It was as I thought. The lever that controlled the sluice had been
pulled half over. Bracing my feet firmly, I threw all my strength
against it. I had the force of the water to contend with; as I
pushed, the whole neglected structure of the gate seemed to vibrate
and tremble, but little by little I could hear the gush gradually
decreasing, the seething and bubbling below me quieted.
I pushed the lever back as far as I could; it refused to go the whole
way, and I feared to do further damage unwittingly by forcing it.
But the greater part of the escape was checked. I went back to the
wall again and waited.
The minutes dragged. It was a relief to see presently the glimmer of
a light through the trees and to hear Mr. Sliefer's anxious
deep-throated hail. They had taken one of the stable doors off its
hinges, and Herrick and the farmer carried it between them while
Crowfoot walked ahead with the lantern.
I saw Crowfoot glance toward the sluice, but he said nothing. With
as little jarring as might be we lifted Freeman's unconscious weight
on to the door, and I took Herrick's place in the slow procession
back to the farmhouse.
Mrs. Sliefer, with Rebecca, white-faced and stricken, met us in the
yard. They had prepared a room upstairs, and there we got Freeman to
bed and did all that was possible for him. Unconsciousness spared
him the pain of our handling; the fracture was as ugly a one as I
have seen. The concussion was graver even than we had supposed; it
would be days certainly, possibly weeks, before he would be in a
state to answer any questions.
I decided to stay the night, and Herrick, with the Sleifers' hired
man, drove over in the buggy to take a message to Mrs. Searle and
bring back what was needful from the surgery.
In his absence I set myself to gather what information I could from
the Sliefers themselves. George Freeman had been there that evening.
He had arrived earlier than usual, it being his weekly evening off,
and stayed only a short time, saying that he had an appointment in
the village. On Rebecca teasing him, he had said that it was a
business appointment and that she should hear all about it in good
time.
He had left the house at a quarter-past eight. His appointment was
for nine, and it would have taken him nearly that time to walk over,
even by the short cut. It was already close upon nine when we left
the Lessing's cottage to walk home, and at least twenty minutes must
have elapsed before we heard Freeman's cry. How had he employed that
interval, and with what object had he lingered nearly three-quarters
of an hour near the dam? Instinctively I thought of Crowfoot. He
was not in the room, and in the light of what had happened I felt no
hesitation in questioning the Sliefers about their guest.
He had come to them a fortnight ago, engaging his room by letter.
They often took a boarder in the summer, and someone who once stayed
there had recommended them to him. He was quiet and
pleasant-mannered, and anxious to give no trouble, an ideal boarder
from Mrs. Sliefer's point of view, though Rebecca inclined to
consider him "queer." He had stipulated for a ground-floor room,
explaining that for some heart affection he was forbidden to mount
stairs. (I smiled, thinking of the acrobatic exercises Mary Lessing
had witnessed.) They had accordingly arranged the back parlor for
him, which had a door opening directly on the side porch. His meals
were served to him there. Beyond the necessary service they had very
little to do with him. He was not at all talkative on account of his
infirmity, but always pleasant in manner. To their knowledge, George
Freeman had never so much as spoken to him, though it was his
unfailing joke to tease Rebecca about the "handsome young city
gentleman."
So much for Mr. and Mrs. Sliefer's account. Rebecca differed.
Rebecca didn't hold with "queerness," nor with mucking one's room up
with rubbishy weeds, nor with going out at night to hunt toadstools.
"Toadstools?" I said.
"Fungy, he calls 'em. It's the same thing. He says there's some
that shines in the dark, like rotten wood. I've never seen 'em, nor
I wouldn't go touchin' 'em if I did. Anything would need to shine
good and hard for him to see it with those blue goggles on!"
"Rebecca's jest set against him because he wears glasses," said Mrs.
Sliefer.
"I like to see a folk's eyes," Rebecca insisted. "I hate to have 'em
lookin' at you when you think they ain't."
For some reason she seemed to distrust Crowfoot, but there was
certainly no suspicion, even in her mind, of any possible quarrel
between the two men. Rebecca herself admitted his courage in having
pulled Freeman out. No mention was made of the sluice, and I
concluded that neither Herrick nor Crowfoot had spoken of it at the
house.
Mrs. Sliefer volunteered to sit up with Freeman the first part of the
night, and having seen her settled in a capacious armchair near his
bed, I returned to Herrick in the parlor below. There was a couch in
the room, but we were neither inclined to make use of it. It was my
first chance of speaking privately to Herrick since his return to the
house, and having closed the staircase door leading upstairs, I told
him briefly all that I had learned that evening.
"Crowfoot couldn't have opened the sluice," he said when I had
finished. "How does the thing work? Do you suppose Freeman could
have caught at the lever as he fell and pulled it over on him? It
doesn't sound likely."
"Impossible. The lever works in the opposite direction."
Herrick pondered.
"He might have been fooling with the thing and opened it, and then
lost his balance trying to get it back."