THE MYSTERY DEEPENS
They stood together for a moment, puzzled and silent, trying to figure
out what it could mean. The two women were quiet. So far they had had
nothing to do with the attack on Jack. In the distance, perhaps a
hundred feet or so away, they could hear the men, whose clothes Jack
and Pete had taken, cursing and demanding that their property be
returned.
"Keep quiet, you!" Dick Crawford called to them. "You'll get your
things when you've given some account of yourselves and we're ready to
give them to you. If you make any more disturbance around here, you
won't get them at all. Remember that!"
A deep silence followed, and Pete laughed.
"Guess that scared them some, Dick," he said. "I don't think they'd
fancy the idea of going back to the city that way. In funny papers, if
a man loses his clothes, he always fetches up with a barrel. But I
always did wonder where he found the barrel!"
Dick looked doubtfully at the little heap of clothing.
"I don't suppose we ought to leave them out there without any clothes
at all," said he. "But I do think, after the way they've acted, that
we've got a right to look and see if there are any weapons. They would
be useless, in any case, after the wetting they've had, but--"
He picked up the coats of the two men and shook out the pockets. Sure
enough, a pistol fell from each, and from one there also dropped a
black mask.
"That doesn't look very well for them," he said. "I think, Tom, you'd
better go to a telephone and see if you can get Captain Haskin to meet
us here. He or some of his railroad detectives may know something
about these people."
Tom hurried off at once to obey the order, for such it was, though
Dick, as he almost always did, had put the order in the form of a
simple request. Then Dick looked more carefully at the things that had
fallen from the pockets.
"Hello!" he cried, suddenly. "Say, Jack, look here! Here's a letter
postmarked from Woodleigh. That's where you came from, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is!" cried Jack, on the alert, as always, at a sign of any
sort from the town where he had spent his boyhood.
"I think we've got a right to open this," said Dick, "though looking at
letters that aren't addressed to one is pretty small business, as a
rule. However, when people do the sort of thing that these fellows so
nearly got away with tonight they don't have a right to expect decent
treatment from others."
He looked grave when he had finished reading.
"This letter seems to concern you, Jack," he said. "It's from a lawyer
up there, and it's addressed to a man called Silas Broom, at the
General Delivery window of the post office in the city here. It says
that the boy Jack Danby, about whom Mr. Broom was making inquiries,
left Woodleigh some months ago, and has since, it is supposed, been
working near here. Now why does anyone want to know about you? And
why does this fellow Broom, if that is really his name, have to hear
this? He is a great scoundrel, whatever his name is."
"You quit callin' my husband names. Who are you, I'd like to know?"
The older woman emerged suddenly from the hut, in time to hear Dick's
last words, and she faced him now like a fury, her arms akimbo, and her
eyes snapping. She looked around suspiciously, too.
"Where's Silas?" she asked, angrily. "What have you done with him?
Ain't those his clothes there?"
She snatched the clothes up in an instant. Before Dick, who was
astonished by her appearance, could check her she had torn the coat
from his hands.
"Silas!" she yelled. "Where are you, honey?"
"Here I am--out in the woods," cried her husband, frantically.
"They've stolen my clothes, Carrie. Get 'em, and bring 'em here, will
you?"
"Comin'!" she called, and darted off with surprising speed, considering
her weight and the terrible exhaustion that had seemed to afflict her
when she was being brought ashore from the launch.
Dick and the two Scouts were laughing, although a bit ruefully, as she
vanished.
"I can't touch a woman," said Dick, sadly. "I'm afraid I'll have to
admit that I'd like to--but I guess she could lick me at that, if she
was put to it. Is that the one you dragged ashore, Jack?"
"That's the one!" said Jack. "It's a wonder she didn't drown the two
of us. But she certainly seems to have recovered pretty completely."
"It's bad business," said Dick, frowning. "Those fellows will get away
now. The only hold we had on them was that they didn't have any
clothes. Now they'll make tracks, and all ye can do is to tell Captain
Haskin what they looked like and what they did. I think we look pretty
foolish, myself."
Just then the girl, who had won Jack's admiration by her courage when
she was in real danger and by her reproof of the others when they had
shown their ingratitude, stepped into the firelight, fully dressed.
She did not look at all as if she belonged with the others. She was
more refined, gentler, and sweeter in every way. Dick Crawford stared
at her in astonishment. Jack had told him about her, but, since seeing
the others, he had thought that Jack had made a mistake in praising her.
"I beg your pardon," he said, speaking to her as she stopped and looked
about her, evidently puzzled by the absence of her companions. "But
I'm afraid we'll have to ask you to tell us what you can of the people
you were with. You are not related to them, are you?"
"No," she said. "No, indeed! I came with them because they promised
to show me how to reach a certain person for whom my father has been
searching for a long time. Then, of course, there was the fire on the
launch. But even before that they had kept putting me off, and I
didn't like the way they were acting at all. Where are they now?"
"I wish I knew!" said Dick. "However, we can talk more about them
later. I think that now the best thing we can do is to get you back to
the city. Your father will meet you there, I suppose, won't he?"
"Yes," she said. "My father is not at all well, and he is quite an old
man. We are staying at the Hotel Lincoln. I came with them alone,
though father didn't want me to, because they were so very positive
that our chase was nearly over."
"I think it's my duty to tell you," said Dick, "that these people who
were with you seem to be a very bad lot. They made an attempt to
kidnap this boy, who helped to save the lives of your whole party, and
we have every reason to suppose that they are associated with a gang of
thieves who have a grudge against him. I think you had better let us
take you back to your father. And if you will follow my advice, you
will have nothing more to do with any of them. They will only lead you
into danger and trouble."
Dick was anxious to question the girl further, but she was much shaken,
and in no condition to tell him anything more. So they all went back
to town together, and Dick himself acted as Miss Burton's escort to her
hotel.
"I will follow your advice," she promised him. "If any of those people
try to see me again, I will refuse to have anything to do with them.
But won't you come to see us, and perhaps you will be able to help us
in our search?"
"I'll be glad to do that," said Dick. "But if those people approach
you again, it might be better to pretend that you still trust them.
Don't put yourself in their hands in any way, but try to get them to
talk to you. In that way you may be able to get valuable information
that would otherwise not be available at all."
Captain Haskin, the head of the detective service of the railroad on
which Jack Danby's bravery had averted a terrible wreck, was much
concerned when he heard the story of the rescue and the ungrateful
conduct of those whose lives had been saved.
"We've got to look after Danby," he said. "He's an important witness
for us, and if he turns up missing, it's going to be more difficult to
get a conviction, though perhaps not impossible. But I think there's
more than that in their attempt to get rid of him."
"What do you mean, Captain?" asked Dick Crawford.
"Why, I don't know, my boy. But these people are not loyal enough to
one another as a rule to lead them to run such risks as these villains
have encountered just to get rid of a witness who may be damaging to
some of them who have been captured. When one or two of them are
caught, those who escape are usually so glad to get off free themselves
that they disappear and make no effort to help those who were not so
fortunate. The fact that they have kept after Danby this way is very
suspicious."
"Well, I happen to know," said Dick, "that there are people who seem to
have a grudge against Jack, or at least who have an interest in
maintaining a mystery that exists as to his birth. I don't like to
talk about that as a rule, because it's his own-business, but I'd
better tell you. He does not know his real name, or who his parents
were, and it is the ambition of his life to discover them. Since he
came away from Woodleigh, attempts have been made to find out what has
become of him, and a man who was concerned in an attempt to rob me of a
considerable sum of money that I was carrying for my employer is one of
those who seems most anxious to find out all about Jack. He knows the
secret of his birth."
"That would explain," said the detective, "the whole business at once.
Now, you see, you've given me something to work on. The railroad can't
feel at ease until all the men concerned in that plot that so nearly
wrecked the Limited the other night are safely in jail. It isn't that
we're vindictive, but when men are ready to imperil the lives of the
passengers on the trains we run, it isn't safe for us to let them be at
large. They may make another attempt, and there is no way of being
sure that the next time we shall be able to stop them. It was all a
matter of luck that blocked their plan before--and we can't trust to
luck in such matters. It might cost a hundred lives to do so."
"Well, if we can help you in any way, you can depend on us to do
anything in our power, Captain. I think any of our boys in the Scouts
would do anything for Jack Danby, and, of course, we want to do
anything we can to help the railroad safeguard its trains, for the sake
of all the people who have to ride on them."
"The most important thing right now is to see that nothing happens to
Danby. They have been so bold and so determined in their efforts to
put him out of the way already that I am afraid they are not likely to
stop at the two attempts. One thing seems very curious to me. The man
who carried him off from the camp was entirely willing to kill
him--planned to do so, didn't he?"
"So Jack says. And he is not the sort to be scared by idle threats."
"Just so! But now here is a queer thing. These people that tried to
carry him off to-day used the same boat as the man who took him from
the camp. Presumably they would have served him the same way as the
other scoundrel would have done. And yet they seem also to want to get
in touch with Jack himself--and not for the purpose of killing him..
It looks as if they were working at cross purposes--as if they did not
know that the boy who foiled the train-wrecking plot and the one they
have lost are one and the same. Don't you see?"
"I certainly do! Say, this is a confused affair, isn't it?"
"It's like a Chinese puzzle. But we'll work it out somehow."