“Ruth gone?” ejaculated Garry. “Are you sure she has disappeared, or is there some place she would have gone to visit?”
“Why, she would never have gone out for any length of time without letting someone know where she was going. She dressed for a walk a little while after supper last night, and said she might drop in and see her girl friend, Nellie Crombie. When it came almost eleven o’clock her grandfather got worried and went to Nellie’s house, where they told him Ruth had left almost a half an hour before. It wouldn’t take her more than ten minutes to get home, so her grandfather got still more worried and came straight back here. At midnight she hadn’t come, and so he started out looking for her. He went to all her friends, but no one had seen her. Then he called up several people who live around the Crombie’s place to see if they had seen her, but no one had. He’s been up all night and was out this morning looking around. He is nearly frantic and so am I. I don’t know where she could have gone.”
Aunt Abbie was all of a tremble as she told the boys of the missing girl.
To the boys, here was something that demanded immediate attention. They surmised at once that it was part of the plan of the letter writers to terrorize the family. First there was the burning house, and since this had not succeeded in showing the little family that the conspirators were in deadly earnest, this last had been resorted to.
“Where can we find Mr. Everett now?” Garry asked Aunt Abbie.
“Goodness only knows; he’s been everywhere, asking all his friends if they have seen the girl. Best thing to do would be to go back to the village and ask if he has been seen. You ought to find him real easy that way. There has been some talk of organizing a search party to go into the woods, but what would Ruth have wanted in the forest alone and at night?”
The boys could not answer this question, and were about to turn back to the village, when they saw Mr. Everett approaching the house. He shuffled along as though he were extremely weary. When he saw the boys, his tired face lighted up.
“I’m glad you are here, for maybe you can help me; no one else can around here. I suppose Aunt Abbie has told you what has happened?”
“Yes, sir, and we’re just on the point of starting out to see what we can do,” said Garry. “Have you any news at all?”
“Yes; I found a man that said he saw Ruth going up Clemson street about twenty minutes to eleven.”
“Where is Clemson street and where does it lead to?” asked Phil.
“Why, it’s on the other side of the village. You boys know where it is; it’s the one you took that night you went to Lafe Green’s farm; it leads right past there and along towards the border.”
Suddenly a staggering thought hit Garry. Clemson street leading to Lafe Green’s farm. The secret passage. Ruth’s desire to help the boys play detective. Her eagerness last night. The secret that she would not let the boys in on.
All these thoughts flashed through Garry’s mind in rapid succession.
“I believe I have a good clue, and we’ll follow it up right away. My advice to you now, sir, is that you hustle off to bed and get some sleep. You’ll need all your strength, and you can depend on us to do everything in our power to help you,” said the Ranger leader.
“I guess I will take your advice. I’m tuckered out, and I don’t believe I could go another step without dropping. Now that I know you fellows are here, it relieves my mind considerable. I’ll only take a short nap and then wait for you to come back with news,” said the old man as he turned into the house.
Aunt Abbie was about to follow him, when Garry caught her by the hand.
“Listen, Aunt Abbie. Don’t wake him up under any circumstances, or we will have a mighty sick man on our hands. Let him sleep as long as he can, and in the meantime we’ll find something to work on. Now you’ll do that, won’t you?”
“Bless your heart, of course I will. He hasn’t had a mite of sleep since yesterday morning. Now good luck, boys, and bring our little girl back to us,” said the kindly old lady.
Off down the street started Garry, followed by his curious chums.
“What’s the big idea?” asked Dick. “Tell us before we explode with curiosity. What is your hunch?”
“Yes, out with it,” added Phil.
“I’m going to in a minute. I just wanted to get away from the house so that Aunt Abbie or the old gentleman would not hear us and worry. Here’s my hunch. You know how Ruth has said a half a dozen times that she envied us for our adventures, and that a girl never could do anything, and how she would like to help us out in this business?”
“Yes, we understand that; go on,” said Phil.
“And you know how excited she was yesterday afternoon? Well, I think she went to Lafe Green’s house to see if she could find anything out that would be of help to us. You know she’s daring and not afraid of anything, like so many girls are. It’s ten to one that she went there. You remember she knows about the secret passage because she was there when her grandfather told us about it that night.”
“Say, I believe you’re right, Garry. What’s the next move then?” said Dick.
“Looks to me as though the next move were to go directly to Green’s house and have a showdown,” said Phil.
“Right you are, Phil. On the march now. We’ll keep this under our hat so that there will be no danger of Lafe Green and his gang getting a tip.”
Almost running, they reached Clemson Road and headed in the direction of Green’s farm.
On the way they discussed the most advisable way to approach the house. Should there be any force of men there, it would be folly to approach the house openly, as it would give warning.
As they neared the place, Garry called a halt to allow them to regain their breath, for they were all puffing so fast had Garry set the pace. Also, he wanted to hold a council.
“There, we can see the house from here,” he said as they gathered under a big tree. “I thought I remembered the general lay of the land. You see we can go around through the field there and come up back of the barn, and from there to the house is so short a distance that we can make it in a few seconds on the run. Dick, you get in front of the barn after we reach the house, to prevent anyone from making an escape through the secret passage. Phil and I will beard the lion in his den.”
“Just a minute, though,” put in Dick. “I am game to do anything you decide, but can we go busting into a man’s house without a warrant or any authority?”
“Technically we can’t, but this seems to be a time for action if ever there was one. If we find our guess to be correct, and Ruth is held there, no one will bring up the question of our authority. We are dealing with known criminals, and we can show good cause for our suspicions. At any rate, we’ll think about that later. Like the western sheriffs used to say, it’s a case of shoot first and ask questions afterwards.”
“Let’s go,” said Garry enthusiastically.
Garry’s enthusiasm was transferred to the others, and off across the fields they started, bending low in the hay to avoid detection as much as possible, although they did not think too sharp a watch was being kept in the day time, except possibly the roadway that led to the house.
When they reached the back of the barn, Garry halted them again.
“First look to your rifles. We might need them. Now, Dick, give us forty seconds to reach the house, then run around and take your stand where you can watch the barn door. If you need help, fire your rifle twice. Now Phil, shoot for the house.”
Garry and Phil started and Dick glued his eyes on his watch.
At the house they saw no sign of anyone having heard their approach, and there seemed to be no indication of anyone’s being around. Garry began to think the house was deserted and made up his mind that even if this were the case he was going through it.
They came around to the front door, which stood open, and Garry stuck his head through the doorway and called:
“Hullo, there in the house.”
Both boys kept their rifles in such position that they could be thrown up instantly. For a moment there was no response, then Garry repeated his call. There was a sound of someone shuffling along in his stocking feet, then a man came into the hall.
Garry and Phil almost dropped their rifles from surprise, for there stood one of the tramps.
“What you want,” he half grunted. From his tousled appearance he had evidently been asleep.
“We want to have a look through this house, and while we’re at it we want you,” answered Garry.
“Want me?” asked the man, surprised out of his drowsiness.
“Yes; you’re wanted for bail jumping down Portland way. The Gordon station and postoffice robbery, you know.”
“You policemen?” asked the man, who appeared dazed at the knowledge of the boys concerning him.
“No, we’re not policemen, but we’re going to take a look through this house and then take you back to the village,” said Garry firmly.
“Where’s your warrant?” demanded the tramp.
“Haven’t got one,” returned Garry promptly.
“Then you can’t do anything with me,” announced the man, becoming bolder.
“Oh, yes we can. We’re officers of the state, and besides, any citizen can apprehend a criminal and turn him over to an officer. Now speak up lively and tell us if there is a girl being held prisoner in this house.”
A momentary gleam of fear appeared in the man’s eyes, but he made haste to answer:
“’Course not; ain’t no womenkind of any sort around here. This is Mr. Green’s house.”
Both Garry and Phil could see the man was lying, and knew that their guess was correct. Either Ruth was in the house, or this tramp knew something about her.
“Come on now, come through. You know the girl I mean. Where is she? Phil, keep your rifle on this fellow, and if he makes a move while I go through the house, blow him up,” ordered Garry.
“Say, listen. What do I get if I put you fellows wise to all this?” demanded the tramp. “And how do you chaps know anything about me? Not that I’m admittin’ anything you said about me.”
“We know you all right. We helped catch you in our cottage down Portland way early this summer,” said Garry.
The tramp peered at Garry closely. Then he spat out an oath.
“I thought I knew you when I saw you the other day. Guess you’ve got me right. Well, you haven’t told me what I get if I tell you about the girl.”
“You’ll get nothing in the way of being let loose, if that’s what you’re driving at,” answered Garry. “And if you don’t tell us what you know you will come in for a few years extra on a charge of abduction. I’ll do this though. You tell us what you know and we’ll put it in on our report and that will get you out of this scrape.”
The tramp thought this over for a moment, and then appeared to decide that the jig was up and he might as well save himself at the expense of his pals.
“There was a girl came here last night through a certain passage to the house here, and Green and the Frenchman discovered her listening to them talk and caught her before she could get away.”
“What Frenchman do you mean?” interposed Garry quickly.
“The one they call Jean,” answered the tramp sullenly.
So there was another hunch that made good. Green and Jean had hitched forces again. That meant that the halfbreed had come directly to this place after he had made his escape from the lumber-camp with the aid of the motor boat.
“Where is she now, in the house here?” demanded Garry eagerly.
“No,” said the man. “They was afraid someone was with her or was going to follow her here, so they rushed her out. That is, the Frenchman did. He said he would take her to a hideout he had. I think he said it was on the river; what did he call it? Penicton, or something like that.”
“I know. Penocton is the name, Garry. That’s the one we visited that time we found our tourmaline mine,” put in Phil.
“Do you know anything more about it than that?” quizzed Garry.
“No, that’s all I know.”
“Just one thing more,” said Garry hurriedly. “How did you fellows come to be hitched up with this gang?”
“Green hired us to do a little job for him.”
“What was it?”
“None of your business. Say, look here. I’ve told you all you wanted to know, more than I should. Now my mouth’s shut, see? I ain’t a goin’ to tell you nothin’ more. Not even if you beat my head in with your gun,” and the tramp relapsed into sullen silence. He seemed to be sorry now that he had gone so far in his answers.
“Phil, there’s one chance that all this may be a string of lies; and to be on the safe side, I’m going through the house. You keep this fellow under cover, and if anyone approaches, fire your rifle once, and back this fellow into the house, and make him lock the door. I’ll be with you, then, in a minute.”
Garry went into the house and made a systematic search of the house, starting with the top floor and the attic, peering into all the closets and any spot that would make a likely hiding place. He made no discoveries on the top floor, and descended to the main floor again. Here he found nothing, and was preparing to descend the cellar for a last look, when he saw the latch on the door being raised.
He stood stock still, and lifting his rifle, waited in silence.
The door opened slowly and noiselessly, and he was just about to order whoever was behind it to come out, as he was covered, when a head came cautiously around the door, and Garry dropped his rifle butt to the floor and began to laugh.
Instead of Green or one of his cohorts, as he had expected, the head belonged to no other than Dick!
“Say, I’m glad to see you” said Dick with a sigh of relief. “We did a fool thing in not deciding how long I was to wait without hearing from you; and you were so long that I thought you had been found and were tied up in some corner with Green and all his friends standing guard over you. So I came through the passageway to see if I could be of any help. What’s new? Have you found Ruth?”
In a few brief sentences Garry informed him of what had transpired in the past few minutes.
“Now we’ll get our prize tramp here and hustle him back to town and deliver him over to the constable. Then, while you fellows follow our original plan about the engineer, I’ll set out after Ruth. It’ll have to be luck for me to find her, but I’ll track down the river bank in the hope of finding some trail.”
The return to town was made without incident, though the boys kept a sharp watch for fear that some of the tramp’s friends might come along and attempt to free him from his captivity. They led him directly to the little lock-up and turned him over to the constable with instructions to notify the sheriff so he could get in touch with the authorities at Portland.
Garry’s last words to the tramp were to bid him to keep silent about his having told them about Ruth and LeBlanc, threatening if he opened his mouth to forget his promise to plead for special immunity for him. The tramp readily agreed to keep his silence.
“Now gather round here fellows. I’m going to stock up on provisions, and start for the river. You fellows had better arrange between yourselves to keep an eye on the engineer and Green. Decide who will take the engineer, and the other one watch Lafe. Either one may lead you to a clue.
“So that we will have check on my movements, start about eleven o’clock tomorrow morning to call me on the wireless. Keep calling me at intervals for two hours. Set your range for about twenty-five miles. I won’t be further away than that. If you cannot get me, get the sheriff and have Green taken up again and squeezed until he comes through with information about the girl. Of course LeBlanc will be arrested on sight, if he comes back here, but he probably is wherever he has taken Ruth.”
“Suppose we don’t hear from you; what about your own safety?” asked Phil.
“In that case, get some help and come after me. My plan is to go to that little town we passed through the time we found the tourmaline mine, and then head across the river. You remember it was all wooded land on the other side. I’ll leave several trail signs to show whether I went up or down the river. Then at intervals of a half a mile, I’ll tie a strip of white cloth to a bough on one of the trees along the river bank. If I turn into the woods at any point, I’ll tie the strip there and then leave trail signs. Keep an eye out for a small stone cairn, for I may leave a note. Now I’m off to the store for some groceries.”
Giving each of his chums a hearty grip of the hand, Garry headed for Denton’s general store.
Denton asked him several questions about why he was purchasing extra provisions, but Garry gave him evasive answers.
“By the way,” said Garry, “how come you didn’t think to tell us this morning about Miss Ruth Everett being missing?”
“I swan, I forgot all about it. I haven’t been thinking about much of anything lately except that dratted postoffice business. Then when I did think of it, you were out of sight. Have they heard anything about the girl?”
“Guess they’re working on something now.” Garry refrained from answering any questions, for there were three or four other men in the store, and he was now proceeding on the idea that every man was a potential enemy until he was proven otherwise.
Garry packed his knapsack carefully, and as a last thought bought a couple of yards of white cloth with which to make the trail marks he had promised to leave.
He took the trail they had taken the day they set out to discover the mine after they had succeeded in getting the missing portion of the torn map.
It was a good twenty mile hike to the town, and Garry put his best foot forward, for he wanted to reach the town before dark. He decided he would put up there for the night in the village hotel, if there was one, rather than stay in the woods.
Garry did not think it wise to sleep out in the forest where some misfortune might befall him, at a time when he needed all his strength, and above all, his liberty. Then, too, he wanted a good night’s sleep to be fresh for the coming day, which he fancied would be a hard one.
As he walked, he kept a keen lookout for any signs of trail,—a dropped handkerchief, or something of the sort. Garry hoped that Ruth would find some way of dropping something that might serve as a clue, for she was a bright girl, and knew that any little help would aid those whom she knew would seek to trail her as soon as her absence was discovered.
His pains were unrewarded, however, as he walked mile after mile. Garry was straining every nerve to make time, and took a pace that was much faster than the boys generally used when on plain patrol duty. Their summer in the woods had made good walkers of all of them, and they were able to make decent distances without more than ordinary fatigue.
It had been noon time when Garry left Hobart, and allowing himself until seven o’clock to get to the village of Chester, it would mean that he must make a trifle less than four miles every hour, counting out a few minutes for a breathing spell after every fifty or fifty-five minutes of walking.
His reckoning was not far wrong, for it was only about a quarter after seven when he pulled into Chester. He asked a pedestrian if there was any sort of a hotel or boarding house in the village, and was directed to one a short ways down the street. Garry was ravenously hungry, so he had his supper at the hotel, getting in just before the dining room closed. It was a typical country hotel, and the fare was good. After he had eaten, he sought out the owner and engaged him in conversation.
Garry asked what the other side of the river was like and if the woodland extended for many miles in both directions.
“On the upper side is the State Forest reserve, well patrolled by Rangers, while to the south is wild land that has not been cut for years,” said the hotel man.
“There was some talk of cutting there last winter, and then they decided to hold up till a track could be laid and the logs hauled to the river on flat cars to save time. In that way they could begin cutting at the far side and work toward the river. A party of surveyors laid out the proposed track, and they even laid about a half a mile of track. Then the owner died—name was Hasbrouck, I think—and his estate got tied up in the courts, and the work on the road was stopped. Now there’s no one around there. Once in a great while a camping party goes in there, but it isn’t popular except during the deer season, because of its wild growth, lots of ravines and rocky places.”
This long explanation was given Garry by the hotel owner, and Garry mentally decided that if LeBlanc had come there—and this was likely if the tramp’s words were true—this would be the section he would go to. The halfbreed would probably keep away from the Forest Reserve, with the chance of running across a Ranger.
Asking if the general store was open, and receiving an affirmative reply, Garry got directions for reaching it and set out. He knew that in all New England villages, the general store is the hangout for most of the men after nightfall, and here was the best place to get any likely gossip.
Garry found a half dozen men gathered inside, watching a checker game between two old men who were evidently the crack players of the village.
He made two or three minor purchases, mostly to get into conversation with the storekeeper.
The owner himself was there, and after he had sized up Garry’s attire, asked in true Yankee fashion:
“Come from the city?”
“Some little time ago,” answered Garry, “if you can call living only a few miles from Portland being from the city.”
“Figure on going campin’ around here?”
“No, just hiking through for awhile.”
“Fellow in here this morning and bought a lot of stuff, enough to last a while, so thought that you might be following him up, since he was alone, and camping alone ain’t much fun.”
Garry was not particularly interested in campers, but he wanted to ask some questions later, and knowing the Yankee way, which was to talk of other things and get acquainted by asking questions first, asked carelessly if the storekeeper knew the other man, or heard where he was going.
“No, never saw him before, and he warn’t the kind to give out much information about himself. After I talk with a man a few minutes, I generally get to the point where I can swap questions with him; but this chap looked as though he didn’t want a friend in the world, and maybe didn’t have one.”
“Grouchy looking customer, eh?” said Garry with a laugh.
“Yes, siree Bob, not only grouchy looking, but hard looking. Now that I think of him, I see it was foolish to ask if you were with him, for he was a different breed of cats from you. Funny looking bird.”
“What did he look like,” asked Garry, mainly to keep conversation up for a few minutes longer.
“Big black-haired chap with a black moustache and dark skin, high cheek bones, looked like a halfbreed to me. Talked pretty good English, but with a little accent like they do up by the border.”
Garry’s heart beat high with excitement, for the storekeeper had described Jean LeBlanc to a “T.”