Moosemeadows/Chapter 9
IX
I SHUT my hand on the paper, crumpling it, and turned from the table to the stove. The draught was open, glowing red; and into it I let fall the little ball of paper.
"Where the other dogs?" I asked. "I saw Lion at the door."
"Duster an' Spud go with Tom an' Sol to hunt for you, six o'clock maybe. Lion stop to watch out," answered Amy.
"To hunt for me?" I exclaimed. "What damn nonsense! What do they think I am? I am as safe in a canoe as either Tom Deblore or Sol Bear."
"But you didn't bring yer canoe home with you this time," remarked Stack, grinning. He turned to Amy. "Is old Ruben Glashner out, too, huntin' for Swayton?" he asked.
"The ol' devil's out, but I don't know what he hunt for," replied the squaw. "But I pray to Holy Mary he find his grave, that snake!"
Stack and I were not hungry, but we ate and drank. Amy climbed the narrow stairs to her bedroom.
"Tell you what we'll do," said Stack, pushing the gingerbread away from him and producing a package of cigarettes. "Let's make a night of it. Everyone's doin' it, so we might as well."
"How?" I asked. "Eat all night, or what?"
"Take a cruise 'round. I'll bet Ruben ain't huntin' for you down along the crick. Let's take a snoop over North Moosemedder way. Fetch along yer gun, and an' electric torch if you have one."
We went, leaving the lamp burning on the kitchen table and a note for Tom Deblore beside it saying that I was all right and would be back before sunrise. Lion joined us just outside, accompanied us for a few hundred yards of our way, then turned back to his task of patrolling the house. We walked swiftly and straight, and what little talk we had was done in whispers. My thoughts ran on the message from Rose Jeanbard, over and over it, demanding of every word of it an explanation of its note of authority and its secretive manner.
We stumbled often in the pitch dark of the old woodroad. We sent a deer, that had bedded for the night close to the track, crashing away through the underbrush. A horned owl startled us several times with its weird cries.
"They'd post a sentry, I reckon," whispered Stack. "But that depends on their number. If there's only the two of 'em—old Ruben an' the devil who sniped at you—they'd both be workin', I guess. They'll show a light now an' then, I wouldn't wonder, to read their map an' compass by. But we can't be too careful. Keep yer gun in a handy pocket."
We must have been within three hundred yards of the edge of the open waste of hardhack, moving slowly in file along a mere ghost of a track, when Stack, who was behind me, laid a detaining hand on my shoulder.
"Hist," he breathed in my ear. "Someone's behind us, comin'. Hark!"
I halted and listened, turning my head and slipping my right hand into the right-hand pocket of my coat. For a few seconds I heard nothing but the thumping of my own heart and Stack's excited breathing. Then I caught it—the approaching swish of underbrush sprung by a passing body and the knock of a boot on a root or a stone.
"It may be Deblore or Sol Bear, still hunting for me," I whispered.
"An' maybe not," Stack replied. "We'll lay for 'im an' find out."
We moved backward into the brush, elbow to elbow, and crouched. Stack asked me for my flashlight, and I passed it to him. The sounds of the passage along the brush-flooded track drew nearer swiftly. They were not loud, and the foot-falls were light. They came abreast of us, within three yards of us. We arose, straightening our cramped knees.
"Halt!" exclaimed Stack in a cracked voice, stepping forward at the same moment and snapping on the light. As the thin ray leaped ahead, he stumbled, dropped the torch, pitched forward on hands and knees and swore. I tried to jump clear of him, but somehow fouled an up-flung arm and went down with a crash. We scrambled to our feet and collided, both cursing impotently in agitated whispers.
"The torch!" I demanded. "The torch!"
"Where the hell's it got to?" cried Stack, clawing about our feet.
"He's passed us!" I exclaimed, and dashed furiously and blindly forward. My third jump was checked in mid-air; and down I went in the wreck of the punky, rotten, woodpecker-riddled, worm-eaten butt of a long-since-deceased birch. It fell about me and upon me in lumps of dead wood and shreds of rotten bark, and crumbled before me and beneath me in punk and powder. I was half choked before I could scramble to my feet. I brushed the dust and muck of decay from my face and eyes.
"That was damn fine work!" I exclaimed. "That takes the prize—as the worst botch of an easy job I ever saw, by the Lord!"
"Pretty bad," admitted Stack. "I kinder got my legs all balled up at the jump-off. But here's the flash. What we best do now?"
My blood was up with my temper.
"We'll go on," I said. "I shall, at least. You can do as you please."
"I'm with you," he replied, after a moment's pause. "Push ahead, but watch yer step an' keep yer eyes skinned."
We continued our advance with the utmost caution. I parted the brush before me; and Stack, close on my heels, eased it back into place behind us without so much as a swish. I was as careful with my feet, feeling for a safe and noiseless foothold at every step. We came out on the edge of the waste of hardhack with no more sound than shadows. We were of a world of shadows. The starshine was vaguer and dimmer than it had been. It merged everything, wood and waste and sky, in nothingness. We stared outward, and to right and left, and saw nothing. We gave ear, and heard nothing. We must have stood thus, motionless and silent, for fully five minutes, before anything happened. Then Stack took hold of my arm and contracted his fingers slowly. I felt his breath against my ear.
"Out there to yer right," he whispered. "About half-right."
I looked and seemed to catch sight of a glimmer of light. But it was gone quick as the turn of the eye, and I was not sure. It came again, a blink of yellow out in the gloom, and vanished again.
"D'ye git it?"
"Yes."
We continued to stand and stare, Stack's hand still on my arm.
"There! A lantern."
The light out on the waste of hardhack had again reappeared, but this time as something more than a glimmering glimpse. It remained steady for ten or fifteen seconds, and was obviously the flame of a lantern. It was lurid and small in the misty gloom—a red speck within a circumscribed ring of murky yellow.
"How far d'ye make it?" whispered Stack.
"From here? Hard to say in this light," I whispered back. "There's a mist out there. No landmarks. Five hundred—or more."
At that moment it disappeared, sank from sight.
"They're diggin'," whispered Stack. "You got 'em fooled for fair! Now they got the lantern down in the hole, lookin' for somethin'. I'll bet a dollar it's wet diggin'."
"I wrote of hidden marks on the fake map," I replied.
Stack sniggered.
"I'd like to know where the man who passed us has got to," I said.
Just then the lantern reappeared and again stood steady. I suggested that we advance upon it and jump the diggers. But Stack was against it. He refused, point-blank.
"What good would it do you to grab old Ruben?" he asked. "Or even his partner? It wouldn't prove he was the man who sniped at you on the crick. It's him you want, an' caught with the goods on him. He's standin' guard, like enough, while t'other digs; an' somebody'd git punctured. Wait an' see, that's our game."
"You were keen enough to start," I replied. "It was your idea."
"That's right," he admitted. "An' ain't we here gittin' a line on them?"
I was about to retort that we were not learning anything that I had not already suspected, when the whanging report of a high-power rifle somewhere on our right stilled the first word on my lips and startled the thought from my mind. My gaze was on the lantern-flame. It vanished.
"Jumpin' Joshiphat!" whispered Stack incredulously; and then, with horror as well as incredulity in his tone, "Good God!" he added.
I was startled and astonished, too, but I did not see anything to be so violently moved about as all that. They were shooting among themselves evidently—which was astounding, of course, but nothing to be horror-stricken over. But it was puzzling. Was there a gang of treasure-seekers; and had they fallen out among themselves? Had old Ruben Glashner tried to double-cross someone?. Had the shot been fired by the man who had escaped us on the path? And who had that been? My would-be murderer? Or might it be that Deblore and Sol Bear had heard of the attempt on my life in some way and, grown desperate, had gone out gunning for Ruben?
"What do you make of that?" I asked. "Who's shooting at whom?"
"Lord knows! I'll go see. It was a signal, that shot."
"A signal? I don't believe it. I saw the light jump before it sank. Someone's gunning for the treasure-hunters."
"It was a signal. Why wouldn't the light jump, when it was snatched like that? The man who got away from us fired to warn 'em. I'll snoop over an' try to see who it was. You stop here."
"Why should I stop here?"
"To see who comes up off the medder. There's two of 'em, I reckon; an' the one on our right who fired the signal."
"Are you armed?"
"No, but that don't matter. I won't take a chance of drawin' his fire. All I want's a look-see."
"Rot! You can't see in the dark. It won't do any good to go and listen to him in the dark."
"I might take yer flash."
"So that he can see to shoot you. Bright idea, Stack. What we had better do is stick right here, together, and wait for the diggers to come along. If there are two of them, we'll learn something."
Stack said nothing to that. I considered his opinion of the rifle shot—that it had been a friendly warning and not a hostile act—and still could not see it. He had sounded very cocksure; but I was not convinced. I felt that a friendly warning might have been conveyed in some less noisy and violent way. Why not a whistle, for instance?
"I bet you five dollars that was an aimed shot, not a signal," I said. "I bet another five that the lantern was smashed."
Stack did not answer. I turned my head. I put out a hand. I felt on all sides, with both arms extended. I shifted my ground cautiously, a yard this way, a yard that. "Stack!" I whispered. "Stack Glashner! What the devil?"
But Stack did not answer. He was not present. He had slipped away. I was indignant, and started to the right after him. I went only six or eight steps, however, then returned to my former position, for I was more puzzled than angered by Stack's queer behavior. I waited, hearing nothing, seeing nothing. After waiting twenty-five minutes, I decided to return to the house. Then I heard Stack's voice, in a guarded whisper, from close at hand.
"Come on, cap, let's beat it. You lead the way."
"But what about that shot?" I asked.
"A washout! You couldn't find an elephant in these woods in the dark. No good of us waitin' here any longer for the diggers, neither. They've lit out by some other way, I guess."
So I turned and felt for and found the ghost of the path.
"Make it lively," urged Stack.
I was willing. I felt that I had been on a fool's errand and was glad to be on my homeward way. Also, I was anxious about Tom Deblore and Sol Bear. I pushed ahead swiftly, and Stack followed. We let the bushes and saplings swish behind us. We made good time, breasting thus boldly through the young growth. Upon reaching the wider track, my companion drew abreast of me, and we made even better speed.
"Well, we're not much wiser than we were," I said.
"Not much," admitted Stack. "The thing to do's spy on old Ruben, day an' night—track him around. Then you'd find out who it was sniped at you on the crick."
"Daytime spying for me," I returned. "This crawling about in the dark hasn't got us anywhere."
Stack accepted that in silence. Fifteen minutes or so later, I spoke again.
"The chances are that the person who tried to murder me believes himself to have been successful," I said. "In that case, all concerned believe it. I showed my head only once, and not for long, and I was a good way down-stream by then. My idea is that it might be a wise thing to let them continue in that belief. I've fooled Ruben and his partner once. This should be easy. We'll bag those damn murderers by craft instead of by force. It'll be safer, too."
Stack liked the idea. I elaborated my plan to him.
When we reached the barns, he said that he would not wait until daylight, as it was important to warn the Jeanbards, without loss of time, to say nothing of my accident nor of having seen me since my first visit. I made no effort to detain him, but went on to the house. The light was gone from the kitchen; but within ten yards of the door I was greeted silently by all three dogs. This informed me, as surely as if I had heard it from them in words, that Tom and Sol were home but that old Ruben had not yet returned. If Ruben had been in the house, so would Lion have been there.
The door had not been fastened. I entered the kitchen, leaving the dogs outside. I struck a match, to make sure that Deblore had found my note. He had evidently read it, for it lay crumpled on the hearth of the stove. I set the match to it, then groped my way up the back stairs in the dark to my host's room.
"Who's that?" he asked, as I opened the door.
"It's Giddy," I said, closing the door behind me. I groped my way to the bed, sat down on the edge of it and told him, in the fewest possible words, of the, attempt on my life and the blind expedition from which Stack Glashner and I had just now returned.
"I'm going to hide for a while—pretend I'm dead," I concluded.
Tom put his hand in the dark and laid it on my knee. It was trembling. His voice trembled, too, when he spoke.
"It's the only thing for you to do, lad," he said. "We'll hide you away in the attic. I'll warn Sol and Amy. Pass me my pants, will you—from the chair on your left—and my clippers from under it. Don't strike a match."
"I don't believe it was old Ruben who shot at me," I said, as he dressed.
"That crawling slug!" he retorted. "Of course it wasn't. Hasn't the nerve to do anything but sneak and lie and steal. I wish to heaven I could think it was him! No chance! He's the jackal."
"Do you know of any one of the settlers who'd shoot at me in cold blood, like that?" I asked.
He was on his feet by this time, leading me toward the door.
"Those lumps? Not one of them! Mob murder, community murder, is the most they'd ever work up courage to attempt. I wish to God I could think otherwise! No. It's someone, something, that would just as soon kill a man as crack a nut."
His voice shook, as if he had been running or wrestling. His hand trembled in mine. He was frightened, terrified, if ever a man was. As he led me along through the dark, his quaking touch communicated much of his terror to me. I felt more fear now than I had upon first realizing the dreadful significance of the splinter standing up from the gunnel of the canoe. And I felt pity, too. Knowing that Tom Deblore was not a coward, I pitied him for his fear. My emotions were as mixed and confused as my thoughts. We entered the main building, on the second floor. The smells of dust and mustiness were strong. We ascended a steep, narrow staircase; and at the top of it the smell of dust and dry-rot was even stronger than below. Still Tom led me by a hand. We went forward in darkness; and I felt the dust under my feet like a carpet.
"Here we are," he whispered, releasing my hand. "Here's the ladder. Wait till I unfasten the hatch."
I heard him climbing slowly. I put out a hand and felt the sturdy, rough-hewn ladder going straight up. From close above my head I heard the rasping complaint of a key in a rusty lock. I heard the old man's quick breathing, then a grunt, then a soft thud.
"Come on up, Giddy," he whispered.
I went up the ladder, seeing nothing. I felt the top of the ladder and a floor thick with dust. As I thrust head and shoulders through the hatchway, the breath of dust and cobwebs and dry-rot was so stifling that I held my breath. I felt his hand on my shoulder, then under my arm.
"You've got the whole length of the house here," he whispered. "Mind your head—how you stand up! The old house will hide you, lad, from the devil himself."
I saw a small, glimmering square of gray light far in front.
"There are two little windows, one in each end," continued the old man. "It's the only safe place for you, lad. We'll get water and food and bedding up to you at the first chance."
I was close under the ridge-pole of the old house, in the very peak of the old roof. I felt as I had not felt since I was a very small boy. I grabbed at Tom, who was about to descend the ladder, and caught him by a muscular shoulder.
"Don't lock that trap-door!" I exclaimed.
"Don't lock it?" he queried. After a pause, "What else can I do, for your safety?" he continued. He paused again. "I understand how you feel, lad. I'll shut it after me, but I won't lock it. I'll think of some other way of guarding your hiding-place."
He went down then, and I reluctantly lowered the trap-door into place after him. I felt tired and shaken. Rose Jeanbard's frightened warning and Deblore's terror had unnerved me; and this place of dust and gloom high up under the rotting roof-tree of the old house of pride and iniquity choked my courage. I made my way cautiously to the nearer of the two windows and saw that dawn was flooding the wilderness with silver. I drew a rusty bolt and opened the window inward on rusty hinges. I closed it in a little while and lay down on the dusty floor and sank into a deep sleep.
I awoke and sat up suddenly. The sun was high, disclosing a funereal vista of black and gray curtains and festoons of spider-webs draped from the ancient, hidden rafters. But my glance slanted instantly to the trap-door, which was lifting slowly. I got quickly to my feet and approached it swiftly and noiselessly, prepared for desperate measures. But it was Tom Deblore, laden with blankets, a basket of food and books and a pail of water. I helped him through the hole and relieved him of basket and pail. He dropped the blankets to the floor and sat down on them. His eyes were darker than usual, as if with shadows of anxiety or fear.
"It's worked so far," he said. "Ruben came in soon after I left you. He was a sight at breakfast—hadn't got all the mud off his clothes. Asked about you; and I told him we hadn't seen nor heard anything of you yet, but would set out hunting for you again if you didn't turn up in a couple of hours. The old hyena said that you'd likely gone all the way down to the village for a taste of wild life. I had to lock my hands between my knees to keep them away from his throat."
I drank from the full pail of cold spring water, then dipped head and arms into what remained and indulged in a splashing wash. Drying my face on a corner of a blanket, I asked if old Ruben had gone out again. Tom said yes, and that Lion, who had shadowed him off, had come back.
"I suppose the old devil thinks everything is working his way now," I said.
"He's hoping that you are dead, that's certain—but he doesn't seem to be entirely free from anxiety," returned Tom. "That rifle shot you spoke of. That's worrying him, I think. It puzzles me, too."
"But was that a shot or a signal? Stack maintained that it was a signal, a warning. It looked to me like a shot. It looked to me as if the lantern either received a direct hit or was overturned."
"Warning be damned! There's no third party to that outfit. That was an aimed shot, fired to kill; and I wish to heaven it had killed—but I guess it didn't, or Ruben would have stopped at home today. He hasn't the nerve to carry on single-handed."
I had been eating briskly while we talked, and paying more attention to the food than to my companion's face; but now I took a good look at him and concentrated all my faculties on him. I realized that he knew, or believed that he knew, more than I did about this affair of old Ruben Glashner and his murderous confederate.
"Was it you?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Sol and I were hunting up and down the creek," he replied. "We were not anywhere near the moosemeadows. You saw that peddler you spoke of?"
"Only at a distance. Do you know him?"
"I've never seen him."
"But you suspect him."
"Why hasn't he been here to sell his goods, if he's what he pretends to be? He terrified the Jeanbard girl, you say, and was wounded in the hand? And she sensed something false and objectionable about him, so you told me. What is one to do but believe the worst?"
"But what is there to fear, so long as I keep hidden? Why not have the peddler arrested, on suspicion?"
"On suspicion of what?"
"Of the attempt on my life, of course!"
His glance avoided mine. "Yes, yes, of course," he returned. "But you don't understand, Giddy, To call in the Law—God only knows what that might lead to! You must keep hidden, play dead, that is the only thing to do, and pray for the best. Something may happen—a lucky accident."
"You are in a blue funk," I accused him. "So you were last night. It was me they shot at, not you, but I have no intention of letting myself go all to pieces—nor of playing dead indefinitely."
"You don't understand!" he cried. He swung around, and lowered his legs through the hatch. He was trembling. "Have patience. Be careful, for God's sake!" He started down the ladder, fumbling with hands and feet so that he came within an ace of missing his hold. From the floor below he added, without looking up, "Don't think me mad, for I know what I'm talking about."
I lowered the trap-door into place. I paced noiselessly on the deep dust from window to window, from end to end of the long garret. I was puzzled and worried by the change in Tom Deblore. I had not thought him a coward. And I was puzzled and worried by the message I had received from Rose Jeanbard. And the garret depressed me, with its dust and decay and horrid draperies. I let some air in, now from one little window and again from the other, setting the festoons of filthy webs swaying dismally. I saw fat gray spiders with mottled backs running and climbing. I gazed from one window for hours at a time, then from the other, at and over the clearings and shaggy forests, envying the crows with the wind in their square-cut pinions, and the hawk turning smoothly high up in the blue, and the hammering woodpecker down in the old orchard, and even the brown hare running for cover. I almost regretted this crafty trick of mine of pretending to be dead. It almost seemed to me now that I should be better off outdoors being sniped at from ambush by old Ruben Glashner's conscienceless confederate. Almost.
The day wore along, and no news came to me from the world below. Was Rose Jeanbard in danger, I wondered. And why had old Tom Deblore gone to pieces all of a sudden? The dust and spiders and smell of rot began to work on my fancies, recalling ghost stories and tales by Poe. The proximity of the foul roof began to weary my neck and shoulders like an actual contact.
The sun was red on the western horizon when I heard a sound at the ladder. I advanced to within practical distance of the trap-door, and my fingers cuddled to the grip of the little gun in my pocket. But it was only Sol Bear. He brought water, food and a hot pot of coffee. He told me that Ruben had returned to the house at noon, looking weary and wild, had slept like a log until three and then gone out again. Beyond this, he had nothing to tell me; that is to say, he told me nothing—which amounted to the same thing. He was like a block of wood when I asked him why Tom had fallen into such a sudden, deadly funk. He didn't stay long.
It was eleven o'clock when I decided that the risk of being shot was the lesser of two evils by which I was menaced. The other was the danger of losing my nerve. The web-draped tunnel under the roof tree of the ancient house of Deblore was getting me. For hours I had been trying to fall asleep, without a blink of success. I had been listening for I knew not what, and had half-heard many extraordinary, vague things from below and above. There were rats in the old walls, of course; and heaven only knows what in the great chimneys. And I had been looking, staring wide-eyed toward every sound and suggestion of sound; and where my eyes had failed, my imagination had succeeded. It was eleven o'clock when I raised the trap-door and set my feet cautiously on the ladder. I lowered the trap after me as I descended and set it noiselessly in place. And now I was at the foot of the short ladder, in the vast and empty attic. I could not obtain a glimpse of any window from here, so I was in utter darkness. I wondered, with a chilly shock, if Tom had locked the door at the head of the attic stairs. Then I heard something, a breathing, from close at hand. My nerves jumped and my muscles froze. Then sounded a low whine. My muscles relaxed, my nerves steadied and my lungs and heart resumed the normal performance of their natural functions.
"Good dog," I whispered; and a moist nose was thrust into my hand.
It was Lion; and I now knew Deblore's method of safeguarding my retreat without locking me in. I felt a glow of gratitude toward the old man as well as the dog. For several minutes I fumbled about in the dark, groping from room to room, feeling vainly for the head of the stairs.
Presently I was rejoined by Lion. He walked beside me purposefully, with a shoulder against my thigh, and thus guided me to the way down. I turned in the direction of the wing containing the kitchen and store-rooms below and the inhabited bedrooms above. The big dog did not follow me immediately, but was at my heels by the time I had found the door connecting the main building with the wing. I let him through with me, for that was evidently his wish. I already entertained a very high opinion of his intelligence. I paused at Deblore's door, which was shut, for long enough for my ears to assure me that he was there and sleeping soundly; and at the Bears' door, where I also heard indications of slumber; but at old Ruben Glashner's door I failed to hear anything. I had removed my boots before entering the wing. I found the top of the narrow stairs leading down to the kitchen without so much sound as the creak of a board. Lion stuck close to me. The kitchen-stairs were encased from top to bottom by a plastered wall on one hand and a thin screen of tongued-and-grooved pine on. the other. Looking down, I beheld a faint shine of lamplight at the foot of the staircase.
I began the descent slowly, setting my feet close to the plastered wall. Lion followed me close. When halfway down I found what I was hoping for—a spot of light in the pine on my right. I leaned over and set an eye to the knothole thus disclosed. The big table between the stove and the outer door was in full view. A lantern stood on the table, with the wick turned low; and beside the table, with his back to me, stood old Ruben Glashner, hatted and fully dressed. There was no mistaking his stoop and shape. He turned and glanced around, moving aside a pace; and I saw on the table, between him and the lantern, a small covered basket. He had the air of one listening. He faced about again after a few seconds and extinguished the lantern. I heard the outer door open and close.
The big dog and I completed the descent of the stairs and stole across the kitchen. I felt my way to a window beside the door, drew aside the cotton blind and peered out into the night, which was inadequately lit by misty stars. I could see nothing of Ruben and very little of anything else. Lion went out with me and, once outside, took the lead. In the barnyard we were joined by the other dogs, Duster and Spud. They frisked about excitedly but refrained from barking. They went ahead with Lion until the road was crossed, then turned back toward the farmstead. I had not ordered them back. I felt that Lion must have done so. Lion continued to lead on at a brisk walk, without hesitation, and I kept touch with him with a hand on his shoulder. Thus we traveled the old logging-road in utter darkness. We had gone two miles or more when Lion checked suddenly and backed against me. I halted, though I had neither seen nor heard anything. Then a match flared about fifty yards in front, close to the ground. The light dwindled, then increased; and I knew that old Ruben had lit the lantern. It lifted and moved from side to side, as if he were searching for something. The glass of the lantern was smoky and its light was dim and circumscribed. It moved back, toward us, along the edge of the mossy road; and we shrank back into the brush. It continued its hesitant and retrograde movement until it was within twenty paces of us; and I crouched low and lower. It paused there, then left the logging-road and flickered off into the woods. The dog and I immediately got into motion again.
It was difficult to keep the lantern in sight and at the same time avoid a disclosure of our pursuit. The underbrush was thick in places, the ground was rough everywhere. The dog went quietly enough, but I was constantly in danger of crashing into branches that were ready to snap the alarm and of setting a foot into some tangle or rotting blowdown. The light, carried low, was frequently hidden from me for seconds at a time by intervening screens. Once I caught my toe under an exposed root and fell full length, but fortunately in an open and mossy spot. The lantern increased its lead and finally disappeared entirely from my broken and restricted field of vision. But the big dog put his nose to the ground and continued to go forward; and I left it to him, keeping a hand on his back for my guidance. We presently saw light again. This was stationary, and stronger than that of old Ruben's lantern. It was the wavering glow of a small fire. We approached it slowly and with the utmost caution.
The fire burned before a little lean-to shelter of boughs. Lying fiat, with Lion crouched beside me, I looked out from the underbrush at the fire and across it into the shelter. The lantern was within, still lit; and by its obscure shine I saw old Ruben Glashner on his knees and stooped above a figure on the ground. We were near enough for me to catch intermittent murmurs of two voices above the low breathing and occasional snapping of the fire. For a time, a few minutes, I failed to distinguish any word; and then the voice that was not Ruben's spoke louder, and I got a whole phrase.
"I'll live to rip his guts out yet," he said.
A chill ran from the base of my scalp down along my spine. The words were upsetting in themselves, under the circumstances, but the voice and the tone of it were worse. If ever a man meant what he said, that man in the lean-to did. The voice was weak, shaken with pain, but there was no note of despair in it and nothing of hysterics. It was cool and decisive and terrible. It said murder and sounded murder. I had never before heard so hateful and daunting a voice.
"I know who did it," he added. "He'll wish he'd never been born. Two of them will die for it. The girl first, for blabbing."
Then old Ruben talked, but all I could hear of what he said was a whining murmur.
"You poor damned white-livered fool!" cried the other. "Do you still think that I am afraid to kill? Haven't I done it often enough to convince you that it's no more to me than pullin' a cork?"
Soon after this, old Ruben lay down. The other continued to mutter and babble for a time, as if in delirium; but at last even he was silent. The fire settled low, lower, with an occasional snap and sparkle, until it was but a mound of red and yellow embers over which a film of gray began to creep. The lantern inside the shelter was still alight. Old Ruben had hooked it to one of the uprights of the flimsy frame before he lay down.
I was determined to see the face of the man who had tried to take my life and, if possible, to ascertain the nature and degree of his wound. So I backed away, on all-fours, and set out on a flanking crawl, accompanied by the big dog. The dog seemed to know exactly what I was about, and to approve of it. I flanked the fallen fire and the shelter and closed in on the rear of the shelter. It was slow work. But I reached my objective without accident and laid a hand on the fir-thatched slope of the humble roof. I steadied myself on my knees, schooled my breathing, and got to work with both hands at a spot near where I judged the head of my enemy to be. I contrived a practical peephole without so much sound as that of the flutter of a moth's wing. I set an eye to it. The terrible fellow's head was within a yard and a half of me; and it was a terrible head. His eyes were wide open, staring upward, black as coal and bright as fire, alive but unseeing. Even in suffering and delirium, they were hateful and terrifying. One of his heavy eyebrows was puckered by a pale scar which slanted upward across his forehead. His nose was large and hooked. His wide, crooked mouth hung open, as if he were gasping for breath. His untidy beard was gray. It grew high on his high cheekbones. He was wrapped in blankets to the armpits, with both arms left exposed. One hand was in a soiled bandage. The other hand, long-fingered and thin as a bird's claw, moved back and forth ceaselessly across his breast. I could not see anything of the wound that had laid him there, but knew that it must be below the line of his arm-pits, somewhere under the blankets—and a desperate one.
A daunting conviction came to me. I suddenly understood Tom Deblore's terror and realized the significance of Rose Jeanbard's warning. The girl must have learned the truth by chance—the truth that I knew now—that the peddler, Ruben Glashner's confederate, the man who had tried to murder me in cold blood, was Henry Deblore. I wondered that I had not guessed it before. But to see that face was to know it—the face of a beast of prey who killed for the killing's sake. And the shot at the lantern out on the hardhack, that, too, seemed half explained. Somebody besides Tom and the girl knew or suspected the truth; and Henry Deblore was in the country of his enemies, home again where he was hated and feared.
I backed from the peephole in the thatch of brush, turned and crawled away. I was rejoined by Lion, who had been waiting a few yards off. He seemed to know what I wanted, sniffed around and took up our unmarked trail in from the logging-road. By the time we reached the old road a slow drizzle was seeping down through the overhanging boughs from a starless sky. I paused at the edge of the track for long enough to make a few marks in the moss, then set out for the house at a fast walk.
It was close upon three o'clock when we reached the old house of Moosemeadows Park; and the soft rain was still dredging down from a blind and graying sky; and the kitchen door was still on the latch. I went directly up to Tom Deblore's room, in haste, without attempting to lighten my feet or avoid contacts with walls and furniture.