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Updated: June 22, 2025
He had not paused to question Peggy Blackton. His own fears told him who Joanne's abductors were. They were men working under instructions from Quade. And they could not be far away, for scarcely ten minutes had passed since the first scream. He listened, and held his breath so that the terrific beating of his heart would not drown the sound of crackling brush.
He found something of his own thought in Joanne's eyes. "There isn't much to it," he said, "but to-night, if you made the hunt, you could find men of eighteen or twenty nationalities in that street." "And a little more besides," laughed Blackton. "If you could write the complete story of how Tête Jaune has broken the law, Aldous, it would fill a volume as big as Peggy's family Bible!"
Blackton himself, comfortably dressed in duck trousers and a smoking-jacket, and puffing on a pipe, opened the front door for him. The pipe almost fell from his mouth when he saw his friend's excoriated face. "What in the name of Heaven!" he gasped. "An accident," explained Aldous, with a suggestive shrug of his shoulders. "Blackton, I want you to do me another good turn.
Not until they were inside, and Peggy Blackton had disappeared with Joanne for a few moments, did Aldous take old Donald MacDonald's note from his pocket. He pulled out the quill, unfolded the bit of paper, and read the few crudely written words the mountain man had sent him. Blackton turned in time to catch the sudden amazement in his face.
Daniel Blackton, who had charge of the only church in the village, did not receive a very large salary, and it was the custom to give him a "donation party" once a year to help pay him. This usually took the form of a supper, held in the church parlors. The women of the congregation provided the food, and a small price was charged for the meal.
Now and then he paused, and turned to listen. As he progressed with slowness and caution, his mind worked swiftly. He knew that Donald MacDonald was the last man in the world to write such a message as he had sent him through Blackton unless there had been a tremendous reason for it. But why, he asked himself again and again, should Culver Rann want to kill him? Rann knew nothing of Joanne.
He was a friend who would fight for him if necessary. Mrs. Blackton, who preferred to be on the firing line with her husband than in her luxurious city home, was the leader of all that was decent and womanly in Tête Jaune. Why not have these friends meet them at the train and take Joanne direct to their house? Such recognition and friendship would mean everything to Joanne.
I want the minister as quick as you can get him, Blackton. Don't say anything to Joanne, but bring him to the house right away, will you?" "Within half an hour," replied Blackton. "There comes Tony with the buckboard. We'll hustle up to the house and I'll have the preacher there in a jiffy." As they went to the wagon, Aldous looked about for MacDonald. He had disappeared.
For perhaps twenty feet they followed the Blacktons with lowered heads. They seemed to have entered a black, cold pit, sloping slightly downward, and only faintly could they see Blackton when he straightened. His voice came strange and sepulchral: "You can stand up now. We're in the chamber. Don't move or you might stumble over something. There ought to be a lantern here."
Her little fingers held his arm as if she were afraid some force might tear him from her. He saw that she was looking quickly at the faces about them with that same questing mystery in her search. At the thin outer edge of the crowd Blackton dropped back beside them.
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