Peter Loon by Van Reid Page A

over right now!” he declared, his face behind his bristling beard purple and puffy with rage. His mount danced nervously beneath him, as if sensing the danger in the man. Barrow seemed to be spitting when he bellowed, but it was the rain running down his mustache and into his beard, spraying out as he shook. He pushed his horse forward and broke past the two riders before him, but stopped short of the halfway point between the narrows and the granite shelf.
    There were almost a dozen men with Nathan Barrow, hunkering against the rain. Most were on horseback, but some stragglers bringing up the rear were on foot. Parson Leach was speechless for a moment; he and Peter recognized several faces from the tavern the night before. He looked behind him at the young woman, collapsed upon the gray rock, and glanced, as he turned back, at his companions.
    â€œGive her back!” roared Barrow again.
    â€œI would say she’s not overfond of you, Mr. Barrow.” Parson Leach had lowered his gun so that the pan might possibly remain dry beneath his arm, but the expression on his face was near to warlike.
    â€œShe’s been given over by her father himself!” shouted Barrow. He nudged his horse a little closer. One of the other riders came up along side of him, though with less certainty.
    â€œHe wouldn’t be the first father do wrong by his child,” said the parson, hardly audible to Barrow over the rain.
    â€œIt’s the letter of the law,” growled Barrow.
    â€œYou’ve declared the law your enemy,” replied Parson Leach, his voice rising again. “And there’s no law leads a man to ruin his own.”
    â€œGive her over, Leach! She’s under my wing!”
    â€œYour wings are under the sites of two bores, which is a good deal more to the point.”
    The man behind Barrow squinted up at the rain with almost a smile, as if he thought those two bores would prove of little use. “Her father said to get her back, Mr. Leach,” he called as he edged his horse forward a pace or two.
    â€œI didn’t take anything,” said Nora, almost conquering the wail in her voice. “I never took so much as a coat, so they wouldn’t say I stole.”
    Peter shook himself from his daze and pulled her onto her feet where she tottered against him.
    â€œHer father wants her back, Mr. Leach,” said the other horseman again.
    â€œHer father doesn’t want her back, as far as I can tell,” said the preacher, “or he would’ve come for her himself.”
    This new spokesman looked to Barrow, then said, “We’ll see she comes to no harm.”
    â€œNot like you chased her down, then,” said Parson Leach evenly, “like dogs on a deer.”
    There was no answer to this, and in fact some of the men hung their heads.
    The rain increased between them, and Barrow stiffened on his horse as he stood in his stirrups. “There are only four of you and but three armed!” he bellowed. “We’ll storm over you like perdition!”
    â€œNo gun out here,” said Manasseh, squinting into the rain, “will be good for anything but a club,” though he held his own firing piece as if he might get one more shot from it.
    â€œI can’t believe,” called out Parson Leach, and he nodded to Barrow’s mob, “that any of these men care to be a party to murder, and that’s what I promise it will fall to, before you wrest this woman from my protection. On the other hand, I may just be angry enough to pick you off that horse, Mr. Barrow; and looking at you, at this juncture, is not pacifying me in the least.”
    â€œYou heard the threat!” declared Barrow, but the rider beside him leaned close to the man, rain dripping from his hat brim, and quietly reminded Mr. Barrow that he had threatened first. Barrow shot an angry glance at his cohort, and the man straightened in his saddle, giving Barrow as good a look in