The Romance of Elaine Part 35

"Yes, Walter," agreed Elaine, "that would be better. Register it, too."

"How do you do?" greeted a suave voice.

It was Del Mar. As he pa.s.sed me to speak to Elaine, apparently by accident, he knocked the letter from my hand.

"I beg your pardon," he apologized, quickly stooping and picking it up.

Though he managed to read the address, he maintained his composure and handed the letter back to me. I started to go out, when Elaine called to me.

"Excuse me just a moment, Mr. Del Mar?" she queried, accompanying me out on the porch.

Already a saddle horse had been brought around for me.

"Perhaps you'd better put a special delivery stamp on it, too, Walter,"

she added, walking along with me. "And be very careful."

"I will," I promised, as I rode off.

Del Mar, alone, seized the opportunity to go over quietly to the telephone. It was the work of only a moment to call up his bungalow where the emissary who had placed the submarine bell was waiting for orders. Quickly Del Mar whispered his instructions which the man took, and hung up the receiver.

"I hope you'll pardon me," said Elaine, entering just as Del Mar left the telephone. "Mr. Jameson was going into town and I had a number of little things I wanted him to do. Won't you sit down?"

They chatted for a few moments, but Del Mar did not stay very long. He excused himself shortly and Elaine bade him good-bye at the door as he walked off, apparently, down the road I had taken.

Del Mar's emissary hurried from the bungalow and almost ran down the road until he came to a spot where two men were hiding.

"Jameson is coming with a letter which the Dodge girl has written to the Secret Service," he cried pointing excitedly up the road. "You've got to get it, see?"

I was cantering along nicely down the road by the sh.o.r.e, when suddenly, from behind some rocks and bushes, three men leaped out at me. One of them seized the horse's bridle, while the other two quickly dragged me out of the saddle.

It was very unexpected, but I had time enough to draw my gun and fire once. I hit one of the men, too, in the arm, and he staggered back, the blood spurting all over the road.

But before I could fire at the others, they knocked the gun from my hand. Frightened, the horse turned and bolted, riderless.

Together, they dragged me off the road and into the thicket where I was tied and gagged and laid on the ground while one of them bound up the wounded arm of the man I had hit. It was not long before one of them began searching me.

"Aha!" he growled, pulling the letter from my pocket and looking at it with satisfaction. "Here it is."

He tore the letter open, throwing the envelope on the ground, and read it.

"There, confound you," he muttered. "The government 'll never get that.

Come on, men. Bring him this way."

He shoved the letter into his pocket and led the way through the underbrush, while the others half-dragged, half-pushed me along. We had not gone very far before one of the three men, who appeared to be the leader, paused.

"Take him to the hang-out," he ordered gruffly. "I'll have to report to the Chief."

He disappeared down toward the sh.o.r.e of the harbor while the others prodded me along.

Down near the Dodge dock, along the sh.o.r.e, walked a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat and a plain suit of duck. His prim collar and tie comported well with his smoked gla.s.ses. Instinctively one would have called him "Professor", though whether naturalist, geologist, or plain "bugologist", one would have had difficulty in determining.

He seemed, as a matter-of-fact, to be a naturalist, for he was engrossed in picking up specimens. But he was not so much engrossed as to fail to hear the approach of footsteps down the gravel walk from Dodge Hall to the dock. He looked up in time to see Del Mar coming, and quietly slipped into the shrubbery up on the sh.o.r.e.

On the dock, Del Mar stood for some minutes, waiting. Finally, along the sh.o.r.e came another figure. It was the emissary to whom Del Mar had telephoned and who had searched me. The naturalist drew back into his hiding-place, peering out keenly.

"Well?" demanded Del Mar. "What luck?"

"We've got him," returned the man with brief satisfaction. "Here's the letter she was sending to the Secret Service."

Del Mar seized the note which the man handed to him and read it eagerly. "Good," he exclaimed. "That would have put an end to the whole operations about here. Come on. Get into the boat."

For some reason best known to himself, the naturalist seemed to have lost all interest in his specimens and to have a sudden curiosity about Del Mar's affairs. As the motor-boat sped off, he came slowly and cautiously out of his hiding-place and gazed fixedly at Del Mar.

No sooner had Del Mar's boat got a little distance out into the harbor than the naturalist hurried down the Dodge dock. There was tied Elaine's own fast little runabout. He jumped into it and started the engine, following quickly in Del Mar's wake.

"Look," called the emissary to Del Mar, spying the Dodge boat with the naturalist in it, skimming rapidly after them.

Del Mar strained his eyes back through his gla.s.s at the pursuing boat.

But the naturalist, in spite of his smoked gla.s.ses, seemed not to have impaired his eyesight by his studies. He caught the glint of the sun on the lens at Del Mar's eye and dropped down into the bottom of his own boat where he was at least safe from scrutiny, if his boat were not.

Del Mar lowered his gla.s.s. "That's the Dodge boat," he said thoughtfully. "I don't like the looks of that fellow. Give her more speed."

Del Mar had not been gone long before Elaine decided to take a ride herself. She ordered her horse around from the stables while she donned her neat little riding-habit. A few minutes later, as the groom held the horse, she mounted and rode away, choosing the road by which I had gone, expecting to meet me on the return from town.

She was galloping along at a good clip when suddenly her horse shied at something.

"Whoa, Buster," pacified Elaine.

But it was of no use. Buster still reared up.

"Why, what is the matter?" she asked. "What do you see?"

She looked down at the ground. There was a spot of blood in the dust.

Buster was one of those horses to whom the sight of blood is terrifying.

Elaine pulled up beside the road. There was a revolver lying in the gra.s.s. She dismounted and picked it up. No sooner had she looked at it than she discovered the initials "W. J." carved on the b.u.t.t.

"Walter Jameson!" she exclaimed, realizing suddenly that it was mine.

"It's been fired, too!"

Her eye fell again on the blood spots. "Blood and--footprints--into the brush!" she gasped in horror, following the trail. "What could have happened to Walter?"

With the revolver, Elaine followed where the bushes were trampled down until she came to the place where I had been bound. There she spied some pieces of paper lying on the ground and picked them up.