Blindfolded, Earle Ashley Walcott [non fiction books to read .TXT] 📗

at the end of the tale of death," she said at last. "It is dreadful that insane greed and malice should spread their evil so far about. Two lives have been sacrificed already, and perhaps it is only the beginning. Yet I believe--I am sure--I have done right."

"I am sure of that," I said, and then was silent as her words called up the image of the Wolf, dark, forbidding, glowing with the fires of hate--the Wolf of the lantern-flash in the alley and the dens of Chinatown--and the mystery seemed deeper than ever. The carriage had been rolling along swiftly. Despite the rain the streets were smooth and hard, and we made rapid progress. We had crossed a bridge, and with many turns made a course toward the southeast. Now the ground became softer, and progress was slow. An interminable array of trees lined the way on both sides, and to my impatient imagination stretched for miles before us. Then the road became better, and the horses trotted briskly forward again, their hoofs pattering dully on the softened ground.

"All the better," I thought. "It's as good as a muffler if any one is listening for us."

"Here's the place," came the voice of Dicky, giving directions to the driver; and the carriage slackened pace and stopped. Looking out I saw that we were at a division of the road where a two-story house faced both of the branching ways.

"You'd better come out," said Dicky at the door, addressing his remark to me. "He was to meet us here."

"Be careful," cautioned Mrs. Knapp.

The night had turned colder, or I was chilled by the inaction of the ride. The sky was clearing, and stars were to be seen. By the outline of the hills we had made to the south. The horses steamed and breathed heavily in the keen air.

I kept my hand on the revolver that lay in my overcoat pocket, and walked with Dicky on to the porch. It was a common roadside saloon, and at this hour it appeared wholly deserted. Even the dog, without which I knew no roadside saloon could exist, was as silent as its owners.

"Here's a go!" said Dicky. "He was to meet us, sure. What time have you got?"

I struck a match in a corner and looked at my watch by its flare.

"Five minutes to three."

"Whew!" he whispered, "we're regularly done. I thought he had a bad eye when I was bargaining with him."

I wondered if Dicky had a hand in the trick, if trick it should prove to be.

"He may be up stairs," I suggested.

Dicky groaned. "It's like advertising with a band wagon to rout 'em out at this time of the night," he whispered.

"The enemy have been along here ahead of us," I said. "They may have picked him up."

"That's like enough," said Dicky ruefully. "But if they've got him, we might as well take the back tracks for town and hunt up a sheriff or two, or send for the boys to come over."

"It's too late to do that," said I decidedly. "We must go on at once."

"Well," said Dicky dubiously, "I think I know where the fellow would have taken us. I trailed him this afternoon, and I'll lay two to one that I can pick out the right road."

"Is this the third road from Brooklyn?" I asked pointing to the track that led to the left.

"I reckon so," said Dicky. "I haven't kept count, but I recollect only two before it."

"All right. Up with you then!"

Dicky obediently mounted to the seat beside the driver.

"I shall ride outside," I said to Mrs. Knapp. "I may be needed."

"I suppose you are right," she replied with somewhat of protest in her voice, and I closed the door, and climbed up. It was close quarters for three, but at the word the horses, refreshed by the brief rest, rolled the carriage up the road that led to the hills.

Half a mile farther we passed a house, and within a quarter of a mile another.

"We are on the right road," was my thought as I compared these in my mind with the crosses on the diagram.

About half a mile farther, a small cluster of buildings loomed up, dark and obscure, by the roadside.

"This is the place," I said confidently, motioning the driver to pull up. I remembered that Henry Wilton's map had stopped at the third cross from the parting of the roads.

"No, it isn't," said Dicky eagerly. "It's two or three miles farther on. I trailed the fellow myself to the next house, and that's a good two miles at least."

I had leaped to the ground, and opened the door of the carriage.

"We are at the fourth place," I said.

"And the cockeyed barn?" inquired Mrs. Knapp, peering out.

I was struck silent by this, and looked blankly at the dark forbidding structure that fronted on the road.

"You're right," said Mrs. Knapp with a laugh. "Can't you make out that funny little window at the end there?"

I looked more closely at the building. In the dim light of the stars, the coat of whitewash that covered it made it possible to trace the outlines of a window in the gable that fronted the road. Some freak of the builder had turned it a quarter of the way around, giving it a comical suggestion of a man with a droop to his eye.

"And the iron cow?" I asked.

"Stupid! a pump, of course," replied Mrs. Knapp with another laugh. "Now see if there is a lane here by the barn."

A narrow roadway, just wide enough for a single wagon, joined the main road at the corner of the building.

"Then drive up it quietly," was Mrs. Knapp's direction.

Just beyond the barn I made out the figure of the pump in a conspicuous place by the roadside, and felt more confident that we were on the right road.

The lane was now wrapped in Egyptian darkness. Trees lined both sides of the narrow way. Their branches brushed our faces as we passed, and their tops seemed to meet above us till even the faint light of the stars scarcely glimmered through. The hoofs of the horses splashed in the mud, and the rather clumsy carriage dragged heavily and slowly forward.

"I'd give five dollars to light my lamps," growled the driver. We were traveling by the instinct of the horses.

"If your life is worth more than five dollars, you'd better keep them dark," I said.

The driver swore in an undertone as the hack lurched and groaned in a boggy series of ruts, and a branch whipped him in the face. I was forced to give a grunt myself, as another slapped my sore arm and sent a sharp twinge of pain shooting from the wound till it tingled in my toes. Dicky, protected between us, chuckled softly. I reflected savagely that nothing spoils a man for company like a mistaken sense of humor.

Suddenly the horses stopped so short that we were almost pitched out.

"Hello! what's this?" I cried, drawing my revolver, fearful of an ambush.

"It's a fence," said the driver.

"There must be a gate," I said, jumping down quickly.

Mrs. Knapp rapped on the carriage door and I opened it.

"Have you come to the bars?" she asked presently.

"I guess so. We've come against something like a fence."

"Well, then," she replied, "when we get through, take the road to the left. That will bring us to the house."

"You are certain?"

"That is what Henry wrote in the cipher beneath the map. The house must be only a few hundred yards away."

The bars were there, and I lifted the wet and soggy boards with an anxious heart. Were we, after all, so near the hiding-place? And what were we to find?

I mounted the seat again, and we drove forward. The road was scarcely distinguishable, but the horses followed it without hesitation as it led behind a tall hedge and among scattered oaks.

My heart beat fast. What if the enemy were before us?

"Have you got your revolver handy?" I whispered to Dicky.

"Two of 'em," he chuckled. "There's a double dose for the man that wants it."

On a sudden turn the house loomed up before us, and a wild clamor of dogs broke the stillness of the night.

"I hope they are tied," I said, with a poor attempt to conceal my misgivings.

"We'll have a lively time in a quarter of a minute if they aren't," laughed Dicky, as he followed me.

But the baying and barking came no nearer, and I helped Mrs. Knapp out of the carriage. She looked at the house closely.

"This is the place," she said, in an unmistakable tone of decision. "We must be quick. I wish something would quiet those dogs; they will bring the whole country out."

It seemed an hour before we could raise any one, but it may not have been three minutes before a voice came from behind the door.

"Who's there?"

"It is L. M. K.," said Mrs. Knapp; then she added three words of gibberish that I took to be the passwords used to identify the friends of the boy.

At the words there was the sound of bolts shooting back, and the heavy door opened enough to admit us. As we passed in, it was closed once more and the bolts shot home.

Before us stood a short, heavy-set man, holding a candle. His face, which was stamped with much of the bulldog look in it, was smooth- shaven except for a bristling brown mustache. He looked inquiringly at us.

"Is he here--the boy?" cried Mrs. Knapp, her voice choked with anxiety. "Yes," said the man. "Do we move again?" He seemed to feel no surprise at the situation, and I inferred that it was not the first time he had changed quarters on a sudden at the darkest hour of the night.

"At once," said Mrs. Knapp, in her tone of decision.

"It will take ten minutes to get ready," said the man. "Come this way."

I was left standing alone by the door in the darkness, with a burden lifted from my mind. We had come in time. The single slip of paper left by Henry Wilton had been the means, through a strange combination of events, to point the way to the unknown hiding-place of the boy. He was still safe, and the enemy were on a false trail. I should not have to reproach myself with the sacrifice of the child.

Yet my mind was far from easy. The enemy might have been misled, but if they had followed the road marked out in the diagram I had brought from their den, they were too close for comfort. I listened for any sound from the outside. The dogs had quieted down. Twice I thought I heard hoof-beats, and there was a chorus of barks from the rear of the house. But it was only the horses that had brought us hither, stamping impatiently as they waited.

In a few minutes the wavering light of the candle reappeared. Mrs. Knapp was carrying a bundle that I took to be the boy, and the man brought a valise and a blanket.

"It's all right,"