CHAPTER II.
ANOTHER MYSTERY OF A DIFFERENT SORT.
Dick was in a dangerous fix.
The fellow who had caught hold of him was very drunk and had a grip like a vise.
The two girls screamed, while Dick tried to grab the knife which the “lusher” kept flourishing, swearing horribly at Dick all the while.
How it would have ended if help had not come promptly it is impossible to say, but, as it happened, just at this critical moment a man came dashing around the corner.
He was a tall and very thin person, shabbily dressed in an old ulster and a battered plug hat.
He seemed to take in the situation at a glance and pounced upon the “lusher” without ceremony, wrenching away the knife and flinging it into the street, pounding the fellow about the head and face with such vigor that he promptly took to his heels and made off, followed by his friend.
“There!” exclaimed the man in the ulster. “There! That’s the way to do it! Ladies, your most obedient! Let me see, have I not the pleasure of addressing Miss Clara Eglinton? Ah, yes. I thought so. Miss E., your humble servant. Yours, too, Miss What’s-your-name, and yours, my dear sir. My name is Mudd. Martin Mudd. I am always ready and willing to come to the assistance of any one in distress.”
“I’m sure I’m ever so much obliged, sir,” replied Dick. “My name is Darrell. Dick Darrell, I——”
What was the matter with Martin Mudd?
The instant Dick announced his name he started back theatrically, stared, raised his hat to the two girls, and, wheeling about, turned the corner and disappeared.
“Is he crazy? He must be!” exclaimed Dick.
“No, I don’t think so,” replied the girl addressed as Clara Eglinton, a beautiful blonde of about Dick’s own age. “He is very eccentric, though. He sometimes has business with my father. Oh, Mr. Darrell, I want to thank you ever and ever so much for your brave act. Those insulting fellows! It was just dreadful! I don’t know what Susie and I would have done if you had not come.”
“I’m sure I’m most happy to have been of service to you,” replied Dick, raising his hat. “May I offer to see you to your home?”
“Why, it is right here in the next house,” replied the girl. “Good night, Mr. Darrell. We must go in.”
Evidently Miss Eglinton did not care to pursue the acquaintance.
Dick tipped his hat again and the two girls ran up the stoop of a handsome house and vanished in an instant, leaving Dick to continue his walk.
“A pretty girl!” he murmured. “A very pretty girl. I only wish I was going to stay in Washington. I might find a chance to get better acquainted, but I suppose she will forget all about me before I return.”
He walked on, wholly oblivious to the fact that Mr. Martin Mudd, with rubbers on his feet, was stealing after him, staring forward with gleaming eyes.
What prompted Dick to turn suddenly and look behind him just before he reached the next corner?
Surely there must have been some good angel watching over the boy, for there was the man close behind him with the very knife the “lusher” had dropped clutched in his hand.
“Now I’ve got you, Dick Darrell!” he hissed, and he made a desperate lunge at the boy, who dodged the stroke just in time.
Martin Mudd did not attempt to repeat it. With a sharp cry he turned and ran like a deer.
Dick shouted after him and followed back along the block, but the man turned the corner first and when Dick got around he had disappeared.
And that was the end of the adventure.
Deeply puzzled over the mysterious affair which he could only attribute to insanity on the part of the man with the muddy name, Dick went home and was soon in bed, where he lay tossing wide awake until morning.
It was the tone in which Martin Mudd had spoken his name and the start he had given when Dick first introduced himself that bothered the boy.
“He certainly seemed to know me,” Dick said to himself a hundred times. “What can it all mean?”
He gave up thinking about it when morning came and hurried to the B. & O. station, where he met Charley all ready for the journey.
The run to Chicago was made in good time and without adventure.
There was no stop here, except to change cars, and the next thing the boys knew they were in Omaha, where they took the Union Pacific to Cheyenne and then ran up to Fort Fetterman, changed cars again and in due time were set down on a barren, alkali plain, where there was a station, a windmill, a water tank and a dozen houses—they had reached Node Ranch at last.
The boys went at once to the Palace Hotel, which proved to be a dirty old roost of the worst kind.
“Heavens!” exclaimed Charley; “if we had to stay here long I should give up the ghost.”
Dick felt about the same way, but as it happened they did not have to stay at the Palace at all, for they had scarcely located themselves in their room and Dick was just getting ready to go out and look for Doctor Dan, when all at once there was a knock on the door and when Charley opened it there stood a tall Indian dressed in an ordinary business suit, with nothing to distinguish him from a white man except his features and his long black hair.
“I want to see Dick Darrell,” he said, without a trace of accent. “Are you the young man?”
“No; this is Dick Darrell,” replied Charley, pointing to his friend. “Come in.”
The Indian entered the room with solemn tread and an expression of imperturbable gravity upon his swarthy face.
“I suppose this is Doctor Dan!” exclaimed Dick, extending his hand. “I’m glad to see you, I’m sure.”
“That’s how,” replied the Indian, “I was ordered to meet you here by Professor Poynter.”
“That’s right.”
“I’m ordered to take you up into the Bad Lands to Izard Lake,” continued Doctor Dan, slowly. “The horses are all ready, likewise the pack mules, of which there are two. Provision I have laid in enough to last a month. I have three rifles and two guns. I have blankets and two tents and cooking utensils. If there is anything more you wish I will procure it if it is to be had in Node Ranch.”
The deliberateness with which he spoke was almost ludicrous. It was all the boys could do to suppress their smiles.
“Why, I should say you had got everything we could possibly need,” said Dick. “You speak as good English as I do, doctor. Are you a half-breed?”
“No, sir, I am not,” replied Doctor Dan, in the same slow way. “I am a full blooded Sioux, but I was adopted by a rancher when I was a little boy and I was educated at Carlisle College, Pennsylvania, an institution for the education of Indian youths, of which you have doubtless heard.”
Poor Dick was almost overpowered. As for Charley, he had to go out in the passage and explode or he would have laughed in Doctor Dan’s face.
“Well, I’m sure I’m much obliged to you for doing everything up in such good shape,” said Dick. “When do we start?”
“Right away after dinner if you follow my advice,” was the reply. “We have got a long road before us. It will take us three days to reach the foot of the mountain. If you are anxious to get to work, as I take it you are, there is no time to lose.”
“I certainly am,” said Dick, “so we will go at once. Charley and I will be ready say at one o’clock.”
“At one o’clock,” repeated Doctor Dan, solemnly. “That is an engagement. I will keep it. Good day.”
“What about the monster?” asked Dick. “You saw it, I believe.”
“I did. It is there,” replied Doctor Dan.
“Can you describe it?”
Doctor Dan entered into a most accurate description of the Plesiosaurus. It seemed hard to imagine that he was lying and Dick’s hope was greatly aroused.
“It will be the making of us, Charley,” he remarked, as they went in to dinner a little later, after Doctor Dan had left the hotel.
“Gentlemen, did you register?” called the clerk from behind the desk.
“No,” replied Dick, turning back.
“Then please do. It’s the law and we have to trouble you.”
Dick took up the pen and was about to sign his name to the register when he suddenly gave a quick start.
“What’s the matter?” asked Charley.
“Look!” exclaimed Dick, pointing to the name written on the line above where he was about to write his own.
The name, written in a bold, firm hand, was Martin Mudd.