OL' MAN RIVER
"Poor kid! She certainly is all in," Bill muttered in a tone that was
close to despair. What on earth was he going to do now?
The wind had stiffened and heavy rain slanted out of the east in an
unremitting deluge. Both of them were soaked to the skin under their
slickers. Despite his vigorous cliff-climbing, Bill was chilled to that
Dorothy, huddled against the boulder, was shivering in her sleep.
He himself was weary and heavy-eyed. His vitality was at low ebb. But
with a sudden exertion of latent will power he got painfully to his
feet. He bent over the sleeping girl and taking her by the shoulders
shook her back and forth.
"Wake up, Dorothy!" he called. "Wake up!"
Deep in oblivion, she made no answer. Bill shook her harder.
"Leave me 'lone," she murmured drowsily. "Want sleep--go 'way!"
Putting forth his full strength, Bill lifted her until she stood leaning
against him still sound asleep. Bringing her arms up and over his
shoulders, he pivoted in a half circle. Now that his back was toward
her, he bent forward, and catching her legs, drew them over his thighs.
Dorothy, still oblivious to all that went on, was hoisted up into the
position called by small children, "riding piggy-back." Though slender,
she was well-built and muscular, and he was surprised at her dead
weight. With his forearms beneath her knees, clutching the lighted torch
with one hand, he moved slowly off with her in the direction of the
Raven Rock Trail.
After some little trouble he found it, a narrow swath cutting back
through the forest at right angles to the top of the cliffs. Without
hesitation he began to follow the path.
Overhead the twisted branches met in a natural arch. It seemed even
darker below their dripping foliage than in the open on the cliffs, and
the feeble ray from his flash light penetrated but a few feet into the
yawning black ahead. It was heavy going with Dorothy's solid weight on
his back. The uneven ground, sodden with rain, was slippery where his
feet did not sink in the muddy loam. And at times he was near to falling
with his burden.
The trail followed a snakelike course. For a time it wound over
comparatively level ground, then dipped steeply into a hollow. The girl
was becoming heavier by the minute. Bill stuck it out until they topped
the opposite rise, then let her down.
Dorothy awoke with a start.
"What are you doing?" she cried. "Where am I?"
"So far as I can make out, we're about half a mile down the Raven Rock
trail," he said slowly.
"And--and you carried me all this way?"
"Piggyback," he replied laconically.
"Why, Bill! You must be nearly dead--"
"Well, there have been times when I've felt more peppy--"
"How could you, Bill? Why didn't you wake me up?"
"Tried to--but it just wasn't any use. You couldn't have walked it,
anyway--with only one shoe."
"Oh, yes, I could. But you were sweet to do it, only--"
"Better climb aboard again," he suggested, ignoring her praise, "we've
got all of a mile to go before we get to the cabin."
Dorothy made a gesture of dissent.
"Thanks, old dear. I'm going to walk."
"Well, if you feel up to it--you take my shoes--I'll get along fine
without them in this mud."
"I'll do nothing of the kind. I've got a better plan. Stupid of me not
to think of it before. Hand over your knife, please."
Dorothy cut two long strips, six or seven inches wide, from the bottom
of her slicker. "I'm going to use these to bind up my feet," she
explained and handed back the knife.
"Wait a minute!"
Bill seized his own raincoat and cut two wider strips, which he folded
into pads.
"Sit down on that stump, and hold up your hoof," he ordered. "I'll show
you how it's done."
Dorothy hopped to the stump and after seating herself, kicked off her
remaining shoe.
"There goes the end of a perfect pump," she chuckled.
"Think I'll keep it for luck," declared Bill.
She raised her eyebrows and laughed.
"Some girls might think you were becoming sentimental--you, of all
people!"
"Well?"
"Well, I know it's only because you were born practical. You want that
shoe so as to prevent anyone else from finding it, the men who are
chasing us, for instance?"
"I never argue with members of the opposite sex--that's why I still
enjoy good health."
He grinned and pocketed the shoe.
"Hold up your foot, young lady. It's a lovely night and all that, but
we're going to get out of it as soon as possible."
He placed one of the folded pads beneath the sole of her foot and wound
a strip of slicker about it and the foot bringing the ends together in a
knot about her ankle.
"Now the other," he prompted, and dealt with it in the same way.
Dorothy stood up and took a trial step or two.
"Wonderful!" she said. "I could walk to New York in these. They're a lot
more comfortable than the shoes I ordinarily wear."
"We'll have to patent the idea."
"That reminds me, Bill," Dorothy spoke slowly. They were moving along
the trail again. "Do you think the letter Mr. Conway is supposed to have
written Stoker could possibly have had anything to do with patents?"
"What patents?"
"Oh, I don't know exactly--patents belonging to Mr. Conway."
"You mean--which he left to Stoker?"
"Why, yes. Mr. Conway was an inventor. He must have patented things."
"Very probably. But Stoker told us that his father's entire estate
amounted to the place he's living in and a few thousand dollars. If Mr.
Conway still owned patent rights on his inventions, why weren't they
mentioned in the will?"
"You think, then, that he sold them before his death?"
"Looks that way," summed up Bill. "Anyway, if there were patents, they'd
be registered in Washington. It wouldn't do anyone any good to steal
them."
Dorothy tramped along beside him. Except for the sound of their
footsteps squishing in the muddy path and the drip of the rain from wet
leaves and branches, the woods were very still.
"What can those people be after if it isn't the patents on Mr. Conway's
inventions?" she said in a puzzled tone, after a pause.
"Search me--what ever it is, the thing must be very valuable. They'd
never take all this trouble otherwise."
"Give us all this trouble, you mean. And here's another riddle, Bill.
Why was Hilltop sold?"
Bill threw her a glance and shrugged.
"Ask me something real hard," he suggested, "You're the Sherlock Holmes
of this case. I'm only a mighty dumb Doctor Watson. And I'm no good at
problems in deduction, even when my thinkbox is moting properly--which
it isn't at present."
"But there must have been some good reason for the sale of that
property," she persisted. "When Stoker went back to Lawrenceville after
the Easter holidays last spring, everything at home was going on just as
usual--a big place, servants, cars, horses, plenty of money--everything.
Then he came back from school in June, and all that everything just
wasn't!"
"And father had moved into that dump on the Stone Hill River road with a
part-time maid-of-all-work, and that 1492 flivver.... Deucedly clear and
all that! By the way, do they teach English or just plain Connecticut
Yankee at the New Canaan High? Your use of words at times is more
forceful than grammatic."
"Grammatical for choice. You're not so hot on the oratory yourself,
Bill. People who live in glass houses, you know--?"
"Wish we were in one," was his reply. "Anything with a fire and a roof
that sheds water would suit me just now!"
"What are you trying to do, Bill, evade my question?"
Dorothy's nap had done her good. Though still weary and stiff, she felt
tantalizingly argumentative for all that she was wringing wet and
horribly chilly. Talking helped to keep up her spirits. Just ahead their
torch revealed a branching of the path.
"The map says we keep to the right," announced Bill. "It's only a step
over to the Spy Rock trail now."
"Glad to hear it--but it seems to me you _are_ trying to evade my
questions!"
"Questions?" He chuckled. "They come too fast and furious. And to be
honest, how can you expect me to guess the right answers when you don't
know them yourself? You certainly are the one and only human
interrogation point tonight."
"And you're so helpful," she retorted. "This is the most mysterious
affair I've ever been mixed up in."
"Here we are at the other trail, praise be to Allah."
"Turn to the right?" she asked.
"That's it. In about a hundred yards we ought to run on to a path
leading off to the left. That leads to shelter No. 6. The cabin's quite
near now, if this map in my pocket's any good."
They trudged along the trail and a couple of minutes later in the dim
glow from the flash they saw an opening in the trees.
"Come on," he said, quickening his pace. "We'll be under cover in a
jiffy."
"We'll probably have to break in." Dorothy caught up with him as the
path swung round in a quarter circle to the left.
"No, we won't," he replied, catching her arm and coming to a halt. At
the same time he shut off the electric torch.
Straight ahead in the darkness they could make out the blur of a small
building. Through a chink in what they took to be a closed shutter came
a thin ray of light.
"Somebody's got there ahead of us," Bill observed more to himself than
to Dorothy.
"What are we going to do?"
"Do? What can we do but knock them up and ask for shelter?"
"I guess you're right," she admitted. "Neither of us can go on until
we've had rest and a drying out."
"That's how I look at it."
"We've got to go easy, though. Remember what I trotted into with Betty
at Stoker's house?"
"Where do you get this 'we' stuff?" he said rather gruffly. "Here, take
this gun and get behind a tree. I'm going over there. If they get nasty
when they open up, I'll sidestep--and you can use your own judgment."
"I'll use it right now, Bill. I'm going to the house with you. Don't
argue--" She started on along the path.
Bill caught up with her. "Take the automatic, anyway," he shoved the gun
into her hand. "Shoot through your pocket if you have to. Better keep it
out of sight. Stand to one side just out of the line of light when they
open. All set?"
"Go ahead."
Dorothy's right hand gripped the revolver in her pocket. She slipped off
the safety catch, pointed her forefinger along the snubnosed barrel and
let her middle finger rest lightly on the trigger.
Rat-tat-tat--rat-tat-tat. Bill's fist pounded the cabin door. There came
a pause. She felt the quickened beats of her heart. Rain pounding on the
gutterless roof dripped in a steady trickle on her bare head and down
her neck. From somewhere nearby came the mournful cry of a hoot owl.
Bill knocked again. Within the little house they heard the sound of
footsteps. Dorothy stiffened.
The bolts of the door were withdrawn, the door opened and Dorothy
stepped up beside Bill. Framed in the lighted rectangle was an ancient,
white haired negro. He peered out at them from beneath the cotton-tufts
of his eyebrows, blinded for the moment by the night.
"Good evening, Uncle. Can we come in out of the wet for a little while?"
Bill's tone held the gentle camaraderie of those brought up by darky
servants in the South.
"Lordy, Lordy--white folks, an' drippin' wet!" exclaimed the old fellow,
straightening his bent back and smiling pleasantly. "Walk right in,
Capt'in--and you, too, Missy. Ol' Man River ain't got quarters like you
is prob'ly useter--But it's dry and it's warm, an' yo-all's sho' is
welcome!"