AT THE END OF THE TRAIL
"The further we go the more mysterious this becomes," mused Dick,
as he and Darrin stood together over a clump of faintly-marked
footprints, a quarter of an hour later.
"How does the mystery increase?" Darrin inquired.
"For one thing, we don't always find the bootmarks of the men
who were with Mr. Dodge. Yet once in a while we do. There are
the prints of all three. When Theodore Dodge passed by this way
the other two men were with him, or had him in sight. And our
course shows that the three were plunging deeper and deeper into
the woods. But come along. There must be an end to this, somewhere."
Ten minutes later Prescott and Darrin felt that they had come
to the end of the mystery. For the faint trail had led them up
a slight, stony slope, and now the two boys lay flat on the ground.
Below them, in a bush-clad hollow, two miles from the world in
general, stood a little, old, ramshackle shanty. The location
was one that seekers would hardly have found without a trail to
lead them to it.
To the door of this shanty a broad-shouldered, rough-looking and
powerful fellow of forty had just come. The man, who was poorly
clad, wore brogans, and held in his right hand a weighty, ugly-looking
club. The fellow was smoking a short-stemmed pipe, and now stood,
with his left hand shading his eyes, peering off at the surrounding
landscape.
Dick and Dave hugged the ground more closely behind their screen
of bushes.
"It's all right, Bill," announced the lookout in the doorway.
"'Course this," growled a voice from the inside. "Too far from
the main line o' travel for anyone to be spying around. Besides,
no one guesses-----"
"Well, you can go to sleep if ye wanter, Bill. I'm goin' ter
sit up and smoke."
With that the brogan-shod man disappeared inside the shanty.
Dick and Dave glanced at each other with eager interest.
"I wonder whether they have Mr. Dodge in there with them?" breathed
Dick, in his ear.
"If Mr. Dodge is in there he's keeping amazingly quiet," Darrin
responded doubtingly.
"Within a very few minutes," Prescott rejoined, "I'm going to know
whether Mr. Dodge is in that shanty."
"We found his footprint close enough near here," argued Dave.
"Yes, and I feel sure enough that Mr. Dodge is there. But why
don't we hear something from him? The whole business is so uncanny
that it gives one that creepy feeling."
For a full quarter of an hour the two chums remained hidden, barely
stirring. From the shanty, at first, came crooning tones, as
though the man in brogans were humming over old songs to himself.
Occasionally there was a snore; evidently Bill was drowsing the
day away.
"Now, I'm going down there," whispered Dick.
"Look out the big fellow doesn't catch you," warned Darrin. "I've
an idea he'd beat you to a pulp if he caught you."
"I'm not as big as he is," admitted Dick, grinning, "but I think
I might prove as fast as he on my feet."
As Prescott started to steal down into the hollow Dave reached
about him, gathering all the fair-sized stones within reach.
"If Dick has to come from there on the rim," soliloquized Darrin,
"a few stones hurled at the face of that ugly-looking customer
might hold him back for a while. And I used to be called a pretty
fair pitcher!"
Prescott, in the meantime, was stealing around the shanty, applying
his eyes to some tiny cracks.
At last he turned, making straight and cautiously up the slope.
As he came near, Dick sent Dave a signal that made that latter
youth throb with expectancy.
"Yes! We've found Theodore Dodge!" whispered young Prescott eagerly.
"He's in there, lying on the floor, bound and gagged."
"Whew! And what is Mr. Brogans doing?"
"Sitting on the floors smoking and playing solitaire with a dirty
pack of cards. The other rascal, Bill, is sleeping at a great
rate."
"What are we going to do now?"
"Dave, are you willing to stay here, hiding and keeping watch
on the place?"
"Surely," nodded Darrin, with great promptness.
"If the wretches should try to take Mr. Dodge away from here-----"
"I'll follow 'em, of course."
"And leave a paper trail," nodded Dick.
"Here is all the paper I have in my pockets," he added.
"I have some, too," muttered Dave.
"I'll be back as speedily as I can get help."
"You ought not to be gone more than an hour."
"Not as long as that, I hope. Goodbye, Dave, and look out for
yourself."
After going the first hundred yards Dick Prescott let himself
out into a loping run, very much like that used by the "soreheads"
in getting back to town. With a trained runner the cross-country
style of running is suited for getting over long distances at
fair speed.
Twenty minutes later young Prescott reached a farm house in which
there was a telephone. He asked permission to use the instrument.
"Go right in the parlor, and help yourself," replied the farmer's
wife.
As Dick rang on, and stood waiting, transmitter at his ear, he
first thought of calling for the police station.
"No, I won't, either," he muttered. "This belongs to my paper.
Let them tip off the police. Hello! Give me 'The Blade' office,
Gridley, please."
Dick waited patiently a few moments. Then:
"Hullo! 'The Blade?' This is Prescott. Is Mr. Pollock there?
He is? Good! Tell him I want to speak with him."
Then Mr. Pollock's voice sounded over the wire.
"Hullo, Prescott! Why aren't you on hand, with that big Dodge
story hanging over our heads? Why, it brought me down hours before
fore my time."
"Pollock, I've found Dodge," replied Dick Composedly. "At least,
Darrin and I-----"
"What's that!" broke in the editor's excited voice. "You've found
Dodge? Alive?"
As rapidly as he could young Prescott told the story. Mr. Pollock
listened gladly.
"Now, where are you, Prescott?"
Dick told Mr. Pollock the name of the farmer from whose home he
was telephoning.
"Just you wait there, Prescott. And, oh!---pshaw! I came near
forgetting to tell you the biggest news of all---for you. Mrs.
Dodge this morning offered a thousand dollars' reward for the
finding of her husband, dead or alive. You'll get that reward---you
and Darrin! But I've no more time to talk. Stay right where
you are until I reach you."
Nor was it long before Dick, pacing by the farmyard gate, saw
an automobile approaching at a lively clip. In it were the chauffeur
and Editor Pollock.
The latter waved his hand wildly when he caught sight If his High
School reporter.
Right begged this automobile sped another, in which sat Chief Coy,
Officer Hemingway and a uniformed policeman, in addition to the
chauffeur.
"We didn't lose much time, did we?" hailed Mr. Pollock, as the
first auto slowed up "Jump in, quick! Show us the way."
"I suppose there's some excitement down in Gridley, about this
time?" laughed Dick, as the two autos raced along once more.
"Not a bit," replied the editor. "And for the very simple reason
that no one knows that Dodge has been found."
"His family know it, of course?" queried Dick.
"No; not a word. Chief Coy kept it quiet, and asked me to do
the same. He didn't want the Dodge family all stirred up by false
hopes in case you had made a mistake. The silence will keep 'The
Evening Mail' from learning the news for a while. And I've had
our forms left standing. We're all ready to run out an extra
---in case you haven't made a mistake, Prescott," added Mr. Pollock
quizzically.
Dick smiled resignedly at this implied doubt. But the autos were
making fast time, and soon the machines had gone as far on the
way as they could be used.
"Now we'll have to get out and strike across country, through
the woods," Prescott called.
So far Dick had resolutely tried to keep out of his mind any thought
of that thousand-dollar reward. It sounded too much like "Blood
money" to take pay for helping any afflicted family out of its
troubles. Besides, it had been the glory of doing a piece of
bright newspaper work that had allured the two High School boys
at the outset.
"Yet a thousand dollars is---a thousand dollars!" Dick couldn't
help feeling, wistfully, as he piloted his party across fields
and through the woods. "A thousand dollars! Five hundred apiece
for Dave and me! What a fearful big lot of money! What we could
do with it, If we had it! I wonder whether it would be right
and decent to take it?"
Then, as he neared the place where he had left his chum on post
Dick Prescott found other and anxious thoughts crowding into his
mind.
Was Dave Darrin, staunch and reliable Dave---still there, on
post, and unharmed?
Was Theodore Dodge there? Were his captors still with him?