Pale clear sunlight; early twittering of birds; the clean freshness
of dawn....
The lamp was still burning on the table when we reached the bungalow.
Herrick put it out. Then he laid a hand on my shoulder.
"Austin----"
There was a clatter of wheels on the road outside. Someone had
pulled up outside the house. It was a boy--Hiram Scholl's
boy--taking his load of milk-cans over to the creamery.
"I don't know as you've missed that yeller dog that belongs here," he
called out, "but if the folks were looking for him I thought I'd tell
you. He's over to the little house back on our wood-lot up the road.
I called to him, an' I dunno but he's hurt or something, for he's
just layin' there an' he wouldn't come. So if you want to go after
him I guess he's still there."
"Leo!" I exclaimed.
Herrick turned to me quickly as the boy drove off. "What house is
that?"
"Hiram Scholl's. It was empty, but someone said that Menning's
mother--Herrick, there's just a chance!"
I sprang for the motor-cycle, leaning where we had left it the night
before, by the side of the house. In a moment I had it out on the
road and Herrick swung to the seat behind me as I started the engine
up.
Five minutes brought us to the spot where the house stood, a tiny
frame shack set on a space of half-cleared woodland back from the
road. To reach it we had to climb the slope of stony pasture that
divided Scholl's land from the woods, and as we came in sight of the
house, half-hidden among the stunted spruce and juniper trees my eyes
caught a yellowish spot stretched on the doorstone.
It was the setter. He whined as I called to him, but without
turning, his gaze fixed on the closed door. His fine coat was
draggled and matted with blood about the throat; he sprang to his
feet as we came near and began to paw at the doorway.
I knocked. No one moved within. The one window was close shuttered,
but I fancied, listening, I could hear a faint crooning sound from
inside.
Together we set our shoulders to the door. It gave way, and we found
ourselves in the one tiny living-room of the house. It was dark and
close there was a disorder of household things piled here and there.
On a small broken rocker in the middle of the floor, Mrs. Menning sat
huddled, swaying to and fro, with the low crooning mutter we had
heard from outside. She had an old coloured handkerchief tied over
her head and a small silver cross was hung on a thin chain round her
wrinkled neck. Her aged face was impassive; her eyes, uncannily keen
and bright, seemed to look straight through us into distance.
"Where is Miss Lessing?" I asked.
She made no sign of having heard me, only kept up that faint
unintelligible muttering. Herrick went over and shook her gently by
the shoulder.
"Where is Miss Lessing? You got to tell us."
She twisted her shoulder from his grasp and sunk lower into the
chair, her eyes averted. My ears had caught a sound overhead. There
was no stairway in the room, but behind a pile of furniture a wooden
button betrayed a door that I had taken for an ordinary closet.
Hastily, I began to drag the things aside. The old woman saw my
purpose and slipped with sudden agility to her feet, her eyes blazing
with anger, but Herrick thrust her aside and in an instant we had the
door open and were upstairs, the dog at our heels.
"Mary!"
I caught her in my arms--unhurt, thank God--and carried her down,
through the shuttered room, past the old muttering woman--out into
the open and the clean air.
"Oh, Austin, that old woman! She met me on the road--I had gone to
call for Dick, and she said she was looking for me; that Dick had had
an accident and they'd brought him to this house and sent for me.
She told me to go upstairs, that he was there, and she shut the door
and wouldn't let me out. There was no window; no one could have
heard me from outside. And then Leo found me, I heard him barking
and she tried to drive him away, but he wouldn't go. Good old Leo!"
She put her arm round the setter, who was trying hard to reach her
face with his tongue. "I knew he'd help you to find me. Austin,
where _is_ Dick?"