The Courage of Captain Plum - James Oliver Curwood (the best novels to read .TXT) 📗

twisting his hands in his old, mad way.
"The old folks. Ho, ho, the old folks, of course! They are dead--dead--dead--"
He fairly shrieked the words. Then, for a moment, he stood tightly clutching his thin hands over his chest in a powerful effort to control himself.
"They are dead!" he repeated.
He spoke more calmly, and yet there was something so terrible in his eyes, something so harshly vibrant of elation in the quivering passion of his voice that Nathaniel felt himself filled with a strange horror. He caught him by the arm, shaking him as he would have shaken a child.
"Where is Marion?" he asked. "Tell me, Obadiah--where is Marion?"
The councilor seemed not to have heard him. A singular change came into his face and his eyes traveled beyond Nathaniel. Following his glance the young man saw that three men had appeared from the scorched shrubbery about the burned house and were hurrying toward them. Without shifting his eyes Obadiah spoke to him quickly.
"Those are king's sheriffs, Nat," he said. "They know me. In a moment they will recognize you. The United States warship _Michigan_ has just arrived in the harbor to arrest Strang. If you can reach the cabin and hold it for an hour you will be saved. Quick--you must run--"
"Where is Marion?"
"At the cabin! She is at--"
Nathaniel waited to hear no more, but sped toward the breach in the forest that marked the beginning of the path to Obadiah's. The shouts of the king's men came to him unheeded. At the edge of the woods he glanced back and saw that they had overtaken the councilor. As he ran he drew his pistol and in his wild joy he flung back a shout of defiance to the men who were pursuing him. Marion was at the cabin--and a government ship had come to put an end to the reign of the Mormon king! He shouted Marion's name as he came in sight of the cabin; he cried it aloud as he bounded up the low steps.
"Marion--Marion--"
In front of the door that led to the tiny chamber in which he had taken Obadiah's gold he saw a figure. For a moment he was blinded by his sudden dash from the light of day into the gloom of the cabin, and he saw only that a figure was standing there, as still as death. His pistol dropped to the floor. He stretched out his arms, and his voice sobbed in its entreaty as he whispered the girl's name. In response to that whisper came a low, glad cry, and Marion lay trembling on his breast.
"I have come back for you!" he breathed.
He felt her heart beating against him. He pressed her closer, and her arms slipped about his neck.
"I have come back for you!"
He was almost crying, like a boy, in his happiness.
"I love you, I love you--"
He felt the warm touch of her lips.
"You will go with me?"
"If you want me," she whispered. "If you want me--after you know--what I am--"
She shuddered against his breast, and he raised her face between his two hands and kissed her until she drew away from him, crying softly.
[Illustration: Marion]
"You must wait--you must wait!"
He saw now in her face an agony that appalled him. He would have gone to her again, but there came loud voices from the forest, and recovering his pistol he sprang to the door. Half a hundred paces away were Obadiah and the king's sheriffs. They had stopped and the councilor was expostulating excitedly with the men, evidently trying to keep them from the cabin. Suddenly one of the three broke past him and ran swiftly toward the open door, and with a shriek of warning to Nathaniel the old councilor drew a pistol and fired point blank in the sheriff's back. In another instant the two men behind had fired and Obadiah fell forward upon his face.
With a yell of rage Nathaniel leaped from the door. He heard Marion cry out his name, but his fighting blood was stirred and he did not stop. Obadiah had given up his life for him, for Marion, and he was mad with a desire to wreak vengeance upon the murderers. The first man lay where he had fallen, with Obadiah's bullet through his back. The other two fired again as Nathaniel rushed down upon them. He heard the zip of one of the balls, which came so close that it stung his cheek.
"Take that!" he cried.
He fired, still running--once, twice, three times and one of the two men crumpled down as though a powerful blow had broken his legs under him.
The other turned into the path and ran. Nathaniel caught a glimpse of a frightened, boyish face, and something of mercy prompted him to hold the shot he was about to send through his lungs.
"Stop!" he shouted. "Stop!"
He aimed at the fugitive's legs and fired.
"Stop!"
The boyish sheriff was lengthening the distance between them and Nathaniel halted to make sure of his last ball. He was about to shoot when there came a sharp command from down the path and a file of men burst into view, running at double-quick. He saw the flash of a saber, the gleam of brass buttons, the blue glare of the setting sun on leveled carbines, and he stopped, shoulder to shoulder with the man he had been pursuing. For a moment he stared as the man with the naked saber approached. Then he sprang toward him with a joyful cry of recognition.
"My God, Sherly--Sherly--"
He stood with his arms stretched out, his naked chest heaving.
"Sherly--Lieutenant Sherly--don't you know me?"
The lieutenant had dropped the point of his saber. He advanced a step, his face filled with astonishment.
"Plum!" he cried incredulously. "Is it you?"
For the moment Nathaniel could only wring the other's hand. He tried to speak but his breath choked him.
"I told you in Chicago that I was going to blow up this damned island--if you wouldn't do it for me--", he gasped at last. "I've had--a hell of a time--"
"You look it!" laughed the lieutenant. "We got our orders the second day after you left to 'Arrest Strang, and break up the Mormon kingdom!' We've got Strang aboard the _Michigan_. But he's dead."
"Dead!"
"He was shot in the back by one of his own men as we were bringing him up the gang-way. The fellow who killed him has given himself up, and says that he did it because Strang had him publicly whipped day before yesterday. I'm up here hunting for a man named Obadiah Price. Do you know--"
Nathaniel interrupted him excitedly.
"What do you want with Obadiah Price?"
"The president of the United States wants him. That's all I know. Where is he?"
"Back there--dead or very badly wounded! We've just had a fight with the king's men--"
The lieutenant broke in with a sharp command to his men.
"Quick, lead us to him. Captain Plum! If he's not dead--"
He started off at a half run beside Nathaniel.
"Lord, it's a pretty mess if he is!" he added breathlessly. Without pausing he called back over his shoulder, "Regan, fall out and return to the ship. Tell the captain that Obadiah Price is badly wounded and that we want the surgeon on the run!"
A turn in the path brought them to the opening where the fight had occurred. Marion was on her knees beside the old councilor.
Nathaniel hurried ahead of the lieutenant and his men. The girl glanced up at him and his heart filled with dread at the terror in her eyes.
"Is he dead?"
"No--but--" Her voice trembled with tears.
Nathaniel did not let her finish. Gently he raised her to her feet as the lieutenant came up.
"You must go to the cabin, sweetheart," he whispered.
Even in this moment of excitement and death his great love drove all else from his eyes, and the blood surged into Marion's pale cheeks as she tremblingly gave him her hand. He led her to the door, and held her for a moment in his arms.
"Strang is dead," he said softly. In a few words he told her what had happened and turned back to the door, leaving her speechless.
"If he is dying--you will tell me--" she called after him.
"Yes, yes, I will tell you."
He ran back into the opening.
The lieutenant had doubled his coat under Obadiah's head and his face was pale as he looked up at Nathaniel. The latter saw in his eyes what his lips kept silent. The officer held something in his hand. It was the mysterious package which Captain Plum had taken his oath to deliver to the president of the United States.
"I don't dare move until the surgeon comes," said the lieutenant. "He wants to speak to you. I believe, if he has anything to say you had better hear it now."
His last words were in a whisper so low that Nathaniel scarcely heard them. As the lieutenant rose to his feet, he whispered again.
"He is dying!"
Obadiah's eyes opened as Nathaniel knelt beside him and from between his thin lips there came faintly the old, gurgling chuckle.
"Nat!" he breathed. His thin hand sought his companion's and clung to it tightly. "We have won. The vengeance of God--has come!"
In these last moments all madness had left the eyes of Obadiah Price.
"I want to tell you--" he whispered, and Nathaniel bent low. "I have given him the package. It is evidence I have gathered--all these years--to destroy the Mormon kingdom."
He tried to turn his head.
"Marion--" he whispered wistfully.
"She will come," said Nathaniel. "I will call her."
"No--not yet."
Obadiah's fingers tightened about Captain Plum's.
"I want to tell--you."
For a few moments he seemed struggling to command all his strength.
"A good many years ago," he said, as if speaking to himself, "I loved a girl--like Marion, and she loved me--as Marion loves you. Her people were Mormons, and they went to Kirtland--and I followed them. We planned to escape and go east, for my Jean was good and beautiful, and hated the Mormons as I hated them. But they caught us and--thought--they--killed--"
The old man's lips twitched and a convulsive shudder shook his body.
"When everything came back to me I was older--much older," he went on. "My hair was white. I was like an old man. My people had found me and they told me that I had been mad for three years, Nat--mad--mad--mad! and that a great surgeon had operated on my head, where they struck me--and brought me back to reason. Nat--Nat--" He strained to raise himself, gasping excitedly. "God, I was like you then, Nat! I went back to fight for my Jean. She was gone. Nobody knew me, for I was an old man. I hunted from settlement to settlement. In my madness I became a Mormon, for vengeance--in hope of finding her. I was rich, and I became powerful. I was made an elder because of my gold. Then I found--"
A moan trembled on the old man's lips.
"--they had forced her to marry--the son of a Mormon--"
He stopped, and for a moment his eyes seemed filling with the glazed shadows of death. He roused himself almost fiercely.
"But he loved my Jean, Nat--he loved her as I loved her--and he was a good man!", he whispered shrilly. "Quick--quick--I must tell you--they had tried to escape from Missouri and the Danites killed him,--and Joseph Smith wanted Jean and at the last moment she killed herself to save her honor as Marion was going to do, and she left two children--"
He coughed and blood flecked his lips.
"She left--Marion and Neil!"
He sank