“Is it?” He smiled a curious smile. “Well, perhaps. But it’s work, too, if you win. You have to keep everlastingly at it. And the thing you keep everlastingly at is pretty sure to seem like work.
“Play,” he mused, “play all summer. Play all winter would be good enough for me.” Football had taken its toll of his young life. He was weary, desperately weary; not the weariness that comes from a day of sudden, arduous toil, to be dispelled by a night’s repose, but the dull, dragged-out weariness experienced by an Arctic dog team after a five hundred mile trek over the frozen snow.
“Tell me,” the girl demanded suddenly, “what do you like?”
“What do I like?” Red spoke slowly. “I can’t tell you that. I can only tell you what I have liked in the past.”
“Tell me.” She laid her hand on his arm.
“This,” he said slowly, as if recalling some scene in the remote past, “this is what I have liked: to stand before an open hearth in the steel mill where twenty tons of scrap-iron, together with limestone and tungsten, boil at white heat; to reach in a long ladle and sample it as the New England farmer samples his maple syrup; to watch the sample cool, to crack it with a hammer, to study its gleam; to do this again and again until at last you make a motion that says, ‘The batch is done.’
“Then to throw a lever and watch that white hot metal, twenty tons of it, pour into a massive brick-lined pot of steel that hangs suspended from a crane.
“Then—” He paused to take a long breath. The girl was staring at him with all her eyes. “Then to stand beneath that twenty tons of molten steel and make the gesture that sets flat cars in motion, flat cars loaded with forms to receive the steel. Then to watch the white hot steel pour once more; to follow its course until the forms have been lifted off and the billets of steel stand, red hot, sizzling in the snow, row on row.”
He looked at her as if uncertain whether or not to go on.
“Yes—yes. Please?” whispered Berley Todd.
“To climb a steel stairway—” He took a fresh start. “To seize a lever that swings a crane. To lift a red hot billet of steel into its place before heavy steel rollers, then to lift it and toss it, to turn it and bump it, to roll it here and roll it there, to press it and cut it, then slide it to one side, a long, perfect steel rail over which rich and poor, presidents and princes may ride in safety. That,” he ended, “has seemed to me a very large sample of life.”
“Oh!” she breathed. And again, “Oh!”
She said never a word. For all that, he sensed the fact that she had grasped the meaning of all this and was glad.
“You’ll go back to that,” she said after a time.
“When studies and football are things of the past. I hope so.”
“But you’ll learn to love my island just a little, won’t you? And you will come back here when summer has come and the loons are nesting in Tobin’s Harbor?” There was pleading in her voice. She loved Isle Royale. How could others fail to love it?
“I feel,” said Red with a curious smile, “I sort of feel that I will come, too.
“But look!” He sprang to his feet. “The clouds are here. The moon has vanished. Time to be going!”
He did not now say: “Where shall we go?” He knew they were to row up the bay half a mile, then climb over a ridge to her family’s summer home. He was more than eager to reach that home. Curiosity regarding that home entered into that desire. But more than that was the feeling that there she would know of many places of hiding. And hide they must until they could leave the island.
“I’ll bring the boat around.” He vanished into the outer darkness.
Closing the door softly behind her, Berley Todd stepped out upon the short platform which served both as doorstep and dock. What emotion surged through her being as she stood alone there in the dark? Only she could answer that.
Soon came the low dip-dip of oars, and they were away.
“We’d better cross straight over,” she said in a low tone. “Then we can follow the shore. We’ll come at last to a small landing. Better try to keep in the shadows if the moon comes out.”
That this was wise counsel he was soon enough to know.
Just as they reached the opposite shore the moon, breaking through the clouds, painted the channel with a million spangles of silver.
Swinging the boat about quickly, Red drew it into the shadow of an overhanging cedar.
Resting there for a moment, they allowed their eyes to wander back. There, lighted up by the silver moon was the cabin that had offered them sanctuary for a day. Would they ever forget it? How could they?
And who would wish to forget so lovely a picture? Great spruce trees towered toward the sky. Half hidden by the lesser growth of birch and balsam, the cabins stood. There were three in all, yet in this uncertain light they seemed but one.
“It is one of the loveliest spots on earth!” The girl took one long deep breath that came near being a sob. “It is so beautiful it seems like a dream. Like a southern home beside a river in a moving picture.
“A man built it years ago. He built into it all his love for nature and the great out-of-doors. He had planned it that those he loved might be happy there. And they have been very, very happy.
“Wouldn’t this world be wonderful if all men were like that? If we lived for others more than for ourselves? If no one were greedy or ambitious for power? If we all lived the life God has given us for the pure joy of living?” Then again she murmured, “It’s like some southern home.” Her voice trailed off into silence.
Then, after a moment, she began again, only this time she was singing, singing so softly that she would not waken a sleeping bird:
“Carry me back to old Virginia,The place where I was born.”
“Carry me back to old Virginia,
The place where I was born.”
And then, as if the island home were but a beautiful dream, the moonlight faded, leaving all in darkness.
Once again Red Rodgers took up the oars and they glided onward over the dark mysterious waters of the night.
It was strange, this passing on and on into the unknown. Water and air seemed to meet. Did they ride in air or on water? What could it matter?
Only the rough outline of tree tops served to guide him. Off to the right a tiny island loomed for a time, then faded into the night.
Before them some wild creature swam. Was it duck or beaver? Who could say? Nothing appeared to matter. All was swallowed up in the mystery of the night.
Then, by a sudden flash of light, all was changed.
“There!” the girl whispered. “There, to the left, is the dock!”
A moment more and they glided silently alongside the narrow platform.
“Tie up here.” The girl stepped from the boat.
Until this time they had not flashed a light. Why did the girl flash Red’s light now? Who can say? She did throw it on for a second. Instantly a low cry escaped her lips.
“Look! Footprints!” Dismay was registered in her tone. “They—they have gone before us!”
It was true that the narrow circle of light revealed the prints of a very large boot in the snow. To the right of the dock a boat was tied.
The girl snapped off the light. For a moment they stood there in silence side by side, a moment only, then the girl gripped Red’s arm until it hurt.
“Look! Look! Light on the water! They are behind us and before!”
Some distance away, on the black surface of the water a pale light shone.
“Come!” she whispered. “I know a hundred hiding places! We can best escape them here!” She led him to the foot of the hill, then began to climb, leaving him to follow in the dark as best he could.
That same night Drew Lane “stepped into something,” something that was quite unexpected and—well, you’ll see.
During the day he had conducted his raids on the city’s two “kidnaping centers.” They had turned out as he had prophesied they might—quite tame affairs. Most of the gentlemen, expecting a call, had stepped out. The raids yielded three guns, sixteen pocket knives and no information of importance regarding the mysterious disappearance of the Red Rover. Indeed the protestations of innocence, the ready offer of assistance which he received on every hand led him to believe that this was a job pulled off by some one quite outside the well-ordered circle of kidnaping gentlemen.
“Honest, Lane, we don’t know a thing!” one smooth-spoken gentleman assured him. “We don’t want the Red Rover snatched. Why should we? Our money is up on him, a lot of it. We want him to come through with a touchdown, a whole flock of ’em. Tell you what—” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Your pay isn’t too big. Know where you can pick up a piece of change? I do. You just step out and bring the Red Rover back. The boys here will make up a purse for you. Just you say: ‘The Red Rover plays,’ and you’ll hear the clink of gold.”
“Do men gamble on football?” Drew had opened his eyes wide.
“Do they? Why, say! They—”
But something—a wink, a thrust in the side, a dark look, something—silenced the talkative one. He said no more. He had said enough, however, to put Drew in a thoughtful mood.
His collecting of pocket knives was received on the whole as a huge joke. It was suggested that he go out on a sand lot and take up a jack-knife collection from the boys playing ball.
Drew felt a bit silly about it himself and, since he had no notion what purpose it was intended to serve, he was tempted to chuck it. In the end he carried it through. So sixteen pocket knives all duly labeled reposed in the drawer of his desk.
All of which has nothing whatever to do with the thing he “stepped into” after darkness had fallen.
He had gone into a place for a belated dinner. This place, he knew, had a bad reputation. That was why he wished to eat there. A born detective, Drew was always looking for things, and sometimes he found them.
Having ordered baked flank steak, French fried potatoes, pie, and black coffee, he sat back in his chair to stare dreamily about him. He was truly hungry. “Flank steak all filled with dressing! Um!” he whispered. Little did he dream that the meal would never be eaten.
Just before him eight men were grouped around a double table. Their meal over, they sat drinking amber liquid from tall glasses.
“Might be soda water,” Drew mused. The men were far more interesting than their drink. They were a strange lot. Three of them, dark complexioned gentlemen with short black moustaches, looked exactly alike. They were dressed alike and often all spoke at the same time. They laughed together in a sort of symphonic chorus. To the right of these was a large man with a huge red nose who roared when he laughed. A smaller and younger man, who might well have been his son, sat beside him. Across from these were two others who did not fall under Drew’s gaze.
The man at the end caught and held Drew’s attention. A small man, he said never a word, but all the time sat poised as if for a spring.
“Looks like a jack-in-the-box,” Drew told himself.
This little man’s eyes were roving from one to another of his companions. Once, these eyes, swinging in a wide circle, took Drew in. Cold steel-gray eyes that glittered, they sent a chill coursing down his spine. He felt in his pocket. Yes, the safety on his automatic was snapped off.
It was then that Drew’s keen mind registered an important fact. This little man with the fiery eyes was branded, or so it seemed; there was a double scar on the right side of his forehead. Together these scars, one red, the other purple, formed a Maltese Cross.
“Know him anywhere,” Drew told himself. “And yet, those scars might be faked, little touches of colored wax. It’s been done.”
Drew was expecting something to happen. The room was like a country place before a thunderstorm. One expects the roar of it long before the first peal comes rolling in.
When the thing did happen Drew was ready. It was nothing much at that, you might say. The little man half rose in his chair. As he did so something heavy slipped from his pocket and fell to the floor with a crash. It was a blue-barreled automatic.
Without so much as glancing about, the little man reached down to pick it up.
A look of pained surprise overspread his face as he realized the gun was not on the floor.
Then, as if a thought had struck him all of a heap, he whirled about to fix his fiery eyes on Drew Lane and to remark in a tone as smooth and hard as glass:
“You got that.”
“Sure did.” Sliding back his chair, Drew stood up, thrust both hands deep in his pockets, then with a trick he had learned by long practice, threw out the lapel of his coat to display his star pinned underneath.
He said never another word—just stood there smiling a little. What more was to be said? The man had carried concealed weapons. This he had no right to do. As an officer Drew was doing his duty.
The little man’s face went red all over, like an angry sunset. His eyes swept the circle of his companions and, as if attached to strings held in his hand, they arose—the three all alike, the big man, his son and the other two.
Drew Lane was young. But he was no novice. He knew what it meant. He was prepared.
“Gentlemen,” he spoke in an even tone, “you can take me. You are eight to one. But I’ll get two of you first.” His eyes fell a trifle.
There was not a man in the group but read his meaning. In his pockets were two automatics. Time and again he had won the police prize for straight shooting from the hips. One false move and a member of the little man’s gang would get a bullet in his heart or his brain. Drew was good for exactly two of them.
It was a tense moment. Perhaps the glittering eyes of that little man had never wavered. Perhaps they would not have wavered now. Who could say? No one. For at that instant the lights went out, and on the instant, save for the feeble light of one small window, the place was dark.
A deep silence fell upon the room. Without realizing it, Drew began counting under his breath: “One, two, three, four, five, six.” Perhaps he was counting the seconds before things began to happen. Keeping a tight grip with either hand on the things of blue steel in his pockets, he waited, silent, breathless.
He had just become conscious of a clock that ticked loudly in a corner, when a low gasp caught his attention.
Without knowing why, he fixed his eyes upon the one small window. Other eyes were fixed upon that narrow window. How many pairs of eyes? Who could say? It was dark.
Something was moving by the window. Not a person—no, surely not that! A skull perhaps, an ugly skull with hollow eye sockets from which a pale light gleamed. A sigh passed over the room like the low moan of the sea at night.
And then something stranger happened. The skull disappeared and a ghost with bones bleached white and a long, flowing sheet went racing away across an empty space beside the building. Again the long sigh swept across the room.
And then the lights went on. These lights disclosed eight gentlemen standing just as they had stood before, staring rather stupidly at one another—the three alike, the big man and his son, the little one with glittering eyes and the other two. Drew Lane had vanished.
For a full minute by the clock on the wall they stood there staring at one another. Then the big man said in a loud voice:
“The Galloping Ghost!” After which he let forth a roar of laughter that suggested a crazy baboon roaring in the night.
Ten minutes later the place was raided by the police. There was no one there.
One fact about this affair seems important. Drew Lane retained possession of the automatic that had fallen on the floor. This automatic was the key to a situation. What situation? This, for a while, was to remain a mystery.
As Red Rodgers followed the girl in the dark over the narrow trail that led away from the dock where they had discovered mysterious footprints in the snow, he found himself climbing what seemed to him an almost perpendicular wall. Here he stumbled over a boulder, there slipped on a stretch of earth that appeared to stand on end, and here found himself clawing madly in air for some form of hand-hold. That the girl knew the trail well enough became evident at once. She reached the crest of the ridge far in advance of him.
“Here! Give me your hand,” she breathed as he came up. “It’s not so steep on this side. Almost not steep at all.”
Red heaved a sigh of relief, then prepared to follow on.
The trail was much longer on this side. It seemed strange, this prowling about in the darkness on an island he knew only by name.
As his eyes became more accustomed to the darkness he made out vague black bulks to the right and to the left. “Trees,” he told himself.
When one of these black bulks let out a low grunt and vanished into the night, he stopped short.
“Moose,” the girl said in a low tone. “All over the island. Like the bears of Yellowstone. That was probably old Uncle Ned.”
“Uncle Ned?”
“I’ll tell you about him some time,” she whispered.
Dense darkness lay before them. The girl plunged into this darkness, the shadow of a narrow stretch of forest.
Red’s ears caught the low murmur of water; his gaze fell upon the white gleam of light upon the water.
“We—we’ll go to the left. Lots of places there to hide.” Once again the girl led the way, but not for long. Suddenly she stopped dead in her tracks to whisper:
“See! A light!”
As Red looked he caught a yellow gleam that came filtering through the branches.
“Wha—what shall we do now?” For the first time the girl appeared at her wits’ end.
“That light comes from a cabin.” Red tried to think the thing out straight. “Might be best to try for a look. Then we’ll know what we’re up against, at least.”
Except to give him her hand the girl made no reply.
Slowly now, with pulses pounding, they made their way forward.
To the left of the trail they saw a white bulk, a cabin. They passed another. Then suddenly he dragged the girl from the trail. An unexpected sound had reached his ears, a dog’s bark.
“A dog!” Berley Todd shuddered. “Why would they bring a dog in the plane?”
“To track us. No wonder they were so sure we wouldn’t get away!”
“But listen! That dog’s inside. Let’s go back while there’s a chance.”
“It can’t be ten steps farther. I’m for a look. You—you stay here.”
“Not alone.” She gripped his arm hard. “I—I’ll go.” It was she who led now.
A dozen paces more and they stood within sight of the window through which the light shone. And then a tall man, who was just in the act of removing a ten gallon hat, moved in front of the light.
“Oh! It’s Ed!”
There was a melodious ring in the girl’s voice that told plainer than words that they had found a friend.
“Ed who? Who’s Ed?” Red was puzzled by this fresh turn of affairs.
“Just Ed. A scout. He has a camp on the island in summer. Always before he left with the rest. But now he’s here, and I’m glad!” There was a ring of pure joy in her voice. “Now—now we are three, three of us and a dog. Come on!” She dragged him forward. “Come on before he turns that dog loose!”
As Berley flashed the light for an instant the boy read, above the door:
TRAILSIDE.
He wondered what that stood for. There was no time now for talk. Berley’s hard little knuckles had made contact with the door.
The next instant they stood blinking in the light that came from the cabin. Before them, holding his dog by the collar, was a tall, well-built man whose graying hair said he might be forty. His face, though seamed and tanned from constant exposure, bore the touch of eternal youth, a heritage of those who spend their lives in wild and silent places.
For a space of seconds he stared at them. Then his face lighted with a smile as he exclaimed:
“Why! It’s the little half-portion, Berley Todd! Put her there!” He extended a brawny brown hand.
Then, as if struck by a sudden thought, he drew back and stared.
“But—but what are you doing here at this time?”
“Came by plane,” Berley explained with a laugh. “Didn’t you hear us arrive?”
“N-no.” The look on the guide’s face was strange to see.
“You wouldn’t of course. We came in the night.
“And this—” She pushed her companion forward. “This is the Red Rover. You’ve heard of him, haven’t you? The famous football star, the Red Rover?”
“Y-e-s?” The guide continued to stare. It was plain that he believed little of that which he had just heard. And who could blame him? What chance was there that the most famous football star of the season should go off into a wilderness in an airplane a few days before the big game of the year?
“It’s cold. We—we’d like to come in,” the girl pleaded.
The scout stared for ten seconds, then exclaimed:
“Beg pardon! Been a long time since any one was here. Didn’t expect to see a soul until spring. Come in. Got a big kettle of Mulligan stew on the stove. Big feed, what?”
“Can’t be too big for us!” said Berley, closing the door and, to the scout’s bewilderment, turning the key in the lock, as she said quite calmly: “I’d like to pull the shades if you don’t mind.”
“Why, yes. Just pull ’em right down.” The scout stared afresh.
“You see,” explained “the little half-portion,” dropping into a chair, “Red, here, and I ran away. We—we don’t want any one to know we are here. Not a soul—except, of course, you.”
“Thanks for the compliment, Miss. But I assure you there’ll not be a soul here until spring. Do you plan to stay that long?”
The muscles of Berley’s mouth were twitching desperately. It was great fun, this posing as the stolen bride of a famous football star, but bottling up her mirth was quite another matter.
“Why—why, we—” She tried hard to steady her voice. “We—we haven’t made any definite plans, have we?” She turned to Red. Then, as if a second thought had taken possession of her, she demanded:
“Red, what did you do to that plane when you left me out on the raft at the back of Tobin’s Harbor?”
“I took the breaker assemblies out of their magnetos.”
“Whatever that means.” She wrinkled her brow in a peculiar way.
“It means,” Red measured his words, “that they will have to send to the factory for parts before they can fly; in other words, that they can’t leave the island.”
“That makes it bad.” Berley seemed worried.
“For them.”
“For us. They’ll be after us night and day to get those parts back. They’ll not leave a stone unturned. If we leave the island before they do, they are trapped here. Even if they reached the lighthouse no one would aid them.”
“And the officers will come here after them.” Red went on where she left off. “My old friend, Drew Lane, will be here in his red racer. Grand coup, I call it! A bit hazardous, but what is life but a series of exciting adventures? If you can make those adventures count for good, why that’s fine and dandy, I’d say.”
“It is.” Beaming, Berley put out her hand.
Then, turning to the puzzled scout, she exclaimed: “Ed, you’ve got us all wrong. We haven’t eloped. We’ve been kidnaped, one at a time, and have escaped together. Now Red has got to get back to the gridiron for Saturday’s game and I to the bleachers. You are elected to help us. You may get shot and all that, but you’ve got to come along. You’ve been drafted.”
Understanding very little of all this, but game to the last, the scout threw open a cupboard to drag down two huge pistols.
“Then,” he said solemnly, “it’s shootin’ irons. Inherited them from my dad. Never had much use for ’em except to take a crack at a prowlin’ coyote now and then, but I reckon I can hit a tin can at fifty yards mighty nigh every pop. And that’s good enough for coarse work. I’m with you, little half-portion, with you to the end.” Then, as if she were a child, he seized her about the waist and bumped her head against the ceiling.
“Mulligan’s done,” he announced a moment later. “What am I really drafted into? You’ll tell me that, won’t you, over the Mulligan stew and coffee?”
To inform you that Drew Lane made his escape from a perilous position while the Galloping Ghost was doing his bit would be to waste words. There are times, of course, when it is an officer’s duty to stand his ground and shoot it out with the outlaws who chance to cross his path. This was not one of those times. Drew Lane went for reinforcements. That he did not return in time was an unavoidable misfortune. He was obliged to content himself with turning in a detailed report of the affair together with an accurate description of the individuals who composed the band.
“I’d know that little fellow with the fiery eyes anywhere,” he said to Tom Howe, as he sat at his desk. “His scar marks him if nothing else does.
“But those three fellows that look just alike. Suppose they scatter. How’s a fellow to tell which is which? Clever, I call it. Suppose one is suspected of a stick-up. Suppose he’s put in the ‘show up’ on Sunday morning. Then suppose the victim says: ‘That’s the man.’ But suppose the other two are in the line and the victim says again and yet again: ‘That’s the man.’ And each time he’s seeing a different one. Which of the three will be tried and convicted?”
“There’d be a mix-up,” Tom grinned.
“Sure would.
“But look, Tom.” Drew placed a thing of blue steel on the table. “Here’s the automatic that the little fellow with fiery eyes dropped. He’s the sort that shoots on sight. He may have done some shooting right here in town. It might just happen that you’ve got a bullet in your collection that came from his gun.”
“Might at that.” Tom took the gun. “Quite a collection of bullets I’ve got right now. There’s the one that stopped Patrolman O’Malley down by the Stock Yards. There’s the one that passed through the Chink’s heart and landed in a wall down in Chinatown. Six or seven more. I’ll try it out. Want to come along, Johnny?”
Johnny Thompson dropped the book he was reading. “I’ll be glad to!” Anything that had to do with scientific crime detection might claim this boy’s attention, be it day or night.
Tom Howe and Johnny dropped down to the basement where a bullet might be fired into a barrel of sawdust without disturbing the guests of the hotel. Drew finished his report, dispatched it by a messenger and then, having extinguished his lamp of gleaming white light, switched on one of faint blue that gave the whole place an air of spooky mystery. It was thus that he could best think out the problems which lay directly before him.
“A whole day gone,” he told himself. “And what have we? A bed sheet taken from a sleeping car. An invisible footprint on that sheet. But whose footprint? Shall we ever know? A bullet.”
He spread out a sheet of paper to examine it afresh. “A second message from the dead,” he murmured. “At least from the Galloping Ghost. Pretty hard-fisted ghost at that. Knocks Tom down; then when he is gone, digs a bullet from some post or railway tie, and presents it for our inspection. He says here that the bullet is the one fired at Tom out there by the Red Rover’s sleeping car. ‘Find that man.’ And then—sure, find him if you can!
“But this jack-knife business,” he mused on. “The Ghost says one of the kidnapers has the whittling habit, that while waiting for Red to fall asleep he sat on a pile of ties and whittled at a soft stick. A knife blade, he says, when examined under a microscope shows some irregularities on its edge, even the sharpest of ’em. I suppose that’s right. But what of it?”
He sat for some time in a brown study from which he emerged with a start and a low exclamation:
“Something to it! What? Might be a lot! I’ll have to get Tom digging into that. He and his microscope have solved many a baffling crime.”
Once again he settled back into meditation. “Speed boat tied up far down the river. Airplane hangar nearby. Police have searched all buildings near there. No result. Looks like an airplane job. Spirited away in an airplane. What could be simpler? Wonder if the night mechanic at the airport knows anything? If he does, like as not he wouldn’t tell.
“One thing sure!” He brought his chair down with a bang. “We’ve got to get action, and get it quick!”
Seizing the evening paper he scanned its front page. GHOST GALLOPS AGAIN was sprawled across the front page. And below, RED ROVER STILL MISSING. POLICE HAVE NOTHING TO REPORT.
“Well—” Drew smiled grimly. “Hold your horses. We may report something yet.”
Again he read, in smaller type: “The public is aroused by this daring crime. A large purse is being raised as a reward for the return of the Red Rover. The Midway coach is game. He is drilling his team hard in the face of almost certain defeat.”
“Too bad!” Drew shook his head. “Probably his last great game. They say he is to retire at the close of this season. Everything was set for a glorious victory. And now this! The plans wrecked by a gang of outlaws who deserve nothing but to die horribly. And here we are doing our best, working night and day, following blind trails, getting nowhere. We—”
He broke short off as a fist banged the door and a voice demanded:
“Open up! Let me in!”
It was Johnny. As a bringer of good news he had outstripped Tom Howe.
“Drew! Drew!” he panted. “That’s the gun!”
“What gun is which gun?” Drew grinned in spite of himself.
“That bullet fits that gun.”
“Which bullet fits what gun? Sit down and tell me about it.” He pushed him into a chair.
After a breathing spell Johnny was able to tell a connected story. He and Tom Howe had gone to the basement and had fired three bullets from the gun Drew had picked up on the floor of the place where, for a very good reason, he had eaten no supper. Having fired the bullets into sawdust, they had picked them out and had examined them under the microscope.
“You know how it is,” he went on. “Every gun barrel has microscopic defects on the inside. These leave their marks on the bullet. The bullet left by the Galloping Ghost apparently struck the steel car a glancing blow and then entered a block of wood. One side was flat, but the other showed its marking clearly. And the scratches on that bullet, four of them, clearly marked, exactly matched the ones fired from the gun you took from that little fellow with a branded forehead and fiery eye.”
“They did!” Drew dropped in a heap on a chair. “So that was the man! And I had him, had him in my hands! And I let him go! What a break!”
Johnny, as he recalled the circumstances, was not sure whether Drew had had the little man or the little man and his gang had had Drew; but he said nothing.
“We’ll get ’em. We’ll get ’em yet!” Drew came to his feet with a bound. “Get the Chief on the wire. He’ll send out a drag-net. A mob like that can’t cruise about this city without being caught. They’re marked men, every one of them!”
Was he right? Only time would tell.
In the meantime Red Rodgers, the object of all this activity in a great city, sat at a small table in a cozy cabin on Isle Royale, hundreds of miles away, calmly sipping the broth from a delicious Mulligan stew (which, by the way, is made by cooking up everything you have in the way of meat and vegetables, then adding much sliced bacon and many onions).
The stew was good. The cabin was warm. The hour was late. When Red had emptied his bowl he sat back to nod drowsily.
“It’s good to be lazy and comfortable and to do nothing,” he murmured. It seemed to him now that he had somehow been drugged. Never before had he felt so little desire for action. “I wish those crooks would leave us alone,” he thought to himself. “I wish I could sleep for a week.”
But what was this? A voice sounded in the room, a strange voice. And what was this man saying?
“The listening world will be interested to know that while the football star, officially known as the Red Rover—”
“Red—Red Rover.” The boy sat up, quite awake now. “Why, that is the radio! They’re talking about me. And here I am listening in.”
“Yes,” the scout chuckled, “that’s Chicago. Haven’t listened to that station before, or I’d have known. Bet they’re broadcasting reports every hour.”
“About me?”
“Why not? You’re a star.”
“A star to-day; to-morrow a steel mill worker. What does one star more or less matter?”
For all that, he sat up and listened with increasing interest as the speaker told of all that was being done to apprehend the kidnapers and return the Rover to his team.
“Good old Drew Lane,” he murmured. “He’ll get ’em. You’ll see.”
But after all—. His spirits drooped. After all, what could it matter? He might discover who the kidnapers were. But would he trace them to Isle Royale? Ah, no. That was expecting too much!
He felt a tightening at his throat as he thought of his team mates and the coach, the Grand Old Man, doing their best to stave off defeat. “It’s not that I’m so important as an individual,” he told himself humbly, “but I’m part of the piece, like one stone in an arch. Without me the team must fail.
“Why am I here?” he cried out suddenly, springing to his feet. “How can I get away?”
“Perhaps you can’t,” the guide said quietly. “We’ll do the best we can.
“Listen!” The guide blew out the lamp, then quietly opened the door. Bing, the dog, uttered a low growl. He was silenced by his master.
From somewhere away off in the dark came a weird, wild call. It was answered here and answered there. Then such a chorus as never before was heard on sea or land rose above the sound of rushing water and sighing pines.
“Wolves,” Ed commented briefly. “Bush wolves. Hundreds of ’em on the island. They’re all singing to-night. There will be a storm. Listen again.
“There is a little sea to-night. To-morrow it will be raging. The distance from Rock of Ages on this island to the mainland is seventeen miles. Rock of Ages is forty miles from here. There are power boats here, but no gasoline. You’d have to row. You’d never make it.”
“Our only chance is Passage Island,” Berley Todd put in.
“Absolutely! But that is four miles from Blake’s Point. Four miles of raging black waters. And Lake Superior never gives up her dead. No. No, son. You’ll be staying here a spell yet. And why not? Really you should see a little of Rock Harbor while you’re here. That’s what they say in summer.” He laughed. “Why not now?”
Red was to see something of Rock Harbor indeed. Pictures of this unusual little corner of the world were to hang for many a day on the walls of his memory. Some of these he would cherish, and some he would be glad to forget.
* * * * * * * *
Next morning, in the distant city, there was a council of war. Drew Lane, Tom Howe and Johnny Thompson sat around Drew’s desk. Coffee had been sent up in a tin pail. They were imbibing freely as they talked.
“The police drag-net caught never a thing,” Drew announced. “They’ve vanished, all that gang belonging to the fiery-eyed fellow, the big man and his son, the three just alike, and the two others. And that,” he sighed, “leaves us just where we were. We have the gun that was fired at you, Tom, but we haven’t the man. The Red Rover is still a captive. And why? Will you answer me that? Have the authorities over at Old Midway received demands for ransom money?”
“Not a scratch.” Tom’s brow wrinkled. “Had them on the wire half an hour ago. There’s another case up just now, too; just as strange in a way. Little lady named Berley Todd; old man Todd’s daughter, steel magnate, or something of the sort. Not a word from her either, though that’s not our problem. We’re out to find the Red Rover.”
“Yes, and that promises to be enough to keep us awake nights.
“Tom,” Drew’s tone changed, “did you ever hear of a pocket knife convicting a man?”
“Stabbing case?”
“No, whittling, just plain whittling.”
“Why, yes. Let me see. There was one. A fellow shot a former partner of his. Trapper he was, I think. He built a blind of green willow branches. Cut the branches with his pocket knife. Shot the fellow behind this blind. The sheriff found the blind. Then he found the knife in the fellow’s cabin. He sent the knife and willow stubs to the Crime Laboratory. They studied the knife blade and the cuttings. That was the knife all right; irregularities in the cuttings were the same as on the knife blade. The trouble was, they couldn’t prove that the knife had not been planted in the fellow’s cabin, so the thing fell through.”