Then without waiting to see whether this rather cryptic command was understood, much less executed, he zigzagged up the roof to the side of the house. With his back pressed against the shingles, he moved sideways to the window and peered in.
The room was full of smoke, but he made out a figure slipping through the doorway into the hall, and fired. The door slammed and someone shot home the lock on the other side. From below came a crash of broken glass.
“Good old chief!” muttered Bill and went in through the open window.
He realized instantly that the bed was on fire. He grabbed the flaming sheets and threw them on the floor, kicking a handsome rug out of the way. Determined to save the rug, if possible, for a moment he was at a loss how to put out the flames. He did not enjoy the thought of stamping out a fire with his bare feet. The room was dark, after the brilliance of the moonlight out of doors, and the acrid smoke stung his eyes and set him coughing. Flames began to shoot upward from the smouldering mattress. His eye sighted a wall switch by the head of the bed, and an instant later he clicked the room into bright illumination.
The door to the bathroom was open and Bill caught the sheets by the ends which the fire had not yet reached, dragged them across the room and tossed the blazing mass into the bath tub. He turned on both taps, and ran back to the bedroom.
He next seized the mattress, doubled it over at the center, and endeavored to smother the flames. In this he was only partly successful, for the charred padding continued to smoulder and smoke. In exasperation he rolled it up, carried it to the window and thrust it forth. Quick as a flash, he was on the porch roof and not until he had flung it to the ground did he pause to fill his lungs.
But he was impatient to discover what was happening to Osceola below stairs, while he had been engaged with this inopportune blaze. He darted back into the smoke-laden chamber, and made for the door to the hall. It was locked. He picked up his automatic from the chair where he had dropped it and was about to fire into the lock when the handle rattled. Someone in the hallway was trying the door.
“Open up or I’ll shoot—” snapped Bill, and was seized immediately afterward with a spasm of coughing that left him almost helpless.
The key turned in the lock and the door swung inward, disclosing Osceola and a leveled automatic. Directly behind him stood Dorothy.
“Gosh!” she exclaimed. “You still here! Where’s the fire?”
The cool draught of air started by the opening of the door momentarily cleared the atmosphere and Bill composed himself with an effort. “In your bed—if this is your room,” he wheezed. “I put it out—darn it. Where’s that man gone? The one who locked me in?”
“Got away,” grunted Osceola. “And the other one, too.”
“Did they have another car?”
“Yes, but Dorothy got to it first and put the engine out of business. She—”
Shrieks and howls from above their heads cut him short. He turned to Dorothy. “You’d better run upstairs and let those maids out so I can get straight with Bill. They’ll wake New Canaan if you don’t. The poor things have been raising the roof ever since those thugs locked them in their rooms. Now they’ve smelled smoke and probably think the house is on fire.”
“Right-o! I’ll go up and quiet ’em.” Dorothy hurried off toward the rear staircase.
Bill leaned against the wall and stared at the mess in the room. “Either the guy we winged, or his pal, set fire to Dorothy’s bedding. He hoped it might give us a job putting it out and they’d have a chance to make their getaway. So far as I’m concerned they did exactly that. You don’t seem to have had any better luck.”
“You’re right on that, too. When Dorothy beat it round the house to scout for their car, I went through the living room window. And it will take some mending, that window! I smashed it with a porch chair.”
“Never mind the window—what did you do then?—faint?”
“Don’t try to be funny—I beat it inside and up the front stairs. Just as I reached this floor, I saw the two thugs flit round the corner to the back hall, and the service stairs. They had got out of sight by the time I got to the top of the stairs, but I heard the creak of the swinging door and knew they were on their way out through the kitchen. So I plunged down after them. And let me tell you, boy, plunged is just what I did. When I woke up, Dorothy was pouring a pitcher of water over my head.”
“When you woke up!”
“Why, you see, one of the guys must have grabbed a broom some fool maid had left standing in the back hall, and he had laid the darned thing slantwise across the stairs, about a quarter of the way down, with the broom end jammed into the banisters. I never saw it in my hurry, and I took the rest of the flight head first. I’ve got a bump on my bean the size of an egg. Why I didn’t break my neck is a mystery to me!”
“Oh, you were born to be hung,” said Bill airily. “But let’s hear the rest of what happened.”
“Look here, old chap, I’ve been driven nearly frantic by this mess—here we are—I fall down stairs, you fight a tuppenny fire—and we’re supposed to be doing something—anything—to—to—”
“Oh, I know it—don’t you suppose I know how you feel? Gosh, it’s got me the same way. But we’ll get her back soon. Meanwhile, we have to check up on each other, don’t we? It’s the only way we can get started on the real business.” Bill spoke as encouragingly as he could, but he had no idea how to go about tracing Deborah ... any more than had his friend.
“Sure, you’re right, Bill. Only when I think of Deb in the hands of those—Well, I’ll go on. Nothing important happened after that tumble I took. Dorothy brought me round, and those lads had beat it for parts unknown with at least a five minute start. She told me that after she’d fixed their car, which was the same one Number 57 went off in this morning, she hiked round to the porch again. She’d just got in through the window I smashed when she heard my fall—and found me. Just about that time, she smelled smoke, so as soon as I could stand, we searched for it—you know the rest.”
As he finished, Dorothy came up to them. “They’re all quiet, now,” she said, referring to the maids. “What’s next on the program? Have you got a plan of any kind?”
“We know what to do, all right—and that’s find Deborah—” admitted Bill bitterly, “but how to do it is another question, and I, for one, don’t know the answer.”
Osceola looked at Bill. “I think,” he said slowly, “the best thing you and I can do right now, Bill, is to get into some clothes.”
Bill nodded. “Good idea! Socks and shoes will make a particular hit with me. If the soles of my feet aren’t cut to ribbons, they certainly feel as if they were!”
Dorothy, tight-lipped, arms akimbo, glared at them in disgust. “Well! You certainly are an energetic pair!” Her eyes fairly snapped with scorn. “Deborah’s fiance and his best friend see her kidnapped under their very noses, and then decide the best thing to do is to get dressed! My word—you make me sick—”
Osceola gave the angry girl one look, shrugged his shoulders and walked silently downstairs. The front door slammed, and Bill turned on her.
“Well, that was a very pretty exhibition, I don’t think,” he began.
“Oh, go home and put on a necktie!” she retorted savagely. “Oh, dear, how can you boys—when—” She broke off and burst into tears.
“How could you deliberately torture that splendid chap—I had no idea you could be so cruel, Dorothy. Why, Osceola’s the salt of the earth and you know it. He was too much of a gentleman to tell you what a little idiot you are, but I’m not!”
“Is that so!” With a quick gesture, she brushed away the tears and took a step toward him. “If Osceola is such a paragon, why doesn’t he light out and find Deb? He’s supposed to be in love with her, isn’t he?”
“He is in love with her, and that is what makes the things you said to him so brutal!”
“Then how can he waste his time—and that goes for you too—in silly chatter—why not start something—”
“Yes? and what—”
“Action’s what’s needed, and spelled with a capital A!”
Bill smiled crookedly. “And what kind of action, spelled with a capital A, do you suggest?”
“I’ve heard that he can trail anything that runs. Those men had to leg it out of here. Why doesn’t he follow them, for heaven’s sake, if he’s such a star at that sort of thing?”
“My dear young lady, Osceola has been three jumps ahead of you all the time. He knows that those tracks will only lead through your grounds out to the road. I don’t know where you got your ideas of trailing but no man, red, white, black or yellow, can follow another’s trail on an automobile highway. Dirt roads are one thing, tar or solid concrete are something else again!”
Dorothy looked discomfited. “I never thought of that,” she said.
“You see, Osceola doesn’t know where to turn next. Neither do I, and for a matter of fact, neither do you.”
For a moment she stared at him and Bill braced himself for a flood of tears. Instead she ran to him and caught his arm.
“Bill—I’m so darned sorry—I—”
“Oh, never mind—that’s all right,” he said gruffly, embarrassed by her contrition.
She shook her head. “But it isn’t all right. I’m going to slip into some beach pajamas, then I’m going straight over to your house and tell him just what a pig I really am!”
“There’s no need of that, kid. He wants cheering up, all right, but he’ll be back here soon to give me a chance to run over and put on some duds.”
“But what’s the idea—”
“You don’t think we’re going to leave you alone tonight after what’s happened?”
“But I’m not scared. Those men won’t come back again, not tonight, anyway.”
“Maybe they won’t, but there’s no sense in taking chances. Go into your room and dress if it will make you feel more comfortable. We can talk through the door. I want to know exactly what happened before you telephoned me.”
“All right. Wait and I’ll pass out a chair. If you’re as tired of standing as I am, you’ll need it.”
She went into the bedroom and came out with a wicker armchair in tow. “By the way,” she said suddenly, “why do you suppose those men picked on us? One of them was the big Russian who lost his silver dollar and kicked up such a fuss about it.”
“That,” answered Bill, “is one of the things I’m not sure about. In fact, I haven’t had time to put my mind on it.”
“You don’t think they came back for that pocket-piece?”
“Hardly that. There’s a whole lot behind this business that we aren’t onto yet.”
“Well, what’s your idea?”
“If you must have it, I’m beginning to believe that we’ve come into contact with a gang whose tokens or badges of membership are the numbered, winged cartwheels. And the gang is undoubtedly a large one. We know that there are at least fifty-seven of them.”
“Gee!” Dorothy looked startled. “Really, Bill? But why under the sun do these cartwheelers pick on Deborah?”
“Of course, I haven’t the dimmest idea what these fellows are up to. But seeing what took place last night over at my house, I’ve got a hunch that they think either Osceola or I are wise to what is going on. You two girls, after this morning’s experience, are probably the only two persons who have seen members of the gang, knowing them to be just that. Therefore, it’s quite on the cards that they want to put you both safely away where you won’t be able to identify those two until they’ve pulled off their big stunt—whatever that may be. Of course, I may be all wrong, but up to now we’ve had next to nothing to go on except those dollars!”
Dorothy looked at him admiringly. “I always knew you had a head on your shoulders, Bill.” She shut the door to her room.
“Better turn off the water in your bath tub,” Bill called after her. “And don’t forget I want your dope on tonight.”
“I won’t—just give me a chance,” her muffled voice came back to him. “Gosh, but this room is a mess!”
Bill set the chair just outside her door and sat down. He was tired and he wanted to think, but Dorothy didn’t give him much opportunity to do so.
“Can you hear me?” He guessed she was standing near the door.
“Perfectly,” he replied.
“Well, here’s the tale and there isn’t much to it. After you two went home this evening, Deb and I came upstairs. We got undressed and then went into her room, just across the hall from mine. I guess we talked for about an hour. She was telling me—oh, about this and that—whatever we talked about has nothing to do with what happened later.” Her voice grew fainter as she moved to another part of the room, but Bill could still hear her well enough. “After that I came back here. When Daddy’s away, I always lock my door, and it’s a mighty lucky thing I did tonight. I probably wouldn’t be talking to you now if I’d left it open. Deb locked hers, too, but it’s a warm night, and after I was in bed I heard her open it. I thought it might be a good idea to get more air myself, but the breeze was blowing in at this side of the house, and I was too lazy to get up. While I was thinking about it, I must have fallen asleep.
“Well, the next thing I knew, I heard Deb scream. Then I heard her shout—‘They’ve got me, Dorothy—phone Osceola!’ She knew I had an extension in my room, of course. She didn’t call again, and I figured someone had slugged her. The phone is right by my bed, but it took an awful time to get central. I could have killed that girl by the time she said ‘Number, please’ ... then when I gave her yours, it seemed an age before you answered. Then when we were cut off, I guessed that one of the thugs had cut the wires. Somebody tried my door, and I ran over to the bureau and got my little automatic. I was scared silly, but I knew you and Osceola would soon be here, so that helped a lot. I was just starting for the door, when the strangest thing happened. I heard the key turn in the lock and before I could do anything to stop it, the door was pushed open.”
“Wait a mo. Yes, the key sticks out about an eighth of an inch on this side. They must have got hold of it with a pair of pincers.”
“So that’s it! I couldn’t imagine—well, let me tell you, the sight of that key turning in the lock all by itself gave me the creeps!”
“What did you do when the door opened?”
“I started right in firing—of course I didn’t know what I was shooting at, but for a few minutes I had ’em buffaloed, I guess. Suddenly they made a rush. I fired once more, then beat it for the window and went through it—” She opened the door and came into the hall, clad now in a simple white linen dress. Bill saw that she had put on a pair of white tennis shoes and socks.
“Well, you’re some quick dresser—” he got up from the chair.
Dorothy smiled and made him a little bow. “And I timed it nicely, didn’t I? Just to the end of my speech—”
“You certainly made a dramatic entrance. Say—there’s the door bell—”
“Osceola?”
“Sure to be. I’ll cut along now and leave him to your tender mercies. See you later.” With a wave of his hand, he left her standing in the hall and ran swiftly down the stairs.
Bill opened the front door and let Osceola into the house. The chief was fully dressed. He looked tired and worried to death.
“You’d better go over and dress now,” he said dispiritedly. “I’ve phoned the New Canaan police station and the Chief will be along in a few minutes. Meantime, I’ll locate the place where the telephone wire was cut and splice it if I can. There isn’t much we can do until morning, worse luck. By that time, we’ll have a chance to line things up a little better, and perhaps have some course of action planned.”
“I’ve just got a hunch,” said Bill. “I’ll tell you about it when I come back. If the hunch turns out to be a good one, you and I will get on the job long before daylight.”
“Then here’s hoping it will be a good one—” Osceola’s tone was more cheerful now, “there’s nothing worse than this rotten inaction.”
Bill nodded. Then he called to Dorothy, who stood at the head of the stairs. “Where’s your father staying in Hartford?”
“The Hiblein, I think—he usually does. If you ’phone him, tell him I’m all right, and give him my love.”
“I will. So long!”
He ran down the porch steps, and hurried across the lawn toward the highroad. When he got to his room, he went straight to the telephone where he called up the Hiblein Hotel at Hartford, and eventually heard Mr. Dixon’s voice on the wire.
“Bill Bolton speaking—” he began abruptly and launched into an account of the night’s happenings.
“My thanks to you, boy, and to Osceola,” said Dorothy’s father. “I won’t waste time now in talking about this outrage—but you can count on me being in New Canaan just as soon as the car can get me there.”
“Just a moment, sir—there’s something else I want to tell you, and something you can do for us.”
“Shoot,” said Mr. Dixon.
Bill rapidly ran over the adventures of the silver dollars, gave his own suspicions of the case, and ended by mentioning his affiliation with a certain department in Washington.
“Good enough, Bill. That explains why you resigned from Annapolis, of course. You undoubtedly have a flair for this kind of thing. But there doesn’t really seem to be any tangible clue to go on in this beastly kidnapping affair. Have you hit on anything yourself?”
“The license number of the gangsters’ car, the one that’s parked in your drive at present, sir, may lead us somewhere. Of course it may have been stolen; and if not, the owner’s house would be the least likely place for them to take Deborah. Still, if we could locate that residence, Osceola and I might be able to get a line on the chap and his friends. What do you think, sir?”
“That sounds like a mighty good plan. No telling what you may stir up. But where do I come in?”
“Why, the office of the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles is in Hartford, you know, of course, and it won’t be open till nine in the morning. I thought that you, being the president of the New Canaan Bank, might have a drag with some of the politicians up there in the capitol, and that they might arrange it so you could get the information we want tonight. If you could do that, and ’phone it on to me, then Osceola and I might be able to get the jump on them, do you see? It’s not likely the owner of the car guesses that the girls took his license number this morning, especially as we did nothing about it right away. I’ll admit that that was an error on our part, but we hadn’t any idea of what we were up against then.”
“Don’t let that worry you,” replied Dorothy’s father. “You’ve done splendidly—you’ve figured a logical why-and-wherefor to this business, and that’s a piece of constructive work. What are you doing now?”
“I’ve come over here to put on some clothes, sir. I’m still wearing pajamas—”
“I see. By the way, what’s that license number?”
Bill gave it to him.
“All right. Now go ahead and get dressed, then wait at your house until you hear from me. It won’t be long, because it happens that the State Commissioner of Motor Vehicles is an old friend of mine. We played golf together this afternoon. I’ll have the name and address of that car owner for you in short order.”
He rang off and Bill hung up the receiver. He put on a bath robe and slipped his feet into a pair of moccasins. Then he went downstairs and out to the garage. There he saw to it that the gas tank of his own car, a high-powered sport coupe, was full, drove it round to the front door and went up to his room again.
When he was completely dressed he went downstairs. He was beginning to feel hungry, and the prospect of a motor trip with no breakfast at the end of it made the idea of food all the more interesting. After he had cooked a substantial meal of bacon, eggs, and coffee, and had consumed every particle of it, he felt decidedly better and more in the mood to carry on at this early hour.
Then he went into the living room and threw himself down on a large divan, where he relaxed tired muscles and brought his mind to bear on the matter of the winged cartwheels. Perhaps a quarter of an hour had gone by, when he sprang up and went into his father’s study. The telephone bell was jangling loudly.
“That you, Bill?” He recognized the voice as Mr. Dixon’s.
“Speaking, sir.”
“Well, I rang up the commissioner and here’s the car owner’s name. He is a Serge Kolinski, a naturalized Pole, and he has a house in Sherman Township, Connecticut. Do you know where that is?”
“Why, yes—the field where we picnicked is not so far from Sherman.”
“Well, this time you’d better run up there by motor. It will be handier for getting round than a plane, and a car may be more useful to you. Do you happen to know where the old Heartfield’s Club is?”
“No, I don’t. But I’ll find it.”
“Here are your directions. When you get to Danbury, take Route 136, going north. About twelve or thirteen miles farther on, you’ll find that the road winds through a narrow valley. Where the valley widens out you’ll see a large square white house on the right, and a red barn behind it. That is the old clubhouse. You can’t miss it, for it’s the only house near the road in that part of the valley. The club itself no longer exists. It failed financially a few years ago.”
“Then the club house is shut up?”
“No, it’s not. A chap named Davis and his sister have rented the place for the summer. But what I want to say is this: on the side of the hill above the club house are several houses, built by members when the club was flourishing. Mr. Kolinski has rented one of them and is living there. Knock up Davis, who is by way of being a solid citizen, and he can tell you which is the Kolinski bungalow.”
“Thanks very much,” said Bill. “We’ll get under way at once.”
“Now hold on, young man. There’s something else. I’m driving over there myself, and with me will be two other cars filled with state police. Deborah Lightfoot is Dorothy’s guest, and very naturally, I intend to be in on this. You will, of course, arrive at Heartfield’s before I do. Get a line on Kolinski, and do a bit of reconnoitering, if you like, but don’t start any offensive until we come. Those are orders, remember.”
“Suppose,” argued Bill, “that Deborah’s at Kolinski’s, and we see her being transferred to some other hiding place?”
“Use your own judgment in that case, my lad. The object is to get Deborah back, unharmed, of course. But you’ve evidently got a first class thug to deal with. And by the way, get one of your friends to stay in the house with Dorothy, if you possibly can. The thought of leaving her there worries me.”
“That will be taken care of,” returned Bill. “The New Canaan police have been notified. They are probably across the road now. I’ll see that she is well guarded.”
“Thanks, Bill. Good luck—and be careful.”
“I will—see you at Heartfield’s, sir.”
Bill hung up the receiver and went out to his car. He was surprised to find that it was raining.
Bill’s car sped into the sleeping town of Danbury. It splashed through the rain along streets where the lights ran together in golden pools. The swish of the water flying gutterwards was like the sound of the sea.
Bill spoke to Osceola: “There’s a dog wagon open,” and he pointed to a lighted sign. “Better eat. I had breakfast while I waited for the dope from Mr. Dixon.”
“If you had, no need of stopping then. Dorothy fed me before I left. I meant to ask you if you wanted anything, but this news from Mr. Dixon took it out of my head. There’s a sign that says Route 136—guess that’s our road.”
Five miles north of Danbury the rain slackened and finally stopped. The cool wind of early dawn sprang up and by the time they started to climb the winding turns of the Heartfield’s Valley, every cloud had been blown out of the sky. The east was painted a faint grayish pink as they roared into a straightaway between the wooded hills. Then the valley opened out, the road hugging the base of the hill on their left, while on the right wide meadows spread a carpet of high grasses that reached to the foot of the opposite hillside.
Half a mile further on, they came upon the old club house, set back from the highway in a group of fine elms. Here some attempt had been made to fashion a lawn, but as they swung up the rough drive, Bill noticed that the house was badly in need of paint and repair. He drew up at the side of the house, facing the red barn and an extensive apple orchard whose gnarled trees had not felt the pruning knife for many years. There appeared to be no bell, so Bill rapped sharply on the side door.
“Hello!” A man’s voice answered from behind a window screen just above. “What do you want down there?”
“Mr. Davis?” Bill stepped back a few paces so that he could get a better view of the window.
“That’s me,” said the owner of the voice, and yawned prodigiously.
“Mr. Dixon, the New Canaan banker, sent me up here to get some information from you, sir.”
“Wait a minute—I’ll come down.”
Osceola got out of the car and walked over to Bill. “How much are you going to tell him?” he asked in a low tone.
“Mr. Dixon said he was O.K.” Bill answered quietly. “Wait till he comes out. We’ll size him up for ourselves.”
The side door opened and a heavy set man with gray hair, arrayed in khaki trousers, a pajama jacket, and slippers, came out to meet them.
“Well, you are early callers,” he said jovially, “the New Canaan bank has a lien on this place, of course. I hope you haven’t come to turn me out?”
“Oh, nothing like that, sir,” smiled Bill. “We merely want some information, as I said before.”
Mr. Davis looked relieved. “You see,” he explained, “I’m a stockholder in the old club, so I have as much right to live here as anybody, I suppose. My business went pot last spring, so my sister and I are camping out here for the summer. I notified the receiver of the property, and as he said nothing about rent, I haven’t paid any.”
“We have nothing to do with the receivership, so set your mind at rest about that. My name is Bolton, and this is Chief Osceola of the Seminole Nation.”
“Why, this is an unexpected pleasure,” beamed Mr. Davis, as they shook hands. “You’re the two young fellows we’ve been reading about in the papers all summer. Don’t tell me you’re on the track of more slavers or pirates up here in this quiet spot?”
“Do you know a man named Kolinski, a Pole, I think he is?”
“Why, yes, I do, though not well. He’s rented the Landons’ cabin for the season. That’s the one right up the hill here, back of the barn.”
“Then he’s not a particular friend of yours?”
Mr. Davis’ eyes twinkled. “Well, hardly,” he returned with a shake of his head. “Kolinski is hardly what one would call a good mixer. He parks his car in the barn here—the hill is too steep and the path too narrow to drive up—and he seems to be a rather surly sort of chap. What he and the man who is his servant do with their time, I’m sure I can’t imagine. We have a nodding acquaintance, that’s about all. So I’m afraid that the little I know about him won’t help you much. But I don’t mind saying frankly that I don’t like the looks of him, nor of his man. He’s a shifty-eyed individual, and on the few occasions we’ve spoken I’ve caught him in a couple of lies about small matters that really didn’t amount to a hill of beans. If he’s trying to swing a loan from Mr. Dixon’s bank,—well, I’d want to be mighty sure of his collateral.” Mr. Davis pulled out a briar pipe and proceeded to tamp in tobacco from a pouch.
“Do you happen to know whether he is in his house now?” Osceola spoke for the first time.
“No, I don’t think so, because his car isn’t in the barn. The one you see there belongs to me.”
Osceola gave Bill a meaning look. “It is the car—or rather its license—that brought us up here,” he went on. “About two o’clock this morning, my fiancee, Deborah Lightfoot, was kidnapped from Mr. Dixon’s residence in New Canaan. The kidnappers were forced to leave their car behind, and we have learned that it belongs to your neighbor, Mr. Kolinski. There were evidently two groups, and the first got away with Deborah in one car, but we arrived in time to forestall the others, though we weren’t able to capture them and they got away on foot.”
“What a dastardly business!” exploded Mr. Davis. “And you say Kolinski’s car was left behind?”
“Yes, Mr. Dixon, who was in Hartford at the time, is on his way over here with a cordon of state police. They ought to arrive within an hour or so.”
“Have you fellows got guns?”
Bill patted the holster under his left arm. “We have—and there are a couple of rifles in my car.”
“Wait till I get mine and slip on a pair of boots—” Mr. Davis made for the house. “I’m going up the hill with you.”
“He’s a good hombre!” declared Osceola to Bill, as Davis disappeared.
“He is that! Let’s corral the rifles.”
In a very few minutes, Davis reappeared. The only visible change in his costume consisted of a pair of high trapper’s boots laced to the knee. He wore a cartridge belt slung over one shoulder, and in the hollow of his right arm he carried a repeating rifle.
“Come along—” he led them down a path which cut a narrow swath through the field behind the house. “Maybe our friends are up there in the cabin and maybe they’re not. My sister tells me she heard a car stop out on the road a couple of hours ago, but she didn’t get out of bed to see who it might be. It was raining hard then, and as you aviators say, the visibility was poor. She didn’t hear anybody walk up the drive past the house, though.”
“They could have cut round the house and climbed the hill from a point farther up or down the valley—that is, if they were trying to establish an alibi—and if we find them at home, after all,” suggested Bill.
“Then,” said Osceola, who was bringing up the rear, “those guys had a good long way to hoof it.”
“How come?”
“Swamps. Down at the foot of this meadow, and as far as you can see along the valley.”
“That’s right,” agreed Mr. Davis. “Any other way but this would add at least three miles to their hike. That broad, sluggish stream ahead of us runs the full length of the swamp and only partly drains it. The bridge at the end of this path is the only way across.”
“Is that the house, half way up the hillside in that grove of trees and underbrush?” inquired Osceola.
“You’ve got good eyes to spot it at this time o’ day,” said their guide. “No—that house belongs to a man named Kennedy, although it is empty at present. Kolinski’s cabin is higher up and over to the left.”
Still in single file they passed onto a corduroy trail through the swamp and over the bridge. On the farther side, the ground rose steeply. A few yards beyond they came to a fork in the path.
“Take the left to Kolinski’s—” announced Mr. Davis. He stopped and turned to the lads. “My plan is to take this right hand path to Kennedy’s and up through the woods. In that way we can make a half circle so as to come down on Kolinski’s place from above and be under cover the whole way. We’ll have broad daylight to contend with by the time we get there. If we go direct, anybody in the house can see us pretty well the whole distance up the hill. What do you say?”
“I think that’s a first rate idea,” said Bill.
“The only thing to do,” agreed Osceola. “Surprise is half the battle on a job like this. If you two don’t mind, I’ll scout on ahead. Wait in the woods a hundred yards above Kolinski’s for me. I want to take a look-see, but you palefaces make too much noise going through underbrush!”
With a low chuckle, he darted up the path at a sharp trot and disappeared among the alders like a wraith in the half-light and quite as silently.
“That pace would kill me in fifty yards, going up hill,” admitted Mr. Davis, as they trudged in the direction Osceola had taken. “Is your friend really an Indian, Mr. Bolton? He looks no darker to me than a well tanned Spaniard or South American.”
“Oh, he’s a real live redskin, all right. But a great many of them aren’t noticeably different in coloring from a lot of us so-called Americans, you know. Osceola was born to the chieftainship of his clan. Last year, although only twenty, he was unanimously elected the Great Sachem of the entire Seminole Nation. He is one of the finest fellows I’ve ever met. I only wish I had half his talents or knowledge. He’s a senior at Carlisle this year, although he’s not going back. His fiancee, the girl who’s been kidnapped, is Chieftainess of another clan of the Seminoles. She is a college graduate, by the way, and a most charming person.”
“Well, you certainly have interesting friends—and you yourself have done more interesting things than most men meet up with in a lifetime,” contended Mr. Davis. “How old are you, may I ask?”
“Seventeen on the second of this month.”
“You don’t say! Remarkable—my word, when I was your age, I was still tied to apron-strings, and stayed tied to them most of my life. Now, that house just ahead is Kennedy’s. The path ends here. We’ll take to the woods, and I’ll do my best not to disgrace myself in the underbrush!”
Bill soon realized that Mr. Davis was a trained woodsman. Not a twig cracked as they pushed their way up the steep hill through a thick growth of young trees and bushes that in places became a veritable jungle.
It was bright daylight when they swung round to the left and came down the hill again to a shallow ravine some distance above the Kolinski cabin. As the two dropped down on the short grass, hot and nearly winded, Osceola slid from behind a tree trunk.
“Any luck?” whispered Bill.
“No,” replied the Seminole gloomily. “We’ve had this hike for nothing. There’s nobody in the cabin.”
“Well, that certainly is disappointing.” Mr. Davis wiped the perspiration from his brow. “I suppose you made absolutely sure?”
Osceola nodded. “A window was open in one of the bedrooms. I went in and went through all four rooms and the cellar. What’s more, when they left, they took their clothes and papers with them. Not a sign of either in the house. I don’t think they’ve been up here since early yesterday evening.”
Mr. Davis looked surprised. “How can you place the time?”
“In several ways. If they had taken a lot of stuff down the hill in daylight, the chances are that you or your sister would have seen them. We know that Kolinski and probably his man as well were in New Canaan at two this morning, and that is thirty-five miles from here. Though there’s plenty of dust in that house, I saw no particles of mud either on the mat inside the door or on the floors.”
“So we’re just about where we were before we started on this wildgoose chase,” proclaimed Bill wearily.
“Hardly that, Bill,” protested Davis. “We’ve got one more bet in this neck of the woods.”
“What?” Bill and Osceola stared at him. Mr. Davis got to his feet.
“Come along. We’ve got to go down to the club house. I’ll tell you about it as we go.”
They had passed Kolinski’s cabin, a one-storied house solidly built of native stone, and struck off down the path toward the bridge before Davis spoke again.
“I don’t want to raise false hopes,” he said, “and this hunch may come to a dead end, too. But here it is for what it’s worth. I was trying to remember if I had ever heard the couple’s name, but I’m sure I haven’t. Half a mile up the valley road from my quarters you come to an abandoned mill on the other side of the highway. The place has an old wheel and stands beside a stream that rushes down a gorge in the hillside. You can see from here that the hill opposite is much higher and steeper than this one. The only path up there is the trail that starts at the mill and runs along the side of the gorge. The stream is the outlet for a small lake up there on the plateau and drops down the gorge in a series of very beautiful falls. The lake and the woods are off the Heartfield’s Club property. They belong to an estate with a good-sized house on it, about half a mile beyond the falls. There’s a sort of path round the lake, I believe, that joins a path leading up to the house from the farther shore. I haven’t been up there for years, but I distinctly remember the woods round the lake were swampy. However, when the last owner bought it, he put a high wire deer fence around his land to prevent trespassing. This club was in full swing then, so you can hardly blame him. But no one has lived there for the last few years. I heard over in Sherman that the whole place, house, land, lake and everything, had been bought by a foreign couple who had moved in. Timkins, in New Milford, brought their furniture over there from the railroad, and there was an awful lot of it, he said. Most of the stuff was packed in big cases and enormously heavy. You see,” he said, as they reached the bridge, “I’m trying to give you every bit of information I can about that place beyond the falls, and the reason is this: several times during the last three weeks, I have seen both Kolinski and his man going up and coming down that path by the mill. Either they had been enjoying the beauty of the falls, which I doubt, or—they’d been visiting the owners of that estate!”