In the Clutch of the War-God Part 7

"How?" she repeated.

"Well, that's quite a long story," he replied; "if you don't already know."

"I told you who I was."

"Yes."

"Well, the Regenerationists, along with many other sincere men and women in this country tried to prevent this war and are trying to get it peaceably settled now. The j.a.ps don't want to die. They want a chance to live. We've got a lot of vainglorious, debauched, professional soldiery that wanted to fight something, and now they're getting their fill. In the first place, there is no need of war and in the second place, when there is war, the same stamina that will make efficient humans for the ordinary walks of life will make good soldiers. But money talks louder than reason. The ruling powers in American government are a crew of beer-bloated politicians who are in the pay of a cabal of wine-soaked plutocrats, and the American people under such administration have become a race of mental and physical degenerates. The j.a.ps knew this or they would never have invaded the country."

"What are you going to do about it? And what are you doing here now within the j.a.panese lines?" asked Ethel when her companion paused.

"Oh, I am acting as my own war correspondent," he replied, smiling a little.

"_Pat-a-pat, pat-a-pat_"--Winslow jumped up excitedly and clambered to the top of the embankment.

Ethel noting his alarm, slipped her feet into her sandals and rose to follow him.

"Quick," he exclaimed, hurrying down the bank again. "It's American cavalry."

"But let us go meet them," said the girl.

"No, never," replied Winslow, taking her by the arm and hurrying her into the culvert. "You don't understand. As for you in kimo, your reception would be anything but pleasant; and as for me, I'm an outlaw with a price on my head."

Reaching the c.h.i.n.k where the rocks had fallen out of the culvert wall, Winslow squeezed into it and pulled the girl down beside him.

Carefully he crowded her feet and his own back so that their presence could not be detected from the end of the culvert.

"I'm afraid we left tracks on the bank, but we can at least die game," he said, pulling his magazine pistol from his belt and handing it to the girl, while he drew from his hip pocket the weapon he had taken from the dead aviator.

"I hate these things," he said, "but when a man is in a corner and no chance to run, I suppose he's justified in using a cowardly fighting machine."

They heard clearly now the hoof beats on the roadway above.

Presently an officer rode his horse down to the stream at the head of the culvert. "Anything under there?" called a voice from above.

"Nothing doing," replied the other, peering beneath the archway.

"You're a fool sitting there like that," called a third voice.

"Company C lost two men back there from a wounded j.a.p under a bridge."

The horseman urged his beast up the bank and the troop pa.s.sed on.

For some hours the man and the girl remained in the culvert; meanwhile Winslow explained the Regenerationist movement, which was not as his enemies interpreted, a traitorous party favoring the j.a.panese, but only a group of thinkers who advocated principles not unlike those which had made the j.a.panese such a superior race either at peace or at war.

As she listened, it seemed to Ethel as if her own dream had come true, for here indeed was a man of her own blood with stamina of physique and mental and moral courage, who professed and practiced all she had found that was good among the people of her enforced adoption and in addition much that, to her with her racial prejudice in his favor, seemed even better than the ways of j.a.panese.

In reply to her questions as to the cause of his outlawry, Winslow explained that he and other leaders of his party had long been at swords' points with the conservatives who were in power and that the administration, taking advantage of the martial frenzy of the war, were persecuting the Regenerationists as supposed traitors.

As the sun indicated mid-forenoon the dishevelled editor of the Regenerationist and his newly found follower sauntered forth and took to the turnpike.

"We may as well be on the road," he argued. "The sooner the American people get the inside facts of this affair the sooner they will decide to stop it, and it's forty-five miles to the nearest place where I can get in touch with my people."

Bareheaded, through the hot sun, they travelled rapidly along the turnpike, keeping a sharp lookout for occasional parties of cavalry and hiding in the fields until they pa.s.sed. Sometimes they talked of the contrasted ways of life in j.a.pan and in America, and again Winslow wrote hurriedly in his note-book as he walked.

About three o'clock in the afternoon they stopped in the shade where a rivulet fell over a small cataract.

"Aren't you hungry?" asked Ethel, after they had drunk from the brook.

"I don't know. I hadn't thought of it particularly," replied her companion. "Let's see, the last time I ate was in a farmhouse north of Houston. That was eight days ago. When have you last eaten?"

"Yesterday morning," replied the girl.

"Then you are probably hungrier than I am."

With their conversation and the murmur of the waterfall they had failed to detect the approach of two cavalry officers, who, walking their tired mounts, had come up unheeded.

"Hey! look at the beauty in breeches!" called one of the approaching men.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He rolled a bundle of "Regenerationists" on the wing of the aeroplane below.]

"Her for mine," returned the other.

"I saw it first--hie!" returned the first, drawing rein.

"Give it to me, you hog; you've got one!"

"All right, all right--go take it--maybe the b.u.m will object,"

laughed the first, as the unshaven Winslow advanced in front of the girl.

"Run quick," called Winslow to Ethel. "They're too drunk to shoot straight."

The turnpike was inclosed by a high, woven-wire fence, and the girl obeying turned down the road. Her would-be claimant put spurs to his horse and dashed after her, leaving Winslow covering the rear horseman with his magazine pistol.

"Well," said the drunken officer weakly, "I ain't doing nothing."

"Then ride down the road the other way as fast as you can go."

The officer obeyed.

For a moment Winslow watched him and then turned to see Ethel climbing over the woven-wire fence with the soldier trying to urge his horse up the embankment to reach her.

Winslow started to run to the girl's rescue, but no sooner had he turned than a bullet sang past his ear. Wheeling about he saw the other cavalryman riding toward him firing as he came.

With lewd brutality calling for vengeance in one direction and a man firing at his back from the other, Winslow's aversion to bloodshed became nil; and, aiming cool, he began firing at the approaching officer.

It must have been the horse that got the bullet, for with the third shot mount and rider somersaulted upon the macadam.

Without compunction, Winslow turned and sprinted down the roadway.