Tish: The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions Part 54

"You haven't got much mind or you couldn't change it so quickly."

She looked sulky again, and said she'd thank us for the ring, which was hers and she could prove it.

But Tish sternly refused. "It's my private opinion," she observed, "that it is Mrs. Ostermaier's, and she has not worn it openly because of the congregation talking quite considerably about her earrings, and not caring for jewelry on the minister's wife. That's what I think."

Shortly after that we heard a horse loping along the road. It came nearer, and then left the trail and came toward the fire. Tish picked up one of the extra revolvers and pointed it. It was Mr. Oliver!

"Throw up your hands!" Tish called. And he did it. He turned a sort of blue color, too, when he saw us, and all the men with their hands up.

But he looked relieved when he saw the girl.

"Thank Heaven!" he said. "The way I've been riding this country--"

"You rode hard enough away from the pa.s.s," she replied coldly.

We took a revolver away from him and lined him up with the others. All the time he was paying little attention to us and none at all to the other men. But he was pleading with the girl.

"Honestly," he said, "I thought I could do better for everybody by doing what I did. How did I know," he pleaded, "that you were going to do such a crazy thing as this?"

But she only stared at him as if she hated the very ground he stood on.

"It's a pity," Tish observed, "that you haven't got your camera along.

This would make a very nice picture. But I dare say you could hardly turn the crank with your hands in the air."

We searched him carefully, but he had only a gold watch and some money.

On the chance, however, that the watch was Mr. Ostermaier's, although unlikely, we took it.

I must say he was very disagreeable, referring to us as highwaymen and using uncomplimentary language. But, as Tish observed, we might as well be thorough while we were about it.

For the nonce we had forgotten the other man. But now I noticed that the pseudo-bandits wore a watchful and not unhopeful air. And suddenly one of them whistled--a thin, shrill note that had, as Tish later remarked, great penetrative power without being noisy.

"That's enough of that," she said. "Aggie, take another of these guns and point them both at these gentlemen. If they whistle again, shoot.

As to the other man, he will not reply, nor will he come to your a.s.sistance. He is gagged and tied, and into the bargain may become at any time the victim of wild beasts."

The moment she had said it, Tish realized that it was but too true, and she grew thoughtful. Aggie, too, was far from comfortable. She said later that she was uncertain what to do. Tish had said to fire if they whistled again. The question in her mind was, had it been said purely for effect or did Tish mean it? After all, the men were not real bandits, she reflected, although guilty of theft, even if only for advertising purposes. She was greatly disturbed, and as agitation always causes a return of her hay fever, she began to sneeze violently.

Until then the men had been quiet, if furious. But now they fell into abject terror, imploring Tish, whom they easily recognized as the leader, to take the revolvers from her.

But Tish only said: "No fatalities, Aggie, please. Point at an arm or a leg until the spasm subsides."

Her tone was quite gentle.

Heretofore this has been a plain narrative, dull, I fear, in many places. But I come now to a not unexciting incident--which for a time placed Tish and myself in an unpleasant position.

I refer to the escape of the man we had tied.

We held a brief discussion as to what to do with our prisoners until morning, a discussion which Tish solved with her usual celerity by cutting from the saddles which lay round the fire a number of those leather thongs with which such saddles are adorned and which are used in case of necessity to strap various articles to the aforesaid saddles.

With these thongs we tied them, not uncomfortably, but firmly, their hands behind them and their feet fastened together. Then, as the night grew cold, Tish suggested that we shove them near the fire, which we did.

The young lady, however, offered a more difficult problem. We compromised by giving her her freedom, but arranging for one of our number to keep her covered with a revolver.

"You needn't be so thoughtful," she said angrily, and with a total lack of appreciation of Tish's considerate att.i.tude. "I'd rather be tied, especially if the Moslem with the hay fever is going to hold the gun."

It was at that moment that we heard a whistle from across the stream, and each of the prostrate men raised his head eagerly. Before Tish could interfere one of them had whistled three times sharply, probably a danger signal.

Without a word Tish turned and ran toward the stream, calling to me to follow her.

"Tis.h.!.+" I heard Aggie's agonized tone. "Lizzie! Come back. Don't leave me here alone. I--"

Here she evidently clutched the revolver involuntarily, for there was a sharp report, and a bullet struck a tree near us.

Tish paused and turned. "Point that thing up into the air, Aggie," she called back. "And stay there. I hold you responsible."

I heard Aggie give a low moan, but she said nothing, and we kept on.

The moon had now come up, flooding the valley with silver radiance. We found our horses at once, and Tish leaped into the saddle. Being heavier and also out of breath from having stumbled over a log, I was somewhat slower.

Tish was therefore in advance of me when we started, and it was she who caught sight of him first.

"He's got a horse, Lizzie," she called back to me. "We can get him, I think. Remember, he is unarmed."

Fortunately he had made for the trail, which was here wider than ordinary and gleamed white in the moonlight. We had, however, lost some time in fording the stream, and we had but the one glimpse of him as the trail curved.

Tish lashed her horse to a lope, and mine followed without urging.

I had, unfortunately, lost a stirrup early in the chase, and was compelled, being unable to recover it, to drop the lines and clutch the saddle.

Twice Tish fired into the air. She explained afterward that she did this for the moral effect on the fugitive, but as each time it caused my horse to jump and almost unseat me, at last I begged her to desist.

We struck at last into a straight piece of trail, ending in a wall of granite, and up this the trail climbed in a switchback. Tish turned to me.

"We have him now," she said. "When he starts up there he is as much gone as a fly on the wall. As a matter of fact," she said as calmly as though we had been taking an afternoon stroll, "his taking this trail shows that he is a novice and no real highwayman. Otherwise he would have turned off into the woods."

At that moment the fugitive's horse emerged into the moonlight and Tish smiled grimly.

"I see why now," she exclaimed. "The idiot has happened on Mona Lisa, who must have returned and followed us. And no pack-horse can be made to leave the trail unless by means of a hornet. Look, he's trying to pull her off and she won't go."

It was true, as we now perceived. He saw his danger, but too late. Mona Lisa, probably still disagreeable after her experience with the hornets, held straight for the cliff.

The moon shone full on it, and when he was only thirty feet up its face Tish fired again, and the fugitive stopped.

"Come down," said Tish quietly.

He said a great many things which, like his earlier language, I do not care to repeat. But after a second shot he began to descend slowly.

Tish, however, approached him warily, having given her revolver to me.

"He might try to get it from me, Lizzie," she observed. "Keep it pointed in our direction, but not at us. I'm going to tie him again."

This she proceeded to do, tying his hands behind him and fastening his belt also to the horn of the saddle, but leaving his feet free. All this was done to the accompaniment of bitter vituperation. She pretended to ignore this, but it made an impression evidently, for at last she replied.