Chapter XXXVIII: In the Night

The Holcombe House was a low, rambling, typical country hotel such as one sees in many small towns throughout the Southern States. A wide veranda, much frequented on balmy nights and sultry afternoons, stretched across the entire front of the main building, its sloping roof surmounted by a long row of bedroom windows, monotonously alike.

By half past ten the lobby was generally deserted save perhaps for a lone drummer making out his report, or a chance friend of the major chatting with him in the little office behind the desk. At twelve, precisely, the courtly, old-fashioned proprietor followed his invariable custom of shutting up, and retired to his private rooms on the southwest corner of the second floor. Half an hour after midnight the place was tight as a drum.

After a long day of hard work in the open, the Blue Stockings were usually quite ready for bed at ten o’clock, and this night was no exception. Lefty and Larry Dalton were among the first to go, and by a quarter after the hour they were stretched between the blankets in the room they occupied together, next to Major Holcombe’s.

The southpaw slept soundly, but not heavily. Any unusual noise was likely to arouse him. Consequently he was not surprised, a little later, to find himself sitting bolt upright in the darkness, listening in bewilderment to unwonted sounds that seemed to come through one of the open windows. There was an irregular thumping, a muffled crash, the dull pad-pad as of shoeless feet, then a voice raised in anger.

A second later, as his brain cleared, Lefty realized that a struggle of some sort was going on in the next room. This brought him out of bed with a single bound. Gripping the shoulder of the still-slumbering Dalton and giving him a shake, he ran over to the window, thrust up the screen, and slid out on to the veranda roof.

The major’s nearest window, not two feet away, was wide open, and as Locke threw one leg over the sill he heard a dull, muffled thud, followed by the heavy crash of a body falling. For a fraction of a second he feared that he had come too late. Then the major’s voice, panting and somewhat shrill with excitement, came to him out of the blackness:

“Keep back, yo’ ruffian, or I’ll put a bullet through you!”

“Don’t shoot, major!” exclaimed Lefty as he dropped into the room. “It’s Locke. Do you need any help?”

There was a brief pause, followed by the click of a switch, and the room leaped into brilliancy, revealing a curious scene. Major Holcombe, tall, lean, and lanker than ever in his abbreviated nightshirt, stood against the wall, one hand gripping an old-fashioned service revolver. His gray hair, left long at the sides to be brushed across the thin spot on top, was mussed and disheveled. He was breathing a little unevenly, and there were hectic spots on his high cheek bones. But his black eyes flashed as he stared at Locke across the body of a man huddled against the foot of the bed.

“I――thank yo’, suh,” he said at last, a touch of the old stateliness in his manner. “Your promptness does yo’ credit, suh, but I seem to have settled fo’ the scoundrel. A clear case of breakin’ and enterin’ combined with murderous assault, suh. The ruffian had a gun, which I was fawtunate enough to knock out of his hand; otherwise I should probably not be heah to tell the tale. I shall call yo’ gentlemen to witness”――by this time Dalton had appeared in the window, and was staring in with bewildered, sleep-muddled eyes――“that I was obliged to strike him down in――”

He broke off abruptly with a whistling gasp, and stared downward. With an inarticulate grunt, the man on the floor stirred and rolled over, revealing the flushed face of Nelson Savage. There was a slight cut on his forehead, but the reek of liquor in the air gave Locke an impression that the fellow’s collapse had been caused as much by drink as by the glancing blow from the major’s revolver. With Savage in normal condition, the old Southerner would have stood no chance at all.

“You!” exclaimed Major Holcombe, straightening up. “So!”

He turned to Lefty, his lips set, his lean jaw tightening. “This is a case fo’ the sheriff, suh,” he said coldly. “The scoundrel evidently wanted revenge fo’ havin’ been turned out of my hotel. If you will look after him until I can make a hasty toilet, I shall be obliged.”

He thrust his antiquated weapon into Locke’s hand, and, gathering up an armful of clothes, stalked into a rear room. Lefty stared thoughtfully at the unconscious man for a moment, then glanced at Dalton.

“Revenge,” he murmured thoughtfully; “I wonder if that was it――and he mistook the window?”

“Thunder! You mean he was after you?”

“Why not? I told you how he ranted down in the lobby this afternoon, and you can see he’s more than half seas over. It would be a simple matter for a man in that condition to mistake the second window from the corner for the third, especially when they’re so close together.”

“The scoundrel!” exclaimed Dalton, his face darkening. “I hope―― He’s coming round.”

The southpaw turned to see his enemy struggle to a sitting posture and stare slowly around the room. His eyes were only half open, but as they came to rest on Locke’s legs, clad in silk pajamas, they widened, and his gaze traveled swiftly upward to Lefty’s face.

“Didn’ git yer, but I will yet!” he snarled in half-drunken fury. “If I don’t make you――”

“Stop!” ordered Lefty, his patience utterly exhausted. “Another word out of you, and I’ll put a gag in your mouth.”

The busher promptly let out a stream of unprintable abuse. Locke as promptly stuffed the end of a towel into his mouth, securing it firmly in place with a necktie Larry brought from the other room. Another towel was used to tie the man’s hands, and Savage was reduced to a helpless condition.

Looking more like himself, the major presently returned, his mood of cold, determined indignation unchanged. He had been humiliated and outraged, and the person responsible was going to suffer the full penalties of the law. As a precaution, Kennedy was roused, and informed of what had happened; but he refused to see the recruit, much less interfere in his behalf.

“Let him go to jail, where he belongs,” he said grimly.

Savage was presently carried off by the sheriff, defiant to the last.

When the Blue Stockings departed, late the next afternoon, for Webster, to play an exhibition game at the big county fair, the prisoner was behind bars awaiting trial on charges which could scarcely fail to land him in the penitentiary for a prolonged stay.