The Young Bridge-Tender Part 37

"Yes, he said his name was Ralph Nelson," put in Toglet.

"You saw him go--go down all right?" asked the squire, hesitatingly. "There was no failure----"

"Not a bit of it," said Martin. "He went over into the rocks below and into the water. He gave one scream, and that was all," he added, dramatically.

The squire shuddered. It must really be true. Ralph Nelson was dead!

"Very good," he said, in a hoa.r.s.e voice. "Here is the hundred dollars each I promised you. You shall have the other five hundred when--the body is found."

"All right, but you'll have to do the finding," said Martin. "It's at the bottom of the big cliff on the west side of Three Top Island. His cap is among the rocks close by."

"And his boat----"

"We sent that adrift. If we are traced up we want to shield ourselves by saying we went off hunting and when we got back could find nothing of him and the boat, and had to get a stranger to take us ash.o.r.e."

"Ah, I see. Very good."

"Now we want to be going. We'll look for you in Chambersburgh inside of a week. Don't fail us if you value your secret."

"I will be on hand."

"You ought to pay us more than five hundred," put in Toglet. "You are going to make a pile out of this."

"How do you know anything about what I am going to make?" asked the squire, in great surprise.

"The boy told us about his property and the papers that were missing."

"I know nothing of that."

"Humph! We can put two and two together. You'll make a fortune out of that land, no doubt."

"I know nothing of that land you mention."

"Maybe you don't."

"And I haven't his missing papers," went on Squire Paget, and for once he spoke the truth.

"Then what's your aim in getting him out of the way?"

"That is my affair."

"Of course it is," broke in Martin. "But you might make it a bit more than five hundred."

"I am poor, gentlemen. I had to do what has been done to keep me from ruin."

Both of the rascals laughed at his words, but they could get nothing more out of the squire, and a few minutes later, after a little more conversation concerning poor Ralph, they separated. The two villains who had pushed the boy over the cliff went back for their guns and game-bags, and then set out for a town at the north of the lake.

Squire Paget watched them out of sight, and then hurried back to his mansion. Somehow, he did not feel safe until he had locked himself in his library.

"At last the boy is out of the way," he murmured, to himself, as he sank into an easy-chair. "It was accomplished much easier than I imagined it would be, thanks to my intimate knowledge of the character of that rascal Martin, and Toglet, his tool. Now what is to be done next? It will not do to get the widow out of the way--that would excite suspicion. I had better wait and watch her closely. Maybe she'll be unable to hold her cottage with her son no longer at hand to earn enough to keep them, and she'll be forced to sell out at a low figure, and then--by Jove!" he exclaimed, suddenly.

"That's a grand idea! It's a wonder I didn't think of it before!"

The new idea made the squire walk up and down the library rapidly. He was a great schemer and could evolve a whole transaction, no matter how intricate, much more rapidly than most men.

"I'll do it!" he said, to himself. "I'll offer her a good price for the cottage and the land, and when the papers are drawn up for her signature, I'll take good care that all the other land is included in the plot mentioned. I can make the papers so confusing that she won't know the difference, and she'll sign them without knowing their real contents.

Glorious!"

Then came a knock on the door.

"Dinner is ready, sir," said the housekeeper.

"Very well; I will be there in a few minutes," he returned.

Then he gazed out of the window thoughtfully.

"But what if those papers should turn up? I must watch out for them, and get the land in my name before that occurs--if it ever does occur. What a fool I was to trust them in the mails to have them certified to by that old woman in New York!"

CHAPTER XXVI.

ON THE ISLAND.

Meanwhile, what of poor Ralph? Was it true that he had been dashed to his death over the high cliff?

Happily, it was not true. Yet, for a long while after he was pushed over, the boy knew nothing of what had happened.

He went down and down, clutching vainly at rocks and bushes as he pa.s.sed.

Then his head struck a stone and he was knocked senseless.

How long he remained in this state he did not know. When he came to all was dark around him and silent.

Putting his hand to his face he found it covered with blood. There was a large bruise on his left temple, and his head ached as it never had before.

"Where am I?" was his first thought. "What has hap---- Oh!"

With something akin to a shock he remembered the truth--how he had stood on the edge of the cliff, and how Martin and Toglet had b.u.mped up against him and shoved him over.

"I believe they did it on purpose," he thought. "The villains! What was their object?"

By the darkness Ralph knew it was night, but what time of night he could not tell. Luckily, he had not worn his new watch. The old one was battered, and had stopped.

Presently the bruised and bewildered boy was able to take note of his surroundings, and then he shuddered to think how narrowly he had escaped death.

He had caught in a small tree which grew half way down the side of the cliff, and his head struck on a stone resting between two of the limbs of the tree. Below him was a dark s.p.a.ce many feet in depth, above him was a projecting wall of the cliff which hid the top from view.

What to do he did not know. He wished to get either to the top or the bottom of the wall as soon as possible, but he did not dare make the effort in his feeble condition and without the aid of daylight.