THE MAN WHO CAME FROM NOWHERE
"He hadn't a word for no one, not even for me or Mike,
And whenever we spoke or tried to joke, he growled like a
Chessy tyke."
Dwight Wade found a lively conference in progress in the main camp.
Tommy Eye was doing most of the talking, and it was plain that his
opinions carried weight, for no one presumed to gainsay him.
"And I'll say to you what I'm tellin' to them here, Mr. Wade," continued
the teamster. "You saw for yourself what happened here last night. A
ha'nt done it. And the ha'nt done this last. They're pickin' Skeets
right and left."
"Ha'nt must be in the pay of Pulaski D. Britt," remarked one rude joker.
"He's been the one most interested in gettin' the tribe out of this
section."
Dwight Wade, love and awful fear raging in his heart, was in no mood to
play dilettante with the supernatural, nor to relish jokes.
"We'll have done with this foolishness, men!" he cried, harshly. "A girl
has been lost in these woods." He was protecting Elva Barrett's
incognito by a mighty effort of self-repression. The agony of his soul
prompted him to leap, shouting, down the tote road, calling her name and
crying his love and his despair. "I want this crew to beat the woods and
find her."
"She can't ever be found," growled a prompt rebel. "I heard the driver
tell. She was picked right up and lugged off. There ain't any of us got
wings."
"Oh, you've got to admit that there are ha'nts!" persisted Tommy, with
fine relish for his favorite topic. "And they pick up people. I see one,
in the shape of a tree, pick up an ox once and break his neck."
"D--n you for drooling idiots!" raved Wade, beside himself. It was the
first outlet for the storm of his feelings.
He ordered them to get lanterns and start on the search--he strode among
them with brandished fists and whirling arms, and they dodged from in
front of him, staring in amazement.
"My Gawd," mourned Tommy, "this camp has had the spell put on it for
sure! The ha'nt has driv' the boss out of his head, and will have him
next. And if it can drive a college man out of his head, what chance has
the rest of us got?"
Panic was writ large in the faces of the simple woodsmen, and fear
glittered in their eyes. A single queer circumstance would merely have
set them to wondering; but these unexplainable events, following each
other so rapidly and taking ominous shade from the glass that lugubrious
Tommy Eye held over them, shook them out of self-poise. It needed but
one voice to cry, "The place is accursed!" to precipitate a rout, and
old Christopher Straight had the woodsman's keen scent for trouble of
this sort.
"A moment! A moment, Mr. Wade!" he called. He patted the young man's
elbow and urged him towards the door. "I want to speak to you. Keep
quiet, my men, and go in to your supper."
As he passed the cook-house door he sharply ordered the cook to sound
the delayed call--the cook being then engaged in discussing, with
chopping-boss and cookee, a certain "side-hill lounger," a ha'nt that
wrought vast mischief of old along Ripogenus gorge.
"Mr. Wade," advised the old man, when they were apart from the camp,
"I'm sorry to see you get so stirred up over the Skeet girl, for I don't
believe she appreciates your kindness. I have this matter pretty well
settled in my own mind. I don't know just why Miss Nina is up here, nor
why she has brought that girl back--or tried to. It is plain, though,
that the girl has deceived her."
"I don't understand," quavered Wade, struggling between his own
knowledge and old Christopher's apparent certainty.
"The Skeet girl, having her own reasons for wanting to come this way
from Castonia, got as far as Pogey Notch, slipped off the team, and made
her way to Britt's camp on Jerusalem to join Colin MacLeod. It's all a
put-up job, Mr. Wade, and they've simply done what they set out to do in
the first place, when Britt and his crew followed John Barrett and me to
Durfy's. So I wouldn't worry any more about the girl, Mr. Wade. Let her
stay where she plainly wants to stay."
Wade blurted the truth without pausing to weigh consequences. He
bitterly needed an adviser. Old Christopher's calm confidence in his own
theory pricked him.
"Great God, man, it isn't the Skeet girl! It is John Barrett's
daughter--his daughter Elva!"
For a moment Christopher gasped his amazement, without words.
"There have been strange things happening outside since we've been
locked in here away from the news," the young man went on, excitedly.
"It is Elva Barrett, I tell you, Christopher, and she has been stolen."
"Then it's a part of the plot--somehow--someway," insisted the old man.
"Colin MacLeod, or some one interested for Colin MacLeod, saw that
girl, and took her for the Skeet girl. I've never seen Elva Barrett, but
you've told me that the Skeet girl is her spittin' image--or words to
that effect," corrected the old guide.
"And she was dressed in Kate Arden's clothes!" groaned Wade, remembering
Nina Ide's little scheme of deception.
"Then she's at Britt's camp--mistaken for the Skeet girl, as I said,"
declared Straight, with conviction.
"But hold on!" he cried, grasping Wade's arm as the young man was about
to rush back into the camp, "that's no way to go after that girl--hammer
and tongs, mob and ragtag. In the first place, Mr. Wade, those men in
there are in no frame of mind to be led off into the night. I know
woodsmen. They've been talkin' ha'nts till they're ready to jump ten
feet high if you shove a finger at 'em. This is no time for an army--an
army of that caliber. They know well enough now at Britt's camp that it
isn't Kate Arden. And I'll bet they're pretty frightened, now that they
know who they've got. It's a simple matter, Mr. Wade. I'll go to Britt's
camp and get the young lady. I'll go now on snow-shoes and take the
moose-sled, and I'll be back some time to-morrow all safe and happy."
"I'll go with you," declared Wade.
"It isn't best," protested the old man. "I've no quarrel with Colin
MacLeod. It means trouble if you show in sight there without your men
behind you."
"But I'm going," insisted Wade, with such positiveness that old
Christopher merely sighed. "I'll let you go into the camp alone,"
allowed Wade, "for I am not fool enough to look for trouble just to find
it; but I'll be waiting for you up the tote road with the moose-sled,
and I'll haul her home here out of that hell."
"I can't blame you for wantin' to play hoss for her," said the woodsman,
with a little malice in his humor. "And if she is like most girls
she'll be willin' to have you do it."
Ten minutes later the two were away down the tote road. They said
nothing of their purpose except to Nina Ide, whom they left intrenched
in the wangan--a woods maiden who felt perfectly certain of the chivalry
of the men of the woods about her.
The storm was over, but the heavens were still black. Wade dragged the
moose-sled, walking behind old Christopher in the patch of radiance that
the lantern flung upon the snow. Treading ever and ever on the same
whiteness in that little circle of light, it seemed to Wade that he was
making no progress, but that the big trees were silently crowding their
way past like spectres, and that he, for all his passion of fear and
foreboding, simply lifted his feet to make idle tracks. The winds were
still, and the only sounds were the rasping of legs and snow-shoes, and
the soft thuddings of snow-chunks dropped from the limbs of overladen
trees.
In the first gray of the morning, swinging off the tote road and down
into the depths of Jerusalem valley, they at last came upon the
scattered spruce-tops and fresh chips that marked the circle of Britt's
winter operation.
The young man's good sense rebuked his rebelliousness when Christopher
took the cord of the sled and bade him wait where he was.
"I don't blame you for feeling that way," said the old man, interpreting
Wade's wordless mutterings; "but the easiest way is always the best. If
she is there she will want to come with me, where Miss Ide is waiting
for her, and the word of the young lady will be respected. I'm afraid
your word wouldn't be--not with Colin MacLeod," he added, grimly.
And yet Dwight Wade watched the lantern-light flicker down the valley
with a secret and shamed feeling that he was a coward not to be the
first to hold out a hand of succor to the girl he loved. That he had to
wait hidden there in the woods while another represented him chafed his
spirits until he strode up and down and snarled at the reddening east.
At last the waiting became agony. The sun came up, its light quivering
through the snow-shrouded spruces. Below him in the valley he heard
teamsters yelping at floundering horses, the grunting "Hup ho!" of
sled-tenders, and the chick-chock of axes. It was evident that the visit
of Christopher Straight had not created enough of a sensation to divert
Pulaski Britt's men from their daily toil. Wade's hurrying thoughts
would not allow his common-sense to excuse the old man's continued
absence. To go--to tear Elva Barrett from that hateful place--to rush
back--what else was there for Straight to do? In the end the goads of
apprehension were driving him down the trail towards the camp,
regardless of consequences.
But when, at the first turn of the road, he saw Christopher plodding
towards him, he ran back in sudden tremor. He wanted to think a moment.
There was so much to say. The old man came into sight again, near at
hand, before Wade had control of the tumult of his thoughts.
The sled was empty.
Christopher scuffed along slowly, munching a biscuit.
"They wouldn't let her go? I--I thought they had made you stay--you were
so long!" gasped the young man, trying by words of his own to calm his
fear.
"She isn't there, Mr. Wade," said the old man, finishing his biscuit,
and speaking with an apparent calmness which maddened the young man.
This old man, placidly wagging his jaws, seemed a part of the stolid
indifference of the woods.
"I brought you something to eat, Mr. Wade," Christopher went on. He
fumbled at his breast-pocket. "We've got tough work ahead of us. You
can't do it on an empty stomach."
"My God! what are you saying, Straight?" demanded the young man.
"They're lying to you. She is there. She must be. There's no one--"
"And I say she isn't there," insisted Christopher, with quiet firmness.
"I know what I'm talking about. You're only guessin'."
"They lied to you to save themselves."
"Mr. Wade, I know woodsmen better than you do. There are a good many
things about Colin MacLeod that I don't like. But when it came to a
matter of John Barrett's daughter Colin MacLeod would be as square as
you or I."
"You told them it was John Barrett's daughter?"
"I did not," said the old man, stoutly. "There was no need to. If it had
been John Barrett's daughter she would have been queening it in those
camps when I got there. She hadn't been there. There has been no woman
there. Colin MacLeod and his men didn't take Miss Barrett from that tote
team. And I've made sure of that point because I knew my men well enough
to make sure. She isn't there!"
"There is no one else in all these woods to trouble her," declared Wade,
brokenly.
"No one knows just who and what are movin' about these woods," said
Christopher, in solemn tones. "In forty years I've known things to
happen here that no one ever explained. Hold on, Mr. Wade!" he cried,
checking a bitter outburst. "I'm not talking like Tommy Eye, either! I'm
not talking about ha'nts now. But, I say, strange things have happened
in these woods--and a strange thing has happened this time. Barrett's
daughter is gone. She's been taken. She didn't go by herself." He gazed
helplessly about him, searching the avenues of the silent woods.
"North or east, west or south!" he muttered, "It's a big job for us, Mr.
Wade! I'm goin' to be honest with you. I don't see into it. You'd better
eat."
The young man pushed the proffered food away.
"You eat, I say," commanded old Christopher, his gray eyes snapping.
"An empty gun and an empty man ain't either of 'em any good on a
huntin'-trip."
He started away, dragging the sled, and Wade struggled along after him,
choking down the food.
When they had retraced their steps as far as the Enchanted tote road,
Christopher turned to the south and trudged towards Pogey Notch. The
trail of the tote team was visible in hollows which the snow had nearly
filled. The snow lay as it had fallen. The tops of the great trees on
either side of the road sighed and lashed and moaned in the wind that
had risen at dawn. But below in the forest aisles it was quiet.
Had not the wind been at their backs, whistling from the north, the
passage of Pogey Notch would have proved a savage encounter. The
stunted growth offered no wind-break. The great defile roared like a
chimney-draught. As the summer winds had howled up the Notch, lashing
the leafy branches of the birches and beeches, so now the winter winds
howled down, harpers that struck dismal notes from the bare trees. The
snow drove horizontally in stinging clouds. The drifting snow even made
the sun look wan. The quest for track, trail, or clew in that storm
aftermath was waste of time. But the old man kept steadily on, peering
to right and left, searching with his eyes nook and cross-defile, until
at the southern mouth of the Notch they came to Durfy's hovel.
Christopher took refuge there, leaning against the log walls, and mused
for a time without speaking. Then he bent his shrewd glance on Wade
from under puckered lids.
"There's no telling what a lunatic will do next, is there?" he blurted,
abruptly.
Wade, failing to understand, stared at his questioner.
"I was thinkin' about that as we came past that place where 'Ladder'
Lane trussed up John Barrett and left him, time of the big fire," the
old man went on. "Comin' down the Notch sort of brought the thing up in
my mind. It's quite a grudge that Lane has got against John Barrett and
all that belongs to him."
Wade was well enough versed in Christopher Straight's subtle fashion of
expressing his suspicions to understand him now.
"By ----, Straight, I believe you've hit it!" he panted.
"I've been patchin' a few things together in my head," said the old man,
modestly, "as a feller has to do when dealin' with woods matters. I've
told you that queer things have happened in the woods. When a number of
things happen you can fit 'em together, sometimes. Now, there wasn't
anything queer at Britt's camps to fit into the rest. I came right on
'em sudden, and there wasn't a ripple anywhere. I didn't go into the
details, Mr. Wade, in tellin' you why I knew Miss Barrett wasn't there.
It would have been wastin' time. But now take the queer things! Out goes
Abe Skeet into the storm! Who would be mousin' around outside at that
time of night except a lunatic--such as 'Ladder' Lane has turned into
since the big fire? You saw on Jerusalem how Lane could boss Abe--he
jumped when Lane pulled the string.
"And it was Lane that called him out of our camp," the old man went on.
"No one else could do it--except that old Skeet grandmother. Lane has
been in these woods ever since he abandoned the Jerusalem fire station.
He's no ordinary lunatic. He's cunnin'. He's only livin' now to nuss the
grudge. Now see here!" Christopher held up his fingers, and bent them
down one by one to mark his points. "He has ha'nted camps in this
section to locate Abe Skeet. Knowed Abe Skeet could probably tell where
Kate Arden had gone, Abe havin' been left to guard her. Called Abe out
to go with him to get that girl back--maybe havin' heard that John
Barrett got out of these woods scot-free and had dumped the girl off
somewhere else. Lane is lunatic enough to think he needs the girl to
carry out his plan of revenge. And he does, if he means to take her
outside and show her to the world as John Barrett's abandoned daughter,
as it's plain his scheme is. Lane and Abe started down towards Castonia.
Heard tote team, and hid side of road (would naturally hide). Saw girl
that looked like Kate Arden (even dressed in her clothes, I believe you
told me?). Followed the team, and when she covered herself in the
blanket, as though to make herself into a package ready for 'em, they
grabbed her off the team before she had time to squawk. Had her ready
muzzled and gagged, as you might say! Mr. Wade, as I told you, I've been
patchin' things in my mind. I ain't a dime-novel detective nor anything
of the sort, but I do know something about the woods and who are in 'em
and what they'll be likely to do, and I can't see anything far-fetched
in the way I've figgered this."
While his fears had been so hideously vague Wade had stumbled on behind
his guide without hope, and with his thoughts whirling in his head as
wildly as the snow-squalls whirled in Pogey. Now, with definite point on
which to hang his bitter fears, he was roused into a fury of activity.
"We'll after them, Christopher!" he shouted. "They've got her! It's just
as you've figured it. They've got her! She will die of fright, man! I
don't dare to think of it!" He was rushing away. Christopher called to
him.
"Just which way was you thinkin' of goin'?" he asked, with mild sarcasm.
"I can put queer things together in my mind so's to make 'em fit pretty
well," went on the old man, "but jest which way to go chasin' a lunatic
and a fool in these big woods ain't marked down on this snow plain
enough so I can see it."
Wade, the cord of the moose-sled in his trembling hands, turned and
stared dismally at Straight. The old man slowly came away from the
hovel, his nose in the air, as though he were sniffing for inspiration.
"The nearest place," he said, thinking his thoughts aloud, "would be to
the fire station up there." He pointed his mittened hand towards the
craggy sides of Jerusalem. "They may have started hot-foot for the
settlement. Perhaps 'Ladder' Lane would have done that if 'twas Kate
Arden he'd got. But seein' as it's John Barrett's own daughter--" He
paused and rubbed his mitten over his face. "Knowin' what we do of the
general disposition of old Lane, it's more reasonable to think that he
ain't quite so anxious to deliver that particular package outside,
seein' that he can twist John Barrett's heart out of him by keepin' her
hid in these woods."
The young man had no words. His face pictured his fears.
"It's only guesswork at best, Mr. Wade," said Christopher. "It's tough
to think of climbin' to the top of Jerusalem on this day, but it seems
to me it's up to us as men." They looked at each other a moment, and the
look was both agreement and pledge. They began the ascent, quartering
the snowy slope. The dogged persistence of the veteran woodsman animated
the old man; love and desperation spurred the younger. The climb from
bench to bench among the trees was an heroic struggle. The passage
across the bare poll of the mountain in the teeth of the bitter blast
was torture indescribable. And they staggered to the fire station only
to find its open doors drifted with snow, its two rooms empty and
echoing.
"I was in hopes--in hopes!" sighed the old man, stroking the frozen
sweat from his cheeks. "But I ain't agoin' to give up hopes here,
sonny." Even Wade's despair felt the soothing encouragement in the old
man's tone.
"We've got to fetch Barnum Withee's camp on 'Lazy Tom' before we sleep,"
said the guide. "There'll be something to eat there. There may be news.
We've got to do it!" And they plodded on wearily over the ledges and
down the west descent.
They made the last two miles by the light of their lantern, dragging
their snow-shoes, one over the other, with the listlessness of
exhaustion. The cook of Withee's camp stared at them when they stumbled
in at the door of his little domain, their snow-shoes clattering on the
floor. He was a sociable cook, and he remarked, cheerily, "Well, gents,
I'm glad to see that you seem to be lookin' for a hotel instead of a
horsepittle."
Not understanding him, they bent to untie the latchets of their shoes
without reply.
"T'other one is in the horsepittle," said the cook, jerking his thumb
over his shoulder in the direction of his bunk in the lean-to. "He was
brought in. I've been lookin' for something of the sort ever since he
skipped from the Jerusalem station. Lunatics ain't fit to fool 'round in
the woods," he rambled on.
"Who've you got in there?" demanded Christopher, snapping up from his
fumbling at the rawhide strings.
"Old 'Ladder' Lane," replied the cook, calmly. "Murphy's down-toter
brought him here just before dark. He's pretty bad. Froze up
considerable. Toter heard him hootin' out in the swirl of snow on the
Dickery pond and toled him ashore by hootin' back at him. No business
tryin' to cross a pond on a day like this! 'Tain't safe for a young man
with all his wits, let alone an old man who has beat himself all out
slam-bangin' round these woods this winter.
"Yes, he's pretty bad. Done what I could for him, me and cookee, by
rubbin' on snow and ladlin' ginger-tea into him, but when it come to
supper-time them nail-kags of mine had to be 'tended to, and here's
bread to mix for to-morrow mornin'. We don't advertise a horsepittle,
gents, but you wait a minute and I'll scratch _you_ up somethin' for
supper. The horsepittle will have to run itself for a little while."
Wade and the old man stared at each other stupidly while the cook
bustled about his task. For the moment their thoughts were too busy for
words. Even Christopher's whitening face showed the fear that had come
upon him.
"Guess old Lane was comin' out to get a letter onto the tote team,"
gossiped the cook. "I was lookin' through his coat after I got it off
and found that one up there."
He nodded at a grimy epistle stuck in a crevice of the log, and went
down into a barrel after doughnuts which he piled on a tin plate.
Noiselessly Christopher strode to the log and took down the letter and
stared at the superscription, and without a word displayed the writing
to Wade. It was addressed to John Barrett at his city address.
The cook was busy at the table.
"By Cephas, this is _our_ business!" muttered the old man. And, turning
his back on the cook, he ripped open the envelope. On a wrinkled leaf
torn from an account-book was pencilled this message:
"_You stole my wife. I've got your daughter. Now, damn you, crawl and
beg!_"
"Look here, cook," called Straight, sharply, "there's bad business mixed
up with Lane. Don't ask me no questions." He flapped the open letter
into the astonished face of the man to check his words. "We've got to
speak to Lane, and speak mighty quick."
"He was in a sog when I put him to bed," said the cook. "Didn't know
what, who, or where. They say lunatics want to be woke up careful. You
let me go." He took a doughnut from the plate and started for the
lean-to, grinning back over his shoulder. "He may be ready to set up,
take notice, and brace himself with a doughnut."
The two men waited, eager, silent, hoping, fearing--each framing such
appeal as might touch the heart of this revengeful maniac.
They heard the cook utter a snort of surprise; then they saw the flame
of a match shielded by his palm. A moment later he came out and stood
looking at them with a singularly sheepish expression.
"Gents," he blurted, "I'll be cussed if the joke ain't on me this time!
I went in there to give the horsepittle patient a fresh-laid doughnut to
revive his droopin' heart, and--"
"Is that man gone?" bawled Christopher, reaching for his snow-shoes.
"Yes," said the cook, grimly; "but you can't chase him on snow--not
where he's gone. He's deader'n the door-knob on a hearse-house door."