HEARTFIELD’S
Bill’s car sped into the sleeping town of Danbury. It splashed through
the rain along streets where the lights ran together in golden pools.
The swish of the water flying gutterwards was like the sound of the sea.
Bill spoke to Osceola: “There’s a dog wagon open,” and he pointed to a
lighted sign. “Better eat. I had breakfast while I waited for the dope
from Mr. Dixon.”
“If you had, no need of stopping then. Dorothy fed me before I left. I
meant to ask you if you wanted anything, but this news from Mr. Dixon
took it out of my head. There’s a sign that says Route 136—guess that’s
our road.”
Five miles north of Danbury the rain slackened and finally stopped. The
cool wind of early dawn sprang up and by the time they started to climb
the winding turns of the Heartfield’s Valley, every cloud had been blown
out of the sky. The east was painted a faint grayish pink as they roared
into a straightaway between the wooded hills. Then the valley opened
out, the road hugging the base of the hill on their left, while on the
right wide meadows spread a carpet of high grasses that reached to the
foot of the opposite hillside.
Half a mile further on, they came upon the old club house, set back from
the highway in a group of fine elms. Here some attempt had been made to
fashion a lawn, but as they swung up the rough drive, Bill noticed that
the house was badly in need of paint and repair. He drew up at the side
of the house, facing the red barn and an extensive apple orchard whose
gnarled trees had not felt the pruning knife for many years. There
appeared to be no bell, so Bill rapped sharply on the side door.
“Hello!” A man’s voice answered from behind a window screen just above.
“What do you want down there?”
“Mr. Davis?” Bill stepped back a few paces so that he could get a better
view of the window.
“That’s me,” said the owner of the voice, and yawned prodigiously.
“Mr. Dixon, the New Canaan banker, sent me up here to get some
information from you, sir.”
“Wait a minute—I’ll come down.”
Osceola got out of the car and walked over to Bill. “How much are you
going to tell him?” he asked in a low tone.
“Mr. Dixon said he was O.K.” Bill answered quietly. “Wait till he comes
out. We’ll size him up for ourselves.”
The side door opened and a heavy set man with gray hair, arrayed in
khaki trousers, a pajama jacket, and slippers, came out to meet them.
“Well, you are early callers,” he said jovially, “the New Canaan bank
has a lien on this place, of course. I hope you haven’t come to turn me
out?”
“Oh, nothing like that, sir,” smiled Bill. “We merely want some
information, as I said before.”
Mr. Davis looked relieved. “You see,” he explained, “I’m a stockholder
in the old club, so I have as much right to live here as anybody, I
suppose. My business went pot last spring, so my sister and I are
camping out here for the summer. I notified the receiver of the
property, and as he said nothing about rent, I haven’t paid any.”
“We have nothing to do with the receivership, so set your mind at rest
about that. My name is Bolton, and this is Chief Osceola of the Seminole
Nation.”
“Why, this is an unexpected pleasure,” beamed Mr. Davis, as they shook
hands. “You’re the two young fellows we’ve been reading about in the
papers all summer. Don’t tell me you’re on the track of more slavers or
pirates up here in this quiet spot?”
“Do you know a man named Kolinski, a Pole, I think he is?”
“Why, yes, I do, though not well. He’s rented the Landons’ cabin for the
season. That’s the one right up the hill here, back of the barn.”
“Then he’s not a particular friend of yours?”
Mr. Davis’ eyes twinkled. “Well, hardly,” he returned with a shake of
his head. “Kolinski is hardly what one would call a good mixer. He parks
his car in the barn here—the hill is too steep and the path too narrow
to drive up—and he seems to be a rather surly sort of chap. What he and
the man who is his servant do with their time, I’m sure I can’t imagine.
We have a nodding acquaintance, that’s about all. So I’m afraid that the
little I know about him won’t help you much. But I don’t mind saying
frankly that I don’t like the looks of him, nor of his man. He’s a
shifty-eyed individual, and on the few occasions we’ve spoken I’ve
caught him in a couple of lies about small matters that really didn’t
amount to a hill of beans. If he’s trying to swing a loan from Mr.
Dixon’s bank,—well, I’d want to be mighty sure of his collateral.” Mr.
Davis pulled out a briar pipe and proceeded to tamp in tobacco from a
pouch.
“Do you happen to know whether he is in his house now?” Osceola spoke
for the first time.
“No, I don’t think so, because his car isn’t in the barn. The one you
see there belongs to me.”
Osceola gave Bill a meaning look. “It is the car—or rather its
license—that brought us up here,” he went on. “About two o’clock this
morning, my fiancee, Deborah Lightfoot, was kidnapped from Mr. Dixon’s
residence in New Canaan. The kidnappers were forced to leave their car
behind, and we have learned that it belongs to your neighbor, Mr.
Kolinski. There were evidently two groups, and the first got away with
Deborah in one car, but we arrived in time to forestall the others,
though we weren’t able to capture them and they got away on foot.”
“What a dastardly business!” exploded Mr. Davis. “And you say Kolinski’s
car was left behind?”
“Yes, Mr. Dixon, who was in Hartford at the time, is on his way over
here with a cordon of state police. They ought to arrive within an hour
or so.”
“Have you fellows got guns?”
Bill patted the holster under his left arm. “We have—and there are a
couple of rifles in my car.”
“Wait till I get mine and slip on a pair of boots—” Mr. Davis made for
the house. “I’m going up the hill with you.”
“He’s a good hombre!” declared Osceola to Bill, as Davis disappeared.
“He is that! Let’s corral the rifles.”
In a very few minutes, Davis reappeared. The only visible change in his
costume consisted of a pair of high trapper’s boots laced to the knee.
He wore a cartridge belt slung over one shoulder, and in the hollow of
his right arm he carried a repeating rifle.
“Come along—” he led them down a path which cut a narrow swath through
the field behind the house. “Maybe our friends are up there in the cabin
and maybe they’re not. My sister tells me she heard a car stop out on
the road a couple of hours ago, but she didn’t get out of bed to see who
it might be. It was raining hard then, and as you aviators say, the
visibility was poor. She didn’t hear anybody walk up the drive past the
house, though.”
“They could have cut round the house and climbed the hill from a point
farther up or down the valley—that is, if they were trying to establish
an alibi—and if we find them at home, after all,” suggested Bill.
“Then,” said Osceola, who was bringing up the rear, “those guys had a
good long way to hoof it.”
“How come?”
“Swamps. Down at the foot of this meadow, and as far as you can see
along the valley.”
“That’s right,” agreed Mr. Davis. “Any other way but this would add at
least three miles to their hike. That broad, sluggish stream ahead of us
runs the full length of the swamp and only partly drains it. The bridge
at the end of this path is the only way across.”
“Is that the house, half way up the hillside in that grove of trees and
underbrush?” inquired Osceola.
“You’ve got good eyes to spot it at this time o’ day,” said their guide.
“No—that house belongs to a man named Kennedy, although it is empty at
present. Kolinski’s cabin is higher up and over to the left.”
Still in single file they passed onto a corduroy trail through the swamp
and over the bridge. On the farther side, the ground rose steeply. A few
yards beyond they came to a fork in the path.
“Take the left to Kolinski’s—” announced Mr. Davis. He stopped and
turned to the lads. “My plan is to take this right hand path to
Kennedy’s and up through the woods. In that way we can make a half
circle so as to come down on Kolinski’s place from above and be under
cover the whole way. We’ll have broad daylight to contend with by the
time we get there. If we go direct, anybody in the house can see us
pretty well the whole distance up the hill. What do you say?”
“I think that’s a first rate idea,” said Bill.
“The only thing to do,” agreed Osceola. “Surprise is half the battle on
a job like this. If you two don’t mind, I’ll scout on ahead. Wait in the
woods a hundred yards above Kolinski’s for me. I want to take a
look-see, but you palefaces make too much noise going through
underbrush!”
With a low chuckle, he darted up the path at a sharp trot and
disappeared among the alders like a wraith in the half-light and quite
as silently.
“That pace would kill me in fifty yards, going up hill,” admitted Mr.
Davis, as they trudged in the direction Osceola had taken. “Is your
friend really an Indian, Mr. Bolton? He looks no darker to me than a
well tanned Spaniard or South American.”
“Oh, he’s a real live redskin, all right. But a great many of them
aren’t noticeably different in coloring from a lot of us so-called
Americans, you know. Osceola was born to the chieftainship of his clan.
Last year, although only twenty, he was unanimously elected the Great
Sachem of the entire Seminole Nation. He is one of the finest fellows
I’ve ever met. I only wish I had half his talents or knowledge. He’s a
senior at Carlisle this year, although he’s not going back. His fiancee,
the girl who’s been kidnapped, is Chieftainess of another clan of the
Seminoles. She is a college graduate, by the way, and a most charming
person.”
“Well, you certainly have interesting friends—and you yourself have done
more interesting things than most men meet up with in a lifetime,”
contended Mr. Davis. “How old are you, may I ask?”
“Seventeen on the second of this month.”
“You don’t say! Remarkable—my word, when I was your age, I was still
tied to apron-strings, and stayed tied to them most of my life. Now,
that house just ahead is Kennedy’s. The path ends here. We’ll take to
the woods, and I’ll do my best not to disgrace myself in the
underbrush!”
Bill soon realized that Mr. Davis was a trained woodsman. Not a twig
cracked as they pushed their way up the steep hill through a thick
growth of young trees and bushes that in places became a veritable
jungle.
It was bright daylight when they swung round to the left and came down
the hill again to a shallow ravine some distance above the Kolinski
cabin. As the two dropped down on the short grass, hot and nearly
winded, Osceola slid from behind a tree trunk.
“Any luck?” whispered Bill.
“No,” replied the Seminole gloomily. “We’ve had this hike for nothing.
There’s nobody in the cabin.”