Frank Merriwell's Champions Part 7

"Shet yer yawp, Nell Thornton, an' go back inter the house!" Turner harshly commanded. "Go back inter the house, whar ye belong, stiddy botherin' with bizness that don't consarn ye!"

"But it do consarn me, ef murder is bein' done!" she a.s.serted.

Then her voice rose in a shriek, as she bent over Browning, and recognized in him the youth who had been so kind to her that afternoon.

Browning lay as he had fallen, without movement or sign of life.

"Ye've killed him, Sam Turner!" she cried, facing the mountaineer, with white face and flas.h.i.+ng eyes. "Ye've killed him!"

"That thar's what I meant ter do!" Turner declared. "An' I'll kill ever'

other revnoo spy that the guv'ment sends down hyar ter 'rest me an' yer dad!"

Nell turned from him, with hot, dry eyes and choking words, and again bent over Browning, even as he had bent over her when she lay in a faint in the wild mountain path.

Then she grasped him by the shoulders and tried to lift him.

"Help me ter git him inter the cabin!" she wildly commanded. "He ain't no revnoo, Sam Turner! If he's dead, you'll hatter answer fur killin' a man that never harmed ye. You'll hatter answer fur it 'fore G.o.d, and that'll be wuss'n the jedge at the co'tehouse down in the valley. Holp me ter git him inter the cabin, I tell ye!"

She gave another surging lift at the shoulders, and Bruce groaned.

Sam Turner raised the club again.

"Put that down!" she shrieked, flying at him with the ferocity of an enraged panther.

Turner staggered back under the force of her rush, and she tore the club from his hands and sent it whirling far out into the bushes.

"If ye won't holp me, I'll drag him in myself," she declared, again seeking to lift Browning by the shoulders.

There was another groan from Browning's lips, and then Sam Turner, moved by curiosity rather than pity, consented to a.s.sist Nell in getting the unfortunate lad into the house.

By the light of the kerosene lamp, Turner inspected Bruce's injuries, while Nell stood by, with clasped hands, in an agony of suspense.

She broke the silence.

"'Fore G.o.d, Sam Turner, I tell ye you hev made a mistake! That man hev never hed nuthin ter do with the revnoo. He belongs up ter the village with them thar summer folks. It's b.l.o.o.d.y murder ef ye hev killed him!"

"What do you know 'bout him?" Turner asked, suspiciously, irritated by her reproof. "I hev never said he didn't b'long up ter the village. I reckon, now, you must hev thought 'cause he air a revnoo spy that he'd be goin' 'roun' through the mountings a-hollerin' out his bizness ter the owls. I reckon you must hev thought that. Ef he ain't a revnoo, why war he standin' with his head agin' the cabin a-listenin'?"

Browning groaned again, and moved.

"He ain't so much killed ez he mout be!" Turner declared. "That club didn't ketch him squar'. He dodged, an' his shoulder got most o' it."

"You're not goin' ter strike him ag'in!" Nell screamed, clutching Turner by the arm.

"Who said ez how I war goin' ter?" he growled, shaking her off. "Yer ole dad'll do that quick ernuff when he gits back. He's out now a-aimin' an'

a-contrivin' fer a safe plan ter git at this feller, an' when he gits back, an' finds that I've got him hyar, he'll be plum tickled out o' one fit inter fifty!"

He stooped toward Bruce.

"What air you a-goin' ter do to him, Sam Turner?" Nell demanded, her eyes blazing with a dangerous light.

Turner caught her and hurled her from him.

"Will you quit a-naggin' of me, Nell Thornton? I'm a-goin' ter drag him inter t'other room, an' tie him up fer yer ole dad ter look at when he gits back. I 'low I'll hev ter tell him, too, that you've acted clean crazy over the feller."

There was no answer to this fling, and Turner, lifting Bruce by the shoulders, dragged him into the adjoining room, the only remaining room of the cabin, with the exception of the garret.

When he had done this, he hunted up a piece of rope, with which he securely tied Browning's hands and feet. Then he deliberately relighted his pipe, took down a long rifle from its rack, and, seating himself in the doorway in a rude, hickory-bottomed chair, he rested the rifle across his knees, and stared moodily off over the ridges, on which the moonlight now fell with silvery radiance.

CHAPTER VI-NELL RETURNS A KINDNESS

In the little room where Sam Turner had dragged him, Bruce came back at last to the land of sentient things. The moonlight, streaming through a crack in the c.h.i.n.ked wall, fell on his white face. His head was racked with splitting pains, and a dull ache made itself unpleasantly felt in his shoulder.

When he sought to move his hands and feet, he found that they were tied.

Then memory awakened, and he stared about at the cabin walls, trying to determine where he was, and just what had befallen him.

A heavy snore drew his attention, and he beheld the form of a man stretched across the doorway of his room. There was a rifle by the man's side, and he had evidently placed himself there to guard against any attempt at escape.

All this was startling enough to Bruce Browning.

"And Merriwell! I was not able to get to him to warn him of his danger!

I wonder what has befallen him?"

Almost his first clear thought was of Frank, and the peril which he believed threatened his friend.

He would have groaned aloud in the very agony of mental torture, if a wholesome fear had not restrained him.

"I wonder what has become of Nell?" was his next mental query.

As if in answer, when he looked again he saw her tip-toeing in shoeless feet toward the man who lay in front of the door of his prison. Her thin face seemed unnaturally white and bloodless in the dim light. Her widely distended eyes gleamed like those of some wild animal. In her right hand she held something, which he soon made out to be a knife.

A sense of bewildered fascination fell on Bruce. He forgot the thumping pain in his head and the ache in his shoulder.

"She is going to kill him as he sleeps!" was the horrible thought that seized him.

He moved uneasily, and put out his bound hands, as if to beg her not to do a thing so dreadful. He might have done more, but at that moment her eyes met his. She saw that he was conscious, and put a finger to her lips to enjoin silence.

Browning lay back and stared at her. His mind was not yet entirely clear.

Again she put her fingers across her lips, and took another catlike step toward the sleeping man.

She made no more sound than a gliding shadow. Browning readily might have believed her a ghost, and it is quite certain that Toots, if similarly placed, would have shrieked like a maniac from sheer fright.

With the stealthy silence of a panther creeping on its prey, Nell Thornton advanced toward the open door.