"Ten," corrected Bud deliberately.

"Well, pop, we stopped fer her, an'—an'—"

"Stop yer blubberin', Roscoe," commanded Anderson as harshly as he could.

"An' got her," concluded Roscoe. "She put on her shawl an' mittens an' said she'd run us a race all the way home. We all got ready to start right in front of old Mis' Luce's gate. Bud he stopped an' said, 'Here comes Tony Brink.' We all looked around, an' sure enough, a heavy-set feller was comin' to'rds us. It looked like Tony, but when he got up to us I see it wasn't him. He ast us if we could tell him where Mr. Crow lived—"

"He must 'a' been a stranger," deduced Anderson mechanically.

"—an' Bud said you lived right on ahead where the street lamps was. Jest then a big sleigh turned out of the lane back of Mis' Luce's an' drove up to where we was standin'. Bud was standin' jest like this—me here an' Rosalie a little off to one side. S'posin' this chair was her an'—"

"Yes—yes, go on," from Anderson.

"The sleigh stopped, and there was two fellers in it. There was two seats, too."

"Front and back?"

"Yes, sir."

"I understand. It was a double-seated one," again deduced the marshal.

"An' nen, by gum, 'fore we could say Jack Robinson, one of the fellers jumped out an' grabbed Rosalie. The feller on the groun', he up an' hit me a clip in the ear. I fell down, an' so did Bud—"

"He hit me on top of the head," corrected Bud sourly.

"I heerd Rosalie start to scream, but the next minute they had a blanket over her head an' she was chucked into the back seat. It was all over in a second. I got up, but 'fore I could run a feller yelled, 'Ketch him!' An' another feller did. 'Don't let 'em get away,' said the driver in low, hissin' tones—"

"Regular villains," vowed Anderson.

"Yes, sir. 'Don't let 'em git away er they'll rouse the town.' 'What'll we do with 'em?' asked the feller who held both of us. 'Kill 'em?' Gosh, I was skeered. Neither one of us could yell, 'cause he had us by the neck, an' he was powerful strong. 'Chuck 'em in here an' I'll tend to 'em,' said the driver. Next thing we knowed we was in the front of the sleigh, an' the whole outfit was off like a runaway. They said they'd kill us if we made a noise, an' we didn't. I wish I'd'a' had my rifle, doggone it! I'd'a' showed 'em."

"They drove like thunder out to'rds Boggs City fer about two mile," said Bud, who had been silent as long as human nature would permit. "'Nen they stopped an' throwed us out in the road. 'Go home, you devils, an' don't you tell anybody about us er I'll come back here some day an' give you a kick in the slats.'

"Slats?" murmured Anderson.

"That's short fer ribs," explained Bud loftily.

"Well, why couldn't he have said short ribs an' been done with it?" complained Anderson.

"Then they whipped up an' turned off west in the pike," resumed Bud. "We run all the way home an' tole Mr. Lamson, an' he—"

"Where was Rosalie all this time?" asked Anderson.

"Layin' in the back seat covered with a blanket, jest the same as if she was dead. I heerd 'em say somethin' about chloroformin' her. What does chloroform smell like, Mr. Crow?"

"Jest like any medicine. It has drugs in it. They use it to pull teeth. Well, what then?"

"Well," interposed Roscoe, "Mr. Lamson gave the alarm, an' nearly ever'body in town got out o' bed. They telegraphed to Boggs City an' all around, but it didn't seem to do no good. Them horses went faster'n telegraphs."

"Did you ever see them fellers before?"

"No, sir; but I think I'd know 'em with their masks off."

"Was they masked?"

"Their faces were."

"Oh, my poor little Rosalie!" sobbed old Anderson hopelessly.



CHAPTER XVI

The Haunted House

Days passed without word or sign from the missing girl. The marshal haunted the post-office and the railroad station, hoping with all his poor old heart that word would come from her; but the letter was not there, nor was there a telegram at the station when he strolled over to that place. The county officials at Boggs City came down and began a cursory investigation, but Anderson's emphatic though doleful opinions set them quite straight, and they gave up the quest. There was nothing to do but to sit back and wait.

In those three days Anderson Crow turned greyer and older, although he maintained a splendid show of resignation. He had made a perfunctory offer of reward for Rosalie, dead or alive, but he knew all the time that it would be fruitless. Mark Riley, the bill-poster, stuck up the glaring reward notices as far away as the telegraph poles in Clay County. The world was given to understand that $1000 reward would be paid for Rosalie's return or for information leading to the apprehension and capture of her abductors.

There was one very mysterious point in connection with the affair—something so strange that it bordered on the supernatural. No human being in Bramble County except the two boys had seen the double-seated sleigh. It had disappeared as if swallowed by the earth itself.

"Well, it don't do any good to cry over spilt milk," said Anderson bravely. "She's gone, an' I only hope she ain't bein' mistreated. I don't see why they should harm her. She's never done nobody a wrong. Like as not she's been taken to a comfortable place in New York, an' we'll hear from her as soon as she recovers from the shock. There ain't no use huntin' fer her, I know, but I jest can't help nosin' around a little. Mebby I can git some track of her. I'd give all I got in this world to know that she's safe an' sound, no matter if I never see her ag'in."

The hungry look in his eyes deepened, and no one bandied jests with him as was the custom in days gone by.

* * * * *

There were not many tramps practising in that section of the State. Anderson Crow proudly announced that they gave Tinkletown a wide berth because of his prowess; but the vagabond gentry took an entirely different view of the question. They did not infest the upper part of the State for the simple but eloquent reason that it meant starvation to them. The farmers compelled the weary wayfarer to work all day like a borrowed horse for a single meal at the "second table." There was no such thing as a "hand-out," as it is known in the tramp's vocabulary. It is not extraordinary, therefore, that tramps found the community so unattractive that they cheerfully walked miles to avoid it. A peculiarly well-informed vagrant once characterised the up-state farmer as being so "close that he never shaved because it was a waste of hair."

It is hardly necessary to state, in view of the attitude of both farmer and tramp, that the misguided vagrant who wandered that way was the object of distinct, if not distinguished, curiosity. In the country roads he was stared at with a malevolence that chilled his appetite, no matter how long he had been cultivating it on barren soil. In the streets of Tinkletown, and even at the county seat, he was an object of such amazing concern that he slunk away in pure distress. It was indeed an unsophisticated tramp who thought to thrive in Bramble County even for a day and a night. In front of the general store and post-office at Tinkletown there was a sign-post, on which Anderson Crow had painted these words:

"No tramps or Live Stock Allowed on these Streets. By order of A. CROW, Marshal."

The live stock disregarded the command, but the tramp took warning. On rare occasions he may have gone through some of the houses in Tinkletown, but if he went through the streets no one was the wiser. Anderson Crow solemnly but studiously headed him off in the outskirts, and he took another direction. Twice in his career he drove out tramps who had burglarised the houses of prominent citizens in broad daylight, but what did it matter so long as the "hoboes" were kept from desecrating the main street of the town? Mr. Crow's official star, together with his badge from the New York detective agency, his Sons of the Revolution pin, and his G.A.R. insignia, made him a person to be feared. If the weather became too hot for coat and vest the proud dignitary fastened the badges to his suspenders, and their presence glorified the otherwise humble "galluses."

On the fourth day after the abduction Marshal Crow was suddenly aroused from his lethargy by the news that the peace and security of the neighbourhood was being imposed upon.

"The dickens you say!" he observed, abandoning the perpetual grip upon his straggling chin whiskers.

"Yes, sir," responded the excited small boy, who, with two companions, had run himself quite out of breath all over town before he found the officer at Harkin's blacksmith shop.

"Well, dang 'em!" said Mr. Crow impressively.

"We was skatin' in the marsh when we heerd 'em plain as day," said the other boy. "You bet I'm nuvver goin' nigh that house ag'in."

"Sho! Bud, they ain't no sech thing as ghosts," said Mr. Crow; "it's tramps."

"You know that house is ha'nted," protested Bud. "Wasn't ole Mrs. Rank slew there by her son-in-law? Wasn't she chopped to pieces and buried there right in her own cellar?"

"Thunderation, boy, that was thirty year ago!"

"Well, nobody's lived in the ha'nted house sence then, has they? Didn't Jim Smith try to sleep there oncet on a bet, an' didn't he hear sech awful noises 'at he liked to went crazy?" insisted Bud.



"I do recollect that Jim run two mile past his own house before he could stop, he was in sech a hurry to git away from the place. But Jim didn't see anything. Besides, that was twenty year ago. Ghosts don't hang aroun' a place when there ain't nothin' to ha'nt. Her son-in-law was hung, an' she ain't got no one else to pester. I tell you it's tramps."

"Well, we just thought we'd tell you, Mr. Crow," said the first boy.

In a few minutes it was known throughout the business centre of Tinkletown that tramps were making their home in the haunted house down the river, and that Anderson Crow was to ride forth on his bicycle to rout them out. The haunted house was three miles from town and in the most desolate section of the bottomland. It was approachable only through the treacherous swamp on one side or by means of the river on the other. Not until after the murder of its owner and builder, old Johanna Rank, was there an explanation offered for the existence of a home in such an unwholesome locality.

Federal authorities discovered that she and her son-in-law, Dave Wolfe, were at the head of a great counterfeiting gang, and that they had been working up there in security for years, turning out spurious coins by the hundred. One night Dave up and killed his mother-in-law, and was hanged for his good deed before he could be punished for his bad ones. For thirty years the weather-beaten, ramshackle old cabin in the swamp had been unoccupied except by birds, lizards, and other denizens of the solitude—always, of course, including the ghost of old Mrs. Rank.

Inasmuch as Dave chopped her into small bits and buried them in the cellar, while her own daughter held the lantern, it was not beyond the range of possibility that certain atoms of the unlamented Johanna were never unearthed by the searchers. It was generally believed in the community that Mrs. Rank's spirit came back every little while to nose around in the dirt of the cellar in quest of such portions of her person as had not been respectably interred in the village graveyard.

Mysterious noises had been heard about the place at the dead hour of night, and ghostly lights had flitted past the cellar windows. All Tinkletown agreed that the place was haunted and kept at a most respectful distance. The three small boys who startled Marshal Crow from his moping had gone down the river to skate instead of going to school. They swore that the sound of muffled voices came from the interior of the cabin, near which they had inadvertently wandered. Although Dave Wolfe had been dead thirty years, one of the youngest of the lads was positive that he recognised the voice of the desperado. And at once the trio fled the 'cursed spot and brought the horrifying news to Anderson Crow. The detective was immediately called upon to solve the ghostly mystery.

Marshal Crow first went to his home and donned his blue coat, transferring the stars and badges to the greasy lapel of the garment. He also secured his dark lantern and the official cane of the village, but why he should carry a cane on a bicycle expedition was known only to himself. Followed by a horde of small boys and a few representative citizens of Tinkletown on antiquated wheels, Mr. Crow pedalled majestically off to the south. Skirting the swamp, the party approached the haunted house over the narrow path which ran along the river bank. Once in sight of the dilapidated cabin, which seemed to slink farther and farther back into the dense shadows of the late afternoon, with all the diffidence of the supernatural, the marshal called a halt and announced his plans.

"You kids go up an' tell them fellers I want to see 'em," he commanded. The boys fell back and prepared to whimper.

"I don't want to," protested Bud.

"Why don't you go an' tell 'em yourself, Anderson?" demanded Isaac Porter, the pump repairer.

"Thunderation, Ike, who's runnin' this thing?" retorted Anderson Crow. "I got a right to deputise anybody to do anything at any time. Don't you s'pose I know how to handle a job like this? I got my own idees how to waylay them raskils, an' I reckon I been in the detectin' business long enough to know how to manage a gol-derned tramp, ain't I? How's that? Who says I ain't?"

"Nobody said a word, Anderson," meekly observed Jim Borum.

"Well, I thought somebody did. An' I don't want nobody interferin' with an officer, either. Bud, you an' them two Heffner boys go up an' tell them loafers to step down here right spry er I'll come up there an' see about it."

"Gosh, Mr. Crow, I'm a-skeered to!" whimpered Bud. The Heffner boys started for home on a dead run.

"Askeered to?" sniffed Anderson. "An' your great-grand-dad was in the Revolution, too. Geminy crickets, ef you was my boy I'd give you somethin' to be askeered of! Now, Bud, nothin' kin happen to you. Ain't I here?"

"But suppose they won't come when I tell 'em?"

"Yes, 'n' supposin' 'tain't tramps, but ghosts?" volunteered Mr. Porter, edging away with his bicycle. It was now quite dark and menacing in there where the cabin stood. As the outcome of half an hour's discussion, the whole party advanced slowly upon the house, Anderson Crow in the lead, his dark lantern in one hand, his cane in the other. Half way to the house he stopped short and turned to Bud.

"Gosh dern you, Bud! I don't believe you heerd any noise in there at all! There ain't no use goin' any further with this, gentlemen. The dern boys was lyin'. We might jest as well go home." And he would have started for home had not Isaac Porter uttered a fearful groan and staggered back against a swamp reed for support, his horrified eyes glued upon a window in the log house. The reed was inadequate, and Isaac tumbled over backward.

For a full minute the company stared dumbly at the indistinct little window, paralysis attacking every sense but that of sight. At the expiration of another minute the place was deserted, and Anderson Crow was the first to reach the bicycles far up the river bank. Every face was as white as chalk, and every voice trembled. Mr. Crow's dignity asserted itself just as the valiant posse prepared to "straddle" the wheels in mad flight.

"Hold on!" he panted. "I lost my dark lantern down there. Go back an' git it, Bud."

"Land o' mighty! Did y'ever see anythin' like it?" gasped Jim Borum, trying to mount a ten-year-old boy's wheel instead of his own.

"I'd like to have anybody tell me there ain't no sech things as ghosts," faltered Uncle Jimmy Borton, who had always said there wasn't. "Let go, there! Ouch!" The command and subsequent exclamation were the inevitable results of his unsuccessful attempt to mount with Elon Jones the same wheel.

"What'd I tell you, Anderson?" exclaimed Isaac Porter. "Didn't I say it was ghosts? Tramps nothin'! A tramp wouldn't last a second up in that house. It's been ha'nted fer thirty years an' it gits worse all the time. What air we goin' to do next?"

Even the valiant Mr. Crow approved of an immediate return to Tinkletown, and the posse was trying to disentangle its collection of bicycles when an interruption came from an unsuspected quarter—a deep, masculine voice arose from the ice-covered river hard by, almost directly below that section of the bank on which Anderson and his friends were herded. The result was startling. Every man leaped a foot in the air and every hair stood on end; bicycles rattled and clashed together, and Ed Higgins, hopelessly bewildered, started to run in the direction of the haunted house.



CHAPTER XVII

Wicker Bonner, Harvard

"Hello, up there!" was what the deep, masculine voice shouted from the river. Anderson Crow was the first to distinguish the form of the speaker, and he was not long in deciding that it was far from ghost-like. With a word of command he brought his disorganised forces out of chaos and huddled them together as if to resist attack.

"What's the matter with you?" he demanded, addressing his men in a loud tone. "Don't get rattled!"

"Are you speaking to me?" called the fresh voice from below.

"Who are you?" demanded Mr. Crow in return.

"Nobody in particular. What's going on up there? What's the fuss?"

"Come up an' find out." Then Mr. Crow, observing that the man below was preparing to comply, turned and addressed his squad in low, earnest tones. "This feller will bear watchin'. He's mixed up in this thing somehow. Else why is he wanderin' around here close to the house? I'll question him."

"By gosh, he ain't no ghost!" murmured Ed Higgins, eyeing the newcomer as he crawled up the bank. "Say, did y' see me a minute ago? If you fellers had come on, I was goin' right up to search that house from top to bottom. Was you all askeered to come?"

"Aw, you!" said Anderson Crow in deep scorn.

The next instant a stalwart young fellow stood before the marshal, who was eyeing him keenly, even imperiously. The newcomer's good-looking, strong-featured face was lighted up by a smile of surpassing friendliness.

"It's lonesome as thunder down here, isn't it? Glad to see you, gentlemen. What's up—a bicycle race?"

"No, sir; we got a little business up here, that's all," responded Anderson Crow diplomatically. "What air you doin' here?"

"Skating. My name is Wicker Bonner, and I'm visiting my uncle, Congressman Bonner, across the river. You know him, I dare say. I've been hanging around here for a week's hunting, and haven't had an ounce of luck in all that time. It's rotten! Aha, I see that you are an officer, sir—a detective, too. By George, can it be possible that you are searching for some one? If you are, let me in on it. I'm dying for excitement."

The young man's face was eager and his voice rang true. Besides, he was a tall, athletic chap, with brawny arms and a broad back. Altogether, he would make a splendid recruit, thought Anderson Crow. He was dressed in rough corduroy knickerbockers, the thick coat buttoned up close to his muffled neck. A woollen cap came down over his ears and a pair of skates dangled from his arm.

"Yes, sir; I'm a detective, and we are up here doin' a little investigatin'. You are from Chicago, I see."

"What makes you think so?"

"Can't fool me. I c'n always tell. You said, 'I've bean hangin',' instead of 'I've ben hangin'.' See? They say bean in Chicago. Ha! ha! You didn't think I could deduce that, did you?"

"I'll confess that I didn't," said Mr. Bonner with a dry smile. "I'm from Boston, however."

"Sure," interposed Isaac Porter; "that's where the beans come from, Anderson."

"Well, that's neither here nor there," said Mr. Crow, hastily changing the subject. "We're wastin' time."

"Stayin' here, you mean?" asked Ed Higgins, quite ready to start. Involuntarily the eyes of the posse turned toward the house among the willows. The stranger saw the concerted glance and made inquiry. Whereupon Mr. Crow, assisted by seven men and five small boys, told Mr. Wicker Bonner, late of Harvard, what had brought them from Tinkletown to the haunted house, and what they had seen upon their arrival. Young Bonner's face glowed with the joy of excitement.

"Great!" he cried, fastening his happy eyes upon the hated thing among the trees. "Let's search the place. By George, this is glorious!"

"Not on your life!" said Ed Higgins. "You can't get me inside that house. Like as not a feller'd never come out alive."

"Well, better men than we have died," said Mr. Bonner tranquilly. "Come on; I'll go in first. It's all tommy-rot about the place being haunted. In any event, ghosts don't monkey around at this time of day. It's hardly dusk."

"But, gosh dern it," exploded Anderson Crow, "we seen it!"

"I seen it first," said Isaac Porter proudly.

"But I heerd it first," peeped up Master Bud.

"You've all been drinking hard cider or pop or something like that," said the brawny scoffer.

"Now, see here, you're gittin' fresh, an—" began the marshal, swelling up like a pigeon.

"Look out behind!" sang out Mr. Bonner, and Anderson jumped almost out of his shoes, besides ripping his shirt in the back, he turned so suddenly.

"Jeemses River!" he gasped.

"Never turn your back on an unknown danger," cautioned the young man serenely. "Be ready to meet it."

"If you're turned t'other way you c'n git a quicker start if you want to run," suggested Jim Borum, bracing himself with a fresh chew of tobacco.

"What time is it?" asked Wicker Bonner.

Anderson Crow squinted up through the leafless treetops toward the setting sun; then he looked at the shadow of a sapling down on the bank.

"It's about seven minutes past five—in the evenin'," he said conclusively. Bonner was impolite enough to pull out his watch for verification.

"You're a minute fast," he observed; but he looked at Anderson with a new and respectful admiration.

"He c'n detect anything under the sun," said Porter with a feeble laugh at his own joke.

"Well, let's go up and ransack that old cabin," announced Bonner, starting toward the willows. The crowd held back. "I'll go alone if you're afraid to come," he went on. "It's my firm belief that you didn't see anything and the noise you boys heard was the wind whistling through the trees. Now, tell the truth, how many of you saw it?"

"I did," came from every throat so unanimously that Jim Borum's supplemental oath stood out alone and forceful as a climax.

"Then it's worth investigating," announced the Boston man. "It is certainly a very mysterious affair, and you, at least, Mr. Town Marshal, should back me up in the effort to unravel it. Tell me again just what it was you saw and what it looked like."

"I won't let no man tell me what my duties are," snorted Anderson, his stars trembling with injured pride. "Of course I'm going to solve the mystery. We've got to see what's inside that house. I thought it was tramps at first."

"Well, lead on, then; I'll follow!" said Bonner with a grin.

"I thought you was so anxious to go first!" exclaimed Anderson with fine tact. "Go ahead yourself, ef you're so derned brave. I dare you to."

Bonner laughed loud enough to awaken every ghost in Bramble County and then strode rapidly toward the house. Anderson Crow followed slowly and the rest straggled after, all alert for the first sign of resistance.

"I wish I could find that derned lantern," said Anderson, searching diligently in the deep grass as he walked along, in the meantime permitting Bonner to reach the grim old doorway far in advance of him.

"Come on!" called back the intrepid leader, seeing that all save the marshal had halted. "You don't need the lantern. It's still daylight, old chap. We'll find out what it was you all saw in the window."

"That's the last of him," muttered Isaac Porter, as the broad back disappeared through the low aperture that was called a doorway. There were no window sashes or panes in the house, and the door had long since rotted from the hinges.

"He'll never come out. Let's go home," added Ed Higgins conclusively.

"Are you coming?" sang out Bonner from the interior of the house. His voice sounded prophetically sepulchral.

"Consarn it, cain't you wait a minute?" replied Anderson Crow, still bravely but consistently looking for the much-needed dark lantern.

"It's all right in here. There hasn't been a human being in the house for years. Come on in; it's fine!"

Anderson Crow finally ventured up to the doorway and peeped in. Bonner was standing near the tumbledown fireplace, placidly lighting a cigarette.

"This is a fine job you've put up on me," he growled. "I thought there would be something doing. There isn't a soul here, and there hasn't been, either."

"Thunderation, man, you cain't see ghosts when they don't want you to!" said Anderson Crow. "It was a ghost, that's settled. I knowed it all the time. Nothin' human ever looked like it, and nothin' alive ever moaned like it did."

By this time the rest of the party had reached the cabin door. The less timorous ventured inside, while others contented themselves by looking through the small windows.

"Well, if you're sure you really saw something, we'd better make a thorough search of the house and the grounds," said Bonner, and forthwith began nosing about the two rooms.

The floors were shaky and the place had the odour of decayed wood. Mould clung to the half-plastered walls, cobwebs matted the ceilings, and rotted fungi covered the filth in the corners. Altogether it was a most uninviting hole, in which no self-respecting ghost would have made its home. When the time came to climb up to the little garret Bonner's followers rebelled. He was compelled to go alone, carrying the lantern, which one of the small boys had found. This part of the house was even more loathsome than below, and it would be impossible to describe its condition. He saw no sign of life, and retired in utter disgust. Then came the trip to the cellar. Again he had no followers, the Tinkletown men emphatically refusing to go down where old Mrs. Rank's body had been buried. Bonner laughed at them and went down alone. It was nauseous with age and the smell of damp earth, but it was cleaner there than above stairs. The cellar was smaller than either of the living rooms, and was to be reached only through the kitchen. There was no exit leading directly to the exterior of the house, but there was one small window at the south end. Bonner examined the room carefully and then rejoined the party. For some reason the posse had retired to the open air as soon as he left them to go below. No one knew exactly why, but when one started to go forth the others followed with more or less alacrity.

"Did you see anything?" demanded the marshal.

"What did old Mrs. Rank look like when she was alive?" asked Bonner with a beautifully mysterious air. No one answered; but there was a sudden shifting of feet backward, while an expression of alarmed inquiry came into every face. "Don't back into that open well," warned the amused young man in the doorway. Anderson Crow looked sharply behind, and flushed indignantly when he saw that the well was at least fifty feet away. "I saw something down there that looked like a woman's toe," went on Bonner very soberly.

"Good Lord! What did I tell you?" cried the marshal, turning to his friends. To the best of their ability they could not remember that Anderson had told them anything, but with one accord the whole party nodded approval.

"I fancy it was the ghost of a toe, however, for when I tried to pick it up it wriggled away, and I think it chuckled. It disappear—what's the matter? Where are you going?"

It is only necessary to state that the marshal and his posse retreated in good order to a distant spot where it was not quite so dark, there to await the approach of Wicker Bonner, who leisurely but laughingly inspected the exterior of the house and the grounds adjoining. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, except as to dilapidation, he rejoined the party with palpable displeasure in his face.

"Well, I think I'll go back to the ice," he said; "that place is as quiet as the grave. You are a fine lot of jokers, and I'll admit that the laugh is on me."

But Bonner was mystified, uncertain. He had searched the house thoroughly from top to bottom, and he had seen nothing unusual, but these men and boys were so positive that he could not believe the eyes of all had been deceived.

"This interests me," he said at last. "I'll tell you what we'll do, Mr. Crow. You and I will come down here to-night, rig up a tent of some sort and divide watch until morning. If there is anything to be seen we'll find out what it is. I'll get a couple of straw mattresses from our boathouse and—"

"I've got rheumatiz, Mr. Bonner, an' it would be the death o' me to sleep in this swamp," objected Anderson hastily.

"Well, I'll come alone, then. I'm not afraid. I don't mean to say I'll sleep in that old shack, but I'll bunk out here in the woods. No human being could sleep in that place. Will any one volunteer to keep me company?"

Silence.

"I don't blame you. It does take nerve, I'll confess. My only stipulation is that you shall come down here from the village early to-morrow morning. I may have something of importance to tell you, Mr. Crow."

"We'll find his dead body," groaned old Mr. Borton.

"Say, mister," piped up a shrill voice, "I'll stay with you." It was Bud who spoke, and all Tinkletown was afterward to resound with stories of his bravery. The boy had been silently admiring the bold sportsman from Boston town, and he was ready to cast his lot with him in this adventure. He thrilled with pleasure when the big hero slapped him on the back and called him the only man in the crowd.

At eight o'clock that night Bonner and the determined but trembling Bud came up the bank from the river and pitched a tent among the trees near the haunted house. From the sledge on the river below they trundled up their bedding and their stores. Bud had an old single-barrel shotgun, a knife and a pipe, which he was just learning to smoke; Bonner brought a Navajo blanket, a revolver and a heavy walking stick. He also had a large flask of whiskey and the pipe that had graduated from Harvard with him.

At nine o'clock he put to bed in one of the chilly nests a very sick boy, who hated to admit that the pipe was too strong for him, but who felt very much relieved when he found himself wrapped snugly in the blankets with his head tucked entirely out of sight. Bud had spent the hour in regaling Bonner with the story of Rosalie Gray's abduction and his own heroic conduct in connection with the case. He confessed that he had knocked one of the villains down, but they were too many for him. Bonner listened politely and then—put the hero to bed.

Bonner dozed off at midnight. An hour or so later he suddenly sat bolt upright, wide awake and alert. He had the vague impression that he was deathly cold and that his hair was standing on end.



CHAPTER XVIII

The Men in the Sleigh

Let us go back to the night on which Rosalie was seized and carried away from Mrs. Luce's front gate, despite the valiant resistance of her youthful defenders.

Rosalie had drooned Thackeray to the old lady until both of them were dozing, and it was indeed a welcome relief that came with Roscoe's resounding thumps on the front door. Mrs. Luce was too old to be frightened out of a year's growth, but it is perfectly safe to agree with her that the noise cost her at least three months.

Desperately blue over the defection of Elsie Banks, Rosalie had found little to make her evening cheerful indoors, but the fresh, crisp air set her spirits bounding the instant she closed Mrs. Luce's door from the outside. We have only to refer to Roscoe's lively narrative for proof of what followed almost instantly. She was seized, her head tightly wrapped in a thick cloak or blanket; then she was thrown into a sleigh, and knew nothing more except a smothering sensation and the odour of chloroform.

When she regained consciousness she was lying on the ground in the open air, dark night about her. Three men were standing nearby, but there was no vehicle in sight. She tried to rise, but on account of her bonds was powerless to do so. Speech was prevented by the cloth which closed her lips tightly. After a time she began to grasp the meaning of the muttered words that passed between the men.

"You got the rig in all right, Bill—you're sure that no one heard or saw you?" were the first questions she could make out, evidently arising from a previous report or explanation.

"Sure. Everybody in these parts goes to bed at sundown. They ain't got nothing to do but sleep up 'ere."

"Nobody knows we had that feller's sleigh an' horses out—nobody ever will know," said the big man, evidently the leader. She noticed they called him Sam.

"Next thing is to git her across the river without leavin' any tracks. We ain't on a travelled road now, pals; we got to be careful. I'll carry her down to the bank; but be sure to step squarely in my footprints—it'll look like they were made by one man. See?"

"The river's froze over an' we can't be tracked on the ice. It's too dark, too, for any one to see us. Go ahead, Sammy; it's d—— cold here."

The big man lifted her from the ground as if she were a feather, and she was conscious of being borne swiftly through a stretch of sloping woodland down to the river bank, a journey of two or three hundred yards, it seemed. Here the party paused for many minutes before venturing out upon the wide expanse of frozen river, evidently making sure that the way was clear. Rosalie, her senses quite fully restored by this time, began to analyse the situation with a clearness and calmness that afterward was the object of considerable surprise to her. Instead of being hysterical with fear, she was actually experiencing the thrill of a real emotion. She had no doubt but that her abductors were persons hired by those connected with her early history, and, strange as it may seem, she could not believe that bodily harm was to be her fate after all these years of secret attention on the part of those so deeply, though remotely, interested.

Somehow there raced through her brain the exhilarating conviction that at last the mystery of her origin was to be cleared away, and with it all that had been as a closed book. No thought of death entered her mind at that time. Afterward she was to feel that death would be most welcome, no matter how it came.

Her captors made the trip across the river in dead silence. There was no moon and the night was inky black. The exposed portions of her face tingled with cold, but she was so heavily wrapped in the blanket that her body did not feel the effects of the zero weather.

At length the icy stretch was passed, and after resting a few minutes, Sam proceeded to ascend the steep bank with her in his arms. Why she was not permitted to walk she did not know then or afterward. It is possible, even likely, that the men thought their charge was unconscious. She did nothing to cause them to think otherwise. Again they passed among trees, Sam's companions following in his footprints as before. Another halt and a brief command for Davy to go ahead and see that the coast was clear came after a long and tortuous struggle through the underbrush. Twice they seemed to have lost their bearings in the darkness, but eventually they came into the open.

"Here we are!" grunted Sam as they hurried across the clearing. "A hard night's work, pals, but I guess we're in Easy Street now. Go ahead, Davy, an' open the trap!"

Davy swore a mighty but sibilant oath and urged his thick, ugly figure ahead of the others.

A moment later the desperadoes and their victim passed through a door and into a darkness even blacker than that outside. Davy was pounding carefully upon the floor of the room in which they stood. Suddenly a faint light spread throughout the room and a hoarse, raucous voice whispered:

"Have you got her?"

"Get out of the way—we're near froze," responded Davy gruffly.

"Get down there, Bill, and take her; I'm tired carryin' this hundred and twenty pounder," growled Sam.

The next instant Rosalie was conscious of being lowered through a trap door in the floor, and then of being borne rapidly through a long, narrow passage, lighted fitfully by the rays of a lantern in the hands of a fourth and as yet unseen member of the band.

"There!" said Bill, impolitely dropping his burden upon a pile of straw in the corner of the rather extensive cave at the end of the passage; "wonder if the little fool is dead. She ought to be coming to by this time."

"She's got her eyes wide open," uttered the raucous voice on the opposite side; and Rosalie turned her eyes in that direction. She looked for a full minute as if spellbound with terror, her gaze centred at the most repulsive human face she ever had seen—the face of Davy's mother.

The woman was a giantess, a huge, hideous creature with the face of a man, hairy and bloated. Her unkempt hair was grey almost to whiteness, her teeth were snags, and her eyes were almost hidden beneath the shaggy brow. There was a glare of brutal satisfaction in them that appalled the girl.

For the first time since the adventure began her heart failed her, and she shuddered perceptibly as her lids fell.

"What the h—— are you skeering her fer like that, ma," growled Davy. "Don't look at her like that, or—"

"See here, my boy, don't talk like that to me if you don't want me to kick your head off right where you stand. I'm your mother, Davy, an'—"

"That'll do. This ain't no time to chew the rag," muttered Sam. "We're done fer. Get us something to eat an' something to drink, old woman; give the girl a nifter, too. She's fainted, I reckon. Hurry up; I want to turn in."

"Better untie her hands—see if she's froze," added Bill savagely.

Roughly the old woman slashed the bonds from the girl's hands and feet and then looked askance at Sam, who stood warming his hands over a kerosene stove not far away. He nodded his head, and she instantly untied the cloth that covered Rosalie's mouth.

"It won't do no good to scream, girl. Nobody'll hear ye but us—and we're your friends," snarled the old woman.

"Let her yell if she wants to, Maude. It may relieve her a bit," said Sam, meaning to be kind. Instinctively Rosalie looked about for the person addressed as Maude. There was but one woman in the gang. Maude! That was the creature's name. Instead of crying or shrieking, Rosalie laughed outright.

At the sound of the laugh the woman drew back hastily.

"By gor!" she gasped; "the—she's gone daffy!"

The men turned toward them with wonder in their faces. Bill was the first to comprehend. He saw the girl's face grow sober with an effort, and realised that she was checking her amusement because it was sure to offend.

"Aw," he grinned, "I don't blame her fer laughin'! Say what ye will, Maude, your name don't fit you."

"It's as good as any name—" began the old hag, glaring at him; but Sam interposed with a command to her to get them some hot coffee while he had a talk with the girl. "Set up!" he said roughly, addressing Rosalie. "We ain't goin' to hurt you."

Rosalie struggled to a sitting posture, her limbs and back stiff from the cold and inaction. "Don't ask questions, because they won't be answered. I jest want to give you some advice as to how you must act while you are our guest. You must be like one of the family. Maybe we'll be here a day, maybe a week, but it won't be any longer than that."

"Would you mind telling me where I am and what this all means? Why have you committed this outrage? What have I done—" she found voice to say. He held up his hand.

"You forget what I said about askin' questions. There ain't nothin' to tell you, that's all. You're here and that's enough."

"Well, who is it that has the power to answer questions, sir? I have some right to ask them. You have—"

"That'll do, now!" he growled. "I'll put the gag back on you if you keep it up. So's you won't worry, I want to say this to you: Your friends don't know where you are, and they couldn't find you if they tried. You are to stay right here in this cave until we get orders to move you. When the time comes we'll take you to wherever we're ordered, and then we're through with you. Somebody else will have the say. You won't be hurt here unless you try to escape—it won't do you any good to yell. It ain't a palace, but it's better than the grave. So be wise. All we got to do is to turn you over to the proper parties at the proper time. That's all."

"Is the person you speak of my—my mother or my father?" Rosalie asked with bated breath.



CHAPTER XIX

With the Kidnapers

Sam stared at her, and there was something like real amazement in his eyes.

"Yer mother or father?" he repeated interrogatively. "Wha—what the devil can they have to do with this affair? I guess they're askin' a lot of questions themselves about this time."

"Mr. and Mrs. Crow are not my parents," she said; and then shrewdly added, "and you know it, sir."

"I've heard that sayin' 'bout a child never knowin' its own father, but this business of both the father and mother is a new one on me. I guess it's the chloroform. Give us that booze, Bill. She's dippy yet."

He tried to induce her to swallow some of the whiskey, but steadfastly she refused, until finally, with an evil snarl, Sam commanded the giantess to hold her while he forced the burning liquor down her throat. There was a brief struggle, but Rosalie was no match for the huge woman, whose enormous arms encircled her; and as the liquid trickled in upon her tongue she heard above the brutal laughter of the would-be doctors the hoarse voice of Bill crying:

"Don't hurt her, Sam! Let 'er alone!"

"Close yer face! Don't you monkey in this thing, Bill Briggs. I'll—well, you know. Drink this, damn you!"

Sputtering and choking, her heart beating wildly with fear and rage, Rosalie was thrown back upon the straw by the woman. Her throat was burning from the effects of the whiskey and her eyes were blinded by the tears of anger and helplessness.

"Don't come any of your highfalutin' airs with me, you little cat," shrieked the old woman, rubbing a knee that Rosalie had kicked in her struggles.

"Lay still there," added Sam. "We don't want to hurt you, but you got to do as I tell you. Understand? Not a word, now! Gimme that coffee-pot, Davy. Go an' see that everything's locked up an' we'll turn in fer the night. Maude, you set up an' keep watch. If she makes a crack, soak her one."

"You bet I will. She'll find she ain't attendin' no Sunday-school picnic."

"No boozin'!" was Sam's order as he told out small portions of whiskey. Then the gang ate ravenously of the bacon and beans and drank cup after cup of coffee. Later the men threw themselves upon the piles of straw and soon all were snoring. The big woman refilled the lantern and hung it on a peg in the wall of the cave; then she took up her post near the square door leading to the underground passage, her throne an upturned whiskey barrel, her back against the wall of the cave. She glared at Rosalie through the semi-darkness, frequently addressing her with the vilest invectives cautiously uttered—and all because her victim had beautiful eyes and was unable to close them in sleep.



Rosalie's heart sank as she surveyed the surroundings with her mind once more clear and composed. After her recovery from the shock of contact with the old woman and Sam she shrank into a state of mental lassitude that foretold the despair which was to come later on. She did not sleep that night. Her brain was full of whirling thoughts of escape, speculations as to what was to become of her, miserable fears that the end would not be what the first impressions had made it, and, over all, a most intense horror of the old woman, who dozed, but guarded her as no dragon ever watched in the days of long ago.

The cave in which they were housed was thirty or forty feet from side to side, almost circular in shape, a low roof slanting to the rocky floor. Here and there were niches in the walls, and in the side opposite to the entrance to the passageway there was a small, black opening, leading without doubt to the outer world. The fact that it was not used at any time during her stay in the cave led her to believe it was not of practical use. Two or three coal-oil stoves were used to heat the cave and for cooking purposes. There were several lanterns, a number of implements (such as spades, axes, crowbars, sledges, and so forth), stool-kegs, a rough table, which was used for all purposes known to the dining-room, kitchen, scullery and even bedchamber. Sam slept on the table. Horse blankets were thrown about the floor in confusion. They served as bedclothes when the gang slept. At other times they might as well have been called doormats. One of the niches in the wall was used as the resting place for such bones or remnants as might strike it when hurled in that direction by the occupants. No one took the trouble to carefully bestow anything in the garbage hole, and no one pretended to clean up after the other. The place was foul smelling, hot and almost suffocating with the fumes from the stoves, for which there seemed no avenue of escape.

Hours afterward, although they seemed drawn out into years, the men began to breathe naturally, and a weird silence reigned in the cave. They were awake. The venerable Maude emerged from her doze, looked apprehensively at Sam, prodded the corner to see that the prize had not faded away, and then began ponderously to make preparations for a meal, supposedly breakfast. Meagre ablutions, such as they were, were performed in the "living room," a bucket of water serving as a general wash-basin. No one had removed his clothing during the night, not even his shoes. It seemed to her that the gang was in an ever-ready condition to evacuate the place at a moment's notice.

Rosalie would not eat, nor would she bathe her face in the water that had been used by the quartette before her. Bill Briggs, with some sense of delicacy in his nature, brought some fresh water from the far end of the passageway. For this act he was reviled by his companions.

"It's no easy job to get water here, Briggs," roared Sam. "We got to be savin' with it."

"Well, don't let it hurt you," retorted Bill. "I'll carry it up from the river to-night. You won't have to do it."

"She ain't any better'n I am," snorted Maude, "and nobody goes out to bring me a private bath, I take notice. Get up here and eat something, you rat! Do you want us to force it down you—"

"If she don't want to eat don't coax her," said Sam. "She'll soon get over that. We was only hired to get her here and get her away again, and not to make her eat or even wash. That's nothing to us."

"Well, she's got to eat or she'll die, and you know, Sam Welch, that ain't to be," retorted the old woman.

"She'll eat before she'll die, Maudie; don't worry."

"I'll never eat a mouthful!" cried Rosalie, a brave, stubborn light in her eyes. She was standing in the far corner drying her face with her handkerchief.

"Oho, you can talk again, eh? Hooray! Now we'll hear the story of her life," laughed big Sam, his mouth full of bacon and bread. Rosalie flushed and the tears welled to her eyes.

All day long she suffered taunts and gibes from the gang. She grew to fear Davy's ugly leers more than the brutal words of the others. When he came near she shrank back against the wall; when he spoke she cringed; when he attempted to touch her person she screamed. It was this act that brought Sam's wrath upon Davy's head. He won something like gratitude from the girl by profanely commanding Davy to confine his love to looks and not to acts.

"She ain't to be harmed," was Sam's edict. "That goes, too."

"Aw, you go to—" began Davy belligerently.

"What's that?" snarled Sam, whirling upon him with a glare. Davy slunk behind his mother and glared back. Bill moved over to Sam's side. For a moment the air was heavy with signs of an affray. Rosalie crouched in her corner, her hand over her ears, her eyes closed. There was murder in Davy's face. "I'll break every bone in your body!" added Sam; but Bill laconically stayed him with a word.

"Rats!" It was brief, but it brought the irate Sam to his senses. Trouble was averted for the time being.

"Davy ain't afraid of him," cried that worthy's mother shrilly.

"You bet I ain't!" added Davy after a long string of oaths. Sam grinned viciously.

"There ain't nothin' to fight about, I guess," he said, although he did not look it. "We'd be fools to scrap. Everything to lose and nothin' to gain. All I got to say, Davy, is that you ain't to touch that girl."

"Who's goin' to touch her?" roared Davy, bristling bravely. "An' you ain't to touch her nuther," he added.

The day wore away, although it was always night in the windowless cave, and again the trio of men slept, with Maude as guard. Exhausted and faint, Rosalie fell into a sound sleep. The next morning she ate sparingly of the bacon and bread and drank some steaming coffee, much to the derisive delight of the hag.

"You had to come to it, eh?" she croaked. "Had to feed that purty face, after all. I guess we're all alike. We're all flesh and blood, my lady."

The old woman never openly offered personal violence to the girl. She stood in some fear of the leader—not physical fear, but the strange homage that a brute pays to its master. Secretly she took savage delight in treading on the girl's toes or in pinching her arms and legs, twisting her hair, spilling hot coffee on her hands, cursing her softly and perpetrating all sorts of little indignities that could not be resented, for the simple reason that they could not be proved against her. Her word was as good as Rosalie's.

Hourly the strain grew worse and worse. The girl became ill and feverish with fear, loathing and uncertainty. Her ears rang with the horrors of their lewdness, her eyes came to see but little, for she kept them closed for the very pain of what they were likely to witness. In her heart there grew a constant prayer for deliverance from their clutches. She was much too strong-minded and healthy to pray for death, but her mind fairly reeled with the thoughts of the vengeance she would exact.

The third day found the gang morose and ugly. The confinement was as irksome to them as it was to her. They fretted and worried, swore and growled. At nightfall of each day Sam ventured forth through the passage and out into the night. Each time he was gone for two or three hours, and each succeeding return to the vile cave threw the gang into deeper wrath. The word they were expecting was not forthcoming, the command from the real master was not given. They played cards all day, and at last began to drink more deeply than was wise. Two desperate fights occurred between Davy and Sam on the third day. Bill and the old woman pulled them apart after both had been battered savagely.

"She's sick, Sam," growled Bill, standing over the cowering, white-faced prisoner near the close of the fourth day. Sam had been away nearly all of the previous night, returning gloomily without news from headquarters. "She'll die in this d—— place and so will we if we don't get out soon. Look at her! Why, she's as white as a sheet. Let's give her some fresh air, Sammy. It's safe. Take her up in the cabin for a while. To-night we can take her outside the place. Good Lord, Sammy, I've got a bit of heart! I can't see her die in this hole. Look at her! Can't you see she's nearly done for?"

After considerable argument, pro and con, it was decided that it would be safe and certainly wise to let the girl breathe the fresh air once in a while. That morning Sam took her into the cabin through the passage. The half hour in the cold, fresh air revived her, strengthened her perceptibly. Her spirits took an upward bound. She began to ask questions, and for some reason he began to take notice of them. It may have been the irksomeness of the situation, his own longing to be away, his anger toward the person who had failed to keep the promise made before the abduction, that led him to talk quite freely.



CHAPTER XX

In the Cave

"It's not my fault that we're still here," he growled in answer to her pathetic appeal. "I've heard you prayin' for Daddy Crow to come and take you away. Well, it's lucky for him that he don't know where you are. We'd make mincemeat of that old jay in three minutes. Don't do any more prayin'. Prayers are like dreams—you have 'em at night and wonder why the next day. Now, look 'ere, Miss Gray, we didn't do this rotten job for the love of excitement. We're just as anxious to get out of it as you are."

"I only ask why I am held here and what is to become of me?" said Rosalie resignedly. She was standing across the table from where he sat smoking his great, black pipe. The other members of the gang were lounging about, surly and black-browed, chafing inwardly over the delay in getting away from the cave.

"I don't know why you've been held here. I only know it's d—— slow. I'd chuck the job, if there wasn't so much dust in it for me."

"But what is to become of me? I cannot endure this much longer. It is killing me. Look! I am black and blue from pinches. The old woman never misses an opportunity to hurt me."

"She's jealous of you because you're purty, that's all. Women are all alike, hang 'em! I wouldn't be in this sort of work if it hadn't been for a jealous wife."

He puffed at his pipe moodily for a long time, evidently turning some problem over and over in his mind. At last, heaving a deep sigh, and prefacing his remarks with an oath, he let light in upon the mystery. "I'll put you next to the job. Can't give any names; it wouldn't be square. You see, it's this way: you ain't wanted in this country. I don't know why, but you ain't."

"Not wanted in this country?" she cried blankly. "I don't stand in any one's way. My life and my love are for the peaceful home that you have taken me from. I don't ask for anything else. Won't you tell your employer as much for me? If I am released, I shall never interfere with the plans of—"

"'Tain't that, I reckon. You must be mighty important to somebody, or all this trouble wouldn't be gone through with. The funny part of it is that we ain't to hurt you. You ain't to be killed, you know. That's the queer part of it, ain't it?"

"I'll admit it has an agreeable sound to me," said Rosalie, with a shadow of a smile on her trembling lips. "It seems ghastly, though."

"Well, anyhow, it's part of somebody's scheme to get you out of this country altogether. You are to be taken away on a ship, across the ocean, I think. Paris or London, mebby, and you are never to come back to the United States. Never, that's what I'm told."



Rosalie was speechless, stunned. Her eyes grew wide with the misery of doubt and horror, her lips moved as if forming the words which would not come. Before she could bring a sound from the contracted throat the raucous voice of old Maude broke in:

"What are you tellin' her, Sam Welch? Can't you keep your face closed?" she called, advancing upon him with a menacing look.

"Aw, it's nothin' to you," he retorted, but an uncomfortable expression suddenly crept into his face. A loud, angry discussion ensued, the whole gang engaging. Three to one was the way it stood against the leader, who was forced to admit, secretly if not publicly, that he had no right to talk freely of the matter to the girl. In vain she pleaded and promised. Her tears were of no avail, once Sam had concluded to hold his tongue. Angry with himself for having to submit to the demands of the others, furious because she saw his surrender, Sam, without a word of warning, suddenly struck her on the side of the head with the flat of his broad hand, sending her reeling into the corner. Dazed, hurt and half stunned, she dropped to her knees, unable to stand. With a piteous look in her eyes she shrank back from another blow which seemed impending. Bill Briggs grasped his leader's arm and drew him away, cursing and snarling.

Late in the afternoon, Bill was permitted to conduct her into the cabin above, for a few minutes in the air, and for a glimpse of the failing sunlight. She had scarcely taken her stand before the little window when she was hastily jerked away, but not before she thought she had perceived a crowd of men, huddling among the trees not far away. A scream for help started to her lips; but Bill's heavy hand checked it effectually. His burly arm sent her scuttling toward the trap-door; and a second later she was below, bruised from the fall and half fainting with disappointment and despair.

Brief as the glimpse had been, she was positive she recognised two faces in the crowd of men—Anderson Crow's and Ed Higgins's. It meant, if her eyes did not deceive her, that the searchers were near at hand, and that dear, old Daddy Crow was leading them. Her hopes flew upward and she could not subdue the triumphant glance that swept the startled crowd when Bill breathlessly broke the news.

Absolute quiet reigned in the cave after that. Maude cowed the prisoner into silence with the threat to cut out her tongue if she uttered a cry. Later, the tramp of feet could be heard on the floor of the cabin. There was a sound of voices, loud peals of laughter, and then the noise made by some one in the cellar that served as a blind at one end of the cabin. After that, dead silence. At nightfall, Sam stealthily ventured forth to reconnoitre. He came back with the report that the woods and swamps were clear and that the searchers, if such they were, had gone away.

"The house, since Davy's grandma's bones were stored away in that cellar for several moons, has always been thought to be haunted. The fools probably thought they saw a ghost—an' they're runnin' yet."

Then for the first time Rosalie realised that she was in the haunted cabin in the swamp, the most fearsome of all places in the world to Tinkletown, large and small. Not more than three miles from her own fireside! Not more than half an hour's walk from Daddy Crow and others in the warmth of whose love she had lived so long!

"It's gettin' too hot here for us," growled Sam at supper. "We've just got to do something. I'm going out to-night to see if there's any word from the—from the party. These guys ain't all fools. Somebody is liable to nose out the trap-door before long and there'll be hell to pay. They won't come back before to-morrow, I reckon. By thunder, there ought to be word from the—the boss by this time. Lay low, everybody; I'll be back before daybreak. This time I'm a-goin' to find out something sure or know the reason why. I'm gettin' tired of this business. Never know what minute the jig's up, nor when the balloon busts."

Again he stole forth into the night, leaving his companions more or less uneasy as to the result, after the startling events of the afternoon. Hour after hour passed, and with every minute therein, Rosalie's ears strained themselves to catch the first sound of approaching rescuers. Her spirits fell, but her hopes were high. She felt sure that the men outside had seen her face and that at last they had discovered the place in which she was kept. It would only be a question of time until they learned the baffling secret of the trap-door. Her only fear lay in the possibility that she might be removed by her captors before the rescuers could accomplish her delivery. Her bright, feverish, eager eyes, gleaming from the sunken white cheeks, appealed to Bill Briggs more than he cared to admit. The ruffian, less hardened than his fellows, began to feel sorry for her.

Eleven o'clock found the trio anxious and ugly in their restlessness. There was no sleep for them. Davy visited the trap over a hundred times that night. His mother, breaking over the traces of restraint, hugged the jug of whiskey, taking swig after swig as the vigil wore on. At last Davy, driven to it, insisted upon having his share. Bill drank but little, and it was not long before Rosalie observed the shifty, nervous look in his eyes. From time to time he slyly appropriated certain articles, dropping them into his coat pocket. His ear muffs, muffler, gloves, matches, tobacco and many chunks of bread and bacon were stowed stealthily in the pockets of his coat. At last it dawned upon her that Bill was preparing to desert. Hope lay with him, then. If he could only be induced to give her an equal chance to escape!

Mother and son became maudlin in their—not cups, but jug; but Davy had the sense to imbibe more cautiously, a fact which seemed to annoy the nervous Bill.

"I must have air—fresh air," suddenly moaned Rosalie from her corner, the strain proving too great for her nerves. Bill strode over and looked down upon the trembling form for a full minute. "Take me outside for just a minute—just a minute, please. I am dying in here."

"Lemme take her out," cackled old Maude. "I'll give her all the air she wants. Want so—some air myself. Lemme give her air, Bill. Have some air on me, pardner. Lemme—"

"Shut up, Maude!" growled Bill, glancing uneasily about the cave. "I'll take her up in the cabin fer a couple of minutes. There ain't no danger."

Davy protested, but Bill carried his point, simply because he was sober and knew his power over the half-stupefied pair. Davy let them out through the trap, promising to wait below until they were ready to return.

"Are you going away?" whispered Rosalie, as they passed out into the cold, black night.

"Sh! Don't talk, damn you!" he hissed.

"Let me go too. I know the way home and you need have no fear of me. I like you, but I hate the others. Please, please! For God's sake, let me go! They can't catch me if I have a little start."

"I'd like to, but I—I dassent. Sam would hunt me down and kill me—he would sure. I am goin' myself—I can't stand it no longer."

"Have pity! Don't leave me alone with them. Oh, God, if you—"

Moaning piteously, she pleaded with him; but he was obdurate, chiefly through fear of the consequences. In his heart he might have been willing to give her the chance, but his head saw the danger to itself and it was firm.

"I'll tell you what I'll do," he whispered in the end. "I'll take you back there and then I'll go and tell your friends where you are and how to help you. Honest! Honest, I will. I know it's as broad as it is long, but I'd rather do it that way. They'll be here in a couple of hours and you'll be free. Nobody will be the wiser. Curse your whining! Shut up! Damn you, get back in there! Don't give me away to Davy, and I'll swear to help you out of this."

A minute or two later, he dragged her back into the cabin, moaning, pleading, and crying from the pain of a sudden blow. Ten minutes afterward he went forth again, this time ostensibly to meet Sam; but Rosalie knew that he was gone forever.



CHAPTER XXI

The Trap-Door

A sickly new moon threw vague ghostly beams across the willow-lined swamp, out beyond the little cabin that stood on its border. Through the dense undergrowth and high among the skeleton treetops ugly shadows played with each other, while a sepulchral orchestra of wind and bough shrieked a dirge that flattened in Bonner's ears; but it was not the weird music of the swamp that sent the shudder of actual terror through the frame of the big athlete.

A series of muffled, heartbreaking moans, like those of a woman in dire pain, came to his ears. He felt the cold perspiration start over his body. His nerves grew tense with trepidation, his eyes wide with horror. Instinctively, his fingers clutched the revolver at his side and his gaze went toward the black, square thing which marked the presence of the haunted house. The orchestra of the night seemed to bring its dirge to a close; a chill interlude of silence ensued. The moans died away into choking sobs, and Bonner's ears could hear nothing else. A sudden thought striking him, he rolled out of his bed and made his way to Bud's pile of blankets. But the solution was not there. The lad was sound asleep and no sound issued from his lips. The moans came from another source, human or otherwise, out there in the crinkling night.

Carefully making his way from the tent, his courage once more restored but his flesh still quivering, Bonner looked intently for manifestations in the black home of Johanna Rank. He half expected to see a ghostly light flit past a window. It was intensely dark in the thicket, but the shadowy marsh beyond silhouetted the house into a black relief. He was on all fours behind a thick pile of brush, nervously drawing his pipe from his pocket, conscious that he needed it to steady his nerves, when a fresh sound, rising above the faint sobs, reached his ears. Then the low voice of a man came from some place in the darkness, and these words rang out distinctly:

"Damn you!"

He drew back involuntarily, for the voice seemed to be at his elbow. The sobs ceased suddenly, as if choked by a mighty hand.

The listener's inclination was to follow the example of Anderson Crow and run madly off into the night. But beneath this natural panic was the soul of chivalry. Something told him that a woman out there in the solitude needed the arms of a man; and his blood began to grow hot again. Presently the silence was broken by a sharp cry of despair:

"Have pity! Oh, God—" moaned the voice that sent thrills through his body—the voice of a woman, tender, refined, crushed. His fingers gripped the revolver with fresh vigor, but almost instantly the rustling of dead leaves reached his ears: the man and his victim were making their way toward the house.

Bonner crouched among the bushes as if paralysed. He began to comprehend the situation. In a vague sort of way he remembered hearing of Tinkletown's sensation over at his uncle's house, where he was living with a couple of servants for a month's shooting. The atmosphere had been full of the sensational abduction story for several days—the abduction of a beautiful young woman and the helpless attitude of the relatives and friends. Like a whirlwind the whole situation spread itself before him; it left him weak. He had come upon the gang and their victim in this out-of-the-way corner of the world, far from the city toward which they were supposed to have fled. He had the solution in his hands and he was filled with the fire of the ancients.

A light appeared in the low doorway and the squat figure of a man held a lantern on high. An instant later, another man dragged the helpless girl across the threshold and into the house. Even as Bonner squared himself to rush down upon them the light disappeared and darkness fell over the cabin. There was a sound of footsteps on the floor, a creaking of hinges and the stealthy closing of a door. Then there was absolute quiet.

Bonner was wise as well as brave. He saw that to rush down upon the house now might prove his own as well as her undoing. In the darkness, the bandits would have every advantage. For a moment he glared at the black shadow ahead, his brain working like lightning.

"That poor girl!" he muttered vaguely. "Damn beasts! But I'll fix 'em, by heaven! It won't be long, my boys."

His pondering brought quick results. Crawling to Bud's cot, he aroused him from a deep sleep. Inside of two minutes the lad was streaking off through the woods toward town, with instructions to bring Anderson Crow and a large force of men to the spot as quickly as possible.

"I'll stand guard," said Wicker Bonner.

As the minutes went by Bonner's thoughts dwelt more and more intently upon the poor, imprisoned girl in the cabin. His blood charged his reason and he could scarce control the impulse to dash in upon the wretches. Then he brought himself up with a jerk. Where was he to find them? Had he not searched the house that morning and was there a sign of life to be found? He was stunned by this memory. For many minutes he stood with his perplexed eyes upon the house before a solution came to him.

He now knew that there was a secret apartment in the old house and a secret means of entrance and exit. With this explanation firmly impressed upon his mind, Wicker Bonner decided to begin his own campaign for the liberation of Rosalie Gray. It would be hours before the sluggish Anderson Crow appeared; and Bonner was not the sort to leave a woman in jeopardy if it was in his power to help her. Besides, the country people had filled him with stories of Miss Gray's beauty, and they found him at an impressionable and heart-free age. The thrill of romance seized him and he was ready to dare.

He crept up to the doorway and listened. Reason told him that the coast was clear; the necessity for a sentinel did not exist, so cleverly were the desperadoes under cover. After a few moments, he crawled into the room, holding his breath, as he made his way toward the cellar staircase. He had gone but a few feet when the sound of voices came to him. Slinking into a corner, he awaited developments. The sounds came from below, but not from the cellar room, as he had located it. A moment later, a man crawled into the room, coming through a hole in the floor, just as he had suspected. A faint light from below revealed the sinister figure plainly, but Bonner felt himself to be quite thoroughly hidden. The man in the room spoke to some one below.

"I'll be back in half an hour, Davy. I'll wait fer Sam out there on the Point. He ought to have some news from headquarters by this time. I don't see why we have to hang around this place forever. She ought to be half way to Paris by now."

"They don't want to take chances, Bill, till the excitement blows over."

"Well, you an' your mother just keep your hands off of her while I'm out, that's all," warned Bill Briggs.

The trap-door was closed, and Bonner heard the other occupant of the room shuffle out into the night. He was not long in deciding what to do. Here was the chance to dispose of one of the bandits, and he was not slow to seize it. There was a meeting in the thicket a few minutes later, and Bill was "out of the way" for the time being. Wicker Bonner dropped him with a sledge-hammer blow, and when he returned to the cabin Bill was lying bound and gagged in the tent, a helpless captive.

His conqueror, immensely satisfied, supplied himself with the surplus ends of "guy ropes" from the tent and calmly sat down to await the approach of the one called Sam, he who had doubtless gone to a rendezvous "for news." He could well afford to bide his time. With two of the desperadoes disposed of in ambuscade, he could have a fairly even chance with the man called Davy.

It seemed hours before he heard the stealthy approach of some one moving through the bushes. He was stiff with cold, and chafing at the interminable delay, but the approach of real danger quickened his blood once more. There was another short, sharp, silent struggle near the doorway, and once more Wicker Bonner stood victorious over an unsuspecting and now unconscious bandit. Sam, a big, powerful man, was soon bound and gagged and his bulk dragged off to the tent among the bushes.

"Now for Davy," muttered Bonner, stretching his great arms in the pure relish of power. "There will be something doing around your heart, Miss Babe-in-the-Woods, in a very few minutes."

He chuckled as he crept into the cabin, first having listened intently for sounds. For some minutes he lay quietly with his ear to the floor. In that time he solved one of the problems confronting him. The man Davy was a son of old Mrs. Rank's murderer, and the "old woman" who kept watch with him was his mother, wife of the historic David. It was she who had held the lantern, no doubt, while David Wolfe chopped her own mother to mincemeat. This accounted for the presence of the gang in the haunted house and for their knowledge of the underground room.

Bonner's inspiration began to wear off. Pure luck had aided him up to this stage, but the bearding of David in his lair was another proposition altogether. His only hope was that he might find the man asleep. He was not taking the old woman into consideration at all. Had he but known it, she was the most dangerous of all.

His chance, he thought, lay in strategy. It was impossible to open the trap-door from above, he had found by investigation. There was but one way to get to Miss Gray, and that was by means of a daring ruse. Trusting to luck, he tapped gently on the floor at the spot where memory told him the trap-door was situated. His heart was thumping violently.

There was a movement below him, and then the sound of some one handling the bolts in the door. Bonner drew back, hoping against hope that a light would not be shown. In one hand he held his revolver ready for use; in the other his heavy walking stick. His plans were fully developed. After a moment the trap was lifted partially and a draft of warm air came out upon him.



CHAPTER XXII

Jack, the Giant Killer

"That you, Sam?" half whispered a man's voice. There was no light.

"Sh!" hissed Bonner, muffling his voice. "Is everybody in?"

"Bill's waitin' fer you outside. Ma an' me are here. Come on down. What's up?"

"How's the girl?"

"Bellerin' like a baby. Ma's with her in the cave. Hurry up! This thing's heavy."

For reply Bonner seized the edge of the door with his left hand, first pushing his revolver in his trousers' pocket. Then he silently swung the heavy cane through the air and downward, a very faint light from below revealing the shock head of Davy in the aperture. It was a mighty blow and true. Davy's body fell away from the trap, and a second later Bonner's dropped through the hole. He left the trap wide open in case retreat were necessary. Pausing long enough to assure himself that the man was unconscious and bleeding profusely, and to snatch the big revolver from Davy's person, Bonner turned his attention to the surroundings.

Perhaps a hundred feet away, at the end of a long, low passage, he saw the glimmer of a light. Without a second's hesitation he started toward it, feeling that the worst of the adventure was past. A shadow coming between him and the light, he paused in his approach. This shadow resolved itself into the form of a woman, a gigantic creature, who peered intently up the passage.

"What's the matter, Davy?" she called in raucous tones. "You damn fool, can't you do anything without breaking your neck? I reckon you fell down the steps? That you, Sam?"

Receiving no answer, the woman clutched the lantern and advanced boldly upon Bonner, who stood far down the passage, amazed and irresolute. She looked more formidable to him than any of the men, so he prepared for a struggle.

"Halt!" he cried, when she was within ten feet of him. "Don't resist; you are surrounded!"

The woman stopped like one shot, glared ahead as if she saw him for the first time, and then uttered a frightful shriek of rage. Dashing the lantern to the ground, she raised her arm and fired a revolver point blank at Bonner, despite the fact that his pistol was covering her. He heard the bullet crash into the rotten timbers near his ear. Contrary to her design, the lantern was not extinguished. Instead, it lay sputtering but effective upon the floor.

Before Bonner could make up his mind to shoot at the woman she was upon him, firing again as she came. He did not have time to retaliate. The huge frame crushed down upon him and his pistol flew from his hand. As luck would have it, his free hand clutched her revolver, and she was prevented from blowing his brains out with the succeeding shots, all of which went wild.

Then came a desperate struggle. Bonner, a trained athlete, realised that she was even stronger than he, more desperate in her frenzy, and with murder in her heart. As they lunged to and fro, her curses and shrieks in his ear, he began to feel the despair of defeat. She was beating him down with one mighty arm, crushing blows, every one of them. Then came the sound which turned the tide of battle, for it filled him with a frenzy equal to her own. The scream of a woman came down through the passage, piteous, terror-stricken.

He knew the fate of that poor girl if his adversary overcame him. The thought sent his blood hot and cold at once. Infuriatedly, he exerted his fine strength, and the tide turned. Panting and snarling, the big woman was battered down. He flung her heavily to the ground and then leaped back to pick up his revolver, expecting a renewal of the attack. For the first time he was conscious of intense pain in his left leg. The woman made a violent effort to rise, and then fell back, groaning and cursing.

"You've done it! You've got me!" she yelled. "My leg's broke!" Then she shrieked for Davy and Bill and Sam, raining curses upon the law and upon the traitor who had been their undoing.

Bonner, his own leg wobbling and covered with blood, tried to quiet her, but without success. He saw that she was utterly helpless, her leg twisted under her heavy body. Her screams of pain as he turned her over proved conclusively that she was not shamming. Her hip was dislocated. The young man had sense enough left to return to Davy before venturing into the cave where Miss Gray was doubtless in a dead faint. The man was breathing, but still unconscious from the blow on the head. Bonner quickly tied his hands and feet, guarding against emergencies in case of his own incapacitation as the result of the bullet wound in his leg; then he hobbled off with the lantern past the groaning Amazon in quest of Rosalie Gray. It did not occur to him until afterward that single handed he had overcome a most desperate band of criminals, so simply had it all worked out up to the time of the encounter with the woman.

A few yards beyond where the old woman lay moaning he came upon the cave in which the bandits made their home. Holding the lantern above his head, Bonner peered eagerly into the cavern. In the farthest corner crouched a girl, her terror-struck eyes fastened upon the stranger.

"How do you do, Miss Gray," came the cheery greeting from his lips. She gasped, swept her hand over her eyes, and tried piteously to speak. The words would not come. "The long-prayed-for rescue has come. You are free—that is, as soon as we find our way out of this place. Let me introduce myself as Jack, the Giant Killer—hello! Don't do that! Oh, the devil!" She had toppled over in a dead faint.

How Wicker Bonner, with his wounded leg, weak from loss of blood, and faint from the reaction, carried her from the cave through the passage and the trap-door and into the tent can only be imagined, not described. He only knew that it was necessary to remove her from the place, and that his strength would soon be gone. The sun was tinting the east before she opened her eyes and shuddered. In the meantime he had stanched the flow of blood in the fleshy part of his leg, binding the limb tightly with a piece of rope. It was an ugly, glancing cut made by a bullet of large calibre, and it was sure to put him on crutches for some time to come. Even now he was scarcely able to move the member. For an hour he had been venting his wrath upon the sluggish Anderson Crow, who should have been on the scene long before this. Two of his captives, now fully conscious, were glaring at their companions in the tent with hate in their eyes.

Rosalie Gray, wan, dishevelled, but more beautiful than the reports had foretold, could not at first believe herself to be free from the clutches of the bandits. It took him many minutes—many painful minutes—to convince her that it was not a dream, and that in truth he was Wicker Bonner, gentleman. Sitting with his back against a tent pole, facing the cabin through the flap, with a revolver in his trembling hand, he told her of the night's adventures, and was repaid tenfold by the gratitude which shone from her eyes and trembled in her voice. In return she told him of her capture, of the awful experiences in the cave, and of the threats which had driven her almost to the end of endurance.

"Oh, oh, I could love you forever for this!" she cried in the fulness of her joy. A rapturous smile flew to Bonner's eyes.

"Forever begins with this instant, Miss Gray," he said; and without any apparent reason the two shook hands. Afterward they were to think of this trivial act and vow that it was truly the beginning. They were young, heart-free, and full of the romance of life.

"And those awful men are really captured—and the woman?" she cried, after another exciting recital from him. Sam and Bill fairly snarled. "Suppose they should get loose?" Her eyes grew wide with the thought of it.

"They can't," he said laconically. "I wish the marshal and his bicycle army would hurry along. That woman and Davy need attention. I'd hate like the mischief to have either of them die. One doesn't want to kill people, you know, Miss Gray."

"But they were killing me by inches," she protested.

"Ouch!" he groaned, his leg giving him a mighty twinge.

"What is it?" she cried in alarm. "Why should we wait for those men? Come, Mr. Bonner, take me to the village—please do. I am crazy, absolutely crazy, to see Daddy Crow and mother. I can walk there—how far is it?—please come." She was running on eagerly in this strain until she saw the look of pain in his face—the look he tried so hard to conceal. She was standing straight and strong and eager before him, and he was very pale under the tan.

"I can't, Miss Gray. I'm sorry, you know. See! Where there's smoke there's fire—I mean, where there's blood there's a wound. I'm done for, in other words."

"Done for? Oh, you're not—not going to die! Are you hurt? Why didn't you tell me?" Whereupon she dropped to her knees at his side, her dark eyes searching his intently, despair in them until the winning smile struggled back into his. The captives chuckled audibly. "What can I—what shall I do? Oh, why don't those men come! It must be noon or—"

"It's barely six A.M., Miss Gray. Don't worry. I'm all right. A cut in my leg; the old woman plugged me. I can't walk, you know—but—"

"And you carried me out here and did all that and never said a word about—oh, how good and brave and noble you are!"

When Anderson Crow and half of Tinkletown, routed out en masse by Bud, appeared on the scene an hour or two later, they found Wicker Bonner stretched out on a mattress, his head in Rosalie's lap. The young woman held his revolver in her hand, and there was a look in her face which said that she would shoot any one who came to molest her charge. Two helpless desperadoes lay cursing in the corner of the tent.

Anderson Crow, after an hour of deliberation and explanation, fell upon the bound and helpless bandits and bravely carted the whole lot to the town "calaboose." Wicker Bonner and his nurse were taken into town, and the news of the rescue went flying over the county, and eventually to the four corners of the land, for Congressman Bonner's nephew was a person of prominence.

Bonner, as he passed up the main street in Peabody's sleigh on the way to Anderson Crow's home, was the centre of attraction. He was the hero of the hour, for was not Rosalie Gray herself, pale and ill with torture, his most devoted slave? What else could Tinkletown do but pay homage when it saw Bonner's head against her shoulder and Anderson Crow shouting approval from the bob-sled that carried the kidnapers. The four bandits, two of them much the worse for the night's contact with Wicker Bonner, were bundled into the lock-up, a sadly morose gang of ghosts.

"I owe you a thousand dollars," said Anderson to Bonner as they drew up in front of the marshal's home. All Tinkletown was there to see how Mrs. Crow and the family would act when Rosalie was restored to them. The yard was full of gaping villagers, and there was a diffident cheer when Mrs. Crow rushed forth and fairly dragged Rosalie from the sleigh. "Blootch" Peabody gallantly interposed and undertook to hand the girl forth with the grace of a Chesterfield. But Mrs. Crow had her way.

"I'll take it out in board and lodging," grinned Wicker Bonner to Anderson as two strong men lifted him from the sleigh.

"Where's Bud?" demanded Anderson after the others had entered the house.

"He stayed down to the 'calaboose' to guard the prisoners," said "Blootch." "Nobody could find the key to the door and nobody else would stay. They ain't locked in, but Bud's got two revolvers, and he says they can only escape over his dead body."



CHAPTER XXIII

Tinkletown's Convulsion

Anderson Crow was himself once more. He was twenty years younger than when he went to bed the night before. His joy and pride had reached the bursting point—dignity alone prevented the catastrophe.

"What do you expect to do with the gang, Mr. Crow?" asked Bonner, reclining with amiable ease in the marshal's Morris chair. He was feeling very comfortable, despite "Doc" Smith's stitches; and he could not help acknowledging, with more or less of a glow in his heart, that it was nice to play hero to such a heroine.

"Well, I'll protect 'em, of course. Nobody c'n lynch 'em while I'm marshal of this town," Anderson said, forgetful of the fact that he had not been near the jail, where Master Bud still had full charge of affairs, keyless but determined. "I'll have to turn them over to the county sheriff to-day er to-morrow, I reckon. This derned old calaboose of ourn ain't any too safe. That's a mighty desperit gang we've captured. I cain't remember havin' took sech a mob before."

"Has it occurred to you, Mr. Crow, that we have captured only the hirelings? Their employer, whoever he or she may be, is at large and probably laughing at us. Isn't there some way in which we can follow the case up and land the leader?"

"'y Gosh, you're right," said Anderson. "I thought of that this mornin', but it clean skipped my mind since then. There's where the mistake was made, Mr. Bonner. It's probably too late now. You'd oughter thought about the leader. Seems to me—"

"Why, Daddy Crow," cried Rosalie, a warm flush in her cheeks once more, "hasn't Mr. Bonner done his part? Hasn't he taken them single-handed and hasn't he saved me from worse than death?"

"I ain't castin' any insinyations at him, Rosalie," retorted Anderson, very sternly for him. "How can you talk like that?"

"I'm not offended, Miss Gray," laughed Bonner. "We all make mistakes. It has just occurred to me, however, that Mr. Crow may still be able to find out who the leader is. The prisoners can be pumped, I dare say."

"You're right ag'in, Mr. Bonner. It's funny how you c'n read my thoughts. I was jest goin' down to the jail to put 'em through the sweat cell."

"Sweat cell? You mean sweat box, Mr. Crow," said Bonner, laughing in spite of himself.

"No, sir; it's a cell. We couldn't find a box big enough. I use the cell reserved fer women prisoners. Mebby some day the town board will put in a reg'lar box, but, so far, the cell has done all right. I'll be back 'bout supper-time, Eva. You take keer o' Rosalie. Make her sleep a while an' I guess you'd better dose her up a bit with quinine an'—"

"I guess I know what to give her, Anderson Crow," resented his wife. "Go 'long with you. You'd oughter been lookin' after them kidnapers three hours ago. I bet Bud's purty nigh wore out guardin' them. He's been there ever sence nine o'clock, an' it's half-past two now."

"Roscoe's helpin' him," muttered Anderson, abashed.

At that instant there came a rush of footsteps across the front porch and in burst Ed Higgins and "Blootch" Peabody, fairly gasping with excitement.

"Hurry up, Anderson—down to the jail," sputtered the former; and then he was gone like the wind. "Blootch," determined to miss nothing, whirled to follow, or pass him if possible. He had time to shout over his shoulder as he went forth without closing the door:

"The old woman has lynched herself!"

It would now be superfluous to remark, after all the convulsions Tinkletown had experienced inside of twenty-four hours, that the populace went completely to pieces in face of this last trying experiment of Fate. With one accord the village toppled over as if struck by a broadside and lay, figuratively speaking, writhing in its own gore. Stupefaction assailed the town. Then one by one the minds of the people scrambled up from the ashes, slowly but surely, only to wonder where lightning would strike next. Not since the days of the American Revolution had the town experienced such an incessant rush of incident. The Judgment Day itself, with Gabriel's clarion blasts, could not be expected to surpass this productive hour in thrills.

It was true that old Maude had committed suicide in the calaboose. She had been placed on a cot in the office of the prison and Dr. Smith had been sent for, immediately after her arrival; but he was making a call in the country. Bud Long, supported by half a dozen boys armed with Revolutionary muskets, which would not go off unless carried, stood in front of the little jail with its wooden walls and iron bars, guarding the prisoners zealously. The calaboose was built to hold tramps and drunken men, but not for the purpose of housing desperadoes. Even as the heroic Bud watched with persevering faithfulness, his charges were planning to knock their prison to smithereens and at the proper moment escape to the woods and hills. They knew the grated door was unlocked, but they imagined the place to be completely surrounded by vengeful villagers, who would cut them down like rats if they ventured forth. Had they but known that Bud was alone, it is quite likely they would have sallied forth and relieved him of his guns, spanked him soundly and then ambled off unmolested to the country.

All the morning old Maude had been groaning and swearing in the office, where she lay unattended. Bud was telling his friends how he had knocked her down twice in the cave, after she had shot six times and slashed at him with her dagger, when a sudden cessation of groans from the interior attracted the attention of all. "Doc" Smith arrived at that juncture and found the boys listening intently for a resumption of the picturesque profanity. It was some time before the crowd became large enough to inspire a visit to the interior of the calaboose. As became his dignity, Bud led the way.

The old woman, unable to endure the pain any longer, and knowing full well that her days were bound to end in prison, had managed, in some way, to hang herself from a window bar beside her bed, using a twisted bed sheet. She was quite dead when "Doc" made the examination. A committee of the whole started at once to notify Anderson Crow. For a minute it looked as though the jail would be left entirely unguarded, but Bud loyally returned to his post, reinforced by Roscoe and the doctor.

Upon Mr. Crow's arrival at the jail, affairs assumed some aspect of order. He first locked the grate doors, thereby keeping the fiery David from coming out to see his mother before they cut her down. A messenger was sent for the coroner at Boggs City, and then the big body was released from its last hanging place.

"Doggone, but this is a busy day fer me!" said Anderson. "I won't have time to pump them fellers till this evenin'. But I guess they'll keep. 'What's that, Blootch?"

"I was just goin' to ask Bud if they're still in there," said Blootch.

"Are they, Bud?" asked Anderson in quick alarm.

"Sure," replied Bud with a mighty swelling of the chest. Even Blootch envied him.

"She's been dead jest an hour an' seven minutes," observed Anderson, gingerly touching the dead woman's wrist. "Doggone, I'm glad o' one thing!"

"What's that, Anderson?"

"We won't have to set her hip. Saved expense."

"But we'll have to bury her, like as not," said Isaac Porter.

"Yes," said Anderson reflectively. "She'll have to be buried. But—but—" and here his face lightened up in relief—"not fer a day er two; so what's the use worryin'."

When the coroner arrived, soon after six o'clock, a jury was empanelled and witnesses sworn. In ten minutes a verdict of suicide was returned and the coroner was on his way back to Boggs City. He did not even know that a hip had been dislocated. Anderson insisted upon a post-mortem examination, but was laughed out of countenance by the officious M.D.

"I voted fer that fool last November," said Anderson wrathfully, as the coroner drove off, "but you c'n kick the daylights out of me if I ever do it ag'in. Look out there, Bud! What in thunder are you doin' with them pistols? Doggone, ain't you got no sense? Pointin' 'em around that way. Why, you're liable to shoot somebody—"

"Aw, them ain't pistols," scoffed Bud, his mouth full of something. "They're bologny sausages. I ain't had nothin' to eat sence last night and I'm hungry."

"Well, it's dark out here," explained Anderson, suddenly shuffling into the jail. "I guess I'll put them fellers through the sweat box."

"The what?" demanded George Ray.

"The sweat-box—b-o-x, box. Cain't you hear?"

"I thought you used a cell."

"Thunderation, no! Nobody but country jakes call it a cell," said Anderson in fine scorn.

The three prisoners scowled at him so fiercely and snarled so vindictively when they asked him if they were to be starved to death, that poor Anderson hurried home and commanded his wife to pack "a baskit of bread and butter an' things fer the prisoners." It was nine o'clock before he could make up his mind to venture back to the calaboose with his basket. He spent the intervening hours in telling Rosalie and Bonner about the shocking incident at the jail and in absorbing advice from the clear-headed young man from Boston.

"I'd like to go with you to see those fellows, Mr. Crow," was Bonner's rueful lament. "But the doctor says I must be quiet until this confounded thing heals a bit. Together, I think we could bluff the whole story out of those scoundrels."

"Oh, never you fear," said the marshal; "I'll learn all there is to be learnt. You jest ask Alf Reesling what kind of a pumper I am."

"Who is Alf Reesling?"

"Ain't you heerd of him in Boston? Why, every temperance lecturer that comes here says he's the biggest drunkard in the world. I supposed his reputation had got to Boston by this time. He's been sober only once in twenty-five years."

"Is it possible?"

"That was when his wife died. He said he felt so good it wasn't necessary to get drunk. Well, I'll tell you all about it when I come back. Don't worry no more, Rosalie. I'll find out who's back of this business an' then we'll know all about you. It's a long lane that has no turn."