Lonesome Town Part 37

The pause that ensued may be utilized for the admission that Pape was not as superior to curiosity as his stand would suggest. Indeed, he had speculated, so far as his intelligence and knowledge would take him, over the exact nature of the hidden h.o.a.rd. He had heard of gold and jewels buried by eccentrics of little faith in modern banks and presumed that something such was deposited in the missing crock. Once Jane had said that the buried treasure was "bigger than Central Park itself."

Just now she had declared the desperation of their hunt due to fear lest their enemies "destroy" it. Destroy what was bigger than Central Park itself? She had added a new and confusing touch to the mystery.

"I set out to give you the common or garden variety of service," he explained his stand. "That's a kind that don't need to understand, that digs ditches and wages wars and wins women. Don't load me down with knowledge now. Let me go all the way to trail's-end-the crock-just trusting that it will lead me to you."

He bent that she should not miss his promising smile-twilight was mixing with starlight by now.

"Isn't faith best proved without words, dear?" he asked her. "If you have any in me, this would seem a right good time to prove it. Cease worrying. Trust me. Rest. Isn't everything snug and _au fait_? You have most everything you need-even a chaperone."

"Meaning Kicko or that hoot-owl?"

"Meaning granddad's spirit."

"Oh ... all right ... I'll try."

After a time--

"Jane, tell the truth and shame the devil-don't you prefer me to that wall?"

"Why-why--"

"Please prefer me."

Perhaps his arm did more than his words to persuade her. At any rate, with her head resting against his shoulder, she made admission.

"I do-prefer you to a stone wall, you know."

"And aren't you going to prefer me to everybody and everything? I don't wish to seem to be making love to you, Miss Lauderdale-not just yet. You must admit that I have been very slow and steady."

"Slow and steady-_you_?"

"But it would help to get that settled now. Aren't you going to prefer me, Jane?"

"I am. That is, I do now-did in fact from that first night when I picked you out of a grand-tier of faces as the one man who--"

"Wait a minute! You say _you_ selected _me_?"

He took her by both shoulders; held her away from him; peered, startled, into her eyes.

"Of course. But it was more instinct than reason that made me--"

"Well, if _you_ selected _me_-" and he replaced that head of hers, veiled in soft, fragrant black, against the spot preferred to the wall-"_I'm_ helpless."

"But not hopeless, I hope?"

"Hopeless, when I've kissed you once and have hopes that-? Say, I want to be slow and steady, to give you time to realize without being told that you're going to marry me. But if you self-selected me, Jane Lauderdale, maybe you'll notify me as to the soonest possible moment when I'm due to kiss you again."

She drew far enough away to peer into his eyes. Faint-smiling, yet wholly serious, she considered. Then--

"Peter Pape, why not now?" she asked him.

Pape had other reasons than the girl's weariness for persuading her to try for a s.n.a.t.c.h of the sleep she might need against possible strain on her nerve and endurance ahead. He wished to weigh-well, several interesting observations.

For long after she had accepted his knee as a pillow, the rock floor as a bed, a live-fur rug for her feet and his coat for her coverlet, he pulled on his pipe; returned the dark scowl of the down-drooping night; thought. The while, out-loud observations which had seemed to soothe Polkadot on that previous trip to the block-house recurred to him. More or less monotonously he crooned them over her like a lullaby.

"Don't you hear the dog-wood yapping, dear?... Can't you just imagine those old-fashioned pop-guns popping?... Nothing to break the silences save the shriek of ten thousand auto sirens.... No one around but people-millions of 'em! Don't it make you think of a little old home in my great new West, where we're to go one day-so like and yet so different?... And Friend Equus is to go along, my heart, all the more appreciative after his clash with the tame.... Yes, and you too, Police Pup-if Shepherd Tom can be persuaded to let you resign from the Force.

He just may be willing after to-day's mis-delivered lunch.

"Then list to the Nubian roar-much more like a lion it sounds than the rumble of city streets.... List the whisper of poplars four-there would be four, except that two have been white-circled into stumps.... Count eighteen-twelve.... Take heart and delve.... Above the crock the block will rock.... That block did rock-did rock-and rock--"

He leaned low; listened. Jane's gentle, even breathing reported her asleep. He was more pleased than by any of the wonderful things she had done while awake-even than by that voluntary kiss, so precious as compared with her involuntary first. She did really trust him and rest in his protectorate, else could she never have been lulled by his murmurings into unconsciousness. She must indeed have been spent, when the growls and spasmodic foot work of the live fur rug did not disturb her. Kicko, evidently, had lapsed into dog dreams of chases and fights.

The moon must be rising. Into the block-house was shed a weird, indirect light. Then more and more direct it grew until, over the top of one wall, appeared a large, round inverted bowl of a candle-power that dimmed the kilowatt signs along the Gay Way.

Earlier in the evening, when he had spoken of waiting for darkness, under cover of which to attempt an escape afoot, Pape might have complained at the illumination of the sky. Now he beamed back at the moon. And his complacency waxed with her light, although he realized that bold young Dawn would be up to flirt with the pale night queen long before her departure; that any attempt to escape from the park would not be blanketed that night.

Let Luna reach the steps of her throne, he bade himself in thought, that each corner of the old refuge house might be lighted. Let Jane have out her sleep-happy he to guard her gracious rest. Let the Nubian roar of power that was not leonine grow faint and die. Let the city and the city's Finest go off guard.

Time enough, then, to test application of the eccentric's cryptogram, copper-plated line by line, to a locality unsuspected by their enemies and chosen by themselves quite through chance. Not a doubt shadowed his mind as he awaited the zero hour. The lines fitted, every one.

"List' to the Nubian roar"-to the night noises of the surrounding metropolitan monster, uncaged in Zoo, never-sleeping, ever-pacing.

"And whisper of poplars four"-the branches of two staunch old rustlers among the pines made silver lace of the moonlight just outside the wall.

Doubtless the two that had been sentenced to death had been very much alive at the time of the cryptogram's composition.

"'Tis on a height"-where was one so high to the h.o.a.ry-headed veteran as this on which he delighted to raise his country's flag?

"Eighteen and twelve will show"-Jane had named these very figures as the date on the memorial tablet placed in the wall without. Not rods, not yards, not feet did they stand for, but a date.

"Begin below"-and below was a block that rocked "as rocks wrong's overthrow!"

Not until the inverted bowl of the moon was a central ceiling light did Why Not Pape move to answer the queer questions in his mind. Gently he then lifted the coat-coverlet off the woman below; wrapped it into a roll; with it replaced the pillow of his knee. A low command he gave the police dog to lie still. Swiftly he crossed to the threshold stone, tilted it far enough to one side to a.s.sure himself it was a thin slab and muttered in a sort of ecstacy:

"Count eighteen-twelve, Take heart and delve."

His maximum of strength was required to turn the stone upon its back on the floor of the block-house. Across the earth upon which it so long had lain scurried the crawling things that thrive in under-rock dampness.

Down on his knees dropped Pape and, with a slate-like fragment of rock which had broken off in the fall, began to remove the soft soil. Soon the emergency implement met obstruction. No longer needing advice to "take heart," he cast aside the slate and began scooping out the earth around this object with bare hands.

A heavy touch upon his arm shocked him into an over-shoulder glance. The Belgian stood bristling just behind him; had tapped him with a paw insistent for a share in the digging job. Willingly enough Pape accepted his efficient aid down to the top of an earthen pot of the Boston bean variety. More excited than in past hunts for seldom-found gold pockets of his early prospecting days, the Westerner pushed aside the dog; worked his two nail-torn hands down and down the smooth-curved sides.

With a slow tug, he lifted what he could no longer doubt was the crock of the crypt. Reverently as though he were an acolyte bearing some holy vessel to an altar, he carried it across the room and placed it at the feet of the low-seated high-priestess drawn up against the wall.

"Am I dreaming?" she wondered aloud.

"Am I?" he answered by asking. "Or do I see a tall, strong old man, with a shock of white hair and a laugh on his lips, raising a flag on yonder pole?"

He removed the lid and she the contents of that crock of "fortune forevermore."

And thus was fulfilled one of the wild Westerner's wishes-that he should not know until he had found the object of his search. Thus, through deeds and not words, he learned the nature of Granddad Lauderdale's buried h.o.a.rd.