Part 3

But he forced his brain to a last effort to understand the mystery into which he had dropped. Vladimir offering bribes to keep other people from the Strangers he hated, and the Strangers with their incredible lack of knowledge of American commonplaces.

“Vladimir’s crazy, or I’m crazy, and maybe all of us are crazy,” he muttered as he tossed his cigarette over the porch railing. “I’m going to bed.”

He went up the stairs by the light of the turned-down lamp in the hall and fumbled with his key in the lock. He opened his door and struck a match. Then he uttered an angry exclamation.

A moment later he had lighted his lamp and was searching among his tumbled-about possessions for a sign of theft.

Someone had entered his room and searched his suit-cases thoroughly. His clothes had been ransacked. A bundle of letters and papers had been read and strewn on the floor. It looked as if every seam of his garments had been searched for hidden clues to his identity or motive in visiting Coulters and the Strange People.

Nothing was missing, but everything had been examined. Cunningham felt his anger mounting. Vladimir, of course. Why didn’t the man want him there? What was he suspected of?

There was a gentle tapping at his window and Cunningham looked up with an increase of savagery. But--two faces were looking in at him. One was Maria, smiling a little. The other was a Stranger of middle age or over.

She put her finger to her lips and motioned for him to lift the window. Cunningham strode over and thrust it up. It was latched from the inside and the necessity of unfastening it dispelled a flash of suspicion that had come to him.

“This is my father, Stephan,” whispered Maria. “We must talk to you.”

The older man slipped into the room and after an instant’s hesitation held out his hand. He looked weary and worn.

“I could not come any other way,” he said slowly, picking his words with a trace of difficulty. “I would have had to kill the sheriff. But I wished to thank you, for Maria.”

She had slipped in behind him and sat down on a chair. Stephan waited until Cunningham motioned him to another. There he sat quietly, fingering the hilt of his knife and looking at Cunningham with grave and not unfriendly eyes.

* * * * *

Cunningham was hopelessly at sea, but he felt a little tingling feeling of comfort. He looked at Maria, and there was an infinite deal of satisfaction in the glance. It was as if he saw her and knew with perfect certitude that some day she must love him. For himself, with sublime confidence he knew that his dreams were justified. It was insane, perhaps, but such things do happen. One worships very many girls, very earnestly, and then quite suddenly one glimpses another girl and--well, one _knows_.

Stephan’s voice broke the silence again.

“I came,” he said heavily, “to thank you for keeping Maria from being taken away. And I ask you if you are our friend, as you said. And why you came here.”

Cunningham pondered the reply he should make. He saw Maria looking at him with a curious expression of dawning recognition, of surprized intentness. He glanced up and she flushed slightly. Very abruptly he saw that she had read his expression and that she was discovering the same odd certitude. Their eyes met for the fraction of a second. And then--it was as if there were no more need to speak. She flushed a vivid red, and after that her eyes had difficulty in meeting his.

That, also, was insanity. But such things happen likewise.

“I am your friend,” said Cunningham gruffly, “if Vladimir isn’t. I dislike that man.”

His heart was pounding loudly, though no word had passed between Maria and himself. Stephan eyed him steadily.

“But I’m getting tired,” added Cunningham, “of explaining why I came here and where I came from. Nobody believes me. But you didn’t come to ask me those things only.”

“No,” said Stephan harassedly. “We came to ask you what to do.”

“About what?”

“All things,” said Stephan fiercely. “A man was killed. You know that. There is another man here. You call him Vladimir, and he will have to be killed also. And the sheriff comes and tries to take us away. What shall we do?”

Cunningham had trouble in thinking of an answer. He wanted to talk to Maria. He wanted to take her to one side and say innumerable things.

“About the first man,” he said at random, “you ought to get a lawyer to advise you. And keep out of the way of Vladimir and the sheriff until he can tell you what you ought to do.”

Stephan’s face mirrored a resolute despair.

“No. We will not do that. He would ask who we were and why we killed that other man.”

“He might,” agreed Cunningham lightheartedly. He wanted desperately to talk to Maria. “People do that sort of thing around here.”

Stephan looked at his daughter questioningly. She nodded, with shining eyes that evaded Cunningham’s. Stephan tugged at his belt and placed something on the floor before him. He unknotted a string about a coarse cloth bag and poured out upon the floor a shining heap of gold-pieces. But they were not like any gold-pieces Cunningham had ever seen before. They were hammered from nuggets or bars by hand. They were square, about the size of a double-eagle and twice as thick, and still showed the marks of the hammer that had formed them.

“We will give you these,” he said quietly, “if you will get us gats like the one you showed my people today.”

“Gats? Oh ... guns. Pistols.”

Stephan nodded and swept the gold-pieces into a shining array. The sight of them sobered Cunningham abruptly.

“But what will you do with them?” he asked. “How will you use them? What do you want them for?”

Stephan spread out his hands.

“Then we will not need a lawyer,” he said grimly. Cunningham caught his meaning.

“How many people do you chaps plan to kill with them?”

Stephan smiled sadly.

“Not many. Only until we are left alone.”

“You people do need a guardian,” growled Cunningham. Maria was watching him with soft eyes that always just evaded meeting his. Cunningham felt that a tremendous responsibility was being thrust upon him. “Look here----”

There was a sharp knock at the door.

Cunningham hurled himself at the doorway to bar entrance until Stephan and Maria should have time to get away. All the Strangers were considered outlawed now. Cunningham had only their safety in mind, but Stephan misread his swiftness of movement. With lightninglike quickness he was on his feet with bared knife, darting likewise to the doorway.

Cunningham’s hand came down with a jerk. The knife flew from Stephan’s hand and stuck quivering in the floor. The next second Cunningham’s revolver was out.

“Steady!” he whispered sharply. “Steady!”

Then Maria had flung herself in front of the revolver. All this was done in fractions of seconds and almost without sound.

“You shall not let him be taken!” she whispered fiercely. “You shall not!”

Stephan’s whole frame was alert and his eyes were flaming as if he were sure this was a trap and waited but the ghost of a chance to seize his knife and rush Cunningham as well as whoever might be outside.

To take his eyes from the man was to risk his life. To refuse to answer the knock was to take another risk. The knock came again, sharp and peremptory. A hand tried the door. And there was a tiny sound by the window, as if other Strangers were without, peering in suspiciously and ready to fling their flying knives at a hint of danger.

8

Maria defied Cunningham without words. And Cunningham saw her father’s hand stealing to a part of her dress where a weapon might be concealed. Sweat came out on his forehead. He could not shoot, and in another instant----

Then the defiance in her eyes turned to pleading and the deliberate wordless reiteration of the thing he had read in her face before. Cunningham spoke suddenly in a fierce whisper.

“I love you!” he cried softly and desperately. “Do you think I will let harm come to your father?”

The terror faded from her eyes and without a sound she clasped her father’s hands fast in her own, though still before him. Stephan stood tense, watching Cunningham through eyes that showed nothing whatever.

Cunningham turned his head.

“Who’s there?” he called. The answer was an anticlimax.

“Gray,” said Gray’s voice dryly. “I say--if you want to send any mail or telegrams, you’d better give them to me. I think they’d be opened, here.”

“I know they would,” Cunningham growled. “But I won’t have anything to go out. Anything else? I’m in bed,” he added as an afterthought.

“No. Nothing else.” Gray’s tone was very dry. Cunningham heard his footsteps retreating.

He silently picked up Stephan’s knife and handed it back. He replaced his pistol in his pocket.

“It’s dangerous to talk here,” he said grimly. “I suppose these partitions are thin. Let me come up to the hills tomorrow. I’ll tell you anything I can to help you. But please don’t kill anybody else until I’ve had time to explain. Don’t you understand that you can’t get away with that sort of thing in the United States? Where did you come from, anyhow?”

Stephan smiled faintly. He ignored the whisper to Maria of a moment before. He suddenly reached over and put his hand on Cunningham’s shoulder.

“Good man,” he said gravely. “We will talk to you, yes. But we will not tell you anything. Come up into the hills tomorrow. We will kill nobody else until you say.”

“But--I tell you you mustn’t kill anybody at any time,” protested Cunningham anxiously. “You can’t get away with it. Don’t you understand?”

“No,” said Stephan. He spread out his hands in a confession of despair. “We do not understand anything! Maria says you are our friend. We need a friend. Else we die. And if you do not help us----”

Cunningham stared from one to the other, but it was hard to think of anything when he looked at Maria. He had taken the Strangers seriously enough when he knew of the first man’s being killed. Now it looked as if he was called upon to prevent deadly serious trouble in the hills.

“I’ll try,” he said hopelessly. “Yes, I’ll try. Maria----”

The color mounted in her cheeks. Then she seemed to summon all her pride and met his eyes fairly. They told him many things, her eyes.

“I--I will wait for you,” she told him. And in the words she said much more than the words themselves.

Cunningham was tingling all over, at the same time that he felt a curious sense of absurdity in escorting callers to the window instead of to the door. But before they reached it a head appeared there. It was that of the young Stranger who had been the first to appear from the woods that afternoon.

“The sheriff,” he whispered. “He came. We hit him on the head. Shall we kill him?”

“No!” said Cunningham sharply. “Tie him up until you get clear away. Did he see you coming up to my window?”

“No.” The young man shrugged and disappeared. There were whispered instructions below. To Cunningham it seemed that the whispers were in a strange tongue. Maria and her father slipped out. Then there were little rustlings below. The ladder, probably, being taken down and carried elsewhere, and the marks it had made in the earth erased.

Cunningham sank into a chair and stared before him. His blood was still pounding in his veins. And Maria had glanced back at him as she disappeared from view. But there was no denying that a tremendous and unwelcome responsibility had been thrust upon him.

They were foreigners. They must be. They did not understand the laws of the United States--and they were hated now and would soon be subject to persecution. Why, otherwise, did Vladimir bribe the sheriff and try to keep both Gray and Cunningham away from the Strange People? Why, otherwise, had such unreasoning hatred been expressed that morning in Bendale?

And it was up to Cunningham to prevent a wholesale tragedy. For some unknown reason they believed that he was their friend. They would not kill anyone until he had spoken to them. That was the promise Stephan had made in their behalf,--and yet they were not bloodthirsty. He had said they only wished to be let alone, and he could not understand that that was the surest way to be thoroughly investigated. They depended now upon Cunningham. Before, without a counselor, they had killed. Now, unless Cunningham aided them, they would kill again. And Cunningham felt that the responsibility of human lives was more than he had bargained for.

Adventure was all very well, and romance was all very well, but this was different and in deadly earnest. And Cunningham could not feel any sense of superiority to them, as most men feel toward most uninformed foreigners. They were unlike him, but they were certainly not inferior to him. They knew less, but they gave no indication of lesser intelligence. And Maria----

Cunningham stood up, a trifle pale.

“Well,” he muttered, “I asked for adventure and I guess I’ve got it.”

There was another knock on the door.

“What is it?” he demanded. He wanted to be alone to think.

““Gray,” said a dry voice. “Have you gotten out of bed, Cunningham?”

Cunningham opened the door.

“I came in,” said Gray dryly, “to mention that Vladimir went through my room while I was gone. One key will unlock any door in this sort of hotel.”

“He went through mine, too,” said Cunningham abstractedly.

“And also,” said Gray still more dryly, “to mention that the partitions here are very thin and that I heard all of the conversation just now.”

Cunningham looked up with a start.

“I knocked on your door,” Gray added, smiling cryptically, “because I knew you wouldn’t open it. I was doing what I could to cement their confidence in you. Are you going to help them?”

“I guess I’ve got to try,” said Cunningham grimly. “But I wish I knew what to do.”

“Keep them from killing,” Gray told him with sudden sharpness. “And also, keep them out of jail. You’ve got to do it, Cunningham! There’ll be hell to pay in those hills if you don’t. These people are scared. That’s why they killed that man we saw on the train. And they will be worse scared of Vladimir. He hasn’t gone, and if I can read faces he’s planning devilment for them. I tell you there’ll be wholesale killings in the hills unless you go up there! Stay with them. Argue with them. Educate them if you must. But keep them from killing anybody!”

“And who,” asked Cunningham grimly, “is going to keep Vladimir from starting something?”

Gray spread out his hands. Then he said curtly, “Look here. I tell you nothing----”

“Just like most other people,” interpolated Cunningham none too cordially.

“----nothing,” went on Gray, ignoring the interruption, “but I can promise that you won’t get into trouble through trying to keep the peace.”

“You’re a detective?”

“No,” snapped Gray. “I’m not. But I can promise that much.”

“All those who have made mysteries of themselves so far,” observed Cunningham grimly, “have offered me money. What do you offer?”

Gray stopped short. He seemed to realize for the first time just what sort of a predicament Cunningham was in, hopelessly at sea regarding the motives of every person in the extraordinary triangle.

“Advice,” he said soberly after an instant. “I’ll offer you advice. That girl is devilish pretty and I heard what you said to her. And it’s insanity to say it, but--either avoid her entirely or marry her at once. And I mean at once! I’ve a reason for warning you.”

And just as he put his hand on the knob of the door there was a scream on the ground outside. Maria had screamed. There was a crashing of glass, and as Cunningham hurled himself to his feet a shot followed, which was sickeningly loud and reverberated horribly in the stillness.

Then Vladimir’s voice came purringly from a spot near by, as if he were gloating to himself, “Ha! I got her!”

[Illustration: “Rebellion was in every line of her figure.”]

9

With a face like death Cunningham flung through the door. He sped down the steps with his heart, it seemed, stopped dead. There were sounds behind him and angry voices. Gray roaring at Vladimir, perhaps. But Cunningham could think of nothing but Maria.

The darkness smote his eyes like a blow. He stumbled and fell, then started up, crying out wildly.

A figure flitted up to him and put a soft hand over his mouth.

“Hush! Hush! I am safe,” she whispered breathlessly. “He saw us about the sheriff, and fired. When he saw the sheriff fall he thought I was killed. Hush!”

Cunningham’s arms were about her and he kissed her in an ecstasy of relief.

“If he’d killed you!” he gasped. “If he’d killed you!”

Feet thundered indoors.

“I must go!” she whispered swiftly. “Please!”

She thrust him away and fled. Figures were waiting for her. She joined them, and all melted into nothingness beneath the trees. Then Gray stumbled outside with his hand in Vladimir’s collar.

“Did he get her, Cunningham?” he cried shakenly. “If he did, I swear I’ll fling him to them! Did he get her?”

“N-no,” said Cunningham unevenly. He wiped the sweat off his forehead. “They’re all gone. But----”

He knelt beside a dark bundle on the ground. A groan came to his ears, curiously muffled. He struck a match and found the sheriff securely trussed up and blinking at the match-flame with panic-stricken eyes.

“It’s the sheriff,” said Cunningham. “Maybe he’s hurt.”

But a babble of words that began before the gag was completely out of his mouth proved that the sheriff was only scared.

“Scared green, that’s all,” said Gray curtly. He shook Vladimir as a terrier might shake a rat. “You thought there were burglars?” he roared. “Try to get away with that again! You aimed for that girl!”

He tossed Vladimir to the ground, wrathfully.

“What girl?” purred Vladimir, as he scrambled to his feet. “Was there a girl? Are you in communication with my brother’s murderers? And helping them to escape, too? I think you will go to jail, my friend.”

But Gray went indoors with Cunningham, laughing.

* * * * *

When day came again Cunningham awoke with the conviction that something very pleasant had happened. He puzzled vaguely over it for a long time. And then he realized that it was a thing that had come to him just before he slept and had made his heart pump faster and more loudly. When he kissed Maria, she had not struggled nor been angry. On the contrary she had lifted her lips to his. And yet it had been no practised gesture, but the response of sheer instinct to one man only.

Cunningham’s heart pounded a little and he got up with a serene contentment filling him. The route to romance had led him to happiness, he was sure.

He went downstairs and went out on the porch just to look up at the hills in which he would find her presently.

Vladimir was there, talking to a newcomer whose clothing and air confirmed the guess that he was a servant. But not an ordinary servant. His face was gross and stupid where Vladimir’s was keen and cruel, but his features had no less of instinctive arrogance, though veiled by servility at the moment.

Vladimir’s lips twitched into a snarl of hatred when he saw Cunningham, and he spoke to his servant. The man looked at Cunningham and scowled.

But Cunningham went indoors and had breakfast joyously. Then he started out to find Maria. Technically, as he reflected, he was compounding a felony in going to the Strange People to advise them how to keep out of the clutches of the law. Some of them had been involved in the killing of Vladimir’s brother. But Cunningham beamed as he clambered up the steep hillside toward those mysterious thickets in which the Strange People lurked.

He had gone up perhaps half the way when he heard a faint rustling behind him. He turned and shouted, thinking it a Stranger who would lead him to Stephan and Maria. But the rustling stopped. After a little while he went on, frowning. Later the rustling began again, somewhat nearer.

And then Cunningham heard whistles far off in the thickets. He heard other rustlings, as if men were moving swiftly through the undergrowth. These last sounds came from both sides of him. And then he came suddenly upon a young Stranger, running headlong toward him with his hand on his knife-hilt. The Stranger lifted his hand, unsmilingly, and ran on.

“Stephan,” cried Cunningham; “where is he?”

The runner waved for Cunningham to continue as he was going and disappeared. The mysterious sounds continued, to right and to left. Then everything was abruptly very still.

Cunningham halted uncertainly. There was no trace of a path anywhere. The earth fell away sharply at one side but he had lost all sense of direction and did not know which way to go. Then he heard a thrashing below him as if someone were moving rapidly to cut him off.

Then there was the sound of panting near by and a small boy ran into view. He was a young Stranger, an aquiline-nosed, brown-eyed youngster with the legs of a race-horse.

“Hi, there,” shouted Cunningham. “Where’s Stephan?”

The boy gasped in relief and flew toward him. He thrust a bit of paper into Cunningham’s hand and stood panting. Cunningham unrolled the scrap. On it was written in awkward letters:

“Someone follows to kill you. What will happen if we kill him?”

Cunningham started. Vladimir! He’d sent his servant to bushwhack him.

“They’ll hang,” he said grimly. “Tell them not to do it.”

The boy nodded and started off.

“Wait!” called Cunningham. “Will they stop, since I’ve said so?”

“No,” panted the boy. “They kill him already, I think.”

He sped away, down toward the spot where the thrashing in the bushes sounded as if someone were trying to head Cunningham off. Cunningham clenched his fists and ran after him, determined to stop the foolishness.

The boy vanished suddenly. A figure started up.

“Wait! He lives yet! Wait!”

But Cunningham plunged on, not understanding. He only hoped to be in time to keep the Strangers from worse trouble than they were already in.

He burst through a thicket as warning cries sounded suddenly from all sides. And there was Vladimir’s servant, staring stupidly about him in sudden fright at the sound of many voices. He was waist-high in brushwood. He swerved in panic at the sound of Cunningham’s rush; then his face lighted with ferocity. With lightning quickness he had leveled a weapon and fired.

Cunningham’s life was due to the fact that he had just tripped upon one of the innumerable small boulders strewn all over the slopes. He was falling as the bullet left the gun. He felt a searing pain in his left shoulder and crashed to the ground. Maria’s voice shrilled in anguish.

“Dead! He is killed!”

The breath was knocked out of Cunningham, but he struggled to shout that he was all right, and was afraid to because the servant might pot at him again.