Fraser's eyes fixed themselves on a young man who passed on the run. He
suddenly put his fingers to his lips and gave a low whistle. The running
man stopped instantly, his head alert to catch the direction from which
the sound had come. Steve whistled again and the stranger turned toward
them.
“It's Brown, one of my rangers,” explained the lieutenant.
Brown, it appeared, had just reached town and stabled his horse when
word came to him that there was trouble on the plaza. He had been making
for it when his officer's whistle stopped him.
“It's all over except getting this man to safety. I'm going to put him
down an abandoned shaft of the Jackrabbit. He'll be safe there, and
nobody will think to look for him in any such place,” said Fraser.
The man from the Panhandle drew his friend to one side. “Do you need
me any longer? I left Miss Kinney right on the edge of that mob, and I
expect I better look around and see where she is now.”
“All right. No, we don't need you. Take care you don't let any of these
miners recognize you. They might make you trouble while they're still
hot. Well, so-long. See you to-morrow at the hotel.”
The Tennessean looked to his guns to make sure they hung loose in the
scabbards, then stepped briskly back toward the plaza.
CHAPTER VIII -- WOULD YOU WORRY ABOUT ME?
Margaret Kinney's heart ceased beating in that breathless instant after
the two dauntless friends had flung defiance to two hundred. There was a
sudden tightening of her throat, a fixing of dilated eyes on what would
have been a thrilling spectacle had it not meant so much more to her.
For as she leaned forward in the saddle with parted lips she knew a
passionate surge of fear for one of the apparently doomed men that went
through her like swift poison, that left her dizzy with the shock of it.
The thought of action came to her too late. As Dunke stepped back to
give the signal for attack she cried out his name, but her voice was
drowned in the yell of rage that filled the street. She tried to spur
her horse into the crowd, to force a way to the men standing with
such splendid fearlessness above this thirsty pack of wolves. But the
denseness of the throng held her fixed even while revolvers flashed.
And then the miracle happened. She saw the door open and limned in
a penumbra of darkness the white comely face of a woman. She saw the
beleaguered men sway back and the door close in the faces of the horde.
She saw bullets go crashing into the door, heard screams of baffled
fury, and presently the crash of axes into the panels of the barrier
that held them back. It seemed to fade away before her gaze, and instead
of it she saw a doorway full of furious crowding miners.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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