Anderson Crow, Detective Part 15

"Are you goin' to arrest this Bonyparte feller?"

Anderson eyed him sternly for a moment. "I got half a notion to run you in, Alf Reesling, fer interferin' with an officer."

"How'm I interferin'?"

"You're preventin' me from arrestin' a violater of the law, dern you.

Can't you see I'm on my way over to Justice Robb's to swear out a warrant against Abraham Lincoln Bonaparte for bein' intoxicated? What do you mean by stoppin' me an'--"

"I'll go along, Andy," broke in Alf, suddenly affable. "I'll swear to it if you--"

"'Tain't necessary," announced Anderson loftily. "I c'n attend to my own business, if you can't. n.o.body c'n sing the Star Spangled Banner in Dutch without havin' a charge of intoxication filed ag'in him, lemme tell you that. Git out o' my way, Alf."

Mr. Crow's pride had been touched. The shaft of criticism had gone home.

He would arrest Mr. Abraham Lincoln Bonaparte, no matter what came of it. He did not like Mr. Bonaparte anyway. It was Mr. Bonaparte who had ordered him off Crow's Mountain--his own mountain, mind you--and told him not to come puttering around there any more.

On second thoughts, he accepted the nominal town sot's offer to make affidavit against a real offender, but declined his company and a.s.sistance in effecting the arrest. Down in the old Marshal's heart lurked the fear that his new partners would put up such strenuous objections to the arrest that he would have to give way to them. It was this misgiving that caused him to make the trip to Crow's Mountain instead of confronting his man that evening at the hotel or in the street, in the presence of an audience.

Arriving at the cross-roads half a mile from the foot of Crow's Mountain, he encountered two men tinkering with the engine of a big automobile. They stopped him and inquired if there was a garage nearby.

While he was directing them to Pete Olsen's in town, he espied two more men reposing in the shade of a tree farther up the lane.

As he drove on, leaving them behind, he found himself possessed of the notion that the two men were strangely nervous and impatient. He decided, after he had gone a half mile farther that they had, as a matter-of-fact, acted in a very suspicious manner,--just as automobile thieves might be expected to act in the presence of an officer of the law. He made up his mind that if they were still there when he returned with his prisoner, he would yank 'em up for investigation.

He went through the motions of hitching old Hip and Jim to a sapling near the top of the "Mountain." They went to sleep almost instantly.

In the little clearing off to the left, a couple of hundred yards away, Marshal Crow observed several men at work constructing a "shanty."

Closer at hand, almost lost to view among the pines, rose the thin, open-work steel tower from which the "drill" was to be operated.

Standing out among the tree-tops were the long cross-bars of steel, and from them ran the "guy" wires to the ground below. Mr. Crow had never seen a "drill" before, but he had been told by Mr. Bacon that this was the newest thing on the market.

The Marshal started off in the direction of the "shanty" and suddenly a most astonishing thing happened. Mr. Crow disappeared from view as if by magic!

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Marshal started off in the direction of the "shanty"_]

In order to give the drill as wide a berth as possible, he had deployed widely to the left of the path, making his way somewhat tortuously through a rough lot of underbrush. Without the slightest warning, the earth gave way beneath him and down he shot, clawing frantically at the edges of a well-camouflaged hole in the ground, taking with him a vast amount of twigs, branches and a net-work of sapling poles.

Not only did he drop a good twelve feet, but he landed squarely upon the stooping person of Mr. Bacon, who emitted a startling sound that began as a yell and ended as a grunt. He then crumpled up and spread himself out flat, with Mr. Crow draped awkwardly across his prostrate form. For the time being, Mr. Bacon was as still as the grave. He was out.

Anderson scrambled to his feet, pawing the air with his hands, his eyes tightly shut. He was yelling for help.

Now, it was this yelling for help that deceived the astonished Mr.

Bonaparte. He jumped at once to the conclusion that the Marshal was calling for a.s.sistance from the _outside_.

So he threw up his hands!

"I--surrender! I give in!" he yelled. "Keep them off! Don't let them get at me!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"I--I surrender! I give in!" he yelled_]

Anderson opened his eyes and stared.

He found himself in a small, squat room lighted by a lantern which stood upon a crudely made table in the corner beyond Bonaparte. There was a board floor well littered with soil and shavings. In another corner stood a singular looking contraption, not unlike a dynamo.

Marshal Crow bethought himself of his mission. Although the breath had been jarred out of his body, he managed to say,--explosively:

"I--I got a warrant for your arrest. Come along now! Don't resist. Don't make a fuss. Come along peaceably. I--"

"I'll come, Mr. Crow. I was dragged into this thing against my will.

_Gott in Himmel! Gott!--_"

"Never mind what you got," exclaimed Anderson sharply. "You come along with me or you'll get something worse'n that."

"Is--is he dead!" groaned Bonaparte, his eyes almost starting from his head.

Anderson backed away from the sprawling, motionless figure on the floor.

"I--I--gosh, I hope not. I--I was as much surprised as anybody. Say, you see if he's breathin'. We got to git him out o' this place right away an' send for a doctor. The good Lord knows I didn't intend to light on him like that. It was an accident, I swear it was. You know just how it happened, an'--you'll stand by me, won't you, if--"

Just then a loud voice came from above.

"Hey, down there!" A second's pause. Then: "We've got you dead to rights, so no monkey business. Come up out o' that, or we'll pump enough lead down there to--"

"Don't shoot,--don't shoot!" yelled Mr. Bonaparte shrilly. "Tell your men not to fire, Mr. Crow!"

"Tell--tell _who_?" cried Anderson blankly. Suddenly he sprang to his companion's side; seizing him by the arm, he whispered hoa.r.s.ely: "By gosh, I thought there was somethin' queer about that gang. Have you got any of the gold here? I recollect that feller's voice, plain as day.

They're after the gold. They've heard about--"

"Are you coming up?" roared the voice from the outer world.

"Who are you?" called back Anderson stoutly.

"Oh, I guess you'll recognize United States marshals when you see 'em.

Come on, now."

Abraham Lincoln Bonaparte faced Marshal Crow, the truth dawning upon him like a flash.

"You d.a.m.ned old rube!" he snarled, and forthwith planted his fist under Anderson's chin-whiskers, with such surprising force that the old man once more landed heavily on the prostrate form of the unfortunate Bacon.

"O-oh, gosh!" groaned Anderson, and as his eyes rolled upward he saw a million stars chasing each other around the ceiling.

"I'll get _that_ much satisfaction out of it anyhow," he heard some one say, from a very great distance.

Sometime afterward he was dimly aware of a jumble of excited voices about him. Some one was shouting in his ear. He opened his eyes and everything looked green before them. In time he recognized pine trees, very lofty pine trees that slowly but surely shrank in size as he gazed wonderingly at them.

There were a lot of strange men surrounding him. Out of the ma.s.s, he finally selected a face that grew upon him. It was the face of Alf Reesling.

"By jinks, Anderson, you done it _this_ time," Alf cried excitedly. "I told 'em you was on your way up here to arrest these fellers, an' by jinks, I knowed you'd get 'em."

"Le--lemme set down, please," mumbled Anderson, and the two men who supported him lowered him gently to the ground, with his back against a tree trunk. "Come here, Alf," he called out feebly.