Chapter V: Part 5

Softly falling back a couple of paces, he pointed his pistol towards the door, and fired. In the confined air of the closed room the report was deafening, and Pollard's ears rang merrily, when--taking it for granted that his visitors must be in full retreat--he sprang to open the door and put into execution the remaining part of his plan of operations. In clumsy haste he groped in the darkness for the key; but at that instant a shot rang out in the hall, and a bullet tore its way through the panel of the door and embedded itself in the opposite wall, making a most unexpected interruption in the programme that he had laid out for himself to follow.

"Stay where y' are--_d' yer hear?_--stay where y' are," commanded a hoarse voice from without, "while we're gettin' clear, or I'll blow yer blasted head off, yer--" here came a burst of abusive profanity that sent Pollard's blood to the boiling-point.

"All right; but get out lively!" said he, still keeping his hand upon the key, but swinging to one side in order to be out of direct range of the frail door. At the words, a second bullet came splintering through the wood, as if to give emphasis to the remarks which so had annoyed him, and then there followed a noisy rush of feet down the stairs.

Without an instant's hesitation Pollard wrenched open the door, jumped into the hall, and calling, "Up with your hands!" set ablaze the gas in the chandelier below. Midway of the stairs, as he stood in the shadow of the upper landing, he saw the two marauders, who had been checked in their flight by the unexpected burst of light.

"Come--_up with those hands!_" said Pollard sternly, levelling his weapon, "or I'll blow _your_ blasted--" but the sentence was left incomplete, for with cat-like swiftness one of the men turned and fired at him. But Pollard, heavily built though he is, can be quickness itself when occasion demands, and at the flash of the other's revolver his own weapon spoke sharply, sending a cruel bit of lead ploughing its way through flesh and sinew and bone. With a gasp of pain the man at whom he had fired reeled over against the balusters, and, as his shattered arm fell helplessly at his side, his smoking pistol dropped from his grasp and went clattering down the stairway.

"Have you got enough?" said Pollard, swinging over his weapon, and covering the unwounded burglar. "There's more of the same sort where that came from--if you want it!"

"_Don't shoot again!_" said the second man, throwing up his hands. "We give in!"

"Thereby showing more sense than you've shown yet," returned the barefooted master of the situation, coming forward a few steps. "Now, listen to me. Take your pal down to that big leather chair in the corner of the hall--and don't make any fatal mistake by trying to pick up that gun on the stairs!"

"And now," he went on, following the doleful procession downstairs, "get his coat off, and see how badly he's hit. Bone's broken, eh? H'm! that's pretty bad! Well, get to work to stop the bleeding; I'll tell you how," and under his directions the wounded arm was bandaged up in a rough, though effective fashion.

"And what'll I do with you _now_?" said Pollard reflectively, as he stood looking at the two crestfallen intruders. "What's that? 'I shot first!' Well, that's so; but I also shot last--and best. It's no use; I've got to turn you over, much as I dislike to do it."

Here there came heavy footsteps upon the porch outside, followed by a sharp pull at the door-bell, and Pollard, keeping one eye upon his two bad men, edged to the door and opened it.

"Come in," he said politely, as he caught the glitter of a policeman's buttons; "come in; but don't feel obliged to club me. In fact, you needn't club anybody; the row's all over, and we're all friends here."

"I'd have been here sooner," said the panting patrolman, reaching into his pocket for his handcuffs, "only when I heard the shooting I ran to the box, and rang in the wagon-call. The team'll be along in a minute. Well, you've done a good job here, sir, and I guess you didn't need much help about it, judging by the looks of things."

"No, I suppose I didn't," admitted Pollard, shivering slightly as the damp air of the early morning found its way through the thin, white garment which modestly draped the upper portion of his person; "I daresay I didn't; but ten minutes ago, all the same, I wouldn't have refused a small amount of assistance Br-r-r! Chilly, isn't it? If you'll stay here and entertain my guests for me, I'll run upstairs for a minute and throw on some more cloth."

Stooping to pick up the burglar's revolver, which still lay where it had fallen upon the stairs, he ran up to his room, struck a light, and without bothering over the matter of hosiery, slipped on his shoes. Then he struggled into his warm, military coat, lighted a cigar, and descended to the hall, just in time to hear the rapid beat of hoofs and the crunching sound of wheels that told of the patrol-wagon's approach.

In a few minutes more all was over; Pollard had told his story to the officers and the few excited neighbors who had ventured out to investigate the cause of the tumult, and the wagon had rumbled away with its two unwilling passengers and their guards.

"Well, that's over with and out of the way," said Pollard to himself, after he had made secure the window through which, by forcing off the catch, the burglars had gained entrance; "out of the way for the present, at least: to-morrow, I suppose, I'll have to go through all manner of fuss at the station--and later I'll be summoned to court to help jug those poor devils for ten years or so apiece. Confound 'em! why couldn't they have gone to some house where the people were away, instead of stirring _me_ up?"

He yawned, and slowly made his way up to his Den, pausing for a minute to inspect the perforated panels of the door. Of the three holes in the woodwork, two were clean-cut and smooth, showing that the lead had gone through from without; the third, ragged and surrounded by splinters, told of the shot that he had fired.

"I'll have to get that door patched up before mother comes home," he reflected, as he passed into the room, "or she'll have a most awful attack of nerves when she sees it. Hello! it's well along towards three o'clock, and--Great Jupiter's thunderbolts! I'd forgotten about that match!"

He dropped into a chair, and stared blankly at the carpet. How on earth could he manage to be in two places at once? He had promised to report in the morning at the police-station, and yet he _must_ leave town on an early train with his company team!

"Phew! I _am_ let in for it!" he thought. "Here's another 'emergency' not provided against in Bones' lectures. I've ordered the team to report to me at eight o'clock, and if I go over to see the police I can't get to the armory in time. On the other hand, if I fail to show up at the station I'll more than likely succeed in mixing myself up in some unholy legal mess. Now, _how_ can I surround the situation?"

It certainly was a perplexing problem: but Pollard is not of those who are prodigal of time in the making up of their minds, and his decision was reached in short order.

"I don't know much about law," said he to himself, as for the second time that night he pulled off his shoes; "but, for the present, the police will have to go to Halifax! Perhaps I'm showing contempt of court, or something else of the sort that will get me into calamity. I can't help it if I am! I'm going out with the team, even if I land in jail for doing it. Lord! I'm in fine, fat form for shooting! To-morrow'll find me--_to-day'll_ find me, I mean--as nervous as a Salem witch," and groaning dismally at his hard luck, he hunted up an alarm-clock, set it for an early hour, and prepared to snatch what little sleep he yet might be able to get.

With a vivid recollection of recent experiences he carefully assembled his slippers at the foot of the bed, and then crawled between the sheets. "I mustn't let the boys know anything about this," he reflected, as he lay waiting for sleep to come to him; "it would break 'em up. Let me see, the morning papers go to press somewhere about two o'clock, so the story can't leak out in that way. Well, it's tolerably certain that _I'm_ out of the race. It would take a wooden man to go through a night like this without getting the quivers. I'll be satisfied if I can put my ten shots anywhere on the target."

Rolling over upon his side he closed his eyes, murmuring, "Glad I winged that fellow, after all; he did his best to lay me out, and his remarks were extremely ungentlemanly. Take it all together, it was a pretty lively fray while it lasted. Can't say I'd care to go through another like it--not just yet, anyway."

After an hour of turning and tossing, Pollard succeeded in dropping into a troubled sort of doze; but, as it seemed to him, he hardly had lost consciousness when the merciless little bell of the alarm-clock began to rattle out its diabolical reveille, compelling him, heavy-eyed and in a most villainous frame of mind, to struggle out from beneath the tangled bedclothes. A plunge into a tub of cold water did something towards freshening him up a bit, but when he buckled on his ammunition-belt and picked up his rifle he swore softly to himself at the day's prospect. However, a quick walk in the crisp air of the September morning sent the blood jumping cheerfully through his veins; and after he had made, at an in-town hotel, a halt long enough for the total destruction of a thick and generous tenderloin of steak, he strode over to the armory in a more confident mood.

And the match? Well, it was much like a hundred other matches that have been shot over the same stretch of level, close-cropped greensward: but "H" shot like sin, and it _was_ a cruelly close thing--as Pollard had thought it would be--from the time when the first bullet was sent singing on its way towards the distant targets, until the last disk had been pushed up from the marking-pit.

According to his custom, Pollard coached his team until, except himself, all had fired; then, with a coolness at which he found himself wondering, he took his place at the firing-point and prepared to shoot his own score. Shot by shot the sergeant at the blackboard chalked up the results: three centres; a bullseye; another lone centre; two more bullets in the black; a fifth centre; a fourth bullseye--and one shot yet to be fired!

With his eyes upon the target, Pollard was slipping a cartridge into the chamber when he felt a touch upon his sleeve, and turning, saw Lieutenant Johnny, flushed with excitement, standing beside him. "Polly," whispered the youth, with utter forgetfulness of rank and title, "Polly, 'H' has finished! I'd never think of doing this with anybody besides you--but, to win, you'll have to get a 'bull.' A 'four' isn't going to do the trick, for we'd be outranked on a tie. _You've got to land in the black!_"

"Yes?" said the captain, dryly. "Well, Johnny, fall back--the gun might explode, you know," and with a last glance at the drooping wind-flags, he stiffened himself into position, gently lined the sights upon the far-off speck of black, and fired.

For five breathless seconds, while the little puff of pungent smoke lazily floated away, there was silence; and then, when the white disk went slowly creeping up over the face of the target to find its resting-place upon the bull's eye, there came from the watching men of "M" a sharp gasp of relief, followed by an exultant yell of victory.

"_Steady!_" commanded Pollard, swinging around upon his heel. "What's the matter with you, boys? Do you want to make people think we've never won before?" and, bending over to pick up his lightened cartridge belt, he walked towards the tents.

Late that afternoon, as the members of Pollard's team sat together in the smoker, on their way back to town, a newsboy entered the car. Pollard beckoned him to his side, bought an afternoon paper, and after rapidly running his eye down the columns of the outer page, handed the sheet to his lieutenant.

"Holy Smoke!" said that young man, catching a glimpse of the bold type heading the story of his captain's night adventure, "Is _that_ the way you slept last night? Well, I'll be--"

"You'll be asked to 'send in your papers,' Johnny," interrupted Pollard, with an awful yawn, "if you ever again speak to me when I'm at the firing-point in a match. You came pretty close to queering my score for me, this afternoon. Yes, that's the way I slept last night, and I think I'm beginning to feel it a trifle," whereat he again yawned, and then settled himself more comfortably upon the dusty cushions of the seat.

Well, that's all there is to the story. About the picture in Pollard's smoking-room? Oh, the men of his team gave that to him, thinking that he would like to have something by which to remember the cleverest shot he ever fired. Over in the big armory, in the company-room of "M," there hangs another picture, just like that one--the trophy awarded by the Commonwealth to the team winning the championship of the regiment.

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Transcriber's Notes

Retained hyphenated and unhyphenated versions of "to-day" and "to-morrow" used in the original book.

Page 44: changed "sittting" to "sitting." (Orig: He was sittting alone upon the bench,)

Page 207: Changed "beween" to "between" and "must'nt" to "mustn't." (Orig: then crawled beween the sheets. "I must'nt let the boys know)