CHAPTER XXIII.
FIGHTING LADS.
While attending school at Fardale Military Academy, Frank had met andbecome acquainted with a charming girl by the name of Inza Burrage. Theyhad been very friendly--more than friendly; in a boy and girl way, theywere lovers.
After leaving Fardale and starting to travel, Frank had written to Inza,and she had answered. For a time the correspondence had continued, but,at last, Frank had failed to receive any answers to his letters. Hewrote again and again, but never a line came from Inza, and he finallydecided she had grown tired of him, and had taken this method ofdropping him.
Frank was proud and sensitive, and he resolved to forget Inza. This wasnot easy, but he thought of her as little as possible, and never spokeof her to any one.
And now he had met her in this remarkable manner. Some fellow hadwritten him from Fardale that Mr. Burrage had moved from the place, butno one seemed to know whither he had gone. Frank had not dreamed ofseeing Inza in New Orleans, but she was the mysterious Queen of Flowers,and, for some reason, she was in trouble and peril.
Although dazed by his astonishing discovery, the boy quickly recovered,and he felt that he could battle with a hundred ruffians in the defenseof the girl beyond the broken door.
Barney Mulloy seemed no less astonished than Frank.
"Be me soul! it is thot lassie!" he cried.
"Inza! Inza!" shouted Frank, through the broken panel.
She heard him.
"Frank! Frank! Save me!"
"I will!"
The promise was given with the utmost confidence.
At that moment, however, the ruffian whose wrist Frank had broken,leaped upon the girl and grasped her with his uninjured arm.
"_Carramba!_" he snarled. "You save-a her? Bah! Fool! You never git-aout with whole skin!"
"Drop her, you dog!" cried Frank, pointing his revolver at thefellow--"drop her, or I'll put a bullet through your head, instead ofyour wrist!"
"Bah! Shoot! You kill-a her!"
He held the struggling girl before him as a shield.
Like a raging lion, Frank tore at the panel.
The man with the girl swiftly moved back to a door at the farther sideof the room. This door he had already unfastened and flung open.
"_Adios!_" he cried, derisively. "Some time I square wid you for myhand-a! _Adios!_"
"Th' spalpanes are comin' up th' shtairs again, Frankie!" cried Barney,in the ear of the desperate boy at the door.
Frank did not seem to hear; he was striving to break the stout panel sothat he could force his way through the opening.
"Frank! Frank! they're coming up th' shtairs!"
"Let them come!"
"They'll make mince mate av us!"
"I must follow her!"
"Well, folly, av ye want to!" shouted the Irish lad. "Oi'm goin' toshtop th' gang!"
Crack! The panel gave. Crack! splinter! smash! Out came a long strip,which Frank flung upon the floor.
Barney caught it up and whirled toward the stairs.
The desperadoes were coming with a rush--they were well up the stairs.In another moment the leading ruffian would have reached the secondfloor.
"Get back, ye gossoons! Down, ye haythen! Take thot, ye bloody pirates!"
The strip of heavy wood in Barney's hands whirled through the air, andcame down with a resounding crack on the head of the leader.
The fellows had not learned caution by the fate of the first man toclimb the stairs, and they were following their second leader as closeas possible.
Barney had a strong arm, and he struck the fellow with all his power.Well it was for the ruffian that the heavy wood was not very thick, elsehe would have had a broken head.
Back he toppled upon the one behind, and that one made a vain attempt tosupport him. The dead weight was too much, and the second fell, againsweeping the whole lot to the foot of the stairs.
"Hurro!" shouted the Irish boy, in wild delight. "This is th' koind av apicnic pwhat Oi admire! Come on, ye nagurs! It's Barney Mulloy ye'rerunnin' up against, an' begobs! he's good fer th' whole crowd av yez!"
At the foot of the stairs there was a writhing, wrangling, snarling massof human beings; at the head of the stairs was a young Irishman wholaughed and crowed and flourished the cudgel of wood in his hands.
Barney, feeling his blood leaping joyously in his veins, felt likesinging, and so he began to warble a "fighting song," over and overinviting his enemies to come on.
In the meantime Frank had made an opening large enough to force his bodythrough.
"Come on, Barney!" he cried, attracting the other boy's attention by asharp blow.
"Pwhere?"
"In here--somewhere."
"Frankie, ye're muddled, an' Oi nivver saw yez so before."
"What do you mean?"
"Nivver a bit would it do for us both to go in there, fer th' craythersmoight hiv us in a thrap."
"You're right, Barney. I will go. You stay here and hold the ruffiansback. Here--take my revolver. You'll need it."
"G'wan wid yez! Quit yer foolin', Frankie! Oi hiv an illigant shillalyhere, an' thot's all Oi nade, unliss ye have two revolvers."
"This is the only one I have."
"Thin kape it, me b'y, fer ye'll nade it before ye save the lass, Oithink."
"I think you may be right, Barney. Here goes! Hold them back. I'll notdesert you."
"It's nivver a bit Oi worry about thot, Frankie. G'wan!"
Through the panel Frank forced his way. As soon as he was within theroom he ran for the door through which the ruffian had dragged Inza.
Frank knew that the fellow might be waiting just beyond the door, knifein hand, and he sprang through with his revolver held ready for instantuse.
There was no light in the room, but the light from the lamp in theadjoining room shone in at the doorway.
Frank looked around, and, to his dismay, he could see no one.
"Are they gone?" he asked himself. "If so, whither?"
It was not long before he was convinced that the room was empty of anyliving being save himself.
The Spanish ruffian and the unfortunate girl had disappeared.
"Oh, confound the infernal luck!" raved the boy. "He has escaped withher! But I did my best, and I followed as soon as possible."
Then he remembered that he had promised Inza he would save her, and itwrung a groan from his lips.
"Which way have they gone?" he cried, beginning to look for a door thatled from the room.
By this time he was accustomed to the dim light, and he saw a door. In atwinkling he had tried it, but found it was locked or bolted on thefarther side.
"The fellow had little time and no hands to lock a door. He may not havegone this way. He must, for this is the only door to the room, save theone by which I entered. He went out this way, and I will follow!"
Retreating to the farther side of the room, Frank made a run and plungedagainst the door.
It was bolted on the farther side, and the shock snapped the iron boltas if it had been a pipe stem.
Bang! Open flew the door, and Frank went reeling through, revolver inhand, somewhat dazed, but still determined and fierce as a young tiger.
At a glance he saw he was in a small room, with two doors standingopen--the one he had just broken down and another. Through this other heleaped, and found himself in a long passage, at the farther end of whichBarney Mulloy was still guarding the head of the stairs, once moresinging the wild "fighting song."
Not a trace of the ruffian or the kidnaped girl could Frank see.
"Gone!" he palpitated, mystified and awe-stricken. "Gone--where?"
That was a question he could not answer for a moment, and then----
"The window in that room! It is the one by which Barney entered! It mustbe the one by which the wretch fled with Inza!"
Back into the room he had just left he leaped. Two bounds carried him tothe window, against which brushed the branch of the old willow tree.
<
br /> He looked out.
"There they are!"
The exultant words came in a panting whisper from his lips as he sawsome dark figures on the ground beneath the tree. He was sure he saw afemale form among them, and his ears did not deceive him, for he heardat last a smothered appeal for help.
Then two other forms rushed out of the shadows and fell upon the menbeneath the tree, striking right and left!
There was a short, fierce struggle, a woman's shriek, the death groan ofa stricken man, a pistol shot, and scattering forms.
Without pausing to measure the distance to the ground, Frank sprang overthe window sill and dropped.