INTO THE OLD QUARRY.
For a double reason they did not call to Hooker; not only was it
unlikely that he would heed them, but the men on the Barville road would
doubtless hear their cries. So Osgood, who had been gauging his speed by
that of the crippled Shultz, immediately shot forward, leaving Charley
limping behind, but doing his utmost.
Realizing how difficult it would be to run down the deranged lad in the
dark depths of the heavy pines, Ned strained every nerve to reach him
before he could plunge into the woods. To his dismay, he quickly
perceived that this would be impossible, Hooker being very fleet of
foot. At the last moment Osgood ventured to call, suppressing his voice
in a measure, and hoping against hope that the unreasoning fugitive
might give heed.
“Roy—Roy Hooker!” he cried. “We’re friends. We won’t hurt you. Stop,
Roy—stop! Wait for us!”
Had Hooker been stone deaf, the words would have had no more effect. Not
a particle did he relax in his flight, and Ned was some rods away when
Roy was swallowed by the black shadows of the timbers.
Into the woods Osgood dashed, still hoping that through some chance he
might overtake the fleeing lad. There was not much undergrowth amid the
pines, yet for a time the persistent pursuer was guided by the sounds of
the other boy, who turned and twisted and zigzagged here and there in a
most baffling way.
“We’re friends, Roy—we’re friends!” Osgood called again and again.
“Don’t be afraid of us! Wait a minute!”
It was useless. The guiding sounds grew fainter, and at last, unable to
hear them, Osgood stopped to listen. Then he realized that behind him
Shultz was calling, begging not to be abandoned.
“We were so close, so close!” muttered Ned, in deep disappointment. “If
we’d only got a little nearer before he started, I could have run him
down.”
He answered Shultz, and presently Charley came hobbling and panting
through the darkness.
“Did you catch him?” was his first question.
“No, he got away; but he’s somewhere in these woods, and, knowing that
much, we may be able to find him yet. If we could only take him safely
back to Oakdale, it might seem to square up a little for what we’ve
done.”
“I was afraid you’d leave me,” Shultz almost whimpered. “I was afraid to
be left alone again. Don’t do it, Ned—please don’t. If you hear him or
see him, don’t run away from me.”
Only yesterday Osgood could never have dreamed it possible for anything
so completely to break the nerve of his companion. There was little left
of the old stubborn, defiant, bulldozing Shultz; in his abject terror of
being left alone, he was more like a timid child.
“We ought to get searchers, a whole lot of them, and bring them here,”
said Ned. “That would be the right thing to do.”
“But if we could only find him ourselves without other aid,” argued
Charley, “it would give us a better show with the people who’ll be ready
enough to jump on us when they know the truth. We might find him, you
know. He can’t be far away. Which way was he going the last you knew?”
“Toward the lake, I think, but he kept dodging about, so that there is
no real certainty of it. Probably he hasn’t any objective point in his
mind. He just ran in any direction that happened to be the easiest.”
“The ground slopes toward the lake,” reasoned Shultz. “He’ll keep on
going that way.”
“There may be some logic in that, and there’s a bare chance that we may
come upon him again. Let’s make as little noise as possible. We don’t
want him to be warned or frightened by hearing us a long distance away.”
Down through the black woods they went, Shultz seeking to keep so close
to Osgood that he could put out his hand any time and touch him.
Presently through the trees they saw the moonlight silvering the placid
water. Reaching the shore, they discovered they were close to Pine
Point, which, projecting into the lake, cut it there to its narrowest
width. On the opposite shore lay the railroad, over which Shultz had
first thought of making his escape from Oakdale.
“It’s something like searching for a needle in a haystack,” said Ned
hopelessly. “There’s not one chance in a hundred that we, unaided, can
find Hooker in these woods.”
But Charley still clung to the tattered skirts of hope. “Let’s go out
upon the point. From the end of it we can get a look at a long sweep of
shore in both directions.”
“That will simply make us walk farther, and your ankle must be——”
“Confound my ankle! Don’t you worry about that.”
“You shouldn’t be crippling around on it. It’s liable to lay you up for
a long time, and every step you take makes it worse.”
“What do I care? What do I care how long I’m laid up? That’s nothing
now. I’m going out on the point.”
He would not have gone had Ned refused, but Osgood decided to humor him.
At the outer extremity the point took a curve, so that on one side it
sheltered Bear Cove, into which Silver Brook emptied. As they reached
that curving outer shore, a small boat—a punt—issued from the cove,
passed that hook-like nose of land and appeared in the moonlight which
bathed the surface of the lake. The occupant of the punt, who was
propelling it with a paddle, was Hooker!
“There he is!” shouted Charley.
He turned his face toward them, and they were so near that they almost
fancied they could see the wild expression in his eyes. They called to
him again and again, begging him to come back and seeking to give him
every assurance of their friendly intentions. He did not answer;
changing the course of the boat somewhat, he drove it with powerful
strokes toward a small island which lay off the mouth of the cove.
“It’s no use,” muttered Osgood; “he’ll give up only when he’s caught,
and then he’ll probably make a fight of it.”
“But how are we going to catch him?”
“I wish I knew. If we had another boat——”
“I know where there’s a raft,” exclaimed Shultz. “We might follow him
with that.”
“We never could overtake him on a raft.”
“But he’s going on to Bass Island. If he doesn’t see us coming, we might
catch him there.”
Ned was extremely doubtful, but the insistence and eagerness of Charley
finally led him to agree to look for the raft. Fully half an hour passed
before they found it lying partly on the shore of the cove not far from
the mouth of Silver Brook. It was a rather long, narrow affair, built of
small logs fastened together by cross-pieces. When it was launched they
tested its buoying capacity and found it would barely support them both.
Nevertheless, with pieces of board for paddles, they pushed off upon it
and made their way slowly toward the mouth of the cove. Both knelt as
they wielded the board paddles, and their knees were soon wet with the
water which occasionally washed across the almost submerged logs.
Although they could not see the punt on the shore of the island, they
felt certain Hooker had landed there, and, hoping he would not discover
their approach, they exerted their strength in the effort to reach the
place as soon as possible.
The island was not more than thirty yards distant when they again saw
the punt, headed this time for the farther shore of the lake. It seemed
that Hooker must have been watching, and, with almost tantalizing
cunning, he had waited until they were near before he put out from the
opposite side of the island.
“Let’s not give up,” pleaded Shultz. “Let’s follow him.”
Although the pursuit seemed discouragingly hopeless, they were now
nearly half-way across the narrow part of the lake, and Osgood did not
insist on turning back.
The punt was slow enough, but it moved faster than the raft, even though
the latter was propelled by two persons instead of one, and gradually it
drew farther and farther away. With their eyes on Hooker, they watched
him reach the shore, leap out, abandon the punt and run toward the
railroad. Still watching, they saw him, later, making his way down the
track toward Oakdale station.
As soon as the raft touched the low, flat shore, they left it to float
whither it might and followed Roy.
“I’m glad he went toward town,” said Osgood, as they reached the
railroad.
Shultz’s ankle seemed to have grown much worse while he was on the raft,
and it was in great pain and with the utmost difficulty that he crippled
along over the ties. At times he caught his breath with a hissing sound
or groaned aloud as the swollen limb gave him an extra sharp twinge.
“It’s no use for me to follow Roy any farther,” he finally admitted.
“I’ll be lucky if this old prop doesn’t give out completely before I get
to the village.”
“If it does,” promised Ned, “I’ll get you there. Leave it to me. I’m
ready to pack you on my back any time.”
Presently they approached the old lime quarries, which had been
practically abandoned until Lemuel Hayden came to Oakdale, bought them,
opened up new and unsuspected deposits, and revived the industry of lime
burning. They could see the deserted workings, a tremendous black hole
in the ground some thirty or forty rods away, when from beneath the
shadowy bank of the graded roadbed, Hooker, who may have been resting
there, sprang forth. Shultz saw his first movement, and shouted to
Osgood:
“There he is, Ned! Catch him—you can catch him now!”
Ned did not need to be urged; he was off like a shot. Shultz followed,
setting his teeth and trying to forget his injured ankle. Down the bank
he leaped, mainly upon one foot, and on he ran, limping across the rough
and stony field. He could see Osgood straining every nerve to overtake
Hooker, who was running straight toward the old quarry.
“He’s got him! Ned’s got him!” panted Shultz. “The quarry will stop him!
He can’t get away!”
But, as they drew near that mammoth hole in the ground, a different
thought leaped into Osgood’s mind. Hooker seemed to be fleeing blindly
and totally heedless of anything. What if, in his distraught state of
mind, he should not realize the danger that lay in his path? What if he
should not see the quarry until it was too late to stop?
Horrified, Ned shouted a warning; and at that shout Hooker, still
running, turned his head to look back.
Shultz, seeing all this, gulped to keep his heart from choking him. Sick
and weak with apprehension, he stopped, his arms outflung, his hands
wide open, his fingers spread apart.
Over the brink and into the quarry plunged Hooker. As he fell, a wild
and terrible scream rose from his lips. Shultz clapped his hands to his
ears to shut out that dreadful cry.
“Oh! oh!” he groaned. “It’s all over now! That’s the end! He’s dead!”