up there," called a voice within the room.

Saxton crept softly across the hall, settling the revolver into his hand ready for use. A man could be heard mumbling and cursing.

"Hurry up, boy, it's time we were out of this."

The owner of the voice now reappeared at the door holding a lantern; he was pushing some one in front of him. The crisis had come quickly; John Saxton knew that he had found Grant Porter; and he remembered that he was there to get the boy whether he caught his abductor or not.

The man was carrying his lantern in his right hand and pushing the boy toward the staircase with his left. As he came well out of the door, Saxton sprang up and kicked the lantern from the man's hand. At the same moment he grabbed the boy by the collar, drew him back and stepped in front of him. The lantern crashed against the wall opposite and went rolling down the stairway with its light extinguished. Saxton had dropped his own lantern and the hall was in darkness.

"Stop where you are, Snyder," said Saxton, "or I'll shoot. I'm John Saxton; you may remember me." He spoke in steady, even tones.

The lantern, rolling down the stairway, startled the horses, which stamped restlessly on the floor. The wind whistled dismally outside. He heard Snyder, as he a.s.sumed the man to be, cautiously feeling his way toward the staircase.

"You may as well stop there," Saxton said, without moving, and holding the boy to the floor with his left hand. He spoke in sharp, even tones.

"It's all right, Grant," he added in the same key to the boy, who was crying with fright. "Stay where you are. The house is surrounded, Snyder," he went on. "You may as well give in."

The man said nothing. He had found the stairway. Suddenly a revolver flashed and cracked, and the man went leaping down the stairs. The ball whistled over Saxton's head, and the boy clutched him about the legs. A bit of plaster, shaken loose by the bullet, fell from the ceiling. The noise of the revolver roared through the house.

"It's all right, Grant," Saxton said again.

The retreating man slipped and fell at the landing, midway of the stairs, and as he stumbled to his feet Saxton ran back into the room from which the fellow had emerged. He threw up the window with a crash and shouted to the men in the darkness below:

"He's coming! Get out of the way and let him go! The boy's all right!"

He hurried back into the hall where he had left Grant, who crouched moaning in the dark.

"You stay here a minute, Grant. They won't get you again," he called as he ran down the steps. One of the horses below was snorting with fright and making a great clatter with its hoofs. From the sound Saxton knew that the fleeing man was trying to mount, and as he plunged down the last half of the stairway, the horse broke through the door with the man on his back.

"Let him go, Warry," yelled Saxton with all his lungs.

The horse was already across the threshold at a leap, his rider bending low over the animal's neck to avoid the top of the door. Raridan ran forward, taking his bearings by sounds.

"Stop!" he shouted. "Come on, Wheaton!" Wheaton was running toward him at the top of his speed; Raridan sprang in front of the horse and grabbed at the throat-latch of its bridle. The horse, surprised, and terrified by the noise, and feeling the rider digging his heels into his sides, reared, carrying Warry off his feet.

"Let go, you fool," screamed the rider. "Let go, I say!"

"Let him alone," cried Wheaton, now close at hand; but Raridan still held to the strap at the throat of the plunging horse.

The rider sat up straight on his horse and his revolver barked into the night twice in sharp succession, the sounds crashing against the house, and the flashes lighting up the struggling horse and rider, and Raridan, clutching at the bridle. Raridan's hold loosened at the first shot, and as the second echoed into the night, the horse leaped free, running madly down the road, past Bishop Delafield, who was coming rapidly toward the house. Wheaton and Saxton met in the driveway where Raridan had fallen. The flying horse could be heard pounding down the hard road.

"Warry, Warry!" called Saxton, on his knees by his friend. "Hold the lantern," he said to Wheaton. "He's hurt." Raridan said nothing, but lay very still, moaning.

"Who's hurt?" asked the bishop coming up. Saxton had recovered his own lantern as he ran from the house. It was still burning and Wheaton turned up the wick. The three men bent over Raridan, who lay as he had fallen.

"We must get him inside," said Saxton. "The horse knocked him down."

The bishop bent over and put his arms under Raridan; and gathering him up as if the p.r.o.ne man had been a child, he carried him slowly toward the house. Wheaton started ahead with the lantern, but Saxton s.n.a.t.c.hed it from him and ran through the doors into the hall, and back to the dining-room.

"Come in here," he called, and the old bishop followed, bearing Raridan carefully in his great arms. The others helped him to place his burden on the long table at which, in Poindexter's day, many light-hearted companies had gathered. They peered down upon him in the lantern light.

"We must get a doctor quick," said Saxton, half turning to go.

"He's badly hurt," said the old man. There was a dark stain on his coat where Raridan had lain against him. He tore open Raridan's shirt and thrust his hand underneath; and when he drew it out, shaking his gray head, it had touched something wet. Wheaton came with a pail of water, pumped by the windmill into a trough at the rear of the house. He had broken the thin ice with his hands.