12 A Banquet’s Last Course

Judge Braxton, sitting upon the piazza of his big red brick house, saw that events were hastening. He did not always talk about the things nearest to his heart, but his wise old eyes missed little. He had let drop a word or two to Harry Beauchamp about his campaign against the Night Riders, but he had seen that Harry’s mind upon the subject was closed. He had condoled with Tom Kidd over his failure to secure help from the Newton millions, but he was really glad that the railroad should remain primarily a Groveton enterprise. He had also dropped another word or two to Dave Strong, but he had found that Strong’s mind was as tightly closed as Harry Beauchamp’s, and so he came to the conclusion that nothing was left for an old stager to do, but sit tight and wait.

It was cool on the piazza now. Autumn had fully come, and white frost had been seen, but most of the tobacco had been cut. The foliage had changed greatly in the last three days and it was very noticeable here, because Groveton was still a leafy place. The Judge from his easy chair, admired the glowing colors of red and yellow and brown, and while he was admiring, his daughter, Cynthia, came and sat beside him. The Judge realized that Cynthia had become very much of a woman recently, and for a few moments he attentively regarded her, although with a sidelong glance.

“Well, Cynthia,” he said, “What impressions did you receive when you went up to Pleasantville? Will Tom Kidd carry through his enterprise?”

“Of course. Everything that is absolutely needed has to come in time, and the railroad was needed long ago. Mostly it is built now.”

“I know, but I understand that no part of it will be built with Chicago money.”

The Judge ended his sentence with the rising inflection, but Cynthia remained silent. He again regarded her attentively with his sidelong glance.

“Has anybody heard how long Mr. Newton is going to remain in Groveton?” he asked presently.

“I haven’t had any news on that point,” she replied.

Both were silent for a little while, and then their attention was simultaneously attracted by a gorgeous figure that came riding down the street toward the Braxton house.

The figure was that of a large man on a large horse. The man wore a plaid suit, his trousers thrust into long-legged boots. A bright colored silk shirt bore upon its bosom a red tie like a flaming splash. The big black curly head was surmounted by a soft, white felt hat, with a sprig of burning sumac in the band. The man’s air, as he rode, expressed an extraordinary confidence.

Cynthia rose in involuntary haste and alarm, and went into the house. The Judge sat still. Cad Burke came on, hitched his horse to the hitching post in front of the fence, dismounted and opened the gate. A pair of silver spurs, attached to the heels of his glossy boots, glittered and jangled as he walked. The whole figure was strong, barbaric and, out of its mountain setting, more flaring than ever. Cad Burke, in both appearance and manner, was the mediaeval outlaw, not devoid of a certain attraction that goes with strength and daring.

Judge Braxton, puzzled at this visit, rose up to meet his visitor. He knew Cad Burke, and that scene on the Groveton Road, long ago, when he found a little boy, crying by the body of his uncle, came back to him at once and vividly. Yet it could not be proved, and Judge Braxton was a man of his time and place, not seeking quarrels where he had no business to seek them. It occurred to him that Burke had come to him to get legal help in some case of mountain guilt, and he resolved not to give it.

“Good morning, Mr. Burke,” he said, his hospitable instinct never failing. “Won’t you come in.”

“I think I’d rather set out here on the porch ef you don’t mind, Jedge,” said Burke, and he dropped his great body into the chair but lately occupied by Cynthia. The Judge could not fail to notice again what a powerful creature he was, panther-like in his ease and flexibility, and with features that bore the stamp of cunning, and of primitive will and craft. A consummate reader of character, he knew that here was a man, who on his own ground and fighting in his own way, might well be feared.

But he did not have the manner of one who was coming to a lawyer for help. These usually spoke up at once, but Cad Burke was deliberate, genial, and obviously pleased with himself. He took off his soft felt hat, and lounged in the chair as if at home and content.

“Nice place, Jedge,” said the mountaineer, looking appreciatively at the large lawn on which the grass was now brown and the great oak and beech trees, from which the leaves, burnt red and yellow by autumn’s touch, were falling.

“Yes,” replied Judge Braxton, “but it’s not as good as you people can have in the mountains, as soon as Tom Kidd’s railroad opens up all the wealth of the section.”

“The railroad may open it up,” said Burke, “but it won’t open it up for us who are thar. Other folks will come in an’ git it away from us. It always happens so.”

The Judge was silent. He knew that Burke believed what he said, but he was sure also that the mountaineer had not come to him to talk about Tom Kidd’s railroad. His manner was too jaunty to indicate complaint.

Burke glanced down approvingly at his silver spurs, and the Judge regarded him attentively, still wondering about his errand.

“I just reached Groveton last night,” said Burke. “Rode all the way through. Met some uv the Groveton people when they were up thar. Saw Miss Cynthia; how is she, Jedge?”

“She’s well.”

Judge Braxton’s tone suddenly became less friendly. Somehow he resented the question of the mountaineer, but Burke continued, unabashed:

“Miss Cynthia and me are great friends, Jedge. I’d like to see her this mornin’.”

Judge Braxton was a democrat of democrats, but not where his daughter was concerned. This was presumption, in­credible audacity on the part of this mountaineer, and every instinct within him flamed up against the man.

“No, she is not here,” he replied abruptly.

Burke looked again at his silver riding spurs. He heard the tone, and he understood, but his audacity did not fail him.

“I believe she’d like to see me, Jedge,” he said. “Me and her have a great secret together. I thought I saw her on the porch ez I wuz a-ridin’ up.”

Judge Braxton drew his white brows together. He had told a falsehood, one of the few of his life, but he was not ashamed of it, nor did he care that Burke knew it to be a falsehood.

“You did not see her, Mr. Burke,” he said decidedly, “and I think you are mistaken when you say that you and she have a great secret in common. It’s impossible.”

“It’s true, Jedge” said Burke, a flicker in his black eyes.

The Judge was silent. He would not debate such a subject with this mountaineer, but he sat up, stiff and straight. A child could have seen that he was very angry. Burke regarded him covertly, for a few moments, and an audacious smile twisted his own lips.

“I’ll come ag’in, Jedge, when she is here,” he persisted. “Me an’ her have some interestin’ things to talk over.”

Judge Braxton was resolutely silent. He did not wish to trust his own voice.

“Good mornin’, Jedge,” said the mountaineer, rising, still jaunty and debonair. “I saw as I came along that the tobacco crop wuz mighty good, but I’m hearin’ that there may be trouble.”

“Yes, there may be trouble,” said Judge Braxton shortly. “Good morning.”

Burke went slowly down the brick walk toward the front gate, casting appreciative glances from side to side at the spreading and comfortable grounds. These glances were almost proprietary. Many thoughts were crowding into his daring mind. He mounted his horse at a single leap, scorning the horse block, and his silver spurs jangled and glittered in the sun.

The Judge’s eyes followed, until they caught the last glimpse of horse and rider. Then he sent for his daughter. Cynthia came upon the piazza, somewhat agitated and apprehensive.

“Is he gone?” she asked.

“Yes, he’s gone, ”but he says he’s coining again, and to see you. He says that you and he are friends and that you have a great secret in common. Can it be possible, Cynthia, that you have let such a man as he, pay attention to you?”

Cynthia met his gaze fearlessly.

“I fear and hate that man,” she said.

“What did he mean about this great secret that he and you have in common?”

Cynthia resolved at once to tell the whole truth.

“You know,” she replied, that “Rose Compton and I spent the night on the mountain at the house of this man and his mother. We were lost in the woods, with a great storm coming and we did not know then that it was Cad Burke’s cabin. Harry and Mr. Newton went back to Pleasantville, to tell what had become of us, and when I learned it was Cad Burke’s house, I rose early the next morning and asked him to go away, before Harry came back, in order that there might be no trouble between them. He went, but as he was going, he said that he did it only to oblige me. Father, I could not let those two meet there at Cad Burke’s house! Things seem so different in the mountains!”

“I see,” said Judge Braxton, “No, Cynthia, you could not let them meet. You did right, but this fellow—and a bolder man I never saw—is presuming upon it , and will presume further, unless he is stopped.”

“Will you stop him? ” asked Cynthia.

“I’ll do my best,” replied the Judge gravely.

The judge heard that day in the town that Cad Burke was boasting of his acquaintance with Cynthia Braxton. Some men said it was not impossible. Bold fellows had come out of the mountains before, and had built themselves up in the lowlands. The same gossip came to the ears of Harry Beauchamp, but to him it seemed so incredible that he paid no attention to it.

Harry, moreover, was absorbed at that moment in the tobacco situation. It was usual for him, when a question interested him, to concentrate himself upon it, to put his whole mind and soul into it, and the issue had assumed an overwhelming importance to him. He realized now how deeply it had taken hold of the people, and that it was not a mere phase that would quickly pass. And so, because he believed in the law, and for the sake of the state’s name, he thundered against the Night Riders.

Harry was aware that he was making enemies. Farmers always regarded him now with a certain aloofness and air of hostility, and among them a sort of boycott against the Herald was begun. Yet the effects of the attack upon him were fully offset by his gains elsewhere. All the business people advertised with him freely, and advertisements came in numbers from distant and larger towns. He foresaw another payment to Christopher Lucas. The debt for the press was decreasing more rapidly than he had hoped.

On the third day after the return from Pleasantville, Herbert Newton left Groveton, but he told Charlie Wentworth that he was merely going to Louisville, and would come back to Groveton in about ten days.

“His Grace was really quite complaisant,” said Wentworth afterward to Tom Kidd. “He has recovered, at least partly from the shock that he received in the mountains, and affects to look upon it as an interesting adventure that may happen to any gentleman who goes slumming on the border.”

“He does, does he?” exclaimed Tom Kidd. “Well, if he hangs around these parts, he’ll find that his adventure is just beginning!”

Autumn deepened. All the woods were a blaze of reds and yellows and browns, and the fine haze of Indian summer overhung the far hills and low mountains. All the tobacco was in, but the sales on the Groveton “breaks” and also on those elsewhere were shrinking fast. The farmers, for perhaps the first time in their existence, showed signs of organization and of real co-operation. Some of the buyers, with Jerome Arnett at their head, sneered.

“Oh, they’ll come in soon enough,” said Arnett to Harry Beauchamp. “They’ll have to have money. Besides it’s the old law of supply and demand.”

“I don’t know,” replied Harry . “It seems to me that they mean it. I notice also that the tobacco company which you represent is now declaring a profit of about twenty-five million dollars a year, and the smaller ones make money in proportion. It’s too much. It’s far more than your fair share!”

“It’s like anything else. It’s the law of supply and demand, I tell you!” repeated Arnett in his domineering, arrogant tone.

“Oh no, it’s not. It’s a few wealthy and powerful corporations that can communicate with each other, easily organizing on one side, while on the other side are scores of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of isolated farmers who cannot get together ard unite for a just purpose. I’m against all lawlessness, Mr. Arnett, but, at heart, my sympathies are with the tobacco grower, the hardest working man in the world.”

Arnett merely sneered and went his way. He received a day or two later an anonymous letter threatening him if he continued to buy tobacco on the Groveton “breaks” for the big trust, but he merely sneered again.

Herbert Newton returned to Groveton, according to promise, arrayed in the latest Chicago splendor, and, as a small return for the hospitality that he had received, he gave a dinner party at the Commercial Hotel. Among his guests were Harry Beauchamp, Charlie Wentworth and Tom Kidd, who had labored in his behalf, while Cynthia Braxton was to be, in a sense, the Queen of the Board, with Rose Compton as chief Maid of Honor.

Mr. Newton fussed a great deal over his banquet, and brought his mind to bear upon every important detail. Could champagne be had in Groveton? No. But it could be obtained from Louisville in time. “Then send for it at once.” Flowers must be brought from Louisville too! And favors! He would show what a Chicago man could really do when he set his mind to it—and when there was an inducement.

The news of the dinner—and it was soon known in all Groveton—aroused grave and interested comment in the office of the County Clerk. But only two members of the club were present and they were Professor Ross and Ransome, the clerk himself. The door of the office was closed now, because the breeze was chilly, and nearly all the leaves were gone from the trees. A stray breeze whirled them in yellow and brown flakes about the lawn. New steam beat noisily in the pipes.

“I think it means something,” said the Clerk thoughtfully. “As I take it dinners are given nowadays to celebrate triumphs, an’ I s’pose Mr. Newton is making this spread to tell of victory won.”

But Professor Ross was inclined to doubt it. In fact the opposite view suited him more in every way.

“A banquet isn’t always given to celebrate a victory,” he said, speaking from the depths of a greater experience. “Instead it’s often given to soothe the mind, and prepare the way for one. I don’t think Herbert Newton is the kind of man she’d want.”

“But he has millions and that’ll tempt anybody. She could eat off gold plates if she wanted to.”

“I don’t think she cares for him,” said Professor Ross. I don’t think she wants to, and I don’t think she could, if she would.”

“Something in the way?”

“Yes, a lot in the way. Besides that, she belongs here.’”

But the preparations for the banquet went forward thoroughly and smoothly, and,at the appointed hour, Harry Beauchamp, putting on his light overcoat over his evening clothes, was ready to go.

“Stand before me, Harry,” said his aunt, “I want to inspect you for a few moments. I don’t intend that you shall let any young man from Chicago put you down.”

“I won’t, Aunt Emma” said Harry, flushing a little, but obeying.

“Very well. Yes, you look all right, but keep your chin just a little bit higher. You writers get into the habit of tucking your heads down. Besides the Mason chin is not a thing to be hidden. Now go, and don’t forget to speak up for yourself at all times.”

“All right, Aunt Emma,” said Harry lightly. “I’ll en-deavor to uphold the honor and prestige of the Masons.”

He strolled down the street, in the twilight of a clear and beautiful night in late autumn. He had been very busy that day, but Jim Steptoe had spoken once of dullness in the town. He said that the stores and the “breaks” were almost abandoned by the farmers, but Harry, absorbed in other things, had paid little attention. Now he enjoyed the quiet and the peace. Groveton, his birthplace and home, was dear to him and it looked beautiful in a kind of luminous haze that was neither of the night nor of the day.

But in a few minutes he was at the hotel and became one of a youthful and merry group. Mr. Newton, who was in a benignant mood, received him with a certain patronizing air of kindliness that Harry did not, at the moment, resent, because he saw that, in fairness, Mr. Newton was entitled to his hour. But Harry Beauchamp realized that he was never really afraid of his host, not even now when he saw him in all his glory. He could not overcome the feeling that Herbert Newton was dilettantish, and that nothing dilettantish counts in the final test.

Yet Mr. Newton was not without his attractive qualities. A great mind, concentrated upon the problems of dress and dinner, must achieve its ends. He had resolved to show Groveton a thing or two, and the curtain was rising upon a stage well set. The champagne had come from Louisville, also a fine old Burgundy, and there were roses in profusion, large and deeply colored. He had seen that the great table was properly set by the windows, overlooking the street, and his artistic eye was satisfied. Then he devoted himself to his guests.

Cynthia Braxton sat at her host’s right hand, and was the guest of honor. Other young men, giving her admiring looks, saw that there was ample cause for the enslavement of Mr. Newton. Her wonderful black hair was a true crown that night, and the flashes from the electric lights played curious tricks with it, seeming now and then to clothe it about with luminous golden shadows. Her face was slightly flushed, alike from the pink roses at her shoulder, and some deep-lying emotion. Her eyes showed their changing hues, but Harry judged that they were mainly dark blue, that is the darkest blue, and their look seemed to him the least bit pathetic, as if she were not wholly happy. Rose Compton, seeing with the shrewder eyes of a woman, knew that something was approaching a climax, and she knew also that Cynthia Braxton knew it.

But the dinner progressed well. It was quite the most admirable affair of its kind ever given in Groveton, and, thanks to the caution and training of Mr. Newton, the people of the hotel did not make a hitch in the service. Fastidious as he knew himself to be, he did not see a single mistake and he gradually enveloped himself with an aureole of good humor and good fellowship. He was now the king, the one who could do something that these others could not do, or at least he could do it better, and it was but natural for him to feel satisfaction.

Mr. Newton talked lightly and casually of other lands, he made half-allusions to incidents that had occured in London and Paris and to eminent people whom he knew in those cities. He knew that Cynthia had never been in Europe, and he was quite willing to dazzle her. He confessed to his soul that she was singularly beautiful, with a rare, provocative charm, a mental or spiritual quality, he could not decide which, but he did know that a man could not escape it. He was continually in pursuit.

Rose Compton also watched. She knew that the climax was coming nearer and nearer, coming fast, and her mind was surcharged with eager feminine interest.

The dinner continued its smooth progress. Perhaps cheeks were a little redder and eyes a little brighter by wine, which was as yet all but unknown in Groveton, but everything was decorous. Nothing else would have been possible in that group of young men and young women of clean lives and clean minds. Harry himself felt the spell. His youth came freely to the surface, and, at that moment, all things were tinted the color of rose.

They had been sitting over a liqueur, also a new thing in Groveton, and the party began to break up in little groups, straying about the room or those adjoining, and sitting in the shadow of a dusky alcove, where the talk could grow intimate. Harry sat near a window with Rose Compton, whom he really liked, and to whom he could talk in the frank and friendly way that never meant anything more than friendship. What had become of Cynthia and Mr. Newton just then he did not know, but his heart was warm toward everybody. The window shutters were open and across the street he saw the dim outline of the buildings, but the street itself was in dusk. A sound, the regular beat of horse’s feet came to his ears, and he spoke of it to Rose, but she was so eager about something else that she failed, to answer, and Harry’s own impression was so dim that he quickly forgot it.

The interest of Rose Compton was all for Cynthia Braxton and Herbert Newton. She had seen them in the duskiest alcove of the small parlor adjoining the dining-room. She had seen the others withdraw two by two, and she had noted alike the eager impulsive look on the face of Herbert Newton, and the shy half-scared look on the face of Cynthia Braxton.

“Listen, what is that?” exclaimed Harry again.

He had heard once more that beat of many feet, and then a shout.

But Rose Compton absorbed in the great drama that was unfolding before her, the only great drama to a woman, still paid no attention. She saw Cynthia and Herbert Newton come from the duskiest alcove and the result, as plain as print, was disclosed to her. She read it in Mr. Newton’s astonished and mortified look, his obvious reception of a blow, of which he had not dreamed, and in Cynthia’s eyes, half-sad and half-appealing.

“Hark!” exclaimed Harry, all his nerves suddenly becoming attuned. “Do you hear?”

A shout arose, not of one voice but of many. There was a rush of feet, and then the rattle of rifle-shots. No Kentuckian could mistake that sound, the sharp lashing report, terribly distinct in the night.

Harry sprang to his feet. “Don’t go outside!” he cried to Cynthia and Rose, and then he ran to the door. Wentworth, Tom Kidd and all the other men followed him. They stood for a moment on the hotel steps, accustoming their eyes to the darkness.

Down the street came forty or fifty men, all on horseback and in close order, their faces covered with cloth masks.

“Night Riders!” exclaimed Charlie Wentworth.

“And here in Groveton!” exclaimed Harry Beauchamp.

A light flame shot up from some point further down the street, and then began to grow in both height and volume. Harry knew by intuition that it was the warehouse, in which the tobacco of Jerome Arnett lay stored. Another flame leaped up from a point somewhere near.

“They’ve set fire to the Warehouses!” exclaimed Harry. “Come on, men, we can’t stand a thing like this.”

His blood was up, sparkling like fire in his veins. All his sympathy for the tobacco growers disappeared for the moment. He was about to run down the steps, but a hand was put lightly upon his arm.

“Look, Harry, look!” cried Cynthia, pointing in the other direction.

He turned and his eyes followed her pointing finger A light blaze had sprung up there also.

“It’s your place, the Herald office. They’ve set it on fire too!” cried Cynthia.

Harry, at once, ran down the steps and raced toward his burning building. Tom Kidd and Wentworth followed. Herbert Newton, who had clapped his silk hat on his head, reached the street, but paused there, dazed and undecided. His mistake lay in the clapping of the silk hat on his head. It was a very tall hat, a very glossy hat, and its height and sheen caught the eye of some frolicsome dead shot of a Night Rider who raised his rifle and took a pot shot at it, while it still adorned the curled and anointed head of Mr. Newton. The hat, pierced from side to side, flew into the air, and Herbert Newton flew back up the steps.

Harry Beauchamp, reckless of any danger, ran with all his might down the street toward the Herald building. The raiders turned into one of the cross streets, and again the sound of shots was heard. He did not know whether they were firing at anybody or anything, or merely discharging their rifles into the air, and, at that time, he gave the matter no thought. His whole mind was for his beloved newspaper office, to which these lawless men had set the torch.

Lights suddenly flashed out all over the little city. Windows were no longer dark. The sound of hastening feet and of men calling to each other arose. The big bell in the cupola of the courthouse began to boom, a swift, menacing note that was heard throughout Groveton and in the country beyond. It was like a call to arms and many took it as such. Men appeared upon the streets, rifle in hand. Groveton was too big for such outrages as this, and they fired at the masked band. The raiders fired back, and bullets chipped sparks from the pavement. But nobody was yet hurt.

Harry was almost in sight of the Herald building, when his attention was attracted by a scream for help. It was the sound of a man’s voice in the last stages of terror, and it made every nerve in Harry’s body quiver. He stopped short.

Four or five men masked, but dismounted, had dragged another from a house out upon a lawn, and were beating him with riding whips. Harry knew the house and he knew the face. It was the house of Jerome Arnett and the face of Jerome Arnett was now a mottled red and white with terror, rather than pain.

Harry ran impulsively to Arnett’s relief, shouting to the masked men to stop. They looked up, hesitated and might have ended by paying no heed to him, but other residents of Groveton were coming, and some of those others bore rifles in their hands. They dropped Arnett on the grass, and leaped the lawn fence into the street. Here, one of them, a larger man than the rest, suddenly wheeled, levelled a rifle and fired point blank at Harry Beauchamp.

Harry had full cause to be grateful to the dusk, which the street lights did not wholly disperse. He heard the bullet whistle past his ear, and then, with a dull sough, flatten itself against a brick wall behind him. The man who had fired the shot flung up his rifle in a sort of taunting motion, then sprang lightly upon a waiting horse, and galloped off after the main band of the raiders. Harry believed that he recognized the figure, and he felt neither fear nor horror, only rage. It was his impulse to follow, but that was folly that only lasted a moment, and he turned again toward the Herald office.

Harry’s heart sank. Flames were leaping from the roof and were bursting from the upper windows. Even as he came, five or six of the masked raiders ran up the street toward their waiting horses, and he knew that these were the men who had done the work. Never before in his life had he so longed for a deadly weapon in his hand.

“Thank God you’ve come!” gasped a voice in his ear.

“Too late, though, it seems.”

“But, I’ve got the subscription lists, Mr. Beauchamp!”

It was Jim Steptoe, his hat gone, the end of his long red whiskers scorched, but his arms filled with the Herald subscription lists. As he spoke Dick Flynn also appeared, his head bare and bruised, and his manner charged with nervous excitement.

“How did it happen?” exclaimed Harry.

“I was sitting at my desk writing,” said Mr. Flynn rapidly, “when a half dozen men, wearing masks and carrying rifles walked in! They said if I moved or said a word, they’d blow my head off! Then they ran about setting fire to the building! Four or five more were down in the press room, trying to break up the press with the heads of axes—they had brought axes for that purpose—and I could hear the ring of the heavy blows on iron and steel! They cursed all the time, saying the d—d sheet wouldn’t abuse honest men any more and help the plutocrats! They smashed into our typesetting machines too! Then I heard the shooting outside, and I knew the town was up! I couldn’t stand it any longer and I made a break! One of them swiped at me with the butt of his rifle. I dodged, but it grazed my head! Then he had to run too for fear of being caught in a trap by the people, and I got out to call help.”

“Good for you!” exclaimed Harry. “We’ll do the best we can to save our place. Here comes the engine.”

Groveton had a new set of water-works and two fire engines. One of the engines had come to the Herald office, and the other had gone to the burning warehouses. Volunteers to aid in the work were pouring to both places. From the eastward of the town came the pop-popping of the rifle-shots. The raiders had done the work that they had come to do, but they were not drawing off in ease and safety. Groveton was thoroughly aroused. For a town of her size and prosperity to be raided in this manner was an indignity, a disgrace, and she resented it with the last argument of kings—bullets. She had many good rifle-shots and they came hurrying down the cross streets, firing at the raiders who were now all joined in one band, and whose sole effort now was to draw off, intact.

It was not Harry alone who was aided by the dusk, but it was the masked men too who found occasion to bless it. They were beyond the outskirts of the town now among the fields, and there was no light, but that of the moon which came veiled through the clouds. Singularly enough there was a tobacco field on either side of the road, and the stalks, where the knife had cut the plant, stood up bare and ghastly, mute symbols of that which had caused the deadly strife.

Jim Steptoe’s heart was afire. The crackle of rifle-shots up the street said distinctly to him: “Come, Jim, come. Why do you linger?” He did not linger. A few minutes later, rifle in hand, he took up the pursuit. He had reverted to an earlier and fiercer time. He was his old Indian-fighting pioneer of a great grandfather, not only driving off the enemy, but also following him up, to destroy.

Jim Steptoe was in the very forefront of the pursuit now, and the night was not wholly a veil to him. “Crack!” went his rifle and a raider fell from his horse. But the band stopped, fired a volley to hold back their pursuers, lifted the fallen man on a horse in front of one of his comrades and rode on. “Crack!” went Jim Steptoe’s rifle again. A raider reeled in his saddle, but clung to the pommel, and the band, closing in about him, still rode on. Forward into the forest went the retreat and pursuit, and in the darkness bullets clipped twigs, or knocked up dust in the road. Both sides had forgotten the peace of a hundred years.

Harry Beauchamp might also have been in that pursuit, but his burning building held him. The single engine was making a heroic effort to put out the fire, and Harry, Tom Kidd, Charlie Wentworth and others were bringing water from wells. A bucket brigade had been formed, men passing huge pails of water from one to another, until the nearest could throw them on the flames. Harry himself, and at least twenty others were inside, working with all their might. Harry was animated by passion, as well as the desire to save his property. He knew that this raid had been organized partly against him, and he wished to strike back through the columns of the Herald. Nor did he forget the shot that had been fired at him, fired as he believed with full knowledge of his identity, and with malice.

He forced his way with some risk from smoke and falling brands to the press room, where the sight that he beheld filled him with grief. The raider who wielded the axe-heads must have had stout arms, as all the more delicate work of the press was smashed beyond repair. The press in fact was ruined, and Harry saw it at a single glance. The beautiful living machine for which he had toiled, and for which he had given so much of himself was reduced to a mass of old metal. He was bankrupt and weaponless. These things too he saw at a single glance.

He could do nothing there, and the sight of the ruined press afflicted him. He made his way back to the next floor, and rejoined, the bucket brigade, working furiously but not with much hope.

“Will it be saved, Harry?”

He turned quickly. It was Cynthia who was asking the question. She had thrown a shawl over her head and shoulders, and she would have helped with the others, but they would not let her. Her eyes were shining with sympathy.

“Go away, Cynthia!” exclaimed Harry. “Look out, your dress might catch fire!”

Fragments of burning wood, carried by the wind, fell about them, but Cynthia did not move. Harry was really alarmed for her.

“Cynthia,” he said desperately, “I’m grateful, very grateful for your sympathy, but I can’t do a thing while you’re here! I’ll worry about you all the time!”

Reluctantly she withdrew.

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