Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/315



set off, not to a house for none was near, but toward the road; at her feet were dark spots in the snow which she knew were blood, though they looked black in the moonlight, and she followed them till they stopped at the tracks of the automobile. Whom had she shot? she wondered. Baretta, or Frankie Zenn, or some gunman whom she had never seen and who had never seen her or Mr. Clarke or the driver, but who had obeyed a bidding to go to the car in the ditch and kill every one underneath.

The anonymousness of the brutal business, when she thought of it, increased her terror, which shook her with violent spasms of shuddering as she walked. Her neck hurt and her legs twinged when she stepped; she was cold and felt more helpless than she had under the car when the bullets were striking above her. She felt herself utterly at the mercy of any one who might appear, although she had in her hand the reloaded revolver. She knew that she could use it to effect only under such circumstances as already had served her; she knew that the gunmen would not permit such an opportunity again; if they returned, they would certainly kill her, and Mr. Clarke under the car, and the driver, whose name she did not yet know.

Walking between the tracks of the gunmen's car, she discovered that they had driven directly to the road, which was about a hundred yards away, and had swerved to the left just before their wheels had climbed to the concrete. So they had gone toward the city.

The road was empty in that direction, but far away to