Guilt of the Brass Thieves Part 29

And after awhile she heard voices, low spoken, but nevertheless clear, for the slightest sound carried over water.

"She's over there somewhere in the center of the patch!" one of the men muttered. "I could tell where she went by the way the gra.s.s moved. Shall we let her go?"

"No, we got to get her or she'll tell everything she knows to old man Gandiss and the police!" the other answered.

With the motor shut off, the two men then took out paddles, and began to force the boat through the jungle of gra.s.s. Observing that they were coming straight toward her, Penny noiselessly waded on, taking every precaution not to move the stalks unnecessarily. Noting the direction of the wind, she went with it, hoping that any movement of the gra.s.s would appear to be caused by the stiff breeze.

But she hoped in vain. For suddenly Joe the Sweeper shouted hoa.r.s.ely:

"There she is! Over there!" He pointed with his paddle blade.

The men pushed the boat on, smashing the gra.s.s ahead of them. In despair, Penny saw that wherever she went she was leaving a trail of trampled, broken gra.s.s behind her.

No longer trying to prevent splashes, she waded in a wide half-circle.

Then quickly she back-tracked, this time making not a sound. Slipping into the dense growth just beside the trail she had made, she breathlessly waited.

The boat came into view. Taking a deep breath, Penny ducked under water.

Opening her eyes, she could see the blurred, dark bottom of the craft moving slowly toward her, so close she could have reached out and touched it.

Her breath began to grow short. The boat barely seemed to move. Penny's lungs felt as if they were ready to burst, but still she remained under water.

Then the men had pa.s.sed, and she dared raise her head for an instant to gulp in air. The boat reached the end of the trail through the gra.s.s that Penny herself had made. There it halted, as Sweeper Joe and his companion, realizing they had lost their quarry, debated their next move.

"She was here a minute ago!" Sweeper Joe growled. "I caught a glimpse of her clothes, and saw the gra.s.s move. Where did she go?"

"She must have doubled back."

With difficulty the men turned the boat around and rowed toward Penny again. When she dared wait no longer, she submerged again.

They pa.s.sed her and she came up for air. A water snake slithered through the gra.s.s, almost touching her hand.

Startled, Penny leaped backwards, making an ugly, loud splash in the water. Slight as was the sound, it told the men where she hid. Turning in the boat, they saw her through the gra.s.s, and bore toward her again.

By this time, Penny actually enjoyed the desperate game of hide and seek, for so far, the advantage had been hers. She stood watching the boat until it came very close.

Then she dived, coming up directly underneath the craft. Getting her shoulder squarely under one side, she raised up, and with an ease that surprised her, upset the boat.

The two men went sprawling into the water. Unable to swim, they made animal noises and clutched desperately at the gra.s.s for support. But as their feet found solid footing, they started furiously toward Penny.

Taking her time, and deliberately seeking deeper water, she waded away.

"That will hold them for a few minutes," she thought gleefully. "I'll get out of this jungle now, and swim ash.o.r.e."

One more the girl's hopes were rudely dashed. As she reached the edge of the gra.s.s area, she was disconcerted to see another rowboat approaching from the direction of the Harper place. With shadows deepening on the water, she could not at first distinguish the man. Then she recognized Claude Harper.

"He must have come home, and Ma sent him here to help capture me!" she thought. "If I swim out now, I'll certainly be caught."

Crouching down so that her nose was just above the water, she waited.

Claude Harper rowed on, resting upon his oars when perhaps ten yards away.

"Joe!" he called.

There was an answering shout from the center of the gra.s.s patch.

"That gal's somewhere close by!" Sweeper Joe shouted in warning. "She upset our boat. Stay where you are, and see that she doesn't slip past you!"

Thus warned, Claude Harper began to survey the gra.s.s patch intently. He looked hard at the place where Penny stood. She was certain he had seen her, but after a moment, he turned slightly, and his eyes roved on.

As she hesitated, not knowing what to do, Sweeper Joe and Clark Clayton, who had bailed out their boat, came paddling out to meet Harper. Wet and plastered with mud, they had lost one of the paddles.

"If you ain't sights!" Harper cackled upon seeing them. He slapped his thigh in glee. "You look like a couple o' stupid mud turtles!"

"Fool!" rasped Sweeper Joe. "Don't you have sense enough to figure what will happen if that girl gets away from us?"

"You ain't goin' back to no job at the Gandiss factory. Nor Clayton neither!"

"It's a lot more serious than that!" Joe snapped. He guided the boat alongside Harper's craft. "Why do you think I took that job in the first place, and spent better than two years studyin' the Gandiss factory layout? I lined up the employes we could get to go along with us, got everything organized--and now this gal has to bust up the show just as the profits begin to roll in!"

"Better pipe down," Harper warned curtly. "She can hear you, and so can everyone else on the river."

"What's the difference?" Joe argued in disgust. "We're through. I'm gettin' out of this town tonight!"

"Me with you," added Clark Clayton. "Ever since Gandiss put detectives on the job, I figured the game was gettin' too dangerous."

Now it was Claude Harper who lost his temper. "Hold on," he said warningly. "It's all right for you guys to blow town, but what about me and the wife?"

"You can do what you please," Joe retorted.

"We got your bra.s.s cached in our bas.e.m.e.nt. If the cops should find it there, we'd take the rap."

"Get rid of it."

"That's a lot easier said than done. Besides, that bra.s.s is worth a tidy sum o' money."

"Then why not sell it tonight?" Joe proposed suddenly. "If we can get it to the junkman who has a place across from the factory, he'll pay us a good price. We can complete the deal, and still get out of town before midnight."

"That's okay for you," Harper argued, "but Ma and I own property here, and we got a good business."

"It was your stupid wife's stocking business that got us into this jam!"

Clark Clayton snarled.

"I ain't talkin' about that. I mean our dance hall. We clean up about a hundred bucks every Sat.u.r.day night."

"You should have thought about that before you went in with us," Joe retorted. "You knew the risks you were taking. Anyway, this mess was your wife's making."

A silence fell, and then Clark Clayton said: "We ain't gettin' nowhere.

We got to decide what we're goin' to do, and we got to make sure that gal don't get out o' this weed patch until we've arranged our escape."

In whispers, the men conferred. Though Penny strained her ears, she could not catch a single word. However, a plan satisfactory to the three seemed to have been formulated, for presently, the two boats separated.