Carey had lost no time when he read that note of appeal signed
“Grace.” It was not his way to wait for a hat in any emergency, but
he did not leave sagacity behind him when he swung himself into the
already moving car that had come for him. He could think on the way,
and he was taking no chances.
It was quite natural that Grace Kendall should have gone to see a
sick pupil after Sunday school. It was not natural that any pupil
would have lived out as far as Lamb’s Tavern; yet there were a
hundred and one ways she might have gone there against her plans. He
could question the messenger on the way and lose no time about it,
nor excite the curiosity of his family. That had perhaps been one of
Carey’s greatest cares all his life, amounting sometimes almost to a
vice, to keep his family from finding out anything little or great
connected with himself or anybody else. He had a code, and by that
code all things not immediately concerning people were “none of their
business.” His natural caution now caused him to get away from his
house at once and excite no suspicion of danger. Grace had written
to him rather than to her father with evident intention,—if she had
written at all, a question he had at once recognized, but not as yet
settled,—and it was easy to guess that she did not wish to worry her
parents unnecessarily. He was inclined to be greatly elated that she
had chosen him for her helper rather than some older acquaintance,
and this was probably the moving factor in prompting him to act at
once.
He would not have been the boy he was if he had not seen all these
points at the first flash. The only thing he did not see and would
not recognize was any danger to himself. He had always felt he could
ably take care of himself, and he intended to do so now. Moreover,
he expected and intended to return in time to go to that Christian
Endeavor meeting.
He glanced at his watch as he dropped into the seat, and immediately
sat forward, and prepared to investigate the situation. But the boy
who had brought the note, and who had seemingly scuttled around
to get into the front seat from the other side of the car, had
disappeared, and a glance backward at the rapidly disappearing
landscape gave no hint of his whereabouts. That was strange. He had
evidently intended to go along. He had said, “Come on!” and hurried
toward the car. Who was that kid, anyway? Where had he seen him?
For what had been a revealing fact to Cornelia, and would have
greatly changed the view of things, was entirely unknown to
Carey. Clytie Dodd kept her family in the background as much as
possible, and to that end met her “gentlemen friends” in parks, or
at soda-fountains, or by the wayside casually. She had a regular
arrangement with a certain corner drug-store whereby telephone
messages would reach her and bring her to the ’phone whenever she
was at home; but her friends seldom came to her house, and never met
her family. She had a hard-working, sensible father, an over-worked,
fretful, tempestuous mother, and a swarm of little wild, outrageous
brothers and sisters, none of whom approved of her high social
aspirations. She found it healthier in every way to keep her domestic
and social lives utterly apart; consequently Carey had never seen
Sam Dodd, or his eyes might have instantly been opened. Sam was very
useful to his sister on occasion when well primed with one of her
hard-earned quarters, and could, if there were special inducement,
even exercise a bit of detective ability. Sam knew how to disappear
off the face of the earth, and he had done it thoroughly this time.
Carey leaned forward, and questioned the driver.
“What’s the matter? Anything serious?”
But the driver sat unmoved, staring ahead and making his car go
slamming along, regardless of ruts or bumps, at a tremendous rate
of speed. Carey did not object to the speed. He wanted to get back.
He tried again, touching the man on the shoulder and shouting
his question. The man turned after a second nudge, and stared
resentfully, but appeared to be deaf.
Carey shouted a third time, and then the man gave evidence of being
also dumb; but after a fourth attempt he gave forth the brief word:
“I dunno. Lady jes’ hired me.”
The man did not look so stupid as he sounded, and Carey made several
attempts to get further information, even to ask for a description of
the lady who had sent him; but he answered either, “I dunno,” or,
“Yep, I gezzo”; and Carey finally gave up. He dived into his pocket
for the note once more, having a desire to study the handwriting of
the young woman for whom he had newly acquired an admiration. It
didn’t seem real that expedition. As he thought of it, it didn’t seem
like that quiet, modest girl to send for a comparative stranger to
help her in distress. It seemed more like Clytie. But that note had
not been Clytie’s writing. Clytie affected a large, round, vertical
hand like a young school-child, crude and unfinished. This letter had
been delicately written by a finished hand on thick cream stationery.
Where was that note? He was sure he had put it in his pocket.
But a search of every pocket revealed nothing, and he sat back,
and tried to think the thing out, tried to imagine what possible
situation had brought Grace Kendall where she would send for him to
help her. Stay! Was it Grace Kendall? Grace, Grace, was there any
other Grace among his circle of friends? No, no one that claimed
sufficient acquaintance to write a note like that. It certainly was
queer. But they were out in the open country now, and speeding. The
farmhouses were few and far apart. It was growing dusky; Carey could
just see the hands of his watch, and he was getting nervous. Once he
almost thought of shaking the driver and insisting on his turning
around, for it had come over him that he should have left word with
Miss Kendall’s people or called up before he left home. It wasn’t his
way at all to do such a thing; but, still, with a girl like that—and,
if anything serious was the matter, her father might not like it
that he had taken it upon himself. As the car sped on through the
radiant dusk, it seemed more and more strange that Grace Kendall
after the afternoon service should have come away out here to visit
a sick Sunday-school scholar, and his misgivings grew. Then suddenly
at a cross-road just ahead an automobile appeared, standing by the
roadside just at the crossings with no lights on. It seemed strange,
no lights at that time of night. If it was an accident, they would
have the lights on. It was still three-quarters of a mile to the
Tavern. Perhaps some one had broken down and gone on for help. No,
there was a man standing in the road, looking toward them. He was
holding up his hand, and the driver was slowing down. Carey frowned.
He had no time to waste. “We can’t stop to help them now,” he
shouted. “Tell them we’ll come back in a few minutes, and bring some
one to fix them up. I’ve got to get back right away. I’ve gotta date.”
But the man paid no more heed to him than if he had been a June bug,
and the car stopped at the cross-roads.
Carey leaned out, and shouted: “What’s the matter? I haven’t time to
stop now. We’ll send help back to you”; but the driver turned and
motioned him to get out.
“She’s in there. The lady’s in that car,” he said. “Better get
out here. I ain’t goin’ no further, anyhow. I’m going home by the
cross-roads. They’ll get you back,” motioning toward the other car.
Carey, astonished, hardly knowing what to think, sprang out to
investigate; and the driver threw in his clutch, and was off down
the cross-road at once. Carey took a step toward the darkened car,
calling, “Miss Kendall”; and a man with a cap drawn down over his
eyes stepped out of the shadow, and threw open the car door.
“Just step inside. You’ll find the lady in the back seat,” he said in
a gruff voice that yet sounded vaguely familiar. Carey could dimly
see a white face leaning against the curtain. He came near anxiously,
and peered in, with one foot on the running-board.
“Is that you, Grace?” he said gently, not knowing he was using that
intimate name unbidden. She must have been hurt. And who was this man?
“Get in; get in; we’ve got to get her back,” said the man gruffly,
giving Carey an unexpected shove that precipitated him to the car
floor beside the lady. Before he recovered his balance the car door
was slammed shut, and suddenly from all sides came peals of raucous
laughter. Surrounding the car, swarming into it, came the laughers.
In the midst of his bewilderment the car started.
“Well, I guess anyhow we put one over on you this time, Kay Copley!”
It was the clarion voice of Clytie Amabel Dodd that sounded high
and mocking above the chug of the motor as the struggling, laughing
company untangled themselves from one another and settled into their
seats precipitately with the jerk of starting. Carey found himself
drawn suddenly and forcibly to the back seat between two girls, one
of them being the amiable Clytie.
In sudden rage he drew himself up again, and faced the girl in the
dim light.
“Let me out of here!” he demanded. “I’m on my way to help some one
who’s in trouble, and I’m in a hurry to get back.”
He reached out to the door, and unfastened it, attempting to climb
over Clytie’s feet, which were an intentional barricade.
“Aw, set down, you big simp, you,” yelled Clytie, giving him a shove
back with a muscular young arm. “This ain’t no Sunday-school crowd,
you bet yer life; an’ the girl that wrote that note is setting right
’long-side of you over there. My sister Grace! Grace _Dodd_. Make you
acquainted. Now set down, and see if you can ac’ like a little man.
We’re off for the best feed ever and a big night. Comb your hair, and
keep your shirt on, and get a hustle on that grouch. We’re going to
have the time of our life, and you’re going along.”
Carey was still, stern and still. The coarse words of the girl
tore their way through his newly awakened soul, and made him sick.
The thought that he had ever deliberately, of his own accord, gone
anywhere, in the company of this girl was like gall and wormwood.
Shame passed over him, and bathed him in a cleansing flood for a
moment; and, as he felt its waters at their height over his head, he
seemed to see the face of Grace Kendall, fine and sweet and far away,
lost to him forever. Then a flash of memory brought her look as she
had thanked him for taking the solo that night, and said she knew he
would make a success of it; and his soul rose in rebellion. He would
keep faith with her. In spite of all of them he would get back.
He lifted his head, and called commandingly: “Stop this car! I’ve got
to get back to the city. I’ve got an engagement.”
The answer was a loud jeer of laughter.
“Aw! Yeah! We know whatcher engagement is, and you ain’t going to no
Chrisshun ’deavor t’night. Pretty little Gracie ’ll have to keep on
lookin’ fer you, but she won’t see you t’night.”
Carey was very angry. He thought he knew now how men felt that wanted
to kill some one. Clytie was a girl, and he couldn’t strike her;
but she had exceeded all a woman’s privileges. He gripped her arm
roughly, and pushed her back into the seat, threw himself between the
two unidentified ones in the middle seat, and projected his body upon
the man who was driving, seizing the wheel and attempting to turn the
car around. The driver was taken unexpectedly, and the car almost ran
into the fence, one wheel lurching down into the ditch. The girls
set up a horrible screaming. The car was stopped just in time, and a
terrific fight began in the front seat.
“Now, just for this, Carey Copley, we’ll get you dead drunk and take
you back to your old Chrisshun ’deavor. That’s what we were going
to do, anyway; only we weren’t going to tell you beforehand—get you
dead drunk and take you back to your little baby-faced, yella-haired
Gracie-girl. _Then_ I guess she’d have anything more to do with you?
I guess anyhow _not_!”
Clytie’s voice rang out loud and clear above the din, followed by the
crash of glass as somebody smashed against the wind-shield. This was
what Maxwell heard as he stole noiselessly upon the dark car, running
down a slight grade with his engine shut off. He stopped his car a
rod away, and dropped silently to the ground while Harry, like a
smaller shadow, dropped from the back, stole around the other side of
the car, and hid in the shadows next the fence.
“What was that?” warned Clytie suddenly. “Grace, didn’t you hear
something? Say, boys, we oughtta be gettin’ on. Somebody ’ll be onto
our taking this car, and come after us; then it’ll be good-night for
us. Don’t fool with that kid any longer. Give him a knockout, and
stow him down in the bottom of the car. We can bring him to when we
get to a safe place. Cheese it, there! Cheese it!”
Harry, watching alertly, saw Maxwell spring suddenly on the other
side; and, stealing close with the velvet tread of a cat, he sprang
to the running-board on his side, and, jumping, flung his arms
tightly about the neck of the front-seat man next him, hanging back
with his fingers locked around the fellow’s throat, and dragging his
whole lusty young weight to the ground. There was nothing for his
man to do but follow, struggling, spluttering, and trying to grasp
something, till he sprawled at length upon the grass, unable, for
the moment, in his bewilderment to determine just what had hold of
him.
Maxwell on his side had gripped the driver, and pulled him out, not
altogether sure but it might be Carey, but knowing that the best
he could do was to get some one before the car started again. The
unexpectedness of the attack from the outside wrought confusion and
panic in the car, and gave Maxwell a moment’s vantage.
Carey was meanwhile fighting blindly like a wild man, his special
antagonist being the man in the middle seat; and when he found
himself suddenly relieved of the two in the front seat, he seemed
to gain an almost superhuman power for the instant. Dragging and
pushing, he succeeded in throwing his man out of the car upon the
ground. Then before anyone knew what was happening, and amid the
frightened screams of the three girls, Carey climbed over into the
front seat, and, not knowing that a friend was at hand, threw in the
clutch and started the car, whirling it recklessly round in the road,
almost upsetting it, and shot away up the road toward the city at a
terrible rate of speed, leaving Maxwell with three men on his hands
and no knowledge of Harry’s presence.
The man that Carey had thrown out of the car lay crumpled in a heap,
unconscious. He had broken his ankle, and would make no trouble for a
while. Maxwell was not even conscious of his presence as he grappled
with the driver, and finally succeeded in getting him down with hands
pinioned and his knee on the man’s chest. Maxwell was an expert
wrestler, and knew all the tricks, which was more than could be said
of the boy who had been driving the car; but Maxwell was by no means
in training, and he found himself badly winded and bruised. Lifting
his head there in the darkness and wondering what he was to do with
his man now he had him down, he discovered the silent form in the
road but a step away. Startled, he looked about; and suddenly a gruff
young voice came pluckily to him from across the ditch:
“All right, Max; I can hold this man awhile now. I’ve got the muzzle
on the back of his neck.”
The form on the bank beside Harry suddenly ceased to struggle, and
lay grimly still. Maxwell, astonished, but quick to take Harry’s
lead, called back: “All right, sir. You haven’t got an extra rope
about you, have you, man?”
“Use yer necktie, Max,” called back the boy nonchalantly. “That’s
what I’m doing. There’s good strong straps under the seat in the car
to make it sure. Saw ’em last week when you and I were fixing the
car.”
And actually Harry, with the cold butt of his old jack-knife
realistically placed at the base of his captive’s brain, was tying
his man’s hands behind him with his best blue silk necktie that
Cornelia had given him the day before. It seemed a terrible waste to
him; but his handkerchief was in the other side-pocket, and he didn’t
dare risk taking that knife in the other hand to get at it.
It happened that the boy that Harry had attacked in the dark was a
visitor to the city, very young and very green indeed; and the others
had promised to show him a good time and teach him what life in the
city meant. He was horribly frightened, and already shaking like a
leaf with a vision of jail and the confusion of his honorable family
back in the country. The cold steel on the back of his neck subdued
him instantly and fully. He had no idea that his captor was but a
slip of a boy. The darkness had come down completely there in the
shadow of a grove of maples, and a cricket rasping out a sudden note
in the ditch below made him jump in terror. Harry, with immense scorn
for the “big boob” who allowed himself to be tied so easily, drew the
knots fast and hard, wondering meanwhile whether Cornie could iron
out the necktie again. Then, feeling a little easier about moving,
he changed hands, and got possession of his Sunday handkerchief, and
proceeded to tie the young fellow’s ankles together. After which he
slid casually down the bank, hustled over to the car, got the straps,
and brought them to Maxwell, who was having his hands full trying to
tie the driver’s wrists with his big white handkerchief.
Gravely they made the fellow fast, searched him for any possible
weapons and put him into the back seat of the car.
Next they picked up the quiet fellow on the ground, made his hands
fast, and put him on the floor of the car.
“It’s no use trying to bring him to here,” advised Harry gruffly. “No
water; and, besides, we can’t waste the time. He’s just knocked out,
I guess, anyhow, like they do in football.”
But, when they went for Harry’s man, they found no trace of him.
Somehow he had managed to roll down the bank into the ditch and hid
himself, or perhaps he had worked off his fetters and run away.
“Aw, gee!” said Harry, reluctantly turning toward the car. “I s’pose
we gotta let him go; but that was my best new necktie.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Maxwell almost relieved. “There’s more
neckties where that came from, and I think we better get this man
back to a doctor.”
Back they drove like lightning to the city, with Harry keeping watch
over the prisoners, one sullen and one silent, and took them straight
to the station-house with a promise to return with more details in a
short time. Then they drove rapidly to the church, Maxwell anxious to
be sure that Carey was all right, and bent on relieving Cornelia’s
mind.
They entered the church just as the choir stood up for the anthem,
and Cornelia’s white, anxious face looked out at the end of the top
row of sopranos. Maxwell’s eyes sought hers a second, then searched
rapidly through the lines of tenor and bass, but Carey had not come
yet. Where was Carey?