A Woman at Bay Part 22

"Why?"

"Because there is one region up among those hills which is exactly fitted for them; and from which you couldn't drive them out with a thousand men. That's why!"

"Good. That sounds as if it might be the place they would select. How far is it from here, as you would travel afoot."

"A matter of thirty miles."

"Now, can you draw me a plan of that region?"

"I kin."

"And how to get there?"

"I kin."

"And are there caverns there? Do you suppose those people are hiding and making their headquarters in caves?"

"Yes, to both questions. The hills round that 'ere region are honeycombed with caves. Some of 'em is big, and some of 'em is little; but there's a lot of 'em there."

"Good; and you know them well enough to give me a working plan of them?

What a sailor would call a chart?"

"You bet I do."

"Now, another subject: Have you ever traveled away from here? Have you ever been to New York, for instance?"

"Never in my life. I've always lived right around here. I don't suppose I have been ten miles away from here, except in the woods, in forty years. But in the woods I sometimes used to go a good ways."

"I've no doubt of that. How would you like to make a visit to New York?"

"I should like it very much--only it would cost such a lot, you know."

"Suppose your expenses were paid?"

"Well, that would be different."

"How much, in cash, will you take for your whiskers, Mr. Turner?"

"Now what the devil do you mean by that? Are you making fun of me?"

"Not at all. I was wondering if fifty dollars more, down, would induce you to shave off your whiskers."

"Humph! Jest tell me what you are getting at and I'll answer you."

"This: I want to disguise myself so that I look like you. I want to go out in the mountains as you would go out. While I am making believe that I am Bill Turner, I want you to take a trip to New York, and to live there, at my house, and take it easy, see all the sights, go to the theatres and the museums, and all that, until I return, and I want you to shave off your whiskers, and let me blacken your brows and otherwise make some changes in your appearance, so that if any of the people from Calamont should happen to meet you in the street down there they wouldn't say, 'Why, there is Bill Turner!' Would you consent to do that?"

"For another fifty dollars down?"

"Yes."

"I would. When do you want me to shave?"

"I will tell you in good time. First, I want you to fix up those plans."

"Hadn't I better git about it right now?"

"Yes. I think you had. And I will remain here with you while you do it in order that you may explain things to me as you work upon them."

"That's a good idee, too. I can make you know them mountings as well as I do, in a short time. I knows 'em so well----"

"That reminds me. Do you happen to know by sight, or have an acquaintance with, any of the members of that gang?"

The old man shifted uneasily in his chair, and at last he replied:

"I know one of them--purty well. He calls himself Handsome."

"Good! What does Handsome know about you, Bill?"

"He don't know nothin' about me, 'cept that I'm a woodsman, and that I'm too old to do him any harm. I helped him once, and once he helped me a leetle, and we're sort of friends. But I ain't never seen him but twice in my life, and then both times I met him in the woods, so I ain't never mentioned nothin' about him to other folks."

"That's splendid! It is just what I hoped. It couldn't be better! I want you now to tell me what you talked about when you and Handsome met each other those two times in the woods."

"That's easy. The first time, I was walking through the woods, up about where you are going--that is, it was in that region--when I heard somebody hollerin' fur help. At first I couldn't tell for the life of me where the hollerin' come from; but after a leetle I located it up on the side of one of them steep hills, and so I crawled up there. Well, when I got there, I found that a man had slid into a hole in the rocks, and that he couldn't git out nohow. If I hadn't happened along the chances are that he'd starved before he'd ha' been helped out."

"And as it was--what?"

"I helped him out. I didn't have no hatchet, but I had a good huntin'

knife along with me, and I managed to whittle down a good-sized spruce, which I trimmed so's to make a sort of ladder of it. When that was done I lowered the b.u.t.t end of it into the hole, and Handsome--that was who it was in the bottom of the hole--he climbed up so's I could get hold of him, and then I pulled him out. There wasn't much to that, was there?"

"It saved his life."

"Probably."

"Wasn't he grateful?"

"Suttingly."

"What did you talk about after that?"

"We sot down there a spell and chinned, that's all. He axed me who I was, and I told him. He axed me if I was long in these parts, and I told him allers. He axed me where I lived, and I told him about this cottage.

That's all--only he said he was a hobo, and that he was called Handsome.

I allowed that the people who called him that lied mightily; but I didn't say so jest then."

"What more was talked about?"

"Nothin'."

"When was the next time you saw him?"