Jake lifted his head from the hard floor. “Listen, Sherlock,” he warned, “don’t try to get out of here without letting us know. First move you make toward that door, I’ll rise up and bust you one.”
“I won’t move! I’m one of you now, Jake! I won’t run away!”
“Well, don’t forget!” He saw Jerry still standing beside the fire. “What’s biting you, Jerry? Why don’t you come to bed with the rest of the gang? Want me to sing you a lullaby? What are you up to, anyway?”
Jerry put his money back into his pocket, and yawned. “Oh, nothing!” he answered. “Nothing at all. Good night. Say, I hope the owner of this shanty don’t come rolling in along about morning. He’ll want to charge us rent.” He chuckled. “Wonder what Mr. Jim Avery is thinking now, back at camp?”
A snore answered him. Jerry Utway spread his mackinaw across the least rough patch of floor he could find, stretched out his full length with feet toward the fire, and closed his weary eyes. “Nothing at all!” he murmured drowsily. In five minutes he was asleep.
Jake Utway stirred uneasily. Something was digging into his hip, bluntly shoving him back to consciousness. He sat up. Was it Reveille so soon? But this wasn’t Tent Ten! For a moment he stared, sticky-eyed, into a small fireplace heaped with flaky white wood-ash. In a flash it came back to him—the escape from Lenape; the moonlight march with their captive, Sherlock; the discovery of the shack in the woods—— Jake groaned softly, and stretched his cramped body.
“Anybody awake?” he asked drowsily. “Boy, but I’m stiff! This log floor—maybe I shouldn’t have slept against the grain of the wood!”
A loud sneeze at his side answered him, followed by a series of sniffles and a second sneeze. He turned and discovered Sherlock Jones, with tears in his pale eyes, rubbing his nose with a grimy handkerchief.
“Bad coad!” explained the ex-detective with another sneeze. It was plain that Sherlock was not made of the stuff of outlaw heroes. Reddened eyes, a dripping nose, and chattering teeth were the penalties of his moonlight jaunt and his night in the backwoods hut. “Very dasty coad! Say, who pud this thig over be?” Sherlock had noticed for the first time that a norfolk jacket had been carefully thrown over his body some time in the night. It was the garment worn by Burk, who had evidently tucked it about the sleeping boy as a protection against the night breezes that penetrated through the cracks in the floor of the hut. “Where’s Bister Burk? Oh, there you are.A-choo!Thags very buch, Bister Burk. You bust have been coad yourself!”
“Forget it, old man!” Burk rolled over and yawned. “Sorry you have a cold, though.” Of a sudden the man sprang up. “Where’s the other fellow?” he cried.
Jake looked about him. Jerry was not in the little room.
“Where’s your brother? Did he tell you he was going out?”
“Why, no!” said Jake. “He must be somewhere around, though. He can’t have gone far.”
The sun was high; a dazzling, glorious stream of light poured in through a dusty window. Sherlock pointed with his handkerchief.
“Whad’s that over the fireblace?” he snuffled.
Jake jumped up to look. A bit of paper was stuck prominently into the cracks of the stone mantel. It was an old envelope, on the face of which was scrawled a few cramped lines of writing in pencil. “It’s a note—a note from Jerry!” he exclaimed in surprise. “He’s—he’s gone!”
“Gone!” echoed the man.
“Yes; listen to this: ‘Dear Jakie and Others—We’ve got to have grub, so I’m going to Wallistown. Will bring it as soon as I can. Will try to get some news if I can. Don’t worry about me.—Jerry.’ Well, what do you think of that?”
“I thig it’s good,” sighed Sherlock. “I sure could eat somethig right dow!” Burk said nothing, but took up a couple of holes in his belt.
“That’s just like Jerry,” observed Jake, sticking the note in his pocket. “He knew we’d have to stay here in hiding all day, and didn’t want us to starve. We need grub, sure enough. But it’s no use for him to tell us not to worry—anything in the world might happen to him in Wallistown, and I won’t rest easy until I see him back here safe.”
“You thig he may get into druble?”
“Say, Sherlock, that cold of yours must be affecting your brain. Don’t you know that everybody in the world will be after us, after what happened last night? We can’t just disappear—the Chief and all the rest back at camp will be hunting for us, and they’re sure to connect our disappearance with Burk here. That’s why we can’t travel in the daytime.”
“But where do you wad to travel?”
Jake threw up his hands. “Listen! It’s plain we’ve got to tell you everything. Mr. Burk was put in jail for being a thief, but he didn’t steal the necklace. If we can get to Canoe Mountain Lodge, he thinks we can prove that he’s innocent. And we’ve got to get there! Now do you savvy?”
“Thad’s wad I thought all the tibe,” nodded Sherlock sagely. “I said Bister Burk was all right, and I probise to help if I cad.A-choo!”
“Well,” said Jake, “you can help us a lot—— Jiminy, what’s that?”
It was small wonder that Jake was startled. A sound had broken the stillness of the forest, a chilling, heart-gripping hullabaloo from the north, toward Lenape—the high belling howl of a pack of hounds on a warm trail.
“Dogs!” Burk clenched his fists. “By heaven, they’ve got bloodhounds out!” His pallid face went whiter still.
“Bloodhounds! You mean—they’re pointing out our trail last night?”
“Yes—listen!” It came again, the terrifying chorus of their sharp-nosed pursuers. “They can’t be far off! Boys, we can’t stay here!”
“But—where will we go?” said Jake, shakily. “If Jerry comes back here, he’s sure to be caught!”
“Can’t help that!” Burk was gathering together their few belongings over his arm. He ran to the door, and cooked his ear up the trail. “Come along!”
Sherlock Jones, at the first awesome baying of the pack, had given himself up for dead. Bloodhounds! He struggled weakly to his feet, found Jake pulling his arm, leading him toward the door.
“If we stay here, we’ll be cornered!” cried the man. “They’re not far off now—they’ll be on us in a few minutes!” The baying call sounded again, much louder, it seemed. “Hurry!”
He plunged into the woods, looking back to see if the boys were following. Jake was having difficulties; he had almost to push the bewildered Sherlock every inch of the way. The vision of a pack of fiendish hounds leaping at his throat, pulling him down, almost paralyzed the poor lad; he stumbled along at Jake’s side, shivering, sneezing, almost falling headlong. Again rose in the still air the hunting-cry of the beasts on their track.
Jake noticed that the man was leading them downhill, fighting his way through the scratching underbrush. Where could they be going? In which direction lay an instant’s safety from that yapping Nemesis at their backs? The two boys leaped down a steep declivity, saw Burk standing in a little ravine below.
“Water!” he shouted. “We’ve got to wade in this brook a ways—that will shake them off for a bit!” He started down the course of the swift stream, splashing rainbow drops up to his knees, rattling stones with his hurrying feet.
Jake herded his charge into the water, and took the plunge himself, driving Sherlock ahead of him down the rough descent. For some two hundred yards they stumbled forward in panic, ankle-deep in the chill rivulet. The stream was rapidly becoming wider, fanning outward to form a little pool. Beyond, they saw Burk, wading waist-high across to a little spot of grassland sheltered among tall poplar trees.
“Come on!” he called.
Somehow—Jake never could explain it to himself afterward—he forced the stricken Sherlock through the pool and helped him to climb the muddy bank, where the dazed boy lay where he fell, his thick glasses knocked over one ear, his eyes streaming, caught in the clutch of a sneezing fit.
“I—I can’t go on!” Sherlock gasped. “I dow I probised to help—but—but——”
Burk bent over him. “We’ve got to get away, old man! You can’t stay here—they’ll find you in a minute.” He helped the boy to his feet, and with Jake on the other side, they continued their mad progress, almost dragging the limp body of young Jones between them.
As they ran, Burk jerked out a few directions. “I think I know where we are now. It’s dangerous ground—but the dogs have driven us out of the mountains. We’ve got to find more water—that’s the only thing that will shake them off our trail. And I think this little brook empties into Lake Wallis——”
Jake looked back over his shoulder. Above them, to the northward, he caught a view of a figure for an instant, clear against the skyline—the silhouette of a mounted man, galloping along the trail. Again came the bloodthirsty belling of the hounds. Had they found the hut?
Again the fugitives were among the trees. Of a sudden Sherlock Jones collapsed; had they not caught him, he would have fallen headlong on his face. Jake and Burk exchanged glances. With the pursuers so close on their heels, burdened as they were with a helpless boy——
Sherlock was mumbling something, through chattering teeth. “You go ahead—leave be here——”
Jake shook him. “We won’t leave you, old scout! Just a few steps more——”
“No—can’t bake it—— I’ll clibe a tree, so the dogs can’t get be——”
“Do you think you can?” asked Burk eagerly. “Say, if you could get into a tree, the dogs would stop for a while, and we might get free! If only you could do it, hold them at bay for a few minutes——!” It was true that the boy was a hindrance to their flight, and could be nothing but a danger to them; but could he be left behind to hold the yapping hounds, who were sure to pause if they found their quarry treed, he might gain for them a few priceless seconds——
“I’ll do it! I said I’d help you, Bister Burk!” gulped Sherlock bravely. “Just put be into a tree—a big tree——”
“By George, that might do it!” said Burk, admiringly. “Come on, we’ll hoist him up this one.” He indicated a smooth-barked poplar with a low branch hanging just above them. “Give him a lift.”
There was no time for delay. Like a sack of flour, Sherlock’s form was heaved against the trunk of the tree with a mighty swing. He waved his arms desperately, caught hold of the limb, and scrambled aloft amid a shower of leaves and bark, kicking his dripping feet wildly behind him. Like a treed raccoon, he huddled in a crotch of the tree and tried to make himself small.
“Rud!” he shouted to the two below. “I’b all right. I won’t tell theb a thig!”
The two on the ground hesitated no longer. Jake did not dare look back; he had all he could do to keep up with the racing man at his side.
“Sherlock’s game, all right!” he managed to gasp. “He came through fine; I never thought he had it in him! Think he can hold them?”
Through his mind flashed the thought that already their party was scattered; Jerry was gone, Heaven alone knew where, and now Sherlock had sacrificed himself so that the others might have an instant’s start. Good old Sherlock! He had helped them after all—— They burst through the last of the trees, into a spreading pasture land.
“One chance in a hundred!” Burk was crying through clenched teeth. “We’ll fool them yet! If we can only get as far as Lake Wallis—— Cross water! Now, son, don’t try to say anything more now!” The two racing fugitives dashed through the grass in the hot sunlight. “Save your breath! We’ve got to run now as we never ran before!”
Jerry had awakened about eight o’clock, scribbled his brief note, and crept from the hut in the woods without disturbing any of his sleeping companions. His mind was made up. Burk had said that Wallistown was not far away, and there he could certainly purchase the food they needed so badly. Since they were forced to hide here until nightfall, his brief desertion would not hold up their march. And he knew they would be hungry. He was hungry already. The keen, fresh morning air whipped up his appetite as he hiked steadily down the trail. Birds were flashing through the dewy thickets about him, caroling their morning-songs; not a cloud hung in the sky.
He came to an old moss-covered stone fence, crossed over, and found himself in a lane, lined with tall elder bushes, with dark rich clusters of small berries hanging among the leaves. A rich find! He filled his mouth with the bitter-tasting fruit, which stained his hands a deep purple as he ate.
Feeling refreshed by this woodsy breakfast, he decided to follow the lane. It led him half a mile, coming out at a white frame farmhouse where a woman was washing clothes in the yard. She looked up as he passed and watched him strangely, but said nothing, and he walked on to the road beyond. This was a dirt-covered highway which evidently led in the direction he wished to take. He swung along steadily through rich farm-lands and pastures where cattle grazed. A hay-wagon driven by a man in a large straw hat passed him; he did not look up, but had a feeling that the driver was watching him steadily. The road twisted and curved until Jerry had to get his bearings from the mountains before he was sure he was on the right track. Two miles farther, he came to a signpost that informed him that Wallis Springs lay to his left, while Wallistown was still seven miles away. This hike was farther than he had supposed; he might not be able to return to his comrades for some hours yet. Nevertheless, he knew that Wallis Springs was nothing more than a little group of summer cottages where he might not be able to purchase any food; he must push on to Wallistown, at the foot of the lake. He swung off down the curving road.
The sun was now high overhead; he was hot, dusty, and a trifle tired. He took off his mackinaw and slung it over his arm, wishing he had left it behind. Now and then he could see to his left the fringe of trees that bordered the big lake, and could make out the roofs of little cabins occupied by people who were summering on its shores. The road twisted in and out, following the wavy outline of the lake’s bank; no matter how fast he tried to walk, Wallistown seemed to be as far away as ever. He begged a glass of water from a friendly, red-faced woman who answered his knock at a little cottage beside the road, and went on. Several automobiles passed him, driving toward town, but none of their occupants offered to stop and give him a lift, and he did not dare ask for a ride. People who picked you up, he had found, were often very curious about where you were going and why; they asked too many questions, and he was in no frame of mind to undergo any cross-examinations this morning. It was almost eleven o’clock when he halted to rest beside a bridge that spanned a little stream which wandered toward the lake.
A whirring drone sounded above him; a cross-shaped shadow skimmed across a field by the road. An airplane hummed overhead, flying low, almost hitting the tree tops. Jerry wondered idly why the pilot took a chance of crashing by flying so close to the ground. The plane circled and swung off toward the mountains, and Jerry dismissed it from his mind. If he had known that this airplane was combing the country for traces of Burk and the missing boys, he might not have dismissed it so easily.
He rose and plodded ahead down the dusty road. Wallistown was in sight now. He could see the group of two-story buildings that marked its main street, leading from the wharf where a number of canoes, rowboats, and small motor launches were tied up. It was getting late; he decided to keep as far as possible from the center of town, where he might be observed. There was no use taking any chances, and he must start right back, to have time to carry the food he would purchase back over the long miles that now separated him from his friends in the mountains.
At one side of the wharf was a line of low buildings. Jerry left the road and followed a wooden sidewalk along the bank of the lake, and made out, on the front of the largest of these buildings, a sign that proclaimed it to be a grocery and “general store.” This was as close to the town as he wished to go. The sight of so many strange faces—people who probably had never even heard of Camp Lenape—frightened him a little. If he hadn’t come so far, and hadn’t known that his brother and the rest were depending on him to bring them some grub, he might have turned back right there. As it was, he quickened his pace and entered the shadow of the store.
The interior of the place was gloomy, after the sunlight outside, and was filled with a thousand different odors, chief among them being those of stale candy and dried fish. An old man was lounging in a chair which leaned back against the counter; he moved his head lazily to look at this customer.
“What’ll ye have, bud?”
“A couple cans of beans, and some other stuff—I don’t know just what.”
“Wal, look around and pick ’em out. Guess we got what ye want,” the man answered, and leaned back again with his arms behind his head.
Jerry poked about among the shelves in the back of the store. They wouldn’t have much chance to cook; better to take things that would carry easily, and that they could eat cold—bread and cheese and chocolate——
The old man Slammed the four legs of his chair to the floor with a bang, as someone entered hurriedly through the door.
“You got my order ready, Mr. Clay?”
“Hullo, Rufe. Say, did ye find that canoe of yourn?”
The newcomer was breathing heavily. Jerry darted a glance at him. He saw a stringy youth with a pimpled face, garbed in a jersey and dingy white flannels, whose voice now took on a tone of injury.
“Yeah, we found it floatin’ down by the outlet. They must have landed in some hurry; Talk about nerve! I was choppin’ some wood up by our place above the Springs. These two come burstin’ out of the woods, runnin’ like blazes, and got away with the canoe before I even had time to yell. I run along shore about half a mile, but they had started across, and I couldn’t do a thing. Pretty soon along comes a man on a horse, gallopin’ along like mad. He asks me if I’ve seen this pair—he’s a deputy sheriff, he says. You could have knocked me over with a feather when he tells me that one of the guys who stole the canoe was this convict that’s been missin’ from the Pen at Elmville!”
“Ye don’t say! Wal, did he catch ’em?”
“No, not yet. They got ashore by the outlet, like I told you. They’re still loose around here somewheres; this sheriff feller says he hunted ’em with dogs, and got one, but these two got clean away.”
Jerry was frozen in his place, one hand still gripping a can of corned beef. It couldn’t be true! Hunted with dogs! And one of them captured!
“They’ll get ’em,” said the old storekeeper with grim satisfaction; “ye’ll see, Rufe, them fellers won’t get far. That there airyoplane they got flyin’ around is like to spot ’em if they try to break across country.”
“I hope they do get caught,” said the youth vengefully. “Stealin’ my canoe! Jimmy from the newspaper office was just tellin’ me this convict feller had got some kids from a camp up the line to help him get away last night. Must have been one of ’em I saw with this man——”
“What did the boy look like?” Jerry blurted out, and instantly wished he had bitten out his tongue rather than speak those words. His concern for his brother had made him forget how perilous was his own position.
The youth in flannels turned upon him slowly. “Well, if it’s any of your affair, Mr. Butt-In, he was——” The speaker gasped, and surveyed Jerry from head to toe. “Why—why—from what I saw of him, he looked just like you!”
The old man cackled with laughter. “Guess that’ll fix ’im, eh, Rufe? Pretty fast answer, that!”
“But, I mean he—he really does look like him! I only caught a glimpse of this kid when he was runnin’ to the canoe, but I could swear——”
The storekeeper’s chuckles broke off. “Don’t mean to say ye think this young feller is a des-prit criminal, do ye, Rufe? Why, this feller come in just as cool as a cucumber—wanted some beans, he says.”
Jerry thought rapidly. “Well, I don’t want any now!” he said boldly. “You can keep your old stuff. I don’t want to listen to all your talk, after this!” He started with determination for the door.
“Half a minute!” The youth called Rufe barred his way. “Maybe you weren’t the same feller that took my canoe, but you act kind of funny to me. Maybe you know somethin’ about all this.”
Jerry did not pause. “You’re crazy! Just try to stop me!” His heart was in his mouth, but he tried to look unconcerned, and pushed his way ahead. The other looked as if he would hold him by force; but evidently thinking better of it, he stepped aside, and Jerry passed out into the street.
His whole body was quivering at the suddenness of this encounter. Sherlock caught—Jake and Burk escaping in a canoe from a mounted rider who had tracked them! Why, he had left them sleeping miles away only a few hours ago! And now—they must be near him, in danger, expecting any moment to be taken!
Briskly, he crossed the street, and walked hastily down toward the business section of town, taking no notice of the groups of people who passed him. Was the game up so soon? Rufe hadn’t looked very convinced—— Jerry glanced guiltily over his shoulder. Down the street by a garage he caught sight of a pair of flanneled legs in warm pursuit. He was being followed!
He turned the first corner he came to, leading into a narrow street, and broke into a heated run. How far could he get before the youth behind him saw his flight, and raised a hue and cry? Gritting his teeth, Jerry plunged down the street. It was only two blocks long, and ended in a high board fence. There was no way out; he was in a blind alley. Out of the tail of his eye he caught sight of his pursuer, who had turned the corner and was now in full cry after him, shouting something Jerry could not make out. There was only one thing to do. Jerry leaped at the fence, caught his hands in the rough top, and swung over. With smarting palms, he landed in a heap on the other side. There was no time to waste. He sprang up, and found himself in a little field full of daisies. Ahead lay a line of telegraph wires, strung on poles fringing a shining asphalt road. It must be the state highway! If he could only get to the road before the youth behind him could manage to get over the fence——! His breath was coming in painful, dry sobs; he couldn’t last much longer——
Dimly he made out a car coming up the road from north, approaching him. He waved an arm at it, and shouted, although he knew the driver could not hear him. He was now half-way across the field; behind him came a cry of rage as Rufe clambered to the top of the fence—— Jerry’s eyes lit up as he saw the car on the highway slow down, come to a halt not a hundred yards away. He would make it yet! He waved his arm at the man in the driver’s seat.
“Give me a ride?”
He had to fight to get out the words. It was his last chance! To his joy, the driver nodded, swung open the rear door of the big car.
“Hop in!” came a man’s jovial voice from the back seat. Rufe was still coming, but he was no runner, and the fence-climbing had winded him. There was still time—— Jerry Utway almost fell into the back of the car, sprawling across a pair of outstretched legs. The driver slammed the door; the car, whose engine had not stopped, responded to the clutch and slipped forward with a roar. Jerry pulled himself together and fell backward into a seat, panting out his thanks. He looked up into the round, jolly face of the man on his left who had told him to hop in. He was wedged between this man and another, in the rear of the car. He turned his head back; through the window he could see the baffled figure of Rufe, shaking his fist at the rapidly-moving automobile. Jerry grinned.
He suddenly realized that he had left his mackinaw somewhere—probably back in the grocery store, when he had walked out so hastily. Well, he could get it back some time, later—— Just now he had a headache, and things looked a little blurred.
A voice rumbled at his side—his right side. It was the man whose face he had not yet seen. “You were in quite a bit of a hurry back there, weren’t you?” it drawled. “Well, you needn’t worry. You can rest now—rest a long, long time. I thought you’d turn up again, twin, but I didn’t expect it so soon!”
Jerry knew that voice. He knew the man, too, even before he looked into his face. With a cry, Jerry sank back into the seat of the speeding car. It was Diker! Diker, the prison guard! The man in blue, whom he had last seen at the campfire on Pebble Beach! And Diker’s arm was locked about his own, in a firm, threatening grip!
Jake jumped ashore; Burk followed, and pushed the canoe far out, so that it floated empty on the face of Lake Wallis.
Never had Jake Utway taken a paddle in such a wild canoe race! It was impossible that the two fugitives should still be at liberty. The boy had given up hope long before they had reached the lake and taken the canoe; their furious progress across the half-mile of water had seemed the despairing effort of a dream; but here they were, miraculously ashore again, and for the moment still free. Yet the dream feeling still persisted; Jake moved his body as if he were wrapped in the twining coils of a nightmare, when horrors beset the sleeper and all efforts to escape the menacing shapes in pursuit are of no avail.
“Tired, partner?” asked Burk. The man seemed to be made of whipcord; he had taken the stern paddle in their mad dash, yet his set face showed no trace of anything but determination.
“I can keep going,” Jake managed to say.
“We’ll have to get somewhere else pretty quick.” Burk pointed toward the far shore from which they had come. “Look over there! See that little motorboat just pushing out? Well, I’m pretty sure that the people in it won’t take long to get over here and pick up our trail again. We’re in for it again—but at least we’ve got a few minutes’ start.”
“I’m ready. Which way?”
Burk shook his head. “We’ve just got to trust to our luck now. They’ve driven us out into the open; I’m not much good down here near town. There’s only one way we can go.”
They had landed on a little spit of gravel on the east side of Lake Wallis, almost directly across from the town. There must have been people over on the wharf who had seen them desert the canoe, who would put their pursuers on the track at once; even now, hostile eyes might be watching their every move.
“Don’t run—somebody may be watching us, and get suspicious,” warned the man, and set the example by walking rapidly away from the border of the lake. Jake, following, tried to smile; he felt that he couldn’t run even if his life depended upon it. They climbed a bushy slope, came out above in a little glade aglow with maple and sumach. Burk darted a look backward; the motorboat was already well on its way across, coming toward them with a feather of spray on either side of its bows.
“The state highway runs along here on this side somewhere,” remarked Burk. “We’ll have to keep away from it; it’s dangerous for us right now.”
He swerved to the right to avoid crossing the ribbon of asphalt that cut through the woods, and the two walked parallel to the files of telegraph wires lining the highway. For five minutes or so they followed a course which brought them ever nearer to Wallistown; and each of those passing minutes, they knew, brought the net of capture ever closer.
Suddenly Burk gave a sharp exclamation, and pointed. “Something funny ahead!” he said warningly.
It was too late to turn back. A few yards before them, the highway bent toward them in a sharp angle. They stopped in their tracks, and looked on a strange scene.
The queerest vehicle Jake had ever seen was tilted drunkenly at the side of the road at the outer corner of the bend. “Half flivver, half covered wagon,” the boy described it to himself. Two little seats huddled behind the steering-wheel; the remainder of the chassis was roofed over by a spreading arc of canvas, patched and weatherworn, stretched over hoops fastened in the truck-like body of the car, from the rear of which hung down a few narrow steps. The right-hand wheel at the rear was firmly bedded in the ditch; the opposite wheel in front was raised several inches from the road. Two quaint figures stood mournfully gazing at the ditched wheel. One of these was a short, very fat woman of middle age. She stood with her stout arms akimbo, and with such a downcast look on her dark face that Jake almost burst out laughing. Her arms glittered with several bracelets, and large rings dangled from her ears. The man at her side was also short and fat, and also wore earrings, and in one hand swung a spreading black hat which, when worn, must have given him the appearance of an Italian bandit in a stage melodrama. With his other hand he was scratching among his graying locks with a perplexed air.
He must have heard Burk and Jake approaching, for he wheeled about on his toes, and flashed a dazzling display of white teeth at them.
Jake had taken in the situation in an instant.
“We’ll help you get back on the road, Mister!” he said. “Come on, partner—let’s give them a hand!” He gripped the ditched wheel, and tried to lift it.
The little man danced about on his toes, while his wife swung back and forth until her bracelets and bangles tinkled in delight.
Burk was now at the front of the car. He pulled back the emergency brake lever, and Jake felt the strange vehicle starting to roll farther down into the ditch. He put all his strength against the tailboard; the little dark man was at his side. “Poosh—that’s right!” The boy heaved, his face red with exertion; Burk had gripped the spokes of the wheel in the ditch, and was bending all his effort to force the car from its lodgment. The united strength of the three of them slowly shoved the strange little vehicle up the slanting grade, and in half a minute the car was back on the road again, headed toward Wallistown, no worse for its plunge.
“Many, many thanks—many!” the dark man cried happily. He clapped his villainous-looking hat on his head, and scrambling into the seat, worked the levers and steering-wheel back and forth to see that no damage had been done. “You help fine! Come up, Maria!”
“Yes, you help fine!” the little man repeated. “Now we go. You go, too?”
“We’re going the same way you are,” said Jake quickly. “You—you couldn’t give us a lift, could you?”
“For sure! For sure!” Their new acquaintance was all smiles. “You help me fine! I help you a little bit maybe.”
They needed no second invitation and darted around to the tiny set of steps that hung from the tailboard, sprang one after the other through the slit in the canvas at the back, and tumbled into the body of the caravan. An alarming pop-popping sounded in front; the wheels began to move, and the car rattled down the highway at the breath-taking speed of twenty miles an hour.
Jake looked around the interior of the strange van. Overhead arched the canvas roof, filtering the sunshine and splashed with moving shadows as the car journeyed down the road. He found himself sitting on the edge of a bunk built across the floor of the car, directly back of the driver’s seat now occupied by the ridiculous couple whom they had helped. In one corner was a small charcoal stove. The interior was heaped with all sorts of things: a little tin trunk, cooking pots, a cage with a canary chirping inside, bundles of clothing; from hooks swung more clothing, a lantern, a jangling bucket, a spare tire. “A regular house on wheels!” he told himself. “Wonder if these people are sure-enough gypsies?”
The little dark man’s head appeared as if by magic through an opening cut in the front of the canvas, his teeth showing white against his sweeping mustachios. “That ees right! Make yourselfs like at home, eh?”
“How far are you going?” Burk asked him. “To Wallistown?”
The car bumped and shook dangerously; the head was withdrawn and the machine put back on its course again. Then the rolling black eyes were turned on them once more. “What town ees that?”
“The one just down the road there.”
“We do not like the towns. We just go on, and then go on some more. Maybe we see nice place, we stop, eh? Maybe not.” A teeth-rattling lurch of the car again demanded his full attention, and the conversation was cut off.
Burk shook his head. “I don’t know whether we’ve done the right thing or not,” he said in a low tone. “These people seem to be going our way; but it remains to be seen whether we’re any better off than we were.”
“But, Burk—those people from the lake would have found us in no time if we hadn’t got this lift! And now we’re going south, even if it’s not very fast. And we’re hidden here under this cover, so that nobody will see us, even if the police have sent out a description.”
Burk nodded soberly. “I guess so. But you can be sure this highway is the first place they’ll watch.” He peeped out through the flap in the back of the caravan. “Look; we’re almost into Wallistown; if he stops here, I might as well be back in my cell at the prison right now. I know this was the only thing we could do; but maybe we’ve jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.” The hunted man had never been at his ease among crowds of people; now, he felt doubly unsure.
Jake tried to reassure him. “Cheer up! We’re snug enough here for a while, and it’ll give us time to think up a plan. We’ll make it yet, old timer! Now, if I only knew where Jerry was, I think I’d feel pretty good.”
The creaking van shivered to a halt; bumped forward again. Burk chanced another look outside. “We’ve crossed the main street of town,” he whispered. “Looks like we’re going south after all.”
“Sure! That’s the stuff!” Jake replied. “You see—it was a lucky thing we were able to help out these gypsies, or whatever they are. If the cops can find us here in this travelling house, they’re pretty good. Keep a stiff upper lip, and we’ll make Canoe Mountain before dark!”
“Yes, I thought you’d turn up again,” repeated Diker. Jerry felt the man’s hand tighten on his arm. “You twins seem to have a habit of popping into sight when least expected. The question is, which one are you?”
Jerry did not answer.
“Well, that’s easily found out,” his captor went on. “I don’t know how or when you got away, but if you were with Burk when the dogs made him take to water, your legs ought to be wet. They’re not. Therefore, we’ll get your brother when we get Burk.” He raised his voice to speak to the man at Jerry’s left. “See, Warden—I told you this was one of ’em. Good thing I spotted him when he was topping that fence, eh? Well, now Frank can step on the gas. The others may be ahead of us, or they may be behind, but sooner or later, we’ll get ’em!”
The jolly-looking man at Jerry’s left now put in a word. “What was the big idea, son?” he asked. “I’d think you were old enough to know better than to trifle with the law, and help a convict get away. All your leaders back there at the camp are worried to death about you kids. Didn’t you think of that? Where were you trying to go?”
“Anyone would have done the same thing!” Jerry burst out at last. “Burk told us he wasn’t guilty, and we wanted to help him!”
The jolly man smiled, looking jollier than ever. “My boy, I’ve been a prison warden for twelve years, and I’ve never had a man in my charge who’d admit he was guilty! Innocent men, every one of them—to hear them tell it.”
Jerry, in his efforts to show Burk’s innocence, forgot himself. “Let him stay free a little longer, and he’ll prove he’s not guilty!”
“Oh, he will, will he?” the man said sharply. “How will he do that?”
The boy realized that he had said more than enough. He sank back in his seat. But Diker, it seemed, was not through with his questions.
“How’d you get down here to town so quickly?” he asked. Jerry shook his head. “Won’t, tell anything, eh? Well, we’ll find out all about it later. I don’t think you know where the others are anyway. You’re just like the skinny lad we treed up in the hills.”
“Sherlock?”
“That his name? He wouldn’t say a word to us—all he did was sneeze. I left Harris to take him along back. We got him, and now we’ve got you—and the rest of the crowd can’t be far away.”
The car slowed to a halt at a crossroads, where a motorcycle policeman in the khaki uniform of a state officer sat vigilantly astride his machine. Diker jumped out, and ran across to the man, hailing him as he came.
“See anything?” he asked.
The man in khaki shook his head. “Nothing unusual. I’d swear they haven’t come along this way.”
“Well, keep your eyes open,” he was admonished. “That plane up there will keep them from bolting toward the hills again. So long!”
Diker jumped back into his seat, and again the car slid forward. Twice more, as the miles went by, it stopped at the side of the road, and Diker spoke to men who seemed to be posted on guard. Once, they passed a car drawn up by the side of the road. It was a queer-looking affair, Jerry noted, with a canvas top like a prairie schooner, and a chubby little man who looked like a foreigner was pumping up a tire. They drove by this roadside scene so rapidly, however, that Jerry could not make out any details.
Some time in the middle of the afternoon, the big car drew up in front of the post-office of a little hamlet about fifteen miles south of Wallistown. The driver got out and entered a small restaurant whose sign proclaimed it the “Apple Hill Cafe—Tourists a Speciality”; he returned with an armful of sandwiches and four bottles of pop. Diker waved to Jerry to share this sketchy repast, and the boy was too famished to refuse, since his only previous nourishment that day had been a few elderberries, hours and hours before. He put away three ham sandwiches in almost no time at all, and started to demolish one of the large apples which the driver, whose name was Frank something-or-other, had brought out in his pockets.
“Well, Warden,” said Diker conversationally, taking a long pull at his bottle of pop, “they surely couldn’t have gotten this far down in the time since we know they got ashore up by Wallistown. Either they’re off the road altogether, or else we’ve slipped up somehow. I guess we’ll have to turn back. Shame to make you waste time on the chase this way, but you know how it is.”
“Burk used to live down this way, didn’t he?” asked the jolly-faced warden. “He’ll know his way around now, if he’s gotten this far. No; I don’t mind taking the time to end off this affair properly. I’m curious to find out what our friend Burk is trying to do.”
“If you’re ready to start back then, we’ll go.” Diker motioned to the driver, who circled around the Apple Hill Post-Office, and the car started on the return journey.
About two miles out of Apple Hill, Frank slammed on the brakes. A man stood in the center of the road, waving at them. Jerry recognized him as one of the watchers they had spoken to on the journey down; a farmerish-looking man who seemed to be some sort of constable. Without delay, he ran to the side of the car, and hurriedly addressed the prison guard. “Jest got a telephone call from the police-station in Wallistown,” was his message. “They been inquirin’ around like, and found a feller who was workin’ over on the side of the lake where your man was seen to land from a canoe. This feller—road-mender, he is—was workin’ by the side of the highway, and noticed some sort of outlandish automobile stopped there for quite a while. He didn’t see nothin’ of this convict feller, but he says if ye can find this queer auto, the feller drivin’ might know somethin’ to help.”