The Boss of Taroomba Part 27

"Where?"

"Past the stables--across the paddock--toward the fence."

Naomi looked. A black figure was running toward them in the moonlight.

"Who can it be, Mrs. Potter? Not Mr. Engelhardt----"

"Who else?"

"But he is reeling and staggering! Could it be some drunken roustabout?

And yet that's just his height--it must be--it _is_--thank G.o.d!"

Her curiosity first, and then her amazement, kept Naomi seated immovable in her saddle. She wondered later why she had not cantered to meet him.

She did not stir even when his stertorous breathing came painfully to her ears. It was only when the quivering, spent, and speechless young man threw his arms across the withers of her horse, and his white face fell forward upon the mane, that Naomi silently detached the water-bag which she had strapped to her saddle, and held it to his lips with a trembling hand. At first he shook his head. Then he raised his wild eyes to hers with a piteously anxious expression.

"You have heard--that they are coming?"

"No--who?"

"You have heard, or why are you on horseback?"

"To look for you. I was on the point of starting. I made sure you must be bushed."

"I was. But I got to a camp. They looked after me; I am all right. And now they are coming in here--they're probably on their way!" Each little sentence came in a fresh gasp from his parched throat.

"But who?"

"Those two tramps who came the other day, and Simons, the ringer of the shed. Villains--villains every one!"

"Ah! And what do they want?"

"Can't you guess? The silver! The silver! That fat brute who insulted you so, who do you suppose he is? Tigerskin's mate--just out of prison--the man whose finger your father shot off ten years ago! You remember how he kept his hands in his pockets the other day? Well, that was the reason. Now there isn't a moment to lose. I listened to their plans. Half an hour ago--or it may be an hour--they lay down for a spell. They were drunk, but not very. They only meant to rest for a bit; then they're coming straight here. They left me tied up--they were going to bring me with them--I'll tell you afterward how I got loose. I daren't stop a moment, even to cut adrift their horses. I just bolted for the moon--I'd heard them say the station lay due east--and here I am. Thank G.o.d I've found you up and mounted! It couldn't have been better; it's providential. Now you mustn't get off at all; you must just ride right on to the shed."

"Must I?" said Naomi, with a tight lip and a keen eye, but a touch of the old banter in her tone.

"We could follow on foot. Meanwhile you would rouse them out at the shed----"

"And my silver?"

Engelhardt was silent. The girl leant forward in her saddle, and laid a hand upon his shoulder.

"No, no, Mr. Engelhardt! Captains don't quit their s.h.i.+ps in such a hurry as all that. I'm captain here, and I'll stick to mine. It isn't only the silver. Still my father smelt powder for that silver, and the least I can do is to follow his lead."

She slid to the ground as she spoke.

"You will barricade yourself in the store?" said Engelhardt.

"Exactly. It was fixed up for this very kind of thing, after the first fuss with Tigerskin. They'll never get in."

"And you mean to stick to your guns inside?"

"To such as I have--most certainly."

"Then I mean to stick to you."

"Very well."

"But think--think before it's too late! They are devils, Miss Pryse--beasts! I have seen them and heard them. Better a hundred times be dead than at their mercy. For G.o.d's sake, take the horse before they are upon us!"

"I stop here," said Naomi, decidedly.

"Yet Mrs. Potter and I could hold the store as easily as you could. They shall not get your silver while I'm alive."

"My mind is made up," said the girl, in a voice which silenced his remonstrances; "but I agree with you that somebody ought to start off for the shed. I think that you should, Mr. Engelhardt, if you feel equal to it."

"Equal to it! It's so likely I would ride off and leave two women to the mercy of those brutes! If it really must be so, then I think the sooner we all three get into the store----"

It was Mrs. Potter who here put in her amazing word. While the young people stood and argued, her eyes had travelled over every point of the saddled horse. And now she proposed that she should be the one to ride to the shed for help.

"You!" the two cried in one breath, as they gazed at her ample figure.

"And why not?" said the hardy woman. "Wasn't I born and bred in the bush? Couldn't I ride--bareback, too--before either of you was born? I'm not so light as I used to be, and I haven't the nerve either; but what I have is all there in the hour of need, Miss Naomi. Let me go now. I'm ready this minute."

Naomi had seemed lost in thought.

"Very well!" cried she, whipping her eyes from the ground. "But you don't know the way to the shed, and I must make your directions pretty plain. Run to the back of the kitchen, Mr. Engelhardt, you'll see a lot of clothes-props. Bring as many as you can to the store veranda."

Engelhardt darted off upon his errand. Already they had wasted too many minutes in words. His brain was ablaze with lurid visions of the loathsome crew in Top Scrubby; of the murderous irruption imminent at any moment; of the unspeakable treatment to be suffered at those blood-stained hands--not only by himself--that mattered little--but by a woman--by Naomi of all women in the world. G.o.d help them both if the gang arrived before they were safe inside the store! But until the worst happened she need not know, nor should she guess, how bad that worst might be. Poor Rowntree's fate, and even his own ill-usage by those masterless men, were things which Engelhardt was not the man to tell to women in the hour of alarm. He was clear enough as to that; and having done up to this point all that a man could do, he jumped at the simple task imposed by Naomi, and threw himself into it with immense vigor and a lightened heart. As he dropped his first clothes-prop in the store veranda, Naomi and the housekeeper were still talking, though the latter was already huddled up in the saddle. When he got back with a second, both women were gone; with a third, Naomi was unlocking the store door; with the fourth and last, she had lit a candle inside, and was sawing one of the other props in two.

"That'll do," she said, as her saw ran through the wood. "Now hold this one up for me."

She pointed to another of the stout poles. She made him hold it with one end inside, and the other protruding through the opening. Then she made a mark on the prop at the level of the door, sawed it through at her mark, and cut down the other two in the same fas.h.i.+on. In less than five minutes the four poles had become eight, which c.u.mbered the floor within. Then Naomi rose from her knees, flung the saw back into the tool-box, and made a final survey with the candle. A few flakes of sawdust lay about the shallow veranda. She fetched a broom from a corner of the store and whisked them away. Then she removed the key to the inside, and was about to lock the door upon herself and Engelhardt when he suddenly stopped her.

"Hold on!" he cried. "I want your boots."

"My boots?"

"Yes, those you've got on--with the dust on 'em, just as they are. They must be left outside your door, and your door must be locked; you must keep the key."

Naomi gave him a grateful, an admiring smile.

"That _is_ a happy thought. I'll get it myself. While I'm gone you might fetch in the axe from the wood-heap; I'd almost forgotten it."

They ran off in different directions. Next minute they were both back in the store, Engelhardt with the axe. Naomi took it from him, and set it aside without a word. Her face was blanched.

"I heard something," she whispered. "I heard a cry. Oh, if they've seen me!"

"We'll lock the door as quietly as possible."