THE THROWER OF STONES
An icy chill, as of a great gust of wind, swept through and over
Courtney Thane. His mouth seemed suddenly to fill with water. He
could not move. The men by the forge ran swiftly down the hill. The
tall woman turned and after a moment followed the men, stopping in
the middle of the road a few rods above the landing. She was still
standing there when Courtney recovering his power of locomotion
struck off rapidly in the direction of Dowd's Tavern. Halfway home
he came to an abrupt halt. An inexplicable irresistible force was
drawing his mind and body back to the river's edge. He did not want
to go back there and see--Rosabel. He tried not to turn his steps
in that direction, and yet something like a magnet was dragging
him. A sort of fascination,--the fascination that goes with dread,
and horror, and revulsion--took hold of him....He moved slowly,
hesitatingly at first, then swiftly, not directly back over the
ground he had just covered but by a circuitous route that took him
through the lot at the rear of the forge. He made his way stealthily
down the slope, creeping along behind a thick hedge of hazel brush
to a point just above the ferry landing and to the left of the old
dilapidated wharf. Here he could see without himself being seen....
He watched them lift a dark, inanimate object from the boat and
lay it on the wharf....He heard men's voices in excited, subdued
conversation....He saw the tall woman running up the road toward
the town. She paused within a dozen feet of his hiding place....
Then something happened to him. He seemed to be losing the sense
of sight and the sense of hearing. His brain was blurred, the sound
of voices trailed off into utter silence. He felt the earth giving
way beneath his quaking knees....The next he knew, men's voices
fell upon his dull, uncomprehending ears. Gradually his senses
returned. Out of the confused jumble words took shape. He heard
his own name mentioned. Instantly his every faculty was alive.
Through the brush he could see the dark, indistinct forms of three
or four men. They were in the road just below him.
"You shouldn't have let him out of your sight," one of the men was
saying. "Hang it all, we can't let him give us the slip now."
The listener's eyes, sharpened by anxiety, made out the figure of
the woman. She spoke,--and he was startled to hear the deep voice
of a man.
"He was making for the boarding house. Webster says he is not in
his room. I took it for granted he was going home or I wouldn't
have turned back."
Where had he heard that voice before? It was strangely familiar.
"Well, we've got to locate him. I'll stake my life he is George
Ritchie. I compared this snap-shot with the photograph I have with
me. Shave off that dinky little moustache and I'll bet a hundred
to one you'll have Ritchie's mug all right. Hustle back there,
Gilfillan,--you and Simons. He'll be turning up at the house unless
he's got wind of us. Don't let him see you. You stay here with me,
Constable. The chances are he'll come back here to wait for Miss
Crown, if he's as badly stuck on her as you say, Gilfillan. They're
all fools about women."
The hidden listener was no longer quaking. His body was tense, his
mind was working like lightning. He was wide awake, alert; the
fingers that clutched the weapon in his pocket were firm and steady;
he scarcely breathed for fear of betraying his presence, but the
courage of the hunted was in his heart.
The little group broke up. Constable Foss and one of the strangers
remained on the spot, the others vanished up the road. He glanced
over his shoulder in the direction of the wharf. A long dark object
was lying near the edge, while some distance away a small knot of
men stood talking. The moon, riding high, cast a cold, sickly light
upon the scene.
"I've always been kind of suspicious of him," Foss was saying, his
voice lowered. "What did you say his real name is?"
"His real name is Thane, I suppose. I guess there's no doubt about
that. Mind you, I'm not sure he's the man we've been looking for
these last six months, but I'm pretty sure of it. Last February
two men and a woman tried to smuggle a lot of diamonds through the
customs at New York. I'll not go into details now further than to
say they landed from one of the big ocean liners and came within
an ace of getting away with the job. The woman was the leader. She
was nabbed with one of the men at a hotel. The other man got away.
He was on the passenger list as George Ritchie, of Cleveland, Ohio.
The woman had half a dozen photographs of him in her possession.
I've got a copy of one of 'em in my pocket now, and it's so much
like this fellow Thane that you'd swear it was of the same man. This
morning Gilfillan,--that's the Pinkerton man,--telephoned to his
chief in Chicago to notify the federal authorities that he was almost
dead certain that our man was here. He's a wonder at remembering
faces, and he had seen our photographs. Simons and I took the
three o'clock train. Gilfillan met us in the city and brought us
out after we had instructed the police to be ready to help us in
case he got onto us and gave us the slip."
"How much of a reward is offered?" inquired Foss.
"We are not supposed to be rewarded for doing our duty," replied
the Secret Service man curtly. "He got away from us and it's our
business to catch him again. You can bet he's our man. He wouldn't
be hanging around a burg like this for months unless he had a blamed
good reason for keeping out of sight."
"He's been in mighty bad health,--and, if anybody should ask you,
there ain't a healthier place in the world than right here in--"
"It's healthier than most jails," admitted the other with a chuckle.
"Umph!" grunted Mr. Foss, delivering without words a full and
graphic opinion on the subject of humour as it exists in the minds
of people who live in large cities. He chewed for a time in silence.
"What became of the woman and the other man?"
"Oh, they were sent up,--I don't know for how long. They're old hands.
Husband and wife. Steamship gamblers before the war. Fleeced any
number of suckers. She must be a peach, judging from the pictures
I've seen of her. They probably would have got away with this last
job if she and Ritchie hadn't tried to put something over on friend
husband. She had the can all ready to tie to him when he got wise
and laid for her lover with a gun. The revenue people had been
tipped off by agents in Paris and traced the couple to the hotel.
They sprung the trap too soon, however, and the second man got
away."
"Well, I guess there ain't any question but what this feller here
is old Silas Thane's grandson. They say he's the livin' image of
old Silas. So he must have sailed under a false name."
"They usually do," said the other patiently.
"And you want me to arrest him on suspicion, eh?"
"Certainly. You're a county official, aren't you?"
"I'm an officer of the law."
"Well, that's the answer. We are obliged to turn such matters over
to the local authorities. What do you suppose I'm telling you about
the case for? When I give the word, you land him and--well, Uncle
Sam will do the rest, never fear."
"That's all right, but supposin' he ain't the man you're after and
he turns around and sues me for false arrest?"
"You can detain anybody on information and belief, my friend. Don't
you know that?"
"Certainly," said Mr. Foss with commendable asperity. "Supposin'
he's got a revolver?"
"He probably has,--but so have we. Don't worry. He won't have a
chance to use it. Hello! Isn't that a man standing up there by that
telephone pole? We'll just stroll up that way. Don't hurry. Keep
cool. Talk about the drowning."
They were halfway up the hill before Courtney moved. Every nerve
was aquiver as he raised himself to his feet and looked cautiously
about. The thing he feared had come to pass, but even as he crouched
there in the shelter of the bushes the means of salvation flashed
through his mind. He realized that the next fifteen or twenty
minutes would convince these dogged, experienced man chasers that
their quarry had "got wind of them" and was in flight. The hunt would
be on in grim earnest; the alarm would go out in all directions.
Men would be watching for him at every cross-roads, every railway
station, every village, and directing the hunt would be--these men
who never give up until they "land" their man.
His only chance lay in keeping under cover for a day or two,--or
even longer,--until the chase went farther afield and he could
take the risk of venturing forth from his hiding place. He had the
place in mind. They would never think of looking for him in that
sinister hole in the wall, Quill's Window! There he could lie in
perfect safety until the coast was clear, and then by night steal
down the river in the wake of pursuit.
Their first thoughts would be of the railroad, the highways and
the city. They would not beat the woods for him. They would cut
off all avenues of escape and set their traps at the end of every
trail, confident that he would walk into them perforce before
another day was done.
Like a ghost he stole across the little clearing that lay between
the road and the willows above the ferry. The snapping of a twig
under his feet, the scuffling of a pebble, the rustling of dead
leaves and grass, the scraping of his garments against weeds and
shrubbery, were sounds that took on the magnitude of ear-splitting
crashes. It was all he could do to keep from breaking into a mad,
reckless dash for the trees at the farther side of this moonlit
stretch. With every cautious, fox-like step, he expected the shout
of alarm to go up from behind, and with that shout he knew restraint
would fail him; he would throw discretion to the winds and bolt
like a frightened rabbit, and the dogs would be at his heels.
He was nearing the trees when he heard some one running in the road,
now a hundred yards behind him. Stooping still lower, he increased
his speed almost to a run. The sound of footsteps ceased abruptly;
the runner had come to a sudden halt. Thane reached the thicket
in another stride or two and paused for a few seconds to listen. A
quick little thrill of relief shot through him. No one was coming
along behind him. The runner, whoever he was, had not seen him; no
cry went up, no loud yell of "There he goes!"
Picking his way carefully down the slope he came to the trail of
the Indians, over which he had trudged recently on his trip to the
great rock. He could tell by the feel of the earth under his feet
that he was on the hard, beaten path by the river's edge. Now he
went forward more rapidly, more confidently. There were times when
he had to cross little moon-streaked openings among the trees, and
at such times he stooped almost to a creeping position.
Occasionally he paused in his flight to listen for sounds of pursuit.
Once his heart seemed to stop beating. He was sure that he heard
footsteps back on the trail behind him. Again, as he drew near the
rock-strewn base of the hill, a sound as of some one scrambling
through the underbrush came to his straining ears, but the noise
ceased even as he stopped to listen. He laughed at his fears. An
echo, no doubt, of his own footsteps; the wind thrashing a broken
limb; the action of the water upon some obstruction along the bank.
Nevertheless he dropped to his hands and knees when he came to the
outlying boulders and jagged slabs close to the foot of the black,
towering mass. There was no protecting foliage here. Never in his
life had he known the moon to shine so brightly. He whispered curses
to the high-hanging lantern in the sky.
The murmur of the river below brought a consoling thought to him.
He would not suffer from thirst. He could go without food for a
couple of days, even longer. Had not certain English women survived
days and days of a voluntary hunger strike? But he could not do
without water. In the black hours before dawn he would climb down
from his eerie den and drink his fill at the river's brink.
Now a sickening fear gripped him. What if he were to find it
impossible to scale that almost perpendicular steep? What if those
hand-hewn clefts in the rock fell short of reaching to the cave's
entrance? The processes of time and the elements may have sealed
or obliterated the shallow hand and toe holds. His blood ran cold.
He had dreaded the prospect of that hazardous climb up the face
of the rock. Now he was overcome by an even greater dread: that he
would be unable to reach the place of refuge.
He had no thought of Alix Crown now--no thought of her beauty, her
body, her riches. His cherished dream was over. She took her place
among other forgotten dreams. The sinister business of saving his
own skin drove her out of his mind. It drove out all thought of
Rosabel Vick. The hounds were at his heels. It was no time to think
of women!
II
Anxiety that touched almost upon despair hastened his steps.
Abandoning caution, he ran recklessly up the path among the rocks,
stumbling and reeling but always keeping his feet, and came at last
to the gloomy, forbidding facade of Quill's Window. Here he groped
along the wall, clawing for the sunken cleats with eager, trembling
hands. He knew they were there--somewhere. Not only had he seen
them, he had climbed with ease, hand over hand, ten or a dozen
feet up the cliff. He had shuddered a little that day as he looked
first over his shoulder and then upward along the still unsealed
stretch that lay between him and the mouth of the cave, seventy
or eighty feet away. But that was in broad daylight. It would be
different now, with darkness as his ally.
He remembered thinking that day how easy it would be to reach
Quill's Window by this rather simple route. All that was required
was a stout heart, a steady hand, and a good pair of arms. All of
these were bestowed upon him by magic of darkness. It was what the
light revealed that made a coward of him. Why, he could shut his
eyes tight and go up that cliff by night as easily as--but where
were the slots?
At last his hand encountered one of the sharp edges. He reached up
and found the next one above,--and then for the first time realized
that his eyes had been closed all the time he was feeling along
the cold surface of the rock. He opened them in a start of actual
bewilderment. The blackish mass rose almost sheer above him, like
a vast wall upon which the moon cast a dull, murky light. He closed
his eyes again and leaned heavily against the rock. His heart began
to beat horribly. He felt his courage slipping; he wondered if he
had the strength, the nerve to go on; he saw himself halfway up that
endless wall, clutching wildly to save himself when a treacherous
hand-hold broke loose and--
He opened his eyes and tried to pierce the shadows below the rocky
path. Was it best to hide in that hole up there, after all? Would
it not be wiser, now that he had a fair start, to keep on up the
river, trusting to--
A chorus of automobile horns in the distance came to his ears
suddenly,--a confused jumble of raucous blasts produced by many
cars. The alarm! The search was on! The wild shriek of a siren
broke the stillness near at hand, followed a few seconds later by
the gradually increasing roar of an engine as it sped up the dirt
road not three hundred yards to his left,--the road that ran past
the gate on the other side of the hill. God! They were getting
close!
Another and even more disturbing sound came to him as he stood with
his fingers gripping one of the little ledges, the toe of his shoe
fumbling for a foothold in another. Somewhere back on the trail he
had just traversed, a rock went clattering down to the river. He
heard it bounding--and the splash as it shot into the water.
He hesitated no longer. Shutting his eyes, he began the ascent....
A dark object turned the corner of the cliff below and moved slowly,
cautiously along the wall. Suddenly it stopped. From somewhere in
the gloom ahead came a strange and puzzling sound, as of the dragging
of a tree limb across the face of the rock. The crouching object
in the trail straightened up and was transformed into the tall,
shadowy figure of a man.
For many seconds he stood motionless, listening, his eyes searching
the trail ahead. The queer sound of scraping went on, broken at
intervals by the faint rattle of sand or dirt upon the rocky path.
At last he looked up. Far up the face of the cliff a bulky, shapeless
thing was crawling, slowly but surely like a great beetle.
The watcher could not believe his eyes. And yet there could be no
mistake. Something WAS crawling up the sheer face of the cliff, a
bulging shadow dimly outlined against the starlit sky.
The man below went forward swiftly. Twice he stooped to search with
eager hands for something at his feet, but always with his gaze
fixed on the creeping shadow. He knew the creeper's goal: that
black streak in the wall above, rendered thin by foreshortening.
He knew the creeper!
Twenty or thirty paces short of the ladder he stopped. From that
spot he hurled his first rock. His was a young, powerful arm and
the missile sped upward as if shot from a catapult. It struck the
face of the cliff a short distance above the head of the climber
and glanced off to go hurtling down among the trees beyond.
Thane stopped as if paralysed. For one brief, horrible moment he
felt every vestige of strength deserting him, oozing out through
his tense, straining finger-tips. The shock had stunned him. He
moaned,--a little whimpering moan. He was about to fall! He could
hold on no longer with those weak, trembling hands. His brain
reeled. A great dizziness seized him. He clung frantically to the
face of the rock, making a desperate effort to regain his failing
senses. Suddenly his strength returned; he was stronger than ever.
A miracle had happened.
The mouth of the cave was not more than half a dozen feet above
him. He opened his eyes for one brief, daring glance upward. Not
more than five or six steps to go. Gritting his teeth he went on.
Now only four more ledges to grip, four more footholds to find.
A second stone whizzed past his head and struck with a crash beyond
him. He heard it whistle, he felt the rush of air.
"God! If that had got my head! What an inhuman devil he is! The
dirty beast!"
The fourth stone caught him in the side after glancing off the wall
to his left. He groaned aloud, but gripped more fiercely than ever
at his slender support. For a few seconds he could not move. Then
he reached up and felt for the next "cleat." He found it but, like
many others he had encountered, it was filled with sand and dirt.
That meant delay. He would have to dig it out with his fingers
before risking his grip on the edge. Fast and feverishly he worked.
Another stone struck below his feet.
"Hey!" he yelled. "Let up on that! Do you want to kill me? Cut it
out! I can't get away, you damned fool! You've got me cornered."
His voice was high and shrill.
The answer was another stone which grazed his leg.
A moment later he reached over and felt along the floor of the cave
for the final hold. Finding it, he drew himself up over the edge
and crawled, weak and half fainting, out of range of the devilish
marksman.
For a long time he lay still, gasping for breath. They had him cold!
There was no use in trying to think of a way out of his difficulty.
All he wanted now was to rest, a chance to pull himself together. After
all was said and done, what were a few years in the penitentiary?
He was young. Five years--even ten,--what were they at his time
of life? He would be thirty-five, at the most forty, when he came
out, and as fit as he was when he went in.
"It was all my fault anyway," he reflected bitterly. "If I had let
Madge alone I--Oh,--what's the use belly-aching now! That's all
over,--and here am I, paying pretty blamed dearly for a month's
pleasure. They've got me. There's no way out of it now. Jail!
Well, worse things could happen than that. What will mother think?
I suppose it will hurt like the devil. But she could have fixed
this if she'd loosened up a bit. She could have gone to Washington
as I told her to do and--hell, it wouldn't have cost her half as
much as it will to defend me in court. She can't get a decent lawyer
under--well, God knows how many thousands."
He sat up and unbuttoned his overcoat in order to feel of the spot
where the stone had struck him. He winced a little. After a moment's
reflection he drew a box of matches from his pocket.
"No harm in striking a match now," he chattered aloud. "I may as
well see what sort of a place it is."
He crawled farther back in the cave, out of the wind, and struck
a match. His hand shook violently, his chin quivered. During the
life of the brief flare, the interior of Quill's Window was revealed
to him. The cave was perhaps twenty feet deep and almost as wide
at the front, with an uneven, receding roof and a flat floor that
dropped at no inconsiderable slant toward the rear. It appeared
to be empty except for the remains of two or three broken-up boxes
over against one of the walls. He struck a second match to light
a cigarette, continuing his scrutiny while the tiny blaze lasted.
He saw no bones, no ghastly skulls, no signs of the ancient tragedies
that made the place abhorrent.
He crawled back to the entrance. Lying flat, he peered over the
ledge.
"Hallo, down there!" he called out. No response. He shouted once
more, his voice cracking a little.
"Where are you?"
This time he got an answer. A hoarse voice replied:
"I'm here, all right."
Thane forced a laugh.
"Well, I'm up here, all right. You've got me treed. What's the
idea? Waiting for me to come down?" No answer, "Say, it's worth a
lot of money to you if you'll just walk on and forget that I'm up
here. I'll give you my word of honour to come across with enough
to put you on easy street for the rest of your life." He heard the
man below walking up and down the path.
"Did you hear what I said? You can't pick up twenty-five thousand
every day, you know." He waited for the response that never came.
"Honesty isn't always the best policy. Think it over." Another long
silence. Then: "I suppose you know the government does not pay any
reward." Still that heavy, steady tread. "If you think I'm going
to come down you're jolly well off your nut." He wriggled nearer
the edge and peered over. The black form shuttled restlessly back
and forth past the foot of the ladder, for all the world like a lion
in its cage. Presently it moved off toward the bend at the corner
of the cliff, where it stopped, still in view of the man above,--a
vague, shapeless object in the faint light of the moon.
Many minutes passed. Ten, fifteen,--they seemed hours to the trapped
fugitive,--and then he heard a voice, suppressed but distinct.
"Who's there?"
There was a moment's silence, and then another voice replied, but
he could not make out the words.
The man stepped out of sight around the bend. A few seconds later,
Thane heard a jumble of voices. Drawing away from the ledge, he
slunk deeper into the cave. He heard some one running along the
trail, and a muffled voice giving directions. He drew a deep, long
breath.
"The death watch, eh?" he muttered. "They're going to sit there
till I have to come out. Like vultures. They haven't the nerve to
come up here after me. The rotten cowards!"
Then he heard something that caused him to start up in a sort of
panic. He stood half erect, crouching back against the wall, his
eyes glued on the opening, his hand fumbling nervously for the
revolver in his pocket.
Some one was climbing up the cliff!