ON THE TRAIL OF THE WILD-CAT WOMAN
MEANWHILE, the pursuing party had made the trip to Brewster and were on
their way home. At the various small towns where they stopped to ask
questions, they found that the patent-medicine vendors had invariably
followed one course. They had taken supper at the hotel, but after each
evening's performance had driven into the country a little way to camp
for the night in the open. At Orleans an acquaintance of Mr. Milford's
in a feed store had much to say about them.
"I don't know whether they camp out of consideration for the wild-cat,
or whether it's because they're attached to that rovin', gypsy life.
They're good spenders, and from the way they sold their liniment here
last night, you'd think they could afford to put up at a hotel all the
time and take a room for the cat in the bargain. You needn't tell me
that beast ever saw the banks of the Brazos. I'll bet they caught it up
in the Maine woods some'rs. But they seem such honest, straightforward
sort of folks, somehow you have to believe 'em. They're a friendly pair,
too, specially the old lady. Seems funny to hear you speak of her as
the wild-cat woman. That name is sure a misfit for her."
Mr. Milford thought so himself, when a little later he came across her,
a mile out of Brewster. She was sitting in the wooden rocking chair in
one end of the wagon, placidly darning a pair of socks, while she waited
for her husband to bring the horses from some place up in the woods
where he had taken them for water. They had been staked by the roadside
all night to graze. The wild-cat was blinking drowsily in its cage,
having just been fed.
Some charred sticks and a little pile of ashes by the roadside, showed
where she had cooked dinner over a camp-fire, but the embers were
carefully extinguished and the frying pan and dishes were stowed out of
sight in some mysterious compartment under the wagon bed, as compactly
as if they had been parts of a Chinese puzzle. Long experience on the
road had taught her how to pack with ease and dexterity.
She looked up with interest as the automobile drew out of the road, and
stopped alongside the wagon. She was used to purchasers following them
out of town for the liniment after a successful show like last night's
performance.
Despite the feedman's description of her, Mr. Milford had expected to
see some sort of an adventuress such as one naturally associates with
such a business, and when he saw the placid old lady with the smooth,
gray hair, and met the gaze of the motherly eyes peering over her
spectacles at him, he scarcely knew how to begin. Uncle Darcy, growing
impatient at the time consumed in politely leading up to the object of
their coming, fidgetted in his seat. At last he could wait no longer for
remarks about weather and wild-cats. Such conversational paths led
nowhere. He interrupted abruptly.
"I'm the Towncrier from Provincetown, ma'am. Did you lose anything while
you were there?"
"Well, now," she began slowly. "I can't say where I lost it. I didn't
think it was in Provincetown though. I made sure it was some place
between Harwichport and Orleans, and I had my man post notices in both
those places."
"And what was it you lost?" inquired Mr. Milford politely. He had
cautioned his old friend on the way down at intervals of every few
miles, not to build his hopes up too much on finding that this woman was
the owner of the pouch.
"You may have to follow a hundred different clues before you get hold of
the right one," he warned him. "We're taking this trip on the mere
chance that we'll find the owner, just because two children associated
the pouch in their memory with the odor of liniment. It is more than
likely they're mistaken and that this is all a wild-goose chase."
But Uncle Darcy _had_ built his hopes on it, had set his heart on
finding this was the right clue, and his beaming face said, "I told you
so," when she answered:
"It was a little tobacco pouch, and I'm dreadfully put out over losing
it, because aside from the valuables and keep-sakes in it there was a
letter that's been following me all over the country. It didn't reach me
till just before I got to Provincetown. It's from some heathen country
with such an outlandish name I couldn't remember it while I was reading
it, scarcely, and now I'll never think of it again while the world wags,
and there's no way for me to answer it unless I do."
"Oh, don't say that!" exclaimed Uncle Darcy. "You _must_ think of it.
And I _must_ know. How did this come into your hands?"
He held out the little watch-fob charm, the compass set in a nut and she
seized it eagerly.
"Well, you did find my pouch, didn't you?" she exclaimed. "I made sure
that was what you were aiming to tell me. That's a good-luck charm. It
was given to me as much as eight years ago, by a young fellow who was
taken sick on our ranch down in Texas. He'd been working around the
docks in Galveston, but came on inland because somebody roped him in to
believe he could make a fortune in cattle in a few months. He was riding
fences for Henry, and he came down with a fever and Henry and me nursed
him through."
Always talkative, she poured out her information now in a stream, drawn
on by the compelling eagerness of the old man's gaze.
"He was a nice boy and the most grateful soul you ever saw. But he
didn't take to the cattle business, and he soon pushed on. He was all
broke up when it came to saying good-bye. You could see that, although
he's one of your quiet kind, hiding his real feelings like an Indian. He
gave me this good-luck charm when he left, because he didn't have
anything else to give, to show he appreciated our nursing him and doing
for him, and he said that he'd _make_ it bring us good luck or die
a-trying and we'd hear from him some of these days."
"And you did?"
The old man's face was twitching with eagerness as he asked the
question.
"Yes, about five years ago he sent us a nice little check at Christmas.
Said he had a good job with a wealthy Englishman who spent his time
going around the world discovering queer plants and writing books about
them. He was in South America then. We've heard from him several times
since. This last letter followed me around from pillar to post, always
just missing me and having to have the address scratched out and written
over till you could hardly make head or tail of what was on it.
"He asked me to write to the address he gave me, but whether it was in
'Afric's sunny fountain or India's coral strand,' I can't tell now. It
was some heathenish 'land in error's chain,' as the missionary hymn
says. I was so worried over losing the letter on account of the address,
for he did seem so bent on hearing from us, and he's a nice boy. I'd
hate to lose track of him. So I'm mighty thankful you found the pouch."
She stopped, expecting them to hand it over. Mr. Milford made the
necessary explanation. He told of Captain Kidd finding it and bringing
it home, of the two children burying it in play and the storm sweeping
away every trace of the markers. While he told the story several
automobiles passed them and the occupants leaned out to look at the
strange group beside the road. It was not every day one could see an old
lady seated in a rocking chair in one end of an unattached wagon with a
wild-cat in the other. These passing tourists would have thought it
stranger still, could they have known how fate had been tangling the
life threads of these people who were in such earnest conversation, or
how it had wound them together into a queer skein of happenings.
"And the only reason this compass was saved," concluded Mr. Milford,
"was because it had the initials 'D. D.' scratched on it, which stands
for this little boy's name when he plays pirate--Dare-devil Dick."
The motherly eyes smiled on Richard. "If you want to know the real name
those letters stand for," she said, "it's Dave Daniels. That's the name
of the boy who gave it to me."
Richard looked alarmed, and even Mr. Milford turned with a questioning
glance towards Uncle Darcy, about to say something, when the old man
leaned past him and spoke quickly, almost defiantly, as a child might
have done.
"That's all right. I don't care what he told you his name was. He had a
good reason for changing it. And I'm going to tell you this much no
matter what I promised. _I_ scratched those initials on there my own
self, over forty years ago. And the boy who gave it to you _is_ named
Daniel, but it's his first name, same as mine. Dan'l Darcy. And the
boy's mine, and I've been hunting him for ten long years, and I've faith
to believe that the good Lord isn't going to disappoint me now that I'm
this near the end of my hunt. He had a good reason for going away from
home the way he did. He'd a good reason for changing his name as he did,
but the time has come now when it's all right for him to come back and,"
shaking his finger solemnly and impressively at the woman, "_I want you
to get that word back to him without fail_."
"But this is only circumstantial evidence, Uncle Dan'l," said Mr.
Milford, soothingly. "You haven't any real proof that this Dave is your
Danny."
"Proof, proof," was the excited answer. "I tell you, man, I've all the
proof I need. All I ask for is the address in that letter. I'll find my
boy quick enough."
"But I don't know," was all the woman could answer. "The only way in the
world to find it is to dig up that pouch."
"But even if you can't remember the new address tell me one of the old
ones," he pleaded. "I'll take a chance on writing there and having it
forwarded."
But the woman could not recall the name of a single city. South America,
Australia, New Zealand, she remembered he had been in those countries,
but that was all. Richard, upon being cross-questioned again, "b'leeved"
the stamp was from Siam or China but couldn't be certain which.
"Here comes Henry!" exclaimed the woman in a relieved tone. "Maybe he'll
remember."
Henry, a tall, raw-boned man with iron-gray hair under his Texas
sombrero, in his shirt sleeves and with his after-dinner pipe still in
his mouth, came leisurely out of the woods, leading the horses. They
were already harnessed, ready to be hitched to the wagon. He backed them
up to the tongue and snapped the chains in place before he paused to
give the strangers more than a passing nod of greeting. Then he came
around to the side of the wagon nearest the machine, and putting one
foot up on a spoke of his front wheel, leaned over in a listening
attitude, while the whole story was repeated for his benefit.
"So you're his father," he said musingly, looking at Uncle Darcy with
shrewd eyes that were used to appraising strangers.
"Who ever would a thought of coming across Dave Daniels' tracks up here
on old Cape Cod? You look like him though. I bet at his age you were as
much alike as two peas in a pod. I never did know where he hailed from.
He was a close-mouthed chap. But I somehow got the idea he must have
been brought up near salt water. He talked so much sailor lingo."
"Put on your thinking-cap, Henry," demanded his wife. "The gentlemen
wants to know where that last letter was written from, what the postmark
was, or the address inside, or what country the stamp belonged to. And
if you don't know that, what are some of the other places he wrote to us
from?"
"You're barking up the wrong tree when you ask _me_ any such questions,"
was the only answer he could give. "I didn't pay any attention to
anything but the reading matter."
Questions, surmises, suggestions, everything that could be brought up as
aids to memory were of no avail. Henry's memory was a blank in that one
important particular. Finally, Mr. Milford took two five-dollar gold
pieces out of his pocket and a handful of small change which he dropped
into the woman's lap despite her protests.
"We'll square up the damage the children did as far as possible," he
said with a laugh. "But we can't get the letter back until the wind is
ready to turn the dunes topsy-turvy again. That may be in years and it
may be never. Let me have your address and if ever it is found it shall
be sent directly back to you, and the children can inherit the money if
I'm not here to claim it."
The man made a wry face at mention of his address. "We sort of belong to
what they call the floating population now. Home with us means any old
place where Mother happens to set her rocking chair. We've turned the
ranch over to my daughter and her husband while we see something of the
world, and as long as things go as smoothly as they do, we're in no
great shakes of a hurry to get back."
"But the ranch address will always find us, Henry," she insisted. "Write
it down for the gentlemen. Ain't this been a strange happening?" she
commented, as she received Mr. Milford's card in return with the
Towncrier's name penciled on the back. She looked searchingly at
Richard.
"I remember you, now," she said. "There was such a pretty little girl
with you--climbed up on the wagon to touch Tim's tail through the bars.
She had long curls and a smile that made me want to hug her. She bought
a bottle of liniment, I remember, and I've thought of her a dozen times
since then, thought how a little face like that brightens up all the
world around it."
"That was Georgina Huntingdon," volunteered Richard.
"Well, now, that's a pretty name. Write it down on the other side of
this piece of paper, sonny, and yours, too. Then when I go about the
country I'll know what to call you when I think about you. This is just
like a story. If there was somebody who knew how to write it up 'twould
make a good piece for the papers, wouldn't it?"
They were ready to start back now, since there was no more information
to be had, but on one pretext or another Uncle Darcy delayed. He was so
pitifully eager for more news of Danny. The smallest crumb about the way
he looked, what he did and said was seized upon hungrily, although it
was news eight years old. And he begged to hear once more just what it
was Danny had said about the Englishman, and the work they were doing
together. He could have sat there the rest of the day listening to her
repeat the same things over and over if he had had his wish. Then she
asked a question.
"Who is Belle? I mind when he was out of his head so long with the fever
he kept saying, '_Belle_ mustn't suffer. No matter what happens _Belle_
must be spared.' I remembered because that's my name, and hearing it
called out in the dead of night the way a man crazy with fever would
call it, naturally makes you recollect it."
"That was just a friend of his," answered Uncle Darcy, "the girl who was
going to marry his chum."
"Oh," was the answer in a tone which seemed to convey a shade of
disappointment. "I thought maybe----"
She did not finish the sentence, for the engine had begun to shake
noisily, and it seemed to distract her thoughts. And now there being
really nothing more to give them an excuse for lingering they said
good-bye to their wayside acquaintances, feeling that they were parting
from two old friends, so cordial were the good wishes which accompanied
the leave-taking.
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