HUNTERS OF MEN
Moving rapidly about, Douglas inspected his real bedroom and the
spidery attic, finding his bough-tip couch undisturbed and the upper
room empty. Back in the main room, he glowered anew at the bayonet-like
blade which had been driven with such venomous force into what seemed
to be a sleeping man.
“This cooks your goose, Nat Oaks!” he growled. “You’ve let yourself in
for the worst mauling you ever got in your low-down life. Just as soon
as you and I meet up again--and we’ll meet just as quick as I can find
you!”
He strode to the door. But there he slowed, stayed by the reflection
that Nigger Nat was not likely to be at home now and that he did not
know where else to look. “Better build a fire, eat, and dry out,”
whispered Common Sense. So he slammed the door shut and returned to the
cold stove.
With the kindlings in position, he reached to the little shelf above
him for a dry match--and knocked the match-box to the floor. Stooping
to pick up the little igniters, he saw under the stove a scrap of
paper. Mechanically he lifted it, glanced at it, saw only a blank
space; folded it once, touched a match to it, and held it under the
grate to start the fire. It blazed out bravely, the light of its own
flame shining through it.
Suddenly he snatched it back and killed its blaze under a wet sole.
The light had revealed writing inside the little sheet.
Straightening out the charred, muddy remnant, he read:
“--akes dont Sleep hear to Nite.”
Minutes passed while he squatted there, his whole mind concentrated on
that belated message. Then he turned, inspected the floor, looked back
at the stove, and nodded.
“Somebody slid this under the door yesterday after I left,” he deduced.
“When the door opened later on, the wind blew it here, wrong side up.
Now who left it? Not Lou Brackett--not Marry or her mother--they don’t
know a thing about this. Uncle Eb? Steve? Not likely that they’d know
what was to happen. And it surely wasn’t either of those man-hunters.
H’m! Some one of these silent Trapsmen who likes me, maybe. Well, my
unknown friend, I’m obliged to you. Call again some time.”
Again he studied the writing, the spelling, the paper--cheap wrapping,
wrinkled and soiled.
“You haven’t much education and you write like a coal-heaver, but
your heart’s true blue,” he added, folding the blackened tatter and
pocketing it. “I’d surely like to know who you are. But if you’re as
close-mouthed as everybody else around here you’d never admit that you
wrote this, anyway. Well, let’s start this fire.”
Soon a hot fire was roaring up-chimney, coffee was coming to a boil,
and he was arraying himself in the few dry articles of clothing he
could find, while the wet garments and boots encircled the stove.
After a rough-and-ready breakfast he hugged the stove himself, smoking
and thinking.
Nat Oaks was a clumsy murderer indeed to leave his weapon behind.
Perhaps the ha’nt had scared him--the open door indicated a sudden bolt
from the place. For that matter, it was strange that he had ever dared
to enter this house of fear at night. He must have been full of “Dutch
courage” at the time.
But there was Snake Sanders, too. Snake had been with Nat when he left
home yesterday afternoon. He had returned to his own den late at night.
And he was a creature who always worked stealthily, snakily, using
others as his tools. In avenging his real or fancied grudge against
the Bumps he had used Steve as his scapegoat. In trying to rid the
neighborhood of the “detective” and gain possession of the stranger’s
belongings he had employed a deadly reptile. Now he and Nigger Nat had
been much together of late--and he had “some kind of a hold” on Nat.
So Marion had said. It was fair to suspect, then, that he had been the
instigator of this murderous attempt last night. Yes, very fair. Almost
a foregone conclusion.
Yet there was no actual proof of Snake’s hand in this. For that matter,
the proof against Nat himself was purely circumstantial. Another hand
might have wielded this corn-hook. It was even possible that the
corn-hook itself was not Nat’s, though it looked the same. Corn-hooks
probably were much alike. True, this one had a whitish gouge on the
handle near the blade, and the same sort of mark had been noticeable
at the same spot when Nat had poised it for attack that day in his
yard. But still----
“First thing I’ll do, Nigger Nat, will be to find out whether this hook
is yours,” declared the man by the stove. “If it is, the next thing is
to get hold of you. Then I’ll hammer the truth out of you.”
In pursuance of this program, he stoked up the fire and hastened the
drying of the necessary articles of outdoor gear. When at length his
personal outfit was again serviceable he went forth into the raw day.
But he did not start away at once. Memory persisted in reminding him
of Uncle Eb’s account of the open door and of what he had found in the
woods behind the house. He rubbed his chin, then turned and stalked
toward those woods.
In under the funereal trees he passed, scrutinizing the vague dark
things here and there among the trunks, finding them to be only rotting
fragments of old logs, half-buried juts of stone, or lumps of forest
mould. No sound came to him but the tiny impacts of falling leaves
and the watery squash of his own boots on the soaked soil. Dreary and
dismal stood the forest, telling him nothing of what had taken place
last night. His only reward for his wandering there was a renewal of
his wetness.
Swinging back, he worked by the driest route toward the road, thinking
only of settling the matter of the ownership of the corn-hook. And now
that he sought nothing, he found something: a grim reminder of what had
come about within these shades on another night.
Under a hemlock was a sinister low mound. At one end stood a short pine
board. On the board he deciphered scrawling letters shallowly cut with
a jack-knife.
JAKE
DALTON
Though he had repeatedly visited these woods before, seeking fuel, he
never had stumbled on this spot. Now he stood gazing thoughtfully down,
hearing again Uncle Eb’s words:
“What he was runnin’ away from--what had got holt of him before he
run--nobody knows. Nobody but Jake, an’ he can’t tell.”
And last night another man had bolted from the same house, from the
same room--whither?--why? Douglas felt a slight chill. With a sharp
shake of the shoulders he lifted his head and right-faced. Out to the
silent clearing he tramped, and straight up the road.
On his way to the Oaks place he met nobody. The only tracks not blurred
by rain on the sand were his own, made that morning. Entering the yard
of Nigger Nat, he slowed down, sharply scanning the windows. No face
showed there.
“Hey! Hullo!” he called.
After a pause the door opened. Marion’s head came out.
“Hullo yourself! What you want? Seen pop anywheres?”
“No. He hasn’t come home yet?”
“If he had I wouldn’t be askin’, would I?”
“Probably not. Well, I wonder if I can borrow his corn-hook awhile.”
“Corn-hook? Why--yes, I guess so. He wouldn’t like it much, but----
Mom, Mister Hampton wants pop’s corn-hook awhile. All right? Wait a
minute and I’ll git it.”
She withdrew, leaving the door partly open. Presently her voice floated
to him from somewhere at the rear.
“’Tain’t here! Mom, you been usin’ it? Well, ’tain’t here. What’s ’come
of it, I wonder?”
Hammerless Hampton’s face tightened. To the door he passed, drawing
from under his coat the tool which, despite its clumsiness, he had
managed to conceal.
“Maybe this is it,” he called. Feet padded inside, and both the girl
and her mother appeared.
“Sakes alive! That’s it, now!” ejaculated the woman. “It’s hisn--got
the two nicks into the edge that he never ground outen it, an’ there’s
the place where one o’ the dawgs bit onto it.” She pointed to dull
dents on the handle. “How come ye by it?” she added suspiciously. “What
ye askin’ for it for, when ye got it already?”
“Just wanted to make sure it was his. I found it down the road a
piece--in some corn-husks.” He watched her keenly. Her visage showed
only blank wonderment. The girl, too, looked mystified, but she was
probing his grim face with sharp eyes.
“An’--ye didn’t see nawthin’ o’ Nat?”
“Not a thing. But you can tell him, when he gets home, that I want to
see him, and the best thing he can do is to wait for me.”
Without another word or look he swung away, leaving them staring after
him in misgiving. On up the road he journeyed, turning off at the path
leading to the lair of Snake Sanders.
The crawling mists had long since left the slopes, and when he emerged
again into the Sanders field the shack was visible in all its raw
nakedness. Smoke still curled from its shiftless chimney, but the only
sign of life outside was a lonesome speckled hen pecking disconsolately
at the bare dirt. Watching the windows, he marched up to the door and
gave it a resounding kick. Then he jumped to one side.
A chair fell over within, followed by hurried steps.
“Who’s ther’?” shrilled a sharp voice.
“Open up!” he snapped, warily sweeping the front of the place, from
corner to corner. “I want Snake!”
More steps. The door swung slowly back. Lou Brackett’s face appeared,
drawn into a squinting knot.
“Send Snake out here!” he commanded.
She eyed him, unspeaking, for a long minute. Gradually her face
relaxed. She came forward and stood on the door-stone. Her right hand
was gripping a heavy flatiron.
“Snake, he ain’t here.”
“Where is he? I want him.”
“I dunno wher’ he’s at. He went out ’while ago--never said one word
to me after he got up, ’cept tellin’ me to git more cawffee. What’s
pesterin’ ye? Wha’ for d’ye come a-kickin’ into the door----”
“Nat Oaks here?”
“Nat! No, mister, that yeller dawg ain’t! Him nor none o’ his
tribe--now or no other time! What ye----”
“All right. Good-bye.”
Leaving her open-mouthed, he circuited the house, looking in at every
window, finding that she spoke truthfully: neither Sanders nor Oaks was
there. She still stood on the steps, gaping after him, when he went
back across the opening and disappeared down-hill among the trees.
At the edge of the sandy road below, he paused, undecided what to do
next. Had he been in almost any other place and seeking a man, he
would have visited other men and asked questions. But here in the
tight-mouthed Traps, what was the use? Still, he felt a strong distaste
for returning and idling out the dismal day in his dreary abode. Half
consciously he turned toward Uncle Eb’s home.
“I’ll go up and smoke a pipe with the old man, anyhow,” he decided
aloud.
“Smoke it here if you want,” a voice answered.
The voice came from beside a tree not ten feet away. Startled, he
looked into the face of Ward, man-hunter.
“Caught you flat-footed, huh?” Ward went on. “Bill’s behind you, if
that’s what you’re lookin’ for.”
True enough, a few feet back from the other side of the path, the
morose face of Bill showed beside another tree.
“Well! You fellows are getting good!” Douglas congratulated them.
“Regular Indian stuff. You’d have had me cold if you’d wanted me.”
“Sure.” Ward nodded carelessly. “But we don’t want you--not yet.”
“Not yet? Meaning what?”
“Oh, we ain’t got anything on you--yet. When we do we’ll nail you.
Right now we got other work.”
“Thanks! Mighty nice of you to tell me. How are you making out?”
“Bum luck, so far,” was the frank admission. “But we’ll git what we’re
after. You could help us if you would, but it’s no good askin’ you.”
Douglas grinned jauntily. Then he grew sober. There was something about
the patient, straightforward, quiet-spoken Ward that appealed strongly
to him, just as there was a coarseness about “Brooklyn Bill” that
aroused his reckless antagonism. Too, he himself was now a man-hunter
on his own account. With Bill silent behind him and Ward’s steady eyes
before him, he felt a sudden swerve from the Traps current in which he
had been drifting. Weighing his words, he spoke out.
“See here, Ward. You haven’t told me who your man is, and I’m not
asking. Maybe I know something about the case, maybe I don’t. But let’s
suppose a case.
“Suppose you’re looking for a fellow--only a young lad--who got sent
up for arson and a few other things like that. Suppose I have reason
to believe that the young fellow never did what he was sent up for;
that he has served years for a crime he never committed; that he was
‘framed.’ Would you blame me for not wanting to help send him back to a
good many more years of the same?”
Ward’s eyes widened a trifle.
“No, I wouldn’t. I’d feel sorry for him myself. But ‘framed’? How?”
“Used as a goat by an older man. Filled up with liquor and left to take
the blame for burning a house and shooting people, while the man who
really did it sneaked back up here and laughed at you fellows. That
could easily be done.”
A pause, while Ward watched him steadily.
“Sure, it could be done. But to git the kid clear it would have to be
proved. Who’s the man?”
Douglas glanced behind him--up Snake Sanders’ road. The movement was
involuntary, prompted by an instinct to make sure that nobody else was
lurking and listening. But Ward’s shrewd eyes narrowed, and he nodded
as if in complete understanding.
“I’m not saying,” Douglas replied, facing him again. “We’re just
supposing, of course. But in that case, you couldn’t expect much
help from me, even if I knew where the youngster was. As a matter of
fact--if you are looking for such a fellow--I don’t know where he is.
But, speaking of goats, here’s something that’s not ‘supposing’ at all:
While I was away last night somebody entered my house and rammed a
foot and a half of cold steel into a dummy I’d left in my bed. And I’m
pretty sure that the mind back of that stab--though maybe not the hand
that did the stabbing--was the same one that framed up that ‘supposed’
boy we’re talking about.”
Another pause.
“Uh-huh. And you’ve been up here to see about it, and your man wasn’t
home. Well, we’re waitin’ for that same gentleman; been wantin’ to see
him for quite awhile, but he’s a slippery cuss. When we do git hold of
him--we’ve got a few questions to ask him. Glad you spoke that little
piece of yours, Hampton. We’ll keep it in mind.”
“All right. If I see him before you do he may get mussed up
considerably, so you’d better grab him soon. So long.”
“Wait a minute. Got any idea who swung that steel on the dummy--if it
wasn’t the same gent?”
“Oh, yes. But that’s my business. So long.”
“So long. Watch yourself.”
Douglas tramped away. Ward and Bill looked at each other, slid back
behind their trees, and resumed their silent waiting.