The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1923-06-01
WILLIAM Mac HARG

for the steward.
Santoine did not consider the pos
slbility Of robbery Of plate or jewelry
long enough to have been said to con-
slider 1t at all; what he felt was that
the threat which had been hanging
vaguely over himself ever since War
denis murder was being fulfilled. But
Il was not S%antoine himself that was
being attacked II was something San
tome possessed. There was only one
sort Of valuable article for which one
might enter that room below. And
those articles
Santoine pressed all the bells again
and then got up. He had heard abso-
lutely no sound outside, as must be
made by anyone escaping from the
room below; but the battle seemed
over. One side must have destroyed
the other.
The blind man stood barefooted on
the floor, his hands clasping In n OF
the bitterest moments OF his rebellion
against, and defiance Of, his helpless
ness Of blindness. Below him-as he
believed-his servants had been sacri-
ficing life for him there In that room
he held In trust that which affected
the security, the faith, the honor of
others; his guarding that trust in
volved his honor no less. And partlc-
ularly, now, he knew he was bound,
at whatever cost, to act; for he did
not doubt now but that his half-pris-
oned guest, whom Santoine had not
sufficiently guarded, was at the bot
tom of the attack. The blind man be-
lleved, therefore, that II was because
Of his own retention here Of Eaton
that the attack had been made, his
servants had been killed, the private
secrets Of his associates we're In dan
ger. Undoubtedly there was danger
below; but that was why he did not
call again at the other door for some
one else to run a risk for him.
He put his hand on the rail and
started to descend the stairs. He was
almost steady In step and he had firm
grasp on the rail he noticed that now
to wonder at 1t. When he had aroused
at the sound Of firing. his blindness,
as always when something was hap
pening about him. was obtruded upon
him. He felt helpless because he was
blind, not because he had been in
jured. He had forgotten entirely
that for almost two weeks he had not
stirred from bed; he had risen and
stood and walked, without staggering,
to the door and to the top of the
stairs before, now, he remembered. SO
what he already had done showed him
that he had merely again to put his
injury from his mind and he could
60 on. He went down the stairs al
most steadily.
The blind count stairs, and he had
gone down twenty-one-and realized
fully his futility; but now he would
not retreat or merely call for help.
"Who Is hereT" he asked distinctly.
as anyone here? Who Is here?"
No one answered. And now San
tome knew by the sense which let him
feel whether 1t was night or day, that
the room was really d%ark-dark for
others as we'll as for himself; the
lights were not burning. So an exal-
tation, a sense Of physical ~capability,
| came to S%antoIne; in the dark he was
as fit. as capable as any other man.
He stepped down on the floor, and
In his uncertainty as to the position
OF the furniture. felt along the wall.
There were bookcases there. but he
felt and passed along them swiftly,
until he came to the case which
concealed the safe at the left side Of
the doors. The books were gone from
that case; his bare toes struck against
them where they had been thrown
down on the floor. The blind man, his
pulse beating unanimously, put his
hand through the case and felt the
panel behind. That was slid back,
exposing the safe; and the door Of
the safe stood open. S%antoine's
hands felt within the safe swiftly. The
safe was empty.
He recoiled from 1t. choking back
an ejaculation. The entry to this
room had been mode for the purpose
which he supposed; and the thieves
must have succeeded in their errand.
The blind man. In his uselessness for
| pursuit, could delay calling others to
act for him no longer. He started
toward the bell. when some scrape on
the floor-not Of the sort to be ac-
counted for by an object moved by
the wind-sounded behind him. San
tome swung toward the sound and
stood listening again; and then. Crop
ing with his hands stretched out be-
fore him, he left the wall and stepped
toward the center Of the room. He
took two steps-three, four-with no
result; then his foot trod into some
fluid, thick and sticky and not cold.
Santoine stopped and put a finger
| tip into the fluid and brought II neal
his nose. It al what he supposed It
must be-blood. He could hear o
someone breathing-more than one
person. From the house, still shut
or by Its double. sound-proof doors,
he could hear nothing; but someone
outside the house was hurrying up to
the open window at the south end Of