THE BLACK SHACK
As Johnny gave the pole at the side of the boat a vigorous shove, then
another and another, he found no time for thoughts other than directing
the silent maneuvering of his clumsy bark. A prod or two on this side,
then as the boat swung to the right the same number of pokes on the other
side, and he moved silently down the narrow channel. A division in the
narrow course was greeted with delight. If the man who had fired that
shot was following he could not follow both channels at once.
“That gives me a fifty-fifty chance of escape,” Johnny thought as he
chose the right fork.
It is hard work, this poling a boat while lying flat on one’s back.
Johnny found himself perspiring at every pore. Yet he persevered, and his
perseverence was rewarded for, as he moved slowly forward, he came to a
place where the channel was cut squarely across by another.
“A four corners,” he rejoiced. “I might go straight ahead, or to the
right or left. The natural thing to do would be to turn right, so I go
left.”
Skilfully he maneuvered the turn and went gliding down the new channel.
Ten minutes later, still lying on his back and looking up at the clouds,
he lifted his pole without a sound into the boat and then allowed himself
time to think matters through.
Who was this intruder upon his privacy; this would-be killer? What had
been his motive? Was he connected with the firebug affair? It would seem
so, for in this city Johnny had not gone against the wishes of anyone
save that firebug.
“Well, old boy,” he whispered, setting his teeth tight, “you’ll not get
me, and what’s more, give me time and I’ll bring your dishonorable
occupation to a sudden halt. See if I don’t!”
For a time after that he lay there looking up at the slow moving clouds,
but they brought him no peace. He was annoyed at the situation that had
so suddenly presented itself. He had come here to think things through;
yet how does one dare to engage in an all absorbing chain of thought when
at any moment some form of craft may come gliding in upon him and—bam!
his head is blown off!
Manifestly there was no thinking to be done. What then was to be his
course?
“Shall I lie here baking in the sun till dark, then sneak away home?
Hanged if I do!” he exploded almost out loud. “This channel has some sort
of an end that brings a fellow to shore. I’ll poke along down it and when
I’m there I’ll make a break for it.”
In this undertaking he was more fortunate than he had hoped. He had not
poled himself a hundred rods when he came to the piers of a low railroad
bridge that crossed the swamp.
“Huh, easy enough,” he breathed.
Sitting up, he drove his boat under the bridge and out on the other side.
After that, knowing that the embankment must hide him from the enemy if
he were still on the marsh, he stood boldly up, poled his boat to shore,
drew her up beside the railway, then crept up the bank to peer over at
the other half of the marsh. He was now well above the tops of the rushes
and could plainly see every foot of the marsh.
“Huh, fellow’d say I dreamed all that,” he grunted. The place was
completely deserted. Even the black birds were gone.
Off on the far side of the marsh he made out a shack he had never seen
there before. A rude black frame set on posts, it seemed oddly like some
dark ghost of a house that had walked to the edge of the swamp in the
hope of seeing its reflection in the water.
“I wonder if that shack’s got anything to do with—anything,” he mused.
Even as he thought this a man came out of the place and walking around a
corner of the house disappeared at the back. He was a large man; that
Johnny could tell plainly enough. And it seemed that the man limped
slightly. But of that he could not be sure, the distance being too great.
It was a thoughtful Johnny who walked back down the track to the nearest
station, then took the train for the city. Matters were getting serious,
very serious indeed, and he had not thought things through at all.
“I must go over to the scene of that last fire,” he told himself. “Do it
as soon as I get to the city. May learn something there.”
He did go there. It was night when he arrived. The great, black, burned
out skeleton of the Simons Building loomed above him as he searched, and
its vacant window holes stared at him like the empty sockets of a skull.
Somehow they seemed to accuse him of slowness and stupidity. He fairly
flinched beneath their stare.
His search did not last long. Where the office of the one time recreation
center had been was now a twenty foot pile of smouldering rafters,
plaster and brick.
“Nothing to be learned there,” he murmured as he turned away.
At that same moment he caught sight of a dark shadow that flitted past
the corner of the Simons skeleton, and after that he distinctly caught a
chuckle which ended in well formed words:
“This is only the beginning.”
Johnny shuddered. But courage did not desert him. With a dash he was
around that corner. His bravery was to no avail. If there had been a
figure there other than a ghost, it had vanished. Nor did a careful
search reveal any living creature.
“Only the beginning,” he murmured at last. “This calls for hustle. In the
future I shall use different methods. If I see a suspicious character,
the pink-eyed man or the man with hooked nose and limp, I shall have him
arrested and look for a reason after. But maybe I won’t see them again.”
That night brought good fortune. As the clock struck twelve, Johnny was
walking through the zoological garden and there, quite by chance, ran
square into what was to prove to be one of the most spectacular fires of
history.
“Fire! Fire! Fire!” came ringing out upon the night.
One sweep of the horizon, then a surprised exclamation escaped Johnny’s
lips. “The Zoo is on fire!” He then made a dash for it.
Fortunately he was not far away; most opportune, too, was the fact that
he knew a great deal about the Zoo. Endowed with a natural interest in
all living creatures, especially those of strange lands, he had many
times visited this particular place.
He knew at a glance just where the fire had its origin. The building was
extremely long and low. Birds and beasts were arranged in order according
to size. First the monkeys, then wolves, hyena and the like; then lions,
tigers and all other large creatures. At the extreme west end were two
large rooms inhabited by no living thing. One room was a sort of office
used by the keeper and the other a store room for a great quantity of
material of anthropological interest, mostly from the Arctic. This
material, no longer upon display, lay heaped pile upon pile; garments,
blankets, spears, harpoons—all dry as dust and food for flames. It was in
this store room that the fire was already fiercely raging.
“Perhaps there is yet time,” Johnny panted as he came racing up.
“Time for what?” demanded a policeman who had arrived before him.
“Where’s the fire department?”
“They’ll be here in a moment.” Johnny tried the office door. It was
locked. With a spring he was away, then back, shoulder first, at the door
with a blow that splintered a panel.
“Here, don’t do that!” shouted the policeman, springing forward.
He was a second too late, for Johnny had once more rammed the door. The
door went in, and he with it.
The thing he did then would have seemed strange had there been anyone by
to see it. The fire, already bursting through the partitions, scorched
his face and hands, but into the smoke he plunged, to drag away, not some
object of great value, but a very ordinary desk telephone. Gripping the
wires of the phone he yanked them free, then with this trophy under his
arm he made a dash for safety.
Under the screen of smoke he escaped the eye of the policeman. Having
hurried to the edge of some bushes, he examined the thing under his arm
for a moment, then with a grumbled: “I thought so,” began coiling the
wire about the phone.
Having done this, he shoved the whole affair far under the bushes, then
turned his face again toward the fire.
By this time the tumult was appalling. Vying with the shrill scream of
approaching fire sirens and the clamor of gongs, was the mad roar of
frightened lions and tigers, while above it all sounded the wild
trumpeting of the elephants.
“It’s going to be a terrible fire,” Johnny shivered. “Too terrible to
tell.”
At that moment he darted suddenly forward. He felt sure he had recognized
a familiar stooping figure in the gathering throng. Johnny had decided
that it was about time to begin making a few arrests and ask questions
later.