The Forfeit Part 46

But Jeff was no longer there. There had been a simultaneous clatter of falling bunk boards. There was the rustling of straw. Then a sound of scrambling, and, after that, a dead silence. The darkness was complete except for the faint silhouette of the windows against the dim starlight beyond them.

Jeff had taken the big chance. What remained now must be met as circ.u.mstance permitted. The blood in him was fired. The savage delight of battle. He would sell the last breath in his body at the highest price he could make his enemies pay. He had walked into a trap laid by the rustlers, headed, perhaps, by Sikkem Bruce, with his eyes wide open, and some almost insane yearning made him glad.

Now he crouched down against the wall beside the table. He had flung up a barrier of straw pallia.s.se before him. It was not as a protection against gun-fire, but to screen his movements should his opponents produce a light. Then, too, there was another thought in his mind.

The place became alive with sounds, voiceless, m.u.f.fled sounds of cautious movement. It was the movement of men who know that death is lurking at every turn. Nor could they tell whence it was most likely to come. It was a moment of tense and straining nerves wherein the wit of one man had discounted the elaborate plan to murder of those whose indifference to death only shrank from the contemplation of their own.

Jeff's eyes strained against the darkness. The windows stood out in silhouette. From these he had no fear. He knew, and he knew that these ruffians would know, the dangers attending themselves from any attack upon him from such a direction. The advantage would be entirely his, since he had possessed himself of Sikkem's complete a.r.s.enal. He knew it was for him to await the fire of these men, every shot of which would yield him a sure target.

A flash broke the blackness ahead of him. The bullet sank into the woodwork just above his head with a vicious splash. But he refrained from reply. Another crack split the silence, and the wall to the left of him flung back its response. Still he offered no reply.

His eyes were searching, searching. And a surge of excitement suddenly thrilled him.

Two shots came on the same instant. One slithered hotly in the flesh of his shoulder, but the other struck wide of him.

The wound gave him no concern. Every sense, every faculty was concentrated on one thought, on one object. A dim, fine-drawn but uneven line of shadowy light had grown out of the darkness to his now accustomed eyes. It was vague, so vague that it required the greatest concentration to detect. But he recognized it for what it was, and a savage delight possessed him as he observed that there were breaks in its continuity. The line was waist high, and lateral, and he interpreted it to suit himself.

He raised his gun and took steady aim at one of the breaks. His shot was deliberate, careful, since the sight of his weapon, even the weapon itself, remained invisible in the dark. He fired, and dropped himself p.r.o.ne behind his barrier.

A bitter curse followed by a groan of pain was the answer to his shot.

Then, where that break in the shadowy line of light had been, now the line was unbroken.

A fierce glee permeated him. The curse, the moan had been music to him. But it only required a second before he had the enemy's retort.

It came with a fusillade. And every shot seemed to find practically the same spot on the wall. He knew that the flash of his gun had been the target. He knew he had only escaped by a fraction of time.

His shoulder stung him. But his will, his savage yearning for the continuance of the fight, left him disregarding. There was more to come, and he knew it. Nor did he care how much. The blood was hot in his brain. No pain, nothing mattered. Again he searched along that lateral line of light.

He was reaching out far beyond his retreat. He had stealthily crawled to the left of the table. Again his weapon was raised against another break in that telltale line of light, this time at a point where the angle of the building must be. A moment pa.s.sed while he judged his aim. It was by no means easy. Instinct was his only guide. That instinct which belongs to the man accustomed to the constant use of a revolver.

His shot rang out. Again came a cry, inarticulate, fierce. Then followed the sound of a falling body. Then he let loose a second shot.

But even as it sped he had his answer. Four tongues of flame leaped out at him in the darkness, and four bullets smote viciously into the wood behind him.

His second shot had cost him a sharp penalty. The flesh of his forearm had been ripped by one of those four bullets and he felt the trickle of warm blood over the unscored flesh.

He crouched behind his barrier. The joy of battle for the highest stakes for which a man can play was undiminished in him. The wounds he had received left him all unconcerned. In the thrill of the moment he had no time for them. The desire to kill was strong, and he knew he could already count two victims.

But the general in him was foremost, even in the excitement of battle.

The number of his opponents, their next move. These things concerned him seriously.

He searched the line of light with eager eyes. He listened to the sound of movement. These things were all he had to rely on, and on their accurate reading depended his chances of victory or defeat, with its certainty of swift death.

In two places there ware still definite breaks in the line. He knew he had accounted for two of the enemy. Originally a volley of six shots had come at him. There were two unaccounted for. Where were these?

They were not standing.

He looked for no depths of subtlety in the methods of these men. He understood their ruffianism too well. Therefore the sound of movement that reached him suggested the obvious result of their first failure.

It was the presage of an attack at close quarters.

He listened intently. The sounds were of shuffling bodies, moving uncertainly, possibly fearful of contact with obstruction which might betray them. And he calculated they were approaching low down along the side walls, thus hoping to offer the least target possible. If they reached him the chances would be all against him. They must not reach him. His decision was promptly taken.

He raised one of Sikkem's guns. It was heavy, and a sense of pleasure filled him as he felt the enormous bore of the muzzle with one finger.

Stealthily he raised himself to his full height behind his barrier. He leveled his gun at a spot just below the right hand window, where the wall rose up out of the floor. There was no obstacle intervening.

A moment later the crack of the gun burst through the silence. Then, on the instant, he flung himself p.r.o.ne across the table. His answer came like lightning. Four shots. And three of them harmlessly tore their way into the bowels of the woodwork. The fourth had come from the direction in which he had aimed.

A fierce spasm of pain through his chest blinded him mentally and physically for the moment. But, by an almost superhuman effort, he recovered himself. He knew he was. .h.i.t, and hit badly. Something seemed to have broken inside him, just under his left armpit.

He forced himself to an upright position and flung out his gun arm.

His eyes were again on the line of light. A fury of recklessness was urging him. There were the breaks, and he blazed at each in turn, carefully, deliberately. A moment later two shots came from the right and left of him, and he dropped down behind his barrier, but not before he had heard the death-cries of fierce blasphemy at the far end of the room.

He lay behind his shelter breathing hard and suffering an agony of physical pain. The sweat poured down his forehead. It seemed to him that everything was somehow receding from him, even the sense of his own danger. In these feelings he realized how near he was to defeat, and with all his will he set himself to conquer his weakness. A few moments pa.s.sed. His pain eased. Then, with all the recklessness of the gambler, he prepared for his final throw.

He was certain he had accounted for four of the enemy. Four. He calculated there were still two remaining. He s.h.i.+fted his position, moving himself clear of his shelter. A h.e.l.l of suffering was endured in the process, and the sweat poured out afresh upon his forehead. He gritted his teeth with superlative determination and flung back the dreadful faintness seeking to smother his powers.

He raised himself to a sitting posture. He sought support from the wall behind him. Then, with unbroken nerve, he raised both Sikkem's guns, one in each hand. Without a tremor he held them, and his aim took in the two points at which he felt the remaining foe were advancing upon him. Oh, for one moment of light wherein to a.s.sure himself! But the thought pa.s.sed as it came, followed by a wild, simple hope that one of his shots might find its billet.

He pressed the trigger in each hand. He fired rapidly. He fired until both guns were empty. Then he flung them to the ground with a clatter.

For an instant he thrilled at the sound of a cry of pain, and the fierce accompanying blasphemy. Then he flung himself down and crawled to his retreat behind the pallia.s.se, convinced that the cry was in the voice of Sikkem Bruce.

His sufferings were well-nigh unendurable. His very breathing caused him an exquisite pain. He even found himself wondering how much longer he could endure.

But his work was not yet finished. If he must die he would die fighting.

Now, blending with fresh sounds of movement along the side walls, another sound added its threat to the quiet of the room. It came from behind the straw pallia.s.se. There was heavy breathing, almost gasping.

There was a distinct gritting of teeth. But there was also a sound of the effort which caused these things in the wounded man. There was a sharp ripping and tearing, the rustle of straw and--something else.

The movements were hasty, desperately hasty. Movements which suggested the defender's realization of the narrow limits of time before his powers would become completely exhausted.

These things lasted a matter of seconds only. Then the threat broke.

The quiet was shocked into desperate action. There was the shout of human voices. There was the rush and scramble of feet. Then, in the midst of the tumult, a great tongue of flame leaped up from the heart of the straw pallia.s.se.

Its fierce, ruddy light revealed the faces of two men leaping to the attack of the wounded defender. They were within a yard of their goal.

But even as they were closing upon him they reeled back before the new terror whose dread was overwhelming even in face of their murderous l.u.s.t.

The flame shot up toward the roof. Jeff staggered to his feet bearing in his arms the blazing bundle. Higher he raised it. Higher and higher, till the devouring flame licked at the parched thatch of gra.s.s roof above. It caught in a second. The flames swept up along the rough rafters till they reached the pitch of the roof. In a moment great billows of smoke were rolling out of the dry crevices.

Just for one instant, before the fog closed down upon the whole interior, Jeff beheld the result of his work. The men had fled toward the closed door, and, on the ground, against the far wall, he had a glimpse of five bodies lying crumpled up where his guns had laid them.

Suddenly a great shout reached him from without.

"Ho, Jeff! Ho, boy!"

It was a deep-throated roar which drowned the hiss and crackle of the blazing straw.

Jeff's answer rang through the burning structure with all the power of his lungs.

"The door! Bust it! Quick, Bud! Bust it, an' stand clear!"

For answer there was a crash on the woodwork outside. He waited for no more. With a wild rush through the blinding, choking fog of smoke he charged down the room. With all his might he flung the blazing pallia.s.se from his scorched hands. He had no idea of the direction in which it went. His one desire now was to reach the door as it gave under the sledge-hammer attacks of the men outside.