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Updated: May 7, 2025
"Crack!" almost in her face came a second spit of fire in the darkness, and a bullet crashed through the leaves and buried itself in a tree with a ping. The intruder's marksmanship was poor, but the dog paid no attention to it. "One of the few animals that show no fear of gunfire," muttered Kennedy, in undisguised admiration. "G-R-R-R," we heard from the police-dog.
At this unprecedented spectacle Nicholas halted, abruptly, uttering some unintelligible exclamation. And Ivan, deep as he was buried beneath his weight of despair, heard the sound, and reluctantly raised himself, at the same time grasping the letter anew, till the intruder's attention was reattracted by the rustle. "Aha!" said he, softly; laying a gentle hand on the young man's shoulder.
Jimmie mused. "I'd like to hit him with a ballclub!" Directly the fellow did drop his arms, and at the same moment stepped out of the shelter of the doorway. This was what Jimmie had been waiting for, and he lost no time in acting. The rope cut the air and descended over the intruder's head and arms. The lad's hours of practice while playing cowboy now proved to be of great worth.
The jar of his fall shook from him a fraction of his drunkenness, and it gave him enough sense to realize that the man who had laughed was trying to unfasten the pinned inner pocket of the fallen man's vest. Now for years that pocket had been the secret repository of Link Ferris's sparse wealth. The intruder's touch awakened him to a drowsy sense of peril.
"Charles, sir," chimed the chorus. "Where is he?" The music died in a last tinkling "Kuk-kuk." And then, as the minstrel swung round to face his audience, the whole company heard the beating on the great door. "That," said Dick with a wave of his baton towards it, "is Charles." While George stared heavily at the intruder's battle-worn visage, the second footman flung open the door.
"Cry-baby!" the voice chirped, in the high key which, to the youthful mind, is expressive of disdain. And then it added even more disdainfully, "Dirty-face!" Dazed by this two-fold attack upon him, Scott took down his smudgy fists and displayed to the intruder's view his smudgy countenance.
He reeled, flung up his arms and pitched with drunken soddenness full length upon the gravel, picking himself up clumsily with a sound of incoherent, weak lament. "Why, it's a drunken man in our driveway!" cried Paul, with proprietary indignation. "Get out of here!" he yelled angrily at the intruder's retreating back.
Oriana knelt beside him, and touched her lips to his hand in gratitude. An arm raised her tenderly, and a gentle voice murmured her name. It was not Arthur's. Oriana raised her head, with a faint cry of terror. She gasped and swooned upon the intruder's breast. It was Harold Hare who held her in his arms. Arthur, with folded arms, stood erect, but pale, in the presence of his friend.
The intruder's eyes travelled over the upstanding sheaves, passed gravely over the man in the punt, and came back to the girl. "Yes; I see," he said stolidly. "Then don't you think you'd better go?" she said. He put his hat on somewhat abruptly. "Yes. I think I had better," he said, and with that he turned on his heel and walked away through the stubble.
The discomfited masher was snarling like a vicious cur. The first swift glance that measured the intruder's proportions did not warrant any display of active resentment on his part. Out of the tail of his eye, however, he noticed a policeman approaching on the opposite side of the street. The sight lent a confidence which might have been lacking otherwise.
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