Chapter XXV: Accused

The long suspense wore terribly on the defenders of the house.

To wait inactive, listening to the frightful yelling and watching the play of the fire, not knowing at what moment yelling, bullets, and fire might be directed at themselves, was disorganizing to the stoutest nerves.

When the attack should come all knew that their refuge was more like a trap than a fortress. Ambrose wished to abandon the house for the Catholic church up the river.

This little structure was stoutly built of squared logs; moreover, it was possible that some lingering religious feeling might restrain the Indians from firing it.

The suggestion was received with suspicion. John Gaviller refused point-blank to leave his house.

As the hours passed without any change in the situation they began to feel as if they could endure no more. They were almost ready to wish that the savages might attack them and have done with it.

They endlessly and vainly discussed what might be passing in the red men's minds. Tole Grampierre, hearing this talk, offered to go and find out.

There was no danger to him, he said. Even if they should discover that he was not one of themselves, they had no quarrel with his people. Ambrose let him go.

He never returned. Ambrose and Macfarlane helped him through the barbed wire, and he set off, making a wide detour behind the houses that faced the river, meaning to join the Indians from the other side.

Most of the Indians had for some time been engaged in rifling the warehouse, which adjoined the store behind.

Ambrose and Macfarlane, anxiously watching from the porch, heard a sudden outcry raised in this quarter, and saw a man come running desperately around the corner of the store, pursued by a howling dozen.

Ambrose knew the runner by his rakish, broad-brimmed hat and flying sash. His heart leaped into the race. Tole was gaining.

"Go it! Go it!" Ambrose cried.

Tole was not bringing his pursuers back to the big house, but led the way off to one side by the quarters. Only a few yards separated him from the all-concealing darkness.

"He's safe!" murmured Ambrose.

At the same moment half of Tole's pursuers stopped dead, and their rifles barked. The flying figure spun around with uptossed arms, and plunged to the ground.

Ambrose groaned from the bottom of his breast. Nerved by a blind rage, his own gun instinctively went up. He could have picked off one or two from where he stood. Macfarlane flung a restraining arm around him.

"Stop! You'll bring the whole mob down on us!" he cried. He looked at Ambrose not unkindly. The sacrifice of Tole obliged him to change his attitude.

Ambrose turned in the door, silently grinding his teeth. At the end of the passage he found a chair, and dropped upon it, holding his head between his hands.

The face of Tole as he had first beheld it--proud, comely, and full of health--rose before him vividly.

He remembered that he had said to himself then: "Here is one young, like myself, that I can make a friend of." And almost the last thing Tole had said to him was: "I am your friend."

It was his youth and good looks that made it seem most horrible. Ambrose pictured the bloody ruin lying in the square, and shuddered.

Gordon Strange offered to go out in order to make sure that Tole was beyond aid. It seemed like a kindly impulse, but Ambrose suspected its genuineness.

Even from where they were, a glance at the huddled figure was enough to tell the truth. None of the others would hear of Strange's going. Colina and Giddings pleaded with him. Gaviller forbade him. Strange with seeming reluctance finally gave in.

Whenever he witnessed such evidences of their trust in the half-breed Ambrose's lip curled in the darkness. He was more than ever convinced that Strange was a blackguard.

Evidence he had none, only his warning intuition, which, among the male sex at least, is not considered much to go on.

It gave Ambrose a shrewd little twinge of jealousy to hear Colina begging this man not to risk his life by leaving the house.

About three o'clock it began to seem as if they might allow themselves to relax a little. The madness of the Indians had burned itself out. There had not been enough whisky perhaps to maintain it for more than a few hours.

In any case, since the whites had been spared at the height of their fury, it seemed reasonable to hope they might escape altogether. The yelling had ceased.

Most of the men were now engaged in carrying flour and other goods down to the york boat. The watchers from the house wondered if they dared believe this signified an early departure.

As the tension let down it could be seen that John Gaviller was on the verge of a collapse. Colina strove with him to go to his room and rest on his bed.

He finally consented upon condition that she lay in her own room up-stairs. Colina and Gordon Strange half led, half carried the old man up-stairs.

Strange, returning, relieved Macfarlane's watch at the side door. Macfarlane, Ambrose, Giddings, and Pringle lay down on the sofa and on the floor of the library.

Three of them were almost instantly asleep. Not so Ambrose. As soon as he saw the half-breed left in sole charge his smoldering suspicions leaped into activity.

"If he's meditating anything queer this is the time he'll start it!" he thought. He took care to choose his position on the floor nearest the door. He left the door open.

From the outside only occasional sounds came now. The Indians were busy and silent. Within the house it was so still that Ambrose could hear Gordon Strange puffing at his pipe.

The half-breed was sitting in the doorway outside, with his chair tipped back against the wall. By and by Ambrose heard the front legs of the chair drop to the floor, and an instinct of caution bade him close his eyes and breathe deeply like a man asleep.

Sure enough Strange came into the library. He was taking no pains to be silent. Stepping over Ambrose he crossed to the mantel, where he fumbled for matches, and striking one made believe to relight his pipe.

Now Ambrose knew that Strange had matches, for when they took John Gaviller up he had seen him light the lamp at the foot of the stairs and return the box to his pocket.

This then must be a reconnoitering expedition. Ambrose had no doubt that when the match flared up the half-breed took a survey of the sleeping men.

He left the room, and Ambrose heard the chair tipped back against the wall once more.

A little later Ambrose became conscious that Strange was at the library door again, though this time he had not heard him come.

He paused a second and passed away as silently as a ghost--but whether back to his chair or farther into the house Ambrose could not tell.

Rising swiftly to his hands and knees he stuck his head out of the door. There was light enough from the outside to reveal the outlines of the chair--empty.

Without a thought Ambrose turned in the other direction and crept swiftly and softly through the passage into the stair hall. He did not know what he expected to find. His heart beat thick and fast.

He scarcely suspected danger to Colina, who was strong and brave. Was it her father? Reaching the foot of the stairs he heard a velvet footfall above.

He hastened up on all fours. The stairs were thickly carpeted. Gaining the top his strained ears detected the whisper of a sound that suggested the closing of Gaviller's door.

He knew the room. It was over the drawing-room, and cut off from the other rooms of the house. To reach the door one had to pass around the rail of the upper landing.

Arriving at the door he did indeed find it closed. Under the circumstances he was sure Colina would have left it open.

He did not stop to think of what he was doing. With infinite slow patience he turned the knob with one hand, holding his electric torch ready in the other.

When the door parted he flashed the light on the spot where he knew the bed stood. The picture vividly revealed in the little circle of light realized his unacknowledged fears.

He saw Strange kneeling on the bed, his face hideously distorted, his two hands at the old man's throat.

Strange yelped once in mingled terror and rage like an animal surprised--and with the quickness of an animal sprang at Ambrose.

The two men went down with a crash athwart the sill, and the door slammed back against the wall. There was a desperate struggle on the floor.

Strange was nerved with the strength of a madman. He could not have seen who it was that surprised him, but in that frantic embrace he learned.

"It's you, is it?" he snarled. "I've got you now!"

Forthwith he began to shout lustily for help. "Macfarlane! Giddings!"

Colina was already out of her room. She did not scream. The three men were on the stairs.

"Bring a light!" gasped both the struggling men.

It was Colina who lit a lamp and carried it out into the hall with a steady hand. Ambrose was seen to be uppermost. Recognizing the two men her face darkened with anger.

"What does this mean?" she cried. "Get up instantly!"

Ambrose wrenched himself free and stood up.

"Don't let him escape!" cried Strange.

Ambrose laughed a single note.

"He tried to kill your father!" panted Strange. "I arrived in the nick of time!"

Ambrose gasped and fell back in astonishment. Such stupendous effrontery was beyond the scope of his imagination.

"It's a lie!" he cried. "It was I who discovered him in the act of strangling your father!"

Then for the first Colina swayed. "Oh, God!" she murmured, "have we all gone mad!"

Macfarlane seized the lamp from her failing hand. Colina ran unevenly into her father's room. They heard her cry out within. Giddings ran to her aid. He made a light in the room and closed the door. The little parson moaned and wrung his hands.

Macfarlane had drawn his revolver. "If you make a move I'll shoot you down!" he said to Ambrose--thus making it clear whose story he believed.

"You can put it up," said Ambrose coolly. "I'm going to see this thing through."

Strange had got his grip again. His smoothness was largely restored. He actually laughed. "He's a cool hand!" he said.

"You damned black villain!" said Ambrose softly. "I know you now. And you know that I know you!"

It did not improve Ambrose's case to say it, but he felt better. The half-breed changed color and edged behind Macfarlane's gun.

Colina presently reappeared, showing a white and stony face. "Mr. Pringle," she said, "go down and lock the side door and bring me the key. The rest of you go to the library and wait for me."

Ambrose flushed darkly. That Colina should even for a moment hold the balance between him and the half-breed made him burn with anger. Passionate reproaches leaped to his lips, but pride forced them back.

Turning stiffly he marched downstairs before Macfarlane without a word. She should suffer for this when he was exonerated, he vowed. That he might not be exonerated immediately did not occur to him.

In the library Strange and Macfarlane whispered together. When Pringle rejoined them all were silent. For upward of ten minutes they waited, facing each other grimly.

The strain was too great for the nerves of the little parson. He finally broke into a kind of terrified, dry sobbing.

"For God's sake say something!" he faltered. "This is too horrible!"

Macfarlane glanced at him with a contemptuous pity and stood a little aside from the door. "Better go into the front room," he said. "You can't do any good here."

The little man shook his head, and going to the window turned his back on them and endeavored to master his shaking.

Shortly afterward Colina came down-stairs. At her entrance all looked the question none dared put into words.

Colina veiled her eyes. "My father only fainted," she said levelly. "Dr. Giddings says he is little worse than before."

A long breath escaped from her hearers.

Strange cunningly contrived to get his story out first. As he spoke all eyes were bent on the ground. They could not face the horror of the other eyes.

Pringle was obliged to sit on the sofa to control the trembling of his limbs. The others stood--Macfarlane, Colina, and Strange near the door--Ambrose facing them from in front of the desk.

"You will remember," Strange began collectedly, "it was I who advised that this man should be admitted to the house. I thought we could watch him better from the inside. I have never ceased to watch him from that moment.

"When you all turned in and I was left at the side door I kept my eye on this room. The last time I looked in I saw that he had disappeared. He had slipped so softly down the hall I had not heard anything.

"I instantly thought of danger to those up-stairs, and crept up as quickly as I could without making any sound. I found the door of Mr. Gaviller's room closed. I knew Miss Colina had left it open. I opened it softly, and saw Doane on the bed with his hands at Mr. Gaviller's throat."

A shuddering breath escaped from Colina. The little parson moaned.

"He sprang at me," Strange went on. "We rolled on the ground. I called for help, and you all came. That is all."

Ambrose was staggered by the breed's satanic cleverness. After this his own story must sound like a pitiful imitation. He could never tell it now with the same assurance.

"Surely, surely they must know that a true man couldn't take it so coolly," he thought. But they were convinced; he could see it in their faces.

He felt as powerless as a dreamer in the grip of a nightmare.