SHOTS ON THE HIGHWAY
“Yes, I thought you’d turn up again,” repeated Diker. Jerry felt the
man’s hand tighten on his arm. “You twins seem to have a habit of
popping into sight when least expected. The question is, which one are
you?”
Jerry did not answer.
“Well, that’s easily found out,” his captor went on. “I don’t know how
or when you got away, but if you were with Burk when the dogs made him
take to water, your legs ought to be wet. They’re not. Therefore, we’ll
get your brother when we get Burk.” He raised his voice to speak to the
man at Jerry’s left. “See, Warden—I told you this was one of ’em. Good
thing I spotted him when he was topping that fence, eh? Well, now Frank
can step on the gas. The others may be ahead of us, or they may be
behind, but sooner or later, we’ll get ’em!”
The jolly-looking man at Jerry’s left now put in a word. “What was the
big idea, son?” he asked. “I’d think you were old enough to know better
than to trifle with the law, and help a convict get away. All your
leaders back there at the camp are worried to death about you kids.
Didn’t you think of that? Where were you trying to go?”
“Anyone would have done the same thing!” Jerry burst out at last. “Burk
told us he wasn’t guilty, and we wanted to help him!”
The jolly man smiled, looking jollier than ever. “My boy, I’ve been a
prison warden for twelve years, and I’ve never had a man in my charge
who’d admit he was guilty! Innocent men, every one of them—to hear them
tell it.”
Jerry, in his efforts to show Burk’s innocence, forgot himself. “Let him
stay free a little longer, and he’ll prove he’s not guilty!”
“Oh, he will, will he?” the man said sharply. “How will he do that?”
The boy realized that he had said more than enough. He sank back in his
seat. But Diker, it seemed, was not through with his questions.
“How’d you get down here to town so quickly?” he asked. Jerry shook his
head. “Won’t, tell anything, eh? Well, we’ll find out all about it
later. I don’t think you know where the others are anyway. You’re just
like the skinny lad we treed up in the hills.”
“Sherlock?”
“That his name? He wouldn’t say a word to us—all he did was sneeze. I
left Harris to take him along back. We got him, and now we’ve got
you—and the rest of the crowd can’t be far away.”
The car slowed to a halt at a crossroads, where a motorcycle policeman
in the khaki uniform of a state officer sat vigilantly astride his
machine. Diker jumped out, and ran across to the man, hailing him as he
came.
“See anything?” he asked.
The man in khaki shook his head. “Nothing unusual. I’d swear they
haven’t come along this way.”
“Well, keep your eyes open,” he was admonished. “That plane up there
will keep them from bolting toward the hills again. So long!”
Diker jumped back into his seat, and again the car slid forward. Twice
more, as the miles went by, it stopped at the side of the road, and
Diker spoke to men who seemed to be posted on guard. Once, they passed a
car drawn up by the side of the road. It was a queer-looking affair,
Jerry noted, with a canvas top like a prairie schooner, and a chubby
little man who looked like a foreigner was pumping up a tire. They drove
by this roadside scene so rapidly, however, that Jerry could not make
out any details.
Some time in the middle of the afternoon, the big car drew up in front
of the post-office of a little hamlet about fifteen miles south of
Wallistown. The driver got out and entered a small restaurant whose sign
proclaimed it the “Apple Hill Cafe—Tourists a Speciality”; he returned
with an armful of sandwiches and four bottles of pop. Diker waved to
Jerry to share this sketchy repast, and the boy was too famished to
refuse, since his only previous nourishment that day had been a few
elderberries, hours and hours before. He put away three ham sandwiches
in almost no time at all, and started to demolish one of the large
apples which the driver, whose name was Frank something-or-other, had
brought out in his pockets.
“Well, Warden,” said Diker conversationally, taking a long pull at his
bottle of pop, “they surely couldn’t have gotten this far down in the
time since we know they got ashore up by Wallistown. Either they’re off
the road altogether, or else we’ve slipped up somehow. I guess we’ll
have to turn back. Shame to make you waste time on the chase this way,
but you know how it is.”
“Burk used to live down this way, didn’t he?” asked the jolly-faced
warden. “He’ll know his way around now, if he’s gotten this far. No; I
don’t mind taking the time to end off this affair properly. I’m curious
to find out what our friend Burk is trying to do.”
“If you’re ready to start back then, we’ll go.” Diker motioned to the
driver, who circled around the Apple Hill Post-Office, and the car
started on the return journey.
About two miles out of Apple Hill, Frank slammed on the brakes. A man
stood in the center of the road, waving at them. Jerry recognized him as
one of the watchers they had spoken to on the journey down; a
farmerish-looking man who seemed to be some sort of constable. Without
delay, he ran to the side of the car, and hurriedly addressed the prison
guard. “Jest got a telephone call from the police-station in
Wallistown,” was his message. “They been inquirin’ around like, and
found a feller who was workin’ over on the side of the lake where your
man was seen to land from a canoe. This feller—road-mender, he is—was
workin’ by the side of the highway, and noticed some sort of outlandish
automobile stopped there for quite a while. He didn’t see nothin’ of
this convict feller, but he says if ye can find this queer auto, the
feller drivin’ might know somethin’ to help.”
“What did this car look like?” asked the warden.
“Like nothin’ else in the world, seems like. Said it had a canvas top,
like a Conestoga wagon, all fixed up to live in—the driver was a fat
little feller that looked like a wop, and he had his missus along. Catch
that pair, and mebbe they’ll tell you somethin’ ye ought to know!”
“We passed that outfit up the road—remember?” burst out Diker. “Full
speed ahead, Frank! They were fixin’ up a tire when I saw ’em—they can’t
be very far from here! And pass me that gun of mine.”
Frank carefully passed Diker’s shotgun over the back of his seat, and
the car roared ahead. Jerry peered forward with the rest. He had seen
that caravan and its funny little owner. Did he know anything about Jake
and Burk? Was it even possible that——
They rounded a sharp bend in the road. “There it is!” whooped Diker.
“Draw up beside them, and we’ll see what they know!” Again the driver
slammed on the brakes, and the car screamed to a halt a few yards ahead
of the oncoming van. Diker jumped out, shotgun in hand, and stood in
front of the strange canvas-covered car. “Halt, in the name of the law!”
The caravan shivered to a rattling stop. The dark, fat couple on the
seat began jabbering at each other in some outlandish tongue.
“Never mind that!” came Diker’s command. “Come down here in the road!
Now, I just want you to answer a few questions—— Quiet! How do you
expect me to talk when you’re gabblin’ like a bunch of turkeys?”
“What ees it you do, Meester?”
“Come down, I say! That’s right—now bring the lady.” Diker turned to his
chief. “I’ll bring ’em over to you, Warden, so you can ask ’em anything
you like. Over here, please! Gypsies, aren’t you?”
Jerry, from his seat in the car, could look down upon the heads of the
two dark little people who were now lost in the cross-fire of questions
put to them by Diker and the warden.
“Now, you stopped up by Lake Wallis a few hours ago. We’re looking for a
man, a convict, who has escaped and who was last seen at the place you
stopped. Know anything about him?”
The little man almost had tears in his large rolling black eyes. “Ah,
Meester, I have hear of that wicked man! No, thanks to the saints I have
seen no wicked man—eh, Maria?”
His gestures were comical, but Jerry Utway was not watching. Did his
eyes deceive him, or was there a ripple of movement behind the canvas
top of the other car? Was it really true that Jake and the man Burk
were——
“No,” the little stranger went on; “there was no wicked man. But—wait a
meenit—there was a very good man, a good man who help me poosh—and a
very good leetle boy——”
Jerry, who had not taken his eyes from the opening in the canvas front
of the caravan, bit his lip to keep from shouting. For an instant, he
had seen a pale face peeping out there, and it was Jake’s face! They
were in that car, hiding under the canvas top! In another second the
fat, voluble little man would give them away, and then it would be all
over!
Diker shifted his gun. “A man and a boy?” he cried. “Where are they
now?”
Jerry saw his chance. All eyes were upon the strange couple. With a
swift movement, he leaned forward, over the driver’s shoulder. The keys
to the ignition were still in the lock on the dashboard. Deftly he
switched them off, and threw the bunch of keys as far as he could into
the bushes on the other side of the road!
The men of the law, intent on their questioning, had been taken off
guard. For a moment they did not comprehend what had happened; and in
that moment Jerry Utway screamed his warning.
“_Drive ahead, Jakie—drive!_”
He felt the warden’s arms about him; he could not move. The driver
shouted: “He chucked away the keys!” and jumped out of the car,
colliding with the bewildered Diker. A motor whirred noisily; the
ungainly caravan lurched slowly forward. And Jake, good old Jakie, was
bending over the wheel, driving for dear life!
“_Drive!_”
The man called Frank was trying to disentangle himself from Diker’s
arms, still shouting: “He chucked away the keys! We can’t chase them
until we get those keys!” Diker fought his way free, bumped into the
fat, frightened-looking dark man, and at last got clear. He started to
run up the road in the wake of the caravan, which had slowly gained
speed and was rattling south at a good rate. Seeing that he could not
hope to overtake the car on foot, he stopped short, yelled a final
command to halt, and clapped his gun to his shoulder.
“_Duck!_” shrieked Jerry, and felt the warden’s hand clapped over his
mouth. A double explosion boomed from the road. Diker had fired both
barrels. Jerry’s eyes hurt as he strained to see through the smoke. The
caravan jerked an instant, then moved on, gathered speed, and
disappeared from view at a curve in the road.