"Look here, Fisher. There's no love lost between you and me, and it
doesn't affect me."
"Or me."
"For all that, I don't care to see you or the clubs robbed without
giving you a friendly hint."
"You're very kind. Who is the culprit? The doctor?"
"No; _Rollitt_. Stay," said he, waving down the interruption, "I
shouldn't be fool enough to say it unless I was pretty sure. Tell me
this, Fisher; when you go out and leave money about do you lock your
door?"
"No. We don't have to do that this side."
"Did you ever see Rollitt in here?"
"No."
"Do you know that on the first half-holiday this term Rollitt nearly
came to grief on the river?"
"What on earth has that to do with it?"
"Everything. You heard of it? Your young brother was with him, of
course. And you heard that he lost Widow Wisdom's boat over the falls."
"Yes," said Fisher, suddenly beginning to see the drift of the cross-
examination.
"And you heard that the very next day he bought her a new one for five
pounds?"
"Yes, I did; but whatever right have you to connect that with the
missing money?"
"Wait a bit. You were away all that afternoon, weren't you!"
"Yes."
"I wasn't. I happened to come over to look for you, and found you were
out. The only fellow I met in the house was Rollitt. He'd just got
back, and I met him at the door of this room. There, you can make what
you like of it. Even a Classic knows what twice two makes."
And he turned on his heel and left the room.
"There's goes a thoroughbred cad for you," said Denton.
"I don't know how we came to let him go without a kicking," said Fisher.
"Shall I call to him to come back?" asked Corder.
"Of course," said Fisher major, "it _is_ a curious coincidence about
Rollitt. But I never thought of connecting the two things together
before."
"No. It's utter guesswork on Dangle's part."
"If it comes to that," said Corder, "if Dangle was over here that
afternoon, why shouldn't he have collared it as well as Rollitt?"
"He has any amount of money. He's not hard up, like Rollitt."
"All I can say is," said Denton, "I wish that cad had kept his
suspicions to himself."
The object of these suspicions, meanwhile, blissfully unconscious of the
interest with which he was being remembered at Fellsgarth, was utilising
his holiday in the prosecution of his favourite sport.
This time he did not fish from a boat, nor did he affect the upper
stream. He tried the lower reach; and not very successfully. For he
had never been able to replace the tackle lost on the eventful afternoon
when Widow Wisdom's boat had gone over the falls. He had his fly-book
still, and had come across an old reel which, fitted to a makeshift rod
with common twine, had to do duty until he could afford a regular new
turnout. It was better than nothing, but the fish seemed somehow to get
wind of the fact that they were not being treated with proper respect,
and refused to have more to do than they could help with irregular-
looking apparatus.
Rollitt put up with their unreasonableness for a long time that morning
and afternoon. With infinite patience he tried one fly after another,
and either bank in turn. He gave them a chance of being hooked under
the falls, or right down on the flats by the lake. But it was no go.
They wouldn't be tempted.
At last, as it was growing dusk, he became conscious that it had been
raining fast for half an hour, and that he was wet through. He looked
up and saw a grim pall of wet lying over the lake and all up the side of
Hawk's Pike, of which only the lower slope was distinguishable through
the mist. It was not a promising evening; and Rollitt, now he came to
think of it, might as well go back to Fellsgarth as stand about here.
So he collected his tackle and turned homeward. His path from the lake
brought him across the track which leads round to the back of the
mountain; and he was just turning in here when he heard what sounded
like a halloo on the hill-side. It was probably only a shepherd calling
his dog, but he waited to make sure.
Yes, it was a shout, but it sounded more like a sheep than a man.
Rollitt shouted back. A quick response came, and presently out of the
mist a shadowy form emerged running down the slope, hopping over the
boulders, and making for the lane.
A minute more and Wally presented himself.
"Hullo, is that you, Rollitt? I thought I was lost. I say, have you
seen the others?"
Rollitt shook his head.
"Whew! I made sure they'd come down. I say, what a go if they're lost
up there, a night like this?"
Rollitt looked up at the dim mountain-side and nodded again.
"I thought I was on a path, you know, and hallooed to them. They didn't
hear, so I went back for them, and--so we've missed."
"Who!" said Rollitt.
"Do you know my young brother Percy, a Modern kid? He was one, and all
our lot, you know, D'Arcy and Ashby and Fisher minor and--"
"Fisher minor," said Rollitt, suddenly becoming interested; "up there?"
"Yes--he's the lame horse of the party--not up to it. What's up, I
say?"
Rollitt had suddenly deposited his rod under the wall, and quitting the
path was beginning to strike up the base of the hill.
"Go, and bring guides," he growled.
"You'll get lost, to a dead certainty. I say, can't I come too?" said
the boy, looking very miserable.
"No. Fetch guides. Come with them. Quick."
There were no guides to be had nearer than Penchurch, four miles off,
and Wally, very cold and wet and hungry and footsore, with a big load on
his heart as he thought of Percy, pulled himself together with an effort
and stumped off.
Rollitt strode on up the slope in the gathering night. Cold and weather
mattered little to him, still less did danger. But Fisher minor
mattered very much. For Percy or any of the rest he might probably have
stayed where he was; but for the one boy in Fellsgarth he oared about he
would cheerfully go over a precipice.
Every now and again he stood still and shouted. But in the wind and
rain it was impossible to say if any one heard him or called again.
After an hour or more he found himself on the first ridge, where for a
few yards the ground is level before it rises again. Here he called
again, once or twice. Once there came, as he thought, a faint distant
whistle, but by no manner of calling could he get it to come again. He
started off in the direction from which it seemed to come, calling all
the way, but never a voice came out of the darkness. For a couple of
hours he doggedly haunted the place, loth to leave it while a chance
remained. Then he gave it up, and started once more up the steep slope.
He looked at his watch by the light of a match. It was eleven o'clock.
He shuddered, but not with the cold, and went on.
Something--who could say what?--told him that he must go higher yet.
Once last year, in company with Wisdom, he had been as far as the upper
bog, and had wanted to go to the top. But Wisdom had dissuaded him.
Now, even in the darkness the ground seemed familiar, and he tramped on
up the swampy steep till presently he found himself near the sound of
rushing water at the foot of the great ravine.
The stream had grown so strong since the afternoon that to shout against
it was more hopeless than ever. Yet Rollitt shouted. Had a voice
replied, he felt sure he could have heard it. But none did.
Up the steep ravine he went, finding the going easier than through the
spongy swamps below. About half-way up, just where the juniors ten
hours ago had decided to turn back, as he looked up, he saw what seemed
like clear sky through a frame in the mist. Was it clearing after all?
Yes. The higher he got the more the mist broke up into fleeting clouds,
which swept aside every few moments and let in a dim glimmer of
moonlight on the scene.
At the top of the ravine he shouted again; but all was still. Even the
wind was dying down, and the rain fell with a deadened sob at his feet.
Three o'clock! Wisdom had told him, the day they had been up there,
that the top was only three-quarters of an hour beyond where he stood.
Something still cried "Excelsior" within him, and without halting longer
than to satisfy himself by another shout, he started on.
How he achieved that tremendous climb he could never say. The clouds
had rolled off, and the moonlight lit up the rocks almost like day.
Never once did he pull up or flag in his ascent. He even ceased to
shout.
Presently there loomed before him, gleaming in the moonlight, the cairn.
For the first time in its annals, a Fellsgarth boy had got to the top
of Hawk's Pike.
But, so far from elation at the glory of the achievement, Rollitt
uttered a groan of dismay when he looked round and found no one there
after all. That he would find Fisher minor there he had never doubted;
and now--all this had been time lost.
Without waiting to heed the glorious moonlight prospect over lake and
hill, he turned almost savagely, and scrambled down the crags. It was
perilous work--more perilous than the scramble up. But Rollitt did not
think of danger, and therefore perhaps did not meet it. In half an hour
he was down on the bog--and in an hour after, just as a faint break in
the east gave warning that the night was gone, he stood bruised and
panting at the foot of the gorge on the second ridge.
He was too dispirited to shout now. It had not been given to him after
all to rescue his friend. He would have done better if he had never--
There was a big boulder just ahead, poised almost miraculously on its
edge, on the sloping hill-side. It looked as if a moderate blast of
wind would send it headlong to the bottom. But it had stood there for
centuries, a shelter for sheep in winter from the snow and hail.
What made Rollitt bound now in the direction of this rock, like a man
shot? Surely not to admire a natural curiosity, or to seek shelter
under its wing.
No. He had found that his quest after all had not been in vain. There,
curled up under the overhanging rock, lying one almost across the other
for warmth, with cheek touching cheek, and Ashby's coat covering both,
were Fisher minor and his chum--not dead, but sleeping soundly!