TRAPPED.
Phil's hand darted to his pocket for the automatic that Garry had given
him before he started on his mission, but he was not quick enough, for
in less than an instant LeBlanc had leaped upon him, pinioning his arms
to his side. Phil was helpless in the grasp of the half-breed. LeBlanc
called in French for help, and in another moment the black moustached
proprietor came rushing in.
While LeBlanc held Phil, Canuck searched his pockets, taking from him
what little money he had, and the automatic revolver. Evidently
suspicious that Phil might have some other weapon concealed about him,
they made him unlace and take off his shoepacks; here, of course, they
found nothing, but fortunately they did not notice the secret pocket
that he had made in the lapel of his coat, in which reposed safely his
heavy scout knife.
In the meantime, the French restaurant proprietor and LeBlanc carried on
a swift conversation in French, all of which, of course, Phil
understood perfectly.
"We shall take him up to the room on the third floor that we know about,
and keep him there until we shall have decided what to do with him."
Phil was unceremoniously hustled out through the rear door, and with a
couple of brutal shoves, was taken up the dark stairway. Still, a second
flight he went up, and was then drawn into a dark room. Just before they
closed the door upon him, his heart sank, as he heard LeBlanc tell the
proprietor:
"This is the fourth time that I have met this boy. He seems fated to
work me harm. Once I left him for dead in the Great Woods, but he seemed
to have a charmed life and escaped. This time, I promise you he will
not."
So saying, they slammed the door, and Phil heard the rasp of the heavy
lock being turned in the door. Groping his way about, he found that the
room was bare of all furnishing, except for a decrepit old cot, and a
rough table. Feeling for the top of the table, he discovered there was
an old bottle, with a good-size piece of candle in it. He went through
his pockets carefully to see if by chance his searchers had left behind
them a stray match, but his hunt was not rewarded.
There was nothing to do but make the best of the darkness. He groped
his way to the cot and sat down, taking stock of the situation. There
seemed to be nothing he could do except to wait for the morning,
provided that he would be allowed to see the morning come, then to look
about the room in search of some method of escaping. Thanks to his
foresightedness, he still had his knife, and this might prove to him to
be salvation as far as escape was concerned. He laid down on the cot,
thinking, and after nearly a half of an hour jumped to his feet,
inwardly calling himself names for his forgetfulness.
Not until that moment had he remembered that he generally carried
several matches, wrapped in a bit of oil silk and tucked under his hat
band. It was a trick that Garry had taught him when they first went in
the woods.
Fumbling inside of the hat band, he came upon a little package of half a
dozen matches, still securely wrapped in the oiled silk in which he had
placed them, almost a month before.
"What a fool I was," he muttered to himself. "All that time that I was
tied and chained to a tree by LeBlanc and Anderson, I had those matches
and never once thought of them."
So saying, he carefully struck one of the matches and lighted the
candle. He now had a chance to examine the prison room that he was in.
Save for the door, the only other means of egress from the room was a
solitary window, but a quick examination showed that escape in this way
was impossible, for the shutter of the window, instead of being composed
of wood was made of a solid piece of iron.
Phil then examined the door, finding that this was evidently made of
several thicknesses of hard wood, so thick was it, that when he rapped
strongly with his knuckles, it gave forth a dead heavy sound, showing
that it was unusually thick. It was so thick and hard, in fact, as to
defy any effort to cut it through with his knife. Phil hardly knew what
to do; all way of escaping seemed barred to him.
There was one chance, however, and that was a possibility of attacking
whatever guard came to bring him food in the morning, for he did not
believe that they intended to starve him to death.
Grasping the bottle that held the candle, he went over and made an
examination of the cot. It was an old folding cot, made of fairly heavy
cross braces, bound with substantial pieces of metal.
Phil unshipped his knife from the coat lapel cache, and immediately set
to work to whittle away one of the cross pieces that supported the cot.
He whittled in such a fashion that on one end remained one of the iron
braces, screwed securely to the stick of wood. Hefting it in his hand,
and then swinging it about his head, Phil discovered that he had a
weapon that would almost fell an ox. His plan was to wait beside the
door in the morning until whoever brought him his food should have
unlocked the door, then to strike him down, and while he was stunned,
take a chance on escaping from the house.
The broken cot did not offer a very comfortable sleeping place, but Phil
propped it up the best he could and lay down upon it. It was too
rickety, so stripping the tattered blanket from it, he lay upon the
floor.
This was no hardship to him, as he had spent many a night of his life
sleeping upon the hard, solid earth, which is not a whit softer than a
flooring made of pine boards.
As he lay dozing, he almost fancied that he could hear a very low murmur
of voices. Telling himself that it was only his imagination, he rolled
over again and tried to sleep, but the excitement and the uncertainty
made him sleepless. Again he heard a low mutter of subdued voices, then
he sat straight up in his blanket.
Since he could not sleep, he felt that he might as well be busying
himself about something, so drawing a blanket over to a corner of the
room, he laid down flat upon it, and with the drill punch on his scout
knife, began to bore a hole in the floor. He remembered that the
ceiling of the restaurant was made of boards and not of plaster, and he
decided that this was probably the case all through the rest of the
house. There was probably a double thickness of boards, and the longer
he drilled the more certain he became of this.
Finishing, he could feel that he was within the merest fraction of an
inch of piercing the double thickness of boards, through which he had
carefully bored his way. Instead of piercing his knife blade straight
through the thin bit of board that was left, he began to enlarge the
hole that he had already made. When he had done this to his
satisfaction, he blew out the candle, for he wanted no stray gleam of
light to betray to whoever was in the room below him his course of
action.
Having extinguished the light, very carefully and slowly, he dug away
tiny splinters of the thin bit of board that separated him from hearing,
and perhaps seeing, what was taking place in the room below. As he made
the hole, the murmur of voices became more and more distinct. At last,
the sharp point of the knife pierced the board, and then working as
carefully as though he were handling the most deadly explosive, he began
to enlarge the little chink that he had made.
Having completed his peep hole, he glued his eye to it, but was unable
to make out anyone in the room below him. Evidently, the occupants of
the room were outside of his field of vision. Giving up trying to see
what was going on, he lay on his side with his ear pressed closely to
the aperture that he had made. He could distinguish LeBlanc's voice,
also that of the French restaurant proprietor. There seemed to be two
other men in the room, for he could make out the difference in voices,
but they were strangers to him. Evidently, the two strangers could not
speak French, for LeBlanc and the proprietor were talking in English.
Phil could hear the conversation as plainly as though he were sitting in
the room with them. As soon as he discovered what they were talking
about, he became very much excited, for they were discussing the details
of a fur smuggling trip that was to take place that very week. Phil
thought to himself, that if he could only get out of the prison room, he
had the most valuable clue that he or his chums had yet discovered. He
thought it strange that they made no remark about the deserted logging
camp, for Phil was certain that this was the headquarters, or at least a
rendezvous, of the smuggling band.
Phil had wondered that he had seen or heard nothing of Anderson, for he
expected wherever LeBlanc would be, the other would be found also.
However, from the conversation he learned that Anderson had already
crossed the border line, and was even then busily engaged in buying
quantities of furs from Canadian trappers. When they had consulted the
minor details of the trip, without, however, mentioning at what point
they crossed the border, much to Phil's disappointment, LeBlanc then
told his companions that as soon as they had completed the deal in furs,
that he had something very much bigger that would net them all a
fortune. In fact, he told them, he would not have bothered with the fur
trip at all, except that he and Anderson had used practically all their
available money in buying furs.
From the bustling sounds of the room below, the others evidently crowded
nearer to hear what this new scheme was, when suddenly there was a
commotion at the door of the room below, and a voice was heard,
demanding admittance.
"Ha," exclaimed Jean LeBlanc, "that is P'tit Vareau. I don't like him,
and he shall not come in with us on this big scheme. Tomorrow night I
shall discuss it with you at our friend M'sieu Henderson's place. Now,
you may let him in, but not a word of anything other than about the
furs."
Vareau made his entrance, and there was some desultory conversation, and
then all of them left the room.
Phil's heart was bounding in excitement. Here he had all the details of
the plot at his finger ends, and all that needed to be done was to keep
close tabs on LeBlanc, and he would lead them direct to the headquarters
of the smuggling crew.
Truly his attempt at escape next morning must not fail.
* * * * *
Garry and Dick, back at the lean-to, were discussing the possibility of
Phil's stumbling upon important information, not knowing at that moment
he was a prisoner, trapped in the old French restaurant, and in the
hands of the most vengeful enemy that the three possessed.
Throughout the night they kept up a constant sentry duty, not that they
really expected anything to happen, but just because it seemed to be
better on the safe side--a case of rather be safe then be sorry. Morning
came, and they prepared their breakfast. They did not dare to stir from
the camp, for there was no telling at what moment they might get a
message from Phil, telling them that their help was needed.
* * * * *
Despite the fact that he was worried, Phil slept the normal sleep of a
healthy boy, awaking in the morning both hungry and thirsty. He
immediately secured the iron tipped stick that he had fashioned the
night before, and took his place at the door, ready to strike down
whoever entered, and make a dash for liberty. Nearly two hours elapsed,
and the strain was beginning to tell upon him, when he heard a sound of
shuffling footsteps outside the door. Grasping his club firmly in his
hand, he prepared to act, but to his keen disappointment, however, the
door was opened only an inch or two, and he heard LeBlanc's voice,
bidding him out. Through the crack of the door, he could see LeBlanc's
form, and immediately in back of him, that of the big restaurant keeper.
He made no response for a moment, and suddenly the door was thrown open,
and LeBlanc and the proprietor came rushing in. LeBlanc seemed to be
possessed of second sight, for he seemed to know that Phil had
contemplated an attack on whoever came in the room, and he foiled this
by rushing at Phil, jamming him close to the wall, and making it
impossible for him to raise his club, much less than to use it.
"Aha, mon brave would fight would he? I thought so, and came prepared to
care for you. We will see that he has nothing left to fight with."
Bidding his companion in French remove the cot, LeBlanc cast a hasty
glance around the room to see if anything was left that by any artifice
whatsoever could be converted into a weapon. Phil had carelessly thrown
the blanket over the hole that he had made on the floor, and in a fold
had tucked away the piece of candle.
LeBlanc paid no attention to the blanket, seeming to think that with the
cot broken the boy had slept on the floor. The table and the empty
bottle that had served as a candlestick were removed, and then food and
water was brought to him and left there.
"Tonight I am ver' busy, but tomorrow you shall be taken from here in a
trunk, and you shall be dropped in the river. How you will like that,
hein?" and with an evil grin he left the room, leaving Phil again in the
darkness to eat his food as best he could.
Phil rescued his candle, and lighted it to eat by, and then carefully
extinguished it, for he knew it would not last a great while were it to
burn steadily.
He had one wild idea left. It was dangerous in the extreme, it might
mean death, but it was death if he stayed in the clutches of the
renegade half-breed. This idea was to try to set fire to the door, in
the hopes that it would burn enough without setting the whole room on
fire until he could battle his way out.
This idea he meant to carry out only as a last resort. There were two
chances left to him. One was that he could find some other method of
escape, the other was that his chums would come to his rescue when he
failed to return at the appointed hour of sundown.
At any rate, he would wait until the last minute before trying his
desperate scheme. LeBlanc, he knew, would be gone the greater part of
the night, for they did not plan to start until almost midnight for Lafe
Green's house.
The long day dragged on and he got hungry and thirsty. No one came
again, evidently one meal was all that he was to have. Presently he
decided that it must be past sundown, and he lay down on the blanket,
and before he knew it dropped off to sleep.
Then out of a sound and dreamless sleep he heard a number of mysterious
tappings on the iron shutter that guarded the window.
He ran to the window and listened again.
Yes, there they were, being repeated in a sort of a staccato yet
rhythmic measure.
Suddenly it dawned on him what it was. The tappings were dots and dashes
of the International Code, and they were spelling out:
P-H-I-L- P-H-I-L- P-H-I-L-