CHAPTER V
Vane told Jard Hassock of his meeting with poor Pete Sledge but not a word about their engagement for eleven o’clock that night. He spoke of Pete’s illusion to the effect that he killed Amos Dangler with an axe.
“Sure, that’s his crazy idee,” said Jard. “An’ Amos Dangler keeps out of his way. That ain’t hard to do, for Pete sticks pretty close ’round home. He’s crazy—but he’s still got a heap of ordinary horse-sense left, has Pete Sledge.”
“What’s become of the girl they fought about?”
“Kate Johnson? She married Amos Dangler eighteen years ago an’ is still alive an’ hearty up Goose Crick, far’s I know.”
“Pete thinks she is going to marry him in the spring. It seems that he has not kept a very close watch on the flight of time.”
“He’s crazy. Sometimes he talks as if his shack on Squaw Brook was burned down only a week ago. An’ he’s everlasting’ly beggin’ matches. Keeps every pocket of every coat he owns full of matches. But he’s still got streaks of sanity. He has brains enough, but some of them’s got twisted, that’s all. Nobody can best him at a game of checkers nor at raisin’ chickens an’ gettin’ aigs. It’s a queer case. Now what do you reckon would happen if the truth that he didn’t ever kill Amos Dangler was to pop into his head some day?”
“I was wondering the same thing. What do you think?”
“I guess he’d rectify his mistake without loss of time—an’ that he’d do it with an axe. Maybe he’d even chase Amos up a tree first an’ then chop him down, jist so’s to have everything right. Folks who’ve been demented, crazy, lunatic as long as Pete has ain’t always practical. They like to do things their own way, but they sure like to do ’em. How do you cal’late to set about gettin’ a horse out of old Luke?”
“Speaking of lunatics, what?”
“Well, sir, you got to use the best part of valor, that’s a sure thing.”
“I agree with you. One or the other of us should think of a way in a few days. There’s no particular hurry.”
The hotel had only two guests at this time, Vane and the person whom he had heard snoring on the night of his spectacular arrival. The snorer was the manager of the “Grange” store, an elderly, anxious looking man who always returned to the store immediately after dinner and retired to his room immediately after supper.
The afternoon passed without sight or further word of old Dave Hinch; but Tom McPhee appeared after supper with a budget of intelligence that was well received by the Hassocks. Old Hinch was ill—so ill that he had sent Tom down to Rattles for the doctor—so ill that his conscience was troubling him for having parted with his granddaughter.
“If he don’t feel better by mornin’ he’ll send for her,” said McPhee. “And a good thing, too. That young skunk Steve Dangler’s sweet on the girl; an’ Dave knows it. Now that he’s feelin’ real sick he don’t like it. He ain’t a bad sort of old man when he’s scart he may die any minute.”
“Maybe Luke Dangler won’t sent Joe back ag’in. He’s as much her grandpa as Dave Hinch himself,” said Jard.
“But Dave’s her guardeen, which Luke ain’t,” returned McPhee.
At eleven o’clock that night Robert Vane rattled his fingernails on the glass of Pete Sledge’s dark window. Nothing happened. He tapped again, louder this time, and waited expectantly for the sudden flare of a match behind the black panes. Nothing flared; and he was about to rap a yet louder summons on the window when a slight sound behind him caused him to jump and turn in his tracks. There stood Pete Sledge a few paces off, with an axe on his shoulder.
“Reckon I give you a start,” said Pete in a pleased tone.
“You did,” returned Vane. “I was looking for you in front.”
“I stopped inside long’s I could after ma went to bed, an’ then I come out an’ waited behind the woodpile.”
“Why behind the woodpile?”
“No harm intended, but yer a stranger to me. But I reckon yer all right. Which way d’ye want to go?”
“What about Goose Creek?”
Pete Sledge stepped close to Vane at that and peered keenly into his face for a moment.
“Friend of them Danglers?” he asked.
“I’ve never set my eyes on a Dangler in my life, but I’ve heard of them from Jard Hassock and I’m curious about them,” replied Vane.
“Why don’t you go over to Goose Crick with Jard?”
“He won’t go. He seems to be afraid of the place—and the people.”
“And you ain’t?”
“Not worth a cent!”
Sledge showed signs of embarrassment. “I ain’t what you would properly call scart, but I don’t jist hanker after that there section of country,” he said. “Oh, no, I ain’t scart! Ain’t I fell out with them Danglers an’ bested ’em? But Goose Crick don’t interest me none. But what is it you want of them folks?”
“I feel a curiosity concerning them which I think is quite natural. I want to see where they live—the people who have thrown a scare into the whole countryside. If you won’t come along, I’ll go alone. They must be very remarkable people.”
Pete Sledge said nothing to that, did nothing. Vane went out to the road and up the hill. He had expected better of Pete Sledge in the way of courage—though why, considering the fact that the poor fellow had already been frightened half out of his wits, it is difficult to say. At the top of the rise above Forkville he turned into the side road which Pete had indicated to him that morning. It was a well pounded track which cut through snowdrifts at some points, and humped itself over them at others. For a mile or two it passed through white clearings broken by groups of farm buildings and scattered groves, and beyond that it slipped into obscurity between black walls of second-growth spruce and fir.
Vane walked alone, to the best of his knowledge and belief; and he felt lonely. He felt uneasy. Rifts in the marching ranks of the forest admitted pale glimmers of starshine to the road here and there, discovering the depths of the darkness and queer lumps of shadow and weird blotches of pallor right and left to his exploring glances. He wondered just why he had come, not to mention what he would do when he arrived. He remembered that it is recorded somewhere that curiosity killed the cat. It is doubtful if he would have felt any better if he had known that Pete Sledge was behind him, within fifty paces of him. He didn’t know it, but it was so.
Here and there a narrow clearing widened the outlook slightly without enlivening it. At the edge of one of these crouched a little deserted lath mill, its fallen tin smokestack and sagging roof eloquent of failure, disillusion, the death of a petty ambition. This was at least six miles from Forkville, at a rough guess; and as soon as he was past it Vane began looking eagerly into the gloom ahead for a glimpse of the clearings of the Dangler settlement; but before he had gone two hundred yards beyond the deserted mill he heard a piercing whistle behind him. He jumped to the side of the road and crouched there, every sense alert and straining. There had been no possibility of mistaking the significant character of the shrill sound. It had been a warning and a signal. And within ten seconds it was answered, repeated, at a point in the darkness two hundred yards or so farther along in the direction of the Goose Creek settlement.
Vane realized that, with an alert sentry behind him and another in front of him, now was the time for quick action. He didn’t even pause to wonder what the sinister Danglers could be about to make the posting of sentries on the road worth their while. Noiselessly and swiftly he shifted his snowshoes from his shoulders to his feet; and then, after a moment given to sensing his position in relation to the river and Forkville, and the lay of the land, he slipped noiselessly into the thick and elastic underbrush.
The second sentry, the man who had repeated the shrill warning of Vane’s approach was Hen Dangler, one of the middle-aged members of the gang, a nephew of old Luke. Having passed along the signal and heard it answered from the nearest house, he grasped a sled-stake of rock maple firmly in his right hand and closed swiftly upon the point on the road from which the first whistle had sounded. This was according to plan. He ran silently, listening for sounds of a struggle or of flight and pursuit. He heard nothing; and he encountered nothing until he found the first sentry, the original alarmist, flat on his face in the middle of the road and blissfully unconscious of his position.
The unconscious sentry was Steve Dangler, Hen’s son, the very same Steve who was “sweet on” his second cousin, Joe Hinch. After a face massage with snow and a gulp from Hen’s flask, he opened his eyes and sat up.
“What happened?” asked Hen. “Why the hell didn’t you leave him pass you an’ git between us, like we planned? You must of blowed yer whistle right in his face.”
“Face, nothin’. He passed me, all right. Then I whistled—an’ got yer answer—an’ started after him—an’ then—good night!”
“Hell! Say, there must be two of ’em.”
“Wouldn’t wonder, onless I kicked up behind an’ beaned meself with me own foot.”
“Who was it—the one you seen go past you?”
“Dunno. Stranger to me. Rigged out like a sport, far’s I could see—blast ’im! Last time he’ll ever git past this baby!”
“Maybe so. If you feel up to steppin’ out we’d best be headin’ along for home. Take a holt on my arm.”
They made what speed they could toward the clearings and habitations of Goose Creek, probing the shadows about them with apprehensive eyes, and questioning the silence with anxious ears. Clear of the wood at last, they drew deep breaths of relief. They felt better, but only for a brace of seconds. Fear of immediate physical attack was gone, only to be replaced by anxiety for the future.
“Don’t it beat damnation!” lamented the father. “Here we been layin’ out ’most every night for two months an’ nothin’ happened an’ then the very first time there’s any need for it you go an’ git fooled an’ beaned into the bargain! Say, I wisht I’d been where you was.”
“Same here.”
“Zat so? Keep in mind that ye’re talkin’ to yer pa, Steve Dangler. It wouldn’t of happened like that if I’d been there. My wits wouldn’t of been wool-pickin’ after no danged girl. I’d been watchin’ out behind.”
“All right, pa. You tell old Luke all about it.”
After a long journey on a curved course, and much thrusting through tough underbrush and climbing up and plunging down, Robert Vane came out on the highroad at the top of the hill above the village. He halted there to remove his webs, and was there confronted by poor Pete Sledge who appeared out of the vague starshine as if by magic.
“How d’you like them Danglers?” asked Pete.
“I haven’t met any of them yet,” replied Vane.
“Nor you don’t want to. Leave ’em lay, stranger, leave ’em lay. Run home quick an’ go to bed, an’ don’t tell a word of what happened to-night to Jard Hassock nor nobody.”
“What do you mean by what happened to-night?”
“Well, you got a scare, didn’t you? You didn’t come home the same way you went.”
“I’m not afraid of them.”
“But you took to the woods. You was scart enough for that—an’ smart enough. Leave ’em lay, stranger; an’ if I was you I’d get out of this here Forkville to-morrow an’ try somewheres else.”
“Try what somewhere else?”
Pete winked and asked for a match. He tucked the match away in his pocket.
“What is it you want of Goose Crick?” he asked. “Whatever you want, it’s nothin’ only trouble you’ll get—but jist tell me, an’ I’ll tell if you’re lyin’ or not.”
“That’s very good of you. I’ll think it over. Now I’m off for bed.”
“Hold yer hosses a minute! You can trust me. I love a Dangler like a lad goin’ a-courtin’ loves to meet a skunk.”
“So you say, but I’m not so sure of it as I was a while ago. To be quite frank with you, there was someone behind me to-night—and whoever he was, he was in league with the Danglers.”
“There was two behind you to-night. Two. An’ I was only one of ’em. T’other was young Steve Dangler. But Steve didn’t know I was there, which was a pity for him, but a good thing for me an’ you. I didn’t reckon you’d have sense enough to take to the woods, so I up an’ beaned Steve so’s to clear the road behind you.”
“Is that a fact?”
“It sure is. But come along away from here. Come with me.”
Pete led Vane to his own little barn behind his little house and up a ladder into a little hay loft. From this loft, through a crack between two weather-warped boards, one could watch the road from the top of the hill all the way down through the village to the covered bridge. Vane kept in close touch with his guide, ready for anything. They sat down on fragrant hay; and Pete kept his eye on the crack and Vane kept an eye on Pete.
“What was you expectin’ to find on Goose Crick?” asked Pete.
“A horse,” replied Vane, after a moment’s pause. “You are welcome to the information—and so is old Luke Dangler. Now what about it?”
“A horse?”
“That’s what I said—and it’s exactly what I mean.”
“A horse? Is that all?”
“That’s all—but it seems to be plenty—more than enough—to judge from the way Jard Hassock talks. Well, what about it?”
“You want to steal a horse? You figgered out to steal a horse from old Luke Dangler to-night? Say, stranger, that sounds jist about crazy enough to be true! Jumpin’ cats! Stranger, Jard Hassock’s right. It can’t be done.”
“I want to buy a horse, if he has one that suits me.”
“Buy a horse. Say, that’s different. That’s easy. All you need’s a million dollars—or maybe ten thousand—or maybe only five.”
“No fear! I’ll offer a fair price and not a dollar more.”
“Then you won’t get no horse—not of the trottin’ stock, anyhow—but trouble a-plenty. A horse? You must want one real bad. Now if it was a woman it would be different, but any man who’d go git himself mixed up with them Danglers for a horse—for the best durned horse in the world—ain’t got all his brains workin’, to my way of thinkin’.”
“You may be right. They seem to be difficult people to deal with, that’s a fact. I had no idea that they went so far as to post sentries on the road. Have many attempts been made to steal their horses?”
Pete turned his glance from the crack in the wall to Vane’s face. Vane could see the glimmer of the eyes and feel the searching of them.
“You don’t look like a liar,” said Pete.
“Thank you again,” said Vane.
“Nor like a fool,” went on the native in a puzzled tone. “But you must be one or t’other—or both.”
“But I don’t know why you should think so,” protested Vane.
“You ask Jard Hassock. Maybe he will tell you. I would, only I’m kinder side-steppin’ trouble with them Danglers these days. A man figgerin’ on fixin’ up with a wife come spring can’t be too careful.”
Vane returned to Moosehead House, entered the kitchen window and gained his room and his bed without detection. In spite of the hour, sleep did not come to him immediately.
He was excited and puzzled. The fact of the sentries on the road in to Goose Creek puzzled and excited him, and so did the talk and behavior of Pete Sledge. Why the sentries? Why the signals? Surely a man could breed a few horses without such precautions as these. And what would have happened to him if the Danglers had caught him? And what was Pete Sledge’s game—if any? The fellow talked about marriage to a woman who was already married, and about having killed a man who was still alive and hearty within a few miles of him, and made a point of begging matches and tucking them away like precious things—but was he as crazy as these things suggested? He doubted it.
CHAPTER VI
Vane slept until Jard Hassock awoke him by pulling his toes. It was then close upon nine o’clock of a fine morning.
“Say, what ails you?” asked Jard. “You act like you’d been up an’ roustin’ round all night.”
“It’s your fine fresh air,” replied Vane, sliding reluctantly out of bed.
He breakfasted in the kitchen, but not a word did he say of the night’s activities. He was told that McPhee had already called to say that young Steve Dangler had already been in from Goose Creek with a message from old Luke Dangler to old Dave Hinch. The gist of the message was that Granddaughter Joe should remain where she was for as long as Grandpa Dangler chose to keep her and if Grandpa Hinch didn’t like it the only thing left for him to do was to lump it.
“It wasn’t eight o’clock, but Steve was slewed already,” concluded Jard.
“It’s a cruel, cryin’ shame and disgrace!” exclaimed Miss Hassock. “Dave Hinch is a crooked old sinner and mean company for a girl like Joe—but those Danglers are downright low. They’ll marry her to that swillin’, bullyin’ rapscallion Steve, you see if they don’t; and not a man hereabouts man enough to raise a hand!”
“What’s his tipple?” asked Vane. “I thought this country was dry. Surely he is not drinking lemon extract—and alive to show it? You used the word swilling.”
“He’s a hog, that’s why—whatever the stuff in his trough may be,” retorted Liza.
Jard winked at Vane. “You don’t have to drink lemon extract round here nowadays, nor ain’t for nigh onto two years,” he said. “There’s real liquor—so I hear—to be had for eight dollars a bottle, an’ somethin’ that acts a darn sight more real for half the price. All you need’s the money an’ the high sign.”
“And the law?”
“Law!” exclaimed Miss Hassock in a voice of angry derision. “Law! With Danglers to bust it an’ a bunch of cowards an’ live-an’-let-livers to look on, what’s the good of a law?”
Jard nodded at Vane. “If Liza had been born a man she’d of been dead quite a spell now,” he said.
“But I guess there’d been a few other funerals about the same time as mine,” said Miss Hassock, smiling grimly.
“Bootleggers?—moonshiners?” queried Vane.
This, he felt, explained the sentinels and the signals.
“You said it that time, Mr. Vane—and it’s a treat to hear a man with grit enough in his crop to say it out loud, even if he is only askin’,” returned Liza. “Bootleggers and moonshiners is right. The Danglers take the lead in every low devilment.”
“Liza’s maybe right an’ maybe wrong,” said Jard. “I ain’t sayin’ anythin’ about it, whatever I’m thinkin’; an’ I hope you won’t, neither—not while you live in Moosehead House, anyhow. Liza’s mighty free with her mean names, talkin’ about cowards an’ the like—but—well, her an’ my property is all right here—this hotel an’ the land an’ the barns. So we got to stop right here, an’ I’d sooner stop here alive than dead. I can’t afford to be so gosh darned brave—like Liza.”
The fire went out of the big woman’s eyes and the derision left her lips. She strode over to her brother, stooped and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Please forgive me, Jard,” she said. “You are right and I am all wrong.”
Steve Dangler had not come to Forkville that morning for the sole purpose of delivering old Luke’s defiant message to old Dave. He had been instructed to hunt out and look over and size up the stranger who was rigged out like a sport, and who had passed him and yet escaped him the night before. There was no doubt in either Steve’s or old Luke’s mind that this person was a police officer or law officer spying around on behalf of the nearest Prohibition Enforcement Inspector. But even so, it would be wise to make sure, and to size him up and get a line on his character and methods, before deciding on the safest and surest way of dealing with him. To date, the usual methods of lulling official suspicion, combined with the long-established terror of the Dangler name, had suffered to keep inviolate the secret activities of Goose Creek.
When Steve reached the front door of Moosehead House, Jard Hassock was gossiping at the village smithy, Miss Hassock was in the kitchen and Robert Vane was up in his room writing a letter to a friend whose father owned a town house in New York, a country home on Long Island and a winter place in Florida. He was writing to the Florida address. Steve opened the hotel door, entered, glanced into the empty office on the right, and the empty “settin’-room” on the left, cocked his ear for sounds of Miss Hassock, whom he feared, then ascended the stairs swiftly and silently. After looking into three unoccupied bedrooms, he halted and struck a casual attitude on Vane’s threshold.
“Where’s Simmons?” he asked. “He ain’t at the store.”
This was a lie, but Steve would rather tell a lie than the truth even when no advantage was to be derived from it.
Vane looked up from his letter, which was progressing very slowly and dully, and regarded the questioner from beneath slightly raised eyebrows.
“Not here,” he said, and stared down at the half-written letter again and crossed out the last line.
“He lives here, don’t he?”
“Not in this room.”
“He hangs out in this hotel, I guess.”
“He snores here, and eats here.”
“Guess I’ll go try the store ag’in.”
“Not a bad idea.”
Vane turned his eyes and attention back to his letter, and Steve shifted his weight uneasily from foot to foot. Vane made no headway. He realized that he was not in the least interested in the task under his pen and suddenly wondered, with a disconcerting feeling of futility, if he had ever been sincerely interested in the person for whom this letter was intended. Or was it all part of a game—this unfinished letter and other completed letters?
“Have a seegar, mister,” suggested the man on the threshold, digging fingers into a pocket.
“I’ll smoke a pipe, if it’s all the same to you,” returned Vane. “Come in and sit down, won’t you—if you’re not too busy?”
The other accepted the invitation, selected a comfortable chair, dropped his cap on the floor, lit a cigar and spat neatly into the fire. Vane laid aside his pen, turned an elbow upon ink and paper and lit his pipe.
“Sportin’?” queried Steve, in his best society manner.
“Not as you mean,” replied Vane. “I’m not lookin’ for anything to shoot. Close season, for that matter. But my visit is certainly connected with sport.”
“Zat so,” returned Steve, with honest curiosity and ill-hid suspicion conflicting in his hot brown eyes. “Sport, hey?”
“Yes. I came here to find a horse.”
“A horse? Did you lose one?”
“No. But I have heard of good horses coming from this part of the country, and I hope to be able to buy a young one of the good strain—of the Strawberry Lightning strain. I’ve seen Hassock’s roan filly, but I hear that the real breeder is an old man named Luke Dangler who lives up on Goose Creek. You know him, I suppose. Do you know if he has any young bays of that strain? Bay is the right color—the Willy Horse color. I have a few hundreds that are ready and eager to talk horse.”
“Sure I know old Luke Dangler. My own name’s Dangler, an’ I come from Goose Crick myself. He’s got a couple of young uns of the right color, an’ the right lines. Say, I guess ye’re the gent who drug old Dave Hinch an’ Joe out of the fire?”
“Yes, I happened along just in time.”
“I’ll say so. But why ain’t you been out to see Luke Dangler before this? It ain’t far to his place.”
“I was thinking of calling on him to-morrow.”
“D’ye know the way to Goose Crick?”
“I’ll find it, don’t worry. Hassock will start me right.”
“Sure he’ll start you right, an’ it’s a straight road once you git started; an’ you’ll find the old man all ready to talk horse. I’ll tell him ye’re comin’.”
Steve Dangler went away, puzzled, but still suspicious. Vane was not exactly what he had expected to find. The only thing in which the stranger had met expectations was the matter of lying. He had lied concerning his knowledge of the road to Goose Creek, but in everything else he had proved unexpected. His manner was not that of any enforcement officer known to or imagined by Steve. It was the manner of the best type of “sport” known to Steve, of the two-guides sportsman. And the talk about wanting to buy a horse! That was clever. He’d picked up the dope from Jard Hassock, of course—but it was smart. But it didn’t fool Steve. If the stranger had wanted to see old Luke’s horses, why had he tried to sneak into the settlement in the middle of the night—unless he’d figured on stealing one? No, even Steve could not seriously suspect him of being a horse-thief. He was some sort of damn detective looking for something he knew they wouldn’t show to him, that’s what he was.
Steve went home and made his report and as many comments on the subject of the same as old Luke had patience to listen to. Then Steve was dismissed, Amos and Hen called in by the old man, and many methods of eliminating the dangerous stranger from the existing scheme of things on Goose Creek were discussed. Amos was a crafty plotter. He had a strong imagination of the crafty and destructive sort, and a genius for detail. No man had ever escaped from a plot of his planning except by chance.
Vane was at a loss to know what to do next. His curiosity concerning the Danglers of Goose Creek was now quite as keen as his distaste for them, and both his distaste and curiosity were keener than his original purpose in visiting Forkville. It was still his intention to obtain a young animal of the Willoughby Girl strain, a bay with white legs, for choice; but to deal these Danglers a blow of some sort seemed to him now a more worthy and more intriguing ambition. Something of the kind was due them. Something of the nature of a nasty set-back had been due them for years and years. He decided to have another session with Pete Sledge.
It was eleven o’clock before Jard left him. Jard had talked of Eclipse blood for two hours without a break, but he had not suggested a way of commencing negotiations with Luke Dangler for the purchase of a horse. Vane extinguished the lamp and replenished the fire upon Jard’s departure. An hour passed, and he was about to venture forth and down the stairs and out of the house in search of Pete when he was startled by a sharp rap on one of his windows. He jumped to his feet and faced the window. On the instant it sounded again, like the impact of a sliver of ice or fragment of snow-crust on the thin glass. He jumped to the window and raised the sash, and was about to stoop and thrust out his head when something hit him smartly on the ribs and dropped to the floor. It was a small white handkerchief weighted and knotted into a ball. He undid the knots in a few seconds, and found inside a small stone and a folded scrap of paper.
Don’t go to Goose Creek to-morrow or ever. Please go away. You are in great danger. I warn you in gratitude. Please destroy this and go away to-morrow morning.
Don’t go to Goose Creek to-morrow or ever. Please go away. You are in great danger. I warn you in gratitude. Please destroy this and go away to-morrow morning.
He read it, then stooped again and looked out and down from the window. In the vague starshine he could see nothing of the secretive messenger. He closed the window swiftly but silently, tossed the scrap of paper into the fire, pocketed the stone and little handkerchief, slipped into his outer coat, snatched up cap and mittens and left the room. He had been fully dressed, with his moccasins on and everything ready for a quick exit; and this fact was the very thing that upset the calculations of the thrower of the warning.
Vane made a clean getaway from the window of the kitchen, and overtook the running figure before him just short of the top of the hill. It was Joe Hinch, carrying her snowshoes under an arm. She halted and turned at the touch of his hand, breathing quickly. She glanced at him, then down, without a word.
“I hope I haven’t frightened you,” he said hurriedly. “But I had to know if it was you—or a trick. How did you come? How did you get away? Why are you going back?”
“It is not a trick,” she replied. “You are in danger.”
“Now? Immediate danger?”
“To-morrow—and after. If you go, or if you don’t.”
“Who came with you? And why did you come?”
“Nobody. I slipped out easily, and took a long way through the woods. And now I must hurry back. And you will promise to go away to-morrow. Please promise me that.”
“But why do you go back to that place? You have a grandfather here, and plenty of friends.”
“I’m as safe there as here. I’m not in any danger. You are in danger. You must go away. To-morrow! Promise me that—please!”
“But why? What are they afraid of? I came only to buy a horse.”
“They don’t believe that.”
“What do they think I’m after?”
“I can’t tell you. But don’t you believe me? Don’t you know that I am telling the truth—that you are in danger? Do you think I’d came all that way alone through the woods at night for—for fun?”
“I believe you, of course. But I think you must have an exaggerated idea of the danger.”
“Exaggerated! Do you think I’m a fool? You are in danger of—of—death!”
“Death? Then it is not for the first time; and why should it be the first time for me to run away?”
“You must go!”
“I’m sorry, but it can’t be done. Even if the danger is as actual as you say—and not for a moment do I doubt the sincerity of your belief in it—I can’t allow my plans to be altered by people of that—by a few suspicious countrymen.”
“They are—my people. Their leader—the oldest and worst of them—is my grandfather. I know them better than you do.”
“I’m sorry, really I am; and I think you are a brick for coming out to warn me. You have more than squared our little account, for what I did at the fire required very little effort, and no courage whatever. I promise not to venture alone into their headquarters to-morrow, but it is absolutely impossible for me to run away from them just because they happen to suspect me of being something I am not. If I were to do a thing like that, I shouldn’t be able to live with myself afterward.”
“You won’t go?”
“My dear girl, how can I go? My mission is peaceful and lawful. I’m not looking for trouble. I am sorry, but you can see how absolutely impossible it is for me to run away just to humor a gang of—a violent and suspicious old man and that ignorant young lout.”
And then he realized that she was weeping.
“Miss Hinch! Please—ah, you mustn’t, really! You are tired—the tramp through the woods. Come, be a good girl, let me take you to Miss Hassock, or to the McPhees. You have friends in this village—plenty of them, the entire population, I’m sure. Come, you need a good rest. I’m quite safe, and I’ll not make trouble. There’s really nothing to cry about. Come to Miss Hassock, there’s a good girl. Why should you go back to that place, anyway—against your guardian’s wishes?”
She shook her head. “I—have to—go—for the safety—of my—friends.”
“Then I shall go with you.”
“No! No!”
“Only through the woods. Only to within sight of the house.”
“The road is guarded.”
“Yes, I know that. I’ll get my snowshoes. Half a minute. You wait here. I’ll be back in two ticks.”
He turned and ran. His rackets were in the woodshed; and he was soon back with them. But the young woman was not where he had left her. He went forward, studying the edges of the road. He turned into the Goose Creek road; and then it wasn’t long before he found where she had jumped off into a clump of brush. He tightened and tied the thongs of his snowshoes with eager fingers and followed eagerly on her tracks.
CHAPTER VII
Vane came up with her within a mile of the jump-off—and this was closer than he had hoped for. She neither welcomed nor reproved him, but only remarked in a noncommittal voice that he had not been long. He passed ahead of her, to break trail, and saw that she was back-tracking on her outward course. He tramped in silence, glancing frequently over his shoulder. Presently he found himself hanging on his stride for her; and at last she called, “I must rest a minute.”
He found her a seat among the raking boughs of a deep-drifted blow-down. Neither of them spoke during the brief rest; and in the forest gloom the face of each was no more than a blurred mask to the other’s eyes. She soon stood up and moved on, and again he passed her and led the way. In places the gloom shut down in absolute dark, with the vague glimmer of rifts of faint starshine far behind and far ahead. It was in such a place that he became suddenly aware that she was no longer moving close after the dragging tails of his rackets. He halted and stood for a few seconds, listening. He moved back slowly; and soon he came upon her crouched, sobbing, in the snow.
“It is my foot, my ankle,” she said in broken and contrite tones. “I fell and hurt it—before you overtook me.”
He knelt before her. This was his fault. She had fallen and hurt herself in trying to escape from him. It would have been kinder of him to have minded his own business.
“And you’ve walked all this distance on it!” he exclaimed. “I am a fool! Which is it? Sprained, do you think, or only a bit of a twist? May I feel? Let me bandage it or something.”
“The right,” she said. “I don’t think it’s seriously injured—but it hurts like anything—and I have to get home before—dawn.”
“Does that hurt?”
“Yes, yes!”
“I’m sorry. But it doesn’t seem to be swollen. Slightly, perhaps. A strain—I think that’s all. I’ll tie it tight. I have a simply huge handkerchief here. Just the thing. How does that feel?”
“Better—much better—thank you. I can go on now—slowly—a little way at a time.”
“No, you can’t. The weight of the snowshoe, the lift of it at every step, would play the mischief with it. I must take your snowshoes off and carry you.”
“You must not! It would kill you.”
“You are not heavy. And this is all my fault. You made this trip to warn me; and you hurt your ankle running away from me. All my fault—and I shall be glad to carry you, really.”
She protested; but he went ahead gently but firmly, removed her snowshoes from her feet and hung them on her shoulder and then crouched and hoisted and jolted her into that ancient and practical position for carrying known as pig-a-back. Doubtless it is more romantic to carry a lady in distress in your arms, and more dignified to pull her along on a sled, and even trundling her in a wheelbarrow (wind and weather permitting) may seem a more conventional way to some people—but every woodsman and soldier knows that pig-a-back is the style when a job of this sort has to be done for its own sake. Take the weight, be it dead-weight or live-weight, on and above the shoulders. Keep under it. Don’t let it get behind you, dragging your shoulders down and back and throwing your feet up and forward. This was old stuff to Vane—yes, and to the girl; so he hitched her as high as he could without the loss of a steadying back-handed hold on her, stooped forward slightly and went ahead at a fair pace.
He didn’t talk; and evidently the young woman had nothing to say. After a silent mile he halted, and let his load slide gently to the snow at his heels. They rested side by side. He lit a cigarette.
“It’s easy,” he said. “We’ll make it handily.”
“You are very strong,” she said. “And the stronger a man is, the kinder he should be. You are strong enough, and you should be kind enough, to let kindness overrule your pride.”
“Pride? I don’t know what you mean by that, upon my word!”
“You are not proud?”
“Certainly not. What of?”
“I’m glad. Then you’ll go away to-morrow, back to New York.”
“But I explained all that!”
“Nothing is keeping you here but your silly pride. You are too proud to allow people like the Danglers, or a little thing like a threat of death, to change your plans.”
“You are wrong. I don’t want to go away, that’s all. I want a horse, and I’m interested in—in the country. And I can’t believe that the Danglers would dare to go as far as that even if they were able.”
“They will think of a way—a safe way. I mean it. I beg you to go away to-morrow! Think of what life means to you—and those who love you! This isn’t a war. There would be nothing glorious in death here.”
“I believe you.”
“And think of your wife!”
“I haven’t any—but it would be rough on my mother, I’ll admit.”
“Rough on her? It would break her heart! And the woman you love—who loves you—who is waiting for you. Consider her feelings. Doesn’t her happiness mean anything to you? As much as your pride?”
Van scratched his chin.
“I believe there’s a great deal in what you say, but what about your ankle?”
“Please don’t be silly. I—this is serious—so serious that—I want to cry.”
“Not that, for heaven’s sake! I’ll be sensible. I’ll go away to-morrow. I’ll eat my pride and all that sort of thing and beat it.”
“Thank God!”
“Yes, I see that it is the best thing for me to do—from the point of view of the people who love me so distractedly. I’ll run away to-morrow—on one condition. You must promise to keep me in touch with your ankle.”
“That is—mean—unworthy of a—man—like you. Making fun. Cheating. I’m not—joking. I want to—save you—and you think—I’m a fool.”
“No, no! I’m the fool. I’m not joking. I’ll go away and save my life if you will promise to let me know about your ankle. How it’s recovering day by day and that sort of thing. That’s not asking a great deal—in return for my eating my pride and permitting you to save my life. Now I am serious. I mean that.”
“Will you give me your word of honor to go to-morrow if I promise to—to put your anxiety at rest about my ankle?”
“Yes.”
“Then you have my promise.”
“Good! Please accept my word of honor that I’ll skip out to-morrow. Now we had better be toddling on our way again. Climb on.”
“But this isn’t fair—making you carry me. No, it isn’t! It is cheating. I have your promise—so I’ll keep my promise now. I—my—there isn’t anything wrong with it.”
“With what? Your promise? Of course not. Mine is all right too.”
“I mean—I mean my ankle. There isn’t anything—the matter with my ankle. I was—only pretending.”
“Ah! Pretending? I see. At least that is to say I hope to get an eye on it in a minute. I seem to be unusually dull to-night—this morning. You didn’t hurt your ankle. Is that what you mean?”
“Yes. I didn’t hurt it. I didn’t even fall down.”
“It’s exceedingly amusing—as far as I can see. You got a free ride; and if you don’t mind, I don’t. But it seems hardly enough to be so amazingly clever and deep about. The ride is all you gained by it, so far as I can see.”
“And your promise.”
“But what had that to do with—well——”
“We must hurry.”
He fastened on her snowshoes and led the way. She kept up with him easily. He turned his head now and again, as if to speak, only to face front again in silence. At last she came up beside him and touched his elbow and asked if he were angry.
“No,” he answered. “I am doing my best, but I don’t believe you have done anything for me to be angry about.”
“I hoped you wouldn’t be. I played a trick on you—but it was for your own good.”
“To get me to make you a promise?”
“Yes.”
“So tricking me into toting you on my back was part of that scheme?”
“Yes. I—knew I had to—interest you in myself—so that you would pay attention to my arguments. I thought that the more trouble I was to you—well, Ihadto do something—to——”
“You did it. I am not angry, but pleased. Do you mind if I ask if you have always lived in the country around here?”
“I was away at school for a few years.”
She dropped behind and silence was resumed. It was maintained for nearly half an hour; and then she came abreast of him again and halted him with a hand on his arm.
“Here we are,” she whispered. “Just through there. Not thirty yards away. Good night. And you will go to-morrow. So it is good-by.”
He took both her mittened hands in his and stared hard at her upturned face, trying to find something there for the discernment of which the light was insufficient.
“Good night,” he said in guarded tones. “And good morning; and, as I must go away to-morrow, to-day, good-by.”
“Good-by.”
“But I shall soon be back—for that horse. I promised a horse of that strain—to a girl. That’s the only thing I’ve ever offered her that she has accepted—so I can’t fall down on that. But I’ll take precautions.”
“Please go, and stay away. They won’t sell you a horse. They will kill you. Good-by.”
“I’ll chance it—in the hope that you will save my life again.”
“But I won’t, if you do anything so crazy. Don’t be a fool!”
She snatched her hands out of his and turned and vanished in the blackness of crowded firs.
Vane looked straight up between the black spires of the forest and saw that the stars were misty. He saw this, but he gave no heed to it. He wasn’t worrying about the stars. He turned and stepped along on the track which Joe’s webs had already beaten twice and his once. It was deep enough to follow easily, heedlessly, despite the gloom. He felt exalted and exultant. Even his anxiety, which was entirely for the girl, thrilled him deliciously—such was his faith in himself, and his scorn of the Danglers. The thought of going away on the morrow did not depress him. He would soon be back.
In this high and somewhat muddled mood he might easily have passed an elephant in the blackness of the wood without sensing it. As it was, he passed nothing more alarming or unusual than poor Pete Sledge. Pete did nothing to attract the other’s notice, and took to the shadows behind him with no more sound than the padded paws of a hunting lynx.
This was a little game that had grown dear to Pete’s heart of late years. Natural talent and much practice had made him amazingly proficient at it. What he did not know of the bodily activities of Robert Vane and Joe Hinch during the past few hours was not much; and it may be that he suspected something of what was going on in their heads and hearts. He had wanted to chuckle, had been on the very verge of it, at the sight of the stranger carrying the artful young woman on his back—for he had known that there was nothing wrong with her ankle.
Vane had covered more than half of the homeward journey at a moderate rate of speed when he became conscious of the light touch of a snowflake on his face. He was not particularly interested, but for lack of something better to do he halted and looked straight up again. The high stars were veiled. Large, moist flakes fell slowly. He produced a cigarette and lit it, considering the effect of a heavy snowfall on his plans for the immediate future. The effect was nil, so far as he could see. Which shows how little he knew about his immediate future.
He resumed his journey at a slightly better pace, planning the morrow’s departure to the nearest town and the best manner of his quickest possible return. He would take precautions of the Danglers, as he had promised, but he must avoid involving the law if he could think of a way. Why not bring a bodyguard back with him, and thus supported, beard the—! Hell! * * * He pitched forward at the blow, fumbling for an inner pocket even as he fell. But he hadn’t a chance. He was jumped, pounded deep in the snow, bound at wrists and ankles, gagged and blindfolded. He was yanked out roughly and turned over; and that was all for a few minutes. He heard a shrill whistle from close at hand, and the softened answer; and then, for a little while, he was left undisturbed on his back. His nose and chin were exposed, and on these he felt the snowflakes falling faster and faster. He was slightly dizzy and slightly nauseated, but his mind was clear. His thick fur cap had saved him from a knockout. He was not in pain, though his discomfort was considerable; and he was angry enough to bite. The Danglers had him, he knew—and here was just and sufficient cause for rage. The Danglers had tricked him—and here was cause for shame. He had been guilty of military error as old as warfare: he had underrated the enemy. He was a fool! No wonder the girl had been afraid for him.
Presently he felt a fumbling at the thongs of his snowshoes. The snowshoes were removed. He felt a pair of hands under his shoulders, another pair at his knees, and he was lifted and carried. He strained his ears to catch a voice, but in vain. He was roughly handled—bumped and dragged. It was quite evident to him that his captors were in a hurry to get him to some particular spot, but it seemed that they were utterly indifferent as to his condition upon arrival. They carried him feet first; and frequently the leader got completely away from the other and his head and shoulders were dropped with a smothering thump.
Brief rests were frequent. Where the underbrush was awkwardly dense, he was simply dragged along by the feet. Now and then he caught a whiff of strong tobacco smoke; and later he caught a whiff of ardent spirits. After many minutes of this, or perhaps an hour—for with so many bumps and thumps he found it useless to attempt the reckoning of the passage of time—and after a less brief halt than usual, his webs were replaced and his ankles were freed, and he was stood upon his feet. For a moment he contemplated the advisability of delivering a few blind kicks—but before he had arrived at a decision he was pushed from the rear and flanks. He staggered forward to save himself from falling on his face; and before that initial stagger was completed another well-timed and well-placed thrust sent him staggering again; and then another—and thus the journey was continued.
Vane found walking, even with tied hands and bandaged eyes, pleasanter than being carried like a sack of oats. But this did not improve his temper. The gag hurt him, and that nerve-racking experience of advancing blindly against underbrush without any protection for the face maddened him more and more desperately at every step. And to be forced to it! To be thumped and thrust along from behind! An unusually violent poke with something exceedingly hard—the butt of a rifle, most likely—put the last straw on the over-strained back of his discretion. He turned with his right leg drawn up and shot out his right foot with every ounce that was in him, snowshoe and all. The blind blow landed. A yowl went up and someone went down. He jumped and landed on his mark, stamped twice with all his weight, then turned and jumped away. He missed his objective, the other Dangler, by a few inches that time, and received a bang on the ear for his trouble. But he tried again—and again—and once more. He fought furiously. He was blindfolded and his hands were tied behind him, but he came within an ace of victory. Despite the odds against him, four minutes transpired between his first jump and his last.
When he recovered consciousness he was again being carried and dragged. After a long time and many drops he was stood on his feet again and hustled along. After as much of that as he could stand up to, he fell and refused to arise. From that to the finish he was dragged, with an occasional lift over a blow-down or some other natural obstruction too high to take in an straight pull. He lost consciousness again before the end of that desperate and humiliating journey.
When he came to himself the second time it was to find the gag gone from his mouth, the bandage gone from his eyes, and his hands tied before him instead of behind him. He was on a floor of poles beneath a broken roof of poles and bark. Flashing snowflakes and a flood of desolate gray light fell through the hole in the roof. There was a hillock of snow beneath the rent, and there were little drifts of it elsewhere blown under and past the warped door. The door was shut; and nothing was to be seen of the men who had brought him here, and he could catch no sound of them from without, and there was no sign of them within except the tracks of rackets on the snowy floor. He wondered dully at the meaning of these things. He was dizzy, faint, and parched with thirst. He sat up painfully and rested his shoulders against the wall.
The door opened and a snow-whitened figure entered on snow-weighted rackets. He halted and peered around at the gloomy corners of the hut. It was Joe Hinch, but Vane didn’t believe his eyes. So he closed his eyes and made an effort of will toward the clearing and steadying of his brain, and wrenched desperately at the cords with which his wrists were bound. The cords loosened easily. His right hand came free and then his left. But still he kept his eyes closed.
His idea was that what he had seen was either a vision created by his own battered head or a reality transformed by his aching eyes. If it were nothing but a vision, well and good. If it should prove to be a reality, then the chances were that it was one of his enemies, in which case he would sit perfectly motionless until the last moment, and then—well, his hands were free now! He didn’t feel up to a fight—but, by the Lord, he would put up a fight! So he kept his eyes closed and his ears open.
He heard a low cry, a sob, a quick pad and clatter of rackets on the snow-streaked floor, a movement close beside him and quick, half-choked breathing. He felt a hand on his face, light and searching and tender. It was a small hand. An arm slipped behind him and his head was drawn to the hollow of a snowy shoulder. But it was a soft shoulder. Then he opened his eyes. His eyes had been right the first time. He could not see her face now, for it was pressed against his cheek. He could see only a strand of dark, snow-powdered hair like a veil close across his vision. He no longer doubted.
She was praying—whispering a prayer against his cheek.
“Don’t die,” she whispered. “Dear God, don’t let him die! Don’t let him die!”
He trembled slightly. His arms were free though benumbed. He slipped one around her. He attempted to speak, but could not articulate a single word. He managed nothing better than a faint sigh. She drew gently back from him, still crouched and kneeling and not quite out of the embrace of his numbed arm, and looked into his face. She looked into his eyes. There were tears on her cheeks—tears and melted snowflakes.
“Thank God!” she whispered; and then she moved back from him and stood up and turned away. She raised both hands to her face.
Vane moistened his dry lips.
“They bagged me,” he said. “But what’s their game? And where are we? And how did you get here?”
She came back to him and knelt again, smiling tremulously and dabbing at her eyes with wet fingers.
“I tried to overtake you,” she said. “I didn’t go home—only to the door—and then I turned back. I felt that—I had been—rude. And I was afraid. But I couldn’t catch up to you before—you were attacked. They were carrying you when I got near. I followed them all the way, and hid until they went away from here. I knew they wouldn’t kill you. I knew they would leave you to die—lost—helpless—starved. See these!”
She lifted his snowshoes from the floor for his inspection. The tough webbing was torn hopelessly from both frames.