Part 11

"Ha-ha, Pede!" says I when I got back, "I fooled you!"

"By one eench!" says he, looking at my hat.

"Inch is as good as a mile, and that cussed noise is stopped for a while, anyhow."

A stone rattled back of us.

"Look to the doors, quick!" says Pedro.

We hopped to our places.

"Many coming down the hill!" says Gonzales.

It wasn't that I had scared or impressed my friends by my oration that they hadn't shot further; no, they simply took advantage of the opportunity to work a sneak on us from behind. I call that low-down. Howsomever, it didn't matter what I called it. They were at our back door, knocking hard.

Skipping gaily from tree to rock, they was full as well sheltered as we. Worst of all, when the store was built, the stones from the cellar had been placed in a row behind--not fifteen feet from the back door. There was no way under heaven we could keep them from lining up behind that stone wall, and hitting us all in a lump when they got ready.

We shut and barricaded the front door. That side of the store must take care of itself. We simply had to put all hands to meet the rush.

In a few minutes, stones, clubs, and a few shots fell on the front of the store, to draw us--this was the other lads, not the soldiers. Gonzales made a quick move, fired half a dozen shots in that direction, and then came back.

A white handkerchief on a stick waved behind the wall.

"We wish to talk!" said a voice.

"Talk later, we're busy now!" says Pedro.

"We shall spare your lives, if you yield the store. We only wish to destroy this because it belongs to Holton, who supports the iniquitous, the government that now is. On our word of honor, you shall live, if you yield the store."

"Well," whispered Pedro to us, "what do you say?"

"Tell him the fortune-teller fooled him," says I.

"Tell him to go to hell," says Gonzales.

"It is a trick," says the other man.

"So think I," says Pedro. He called aloud: "We are large healthy men. To make us live is necessary we have more than your word of honor--do not play further, cowards that you are! The store you may have when we give it to you. We will kill you all--all!"

All four of us yelled and hooted at 'em. We were strung tight now. Thirty-odd men ready to climb at you, fifteen feet away, thirty or forty more all ready to whack at you from behind, takes the slack out.

There was just one second of hush, and then hell bu'st her b'iler. Lord! Lord! Of all the banging and yelling and smashing you ever did hear! Noise enough for Gettysburg. They come at us from all around. We scrambled like monkeys, shooting; jumping elsewhere; shooting again--zip, zip, zip--fast as you could clap your hands. They bored in so they could hammer on the door. I was helping there until I heard a crash from my window, and saw a head coming in. I caved that head with my rifle-barrel and fired into a swarm over the remains. They fired right back again; lead sung like a bees' nest. Flame and smoke spurted out all over. You couldn't see any more in the store. I snapped at the crowd until I found there was no results, my magazine being empty; and, there scarcely being time to load, I poked 'em with the muzzle. In the middle of this razzle-dazzle come another crash and a flood of light. I saw the front door down; men tumbling through the opening.

I screeched to the other boys, grabbed cans of tomatoes, and pasted the heap. It sounds like a funny weapon, but I want you to understand that when an arm like mine heaves a quart can of tomatoes at you, some little time will pass before you see the joke. I hit one man under the nose and lifted him three feet.

I followed this up with a box in one lump, clubbed my rifle, and lit into 'em. It was then that one of our boys shot me in the leg by mistake. You couldn't tell what you were doing. It was all a mess of noise and lunacy. The leg-shot brought me to my knees and the gang atop. I worked lively before I was free. Somehow I got a knife--I'll never tell for sure how, nor when. But at last I was loose with a crowd in front looking at me and calling for guns.

"Beel, Beel! Help!" called Pedro. How was I to help? The moment I turned my back that outfit would swarm in.

It was all over. I heard Gonzales curse above all the other noises. And then, as I stood there, sick, knowing I must drop in a minute, I saw a change on the faces in front of me. Things were swimming considerable and I smiled at my own foolishness. I must have lost sight for a second, for when I saw again, the crowd was leaving, tight as they could pelt.

As I gracefully put my ear in a spittoon, I heard a tremendous firing, and the next minute, through the doorway, beheld the soles of barefooted soldiers' feet.

Somebody shook me by the shoulders. I came out of dreamland long enough to see Pedro with the tears running down his face. "Beel!" he screamed; "Beel! by the mercy of God, it is Senor Holton with men!"

Then his voice changed. "What ees eet? You are hurt, no?"

"No," says I. "I just wanted to listen to the spittoon."

I reckon that joke was too much for me, in my condition. It takes a strong man to stand the wear of things like that. Anyhow, my next appearance in active life found me all bandaged up neat as a Sailors' Home, and a very nice-looking gentleman holding my wrist with one hand, with a glass of truck to throw into me in the other, and Jim was swearing a prayer to the doctor not to let me go.

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of going anywhere," says I, to relieve his mind. "What are you laughing at? I wasn't."

"That's right, Bill," says Jim, taking my hand. "Just stay right here."

The doctor fed me something that I felt clear down to my toes, still keeping his hand on the wrist.

"Good!" says he. "The effect of shock is over--it's only the lost blood now--he must have lost a gallon, from his appearance."

"Durn careless of me," says I, still hazy. "But what in thunder am I doing here? What's all this about?"

"Lie down, Bill," says Jim. "You have three knife-cuts and four bullet-holes in you."

"I have?" says I, rousing up. "Well, then, why didn't I holler for water?"

"You did," says Jim.

"There, there!" says the doctor. "No more talk! Lie still, young man, and sleep, if you can."

It was two days later when I got particulars. Seems I was out of my head for four hours, and like to die any minute; that I had a hole in the lower leg, another in the hip, a streak across the top of my head, and a bullet in the shoulder. Also a slash across the right hand, and another on the right forearm, and a stab in the same upper arm. I suppose that was during the hand-to-hand at the window and the door. I have a faint memory of getting the knife by pulling it out of my own arm. But the bullet-holes knocked me. I don't remember getting shot at all--only a dizziness when one man fired in my face. I guess that was the streak across the head.

I was the star performer. The other boys drew a couple of holes apiece or so. Gonzales wasn't even laid up, though Pedro had his arm shattered.

Well, they kept me quiet, although I was crazy to talk. At the third day I demanded food, instead of swill. The doctor looked troubled and shook his head.

"See here, Doc," says I, "how am I going to manufacture good new blood, without the raw material? Just let me have a half-a-dozen eggs and a hunk of bacon and a loaf of bread, and I'll do credit to you."

He snorted at the idea, but I begged so hard he says at last: "Well, all right; you are the toughest piece of humanity I ever struck; maybe it _will_ do you good."

When I got outside that first square meal, William De La Tour Saunders felt less naked and ashamed inside of him, and proceeded to get better a mile a minute.

The fourth day I could sit up and hear Jim tell me all about it.

He had found a feller in the camp preaching revolution. For some time this had been expected. It was known that a General Zampeto was setting up for President, and it was also known that Belknap was backing him, although he took great care not to be mixed in it by name. But Zampeto and Belknap had fooled our crowd plenty, by being all ready for action when it was supposed they were just starting in.

When Jim caught and thumped that first revolutionist, he tumbled at once that things were about to boil, so he flew for help. His camp was a sort of turning-point. The two sides were about evenly divided as to forces, and, as Jim worked nearly three hundred men, it meant a great deal which side they fought on.

Jim's men were mainly peaceful, quiet fellows, like Gonzales and that other feller--(Pepe something-or-other--I don't know as I ever learned his full name)--and Jim had great authority with them. If the rebels smashed Jim on the start, his men would fall in on the winning side, or at worst remain neutral. Neither Zampeto nor Jim had the least idea they'd fight hard--it was just the moral effect of it, and then, too, the supplies in the store were valuable.

Jim could have rounded up enough of the boys to lick the hide off this gang of rebels, if it wasn't, as I said, that, knowing 'em to be nice quiet lads, like Pedro, he felt sure they'd quit in a mess. "And never will I be such a fool as that again," says Jim. "I knew you'd give 'em war, but to think of Pedro! I told him to run and save himself!"

Our boys, being scattered and without a leader, simply had to submit to being chased out of the country. Chance led Gonzales and Pepe to fly to the store.

So much for us. No one knew what was doing in Panama. The country was full of rebels around us, and Jim found himself too busy gathering an army to ride to town and see.

He finally had some three or four hundred men, armed after a fashion, that he drilled from morning till night.

And here was I, stuck in bed! Doc wouldn't let me try the game leg, although I felt sure it would hold me.

"You stay there till I tell you," says he, "and then you'll get up and be useful; if you try now, you'll only go back again to be a nuisance to your friends."

He put it that way to make it a cinch I'd stay. Nobody ever was kinder than him and the rest. Each day some one was with me to play cards, or checkers, or talk. Old Jim couldn't do enough for me. I think he'd spent all his time in the house if it wasn't that he must take hold outside. "Boy, I know what you did for me," he said. "There ain't no use talking about it between us, but what I have is yours."

Just the same, I _knew_ that leg was all right, so one day, when I found myself alone, I got up to walk to the water-pail. I laid down on the floor so hard I near bu'sted my nose. "Guess I don't want any drink," thinks I. "I'll go to bed, instead." I couldn't make that, neither. My arms only held me for a second, then they sprung out at the elbow. I sweat and swore at the cussed contraptions that wouldn't work. Tears of rage come free and fast. Them arms and legs of mine had served me so long, I couldn't believe they'd gone back on me like that, and I was so ashamed to have the doctor come and ketch me that I flew into a fit, foamin' and fumin' and snarlin' like a trapped bear.

It was then the doctor entered on the scene. What he said was never intended to be repeated. Lord save us! He put my case in juicy words!

"Now, you red-headed young fool!" says he, as he rolled me in bed, "I want you to understand I'd beat your head off, if you were a well man, for this trick!" He shook his fist under my nose. "Wait till you get up!" says he.

"Ain't I?" says I, feeling good-natured once more to see him in such a wax. "Ain't I waiting?"

"I won't talk to you!" says he, and slams himself out of the room.

XVI

RED PLAYS TRUMPS

Things went fast before I was around again. Jim met five hundred men sent out by Zampeto to clear the country, and killed or captured every man of 'em. The prisoners he penned close, but fed well, to teach 'em white ways.

Then he sent deceiving messengers back to Zampeto, to report how well the rebel army was doing. Victory kept perching on her standard till it was near worn out. But, all the same, another detachment, working to the east, to unite further south with the first body and sweep back toward the capital, would do excellently. The detachment was sent by Zampeto and gobbled the same as before. More victories were reported to the home rebel government, and assurances given that with another body, the three could descend on that part of the city held by Perez and Orinez and crush it between their forces. Once more did Zampeto approve, to his bad fortune. And this did him up. It was all over with Belknap, Zampeto & Co., except the actual capture of their part of the town. They held Santa Ana and the church, the time-respected custom with revolutions.

Zampeto must have been a plumb fool. I saw him afterward--a fat, pompous man with a rolling, glaring eye. If Belknap had been able to step in, in person, we shouldn't have had a walk over; but while Zampeto was agreeable to advice in the beginning, he soon suffered from _cabeza grande_, which swell-headed state Jim's reports of victories raised to a fearful size, and Belknap could do nothing with him.

His losses were tremendous for that country, and there he sat at home, serene in the belief of a conqueror! We had a cinch. Not a thing to do but chase them out of their holes!

I had my plans concerning Saxton and Mary, so Jim held the final attack on the city until I was able to ride. Then he sent word to Perez and our army started--not in mass, because somebody in the rebel army might have sense enough to scout a little, but by fives and tens, slipping along back ways and short cuts until Belknap and Zampeto were surrounded on the outside by two to one, and faced by an equal force in numbers, and a far superior in courage and ability, from within.

I got Orinez and Perez to help me in the last act. We three wormed our way into the rebel town, early one morning, lying quiet in a cellar until evening came. Strange to say, the night before, Saxton met with an accident. I was handling a revolver and it went off, somehow or other, and burnt him across the back. "Christopher Columbus, Bill!" says he, "what a careless cuss you are! You've put me out of commission!" Gracious, but I was sorry! Yet, being the guilty party, I couldn't see where with decency I might do less than carry the word to Mary. That's one reason why we went into the rebels' camp. The other had to do with Belknap. He was easily capable of explaining things to his own credit, as long as he did all the talking. Now I wanted a hand in the conversation. We hid in the trees back of the fountain. Soldiers came and went. Zampeto himself, looking like a traveling jewelry-store, made a visit, but all hands were so secure in the belief of the wonderful success of the cause that they never suspected the existence of three enemies in the same garden--or even in the same one hundred square miles, for the matter of that. At last we saw Belknap; he came to the door with Zampeto. Behind him we saw the women-folk. One looked like Mary, but I couldn't be sure. Every time she moved somebody stuck his head in the way. At last Zampeto dropped something, and as he stooped to pick it up, I saw Mary plainly. She looked thin and worn, poor girl. Certain that both were in the house, I made a quick sneak across to the kitchen window, up the shutters, and in at a window on the second floor. Mary had told me the room Belknap kept as his private office. It was that window I went in.

I heard my man's heavy step in the hall, as I gathered myself. I heard Mary's voice answer him in a sad and lifeless tone. "I hope it will soon be over--it seems terrible, terrible! Although the end may be good." I heard her door shut, and, Belknap coming again, I got my gun ready, put on a bashful expression, and waited. I do not lie when I say that Mr. Belknap was astonished to find me in his private room. That expression was one of the few honest ones it had been my privilege to see upon his face.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, savage.

"Why, I only came to speak to Mary--to tell her about Mr. Saxton," I stammered, shyly, knowing that Saxton's name would wake him up.

"What about Saxton?" he asked, putting his wicked eye on me.

"Why, I want to tell Mary--I don't like to say--"

"What!" he said, dropping the sound of his voice still further and sending the meaning of it high. "What? You come into my room and won't answer my questions?" He took a quick cat-like step toward me. I saw I had a lively man to deal with, and, weak as I was, it stood me in hand to get ready. "There was a letter," I mumbled, reaching in my pocket for my gun. With my hand on that, I changed my mind. "I guess I oughtn't to let you have it, Mr. Belknap," I said.

He got gray around the mouth. "Give me that letter!" says he, in his strained whispering. "Give it to me, or, so help me God, I'll kill you where you stand."

I jumped back, terrified. "You wouldn't hurt me?" I gasped. "I shouldn't give you the letter, sir; it was intended for Mary--please don't hurt me! I've been sick!"

He drew a knife. "If you do not instantly hand me that letter," he says, and he meant every word of it, "I shall put this in your heart."

That was the justification I needed. It's queer, but I never saw a man who didn't have to have an excuse. Belknap had _his_, I reckon.

We stood there, me quivering with fear, and his bad light eyes murderous on me, while slowly, slowly, I drew out ... my gun.

"Now," whispers I, "you petrified hunk of hypocrisy, I've got you! Hand me that knife!"

He couldn't understand. He just stared. "Hand me that knife!" says I, letting what I felt become apparent. He passed over the knife. With all his faults, he was too smart a man not to know the fix he was in. Yet I thought I'd clinch it.

"Mr. Belknap," says I, "your goose is cooked. The government army is right outside, as your people could have seen, if they'd had the wit of a mud-turtle. I've come into your lines prepared to do anything necessary, as you can readily imagine. We're going to have a little play-acting now, and you're to guess your part. If you guess wrong--Well, heaven has missed you for some time, and she sha'n't be defrauded any longer."

His eyes flickered with fury. He couldn't have said a word to save him.

"Understand," I whispers, "a crooked move and--_adios_!"

He understood. I kicked a table over and scuffled with my feet as if there was a row, then lay down on the floor, where I could watch my man, and yelled quietly for help. Orinez's head showed at the window. I signaled him, and he lay behind the shutter with his artillery trained on Belknap, the virtuous.

"Don't cause me the great grief, Senor," he whispers. Belknap turned and, seeing him, the life went out of his face.

I hadn't yelled loud enough to alarm the house. Only Mary's quick feet responded to the call.

She, too, was a trifle surprised to find me lying on the floor in Belknap's room.

"Save me, Mary!" I cried. "Save me!"

What's a little foolish pride when your friend's good is at stake? Yet it hurt to do that.

"Why, Will! Mr. Belknap!" she cried, astonished. "Whatever is the matter? What does this mean?"

"I came to see you, Mary," I said, almost crying, "and Mr. Belknap threatened to kill me."

"To kill _you_, Will?" she said, in a voice that rang like a man's. "To _kill_ you?"

"Yes," I said piteously. "And I'm not fit to fight him--I've been hurt--see my head, where I've been shot." I tore open my shirt sleeve. "See the cuts! and the bullet holes!"

"Oh, poor boy! poor, poor boy!" she said in such loving pity that I felt a skunk and had a mind to chuck the game. But it was out of my hands now. Mary sprang up and faced Belknap, so strong, graceful, and daring in her rage that I forgot my job in admiring her.

"Explain!" she said.

Belknap opened his mouth. Outside sounded a little click--like a creak in the shutter-hinge. No words came.

The blood flamed in her face. "Have you _nothing_ to say to me, sir? I shall ask you once more what this poor wounded boy has done to you, that you propose to kill him?"

You never saw an uglier mug than Belknap's in all your days, as it appeared then. Ordinarily, although I hate to say it, he was a fine-looking man, but now his face was so twisted he looked like the devil in person. And still he said nothing. He had plenty good reason not to.

At this, Mary went at him. "I thought you a good man--a wise man," she said, with a bitter quiet that burnt, in every word. "You are a cowardly scoundrel. Attack the boy if you dare. I think I am a match for such as you."

And so help me John Rodgers, if she didn't catch up the heavy ruler from his desk and stand ready for him!

If I had the least remaining pity for Belknap, the look he threw at her finished it. He would have struck her if he could. I know it. The man was nothing but a rotten mess of selfishness.

"Bah!" says she, throwing down the ruler with disgust. "I am making much out of little. You are not worth notice."

She turned to me, all womanly gentleness and pity.

"Never mind, Will dear," she said. "You are safe, he dare not touch you. What was it you risked your life to tell me?"

"Mary," I said, speaking very slowly, to make it sound its worst. "Arthur--is--shot."

She acted as if she was, too. I caught her just in time. She hung so for a moment, not fainting, but as lifeless.

"Now," she said, scarcely above a breath--"now, when I have just begun to see, it comes! And I have myself to thank for it."

She was so white it frightened me; besides, things were everlastingly sliding along with Bill.

"Oh, he's not _dead_!" I explained, quickly. "He mayn't even be badly hurt, but I felt sure you wanted to know."

Then the tears came. "Want to know?" she sobbed. "Of course I want to know. Oh, what a fool of a woman I've been! And to think of your coming to tell me at the risk of your life! I haven't deserved it! Where is Arthur? Can we go there? Can we go, Will? You don't believe he'll die? He mustn't! He can't!"

Last I saw of Saxton he was chuckling merrily over the doctor's mistake concerning the value of aces up. Unless he'd changed his mind in the meanwhile, he hadn't the remotest intention of dying.

"It's dodging through the lines, Mary, to get to him--risky."

She waved my objection off with an impatient hand, dried her eyes, and made ready.

"Come with me until I get some things together," she said, practical, in spite of her fire. I do sure like that combination.

"I'll stay here," says I. "You won't hurt me now, will you, Mr. Belknap?" This I remarked in a very youthful, pleading tone.

He said, "No," after a struggle. It didn't sound like anything you ever heard from a human throat.

"I'll just stay here," I said. I wanted a word with the man. Mary looked doubtful for a moment, but at length left.

"Now, Belknap," says I, when she was safely in her room, and me almighty glad to be my own self again, "because you've been a friend of Mary's--that is, because she thought you were--you go free, if you wish. When we leave we'll send you back a man. Take my advice and go with him--don't get it into your fool head I'm working a plant on you this time. You can guess what your carcass will be worth when we take the city. Our men are due here in minutes."

He looked at me and ground his teeth--palsied with rage, shaking all over.

"Better do it," I said.

And then came testimony: far-off firing, and yells.

"Our boys are closing in," I told him. "That's them, now."

The firing grew heavier and then quit. The yells increased.

Another look flashed on his face--fear. For a while I think the bigger man in him determined to stick it out, but fear drew the pot.

The change grew.

"Of course," he said, "if I am to understand that you mean well by me--"

I cut him off.