"You don't know anything about my range of sympathies," I remarked.
"For all you know, they may extend to objects even more ethereal than
unborn roses."
"Impossible!" She pulled a spray off the woodbine that grew round
the porch pillar, and began to pull it to pieces, leaf by leaf. "By
the way," she said after a moment, "did you tell me that that queer
little friend of yours was a botanist?"
"Of Herrick's," I corrected. "I entirely disclaim him. He described
himself as an amateur, whatever he may mean by that. I gather that
it's his way of amusing himself on a holiday. There are a good many
people who seem to feel lost unless they have some definite hobby for
their vacations. I suppose really it gives him mild exercise and an
excuse for grubbing about in the open."
"He takes other mild exercise," said Mary, her mouth curving in
sudden recollection. "He was engaged in some the other morning, and
that's what made me so interested. I'm afraid I interrupted him."
"You'd seen him before, then?"
She laughed.
"I was taking Leo for a run before breakfast, down the hill, the
other morning, and I came upon him just in the hollow there near
where the stream is, and I'd give you a hundred dollars to guess his
occupation. I don't know if you've ever noticed a cedar there,
Doctor Haverill, growing quite near the road, on the right-hand side?
It branches off some little way from the ground. Well, there he was
engaged, of all things in the world, in solemnly climbing up into
this tree and jumping out again. I was walking along the footpath
where the ground is soft, so he never heard me coming, and the
performance struck me as so interesting that I stood still for a
minute and watched him. He did it four or five times, and it looked
as if he was trying to see how far he could jump. The last time he
landed quite near to the edge of the stream, and that seemed to
satisfy him, for he didn't try any more after that. Then he looked
about on the ground and began to smooth over all the footprints he'd
made. He'd just finished when he caught sight of me. He had taken
his glasses off for jumping, I suppose in case he smashed them, and
as soon as he saw me he grabbed them out of his pocket and walked
off. It was for all the world as if he was ashamed at having been
caught doing it. I suppose it did look ridiculous for a man of his
age to go doing stunts like a schoolboy. I guess it was some sort of
an exercise, and he does it pretty often, for he was certainly active
at it. I thought maybe he was a physical-culture crank."
"A mild lunatic, more like!" I smiled. "Perhaps the giddiness of
youth returns to him at times and he has to work it off. Maybe it's
a religious exercise--some obscure sect of jumping Baptists. I'll
ask him when we meet."
Mary laughed, but her brows were drawn in a puzzled frown.
"Do you know," she said, "I have a conviction that I have seen that
man before. I don't know in the least why. Generally I remember
people quite well. I feel that I have not only seen him, but spoken
to him. A thing like that bothers me, because I ought to remember
it. I will sometime."
"You'd remember if you had spoken to him," I said. "He stammers
quite badly."
"Then that settles it," returned Mary gaily. "I have only known two
people who stammered in my whole life, with the exception of Aaron
Menning, and one was a chemistry professor at school and the other a
spinster aunt!"
My appointment with George Freeman was at nine, and it was nearly
that hour when we left the bungalow. Herrick and I walked briskly
down the hill, and as we passed Dutchman's Hollow I cast a curious
glance at the tree which had been the scene of Mr. Crowfoot's
acrobatic performances. It stood, as Mary had said, almost
overhanging the footpath, a strong twisted-limbed cedar, noticeable
as being the only tree of its kind along the road. The fork was a
good six feet from the ground, and I reflected that Crowfoot must
possess more agility than his appearance warranted.
Herrick followed my glance.
"A queer tree, that," he said. "Looks as if it had been stuck there
for some purpose. Do you ever notice, Haverill, how some inanimate
things--if I may call a tree inanimate--strike one unpleasantly? Now
that tree, to me, suggests a suicide every time I look at it. A man
might hang himself among the upper branches, and you'd merely take
his body for a part of the tree."
"Another horror to the mystery of Dutchman's Hill!" I said lightly.
"Heaven's sake, Jack, but you're in a cheerful mood tonight! You
seem to have creepy things on the brain. It you stood and looked at
any tree long enough you could hypnotize yourself into seeing things."
"I merely called it unpleasant," returned Herrick argumentatively.
"To me it is. You think that because I have taken a fancy to dislike
a tree I'm ready to imagine unpleasant things about it. I believe
that if it impresses me that way, for no apparent reason, it is
because the unpleasant things have in all probability already
happened."
"Oh, argue that stuff with Lessing," I protested good-humoredly.
"It's more in his line. I heard you at it tonight. I'm a normal
man, and I object to having my free imagination harrowed over things
that don't count. That tree is a tree, and that's all about it."
Our fooling had brought us to a pause at the beginning of the little
plank bridge, and Herrick, leaning against the rail, had employed the
interval in making a cigarette. He smiled, slipping his tobacco
pouch back, and began to feel through his pockets for the little
automatic tinder-box he always carried. He was methodical over
trifling things to a degree that occasionally irritated me.
"Then go up and touch it," he said. "I would like to test that
sensitiveness which you boast that you don't possess."
"All right."
I walked up to the tree, impatient at my own encouragement of such
nonsense, and laid my hand on the trunk. Almost as my fingers
touched the bark I heard distinctly a low cry, cut suddenly and
horribly short. The woods, especially at night, are deceptive both
as to direction and distance, and, already half-expectant of some
trick, I could have sworn that Herrick himself had done it. I
wheeled on him angrily. He was standing in the roadway, the
cigarette at his lips, the tiny flame of the tinder-box flickering in
his lifted hand, and by its light I saw his face white and startled.
"Did you do that?"
"Do you think I'm a fool?" He caught my arm and swung me round,
facing the woods, of a sudden ominously silent. For a moment we
listened acutely. Then Herrick flung his unlighted cigarette away.
"Come on. It was over there."
He started forward, in the direction where the dam lay, breaking
through the underbrush. I followed at his heels. Along the road
there had been still a glimmer of light, but once under cover of the
trees we stumbled through dense blackness, with nothing to guide us
save Herrick's vague sense of direction. Once he stood still to
shout. There was no answer.
"Follow the stream," I said.
We had struck the edge of it again; I felt my boots sink in marshy
ground, and thereafter we made quicker pace. The brook was narrow at
this time of year, running a mere trickle in its bed. It branched
off from the creek just below the mill sluice, and in spring carried
off some of the excess of water when the creek itself was swollen.
Just now, as I knew, there was a scant foot of water at its deepest.
I was taking no particular heed therefore to my steps when Herrick, a
few paces to my left, called out.
"Take care!" he said. "We're nearly in the creek!"
As he spoke I heard, somewhere near us in the darkness, the
unmistakable sound of rushing water. I stopped abruptly, bewildered,
with the sense of having somehow lost my bearings. As we were going,
the creek should have been a good hundred yards on our left.
And the sound was not the sound of the creek. I had paused at the
moment near the edge of the brook; I could feel soft, saturated moss
underfoot, and I fancied that it grew even softer and damper as I
stood. Something swirled at my ankles, and taking a step forward I
was knee-deep in sudden icy flood.
Incredible as it seemed, the stream was rising. I had barely grasped
the meaning of it when Herrick shouted again. This time he was
answered. A strong shout caught up the echo of his voice.
"Hello, there! Where are you?" It was Herrick.
And the answer came promptly, near at hand now in the darkness:
"Hello! By the dam. Keep clear of the stream; the sluice-gate is
giving!"