King Spruce Part 42

"By ----, Straight, I believe you've hit it!" he panted.

"I've been patchin' a few things together in my head," said the old man, modestly, "as a feller has to do when dealin' with woods matters. I've told you that queer things have happened in the woods. When a number of things happen you can fit 'em together, sometimes. Now, there wasn't anything queer at Britt's camps to fit into the rest. I came right on 'em sudden, and there wasn't a ripple anywhere. I didn't go into the details, Mr. Wade, in tellin' you why I knew Miss Barrett wasn't there.

It would have been wastin' time. But now take the queer things! Out goes Abe Skeet into the storm! Who would be mousin' around outside at that time of night except a lunatic--such as 'Ladder' Lane has turned into since the big fire? You saw on Jerusalem how Lane could boss Abe--he jumped when Lane pulled the string.

"And it was Lane that called him out of our camp," the old man went on.

"No one else could do it--except that old Skeet grandmother. Lane has been in these woods ever since he abandoned the Jerusalem fire station.

He's no ordinary lunatic. He's cunnin'. He's only livin' now to nuss the grudge. Now see here!" Christopher held up his fingers, and bent them down one by one to mark his points. "He has ha'nted camps in this section to locate Abe Skeet. Knowed Abe Skeet could probably tell where Kate Arden had gone, Abe havin' been left to guard her. Called Abe out to go with him to get that girl back--maybe havin' heard that John Barrett got out of these woods scot-free and had dumped the girl off somewhere else. Lane is lunatic enough to think he needs the girl to carry out his plan of revenge. And he does, if he means to take her outside and show her to the world as John Barrett's abandoned daughter, as it's plain his scheme is. Lane and Abe started down towards Castonia.

Heard tote team, and hid side of road (would naturally hide). Saw girl that looked like Kate Arden (even dressed in her clothes, I believe you told me?). Followed the team, and when she covered herself in the blanket, as though to make herself into a package ready for 'em, they grabbed her off the team before she had time to squawk. Had her ready muzzled and gagged, as you might say! Mr. Wade, as I told you, I've been patchin' things in my mind. I ain't a dime-novel detective nor anything of the sort, but I do know something about the woods and who are in 'em and what they'll be likely to do, and I can't see anything far-fetched in the way I've figgered this."

While his fears had been so hideously vague Wade had stumbled on behind his guide without hope, and with his thoughts whirling in his head as wildly as the snow-squalls whirled in Pogey. Now, with definite point on which to hang his bitter fears, he was roused into a fury of activity.

"We'll after them, Christopher!" he shouted. "They've got her! It's just as you've figured it. They've got her! She will die of fright, man! I don't dare to think of it!" He was rushing away. Christopher called to him.

"Just which way was you thinkin' of goin'?" he asked, with mild sarcasm.

"I can put queer things together in my mind so's to make 'em fit pretty well," went on the old man, "but jest which way to go chasin' a lunatic and a fool in these big woods ain't marked down on this snow plain enough so I can see it."

Wade, the cord of the moose-sled in his trembling hands, turned and stared dismally at Straight. The old man slowly came away from the hovel, his nose in the air, as though he were sniffing for inspiration.

"The nearest place," he said, thinking his thoughts aloud, "would be to the fire station up there." He pointed his mittened hand towards the craggy sides of Jerusalem. "They may have started hot-foot for the settlement. Perhaps 'Ladder' Lane would have done that if 'twas Kate Arden he'd got. But seein' as it's John Barrett's own daughter--" He paused and rubbed his mitten over his face. "Knowin' what we do of the general disposition of old Lane, it's more reasonable to think that he ain't quite so anxious to deliver that particular package outside, seein' that he can twist John Barrett's heart out of him by keepin' her hid in these woods."

The young man had no words. His face pictured his fears.

"It's only guesswork at best, Mr. Wade," said Christopher. "It's tough to think of climbin' to the top of Jerusalem on this day, but it seems to me it's up to us as men." They looked at each other a moment, and the look was both agreement and pledge. They began the ascent, quartering the snowy slope. The dogged persistence of the veteran woodsman animated the old man; love and desperation spurred the younger. The climb from bench to bench among the trees was an heroic struggle. The pa.s.sage across the bare poll of the mountain in the teeth of the bitter blast was torture indescribable. And they staggered to the fire station only to find its open doors drifted with snow, its two rooms empty and echoing.

"I was in hopes--in hopes!" sighed the old man, stroking the frozen sweat from his cheeks. "But I ain't agoin' to give up hopes here, sonny." Even Wade's despair felt the soothing encouragement in the old man's tone.

"We've got to fetch Barnum Withee's camp on 'Lazy Tom' before we sleep,"

said the guide. "There'll be something to eat there. There may be news.

We've got to do it!" And they plodded on wearily over the ledges and down the west descent.

They made the last two miles by the light of their lantern, dragging their snow-shoes, one over the other, with the listlessness of exhaustion. The cook of Withee's camp stared at them when they stumbled in at the door of his little domain, their snow-shoes clattering on the floor. He was a sociable cook, and he remarked, cheerily, "Well, gents, I'm glad to see that you seem to be lookin' for a hotel instead of a horsepittle."

Not understanding him, they bent to untie the latchets of their shoes without reply.

"T'other one is in the horsepittle," said the cook, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of his bunk in the lean-to. "He was brought in. I've been lookin' for something of the sort ever since he skipped from the Jerusalem station. Lunatics ain't fit to fool 'round in the woods," he rambled on.

"Who've you got in there?" demanded Christopher, snapping up from his fumbling at the rawhide strings.

"Old 'Ladder' Lane," replied the cook, calmly. "Murphy's down-toter brought him here just before dark. He's pretty bad. Froze up considerable. Toter heard him hootin' out in the swirl of snow on the d.i.c.kery pond and toled him ash.o.r.e by hootin' back at him. No business tryin' to cross a pond on a day like this! 'Tain't safe for a young man with all his wits, let alone an old man who has beat himself all out slam-bangin' round these woods this winter.

"Yes, he's pretty bad. Done what I could for him, me and cookee, by rubbin' on snow and ladlin' ginger-tea into him, but when it come to supper-time them nail-kags of mine had to be 'tended to, and here's bread to mix for to-morrow mornin'. We don't advertise a horsepittle, gents, but you wait a minute and I'll scratch _you_ up somethin' for supper. The horsepittle will have to run itself for a little while."

Wade and the old man stared at each other stupidly while the cook bustled about his task. For the moment their thoughts were too busy for words. Even Christopher's whitening face showed the fear that had come upon him.

"Guess old Lane was comin' out to get a letter onto the tote team,"

gossiped the cook. "I was lookin' through his coat after I got it off and found that one up there."

He nodded at a grimy epistle stuck in a crevice of the log, and went down into a barrel after doughnuts which he piled on a tin plate.

Noiselessly Christopher strode to the log and took down the letter and stared at the superscription, and without a word displayed the writing to Wade. It was addressed to John Barrett at his city address.

The cook was busy at the table.

"By Cephas, this is _our_ business!" muttered the old man. And, turning his back on the cook, he ripped open the envelope. On a wrinkled leaf torn from an account-book was pencilled this message:

"_You stole my wife. I've got your daughter. Now, d.a.m.n you, crawl and beg!_"

"Look here, cook," called Straight, sharply, "there's bad business mixed up with Lane. Don't ask me no questions." He flapped the open letter into the astonished face of the man to check his words. "We've got to speak to Lane, and speak mighty quick."

"He was in a sog when I put him to bed," said the cook. "Didn't know what, who, or where. They say lunatics want to be woke up careful. You let me go." He took a doughnut from the plate and started for the lean-to, grinning back over his shoulder. "He may be ready to set up, take notice, and brace himself with a doughnut."

The two men waited, eager, silent, hoping, fearing--each framing such appeal as might touch the heart of this revengeful maniac.

They heard the cook utter a snort of surprise; then they saw the flame of a match shielded by his palm. A moment later he came out and stood looking at them with a singularly sheepish expression.

"Gents," he blurted, "I'll be cussed if the joke ain't on me this time!

I went in there to give the horsepittle patient a fresh-laid doughnut to revive his droopin' heart, and--"

"Is that man gone?" bawled Christopher, reaching for his snow-shoes.

"Yes," said the cook, grimly; "but you can't chase him on snow--not where he's gone. He's deader'n the door-k.n.o.b on a hea.r.s.e-house door."

CHAPTER XXII

THE HOSTAGE OF THE GREAT WHITE SILENCE

"Round the bellowin' falls of Abol we lugged him through the brush, And Death had marked his forehead: 'To a Woman. Kindly Rush!'"

When Christopher and Wade started up and hurried into the lean-to, the cook of the "Lazy Tom" camp went ahead carrying a lamp to light the place whose rude interior had so suddenly been made mystic by death.

"'Yes, s'r,' says I to him," he repeated, with queer, bewildered, hysterical sort of chuckle. "I says to him, jolly as a chipmunk in a beech-nut tree, I says, 'Set up and have a doughnut all fresh laid,' and I'll be bunga-nucked if he wa'n't dead! And that's a joke on me, all right!"

He held the lamp over the features of old "Ladder" Lane, and Dwight Wade and Christopher Straight bent and peered.

"Look; if he ain't grinnin'!" whispered the cook, huskily. For one horrid moment it seemed to Wade that the fixed grimace of the death-mask expressed hideous mirth. The scrawl that the young man still clutched in his fist held the words that the dead lips seemed to be mouthing: "You stole my wife. I've got your daughter. Now, d.a.m.n you, crawl and beg!" And at the thought of Elva Barrett, hidden, lost--worse than lost--somewhere in that great silence about them, Wade's agony and anger found vent in the oath that he groaned above the dead man, who seemed to lie there and mock him.

But Christopher Straight gently laid his seamed hand on the s.h.a.ggy fringe of the gray poll.

"It was a hot fire that burned in there, poor old fellow," he murmured.

"And those that knew you can't be sorry that it's gone out."

He pressed his hand up under the hanging jaw, and smoothed down the half-opened eyelids. And when he stepped back, after his sad and kindly offices, the old man's face was composed; it was the worn, wasted face of an old man who had suffered much; grief, hardship, hunger, and all human misery were writ large there in pitiful characters, in hollow temple, sunken cheeks, pinched nostrils, and lips drawn as one draws them after a bitter sob. And over its misery, after a long look of honest grief, the old woodsman drew up the edge of the bunk's worn gray blanket, muttering as soothingly as though he were comforting a sick man: "Take your rest, old fellow! There's a long night ahead of you."

With bowed head Wade led the way into the main camp. He stumbled along blindly, for the sudden tears were hot in his eyes. He regretted that instant of anger as a profanation that even his harrowing fears for Elva Barrett could not excuse. For Linus Lane, lying there dead, he reflected, was the spoil of the l.u.s.t of Elva Barrett's father, as his peace of mind and his sanity had been playthings of John Barrett's contemptuous indifference; and who was he, Dwight Wade, that he should sit in judgment, even though his heart were bursting with the agony of his fears?