TRAIL'S END
"The Mystery Man!" shouted the Overland Riders.
"Oh, Mr. Long, where are you?" cried Grace.
"I am here, bound over to keep the peace. If you will kindly release me
I will stretch myself, fit you with specs and proceed to break the peace
as soon as I can catch sight of the fellows who put me here. Specs,
folks? If you cannot wait, fetch my case. It is here somewhere, and I'll
fit you before you untie me."
Hippy struck a match, and by its light they saw Jeremiah Long, arms
pinioned to his sides with rope, and a rope about his neck, fastened to
a stake driven into a crevice in the rocks.
The Mystery Man was quickly released.
"Do you not wish to hear what has occurred here?" asked Nora.
"Ah know what occurred, up to the time some one hit me over the head and
put me to sleep."
Hippy then briefly told him the story of their arrival at the Ridge, and
of what followed. Grace added that they were disturbed, very much
worried about Tom Gray, and asked Mr. Long if he would assist them in
finding him.
"To be sure. Here! Place these specs on your nose and I promise you that
through those magic lenses you shall see your husband this very night.
Do they fit you?" questioned Jeremiah Long.
"The bows fit perfectly, but I cannot see a thing through the lenses,"
answered Grace laughingly, as a match flared up in the hands of Nora
Wingate and was held before Grace Harlowe's face.
"That is as it should be. So long as the bows fit, it matters not about
the lenses. Hold your positions, please, and light no matches until I
tell you to, lest you destroy the magic spell."
The Mystery Man left them, but returned in a few moments.
"I will throw a gleam from my magic lamp, and through your magic lenses,
Mrs. Gray, you will see that my spell has worked," announced the
strange character. He flashed an electric pocket lamp on the face of a
man standing facing the party.
The Overlanders gasped.
The circle of light drew the face of Tom Gray out of the darkness.
"Tom!" cried Grace, snatching off the spectacles and running to her
husband. "Oh, Tom, how could you keep silent so long when you knew how
disturbed we were?"
"I could not well do otherwise, Grace, seeing that I was bound just as
Mr. Long was, but with the added burden of a gag in my mouth. He came in
after I did, and we managed to get acquainted despite my gag. I could
mumble and he got the mumble. After you released him he freed my mouth
of the gag and cut the rope that held me helpless."
"You see my magic specs saw that Captain Gray had been clubbed and
kidnapped, and I was trying to find him when I was put to sleep and
dumped in here to await further disposition. Have the specs fulfilled
all that I promised, Mrs. Gray?"
"A hundred fold," laughed Grace happily.
"No charge, thank you. We aim to please our customers. Having an
appointment late this evening to fit a pair of specs of another variety
than you have seen me display, I will bid you good-evening. If I do not
see you again in reality, I shall many times smile at you ladies with my
eyes and my heart, and, should you at such times chance to be wearing
the magic specs, you will see the smile and recall the smiler."
"Won't you shake hands?" asked Miss Briggs.
"Thank you. I have said my good-byes."
"At least, Mr. Long, before you leave us, please tell us who and what
you are," urged Nora.
"With pleasure. I am Jeremiah Long, the Mystery Man, and spectacles is
my line. All hay is grass and grass is hay. I'm here to-morrow and gone
to-day." His voice seemed to fade away in the darkness, the last words
sounding far away and barely heard. The Overland Riders did not know
whether he had gone out or plunged deeper into the cave, to emerge from
some exit the existence of which they were unaware.
"What a queer man," murmured Anne Nesbit. "He almost gives one the
creeps. I wish we knew who and what he is."
"I think Tom knows," spoke up Grace. "Let's get out of this horrid
place."
"Yes, I do know. To-night he expects to accomplish what he has been
working towards for many months, a round-up of the leading moonshiners
of this district. I have seen Long before I came up here, and he
confided in me, because I possessed some information, gleaned from
hiking over this property of yours, which he wished to have, and that he
could not very well ask for without giving me some information in
return. Long is Dick Whitfield, the head of a corps of mountain sleuths,
probably the shrewdest man in his line of work who ever came into the
Kentucky hills. It was he who wounded the mountaineer in the bushes that
night by your camp. It was he who protected you in many tight places,
including some that you did not know about."
"And shot Lum Bangs through the wrist at the dance," suggested Nora.
"No, that was Jim Townsend, his principal assistant."
"That's the fellow I want to know about--the fellow who ought to be the
proudest man in the world because he looks like me," cried Hippy
Wingate.
As the party strolled out towards the mouth of the tunnel, Tom Gray told
his companions that Hippy's resemblance to Townsend had been quickly
seized upon by the Mystery Man, Jeremiah Long, and used as a cloak to
cover the operations of the real Townsend, trusting to their skill and
watchfulness to keep the moonshiners from collecting the reward that had
been offered for Townsend. Either Townsend or the Spectacle Man had kept
the Overland Riders under observation a good part of the time. It was
Townsend who rescued Hippy from the Spurgeon gang, who conducted Hippy
back to his camp, and who left the mysterious notes for the Overlanders.
"Yes. But why did they mark me for the slaughter?" demanded Hippy.
"Don't you understand? They thought you were Jim Townsend. In fact, the
mountain men had been informed that Townsend was on his way here as a
member of the Overland Riders, to get evidence against the moonshiners.
As a matter of fact, Townsend was already here and had been, in
disguise, for some time. That belief involved our entire party, you see,
and it is a wonder that the mountaineers did not get one of you, at
least. When they caught me, knowing that I was in Government service, I
thought it was all up with me, but I believe they thought best first to
settle their feud with Thompson.
"One thing that possibly saved all of you people, and surely saved
Hippy," resumed Tom Gray, "is that you are women. They were eager
enough to put Hippy out of the way, but you girls made them hesitate.
They didn't like the idea of committing a cold-blooded crime like that
in the presence of a group of pretty girls."
"What about that survey you were to make for me?" questioned Hippy.
"I have made it," replied Tom. "That is, I have gone far enough with it
to convince me that you have a wonderful coal deposit here. It will make
you a richer man than you ever dreamed of being, but it will be at least
two years before you can work the veins. A survey has been made for a
railroad spur that will go through your property, and I believe the
railroad people are going to begin work on it next spring. You will,
therefore, have plenty of time to mature your plans for the big splash."
"Hippy Wingate, don't you dare go and get enlargement of the head,"
warned Nora, after his companions had crowded about Hippy and
enthusiastically congratulated him.
"Never mind, Nora. If he does, just let me know. I'll con-centrate on
his head until it gets so small that he can wear a charlotte russe cup
on it instead of a sombrero. Didn't I con-centrate on everything?"
demanded Emma triumphantly.
"You did," agreed Hippy in a guttural voice.
"And didn't everything turn out just as I con-centrated that it should?"
"It did," rumbled Hippy.
"Then there is nothing more to be said," finished Emma amid the laughter
of her companions.
That night, having no tents to cover them, the Overland party slept in
the cave. Tom Gray sat with Hippy on guard at the mouth of the cave all
night, but their watchfulness was not needed. The Spurgeon gang that had
been annoying them had been soundly whipped, and, one by one, those that
were left were being arrested by revenue men. Spurgeon himself, as the
Overlanders learned later, succeeded in getting away. Lum Bangs, too,
managed to avoid the revenue agents, but was later hunted down and
driven out of the mountains by Jed Thompson's friends.
Late on the morning following the fight, Jed and some of his men rode
into the camp with the Overland ponies and also turned in one belonging
to his own outfit to take the place of the animal that the Spurgeons had
shot.
The Overland Riders spent a week longer in the mountains, during which
Tom and Hippy went over the latter's property in detail and laid plans
for the future.
Before leaving the mountains, Hippy succeeded in inducing Captain Gray
to go into partnership with him and share in Hippy's good fortune. At
the end of this happy week the Overlanders packed up what was left of
their equipment and rode away towards home, stopping for a day for a
visit with Jed Thompson's family, and incidentally to warn Jed that it
might be wise for him to raise and use other crops than corn, lest the
revenue men take him in as they had done with the Spurgeon gang.
In a way, the Overland girls were glad to start on their way home. None,
however, was quite so happy to be homeward bound as was Washington
Washington, who frankly admitted that he had had enough, and that he
"didn' want no moah."
The further adventures of the Overland Riders will be related in a
following volume entitled, "GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS IN THE GREAT
NORTH WOODS." Battles with the timber pirates, the fight for the
Overland claim, the faithfulness of the Indian, who helps Hippy and Tom
on to victory, and the Christmas dinner in the depth of the forest amid
thousands of scintillating Christmas trees, makes a story of adventure
and achievement second to none that Grace Harlowe and her companions
ever have experienced.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Obvious punctuation errors corrected.