RAVEN ROCKS
Bill Bolton dropped one of the gasoline tins he was carrying and
grasping the other with both hands, hurled its heavy bulk at the
stranger. The tin caught the man full in the chest.
As he staggered back, Dorothy felt herself seized from behind. A quick
twist and pull sent her antagonist hurtling off to the right. It was not
for nothing she had put in long hours mastering the complicated throws
and holds of jiu jitsu, that strenuous art of Japanese wrestling.
She freed herself in time to see Bill crash his fist into the face of a
third man.
"Come on!" he yelled, and they raced for the line of trees.
But their troubles were not over yet. Straight ahead and directly in
their path, another dark figure was leaping toward them. There was no
time to dodge--to swerve. Bill dove at the man, stopping him short and
bringing him to the ground with a clean tackle just above his knees. The
force of contact was terrific. For the fraction of a second neither the
tackler nor his opponent moved. Then as Dorothy, trembling with
excitement, bent over them, Bill scrambled to his feet.
"Are you hurt, Bill?" The girl's voice was breathless with concern.
"No--only winded--" he gasped. "Be all right--in a minute."
Dorothy gripped him by the arm and they trotted forward again, gradually
increasing their speed as Bill regained his breath. From behind them
came the calls and angry shouts of their pursuers.
All at once, the inky black blur of the woods loomed before them.
"Keep along the edge of this pasture toward the wood road," Dorothy
whispered quickly. "I'm going to start a false trail. Maybe we can fool
them. You get your breath--join you in a minute or two."
She sprang into the underbrush, crashing over low bushes, snapping dead
twigs and branches under foot with all the clatter of a terrified cow in
a cane brake. Then the noise stopped as suddenly as it started, and Bill
was surprised to hear her light footsteps at his heels.
"I want 'em to think we're hiding in there," she explained hurriedly.
"Can you run now?"
"You bet!"
They sped along the edge of the wood, spurred by the thought that the
ruse would delay their pursuers and perhaps throw them off the trail
altogether. From their rear came the sound of a rough voice issuing
commands. Men were beating the underbrush, cursing in the darkness.
Both Dorothy and Bill had got their second wind and were running much
more easily now. Then Dorothy tripped on the uneven ground and would
have fallen had not Bill thrust out a steadying hand.
"Thanks," she said jerkily as she ran. "Look over my shoulder. Lights
back there."
"Wonder they didn't use 'em before," was Bill's only comment.
Dorothy slowed down to a fast walk and Bill also slackened his pace.
"We must be nearly there," she panted, "though since we had to drop the
gasoline, there doesn't seem much use hiking over to the plane."
Bill nodded in the darkness. "Think we'd better get back to the house?"
"Yes; they'll never see us, especially now that they've got their
flashlights going--that glare will blind them. I vote we keep on along
the valley until we pass the wood road, then swing across this pasture
again and up the hill till we strike the road. That will take us back to
the Conway place and--"
"Look!" Bill's exclamation arrested her, but his warning was
unnecessary. Far above, a sudden rift in the clouds brought a full moon
into view. The woods, the open pasture and the steep hill down which
they had traveled almost blindly a few minutes before were now bathed in
clear, silvery light as bright as day. As they dashed forward again, a
shout from behind told them they had been seen.
"Stop or we'll fire!"
"There's the trail, Bill--it's our only chance!"
Men were calling to each other behind them and she caught the sound of
heavy feet pounding along in their wake. As she and Bill turned into the
wood road and sped down its winding stretches under the arch of
intertwining boughs, a revolver cracked several times in quick
succession. Overhead, the bullets went screaming through the branches.
"Shooting high to scare us," wheezed Bill. "'Fraid we're running into a
dead end."
"Maybe not--this moonlight won't last--clouds too heavy."
Dorothy wasted no more breath in speech. Her every effort was centered
in keeping up with the long legged young fellow who seemed to cover the
ground so easily and at such an amazing rate of speed.
Presently they swept out of the wagon-trail and into the glaring
moonlight of the woodlot. Shouts and calls from their pursuers but a
short distance behind now, lent wings to their feet. At the far end of
the open space, Dorothy's amphibian lay parked where she had left it.
"Not that way!" warned Bill and caught her arm as she started to swing
toward the airplane. "Straight ahead!"
There was no time for argument. Dorothy swerved and dashed across the
lot, following his lead. Straight ahead lay a narrow belt of woods which
ended abruptly in precipitous cliffs towering upward almost
perpendicularly for several hundred feet to the top of the ridge. What
Bill's plan might be, she could not guess. Those sheer palisades
certainly could not be scaled. What could his objective be? If they
turned up or down the valley the enemy would be sure to hear them
tracking through the thick underbrush. And there would be no chance of
outflanking the pursuit, for the men were between them and the Conway
house.
She and Bill were trapped at last--trapped by walls of rock and the
encompassing passing ring of the enemy.
They reached the farther edge of the field where a hurried glance behind
showed them that the men were plunging out of the wood road. Then the
moon, perhaps ashamed of the trouble he had brought them, swam away
behind another cloud formation, and once again the world was sunk in
darkness.
Bill's fingers gripped her hand.
"Follow me. Walk carefully and hold your arm before your face. It's a
case of feel our way till we get used to the gloom--and there's no sense
in losing an eye."
He led onward through the wood and although Dorothy could see nothing
but an opaque blackness before her eyes, Bill never hesitated in his
stride. With his hand behind his back, he pulled her forward as though
guided by an uncanny knowledge of invisible obstructions in their path.
"How do you do it?" she marveled. "Don't tell me you can actually see to
dodge these branches and tree trunks?"
She heard him chuckle.
"Not _see_--feel. I learned the trick in the Florida swamps last summer.
Osceola, chief of the Seminoles, taught me."
"Oh, yes! He's a wonder in the woods. How is it done?"
"Tell you sometime. Here we are--at the Stone Hill River. You'll have to
get your feet wetter, I'm afraid, but it's only a small stream, not
deep. We turn right, here."
"Golly, it's cold!" Dorothy splashed into the water behind him.
"Brrr--I know it. Lift your feet high or you'll fall over these
boulders. And please try to make as little noise as possible."
From the direction of the woodlot came a prodigious crashing and
threshing. The pursuit had gained the woods.
"Noise!" she said scornfully, floundering along in his wake. "Those
thugs can't hear me--they're making too much racket themselves. I
suppose, Bill, you're working on a plan, but what it can be is a mystery
to me."
"You mean--where we're bound for?"
"Yes. We can't get back to the big pasture and the hill up to Stoker's
house. They'll head off any play of that kind."
"I know that. Stand still a minute, I want to listen."
"But Bill--"
"Sh--yes, that must be it!"
"Must be what?" There was impatience in Dorothy's tone.
"The waterfall I was trying to find."
"You don't mean to tell me you're planning to crawl behind a waterfall
and hide! Honestly, Bill, I--"
"Oh, nothing like that," he answered coolly, "the fall isn't big
enough."
"Look here, will you _please_--"
"All right, calm yourself. We haven't much time but I guess they've lost
our trail for the time being. On the way over here in the car, Terry
told me something of the lay of the land. He's crazy about hiking, you
know, and mountain climbing. He's walked all over the reservation and he
knows it like his own back yard."
"Yes, yes, what of it?"
"Well, Terry told me that there is just one possible way to get out of
this Stony Hill River Valley on this side. That is, unless one goes a
mile or two up or down the valley. There are entrances to the
reservation at either end--dirt roads that cross from the concrete
turnpike over to this ridge above us."
"But there is a way out?"
"Yes. A sort of trail up the cliffs. It's not marked on the map of the
reservation. Terry found it last summer. Pretty tough going even in
daylight, I guess."
"But how on earth can we find it in the dark?"
"Terry told me that a smaller stream flowed into this creek at just
about this point, and that it drops into the river gully by way of a low
waterfall. It was the sound of that fall I was listening for. Hear it
just over there to the right?"
"What's the next move?"
"We turn our backs on the waterfall, and cross this stream. The trail
starts in a kind of open chimney in the foot of the cliffs. The map
calls these young precipices Raven Rocks, by the way. If you think it is
too dangerous, we can let those chaps catch us. They'll probably let us
go soon enough. They're trailing the wrong party, though they haven't
realized it. What do you say?" Bill's tone was non-committal.
"I know, they took you for Stoker Conway. But don't you see, Bill--" her
tone was firm, "they must not find out their mistake. While they're
tracking us, they will leave the Conway house alone, and that'll give
Terry and Stoker a chance to hunt for the book and the letter."
Bill's reply was flippant, but there was a note of relief in his voice.
"Chance to get a good night's rest, you mean!"
"They're not going to bed--" Dorothy pulled her companion toward the
opposite bank of the stream. "Terry told me so."
"Thank goodness we're out of that," she exclaimed a moment later as they
climbed the steep side of the gully. "If there's anything colder than a
trout stream, I've yet to find it. I'm soaked nearly to my waist--how
about you?"
"Ditto. We'll be warm enough presently--just as soon as we hit Raven
Rocks."
"Wish we had raven's wings--we could use 'em!"
"Listen!" Bill stopped suddenly in his tracks.
"Don't _say_ that," she whispered--"reminds me of old man Lewis!"
"They're coming this way. I guess they got tired of beating the woods
for us. Take my hand again. We've got to find that chimney."
They went perhaps ten paces more when Bill brought up short again.
"Here's the cliff--wait where you are--be back in a minute."
He drew his fingers from her clasp and she heard him move off. Standing
in utter darkness she could hear the men splashing toward them along the
shallow river bed, and still others tramping through the woods with
flashing lights that moved nearer every second.
Not once did her alert mind question the advisability of trying to scale
Raven Rocks on a coal-black night. Not once did she waste a thought on
the danger of that perilous enterprise. Dorothy Dixon never counted the
cost when it was to help a friend. Her entire attention was centered on
their pursuers. Who they were, or why they sought George and his letter
were points of little consequence now. All that mattered was that they
be kept on their search for as many hours as possible.
Presently they would come abreast and their lights would pick her out at
the foot of the cliff. The sopping skirt of her frock sagged about her
knees, dank and clammy beneath her slicker. She gathered it in her hands
and squeezed what water she could from it, more for want of something to
do than for any other reason.
No longer could she hear Bill stumbling about. What could have happened
to him? The lights were only a dozen yards away now. In another minute
or two their glare would pick her up for a certainty.
For the first time that evening, Dorothy became fidgety. Bill had told
her to remain here. That was an order, and must be obeyed. But--oh! if
Bill would only come!