Rosalie Disappears
Things had happened in Tinkletown that night. Alf Reesling finally found
some one who would listen to his story. He told the minister and the
minister alarmed the town. To be brief, Alf admitted that 'Rast Little
was at his house in the outskirts of the village, laid up with a broken
arm and a bad cut in the top of his head.
"He came crawlin' up to my place about six o'clock in the mornin',"
explained Alf, "an' I took the poor cuss in. That's what I wanted to
tell Anderson, but the old rip wouldn't listen to me. Seems as though
'Rast waited around the schoolhouse last night to git a crack at that
feller from town. Miss Banks and her three friends set around the stove
in the schoolhouse for about an hour after the crowd left, an' 'Rast got
so cold he liked to died out there in the woodshed.
"Purty soon they all come out, an' 'Rast cut acrost the lot to git
inside the house by the fire. He was so derned cold that he didn't feel
like crackin' anybody. When they wasn't lookin' he sneaked inside. Jest
as he was gittin' ready to hug the stove he heard Miss Banks an' one of
the men comin' back. He shinned up the ladder into the garret just in
time. In they come an' the feller lit a lamp. 'Rast could hear 'em
talkin'. She said good-bye to the schoolhouse forever, an' the feller
kissed her a couple of times. 'Rast pretty nigh swore out loud at that.
Then she said she'd leave a note in her desk fer the trustees, resignin'
her job, er whatever she called it. He heard her read the note to the
man, an' it said somethin' about goin' away unexpected to git married.
'Rast says ef Anderson had looked in the desk he'd have found the note.
"Then she packed up some books an' her an' the feller went out. 'Rast
was paralysed. He heerd the sleigh-bells jingle an' then he come to. He
started down the ladder so quick that he missed his hold and went
kerslam clear to the bottom. Doggone ef he didn't light on his head,
too. He don't know how long he laid there, but finally he was
resurrected enough to crawl over by the stove. His arm was broke an' he
was bleedin' like a stuck hog. Miss Banks had left her handkerchief on
the desk, an' he says he tried to bind up his head with it, but it was
too infernal small. Somehow he got outside an' wandered around half
crazy fer a long time, finally pullin' up at my house, derned nigh froze
to death an' so weak he couldn't walk no more. He'd lost his hat an' his
ear muffs an' his way all at the same time. If Anderson had let me talk
this mornin' he'd 'a' knowed there wasn't no murder. It was just a
match."
Hours passed before Anderson was himself again and able to comprehend
the details of the story which involved the disappearance of his ward.
It slowly filtered through his mind as he sat stark-eyed and numb before
the kitchen fire that this was the means her mysterious people had taken
to remove her from his custody. The twenty years had expired, and they
had come to claim their own. There was gloom in the home of Anderson
Crow--gloom so dense that death would have seemed bright in comparison.
Mrs. Crow was prostrated, Anderson in a state of mental and physical
collapse, the children hysterical.
All Tinkletown stood close and ministered dumbly to the misery of the
bereaved ones, but made no effort to follow or frustrate the abductors.
The town seemed as helpless as the marshal, not willingly or wittingly,
but because it had so long known him as leader that no one possessed the
temerity to step into his place, even in an hour of emergency.
A dull state of paralysis fell upon the citizens, big and little. It
was as if universal palsy had been ordained to pinch the limbs and
brains of Tinkletown until the hour came for the rehabilitation of
Anderson Crow himself. No one suggested a move in any direction--in
fact, no one felt like moving at all. Everything stood stockstill while
Anderson slowly pulled himself together; everything waited dumbly for
its own comatose condition to be dispelled by the man who had been hit
the hardest.
It was not until late in the afternoon that Blucher Peabody, the
druggist, awoke from his lethargy and moved as though he intended to
take the initiative. "Blootch" was Rosalie's most persistent admirer. He
had fallen heir to his father's apothecary shop and notion store, and he
was regarded as one of the best catches in town. He approached the
half-frozen crowd that huddled near old Mrs. Luce's front gate. In this
crowd were some of the prominent men of the town, young and old; they
left their places of business every half hour or so and wandered
aimlessly to the now historic spot, as if drawn by a magnet. Just why
they congregated there no one could explain and no one attempted to do
so. Presumably it was because the whole town centred its mind on one of
two places--the spot where Rosalie was seized or the home of Anderson
Crow. When they were not at Mrs. Luce's gate they were tramping through
Anderson's front yard and into his house.
"Say," said "Blootch" so loudly that the crowd felt like remonstrating
with him, "what's the use of all this?"
No one responded. No one was equal to it on such short notice.
"We've got to do something besides stand around and whisper," he said.
"We've got to find Rosalie Gray."
"But good gosh!" ejaculated Isaac Porter, "they've got purty nigh a
day's start of us."
"Well, that don't matter. Anderson would do as much for us. Let's get a
move on."
"But where in thunder will we hunt?" murmured George Ray.
"To the end of the earth," announced Blootch, inflating his chest and
slapping it violently, a strangely personal proceeding, which went
unnoticed. He had reached the conclusion that his chance to be a hero
was at hand and not to be despised. Here was the opportunity to outstrip
all of his competitors in the race for Rosalie's favour. It might be
confessed that, with all his good intentions, his plans were hopelessly
vague. The group braced up a little at the sound of his heroic words.
"But the derned thing's round," was the only thing Ed Higgins could find
to say. Ed, as fickle as the wind, was once more deeply in love with
Rosalie, having switched from Miss Banks immediately after the visit to
Colonel Randall's.
"Aw, you go to Guinea!" was Blootch's insulting reply. Nothing could be
more disparaging than that, but Ed failed to retaliate. "Let's appoint a
committee to wait on Anderson and find out what he thinks we'd better
do."
"But Anderson ain't--" began some one. Blootch calmly waived him into
silence.
"What he wants is encouragement, and not a lot of soup and broth and
lemonade. He ain't sick. He's as able-bodied as I am. Every woman in
town took soup to him this noon. He needs a good stiff drink of whiskey
and a committee to cheer him up. I took a bottle up to 'Rast Little last
night and he acted like another man."
At last it was decided that a committee should first wait on Anderson,
ascertaining his wishes in the premises, and then proceed to get at the
bottom of the mystery. In forming this committee the wise men of the
town ignored Mr. Peabody, and he might have been left off completely had
he not stepped in and appointed himself chairman.
The five good men and true descended upon the marshal late in the
afternoon, half fearful of the result, but resolute. They found him
slowly emerging from his spell of lassitude. He greeted them with a
solemn nod of the head. Since early morning he had been conscious of a
long stream of sympathisers passing through the house, but it was not
until now that he felt equal to the task of recognising any of them.
His son Roscoe had just finished telling him the story of the abduction.
Roscoe's awestruck tones and reddened eyes carried great weight with
them, and for the tenth time that day he had his sisters in tears. With
each succeeding repetition the details grew until at last there was but
little of the original event remaining, a fact which his own family
properly overlooked.
"Gentlemen," said Anderson, as if suddenly coming from a trance, "this
wasn't the work of Tinkletown desperadoes." Whereupon the committee felt
mightily relieved. The marshal displayed signs of a returning energy
that augured well for the enterprise. After the chairman had
impressively announced that something must be done, and that he was
willing to lead his little band to death's door--and beyond, if
necessary--Mr. Crow pathetically upset all their hopes by saying that he
had long been expecting such a calamity, and that nothing could be done.
"They took the very night when I was not here to pertect her," he
lamented. "It shows that they been a-watchin' me all along. The job was
did by persons who was in the employ of her family, an' she has been
carried off secretly to keep me from findin' out who and what her
parents were. Don't ye see? Her mother--or father, fer that
matter--couldn't afford to come right out plain an' say they wanted
their child after all these years. The only way was to take her away
without givin' themselves away. It's been the plan all along. There
ain't no use huntin' fer her, gentlemen. She's in New York by this time,
an' maybe she's ready fer a trip to Europe."
"But I should think she'd telegraph to you," said Blootch.
"Telegraph yer granny! Do you s'pose they'd 'a' stole her if they
intended to let her telegraph to anybody? Not much. They're spiritin'
her away until her estate's settled. After a while it will all come out,
an' you'll see if I ain't right. But she's gone. They've got her away
from me an'--an' we got to stand it, that's all. I--I--cain't bear to
think about it. It's broke my heart mighty ne--near. Don't mind me
if--I--cry, boys. You would, too, if you was me."
As the committee departed soon after without any plan of action arising
from the interview with the dejected marshal, it may be well to acquaint
the reader with the history of the abduction, as told by Roscoe Crow and
his bosom friend, Bud Long, thoroughly expurgated.
According to instructions, no one in the Crow family mentioned the
strange disappearance of Elsie Banks to Rosalie. Nor was she told of the
pursuit by the marshal and his posse. The girl, far from being afflicted
with a fever, really now kept in her room by grief over the departure of
her friend and companion. She was in tears all that night and the next
day, suffering intensely in her loss. Rosalie did not know that the
teacher was to leave Tinkletown surreptitiously until after the
spelling-bee. The sly, blushing announcement came as a shock, but she
was loyal to her friend, and not a word in exposure escaped from her
lips. Of course, she knew nothing of the sensational developments that
followed the uncalled-for flight of Elsie Banks.
Shortly after the supper dishes had been cleared away Rosalie came
downstairs and announced that she was going over to read to old Mrs.
Luce, who was bedridden. Her guardian's absence was not explained to
her, and she did not in the least suspect that he had been away all day
on a fool's errand. Roscoe and Bud accompanied her to Mrs. Luce's front
door, heavily bound by promises to hold their tongues regarding Miss
Banks.
"We left her there at old Mis' Luce's," related Roscoe, "an' then went
over to Robertson's Pond to skate. She tole us to stop in fer her about
nine o'clock, didn't she, Bud? Er was it eight?" He saw the necessity
for accuracy.
"Ten," corrected Bud deliberately.
"Well, pop, we stopped fer her, an'--an'--"
"Stop yer blubberin', Roscoe," commanded Anderson as harshly as he
could.
"An' got her," concluded Roscoe. "She put on her shawl an' mittens an'
said she'd run us a race all the way home. We all got ready to start
right in front of old Mis' Luce's gate. Bud he stopped an' said, 'Here
comes Tony Brink.' We all looked around, an' sure enough, a heavy-set
feller was comin' to'rds us. It looked like Tony, but when he got up to
us I see it wasn't him. He ast us if we could tell him where Mr. Crow
lived--"
"He must 'a' been a stranger," deduced Anderson mechanically.
"--an' Bud said you lived right on ahead where the street lamps was.
Jest then a big sleigh turned out of the lane back of Mis' Luce's an'
drove up to where we was standin'. Bud was standin' jest like this--me
here an' Rosalie a little off to one side. S'posin' this chair was her
an'--"
"Yes--yes, go on," from Anderson.
"The sleigh stopped, and there was two fellers in it. There was two
seats, too."
"Front and back?"
"Yes, sir."
"I understand. It was a double-seated one," again deduced the marshal.
"An' nen, by gum, 'fore we could say Jack Robinson, one of the fellers
jumped out an' grabbed Rosalie. The feller on the groun', he up an' hit
me a clip in the ear. I fell down, an' so did Bud--"
"He hit me on top of the head," corrected Bud sourly.
"I heerd Rosalie start to scream, but the next minute they had a blanket
over her head an' she was chucked into the back seat. It was all over in
a second. I got up, but 'fore I could run a feller yelled, 'Ketch him!'
An' another feller did. 'Don't let 'em get away,' said the driver in
low, hissin' tones--"
"Regular villains," vowed Anderson.
"Yes, sir. 'Don't let 'em git away er they'll rouse the town.' 'What'll
we do with 'em?' asked the feller who held both of us. 'Kill 'em?' Gosh,
I was skeered. Neither one of us could yell, 'cause he had us by the
neck, an' he was powerful strong. 'Chuck 'em in here an' I'll tend to
'em,' said the driver. Next thing we knowed we was in the front of the
sleigh, an' the whole outfit was off like a runaway. They said they'd
kill us if we made a noise, an' we didn't. I wish I'd'a' had my rifle,
doggone it! I'd'a' showed 'em."
"They drove like thunder out to'rds Boggs City fer about two mile," said
Bud, who had been silent as long as human nature would permit. "'Nen
they stopped an' throwed us out in the road. 'Go home, you devils, an'
don't you tell anybody about us er I'll come back here some day an' give
you a kick in the slats.'
"Slats?" murmured Anderson.
"That's short fer ribs," explained Bud loftily.
"Well, why couldn't he have said short ribs an' been done with it?"
complained Anderson.
"Then they whipped up an' turned off west in the pike," resumed Bud. "We
run all the way home an' tole Mr. Lamson, an' he--"
"Where was Rosalie all this time?" asked Anderson.
"Layin' in the back seat covered with a blanket, jest the same as if she
was dead. I heerd 'em say somethin' about chloroformin' her. What does
chloroform smell like, Mr. Crow?"
"Jest like any medicine. It has drugs in it. They use it to pull teeth.
Well, what then?"
"Well," interposed Roscoe, "Mr. Lamson gave the alarm, an' nearly
ever'body in town got out o' bed. They telegraphed to Boggs City an' all
around, but it didn't seem to do no good. Them horses went faster'n
telegraphs."
"Did you ever see them fellers before?"
"No, sir; but I think I'd know 'em with their masks off."
"Was they masked?"
"Their faces were."
"Oh, my poor little Rosalie!" sobbed old Anderson hopelessly.