THE SECRET OF THE POOL.
Suddenly a shout from the onlookers behind called them back to the
breach.
"The roof!" they cried. "He is climbing out by the roof!"
McCausland and Silsby stepped back to see the top of the hut, while
Shagarach rushed in once more and reached at the ceiling with his bough.
There on the top of the hut, his body half emerging where the planks had
been shoved aside, McCausland for the first time saw the long-missing
oaf, and Dr. Silsby his peeping Tom. But Shagarach was groping within,
vainly smashing upward in the darkness.
With wonderful strength the fugitive raised himself erect, sprung from
the insecure footing of the slippery boards, and began clambering up the
ledge.
"After him, Wolf!" cried McCausland, and the bloodhound, nerved by his
tones, tore up the ledge in the monster's wake. McCausland and Silsby
clambered as best they could on all fours, and presently Shagarach,
hearing the outcry, followed them. The crack of the inspector's revolver
was heard once, but the fugitive had turned like lightning and hurled
his adze. McCausland uttered a sharp cry as the pistol was struck from
his hand. The fugitive then stood for a moment on the crest, twenty feet
above them, outlined in hideous distinctness against the pale patch of
sky. But, espying the hound at his heels, he had given a mad plunge, and
the onlookers, who had drawn nearer, heard a heavy splash behind the
ledge. The bloodhound paused at the summit.
"After him, Wolf!" urged McCausland, and the dog's plunge was heard, as
heavy as the man's.
"It is a pool," said Shagarach, gazing into the black water below him.
"Hemlock lake," answered Dr. Silsby. "The land beyond it is marshy for
miles."
"And no boat?" asked McCausland.
"One at the upper end, a mile or so, kept by a farmer."
"Then it all depends upon Wolf," muttered the detective. The water side
of the precipice afforded no stair for descent, and the party slowly
picked its way down the ledge which it had climbed, and made a circuit,
so as to stand on the grassy edge of the pool.
"Wolf!" cried McCausland. The dark heads of man and dog had long
vanished from sight. No answer came but the night sighing of the trees
that fringed the dark lake. A pale quarter-moon arose in the open sky
and lent a translucent gloss to its opaque surface. The swallows
twittered high in air, reduced to the size of a bee-swarm. But the lake
gave back no tale of the two that had entered it.
"Wolf!" cried McCausland, again and again. He whistled till the woods
echoed. He clapped his hands with a hollow reverberation. A plash close
by startled the listeners. But it was only a pickerel rising to his food
or a bullfrog plunging in. Again the mysterious terror invaded the
hearts of the pursuers, and the women clung nearer to the men, clutching
their bosoms.
Had man and dog reached the other side in safety, there to continue
their terrible race? Had they fought their death struggle in the water,
and one or both of them sunk to his doom? Who could tell? The lake
guarded its secret.
"It is dark," said Shagarach, but McCausland lingered on the bank,
shading his eyes with his right hand. In his left the empty handcuff
clanked.
"We have failed," said Dr. Silsby. Then McCausland started with a jerk.
"To-morrow," he said. "To-morrow may tell."
"The way back will be hard to find," said Shagarach.
"Light these," said Dr. Silsby, cutting a pitch-pine bough. It blazed up
almost at the touch of a match, and as the others followed his example
the forest was strangely illuminated, weird shadows playing about the
party. One coming upon them might have taken them for some brigand band
en route to their mountains with plunder.
"We'll miss the guidance of the hound going home," said Shagarach, and
the women shuddered at the prospect of being lost in the forest at
nightfall. It was an unfrequented place. But there were boys present
whose holiday ramblings might now be turned to good account.
"Yes, we shall miss Wolf," said McCausland, looking behind him, as if
still hoping for a signal from his faithful hound.
"Let us explore the hut," proposed Shagarach, entering.
"And tear it to pieces," cried Dr. Silsby.
Instantly the roof was torn from the rude pile, and its remaining
timbers, hardly more than rested on end, almost fell asunder of
themselves. A strange heap was revealed by the flickering torches. A
stool, a sheet of tin laid over a clam-bake oven, some cans of prepared
food, half-empty, an old coat, a blanket and a collection of knives,
spikes and other weapons, picked up or stolen, that would have made a
formidable array in the belt of a pirate. One of the lads, who had
lighted a dry rush for a torch, was about to touch off the newspapers
that lay about in great profusion, when McCausland sharply checked him.
"Bundle those up," he said, and the boys obeyed, while the inspector
curiously scanned one of them by Dr. Silsby's torch.
"I thought so," he cried in triumph, motioning to Shagarach. "This is
dated, like the others, only two days back--a New York paper again.
The----" he pointed to the name. "He knew where to look for sensations,
you see."
"A vitriol-throwing case?" asked Shagarach.
"Read it for yourself," said the detective.
"At my leisure. We may as well start."
"Has any one a compass?" asked McCausland.
"Nonsense," replied Dr. Silsby. "Do I need a compass with the flora to
guide me? There is the fern bed ahead of us, and, by the way, I think
I'll gather a few more specimens."
"Not now, doctor," remonstrated Shagarach, and the frightened women
echoed him.
"Tut, tut," said the botanist. "Have I slept out o' night in the woods
since I was so high to be frightened by a little miscalculation of time?
Who asked you to come?" he said to the followers, and the coolness with
which he rooted up several ferns actually reassured his timid
companions. "I'll take your newspapers to wrap them in," said he to one
of the boys, but McCausland interposed.
"Something else, doctor."
"My hands, then," said the botanist, cheerfully. And in fact he guided
them out by his trained remembrance of the vegetation he had passed
almost as quickly and surely as the hound had led them in by his scent.
It was then Miss Senda Wesner proved to Shagarach that for all her
reputation as a chatterbox she could be prudent on occasion. For she
selected a moment when Shagarach was bringing up the rear, to slip off
the arms of her escort and pluck the lawyer's sleeve.
"Do you know who he was, Mr. Shagarach?" she asked.
"Who?"
"The crazy man, I saw him plainly on the top of the rock. It was the
peddler in the green cart that used to come to Prof. Arnold's."