Chapter 20

INTO A TRAP.

When Buck and Winnie walked into the house, they walked into a trap, though the laying of a trap for them was not contemplated by Mr. Lee.

Encountering none of the servants, Winnie conducted Badger into the parlor.

"Merriwell will be here soon, I allow."

"We're not afraid of Merriwell!"

"Only thinking that you and I want to have this meeting all to ourselves. Then the servant that shows Merriwell up, if one does, may see us, and I calculate that I ain't hankering to meet up with any of your servants on this trip. None whatever!"

But Winnie was not disturbed.

"Father is going over to Hartford to-night on business," she laughed, laying aside the scarf and jacket. "I heard him say to the cook that he wouldn't return before to-morrow."

There was a certain exultant defiance in Badger's bearing that made him, in spite of his bulky, heavy shoulders and modern clothing, somewhat resemble some ancient knight ready to do battle for his "ladye fair." Winnie Lee observed it, and was pleased. The Westerner's devotion was so true that she felt rather proud of it And, indeed, Badger, in spite of his many faults, failings, and weaknesses, had some admirable traits of character.

All at once Winnie heard footsteps approaching the door of the parlor. She thought the steps were those of a servant, and blamed herself for not closing the door. Then a familiar form appeared in the doorway, and her cheeks grew white. Buck Badger looked up at the same moment, and his dark face flushed.

Fairfax Lee had changed his mind about going to Hartford! He had returned home, let himself into the house, and walked up-stairs. Seeing the light in the parlor, he had approached the door.

He was as much astonished as the lovers. For a moment not a word was spoken. Winnie seemed about to swoon, and Badger put a hand on her shoulder, as if to support her. Then Mr. Lee broke the silence, and stepped into the room.

"What is the meaning of this disobedience?" he sternly demanded, speaking to Winnie.

She staggered to her feet, trembling before him. Badger sprang up, erect and defiant.

"I thought you promised me that you would never meet him again?"

She did not answer.

He turned with flashing eyes on the Westerner.

"And I forbade you the house, sir!"

Badger wanted to take him by the throat.

"See here, Mr. Lee!" he said, in a voice that demanded a hearing. "I know you told me that I wasn't welcome in this house, and I reckon I know full well that I am not welcome. But that's no sign that I am going to stay out of it, as long as it shelters your daughter!"

"Winnie, you will go to your room!"

He advanced toward her, and she drew away from Badger. But she did not go toward the door. Her father stepped to her side.

"There is the door!" Lee commanded, addressing the Kansan.

"I see it," said Badger. "You don't need to show it to me!"

"Will you go out of it? Will you leave this house?" Fairfax Lee was panting with rage. "Get out of this room!" he cried.

Badger straightened his thick shoulders, and his broad, white teeth gleamed unpleasantly.

"Mr. Lee, you are Winnie's father, and because of that I shall pay no attention to your insults; but I tell you now, that you may understand it, that I love your daughter and intend to marry her!"

"By heavens, you never shall!"

"It may be a long trail, Mr. Lee, but there will be a home-coming at the end of it. I shall see her as often as I can, and I shall write to her when I can, and I shall marry her! I have promised to, and I'll do it!"

"Never speak to my daughter again!" Mr. Lee thundered, pointing Badger to the door.

"Good night, Winnie," said the Kansan, as he passed out. "There will be better days by and by."

Then he fairly reeled down the stairway, sick and giddy and almost gasping, yet shaking with rage against Fairfax Lee.

Badger waited in the vicinity of the house in a fever of impatience until Merriwell appeared. Though a more inauspicious time, seemingly, could not have been found, he had strong confidence in Frank's ability to aid him. It was a feeling which was invariably produced in the hearts of all.

He met Merriwell at some distance from the Lee residence, and drew him away for a talk, in which he acquainted him with what had taken place. Then Frank went on into the house, and the Westerner recommenced his vigil.

The interview which shortly followed between Frank and Mr. Lee was of an interesting and important character. Fortunately, Fairfax Lee had a very high opinion of Frank Merriwell. Otherwise he would not have heard him at all in behalf of Badger. Even as it was, he at first listened with nervous impatience, unwilling to believe that anything could be presented in the Westerner's behalf.

Merriwell went over the whole ground with great candor and frankness. He admitted that Badger was intoxicated when lured aboard the _Crested Foam_. But he asserted his belief that the Kansan was all right at heart. He laid stress also on the fact, which was now clearly understood by Fairfax Lee, that Winnie loved the Kansan; and he insisted that the latter had no real taste for liquor, but was driven into his debauch by a fit of jealousy.

"I will think over this," Lee promised. "As you say, I have no desire to be unjust; still less do I wish to be harsh beyond what is necessary. I once thought well of Badger. I can't say more now. His actions have seemed to me very low and very dishonorable."

The long interview ended with this. But Merriwell, not realizing that Badger was still waiting for him in wild anxiety, made a call on Inza and Elsie, which was so pleasant that it was much more protracted than he had intended it should be, and the hour grew late.

In the meantime, other things were hurrying events to a climax. Fairfax Lee had hastened home that night in fear of his life. Bill Gaston, once a useful political worker, who had been driven insane by his failure to secure an appointment he craved, and who the day before had been locked up for threatening Lee's life, had escaped and was at large. That the man was crazy there could be no doubt, and that he would shoot Lee on sight seemed just as certain.

Buck Badger, wandering like a restless spirit in the vicinity of the house, saw a man leap the fence and sneak toward a rear entrance. The man's general appearance and crouching attitude were like those of the crazed office-seeker whom Buck had once seen threatening Lee in that very place.

"After Lee again!" was Badger's conclusion. "I reckon I'd better camp on his trail. He said he would kill Lee, and that must be what he is up to!"

Thereupon, Badger also leaped the fence and slipped through the shadows in the direction taken by the man he supposed to be Gaston.

"Eh! what does that mean?"

Badger stopped stock-still. He saw several men beneath a window, which they had forced open. One man was being helped through.

"Can't be a band of assassins, I allow? More likely a lot of burglars trying to crack the crib."

The Westerner was right in his guess. These were not friends of Bill Gaston bent on assassination, but housebreakers, whose cupidity had been aroused by the fact, which had chanced to come to their knowledge, that a diamond brooch worth ten thousand dollars had recently been taken from the Lee residence. A crib which held such valuables seemed to them a good one to rip open, and they had obtained information that Fairfax Lee was expected to be away from home that night. They had found that most of the servants were out, too, and because of this it appeared safer to make the raid at an early hour, before the servants returned.

Badger stood in indecision in the shadows, wondering what course he ought to pursue. Before he could make up his mind, the first burglar had disappeared, and a second was being helped through the window. Two of the burglars--there were four or five of them, as Badger could see--were to wait outside, while their pals on the inside made their search for valuables.

Suddenly there came a cry for help from within the house, followed by the sounds of a struggle. Fairfax Lee, unable to sleep and wandering as restlessly about within the house as the Westerner had upon the outside, had come unexpectedly upon the first burglar at the upper landing of the rear stairway. The burglar looked so marvelously like the crazy office-hunter, Bill Gaston, that Lee believed him to be Gaston, and that Gaston had invaded the house for purposes of assassination.

Though Lee had dreaded a meeting with Gaston, and would have gone far out of his way to avoid anything of the kind, he was by no means a coward. He expected a shot from Gaston's pistol, and to prevent this, he hurled himself on the burglar with a suddenness and boldness that took the latter by surprise.

The cry for help did not come from the lips of Fairfax Lee, but from those of the burglar. Badger, however, fancied that the call had come from Lee. Without waiting to consider the danger, or to ask himself how he was to account for his presence in the grounds and in the house, Buck Badger ran toward the open window.

As he did so, he saw two of the other burglars leap through. They were going to the assistance of their pal. Then a shot sounded.

Badger crossed the intervening distance at a sprinting pace, and found himself suddenly confronted by the burglar who was still on guard at the window. A pistol gleamed in the dim light. Badger knocked it aside, struck the man a blow that would have felled an ox, and went through the window with a flying leap that took him to the foot of the stairway.

He saw the two burglars on the stairs near the top. One held a dark-lantern and the other a heavy jimmy. Above, the sounds of the fight continued, and the burglar attacked by Lee was still bawling for help.

Fairfax Lee felt that he was fighting for his life, and he still believed that he was fighting Bill Gaston. He did not hear the burglars on the stairs. He was trying to get the supposed Bill Gaston by the throat and choke him into subjection. The burglar's shot, fired almost pointblank at Lee, had done him no injury, and now the weapon was on the floor.

"Help!" bellowed the burglar.

He got his throat free, but he could not throw off those clutching hands. Visions of striped clothing and prison officials loomed before him, for he had once done time. His anxious ears heard what Lee did not--the calls of the ruffians who were hurrying to his assistance--and he fought like a tiger.

Buck Badger went up the stairway in quick leaps. If the burglars heard him, they must have fancied he was the guard left at the window, for they did not look round. But before the Kansan could reach the upper landing, the three scoundrels were on Lee.

"Clip him on der head!" one of them growled. "Don't use yer barker--too much noise! Hit him wid der jimmy. All der cops in New Haven will be in dis crib in a minute!"

Fairfax Lee was still putting up a stiff fight, and the jimmy flashed in the air. Before it could descend, Buck Badger flung himself into the midst of them, with the impetuous leap of a mountain-lion. The man with the uplifted jimmy went down before a blow from the Kansan's fist, and the other was hurled aside. The burglar that Lee had been fighting tore himself loose and turned toward Badger and the stairway. Then the Westerner heard the ominous click of a revolver. These burglars, like all of their craft, were ready to do murder if it seemed necessary.

Lee tripped the burglar with the revolver, and the shot went into the floor. The other burglar was coming up the stairway with tremendous leaps. The house seemed to be arousing. Badger heard a woman scream.

"Kill him!" was panted by one of the villains.

Then the jimmy descended, and though the Westerner tried to knock the blow aside, his arm was beaten down, and the jimmy fell on his head with crushing force. Badger's head seemed to split open under that blow, and a blur of blood and mistiness followed. He felt himself reeling and sinking, with his feet slipping on the stairway, toward which he had fallen. Then he dropped like an ox in the shambles.

But before complete unconsciousness came, he heard the shout of a well-known voice--the voice of Frank Merriwell!

Merriwell came upon the scene from a corridor, having been drawn by the calls and the pistol-shots, and with marvelous quickness and certainty grasped the whole intent of what he beheld.

Fairfax Lee struck aside the revolver that was pointed at Frank, and again began to call for help. The next instant Merriwell was in the thick of the fight. Though no man could have understood his peril more perfectly, there was at that moment in Merriwell's heart a wild thrill of joy. He laughed as he struck at the nearest ruffian--a laugh that sounded strangely out of place.

The blow fell with crushing force, and the ruffian tumbled backward against the wall. Before Merriwell could turn, two of the other three ruffians were on his back. One had drawn a knife and the other had the jimmy. The remaining burglar was on the stairs, and was lifting a revolver. Merriwell lunged toward him, and the man, instead of firing, lost his footing, and went tumbling down the steps.

Inasmuch as he had a revolver, he seemed the most dangerous, and Frank leaped after him, dragging with him the scoundrels who were trying to strike him from behind. But the terrible fall knocked the breath out of the burglar, and he slid helplessly on down the stairway, letting the revolver go bumping and clattering to the floor below. Merriwell wheeled with lightning quickness to meet the man with the threatening jimmy.

Badger seemed to be slipping down the stairway, also. Then Frank saw him lift himself and try to stagger to his feet. Without taking further note of this, Merriwell promptly closed with the other burglar on the stairs.

"Shoot him, Bill!" the fellow cried, to his pal above.

But that worthy, believing that "he who fights and runs away may live to fight another day," was making tracks for the nearest window, intending to leap to the ground.

The burglar who had closed with Frank, endeavored to trip him, with the result that he was himself shot over Frank's head, and went to the bottom of the stairs at a flying leap, bowling over his pals, who were trying to get on their feet and pull themselves together. Merriwell caught the stairway rail, down which he slid almost as quickly. His hand closed on the revolver which had fallen to the floor; and, with it cocked and leveled, he wheeled, facing the men, who, swearing horribly, were again trying to gain their feet.

"Surrender!" he sharply called.

The answer was an oath.

"Surrender, or by the gods of war I'll drop you one and all right where you are! Up with your paws!"

They knew he meant it, and there was no escape. The next moment the three burglars at the foot of the stairs put up their hands in token of submission.

* * * * *

Badger sat in his room. His bandaged head ached painfully, but in his heart there was a glow of pleasure. The surgeon had told him that he would be all right in a day or two, and he had just received a note from Winnie Lee.

"Dear Buck," it read, "I have had a long talk with father. He says that both you and Merriwell fought like heroes, and that your prompt appearance on the scene no doubt saved his life. In spite of this, though, he is not willing that I shall receive calls from you. But I can see that his opposition is not nearly so strong as it was, and I have hopes that it will soon disappear altogether. Father says that the burglars which Merriwell captured will no doubt be sent to State's prison. Thank Frank for me for his great favor in speaking to father for you, as he did--for I can see that father's change toward you is due more to Frank's talk than to your fight, brave as that was. I will meet you as often as I can, Buck, and I will send you a note every day. And we will be true to each other always, in spite of father's opposition. Your sweetheart, WINNIE."

"There never was any girl truer!" muttered the Kansan, as he read and reread the note. "That's whatever! She is true as steel! But," he continued, "how can I thank Merriwell for his part in the affair? He pulled me through, all right, and there's no mistaking that fact."

Hardly had he uttered these words, than a knock came at the door. "Come in," said Buck--and in walked Frank himself!

"Well, I'm glad to see you," said Buck, "and that's whatever! I want to know how I can thank you for what you've done for me in this affair, in going to Winnie's father in the way you did."

A gleam came into Frank's eyes as he sat there, and a smile played on his lips.

"My dear fellow," he said finally, "I don't want any reward from you or any one else for what I do, by way of helping them out. I do the best I can in that respect--the same as you or anyone else would do--and that's reward enough for me--a clear conscience! Thanks, all the same, Buck."