DAYS OF RETRIBUTION.
When Merry had dismissed the men, he turned back into the cabin and sat
down near the table.
"Well, that's the end of that business, Bart," he said.
"Yes," nodded Hodge, sitting opposite. "I congratulate you on the way
you handled those men, Merry. No one else could have done it as well. If
ever I saw a collection of land pirates, it was that bunch."
Frank smiled.
"They were a pretty tough set," he confessed; "but they were just the
men I needed to match the ruffians Sukes set against me."
Milton Sukes was the chief conspirator against Frank in the schemes to
deprive him of the Queen Mystery Mine.
"Sukes will hire no more ruffians," said Hodge.
"I should say not. He has perpetrated his last piece of villainy. He has
gone before the judgment bar on high."
"And the last poor wretch he deluded is an imbecile."
"Poor Worthington!" said Merry. "I fear he will never be right again. It
was his bullet that destroyed Sukes, yet no man can prove it. What he
suffered after that during his flight into the desert, where he nearly
perished for water, completely turned his brain."
"You want to look out for him, Frank. I think he is dangerous."
Merry laughed.
"Ridiculous, Hodge! He is as harmless as a child. When I let him, he
follows me about like a dog."
Even as Frank said this, a crouching figure came creeping to the door
and peered in. It was a man with unshaven, haggard face and eyes from
which the light of reason had fled.
"There he is!" exclaimed this man. "There is my ghost! Do you want me,
ghost?"
"Come in, Worthington!" called Frank.
The man entered hesitatingly and stood near the table, never taking his
eyes from Merry's face for a moment.
"What you command, ghost, I must obey," he said. "You own me, body and
soul. Ha! ha! body and soul! But I have no soul! I bartered it with a
wretch who deceived me! I was an honest man before that! Perhaps you
don't believe me, but I swear I was. You must believe me! It's a
terrible thing to be owned by a ghost who has no confidence in you. But
why should my ghost have confidence! Didn't I deceive him? Didn't I kill
him? I see it now. I see the fire! It is burning--it is burning there!
He has found me as I am setting it. He springs upon me! He is strong--so
strong! Ha! his feet slip! Down he goes! His head strikes! He is
unconscious!"
The wretch seemed living over the terrible experiences through which he
had passed on a certain night in Denver, when he set fire to Merriwell's
office and tried to burn Frank to death. He thought he had accomplished
his purpose, and the appearance of his intended victim alive had turned
his brain.
As he listened Hodge shivered a little.
"Never mind, Worthington," said Frank. "He is all right. He will escape
from the fire."
"No, no, no!" gasped the man, wringing his hands. "See him lying there!
See the fire flashing on his face! See the smoke! It is coming thick. I
must go! I must leave him. It is a fearful thing to do! But if he
escapes he will destroy me. He will send me to prison, and I must leave
him to die!"
He covered his eyes with his hands, as if to shut out a terrible
spectacle.
"No one sees me!" he whispered. "Here are the stairs! It is all
dark--all dark! I must get out quick, before the fire is discovered. I
have done it! I am on the street! I mustn't run! If I run they will
suspect me. I will walk fast--walk fast!"
Merry glanced at Hodge and sadly shook his head.
"Now the engines are coming!" exclaimed the deranged man. "Hear them as
they clang and roar along the streets! See the people run! See the
horses galloping! They are coming to try to put out the fire. What if
they do it in time to save him! Then he will tell them of my treachery!
Then he will send me to prison! I must see--I must know! I must go back
there!"
"He shall not send you to prison, Worthington," asserted Merry
soothingly. "He shall be merciful to you."
"Why should he? Here is the burning building. Here are the engines,
panting and throbbing. See! they pour streams of water on the building.
No use! It is too late; you cannot save him. He is dead long before
this. Who shall say I was to blame? What if they do find his charred
body? No man can prove I had a hand in it. I defy you to prove it!"
Shaking his trembling hands in the air, the wretch almost shrieked these
words.
"This," muttered Bart Hodge, "is retribution."
"I must go away," whispered Worthington. "I must hide where they can't
see me. Look how every one stares at me! They seem to know I have done
it! These infernal lights betray me! I must hide in the darkness. Some
one is following me everywhere. I am afraid of the darkness! I will
always be afraid of the darkness! In the darkness or in the light, there
is no rest for me--no rest! Did you hear that voice? Do you hear? It
accuses me of murder! I am haunted! My God! Haunted, haunted!"
With this heartbroken cry he sank on his knees and crept toward Frank.
"You're the ghost that haunts me!" he exclaimed. "It is my punishment! I
must always be near you, and you must haunt me forever!"
Merry touched him gently.
"Get up, Worthington," he said regretfully. "Your punishment has been
too much. Look at me. Look me straight in the eyes, Worthington. I am
not dead. You didn't kill me."
"No use to tell me that; I know better."
"It is hopeless now, Hodge," said Merry, in a low tone. "The only chance
for him is that time will restore his reason. You may go, Worthington."
"I must stay near by, mustn't I?"
"You may stay outside."
With bowed head and unsteady steps the man left the cabin and
disappeared.
Little Abe had remained speechless and frightened in a corner. Now he
picked up his fiddle, and suddenly from it came a weird melody. It was a
crazy tune, filled with wild fancies and ghostly phantoms.
"He is playing the music of that deranged soul," murmured Frank.
The sound of the fiddle died in a wail, and the boy sat shivering and
silent in the corner.
"This is a little too much of a ghostly thing!" exclaimed Merry as he
arose and shook himself. "Let's talk of something else, Hodge. To-morrow
we start for the Mazatzals, and I have everything ready. If we can
locate that mine, one-half of it is yours."
He took from his pocket a leather case and removed from it a torn and
soiled map, which he spread on the table. Together he and Bart examined
the map once more, as they had done many times before.
"There," said Frank, "is Clear Creek, running down into the Rio Verde.
Somewhere to the northwest of Hawley Peak, as this fellow indicated here
on the map, in the valley shown by this cross, is Benson Clark's claim."
"The location is vaguely marked," said Bart. "We may search for it a
year without discovering it."
"That's true; but we know approximately somewhere near where it is."
"Well," said Hodge, "we will do our best. That's all any one can do. It
is your fortune, Frank, to be lucky; and for that reason we may be
successful."
"Something tells me we shall be," nodded Merriwell.
The start was made next day, and the journey continued until one
afternoon Merry and Bart Hodge stood looking down into a deep, oblong
valley in the heart of the Northern Mazatzals. With them was Cap'n
Walter Wiley, a former seafaring man, who had been Frank's friend in
many thrilling adventures in the West. Little Abe had come with them
from Mystery Valley, as had Worthington, but they were at the camp Merry
had established some distance behind.
"I believe this valley is the one," Merry declared; "but how are we
going to get into it? That's the question that bothers me."
"There must be an inlet or outlet or something to the old valley," said
Hodge. "It cannot be just a sink hole dropped down here like a huge oval
basin in the mountains. There is a stream running through it, too. It is
wooded and watered, and there is plenty of grass for grazing."
"I am almost positive this valley is the one Benson Clark told me of. I
am almost positive it is the one marked on my map. Clark was shot and
dying when I found him. He didn't have time to tell me how to get into
the valley."
"We seem to have struck something that impedes navigation and
investigation and causes agitation," put in Cap'n Wiley. "I would truly
love to have the wings of a dove that I could fly from these heights
above. Poetry just bubbles from me occasionally. I must set my colossal
intellect at work on this perplexing problem and demonstrate my
astounding ability to solve entangling enigmas. (Webster's Dictionary
does contain the loveliest words!) Let me think a thought. Let all
nature stand hushed and silent while I thunk a think."
His companions paid little heed to him; but he continued to discuss the
problem of descending into the valley.
"I have visited the northern end and the southern end," said Frank, "and
I have explored this side and surveyed the other side through my field
glasses. There seems no break in these perpendicular walls. This valley
seems like one of those Southwestern mesas inverted. They rise sheer
from the plains, and it is impossible to reach the top of many of them.
This drops straight down here, and it seems impossible to reach its
bottom."
"The more difficult it is," said Bart, "the greater becomes my desire to
get down there."
"Same here," smiled Frank. "The difficulty makes it something of a
mystery. Scientific expeditions have spent thousands of dollars in
reaching the top of the Mesa Encantada, in New Mexico. By Americans it
is called the Enchanted Mesa. Now, the mere fact that we can't seem to
get down into this valley throws an atmosphere of mystery over it, and
to me it is an enchanted valley."
"Hush!" whispered Wiley, with one finger pressed against his forehead.
"A mighty thought is throbbing and seething in my cohesive brain. If I
only had my gravity destroyer here! Ha! Then I could simply jump down
into the valley and look around, and, when I got ready, jump back up
here. By the way, mates, did you ever know why it was that Santos-Dumont
retired from this country in confusion and dismay? You know he came over
here with his old flying machine, and was going to do stunts to amaze
the gaping multitudes. You know he suddenly packed his Kenebecca and
took passage to foreign shores. The secret of his sudden departure has
never been told. If you will promise to whisper no word of it to the
world, I will reveal the truth to you.
"Just before Santy arrived in the United States I succeeded in
perfecting my great gravity destroyer. As I have on other occasions
explained to you, it was about the size of an ordinary watch, and I
carried it about in my pocket. By pressing a certain spring I
immediately destroyed the force of gravity so that, by giving an easy,
gentle sort of a jump into the air, I could sail right up to the top of
a church steeple. When I got ready to come down, I just let go and
sailed down lightly as a feather. When I heard that Santy was going to
amaze this country with his dinky old flying machine, I resolved to have
a little harmless amusement with him.
"With this object in view, I had a flying machine of my own invented. It
was made of canvas stretched over a light wooden frame, and along the
bottom, to keep it upright, I had a keel of lead. My means of expulsion
was a huge paddle wheel that I could work with my feet. That was the
only thing about the machine that I didn't like. There was some work
connected with it. To the rear end of the arrangement I attached a huge
fanlike rudder that I could operate with ropes running to the cross
pieces, like on ordinary rowboats.
"Mates, there never was a truer word spoken from the chest than that the
prophet is not without honor save in his own country. I had this flying
machine of mine constructed in Cap'n Bean's shipyard, down in Camden,
Maine, my home. The villagers turned out in swarms, and stood around,
and nudged each other in the ribs, and stared at my contrivance, and
tried to josh me. Even Billy Murphy gave me a loud and gleeful ha-ha!
They seemed to think I had gone daffy, but I kept right on about my
business, and one day the _Snowbird_, as I called her, was finished. She
was a beauty, mates, as she lay there, looking so light and airy and
fragile.
"By that time I had become decidedly hot under the collar on account of
so much chaffing from the rustic populace. Says I to myself, says I:
'Cap'n, these Rubes don't deserve to see you fly. If you let them see
you fly you will be giving every mother's son of them two dollars' worth
of entertainment free of charge.' Now, it isn't my custom to give
anything free of charge. Therefore I advertised in the _Herald_ that on
a certain day I would sail the aërial atmosphere. I stated that before
doing so I would pass around the hat, and I expected every person
present to drop two dollars into it. I thought this was a clever idea of
mine.
"On the day and date the people came from near and far. They journeyed
even from Hogansville, South Hope, and Stickney's Corner. When I saw
them massed in one great multitude in and around that shipyard and on
the steamboat wharf, I made merry cachinnation.
"But alas! when I passed through that crowd with my hat and counted up
the collection, I found I had a lead nickel, a trousers button, and a
peppermint lozenger. That was all those measly, close-fisted people
donated for the pleasure of seeing me navigate the ambient air. Although
I am not inclined to be over-sensitive, I felt hurt, and pained, and
disappointed. I then made a little speech to them, and informed them
that over in Searsmont there was a man so mean that he used a wart on
the back of his neck for a collar button to save the expense of buying
one, but I considered him the soul of generosity beside them. I further
informed them that I had postponed sailing. I minded it not that they
guffawed and heaped derision upon me. I was resolute and unbending, and
they were forced to leave without seeing me hoist anchor that day.
"In the soft and stilly hours of the night which followed I seated
myself in the _Snowbird_, applied my feet to the mechanism, pressed the
spring of the gravity destroyer, and away I scooted over Penobscot Bay.
When the sun rose the following morning it found Cap'n Bean's shipyard
empty and little Walter and his flying machine gone.
"I was on hand when Santos-Dumont arrived in New York. I sought an
interview with him, and I told him I proposed making him look like a
plugged quarter when he gave his exhibition. I challenged him to sail
against me and told him I would show him up. Santy didn't seem to like
this, and he made remarks which would not look well in the _Sabbath
School Herald_. Indeed, he became violent, and, though I tried to soothe
him, I discovered myself, when the interview ended, sitting on the
sidewalk outside of the building and feeling of my person for bumps and
sore spots.
"You can imagine with what dignity I arose to my feet and strode
haughtily away. More than ever was I determined to make old Santy look
like an amateur in the flying business. However, he took particular
pains while in New York to scoot around in his machine when he knew I
was not informed that such was his intention. With a great deal of craft
and skill he avoided coming in competition with me. One day some part of
his jigger got out of gear and he had it removed into the country to fix
it. I located him and followed him up. I have forgotten the name of the
village where I found him; but the people were getting much excited, for
he had stated that at a certain time he would show them what he could
do.
"He had gathered scientific men from Oshkosh, Skowhegan, Chicago, and
other centres of culture and refinement. Among them was Professor
Deusenberry, of the Squedunk Elementary College of Fine Fatheads. I
succeeded in getting at Professor Deusenberry's ear. He had a generous
ear, and there was not much trouble in getting at it. I told him all
about my _Snowbird_, and informed him that I had her concealed near at
hand and proposed to show up Santos when he broke loose and sailed. I
took him around to see my craft; but when he looked her over he shook
his head and announced that she'd never rise clear of the skids on which
I had her elevated above the ground.
"Well, mates, the great day came around, and promptly at the hour set
Santos rose like a bird in the air. I was watching for him, and when I
saw him gliding about over the village I promptly started the _Snowbird_
going. The moment I shut off the power of gravitation I scooted upward
like a wild swan. I made straight for Dumont's old machine, and there
before the wildly cheering people, whose shouts rose faint and sweet to
my ear, I proceeded to do a few stunts. I circled around Santos when he
was at his best speed. I sailed over him and under him, and I certain
gave him an attack of nervous prostration. In his excitement he did
something wrong and knocked his machine out of kilter, so that he
suddenly took a collapse and fell into the top of a tree, where his old
craft was badly damaged. I gently lowered myself to the ground, and as I
stepped out of the _Snowbird_ Professor Deusenberry clasped me to his
throbbing bosom and wept on my breast.
"'Professor Wiley!' he cried, 'beyond question you have solved the
problem of aërial navigation. Professor Wiley----' 'Excuse me, Professor
Deusenberry' said I, 'but I am simply plain Cap'n Wiley, a salty old tar
of modesty and few pretensions. I have no rightful claim to the title of
professor.'
"'But you shall have--you shall have!' he earnestly declared. 'I will
see that you're made professor of atmospheric nullity at the Squedunk
Elementary College of Fine Fatheads. Your name shall go ringing down
through the corridor of the ages. Your name shall stand side by side in
history with those of Columbus, Pizarro, and Richard Croker.'
"That night I was wined, and dined, and toasted in that town, while
Santos-Dumont stood outside and shivered in the cold. The scientific men
and professors and men of boodle gazed on me in awe and wonderment and
bowed down before me. Professor Deusenberry was seized with a
determination to own the _Snowbird_. He was fearful lest some one else
should obtain her, and so he hastened to get me to set a price upon her.
I was modest. I told him that I was modest. I told him that in the cause
of science I was ready to part with her for the paltry sum of five
thousand dollars. In less than ten minutes he had gathered some of the
moneyed fatheads of his college and bought my flying machine.
"I suggested to them that the proper way to start her was to get her
onto some eminence and have some one push her off. The following morning
they raised her to the flat roof of a building, and, with no small
amount of agitation, I saw that Professor Deusenberry himself
contemplated making a trip in her. When they pushed her off he started
the paddle wheels going, but without the effect of my little gravity
destroyer to keep her from falling. She dropped straight down to the
ground. When they picked the professor up, several of his lateral ribs,
together with his dispendarium, were fractured. I thought his confidence
in me was also broken. At any rate, I hastened to shake the dust of that
town from my feet and make for the tall timber.
"Nevertheless, mates, my little experience with Santos-Dumont so
disgusted and discouraged him that he immediately left this country,
which explains something that has been puzzling the people for a long
time. They wondered why he didn't remain and do the stunts he had
promised to do. Even now I fancy that Santy often dreams in terror of
Cap'n Wiley and his _Snowbird_."