Really surprising was the detailed topographical knowledge which the
western trail-blazer had acquired during recent adventures. He picked
their way through the tumbled terrain of the park heights as if from a
map. That he knew the up-and-down maze better than the officers now
after them was demonstrated when they gained the path that represents
the ultimate democracy of horsemanship by a scramble down a rocky slope
with none of the pack in sight.
His immediate objective he confided to Jane in case accident should
separate them. A moment of straight riding would take them through the
Womens Gate into West Seventy-second Street. There he would slip into
the Hotel Majestic and a telephone booth to enlist legal reenforcements.
Both overlooked, however, an important factor in Central Park's
equipment--the net-work of wires spread over its length and breadth for
facility of the authorities in imminent cases more or less like that of
the moment. Only when a man and woman riding ahead of them were stopped
and questioned by the police guard at the gate did Pape suspect that an
alarm had been telephoned ahead of them. His plan was abruptly altered.
Turning the horses, as if to continue an objectless canter, they started
back over the path gained with such difficulty, trotting until beyond
official view, thereafter breaking into the gallop of a pair of
"renters" anxious to get the most possible out of their five-dollar hour
in the saddle.
Canon after canon gaped in the apartment-house mountain range on their
left, marking streets passed. Their hope grew that, unmolested, they
could pass out Pioneers Gate at the northwest corner of the park.
But that hope, too, was outsped. Hoof-hammering behind caused both to
glance over-shoulder at a bend. Three of the city's mounted came
pounding after them.
Pape looked about to make sure of their location. The bridle path
spilled into a pool of shadows at the bottom of a gorge; granite walls
rolled back from trail-side. Recognition of the region which he had been
exploring with Polkadot on his first clash with law and order aided in
what was of necessity a lightning-changed decision.
"Can't make Pioneers Gate." He signaled Jane to draw rein. "We'll take
to--bush--turn the cayuses loose--hide-out until they've given us--up."
He swung from saddle with the last panted period, expecting the girl to
follow his example. When, on her delay, he hurried to her assistance, he
saw that she was leaning upon the nose of her saddle, her lips pale as
her cheeks. Bodily he lifted her to the ground and found her a temporary
rest against a path-side stump. After turning the horses about, he
looped their reins and, with a back-to-stable slap upon Polkadot's
splotched rump, started them down-park.
White-circle death sentences painted upon withering elms, poplars and
birches pointed the course over which he half-carried the "sweet
pardner" exhausted by excitement too long sustained. When they came upon
a brush-fringed depression, which at home he would have called an elk
bed, he bade her take to cover; himself crawled back to spy out the
movements of the pursuit.
At the top of the last rise in the bridlepath, the police riders met the
empty saddlers. They sounded greatly disturbed. From such scraps of
loud-pitched conversation as carried, Pape pieced together their
assumption that the fugitives had abandoned their mounts for a short-cut
to the west wall. He saw two of the trio dismount and begin combing the
brush in that direction, while the third remained on guard over the five
horses.
All of this was fortuitous in that it promised time for them to reach a
definite objective which he had in mind--a place where the spent girl
might rest and both hide until darkness draped the park for their
escape. His sense of semi-security weakened, however, on noticing that a
police dog was of the party; that the "mounty" on hostler duty was
sending the animal up the brushy hill on the east--their side of the
path. Slithering back into the depression, he awaited for several
long-drawn minutes the alarm-bay of the canine officer, dreading the
worst, yet not wishing to share that dread unnecessarily.
Jane first felt the spell of the two brown eyes focused upon them
through a patterned veil of brush. Nervously she caught his arm;
pointed. Soon a long, black-tipped nose rent the veil, sniffing through
a fountain spray of vine abloom with pale blue, bell-shaped flowers.
The police dog had located them. But why the delay of his bayed alarm? A
moment more and he answered for himself. With suppressed whines and
insinuating wriggles there broke from the clutch of the vine none other
than Kicko of the Sheepfold, his sense of duty evidently overcome by
delight at the reunion.
Pape's joy transcended the Belgian's. Never had he bestowed a more
fervid embrace than that which encircled the ruffed neck. Jane, too,
patted their four-footed friend and bedecked his collar with a spray of
the flowering vine which had been torn down by his impetuous entrance.
"Pin one of those blues roses on me," Pape asked; when she had done so,
added: "Out home we call that 'matrimony vine.' I wonder whether its use
here as a decoration is any sort of sign that----"
"I wonder," Jane interrupted more crisply than he would have thought
possible in her wilted state, "whether Kicko will lie low like a good
dog instead of a police officer while you explain about those papers you
took from the judge?"
Because he believed absolutely in signs--hadn't a sign pointed his way
to her?--Pape was willing to wait for the answer to his question.
Indeed, he had not earned her answer until after the Granddad Lauderdale
riddle had been solved. With a shrug and a sigh he took from his pocket
the sheaf of brown engravings.
"These, as you may have surmised, are certificates for stock in the
Montana Gusher Oil Company. See." He opened and handed her one. "They
are signed with names of dummy officers, as were the others. But they
are blank as to owner and number of shares--right strong evidence that
the honorable Samuel is the man behind the fraud--that his fat little
neck is the one I came East to wring."
Jane nodded. "I was waiting to see Aunt Helene and make sure before I
told you what I suspected. You see, it was a good while ago when a
salesman interested her in the stock. She was about to invest when Judge
Allen interfered. Rather, he told her that he knew the stock wasn't
worth the paper on which it was engraved. Except that my time has
been--well, a bit full since yesterday afternoon, I'd have got the facts
at once and given them to you for what they were worth. In predicaments
like ours, the rule of _noblesse oblige_ should hold."
"Do _we_ need rules to hold?"
Illustratively Pape seized with one hand the slim, ringless fingers
still caressing the spray of matrimony vine--his other had a firm grip
on Kicko's collar. His touch, voice and eyes were full of appreciation
for her good intentions. It was hard to have such a good--or bad--memory
about the absolute justness of one's desserts; hard to crush those blue
bells within her pink palms and not entirely forget--She was so
appealing in her languor and dependency that there seemed ample excuse
for his asking the right to protect and sustain her. Looking at the
matter in this tempting light of the underbrush, he might be expected to
owe her an explanation of that kiss in the cab--to tell her that to him
it was their betrothal.
And yet----
Although Why-Not Pape rarely questioned opportunity, there were some
times and some women and some hopes--Rather roughly he dropped her
hands; next offered her a memorandum which he had found folded inside
the sheaf of stock-certificates--a list of names, with figures set down
opposite.
"The writing is his beyond doubt--Judge Allen's," she declared after a
moment's scrutiny.
"Clinches the proof of his guilt in the oil deal. It is a 'sucker
list'--the names of stock biters and the price per bite. It is--" In his
pause Pape gave the girl a look that was at once exultant for himself
and regretful for her. "It is your family friend's ticket to the Atlanta
pen."
To distract the very natural distress which he saw in her face, he
forced cheer to lighten the murmur of their exchange.
"But let's get to the famous cryptogram, lost and at last regained. Now
we can read it as a whole."
Allowing the jealous Belgian to wedge himself between them, Pape spread
out the wrinkled sheet upon the hairy back; in guarded tones read:
List to the Nubian roar
And whisper of poplars four.
They tell of bed-rock
Where rests a crock
Brimful of Fortune's store.
'Tis on a height
The vault you'll sight
Of buried might.
'Twill lead you right,
Bring delight,
Win the fight.
Eighteen and twelve will show
The spot. Begin below.
Above the crock
A block will rock,
As rocks wrong's overthrow.
List, then, the Nubian roar.
List whisper of poplars four.
Climb, then, the height.
Read signs aright.
Count eighteen--twelve.
Take heart and delve.
Obey. You'll want no more.
For moments the three of them--counting Kicko--pondered in silence. Two,
at least, were considering the crypt's applicability to the height of
Judge Allen's selection. It seemed a possible place, except for slight
discrepancies, such as the absence of any particular "roar," an
uncertain number of poplars among the pines and the lack of a "vault,"
except for the rock-tomb of Pape's untimely--proved so--burial. In both
the hope grew that, should they make good their escape with the
incriminating evidence against the little lawyer-leader, the gang's work
on the flat would be suspended until after recovery of the documents.
Even should Allen force the search, on being freed, they were well
ammunitioned for rebuttal in court.
One by one--in silence this time--Pape again scanned the enigmatic
lines.
"I'm here to say," he made comment, "that granddad went in for
inexpensive verse. I'd say free, except that it rhymes."
"Free? We've paid a greater price than you imagine, Peter Pape. And if
all we are to gain is the unmasking of Sam Allen----"
"We're going to gain everything--more than you can imagine from the
little you love me yet," he reassured her, not to mention himself. Then,
again, he took himself in hand. "I, for one, am getting in something of
a hurry," he tacitly apologized. "If you'll hold to our side-kick here,
I'll take another scout."
As before, he wriggled over the rim of their hideout; was gone ten
minutes or so; on his stealthy return made report:
"They've driven off our nags, but left a horse-cop on patrol. A pair of
patrolmen are snooping along the west wall and the northwest gate is
doubly guarded. The Allen pull sure has pulled fast and many, this early
evening. There is nothing to it but to lie low here until night. Mighty
sorry for you, precious pal. I know you're about all in. But they ain't
going to pinch Miss Jane Lauderdale, of _the_ Lauderdales, twice in the
same twenty-four hours--not in my extant company."
"I'm afraid they're going to have a chance." The girl caught at his arm.
"The dog--didn't he join you?"
"Kick? No. How did he get away?"
"Oh, I'm so sorry! He wrenched himself from me. I thought--I _hoped_ he
only wanted to follow you. Didn't dare call out for fear----"
"Another false friend, eh? Looks like this is our day for uncovering
'em. The pup had a flea-bite of conscience, I reckon."
Jane disagreed. "Not intentionally--_please_, not Kicko! Don't make me
doubt everybody. It's only that he likes a 'party.' The more the merrier
is his motto, if he has one."
"And he's gone for the more?"--Pape, rather grimly. "Well, they mustn't
find us here, that police 'party' of his, whatever the motive back of
his invitation. The sooner we move on the safer. As a matter of fact,
I'm headed for another place--a perfect hide-out. If you feel able let's
be stepping lively. If you don't, I'll enjoy stepping for you--that is
to say, toting you."
They started up the hillside, keeping in the brush wherever such grew,
skulking low-backed across the open spaces. Although the girl scrambled
after him, evidently determined not to be a drag upon the hand to which
she desperately clung with her two, she lost her footing on the rock
when near the top and fell face forward. Her urgent little moan that he
go on without her was denied strongly by the pair of arms that gathered
her up, and clasped her like a woman, not a baby, against a heart
hard-hammering from more than the violent exercise. Thus did he step for
her--"tote" her to sortie's end.
She felt herself deposited upon a wooden step. Looking up, she
recognized the stone block-house literally "perched" upon the top of the
precipitous granite hump up which they had come.
In the inspirational light of a refuge of to-day Pape had remembered
that olden fortress which he had been surveying when detected by the
"quail" cop, Pudge O'Shay.
Straightening to the sheet-iron door, he tried the knob, then the
comparative strength of his shoulder. But the protection so generously
accorded park rovers of earlier wars seemed denied them. Investigating
through one of the oblong loopholes, he saw that the door was fastened
with a spring lock which could be opened without a key from inside.
Straightway he gave his consideration to the fifteen-foot stone wall.
Never had the Westerner aspired to plaudits as a human fly, yet no
Hellroaring cliff had been sheer enough to forbid his ascent. Pulling
off his boots, he essayed the latest in difficulties stocking-footed;
after several slip-backs, went over the top. The door thrown wide, he
gathered Jane up and stumbled with her over a slab-like doorsill that
wobbled under their weight.
"Odd," murmured the girl looking about, "that I should be hiding from
the law in this favorite relic of Grandfather Lauderdale! One of his
foibles as a Grand Army veteran was to come here at sunrise on victory
anniversaries and run up a flag on that staff. Some sentimental park
commissioner gave him a key and he never missed an occasion."
"Might have left some furniture scattered about--a few _chaises longues_
and easy chairs," Pape complained. "Still, you ought to rest easy on the
fact that those get-'em specialists will never think to look for us in
here."
After making sure that the door had latched itself, he doffed his coat
and spread it for her to sit on, with her back to a cleaner-than-most
section of the wall. Although only the cuff of one out-flung sleeve
formed his seat, he felt more comfortable, by contrast with recent
rigors, than in all the long stretch of his past--or so he claimed to
Jane.
The hour was the veribest of the whole twenty-four group, he reminded
her. Wouldn't she enjoy it? Evening was lowering shadows into the park.
Didn't she feel sifting into the roofless block-house the atmosphere of
rest-time and peace? Outside the trees were full of birds, as busy about
going to bed as the families of any flat-house in the city. Couldn't she
imagine with him that the dulled clatter rising from the streets was the
rush of some great waterfall of the wild or of winds through a forest or
of hoofed herds pounding over a distant plain?
Soothing was Pape's illusion that he was back in his limitless West, but
rudely was it broken. Slowly, soundlessly he got to his feet; approached
the sheet-iron door; with every sense alert, listened. A sharp knock had
sounded from without. No illusion was this. Jane, too, had heard. She
had straightened against the stone wall, in her wide eyes and tightened
lips the reflex of his thought.
Peace, safety, rest-time? Evidently, not for them!
Had some member of The Finest outwitted them? Was the block-house to
prove, not a refuge, but a trap?