As he ran, the terrible fear that had clung to him grew to gigantic proportions. Panting and gasping, he exerted every effort in that first burst of speed. The sound of his flying feet echoed through the silent streets, and those echoes, flung back to his ears, made it seem that a part of the sound was produced by other feet than his own. It seemed that there was a fearsome pursuer at his very heels, reaching for him with eager, clawlike hands. He dared not pause an instant in his flight to look back. On and on he ran, down through Cross Street, retracing his course up the slope to Lake Street, and still on past the silent and gloomy academy.
From exhaustion and lack of breath his pace had slackened perforce. In all his experience in athletics, never before had he exerted himself until, the breath wholly pumped from his lungs, he could only gasp in exquisite pain, while his very head threatened to burst.
At length, just beyond the academy, he stumbled and fell. Half stunned by the shock, he fully expected to feel himself pounced upon by that unknown pursuer.
Recovering, he looked around as he struggled to his feet. He was quite alone; he could see no moving, living object.
“Still,” he thought, as he stood gulping in air to relieve his collapsed lungs, “I could swear something chased me. It was right behind me all the way. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it. If it’s that sort of a thing, it’s no use to run; I can’t run away from it.”
But when he started on again the fear returned, and it was only by the most tremendous effort that he restrained the impulse to resume running. Every moment or two he looked back, and sometimes he stopped and turned squarely in his tracks.
His relief was great when he saw, near at hand, the house where he boarded. He would get inside, close the door quickly behind him, and shut the unseen pursuer out.
But the door did not open beneath his hand. He tried it again and again, presently realizing with dismay that he had failed to fasten back the catch of the spring lock when he came out. Yesterday, in changing his clothes, he had discovered that his latch key was missing. Search for it had been vain, and Mrs. Carter had not been able to furnish another key.
“Well, this is a fix!” he whispered. “I’m locked out. I don’t want to rap and get them up, for I would have to explain. Then, too, if they got a look at me they’d know there’s something wrong. I must show it plain enough.”
He walked silently around to the rear of the house. There was the ell, upon the roof of which his window opened, and close to the end of the ell stood the chestnut tree, with one stout branch projecting over the roof. He thought of climbing the tree, reaching the roof by means of that limb, and crawling along to obtain admittance through the window of his chamber.
Remembering the fearsome spectacle revealed to him outside that window this very night, he faltered and drew back. He was terrified lest, having climbed to the roof, he should find himself once more face to face with the apparition.
“It’s no use,” he almost sobbed; “I can’t do it! Anyhow, why should I wish to get in there? If it’s a ghost, I couldn’t shut it out. I may need the things in my bag; I’d certainly like to have them; but I must do without them.”
He knew that a hostler slept all night in Hyde’s livery stable, and that there was a bell by which the man might be aroused. Now, however, for the first time it occurred to him that he lacked money. Having paid Osgood a small debt, less than three dollars remained in his pocket. It was thirty-four miles to Watertown, and it would require many times three dollars to pay for a rig to carry him there.
“Perhaps they’ll trust me,” he muttered. “I’ll tell a good story. I’ll make it out a case of life or death—and perhaps it is.”
Then something seemed to whisper in his ear that he could not endure the scrutiny of any one without betraying himself. Furthermore, if he should hire a rig and a man to drive him to Watertown, that would betray the direction of his flight. Should they desire to stop him and bring him back, the telephone would serve them well.
“I’m done for,” he groaned—“done for! I don’t know what to do.”
Desiring sympathy, longing for advice, he thought of Osgood, and at once he decided that Ned ought to know without delay what had happened.
Crossing lots and open fields, he avoided the streets of the town as far as possible. He was still pursued by the conviction that some unseen thing was following him, but with set teeth, he restrained the desire to run, holding himself down to a sharp, jerky walk, which was interrupted occasionally as he looked back. Finally he saw before him the big white two-story house of Mrs. Chester.
Now another problem arose, how to reach Osgood. If he rang at the door he would eventually bring either the maid or Mrs. Chester to answer the bell. What could he tell them?
“I know what I’ll do,” he decided, stooping to run the palm of his hand over the loose earth of the street bed.
It did not take him long to gather up a handful of small pebbles, and with these he approached the house. One after another he flung them upward and heard them clink against the window glass, but he used them all without perceiving a token that he had awakened Osgood. The house remained dark and silent. A rising breeze caused the limbs of some trees to knock together; it swept Shultz’s clammy cheek and made him shiver.
“I must get Ned up,” he muttered. “Fool that I am, I’ve been trying the wrong window. He’s in his bedroom, of course, and the window to that is on the side of the house.”
Back to the street he went for more pebbles. He was crouching froglike, feeling for them with his hands, when he heard a sound that turned him rigid for an instant.
Footsteps were approaching on the sidewalk; some one was coming up the street. Why should any one in that sleepy, well-behaved little town be out at this hour? Was it possible they had already begun searching for him?
Then he heard voices. There were two persons approaching.
Rising to a crouching position, he ran to the fence across the way from Mrs. Chester’s and flung himself over. And, again started in flight, the terror that had driven him in the first place came back with additional force; and this was augmented by the sound of voices shouting after him—the voices of the two men on the street, who had seen his shadowy figure as he vaulted the fence.
“There he is!” “That’s him!” “There he goes!” “Stop! stop!”
Crying after him in this manner, they came on in pursuit. Venturing to look back, he saw them tumbling over the fence he had leaped, and once more he strained every nerve.
There was now no doubt in his mind; they were after him. Perhaps before the coming of the end Roy Hooker’s mind had cleared sufficiently for him to tell who struck the fatal blow. Perhaps Roy’s father, running from the house, had been hurrying to set the officers at work.
In advance, he perceived a dark, straggling line of bushes and low trees. Amid them he turned sharply to the left, hoping somehow to double on his tracks and baffle the pursuers. Through a thicket of shrubbery he plunged, with the tiny branches viciously whipping his face and tearing at his clothes, as if even they sought to grasp and hold him.
Suddenly he stopped short, his mouth wide open, that he might listen the better. The two men had reached the growth, and he could hear them floundering amid it.
“This way!” one of them cried. “He went this way!”
“Keep still!” urged the other. “We ought to be able to hear him. Keep still a minute.”
The crashing sounds ceased, and the listening boy knew the men were listening also. Through a great effort of self-command, he kept himself from resuming the flight, waiting until the noise of their own movements should prevent them from hearing what sounds he might make.
They soon grew impatient and began beating about in the underbrush in an aimless search.
As soon as this happened Shultz moved away, proceeding with a certain amount of caution. Keeping just within the border of the timber and thickets, he went forward as fast as he dared, putting out his hands to part the bushes and slipping through them as silently as possible. At times twigs snapped beneath his feet, but, as he had hoped, the men were themselves making sufficient noise to drown such minor sounds, and gradually he left them far behind.
In the blackness he ran full against a wire fence, and the barbs of the lower strands slashed his trousers and cut his legs. He tore himself free, felt for the smooth upper strand, bent it downward and straddled over.
Following the line of the fence, he turned full upon the course he had been pursuing when he plunged into the timber. Leaving that shelter behind him, bending low, he ran on until he returned to the highway some distance above the home of Mrs. Chester. In the middle of the road he paused uncertainly.
The moon was rising. Its light, although somewhat muffled by the clouds, was sufficient to enable him to perceive the outlines of objects at a considerable distance; it would also reveal him far better to pursuers, and make his escape more difficult were he again seen by them.
“Good-by, Ned,” he whispered. “You’re asleep, and you don’t know anything about it. Probably you’ll never realize just what I’ve had to go through this night.”
Fearing to follow the highway, he again struck across the fields, before him the deep stretch of timberland to the north of Turkey Hill. By making his way through those woods and passing round the hill, he could reach the Barville road some miles from Oakdale.
At the edge of the timber the night wind bore to his ears a sound that again halted him dead in his tracks. The bells of Oakdale were ringing—ringing wildly, furiously, as they might ring to arouse the villagers to battle with a conflagration. Peal upon peal vibrated through the night air, and their clanging strokes stabbed the miserable boy like dagger thrusts.
“I know what it means!” he half panted, half sobbed. “They’re turning the whole town out to hunt me down! I’m alone, alone, with everybody against me! What chance have I got? Well, they’ll have to catch me before I give up.”
The woods swallowed him; he was gone. The bells continued to fling forth their wild alarm. As if wondering at it, and curious to know what it was all about, the silvery moon peered through a break in the clouds, flooding the open space with its light.
But in the woods through which Charley Shultz staggered on it was dark. In his heart it was darker still.
In the midst of the woods Shultz stopped to rest, seating himself upon a log against which he had stumbled. The clouds having dispersed, the moon was silvering the tree-tops above his head, but it had not yet risen high enough to cast its light upon the ground of the little glade. On every hand were the mysterious night shadows of the woods.
The boy’s legs quivered as he sat there, grateful for this respite, although he felt that time was precious and he should waste no moments. No longer could he hear the village bells; they had ceased to ring, and he was glad of that.
It was a melancholy and terrible thing to feel himself an outcast and a fugitive from justice, practically with the hand of mankind in general turned against him. He had read stories of daring fugitives in similar positions, and always the fugitives had seemed enfolded by a glamor of romance, which had almost made him long to pass through such an experience; but, now that the experience was his, it held no glamor, no single feature of allurement or romance. It was simply a horrible situation, to be freed from which he felt that he would willingly give up years of his life.
That he could escape, he still had a faint hope; but it was faint indeed, and, had he heeded sober judgment, he would have put it aside as something false and deceptive and merely adding to his suspense and torture. With the telephone and telegraph, the surrounding country could be warned and every loophole stopped. With the bulk of the villagers searching for him, it was simply a matter of time before he would be run down.
“I’ll never give up,” he kept telling himself; “I’ll never give up till they catch me.”
He had always thought of the night woods at this season of the year as silent and lifeless. Now, however, resting upon that log, he became aware of many strange sounds all around him. There seemed to be faint rustlings and whisperings, as if the very trees were telling one another that he was there, and pointing him out with their bare, extending arms. Continually he kept turning his head to look first in one direction and then in another. Several times he was startled by shadows that seemed to move, but when he watched them more closely they were motionless enough.
Nevertheless, the fancy that something was drawing nearer, creeping upon him bit by bit, increased with the passing moments. He could feel it approaching silently, stealthily, steadily. He had escaped the two men who had tried to run him down, but there was something he could not escape, and, recalling what he had beheld through the window of his chamber, he leaped up and resumed his reckless flight.
This way and that he turned and darted to avoid the trees and the denser thickets. The woods seemed endless. Long ere this, he told himself, he should have passed through them and reached the Barville road.
Presently before him the moonlight showed a broad open space, and with a gasp of thankfulness he tottered forth from the forest. His clothes were in tatters. There was blood on his legs from the wounds inflicted by the barbed wire fence. His hands and his face were scratched and bruised. Seeing him now, a stranger must surely have wondered with curiosity to know what had brought him to such a pitiful plight.
But the woods, they were behind him. The Barville road must be near at hand. Not far away the moonlight showed him an orchard and some buildings.
He stopped, stood still, gazed at those buildings. There was something familiar about them. Farther away, to the right, he could see more houses.
“Where am I?” he muttered hoarsely. “So help me, that looks like Sage’s home! It is! it is! I got turned round in the woods. I’ve come straight back to the place where I entered.”
This was true. The houses down the road were the scattering ones upon the outskirts of the village.
Sickened by this discovery, Shultz remained some moments in doubt and uncertainty. Here and there he could see lights in the windows of the houses. All Oakdale seemed awake. The bells had aroused the village, and everywhere posses of men were searching. Should he attempt to follow along the edge of the woods and pass round Turkey Hill to the south, it would bring him dangerously near town.
“My only safety lies in the woods until I can get farther away,” he decided. “I can get through them all right if I keep my head. With the moon on my back, the shadows will guide me. I can get my bearings in every little open space. I’ll do it.”
Setting his teeth, he turned about and again plunged into the timber. Precious time had been lost through his blunder, but now, he told himself, he would master his fears and make no false steps.
In time he came to an opening in the midst of the woods, where the moonlight fell upon the cleared ground. Half-way across this opening dread of the gloom at the far side made him falter. Again he was oppressed by the conviction that something terrible and uncanny had followed him in all his flight. Again he could feel it drawing nearer and nearer. Something like the sound of soft footsteps caused his heart to choke him, and, turning, he saw it coming.
In the shadows an object advanced. It was like a human body, white from the waist upward, and this white portion, which he could plainly see, seemed to float in the air.
But when the shadows were passed and it stepped forth into the moonlight, he perceived that the body was supported by legs encased in dark trousers. The moonlight revealed more than that. He was looking into the face of Roy Hooker! Even as Roy’s eyes had stared at him through the window of his chamber, they were now fastened upon him. Above those staring eyes, the turban-like bandage of white still encircled Hooker’s head.
“Hooker!” groaned Shultz. “Oh, Hooker, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to do it!”
The figure halted ten feet away. A hand was uplifted and extended accusingly. A voice—the voice of Hooker—demanded:
“Shultz, where did that other ace come from?”
The words sounded in a low, monotonous, dead-level tone. To Shultz, the voice seemed hollow and lifeless, like the voice of the dead.
He could not answer, but, flinging off the benumbing spell that had chained him in his tracks, he whirled and fled again. Through the woods he crashed and plunged like mad, almost blind with terror. Again and again he half collided with trees. Vines and low branches tripped him. Falling, he scrambled up and ran on, absolutely heedless of what course he followed.
In this manner he plunged at last into a deep gully. As he fell he tried to leap, and down he went in an upright position. When he struck the bottom, one foot twisted beneath him, and he dropped in a heap. A pain shot through his leg.
Getting his breath after the shock, he started to rise; but the moment he tried to bear his weight on his right foot the pain jabbed him frightfully, and he toppled over.
“My leg is broken!” he sobbed. “Now I’m done for, sure!”
In the midst of troublesome dreams, Ned Osgood, half-awake, fancied he heard hail beating against the windows of his sitting room. Fully awake at last, he lifted his head from the pillow and listened; but, hearing it no more, he decided that it must have been a figment of his distasteful dreams.
He heard something else, however. Far away the voices of men were calling, but as he listened and wondered, the sounds grew more distant, became fainter, and died away.
Returning to his pillow, he settled down, seeking to compose himself, and praying that those rest-disturbing dreams might trouble him no more. But thoughts of Hooker would not let him sleep, and presently something else brought him bolt upright on the bed, startled and wondering.
It was a clamor of bells, beginning with a peal from the steeple of the Methodist church down the street. The night air vibrated with the sounds, which seemed to pour in upon him through the partly opened window of his bedroom. Why were those church bells ringing at such an hour? He could distinguish the tones of the academy bell, as well. In a moment he knew it must be an alarm meant to arouse the town, and out of bed he sprang, catching his trousers up from the back of a chair and getting into them as quickly as he could, trembling slightly all the while with excitement.
Below he heard Mrs. Chester calling to the maid, and, opening the door of his room, her words came plainly to his ears:
“Sarah! Sarah! Get up quick! I’m frightened. There must be a big fire. The bells are ringing.”
“So that’s it,” muttered Osgood, hastening to a window. “There’s a fire in the village. They sound the bells to give the alarm.”
Looking from the window, he failed to observe any glow of light against the sky to indicate where the fire might be. Through a momentary lull of the bells, he fancied he heard some one shouting far away in town. Surely some terrible thing had happened or was taking place.
Lighting a lamp, he rapidly finished dressing, and pulling on his turtle-neck sweater he grabbed up his cap.
As he bounded down the stairs, Mrs. Chester called to him from a partly opened door at the end of the hall:
“Where is it, Ned? Where’s the fire?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I looked out, but I couldn’t see any fire. Don’t be alarmed; it must be a long distance away, in another part of the village.”
A man was running down the middle of the street as Osgood dashed from the house, slamming the door behind him. He called to the man, but received no answer. Then he took to the street and followed.
The bell in the Methodist steeple hammered and banged as he raced past the church. Lights were shining everywhere from the windows of houses. Men and boys came running from side streets, questioning one another excitedly without getting satisfactory answers.
There was a crowd in the village square, and, contrasted with the agitated people who came running to join it from every direction, it was strangely calm.
Ned grabbed some one by the arm, as he demanded:
“What is it? What’s the matter? Why are they ringing the bells?”
He recognized Jack Nelson, as the person he had questioned turned to answer.
“It’s Hooker!”
“Hooker!” choked Osgood, aghast.
A fearsome thought smote him. Hooker was dead! But why should they ring the bells in the middle of the night and bring all the people out?
“Yes,” Nelson was saying, “Roy has disappeared. He was left, apparently asleep, and later, when some one looked into his room, he was gone.”
“Great Scott!” breathed Ned. “I thought perhaps he was dead.”
“Oh, no. In that case, it wouldn’t be necessary to turn the whole village out. He’s wandering around somewhere, half dressed and probably crazy. They’re getting the people out to search for him.”
“Is it necessary to turn out the whole town this way?”
“Perhaps so. They’ve tried to find him, but can’t. Now they’re asking everybody to join in the search. You see, there’s no telling what the result may be if he’s not found soon. In his dotty condition he may do himself harm; and, anyhow, with only a few clothes on, he’s liable to get pneumonia.”
Some of the men who had early learned the cause of the disturbance were now seen bringing lanterns, and in the midst of the gathering in the square, William Pickle, the deputy sheriff, was suggesting a plan of search, by which four parties should spread out in different directions.
“You want to look everywhere, feller citizens,” the officer was saying; “look into sheds and barns and under fences, and every old nook and corner where the boy may be hidin’. He’s plumb loony, ye know, and he’s li’ble to crawl into any old place. Mebbe he’ll be scat of ye and want to fight when ye do find him, so handle him gentle.”
At this juncture two men came panting down Main Street. “We know where he is!” shouted one. “We’ve seen him!”
“Yep, we’ve seen him,” gulped the other. “We almost ketched him, but he got away from us somehow.”
“Where is he? Where is he?” cried twenty voices.
“We was goin’ up the street, lookin’ for him, and we’d almost got to the Widder Chester’s, when we see somebody scoot across the road, jump the fence and put off inter the field above Cedar Street. When we hollered for him to stop he run faster.”
“And he could run some,” gasped the smaller man. “We chased him into a strip of trees and bushes, and he must be hid there right now, for we couldn’t find him.”
“Come on,” commanded William Pickle, taking the lead—“come on, everybody. Show us the way, Turner and Crabtree.”
Forgetting the original plan of search, the crowd poured up the main street, straggling out into a long, irregular body. Osgood, keeping close to the leaders, felt some one press against him, and recognized Billy Piper.
“This is bad business,” said Piper in a low tone.
“You’re right,” agreed Ned instantly. “No one can feel any worse about it than I do.”
“But feeling bad,” retorted Billy grimly, “doesn’t make amends; it’s got to be something more than that.”
As the searchers turned from the road near Mrs. Chester’s house, climbed the fence and streamed across the field, Ned began to understand that the shouting, which had seemed to break in upon his troubled dreams, had been real. And with this conviction came the thought that in his delirium Hooker had sought to return to the place where he had been injured. It was a disagreeable thought, which Osgood tried to put aside.
The rising moon, breaking now and then through ragged clouds, promised aid to the searchers. Directed by Pickle, they spread out and practically surrounded the long, narrow strip of trees and bushes. This done, a body of men entered the growth and worked their way through it, leaving scarcely a yard of ground uninspected. But when they had passed over it all in this thorough manner, it became known that not one of them had found the slightest trace of the missing lad.
“He must have hid till Turner and Crabtree left,” said the deputy sheriff. “As soon as they were gone, he prob’ly hit out for somewhere’s else.”
“Too bad one of ’em didn’t have sense enough to stay and watch while t’other one went for help,” said Abel Hubbard, the constable.
The posse gathered in a group, seeking further instructions from their leaders.
“Don’t believe they’ll ever find him this way,” said Billy Piper. “They’re not going about it with any sort of method.”
“Yeou’re so all-fired clever at sech things,” said Sile Crane, “why don’t yeou suggest a plan?”
“They wouldn’t listen to me if I proposed anything.”
“If you have a plan, Piper,” said Nelson, joining the little cluster of boys that surrounded Billy, “just tell us what it is. If it sounds reasonable, we’ll carry it out.”
“Let me think a moment—let me think,” said Piper, tapping his knuckles against his forehead. “The report is that Roy was talking some along about nightfall, though his words were jumbled, without much sense in them. He kept repeating certain things, such as ‘poker,’ ‘five aces,’ and ‘cabin.’”
“You know what Professor Richardson said,” put in Rodney Grant. “It’s thought that Roy was playing cards for money when he was hurt.”
“If so,” said Billy, “that would explain the words ‘poker’ and ‘five aces’; but why did he keep talking about a cabin? Ha! I have it. I happen to know that once on a time a certain little bunch of fellows went over to the old camp in Silver Brook Swamp to play poker, and Hook was one of the crowd. Cabin—that’s what he meant; he had something in his muddled mind about that old camp in the swamp. Come on, fellows, perhaps we’ll find him there.”
“You’ve always been so lucky in your guesses,” said Nelson, “that there’s a chance you may be right this time. If you should happen to be, your reputation as a great detective will be established on a firm——”
“I don’t want any such reputation!” snapped Billy shortly. “I think I told you so once before, Jack.”
“Geewhilikens!” exclaimed Crane, astonished. “What’s happened to yeou naow? Yeou’ve alwus been red-hot to play the detective, and some folks have begun to say that yeou’re purty clever at it.”
“I haven’t time to explain my reasons for cutting that tommyrot out,” retorted Piper. “Let’s get a move on.”
There were eight boys in the party that set out for Silver Brook Swamp, led by Piper. Striking across the fields, they passed to the south of Turkey Hill and reached the Barville road. The clouds were dispersing and the moon was shining clear and bright when they drew near Silver Brook and came to the old path that led into the swamp.
Phil Springer and Chipper Cooper were disposed to lag behind somewhat, although something seemed to draw them on after the others.
“I’ve been expecting Piper to blow the whole thing any minute,” said Cooper, speaking to Phil in a low tone.
“Wonder why he hasn’t?” speculated Springer. “He sus-swore to us that he would if Shultz or Osgood didn’t own up pup-pretty quick.”
“Guess he’s waiting for what he’d call the psychological moment. You know Pipe’s always great for dramatic effects.”
“There can be only one outcome to this thing now. We’re all in the sus-sus-soup.”
“Billy says it’s our duty to think of Roy, not ourselves.”
“I’ve been th-thinking of him too much. It’s made me sick. I’m thinking of him now, and what we’re liable to fuf-find in this old swamp if Pipe’s guess is right about the way he went. Being crazy enough to jump out of bub-bed and run off half-dressed, anything may huh-happen to him.”
“That’s right,” agreed Chipper dolefully. “I wonder where Charley Shultz is? Didn’t see anything of him with the crowd.”
“Yah!” growled Springer. “He hasn’t got any fuf-feelings. I’ll bet he’s in bed, sleeping like a log, this very minute. Probably not even the ringing of the bells woke him up.”
“He must have a heart of stone,” said Cooper.
Had they known all that had happened to Shultz in the last two hours, could they have seen him in his present painful and wretched condition, their judgment of him might not have been so harsh.
Under the western shoulder of Turkey Hill the shadows were deep and heavy, and, the path being dim and faint from rare use, it was necessary for the party to proceed slowly. They did not talk much, and when they did speak their words were uttered in low and guarded tones.
Several times, Piper, in the lead, paused to make sure they had not wandered from the right course. The others seemed to rely almost wholly upon Billy, and no one thought of superseding him in the leadership. During one of these pauses, Cooper, who had halted with Springer a short distance behind the others, pulled at Phil’s sleeve and whispered in his ear:
“Say, old man, don’t you think it’s about time we told all we know about this business?”
Springer gave his body a queer sort of a shake.
“What gug-good will that do?” he whispered back. “It won’t help fuf-find Hooker.”
“No, but it may help us after he’s found.”
“I don’t think so; it’s tut-too late.”
“Why too late?” persisted Chipper.
“Because everybub-bub-body would know we were just scared into it, that’s all. It wouldn’t help us a bit, Chip—not a bit, to tell it now. If Piper thought it would do any good you bub-bet your life he’d have told already.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” sighed Cooper; “but it’s an awful load on my conscience, and I’d like to get it off my system.”
“Come on,” Piper called back in a low tone. “We’re all right. This is the way.”
They went forward again, turning presently to the left and descending to the lower ground at the border of the broad marsh. The trees became more scattering and the thickets grew thinner. Before long they saw the marsh, spreading out before them, silent and strange and uninviting in the moonlight which flooded its expanse of pools and reeds and brushwood, amid which a few scraggy dead trees rose here and there. In the midst of the expanse was a bit of higher ground, covered by a growth of small, dark, evergreen trees. This was the “island” on which stood the old camp where Piper hoped to find Roy Hooker. From knoll to knoll, in a zigzag course, led the path, the pools and marshy places bridged by felled trees and brushwood.
“I’m afraid you won’t find him there, Piper,” said Nelson.
Cooper, hearing the words, muttered for Springer’s ear:
“I’m afraid we will.”
Despite their caution in proceeding, at one point, Grant, breaking through the brushwood bridge with a cracking sound, plunged one leg to the thigh between the two lengthwise supports and drew it forth soaking wet.
“This yere trail,” said the Texan, “is sure some unreliable and treacherous.”
Those who reached the island first waited for the others to come up. They stood there whispering and listening, but hearing no sounds to assure them that the one they sought was near.
“As he’s deranged,” said Piper, “we want to take care not to frighten him more than possible, for it’s likely he’ll be scared and run when he sees us.”
“He can’t run fur,” declared Crane, “without plungin’ head over heels right into the swamp.”
“And that’s what we don’t want him to do; it might be his finish. We must prevent him from running away when we find him.”
“When we find him,” muttered Nelson. “But something tells me we won’t find him here.”
Slowly they pushed forward toward the center of the island. In a few moments they came to a small opening and paused again, before them the old camp huddling in the shadows of a thick grove which rose close beside it. The place was dolefully silent and forbidding at that hour. A breath of wind, sweeping across the island, set up a sudden rustling, which was accompanied by a sound that put their nerves on edge.
That sound was like a low, harsh moan or groan, and it seemed to come from the sagging, deserted camp before them. Some shrank back shivering, while others appeared eager to rush forward.
“He’s there!” breathed Nelson. “That must be he!”
Springer stooped and placed his lips close to Cooper’s ear:
“Sus-sus-sounded to me like sus-sus-some one dying,” he chattered.
“Let the others go ahead,” gasped Cooper. “I don’t want to find him first. I don’t want to see him. I’d like to get away this minute.”
With his arm outstretched and the palm of his hand turned backward to restrain his companions, Billy Piper advanced swiftly on his toes. Within a few feet of the shanty structure, he saw that the door was standing open. At that moment another gust of wind rustled through the trees, and immediately the harsh moaning sound was repeated.
“It’s the door,” declared Billy, enlightened. “The wind moves it and makes the old hinges creak.”
“My Jinks!” mumbled Crane, in great relief. “I thought it must be him sure; I thought it was Roy. Mercy! I’m all ashake.”
Stepping boldly to the black doorway, Piper struck a match, but a gust of wind extinguished it. Immediately he lighted a second match, shielding the tiny blaze with his cupped hands. Close behind him crowded the others, seeking to look over his shoulders into the camp when the blaze should be sufficient to reveal the interior of the place.
Having protected the match until it burned brightly, Billy held it out before him and slightly above his head, shifting his curved hands until they served as a reflector for the tiny flaring light.
The shanty contained only one room, which seemed to be quite empty and deserted, save for an old broken table and a few crude pieces of furniture. There were shadows in the corners, but none of these seemed sufficient to hide a human being.
The flame scorched Billy’s fingers, and he dropped the match, which, a bent and glowing coal, floated zigzagging and spiraling downward, burst into bits as it struck, and died out.
Some one behind Piper drew a long breath. “I don’t reckon he’s here, after all,” said the voice of Grant.
“There’s something white lying on the floor,” declared Billy, with suppressed excitement. “I saw it just as I dropped the match.”
Lighting another, he stepped forward and picked the thing up. It was a damp cloth, and with it in his hand he retreated into the moonlight outside.
“What is it? What is it?” questioned the boys, pressing around him.
Billy held it up. “Looks to me like a wet towel that had been wound round something and fastened into place with safety pins,” he said. “That’s what it is, too. Fellows, Hooker may not be here now, but he has been here—he certainly has. This proves it.”
“How do you make that out?” asked Osgood, doing his best to appear as calm as would seem consistent.
“This towel proves it,” reiterated Piper. “It couldn’t come here without being brought, could it?”
“No; but I don’t see——”
“It’s wet. It’s the very towel that was used to hold the ice compress on Roy’s head.”
“If that’s right,” said Nelson swiftly, “he must be near. Perhaps he’s hiding close by in the bushes. We must search every foot of this island.”
“Every inch of it,” agreed Piper, “and we want to be about it right away. Let’s fall back to the place where we came on, and begin there. We must spread out and then advance together. There must be some system about it.”
Following his directions, they began the search on the island. It was dark, pokey work in the midst of the thicker growths, but, nevertheless, they did it with an amount of thoroughness that made it seem impossible for them to overlook a person seeking to hide on that small patch of dry land. Yet, when they had covered it all and reached the western side beyond which the swamp lay impassable for a person afoot, they had found no additional token of Hooker.
“Too bad,” said Nelson, discouraged. “He isn’t here. He can’t be here.”
“It doesn’t seem possible,” admitted Piper, “yet this towel is sure evidence that he has been here.”
“He must have gone away before we came,” was Osgood’s opinion. “I don’t believe he could have dodged us after we got on to the island.”
Almost with one accord, they turned to Piper.
“What be we goin’ to do next, Billy?” asked Crane.
“Let’s take one more look into that old camp,” suggested the leader, who, although he did not admit it, was almost at his wit’s end. “I know where there’s an old pitch-pine log, and we ought to get a piece of that to serve as a torch.”
The log, which had been partly hacked up for firewood, was found, and a slender resinous strip was torn from it. Lighting one end of this strip of wood, Piper fanned it into a bright flame, and, bearing it in his hand, boldly entered the shanty.
The torch revealed nothing they had not previously seen, but it did give them complete assurance that the boy they sought could not be hiding there.
“Yes, he got away, that’s sure,” said Nelson; “and there’s only one way by which he could do it. He had to go back as he came.”
“And therefore,” said Billy quickly, “he must be in the woods somewhere yonder. That’s where we should look for him now.”
“Perhaps,” ventured Crane, “he’s near enough to hear us. Oh, Hooker! Hey, Roy!”
Piper sprang at him savagely. “Stop that, you idiot!” he snarled. “Stop shouting that way! What are you trying to do?”
“Why, I thought he might hear me.”
“Yes, he might and be frightened into fits. No more of that fool business, Sile. Keep still and come on. We’ll get off right away and do the best we can hunting for him over yonder.”
Over the treacherous crossing they returned to the solid ground beyond the border of the swamp. Looking backward, Cooper tugged at Springer’s sleeve.
“Now I’m afraid wewon’tfind him, Phil,” he confessed. “I’m afraid nobody will find him tonight. And when they do, it wouldn’t surprise me if they dug his body out of this old swamp.”
After a time Osgood and Nelson became separated from the rest of the searchers. They had come to a little opening where the moonlight shone upon a small pile of cord-wood that had been cut and left there during the past winter, and here they stopped and faced each other.
“It’s worse than useless, this searching without lights of any sort save what the moon affords,” said Jack. “There are thousands of places were one could hide from searchers if he chose. It would be better to go through the woods calling to Hooker and assuring him we are friends.”
“I doubt,” returned Ned, “if we’d find him then.”
“What do you suppose has become of him?”
“You can answer that question fully as well as I.”
“Well, then,” said Jack suddenly, “what do you suppose was the cause of all this trouble, anyhow? How was Hooker hurt?”
Osgood’s answer was a shrug. Motioning toward two short stumps which stood nearby, he suggested that they should sit down.
“I want to talk to you, Nelson,” he said, when they were seated. “I’ve got to talk to some one, and I’d rather it would be you than any one else. We’ve never been what might be called real friendly, have we?”
Surprised and wondering at his companion’s words and singular manner, Nelson replied:
“I don’t know that we’ve been exactly chummy, but——”
“Tell the truth,” interrupted Osgood, reaching out and putting his hand on the other boy’s knee. “We haven’t been even friendly, although you seemed willing enough to be, and I’ve put up a bluff that I was. All the same, you didn’t trust me. You knew I was bluffing.”
“I—I don’t think—that I—actually knew it,” stammered Nelson, still more astonished.
Osgood threw back his head and smiled. The moonlight, full on his rather handsome, aristocratic face, showed that smile to be touched with bitterness, even with self-scorn.
“I’m a bluffer, Nelson—a thoroughbred bluffer,” he declared. “Intuition told you as much. All along I knew you were one fellow in Oakdale that I had not fully blinded. Piper, with all his natural shrewdness—and we’ll admit that he’s naturally shrewd—was deceived in me.”
“What are you talking about, Osgood?” exclaimed Jack. “Why are you telling me this stuff, anyhow?”
“I don’t know just why, but I’m telling it to relieve my mind. Perhaps it will relieve me in a measure, anyhow. I had no thought in the world of talking to you this way when we paused here a few moments ago, but suddenly an irresistible impulse came upon me. Something seemed to say, ‘You may as well tell him, for he sees through you, anyhow.’ Do you know, Nelson, I’ve hated you. Yes, that’s the word. I hated you because I couldn’t deceive you, and that’s why I longed to do something to hurt you.”
“You what? Of course I know I benched you in that Wyndham game, but I had——”
“You should have benched me before,” exclaimed Osgood. “You should have fired me from the nine.”
“Fired you? Why, you were one of our best players. You really knew more baseball than any one else on the team. You were valuable.”
“Even if I could play better baseball than Hans Wagner himself, I was a bad man to have on the team, for I was trying to create insubordination, distrust and a disbelief in your ability as captain.”
“I—I knew Shultz was ready to kick against my authority at any provocation,” said Nelson, bewildered; “but you always seemed so decent and——”
“Shultz!” exploded Osgood. “Why, he was simply carrying out my scheme. I let him think it was mainly his idea, but all the time it was mine. I fooled him, just the same as I did the others. When I perceived that you did not trust me, and when I became convinced that you thought me something of a fraud, I was bitterly determined to down you. I set about ingratiating myself into the good will and esteem of certain fellows on the team—certain fellows I felt confident I could sway to my will. Never mind who they are, Nelson, for they weren’t wise to the depth of my game. Still, I knew I was getting them, one by one, just where I wanted them. I knew that in time, when I should be ready to make a split on the nine, I could swing them to my side and carry the majority of the players with me. That was my object, Nelson. I intended to make trouble on the team, break it up under your leadership, and then suggest reorganization, with the purpose of being chosen captain in your place.”
Nelson leaped to his feet. “Why, you miserable scoundrel!” he cried furiously. “So that’s what you were up to! I did smell a rat. I did think you were up to something underhanded. So that was it, eh? You’re a scrapper; you can box, they say. Take off your coat!”
Osgood made no move to rise. “We’re not going to fight,” he asserted calmly. “Did you think I was telling you this in order to provoke a fight?”
“I can’t understand why under heaven you told me, anyhow.”
“Simply because I was determined to relieve myself of some of the load I’ve been carrying. Simply because in the last few hours I’ve come to see the full meaning of my dirty scheming. Oh, I don’t suppose you believe me, but that’s the reason—anyhow, it’s a part of the reason. And I’m done with it all, no matter what may happen to me to-morrow.”
His breast heaving, his hands clenched, Nelson continued to stand glaring down at the calm, abject fellow before him. And there was something so genuinely abject in Osgood’s appearance that gradually Jack felt his rage oozing away and leaving him.
“Sit down,” invited Ned once more. “I’m not half through. As long as I’ve begun on this thing, and said so much, I’m going to tell you more, although it’s likely you’ll hold me henceforth in the most complete contempt. You spoke of Shultz a moment ago. Do you know he’s not the sort of fellow with whom I can have any real natural bond of sympathy?”
“I’ve always wondered at your chumminess with him,” said Nelson slowly, reseating himself. “He’s so different. You’re a gentleman, while he’s plainly of the most plebeian and common stock.”
“He’s no more plebeian and common than I am,” declared Osgood instantly.
“But his family—he comes of a most ordinary family.”
“So do I.”
“You? Why, you have some high-grade ancestors behind you on your mother’s side, at least.”
“I wondered if you believed that, Nelson. If you did, it’s plain you did not see through me completely, as I fancied.”
“What? Do you mean to say that——”
“My father and mother were just poor, illiterate people, neither of whom could trace their pedigree back three generations. To tell you the plain truth, I don’t know anything whatever about my ancestors on either side.”
“But the family portraits you have, and the crest you use upon your stationery?”
“Pure bluff, nothing else. I picked those portraits up as I chanced to find them and fancied they would serve my purpose. Any one who wishes can get a stationer to put a crest on his writing-paper. My father started out in life as a tin peddler; my mother came from an orphan asylum. They settled on a little farm, and by hard work were able in time to buy more land. On that land some years ago oil was struck. It made them rich, and in a wonderfully short time my father drank himself to death.”
Pity was now supplanting anger in Nelson’s heart.
“But why—why did you put up such a bluff, Osgood?”
Again Ned shrugged. “Simply because I’m a sort of cad and bounder, I suppose. I’ve always felt grieved and hurt because I had no family behind me. It must be true that, although she came from an orphan asylum, my mother has good blood in her. Naturally, she had a little education, too, while my father could scarcely write his own name. Mother wished me to have an education and become a gentleman; on the other hand, my father had really no true conception of what the word gentleman meant. After he died mother sent me to school. I’ve attended four different schools. Two of them were in the middle West, and at both the truth regarding my parents was somehow learned. Although I had money, I met certain chaps who, as I could very well see, looked down on me. They came from good families, and even when they pretended to be hail-fellow-well-met with me, I could feel the hidden contempt in their hearts. It made me sore, Nelson. I hated those fellows.
“I wrote my mother about it; I told her about it when I saw her. It’s true that her health is not very good, and she has gone to Southern California. Why didn’t she take me with her and put me into a school out there? If you could see her, you might understand. Her shoulders are bowed from work, and her hands are gnarled and knuckled. She knew that she would betray the truth to any one who might meet her. I knew it, too, and right there, when she proposed that we should be separated by the full width of the continent in order that I might attend some far school where there would be little danger of the truth coming out—right there I showed the real cad in my make-up. I accepted the proposition and went to Hadden Hall.”
“But you didn’t stay at Hadden.”
“No. Shultz thinks I was compelled to leave that school for quite a different reason than the real one. One day a fellow showed up there to visit a friend—a fellow who knew me. I had been putting up the same bluff I’ve put up in Oakdale. I had far better rooms than I’ve been able to obtain here, and I was supposed to be a remote descendant of British aristocracy. The fellow who knew me punctured that fabrication. I was exposed, and I got out. Then I chose a little school, where it seemed to me there would be no chance of any one recognizing me. That’s what brought me to Oakdale.”
At a loss for words, Nelson was silent. He was still unable to comprehend Osgood’s motive for this confession. Perhaps Osgood himself did not know what had led him to make it, beyond the fact that he had suddenly been overcome by an intense desire to unburden himself in a measure.
The silence became awkward, and Jack stirred restlessly. His elbows on his knees, the other boy was staring broodingly at the ground. Roused by Nelson’s movement, he lifted his head slowly.
“Well,” he said, almost whimsically, “you see now what a cheap, common skate I am.”
“A fellow who blunders and owns up to it, partly atones for his mistake, anyhow,” returned Nelson. “We’re none of us perfect, old chap. We’re all human, and we have our little failings.”
“It’s very decent of you to talk that way, Nelson. I didn’t expect it. I had no reason to expect it. You’ve every right to be thoroughly disgusted with me, and I’m disgusted with myself.”
“I can’t see that you’ve actually harmed anybody yet.”
“That’s because you don’t know everything. I haven’t told you all.”
“Great smoke!” exclaimed Jack, “Is there more to tell?”
“Some time, before long, when everything comes out, you’ll be compelled to think even less of me than you do now.”
“Look here,” said Nelson suddenly, “do you know anything about the cause of this Hooker trouble? You must be referring to that; it can’t be anything else.”
“Whatever I know you will learn in time,” was the evasive answer.
“You aren’t responsible for his condition?”
“I didn’t strike the blow.”
“Youdoknow about it! Why haven’t you told before?”
“There may be various reasons. As one, you should see that it meant exposure for me; it meant looking into my past record and bringing to life the fact that I’m a faker.”
“Now that you’ve told that much about yourself, I can’t see any good reason why you should not tell it all. Seems to me it’s your duty.”
Osgood seemed to meditate again. “There are others concerned,” he said presently, “and I have a duty to them as well as to myself. What I’ve told of my own affairs doesn’t concern them, and I will claim that I’ve never yet played the squealer on any other chap.”
“But the truth will have to come out.”
“I haven’t a doubt about that. Let it come. But when it does, let it come from the right source.”
“I suspected that you must know something about it.”
“Oh, yes, you’ve suspected me all along, Nelson. In possession of the facts I’ve given you, it will be a simple matter for you to show me up in Oakdale.”
“If you imagine I’m going to run right away and tattle what you’ve practically told me in confidence, you’ve got me sized up wrong.”
“I was not aware that I told it to you in confidence. I do not remember that I exacted from you a promise of secrecy.”
“Perhaps that was because you thought I’d tell anyhow.”
“I didn’t think much about it. I didn’t stop to think. When the impulse seized me, I simply went ahead and told.”
“Perhaps you’ll be sorry you did.”
“Perhaps so, but it’s done now.”
Jack rose once more and placed a hand on his companion’s shoulder.
“Osgood,” he said, “I refuse to believe that a fellow with a conscience like yours can be thoroughly bad. Your natural impulses are right. You didn’t bind me to secrecy, but I’ll pledge you now that I’m not going to give you away.”
“I don’t suppose it will make any great difference whether you do or not,” returned Ned unemotionally; “but I thank you for your good will. Hadn’t we better look up the rest of the bunch? By this time they’re probably wondering what has become of us.”
As he was starting to rise, Jack gripped his shoulder, hissing:
“Keep still! What’s that? Some one is coming this way!”
From a distance came the sounds of a body moving through the underbrush. Slowly the sounds drew nearer, ceasing at intervals, as if the person, if a person it was, paused now and then to rest or listen.
“Who do you suppose it is?” whispered Nelson. “It doesn’t seem to me it can be one of the fellows coming back this way.”
Osgood shook his head as he rose noiselessly to his feet. Looking at each other, the same thought filled their minds.
Perhaps it was Roy Hooker!
Not far from them, yet wholly concealed by the thickets and the shadows, the moving object halted and remained silent for a long time. Gradually this silence wore upon their patience, and presently Nelson made signs indicating that he meant to investigate with all possible caution. Osgood nodded, and, side by side, they crept forward, stepping softly and peering anxiously into the gloom.
Beneath Nelson’s foot a dead branch snapped with a report like a toy pistol. Almost instantly there was a movement in the thicket, a rushing sound, a crashing as of a person in flight.
“Confound it!” exclaimed Jack. “Come on, Osgood, let’s run the thing down.”
Through the bushes and the shadows, they dashed in pursuit. Osgood, following the other boy too closely, was lashed in the face by whipping branches, which stung and blinded him. At the first opportunity he turned aside and chose a course he believed to be parallel with that Nelson was pursuing. All at once he perceived they were no longer guided by sounds made by the one they were after, and he stopped short to listen. The other boy ran on much farther before he also stopped.
Again the woods, bathed in the white light of the moon, seemed hushed and silent.
“Oh, Osgood! Where are you?”
It was Jack calling.
Ned had opened his lips to answer when something touched his ankle—touched it and gripped it. Looking down, he was amazed to see that it was a human hand thrust out from beneath a thick, low cluster of bushes, and for the moment the discovery robbed him of the power to make a sound.
The low bushes stirred. A head was pushed forth into a patch of moonlight, and to Ned’s ears came a tremulous, choking whisper, full of fear and pleading:
“Don’t answer, Osgood—for the love of goodness, don’t answer!”
Ned was looking down into the distraught, fear-stricken face of Charley Shultz!
Amazed beyond expression, Osgood continued to gaze downward at the haggard, woe-begone face of Shultz. Presently, recovering a bit, he asked:
“What in the world are you doing here, Charley?”
“Hush! Keep still!” pleaded the boy beneath the bushes. “He’ll hear you! There he is, calling again! Don’t answer! Don’t answer!”
“Why, it’s only Nelson,” said Ned, squatting beside the bushes. “We were chasing you. We thought you might be Hooker.”
“Hooker—oh!”
There was inexpressible terror and anguish in those two words, which seemed almost to choke the boy who uttered them.
Nelson was approaching, continuing to call Osgood’s name.
“Hide! hide!” urged Shultz. “Don’t leave me! Oh, don’t leave me now! Let him go! Get into these bushes and he won’t see you!” Grasping Ned’s coat, the pleading fellow sought to draw him into the shelter of the low bushes.
“Why don’t you want him to see you?”
“I’ll tell you—I’ll tell you when he’s gone. Quick! get in here!”
Wondering at the agitation of the fellow who had always seemed utterly incapable of such emotion, Osgood humored him by creeping into the thick mass of shrubbery. Thus concealed, he saw the dark figure of Nelson passing at a little distance, and all the while Shultz clung to him with hands that quivered and shook and seemed silently to beg him not to respond to the calls of the searching lad.
After a time Nelson could be heard no more. Then Ned crept forth, followed by Charley, who remained sitting on the ground with one leg outstretched.
“What’s the meaning of this tomfoolery?” demanded Osgood, a bit sharply. “How in the name of the seven wonders did you come to be here, anyhow? You weren’t with the bunch that started out to find Hooker.”
Again, at the sound of that name, Shultz shrank and cowered as if struck a blow.
“Don’t speak of him—don’t!” he sobbed. “It’s an awful thing! Oh, if you only knew what I’ve suffered to-night!”
“Why, you’re all to pieces, old man. You’re completely broken up.”
“I’m a wreck. I’m done for. It’s a wonder I’m not crazy. I have been half-crazy. Why shouldn’t I be, chased and hunted like a wild beast? It’s enough to drive any one insane.”
“Chased and hunted? What do you mean?”
“Oh, I know the whole town is after me. I barely got away from two of them who caught me flinging pebbles at your windows to wake you up.”
Osgood stiffened a bit. “You—did—what?”
“When I found out what had happened, when I knew the worst, I cut across lots to Mrs. Chester’s to wake you and tell you that I was going to run away. I was so excited I threw the pebbles against the wrong window, and when I went back to the street for more the men saw me and chased me. I doubled on them and threw them off the track.”
“Those men must have been Turner and Crabtree. They thought they were chasing Roy Hooker.”
“Hooker!” palpitated Shultz. “Hooker? He’s dead! His ghost came to my window! It was perched on the ridgepole of the ell. I was just going to bed when I saw it. I’ll never forget the terrible look in those eyes!”
Squatting on the ground beside the trembling fellow, Osgood grasped him firmly by the arm.
“What is this stuff you’re telling me, Shultz?” he demanded. “You saw Hooker looking in at your window?”
“I tell you it was his ghost. I’ve never believed in such things, but I do now, for I’ve seen one. I saw it again, too, here in these very woods. It spoke to me. I heard it speak. Then I ran and ran, until I fell into a gully and thought I’d broken my leg. It was my ankle. It’s sprained and swollen, but I’ve been hobbling on it just the same. Oh, Osgood, isn’t there any way for me to escape? If I hadn’t hurt my ankle, I’d be miles on the road to Barville before this. I didn’t mean to kill him. You know I didn’t mean that, don’t you? If they bring me to trial, you’ll tell them you know that much, won’t you, Ned?”
Osgood was moved almost to tears by this pathetic pleading.
“Now listen to me, Shultz,” he commanded. “You’ve deceived yourself. Hooker isn’t dead, unless he’s died since he got out of bed to-night, escaped observation and left his home. If you really saw something that looked like Hooker on the roof of Caleb Carter’s ell, it was Roy himself. If you met something in these woods that looked like Hooker, it was Hooker. He’s wandering about somewhere in a deranged condition, and he’s the one the people are searching for, not you.”
Overwrought by the terror of his experience, it was no simple matter for Charley Shultz to comprehend the meaning of his companion’s words.
“Hooker—not dead?” he muttered wildly. “Why, I—I was sure of it. How do you know, Ned? You may be mistaken.”
Compelling Shultz to listen, Osgood finally succeeded in convincing him. “Let us hope with all our hearts,” he concluded, “that they find Roy and get him safely home, and that he recovers. Let us hope, regardless of what it may mean to us, that, restored to his right mind, he’ll soon be able to tell everything.”
“Oh, I don’t care if he does now,” asserted Shultz. “If we’d only told in the first place, it would have been better. Piper was right; I should have owned up like a man. That was the thing for me to do. I refused to see it then, but what I’ve been through since has opened my eyes.”
“It seems to me,” said Ned gently, “that we’ve both had our eyes opened. Come, old fellow, let me help you to your feet. You’ve got to get back to the village somehow, if I have to pack you on my back.”
“I can hobble. If you’ll give me an arm, I’ll manage to cripple along. But I’m afraid to go back to Oakdale.”
“It’s the only thing you can do. There’s no other way, old man. We’ve both of us got to face the worst, whatever it may be.”
Shultz, indeed very lame, hung heavily on Osgood’s arm, gritting his teeth and groaning at times with the pain his injured ankle gave him. In this manner they moved along slowly enough, keeping to the westward of Turkey Hill and making for the Barville road, as this was now the shortest and most direct course back to the village.
At intervals, as they went along, Shultz persisted in talking of the terrible experiences he had passed through that night, repeating over and over that he was intensely thankful because in all probability Roy Hooker was still living.
“If he had died without telling a word, I’d never had a minute’s peace in the world,” he asserted. “I’d always felt like a murderer. I hope they find him all right. I don’t care if he does tell.”
“I didn’t urge you to confess, did I, Shultz?”
“No, no, but I should have done it. I was afraid, that was the trouble. I was a coward. I didn’t think it was fear at the time, but it was, just the same. I tried to make myself believe I was keeping still on your account. Well, really, I did think about what it would mean to you, Ned. You’re different from me. You’re a gentleman, and I’m just a plain rotter, I guess.”
“Oh, I don’t know as there’s so much difference between us, after all.”
“Yes, there is. You’ve got some family behind you, and you’re naturally proud of it. I’ve never had any particular reason to be proud of my people. Why, my father is a saloonkeeper. I never told you that, did I? I didn’t tell you, for I thought you might be disgusted and turn against me if you knew. I’ve always growled about my old man, because he didn’t give me a lot of spending money. The reason why he didn’t was because I raised merry blazes when I had money. He used to let me have enough—too much. When I blew it right and left, like an idiot, and kept getting into scrapes, he cut my allowance down. You see the kind of a fellow you’ve been friendly with, Osgood, old man. You can see he’s a rotter—just a plain rotter. Oh, you’ll help me back to town. You’ll do the right thing, because you’re the right sort. But, now that you know what I am, we never could be friends any more, even if this Hooker business hadn’t come up.”
Osgood had permitted him to talk on in this fashion, although again and again Shultz’s words made Ned cringe inwardly. At this point the listener interrupted.
“You’re wrong, old man, if you believe anything you’ve said will make me think any the less of you. On the contrary, it will have precisely the opposite effect. You’ve told me all this about yourself, but there are a lot of things about myself that I’ve never told you. This is hardly the time for it, but you shall know, and then you’ll understand that we’re practically on a common level. I’m no better than you are.”
“You say that because youarebetter—because you’re a natural gentleman, with blood and breeding. I don’t think I ever before understood what makes a true gentleman. Oh, I’ve got my eyes open to heaps of things to-night.”
“It’s not impossible for a man to be a gentleman, even if he doesn’t know who his own father and mother were,” returned Osgood. “Breeding is all right, but there’s a lot of rot in this talk about blood and ancestry.”
“You never seemed specially proud of the fact that you had such fine ancestors behind you. I guess you’re true American in your ideas, Osgood. For all of your family, you’ve always sort of pooh-poohed ancestry; and you with a perfect right to use a crest!”
Shultz was startled by the short, contemptuous laugh that burst from his companion’s lips.
“The world is full of faking and fraud,” said Ned. “It seems that half the people in it, at least, are trying to make other people believe they’re something which they are not. Does the ankle hurt bad, old chap?”
“Like blazes,” answered Charley through his teeth.
“Let me see if I can’t get you on to my back and carry you.”
“Not on your life! I’m going to walk back to town on that pin if I never step on it again. I’ll just take it as part of the punishment I deserve.”