"gp08w10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Parker Gilbert)

heart--a heart, Hilton's wife, aw yis!"

Pierre waved Macavoy into silence. "The girl waked after three hours
with a start. Her hand caught at her heart. 'Oh,' she said, still
staring at us, 'I thought that they had come!' A little after she and
Hilton's wife went to another room. All at once there was a sound of
horses outside, and then a knock at the door, and four men come in.
They were the girl's hunters.

"It was hard to tell what to do all in a minute; but I saw at once the
best thing was to act for all, and to get all the men inside the house.
So I whispered to Hilton, and then pretended that I was a great man in
the Company. I ordered Hilton to have the horses cared for, and, not
giving the men time to speak, I fetched out the old brown brandy,
wondering all the time what could be done. There was no sound from the
other room, though I thought I heard a door open once. Hilton played the
game well, and showed nothing when I ordered him about, and agreed word
for word with me when I said no girl had come, laughing when they told
why they were after her. More than one of them did not believe at first;
but, pshaw, what have I been doing all my life to let such fellows doubt
me? So the end of it was that I got them all inside the house. There
was one bad thing--their horses were all fresh, as Hilton whispered to
me. They had only rode them a few miles--they had stole or bought them
at the first ranch to the west of the Post. I could not make up my mind
what to do. But it was clear I must keep them quiet till something
shaped.

"They were all drinking brandy when Hilton's wife come into the room.
Her face was, mon Dieu! so innocent, so childlike. She stared at the
men; and then I told them she was deaf and dumb, and I told her why they
had come. Voila, it was beautiful--like nothing you ever saw. She shook
her head so innocent, and then told them like a child that they were
wicked to chase a girl. I could have kissed her feet. Thunder, how she
fooled them! She said, would they not search the house? She said all
through me, on her fingers and by signs. And I told them at once. But
she told me something else--that the girl had slipped out as the last man
came in, had mounted the chestnut, and would wait for me by the iron
spring, a quarter of a mile away. There was the danger that some one of
the men knew the finger-talk, so she told me this in signs mixed up with
other sentences.

"Good! There was now but one thing--for me to get away. So I said,
laughing, to one of the men. 'Come, and we will look after the horses,
and the others can search the place with Hilton.' So we went out to
where the horses were tied to the railing, and led them away to the
corral.

"Of course you will understand how I did it. I clapped a hand on his
mouth, put a pistol at his head, and gagged and tied him. Then I got my
Tophet, and away I went to the spring. The girl was waiting. There were