CHAPTER XXIX.

THE INSURGENTS.

While Nick Carter and his two assistants were waiting for the motor car that was to take them up to the Milmarsh home ahead of the crowd of angry purchasers of Paradise City property there was increasing wrath among the men and women following Bonesy Billings.

“We’ll burn the place down over his head!” yelled one frantic woman, who had given up every cent her late husband had left her to make a payment on Paradise City. “Any man who would rob a poor widow ain’t fit to live.”

“Kill him first and burn down the house with his carcass in it!” screamed another feminine voice.

“Louden Powers! He’s the one!” roared a big man.

“He ain’t no worse than Andrew Lampton!” declared another.

“Kill Howard Milmarsh! He’s the worst!” shrieked the woman who had spoken first—the widow. “If he had any of the goodness of his father in him, he couldn’t have done it.”

“What are we waitin’ for, Bonesy?” demanded a man nearly as big as himself, who acted as a sort of lieutenant. “Ain’t we goin’ right up there?”

“Yes, but we want to know what we’re goin’ to do when we’re there,” returned Billings. “Things has to be did reg’lar an’ up to the handle. These mugs we’re goin’ to see is mighty slick. Don’t forget that.”

“Ain’t slick enough to rob us!” shouted the widow.

“They’ve did it already,” cried the other woman.

“Yes, but we’re goin’ to get our money back, an’ take it out of ’em by lickin’ ’em, too,” growled a man who had not spoken heretofore.

“If you guys will keep still a minute, I’d like to address the meeting,” announced Bonesy Billings, somewhat pompously.

“Good ol’ Bonesy!” enthusiastically shouted a young fellow in the background. “Let him spiel!”

“Shut up!” ordered Bonesy ungraciously. “This here ain’t your put-in nohow.”

“Scuse me!” rejoined the other, with a sarcastic inflection that he would not have dared to employ if he’d been nearer the powerful Billings. “It was in my nut that I had the floor. Scuse me!”

Bonesy Billings cast a look of disgust in the direction of the rather “fresh” young man in the rear. Then he cleared his throat for a speech, with a loud and impressive “Hem!”

“Feller citizens—an’ ladies!” he began. “It has been decided that we has all been soaked good an’ hard by the mugs what is up in that house on the hill—the same as is knowed by all on us as the Milmarsh mansion.”

“Good stuff!” interrupted the irrepressible man at the back of the gathering.

“I’ll come over an’ paste you in the jaw if you don’t shut up!” menaced Billings. Then, resuming his oratorical tone, he continued: “We have tried to get satisfaction at the office in N’ York, an’ we’ve been told ev’rything will come out all right, though we can see it won’t. The fellers at the office has beat it for parts unknown, an’ what have we?”

“Swamp!” cried the regular interrupter at the back.

“That’s right,” agreed Billings. “It is jest swamp, an’ sech swamp you couldn’t dry it out in a million years, nor fill it in, nuther. As for buildin’ houses there, it couldn’t be did. Yet we’ve paid out our good money for this here swamp land, an’ now the guys that beat us out of our coin is laughin’ at us. What are we goin’ to do about it?”

“Kill ’em!” shouted the widow.

“With hatpins,” added the other woman.

“We ain’t goin’ to take chances on the ’lectric chair—unless they make us,” returned Billings. “But we are goin’ right into the house an’ demand our money back. If we don’t git it, then we will——”

Bonesy Billings flourished a long, powerful arm, and there was a bludgeon in his grip.

There could be no doubt as to what he intended. His hard face was set, and he meant business.

He did not continue his harangue. He looked over the stern faces of his followers, and he knew that they would stand by him to the end. They felt that they had suffered the worst kind of injustice and that no punishment would be too great for the men guilty of it.

It was only about a week before that suspicion began to ripen into conviction. There had been mumblings among those who could not get to see the places they had bought. They wanted to know what they had to show for their money besides the gaudy “certificates” that had been issued by the Paradise City Improvement Company.

There were no real signatures on the certificates. Such names as were there had not been written. They were facsimiles of signatures that no one recognized. Neither “Powers,” “Lampton,” or “Howard Milmarsh” were among them. This omission had been pointed out in the meetings that had been held. Bonesy Billings laid particular stress on this. He also had his eye on other details which did not appeal to him as sound.

For example, he had known the young man who lay in Universal Hospital very well, and had liked him. To Billings he was known as Bob Gordon. But Billings knew that Bessie Silvius and her father, old Roscoe Silvius, declared that he was really Howard Milmarsh. If this Bob Gordon could only tell what he knew, it might straighten out the Paradise City affair. Billings could not see how anybody else had a right to the name of Howard Milmarsh and to sell land belonging to the estate.

He turned to look again at his followers. He had taken his place on a large stump at the side of the road when he made his speech, and he was still there when he decided to send forth a last word of direction and warning.

“It’s near two mile up to the front door of the Milmarsh house,” he told them in his stentorian tones. “You’d better walk in reg’lar double formation—that is, two by two. Me an’ Kid Plang,” indicating his stalwart lieutenant, “will lead. Keep yer lamps on us, an’ be ready to take orders as I give ’em. We’ve got to have discerpline if we’re goin’ to git anywhere. Don’t fail to remember that there. Forward! March!”

Steadily the double column moved on. The road was smooth, and, though it was uphill, no one seemed to mind it. All were keyed up for action, and thought only of obtaining recompense for what they paid out and suffered as the result of what, they were now convinced, was nothing but a heartless fraud.

Up the winding carriage drive they marched, and soon were gathered on the wide porch in front of the tall, forbidding-looking house.

Every window was closed and protected by sun blinds. The outer door, which usually stood open, was also closed. There were no signs of life to be seen.

Yet Bonesy Billings was convinced that there were eyes behind those sun blinds which had taken careful note of their approach. He knocked at the door with his knuckles at the same time that his lieutenant, Kid Plang, rang the electric bell again and again.

For several minutes there was no response. Then suddenly a voice hailed them from above, and they saw that Andrew Lampton was at an open window at the third-story.

“What do you want, gentlemen?” he asked suavely.

“Ah, can that ‘gentlemen’ stuff!” shouted the lieutenant. “We want to come in for a conference.”

“What about?”

“You know what about well enough,” roared Bonesy Billings. “Where’s Howard Milmarsh?”

“He’s here. But he is not saying anything. I’ll do the talking—if there is to be any.”

“Well, you can bet there’s going to be talking! We want our money back that’s been paid for those plots in Paradise City.”

“You do? Why?”

“Because the whole thing is a swindle!” replied Billings. “That’s why!”

“You’re mistaken. Paradise City is there, and as soon as Howard Milmarsh has settled certain details connected with the estate, buildings will go up and you will all have the homes, as agreed.”

“We’re coming in,” declared Billings doggedly. “We can’t talk business standin’ out here.”

“You can’t come in. Mr. Milmarsh would not care to have so many people walking over his carpets and rugs. I’ve told you all there is to tell. Now I’ll say good morning!”

A clod of earth was hurled by somebody in the crowd. It smashed itself against the wall, by the side of the window, not more than a foot from Andrew Lampton’s head. He drew it in quickly, closing the window.

“Give him another!” screamed the widow. “Send a stone up there and smash the glass. He’s only tryin’ to put us off.”

“Shet up!” ordered Billings. “I’m runnin’ this thing. Don’t nobody chuck anything at the house unless I tell you to.”

Billings was so big, and his habit of having his own way gave him such command, that several men who had taken stones from their pockets they had picked up on the way put them back.

“What are we goin’ to do, Bonesy?” asked Kid Plang, in a low tone.

“We’ll rush that front door if somebody don’t come out and give us satisfaction,” replied Bonesy. “Look! There’s somebody else at the window. Wait a moment, and let’s see what he’s goin’ to do.”

It was Louden Powers this time. He opened the window at which Lampton had appeared, and called out sharply:

“Look here, you people! There’s nothing to be made by your coming up here making a disturbance.”

“We’re not making a disturbance,” interrupted Billings. “We want to see Mr. Milmarsh.”

“You can’t see him. Is that all?”

“No; it isn’t all by a jugful!” snapped back Bonesy Billings, trying to hold back his wrath. “We’ve been beaten on this Paradise City deal, and we are goin’ to find out what Howard Milmarsh means to do about it.”

“I can tell you that,” replied Powers. “He is going to see that every one gets what is right. There is no reason for you to say you have been beaten. You have not. Paradise City is all right—that is, it will be.”

“We want to see Howard Milmarsh,” repeated Billings resolutely.

“You can’t see him. And if you don’t get away from here and go back to where you came from, there’s going to be a lot of arrests and some clubbing, most likely. We’ve telephoned the police, and they’ll soon be here.”

With this threat, Louden Powers suddenly pulled the outside sun blinds shut, and directly afterward Billings and his followers heard the window come down with a slam.

“Well, boys! There’s only one thing to be done now. The front door, and—altogether!”