第37章 XIV. A PRISONER(3)

Bud bawled like a wounded animal, and fell to the ground with the noise of a load of bricks. Through my peep-hole I saw him writhing, with both hands pressed to his head. Then, lying flat on his back, he whipped out his revolver. I saw the red spurt, the puff of smoke. Bang!

A bullet zipped through the brush, and tore a hole through the roof.

Bang! Bang!

I felt a hot, tearing pain in my arm.

"Stop, you black idiot!" yelled Buell. He kicked the revolver out of Bud's hand. "What d'you mean by thet?"

In the momentary silence that followed I listened intently, even while I held tightly to my arm. From its feeling my arm seemed to be shot off, but it was only a flesh-wound. After the first instant of shock I was not scared. But blood flowed fast. Warm, oily, slippery, it ran down inside my shirt sleeve and dripped off my fingers.

"Bud," hoarsely spoke up Bill, breaking the stillness, "mebbe you killed him!"

Buell coughed, as if choking.

"What's thet?" For once his deep voice was pitched low. "Listen."

Drip! drip! drip! It was like the sound of water dripping from a leak in a roof. It was directly under me, and, quick as thought, I knew the sound was made by my own dripping blood.

"Find thet, somebody," ordered Buell.

Drip! drip! drip!

One of the men stepped noisily.

"Hyar it is--thar," said Bill. "Look on my hand. . . . Blood! I knowed it.

Bud got him, all right."

There was a sudden rustling such as might come from a quick, strained movement.

"Buell," cried Dick Leslie. in piercing tones, "Heaven help you murdering thieves if that boy's killed! I'll see you strung up right in this forest.

Ken, speak! Speak!"

It seemed then, in my pain and bitterness, that I would rather let Buell think me dead. Dick's voice went straight to my heart, but I made no answer.

"Leslie, I didn't kill him, an' I didn't order it," said Buell, in a voice strangely shrunk and shaken. "I meant no harm to the lad. . . . Go up, Bud, an' get him."

Bud made no move, nor did Greaser when he was ordered. "Go up, somebody, an' see what's up there!" shouted Buell. "Strikes me you might go yourself," said Bill, coolly.

With a growl Buell mounted the ladder. When his great shock head hove in sight I was seized by a mad desire to give him a little of his own medicine. With both hands I lifted the piece of pine branch and brought it down with every ounce of strength in me.

Like a pistol it cracked on Buell's head and snapped into bits. The lumberman gave a smothered groan, then clattered down the ladder and rolled on the floor. There he lay quiet.

"All-fired dead--thet kid--now, ain't he?" said Bud, sarcastically. "How'd you like thet crack on the knob? You'll need a larger size hat, mebbe.

Herky-Jerky, you go up an' see what's up there."

"I've a picture of myself goin'," replied Herky, without moving.

"Whar's the water? Get some water, Greaser," chimed in Bill.

From the way they worked over Buell, I concluded he had been pretty badly stunned. But he came to presently.

"What struck me?" he asked.

"Oh, nothin'," replied Bud, derisively. "The loft up thar's full of air, an' it blowed on you, thet's all."

Buell got up, and began walking around.

"Bill, go out an' fetch in some long poles," he said.

When Bill returned with a number of sharp, bayonet-like pikes I knew the game was all up for me. Several of the men began to prod through the thin covering of dry brush. One of them reached me, and struck so hard that I lurched violently.

That was too much for the rickety loft floor. It was only a bit of brush laid on a netting of slender poles. It creaked, rasped, and went down with a crash. I alighted upon somebody, and knocked him to the floor. Whoever it was, seized me with iron hands. I was buried, almost smothered, in the dusty mass. My captor began to curse cheerfully, and I knew then that Herky-Jerky had made me a prisoner.