"If it jumps again," she thought, "it'll break my shoulder. And it's so undignified to have to sit down every time I shoot it off."

The innkeeper made a leap for the steps and Lupo followed him. Billie ran to the other end of the gallery so as to get a better aim, and pulled at the trigger. The trunks were swaying and Alberdina had rushed from behind them.

"Oh, Nancy, I can't make it go off," Billie sobbed under her breath.

"Give it to me," whispered Nancy, seizing the gun and leveling it with trembling hands at Lupo.

"Look out, Lupo," called a man below, as the barricade went down with a crash.

But Lupo was in no mood to listen to warnings. Bounding over a fallen trunk, he wrenched the gun from Nancy's hand.

At this moment, a man walked into the room and marched straight up to the group of mountaineers.

"I beg your pardon, gentlemen," he said in a voice loud enough to be heard by everybody, "is this Sunrise Camp?"

CHAPTER XVII.

THE FORCE OF ELOQUENCE.

Phoebe gazed at the newcomer as if she were seeing a visitor from heaven. All the women in the gallery experienced enormous sensations of relief and Alberdina smiled down at him broadly.

"Mein lieber Gott, helb has gome already yet," she exclaimed.

They hardly seemed to comprehend in their relief that one man had to deal with a dozen or more.

"Who are you?" demanded Lupo, roughly, coming to the top of the stairs.

"My name is Hook, at your service. May I ask if you are giving a performance of private theatricals? The scene is a good deal like a band of highwaymen attacking a number of helpless women."

"We're in the rights of the law," put in the innkeeper.

"Why wear masks then?" asked Richard Hook.

There was no answer to this pointed question and three of the maskers slunk toward the door.

"We've come here to git two criminals hiding illegally in this here camp," burst out Lupo.

"Have you a warrant for their arrest?"

"We don't need no warrants in these here mountains."

"Oh, yes you do," insisted Richard politely. "Law and order must be respected just as much on the mountains as in the valleys. People who don't respect them soon find out what happens."

Two more men slunk toward the door.

"I think," went on Richard, "that you had better follow your friends out quietly and go to your homes. I am certain most of you have wives who would be glad to see you again after this dangerous little adventure.

Jail isn't a pleasant place, you know, especially to people who are in the habit of breathing mountain air."

Only six men remained now of the original number. Even Lupo had been silenced, but at the mention of wives he flared up again.

"They have taken my wife away from me," he cried, shaking his fist at the women in the gallery. "They have given her money to leave me. I ain't so forgivin'."

"Do you want to know the real reason why your wife left you?" said Richard in a tone of such conviction that Lupo was deceived into thinking this perfect stranger knew all about him. "She was afraid of you and your lawless ways. When you have been drinking, as you have to-night, you're a dangerous man. You begin by breaking into private houses. You're disorderly and violent. Men like you end in the penitentiary. You hide yourselves perhaps for a while, but these mountains are difficult to hide in nowadays. You would be caught sooner or later, and do you think you'll get much sympathy with the court after one of these ladies, perhaps, has told the history of to-night's work? Fifteen years would be a short sentence. Your wife is right, I think. You're not a very safe companion."

Lupo looked about him bewildered. Only one of the band remained: the watery-eyed innkeeper.

"I was in the rights of the law," exclaimed Lupo, half-crying as he crept down the gallery steps.

"I am afraid not," said Richard gently. "But you take a little trip to another county and get some good honest work, and you will soon find out how much happier and safer it is to be within the limits of the law.

Decidedly more agreeable than being hunted through the mountains by a sheriff with his bloodhounds, sleeping out in the cold, going hungry, slinking around the edges of villages when everybody is asleep for a chance piece of bread. Earning honest money with your wife happy beside you is heaven in comparison, I a.s.sure you."

Lupo hung his head until his eyes were hidden by the brim of his felt hat.

"I'm goin'," he said sullenly. "I guess your argyments is too good for the likes of me to try an' answer. I wants my wife back more'n I wants to git even with Frenchy and his gal. They done me a injury once, but I'm willin' to call it square if you are."

"Call it square," said Richard, and the two mountaineers slunk out of the room and disappeared in the night.

And now the ladies of Sunrise Camp and Richard Hook found themselves quite alone in the vast living room. The danger was over and the last and most impious of the outlaws departed. Miss Campbell and her girls standing in a row in the gallery looked down into the whimsical face of their deliverer. Billie recalled that only a little while before she had wished for someone with a persuasive tongue to appear and address the outlaws. Phoebe, too, had believed that G.o.d would send a deliverer.

Whose prayer had brought the young man to Sunrise Camp in the nick of time? Hers or Phoebe's, Billie wondered. Perhaps it was their combined wishes. She understood little about the psychology of wishes. At any rate, here they all stood, safe and sound, and presently they found themselves laughing at the ludicrous thing that might have turned into a tragedy but for Richard Hook's persuasive tongue.

Already Alberdina was removing the barriers.

"Whose idea was that? Yours, Miss Billie?" asked Richard.

"No, no. We really owe our temporary safety to Alberdina, there. She thought of it herself."

The German girl was well pleased over the fame the one intelligent act of her life had brought her. She smiled broadly at Richard as she cleared the way for the ladies to descend.

"Before we settle down to talk," remarked the young man, "suppose we open the doors and windows and light the lights. This room is fairly close and it would be a good idea to illuminate for the sake of your friends who might happen to be returning. By the way, where are the criminals?"

"Here is one of them," answered Miss Campbell, smiling. "This is our friend, Miss Phoebe--" she hesitated, "Miss Phoebe French. Does she look like a criminal?"

Phoebe, who all this time had been watching Richard with a sort of rapt expression, was startled out of her dream. She blushed and looked down at the floor. The girls had never seen her so shy.

"This is Mr. Hook, Phoebe," continued Miss Campbell. "I think we ought all to offer him our united thanks for his courage."

"I do thank you, sir, with all my heart," said Phoebe fervently, timidly offering her hand.

Richard stretched out his left hand.

"I--I ask your pardon for giving you my left hand," he said, and for the first time they noticed that his right arm was hanging limply at his side.

"Oh, Rich--Oh, Mr. Hook," cried Billie, as red as a beet. "What have I done--I shot you--Oh, dear, I am so sorry!"

"Don't you worry, Miss Billie. It's just a coat sleeve wound. The bullet cut through the cloth and scratched my arm. It's lodged there in the wall now, I suppose, as a memento of your nerve."