A Woman at Bay Part 30

"There is no time like the present," he mused to himself, while he hesitated in the doorway. "If I wait until all is quiet, I will stand all the more chance of being discovered; and, besides, it won't be long until Handsome returns here, and after he has come and crawled into his bunk it will be next to impossible for me to get out of here without rousing him--unless I should drug him, and that will not do at all.

Handsome is altogether too fly for that. He would know that he had been drugged.

"Now, if it wasn't for these white whiskers, I could creep around the edge of the bottom of the cliff to the cabin where Patsy is, without being noticed; and I dare not take them off----"

He stopped there. There was absolutely no use in conjecturing upon the "ifs" of the question, and so, after another moment, during which he studied the lay of the land intently, he slipped noiselessly out at the door and around behind the cabin, and from there crept on his hands and knees to the bottom of the cliffs. And there he discovered what he had been unable to see in the imperfect light. The gra.s.s there was quite tall, where it had not been trampled by the feet of the motley crew that infested the place, and he found that by lying at full length and pulling himself slowly along on his stomach he would be able to conceal himself almost entirely from view.

Nick made that half circle of the small valley, crawling in that way, and entirely without being discovered; and in that manner he arrived directly in the rear of the cabin where Patsy was a prisoner.

But here a new difficulty confronted him. There was a guard in front of the door, and that guard, strangely enough, was Cremation Mike.

The cabin in which Patsy was a prisoner was built of roughly hewn logs, the crevices and c.h.i.n.ks being stopped with mud and clay. The ground beneath it was hard--rocky, in fact; so there was no possibility of digging under the logs without tools to do it, and even then it would have taken too much time to accomplish it.

Nick turned his attention to Cremation Mike. He was seated upon a convenient stump, smoking a short pipe. His back was toward the door of the cabin, and he was about ten feet from it. The door itself had been fastened by pa.s.sing a freshly cut sapling across its front, and slipping either end of it into rustic slots that had been hastily fashioned for the purpose.

It was plain that there was only one way to get Patsy outside of that cabin, and that was to overcome Cremation Mike; and, having determined upon this, Nick crept forward as silently as a shadow, and so rounded the corner of the cabin, and presently came up half standing, directly behind the unsuspecting outlaw.

Nick did not wish to kill the man, but he did want to knock him out so effectually that he could not interfere in what was to follow, and therefore he had picked up a piece of round, smooth stone, which he had wrapped in his handkerchief.

And now, with this improvised weapon, he struck Cremation Mike sharply on the back of his head, with the result that Mike pitched forward, and would have fallen to the ground had not Nick managed to catch him. Then he laid him down gently upon the ground, and turning swiftly, opened the door of the cabin.

"Quick, Patsy!" he called in a sharp whisper. "It is I. Nick. Come."

Patsy, who had not been bound, it seemed, leaped to the door with a low exclamation of surprise and pleasure.

"Bully, Nick," he whispered. "I thought it was all up with me that time.

And do you know, it never once occurred to me that the old man might be you. The disguise is perfect."

"Come," said Nick. "There is no time for words now. Follow me, and do exactly as I do. I want to get back to my own sleeping place before my absence is discovered, if it is possible to do so. But, first, is there any sort of a chair or stool inside that cabin?"

"Yes. A stool."

"Bring it out, if you know where to put your hand upon it."

Patsy brought it in a twinkling, and, placing it against the stump, Nick propped the senseless form of Mike upon it, so that from the front it appeared as if he were seated there quite naturally.

"He will come around presently," said Patsy, "and miss me."

"Let him. That is what I want him to do," replied Nick. "Come on, now."

He dropped upon his knees again, and, with Patsy following, they crept around through the gra.s.s again along the edge of the cliff, and at last reached the cabin from which the detective had started.

But he did not stop here. He made at once for the entrance to the cavern, which was near at hand, and pa.s.sed inside, with Patsy following closely behind him; and then with his electric flash light, he led the way along the corridor of the cave--for it was his object to find that hiding place to which Turner had directed him in case he found it necessary to hide.

"Keep to the right always in that cave, no matter which way you are going," Turner had told him with emphasis, and remembering that now, while he wondered if, after all, there were two corridors to the cavern, he followed the rule, and almost on a run--for the pa.s.sage was quite smooth before them--he led the way through.

They came at last to the bowlder to which Turner had referred, and Nick removed the small stone from beneath it. And then he pushed upon it as Turner had directed, with the result that the rock swung open before them, leaving an aperture through which they could easily pa.s.s.

But Nick did not enter. Instead he thrust a candle and a box of matches into Patsy's grasp, and said to him:

"Remain here until I come for you, even if you get hungry. I don't know any more about what is ahead of you than you do. I only know that you will be safe there. We have no time to talk now. I will shut this rock behind you."

Then he turned and sped away.

CHAPTER XV.

NICK'S CLEVEREST CAPTURE.

Nick Carter made his way as rapidly back through the cavern as he had gone through it with Patsy; but when he arrived at the entrance he came to a stop, and then went ahead again very slowly.

He had no idea how long a time he had been gone, nor what might have happened during his absence. But when he peered out upon the valley, everything was apparently in the condition in which he had left it. If there had been any change at all, it was only that fewer of the men were gathered around the fires. Otherwise everything was the same.

And so, with all the swiftness he could muster, he crawled to the cabin which Handsome had given him to occupy, entered it cautiously, and, finding it empty, crawled into the bunk that had been allotted to him--tired, but rejoiced to think that he had succeeded so well where there had been such small chance of success.

And it so happened that he had barely laid himself down and composed himself to wait for developments, when a great cry went up, which was immediately followed by other shouts and loud curses--and Nick knew that the escape of Patsy had been discovered, and that he had returned just in time to avoid the consequences.

Almost immediately following upon the utterance of the shouts, the door of the cabin flew open, and Handsome leaped inside, his eyes ablaze, and his whole form quivering with rage--and he carried a flash light, which he threw at once into the detective's face; into the face of the man he supposed to be Bill Turner.

Nick could see that the instant the light fell upon him Handsome seemed greatly relieved; and then, before the outlaw could utter a word, Nick cried out in the voice of old Turner:

"What--what's all that row about, Handsome?" and he blinked his eyes as if he had just been awakened.

"It's lucky for you that you don't know what it's about!" was Handsome's rejoinder. "Get out of that, Turner, and come along with me."

"But, what's the matter?" demanded Nick, sliding out of the bunk. "What has happened?"

"That fellow Pat has escaped--that's what!" was the reply.

"Sho! You don't say so! Well, well, well! When did he do it?"

"I haven't found out yet. Come along. I thought at first that maybe you had had a hand in it--but I see you did not."

"What! Me?"

Every hobo that belonged to the gang had gathered in the centre of the place near where the mock trial had been held, and they were talking earnestly together. Cremation Mike, with one hand held at the back of his head, was the centre of the group--or rather of the throng.

But Handsome burst unceremoniously through the crowd and confronted Mike, Nick following at his heels.

Black Madge forced her way through it at the same time from the opposite side.

"Now, Mike," said Handsome savagely. "Tell me how this happened."

"I don't know. All that I know is, I got a crack on the head from behind. When I woke up, the bar had been ripped off the door and the bird had flown. That's all I know."

"How long ago did it happen?"