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Updated: June 29, 2025
He waited to hear no more, but, keeping in the shadow of the boughs and riding at first in a walk, he went on toward Pendleton. He was sure that Skelly's men had not heard his hoofbeats, as there was no sound of pursuit, and, three or four hundred yards further, he changed from a walk to a gallop. Careless of the dark and of all risks of the road, he drove the horse faster and faster.
Wary and prepared, he was not loath to meet the enemy. Harry, keeping his father's orders well in mind, crouched a little lower and waited. Presently he heard a slight rustling, and he knew that Skelly's men were among the dwarf pines on the lawn. The rustling continued and came nearer. Harry glanced at his father, who was behind a pillar not ten feet away.
It was Skelly who spoke of this hideous plan, laughing as he spoke, and Harry's hand went instinctively toward the butt of one of the pistols. But his will made him draw it away again, and, motionless in the grass, lying flat upon his face, he continued to listen. Skelly's plan was accepted and they moved away to tell the others.
The same inherited instinct made him leap within the swing of the rifle and clutch at the mountaineer's throat. The heavy butt swished through the air, and the very force of the blow jerked the weapon from Skelly's hands. The next instant he was struggling for his life.
They also found two sanguinary trails leading to the wood in which the mountaineers had hitched their horses, indicating that the defenders of the Kenton house had shot well. But by the next morning Skelly's men had made good their flight far into the hills where no one could follow them. They sent no request for their own dead who were buried by the Pendleton people.
Much of his fear for his mother disappeared. It was obvious that she and her faithful attendant, Juliana, had gone, probably to be out of the track of the armies or to escape plundering bands like Skelly's. He wondered where she had gone, whether northward or southward. There were many places that would gladly receive her.
Harry roused himself suddenly. He was hearing the same song that he had heard the night he went into the river locked fast in Skelly's arms. "'Nita, 'Nita, Juanita." rang the tenor note, rising and falling and dying away in wailing echoes, as the boat sped on. Then Harry resolutely turned his face to the future.
Shepard that these signals are made by Slade and Skelly's men?" asked Dick. "Shorely," replied the mountaineer, "an' I think they're up to some sort uv trick. It pesters me too, 'cause I can't guess it nohow. I done told the colonel that we'd better look out." Colonel Winchester joined them as he was speaking, and listened to the double signal which was repeated later.
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