CHAPTER X
THE CABIN IN THE RAVINE
We left Garry talking with the storekeeper at Chester.
The storekeper had just described Jean LeBlanc to him as having bought a liberal supply of provisions. That meant that the tramp had not played them false but had given a straight tip.
Having gotten all the desired information, Garry bade the storekeeper goodnight and hastened back to the hotel where he turned in.
LeBlanc already had twelve hours’ start on him, and by morning it would be a full day, but there was no use in Garry’s trying to go further that night.
He would have a blind enough chase in broad daylight, and he needed sleep so that he would be fresh for the hard trail ahead.
Garry woke with the dawn and sprang from his bed, determined to make every minute that day count. He descended to breakfast, and after a hasty meal asked the hotel owner if there was any place there where he could hire a canoe for two or three days.
“Sure there is; right here. My boy had one that he used a lot, but he’s working in the city now, and so it just lays there in the boathouse doing nothing,” answered the hotel man.
Garry soon struck a bargain, and a reasonable one, and the hotel man sent one of the loungers to show him where it was.
He unshipped the canoe from its resting place, and gave it a hasty examination to determine whether or not it had sprung a leak anywhere from its long disuse. It was a well-made Kennebec canoe, however, and in sound condition.
Packing his knapsack and rifle securely in the bow, Garry took his paddle and started out straight across the river, which was not less than a quarter of a mile wide at this point.
On the other side, he beached his canoe, and taking one of the white strips he had prepared, tied it to a branch, so that it was not conspicuous but could be easily seen by anyone with whom arrangements had been made to look for it.
Then he arranged the trail signal to show that he was going down river. This consisted of three stones. On the largest stone he placed a single one, and then on the ground beside it was placed one indicating the direction he was to take.
This done, he pushed out in the river again and paddled down stream, always keeping a sharp lookout along the banks.
At intervals of a quarter of a mile or so he would beach the canoe and attach signals to guide his companions should there be need of following him.
Several times he wondered if his hunch in going to the place where the attempt to lay a railroad had been started was wise. Then he reflected that he had no stated course to pursue, hence following a hunch was the only thing left to do. He was sure of one fact, that LeBlanc had come that way. Then this was the only likely place to come.
He would hardly take a captive to the Forest Reserve; there was always the danger that he would come upon a Ranger, and this reserve was better patrolled than any other of the state woodlands, for the government and not the state exercised supervision. The Rangers here covered more ground, for Garry had been told that they were all mounted.
On the side of the river where the town lay, there was no place where one could hide out very successfully, for the timber growth there was mostly hard wood, and there was constant cutting. Straggled farms dotted that part of the country.
The only logical place, therefore, was the wild land toward which Garry was heading. And, he figured, what more likely place to make a start than the old railroad. One could easily follow that, and let circumstances decide on what course to pursue as soon as the track came to an end.
Garry judged that he had paddled about ten miles, when he came to a bit of beach, or rather a spot where the growth had been cut away, leaving a bare spot except for the scores of stumps that dotted the land.
It has probably been the intention of the railroad builders to make a slide here for the logs to be rolled into the river. Garry headed the nose of his craft into the bank, and hauled up the canoe. Since he had determined to trek into the forest, he had to secrete his canoe. He cast about for a good place, and noting an extra thick undergrowth several yards away, went to see if it was a practicable hiding place.
Great was Garry’s surprise when he parted the underbrush and found a birch-bark canoe already hidden there. He crawled into the thick bushes to make a closer examination of the craft.
The thought that instantly sprang to his mind was that this was LeBlanc’s canoe. If such was the case, Garry determined that it should be put out of commission.
Still, supposing it belonged to some of the boys that lived on the other side of the river? In that case the destruction of the canoe would be rather a mean trick to play.
Garry looked into the canoe and found some trash left there. This appeared to be paper in which parcels had been wrapped, and seemed to have been only lately discarded. Looking closer, he noted the twine that was used. It was a cheap twine composed of red and white strands intermixed.
Immediately Garry remembered that this was the sort of twine used by the storekeeper with whom he had talked the night before, and who had told him of selling supplies to a man that answered the description of the halfbreed.
Garry reflected that it was better to be safe than be sorry, and determined to disable the canoe. In case it was the halfbreed’s, all well and good. If it was that of some of the boys, he could leave word with the hotel man and the storekeeper that he would make good the damage.
There was something else to be considered. Should he disable the canoe and should LeBlanc come back, would it not immediately give warning that he was being tracked, and cause him to turn in his tracks and trace his pursuer?
Garry gave the matter several minutes’ thought, and then the idea occurred to him. He could disable the canoe by puncturing the innumerable “eyes” that are frequent in birch bark—the little places where a branch would later pierce though.
Hastily he took his pocket knife, one of the Scout knives that was equipped with several tools, among them being a sharp instrument that could be used as a brad awl.
Working speedily, he plunged it through all the eyes he could find. This would cause the canoe to leak, and make it useless as a craft. There is only one way to fix this, and that is one that requires a great deal of time. It consists of making a slashwise cut in the bark through the “eye” and sealing this down with hot pitch. The damage that Garry had done would take a good while to repair properly, and if it was LeBlanc’s canoe, it might hinder him in making an escape at some time.
The easy manner in which he found LeBlanc’s canoe was a warning to him. He carefully obliterated all traces of having been there, and returned to his canoe. Getting aboard again, he paddled down the river about a hundred yards, till he came to a rocky bank. There he succeeded in bringing his canoe up on to the land, and as the growth was thick here also, had no trouble in finding a perfect place of concealment.
This done, he scrambled through the undergrowth back to the spot where he had first landed. Hitching up his knapsack, and looking to his rifle, he set off into the woods. The track had been laid for some little distance, and piles of ties lay along the track. After a matter of perhaps half a mile, the trackage ceased, and from there on was only a trail marked by the triangular stick such as surveyors use to mark out the particular line that their engineering matter requires.
Garry knew now that extreme caution was required. Provided LeBlanc had come this way, there was every possibility that he might be returning over the same route.
For a matter of two miles Garry walked, peering ahead of him, and straining his ears to catch the slightest sound.
Finally he came to a little natural clearing in the midst of the brush and trees, and saw ashes. Someone has made a campfire there, and not very long ago, either. Woodsmen can always tell within a short time, just how long since a fire has been used. It is almost impossible to describe, and can only be done intuitively or by long practice.
Garry decided that this fire had been built not more than a day ago, and a tin tomato can that had been thrown to one side, had barely corroded from exposure to the elements.
He was on the trail, but where did it lead? And was it made by the quarry he was seeking?
He glanced at his watch and saw that it was almost eleven o’clock, the hour when he had promised to open his receiving station and wait for a message from his chums. He decided that this was as good a spot as any, and unpacked the apparatus from his knapsack, adjusting and extending the rods from which his aerial could hang.
As he looked about for a good place to stand his rod, he caught a glint of something bright in the tangled grass near him.
He bent and picked it up, and was amazed to find that it was a small gold locket. Hastily he opened it, and there staring at him from the two compartments, were pictures of Ruth and her grandfather!
Garry almost shouted with glee. They had come this way, and the next step was to determine in which direction they had gone.
That, however, must wait for a moment, for he wanted his chums to know that he was safe, and hence must wait for a time for a message from them.
But when he spread out his apparatus, a pang struck him. Part of the detector, the most essential part of the receiving apparatus, was missing!
Garry examined it closely and saw that it had been broken; and when he took thought, he remembered the haste in which the boys had packed their knapsacks, his among them, when they left the lumber camp some days before.
Inwardly the boy berated himself for his stupidity in setting out on this search without first seeing that all his apparatus was in perfect order.
The detector, sometimes known to users of the radio as a “cat’s whisker,” is a thin wire with a point attached to it, extending from the sounding posts to a piece of galena or silicon. This detector is used for this reason: The voice waves that are sent out through a radio transmitter are too faint to be heard by the human ear unaided by a mechanical apparatus.
The detector or “whisker” is moved about on the silicon until it strikes a sensitive spot, and in this way the air waves are brought into proper tune, and may be heard through the receiving ’phones.
Attached to the end of the wire that is fixed to the baseboard is either a point, welded to the brass wire that leads to the cup holding the galena crystals, or else a point is carefully fashioned on the end of the wire to the same sharpness as a needle.
In the case of Garry’s detector, both the point and the entire wire were missing.
Somehow he must fix this, else his friends would immediately set out in search of him, and that perhaps at a time when they had important work to do at Hobart concerning the mission they had embarked on.
But how was he to repair a part of a radio telephone, that most delicate instrument, while he was out here in the wilds? It would be a hard enough task in the village, for there were no stores where radio equipment could be bought.
Garry, however, was not one to give up hopelessly on anything. He set his wits to work to think up some way in which the detector could be fixed. A search of his knapsack revealed nothing that could be substituted for the original whisker.
He knew enough about the apparatus to know what would be needed. First there was a piece of brass wire, and that must be sharpened to a needle point.
As he thought of the words “needle point,” he was struck by a brilliant idea, and gave a soft whoop at the thought that it might work.
In his knapsack was a small “housewife” that his mother had given him just before he set out for the big woods at the start of the summer. He resurrected this, and from it drew a large needle.
There was part of the battle won, but there were still two other necessary things to obtain. One was the brass wire, and the other was a method of welding or soldering it to the needle.
He rummaged through his belongings, in the vain hope of finding some bit of wire that would answer the purpose, but could find nothing. Desperately he glanced at his watch. It was already twenty minutes after eleven, and the boys were probably trying vainly to talk with him.
As he looked at his watch, a thought struck him.
Presto; here was the brass wire. It would mean sacrificing the use of his watch for a time, but that could be easily dispensed with. He unscrewed the back of his watch, and ruthlessly took out the mainspring, which was a small coil of thin brass, not a wire exactly, but something that would answer the purpose just as well. His screw driver that he carried in the knapsack was too clumsy for such work as tinkering with a watch, so he used the point of his knife blade instead.
Getting the mainspring out was a matter of a few seconds only. Now remained only to think of some ingenious way to solder the brass coil to the needle. In his search through the knapsack he had thrown much of the contents on the ground near him, and in looking these over, in the search for inspiration, his eyes lighted on his fishing tackle.
There was the final thing needed. From the tackle book, where he kept his flies, he undid a little flap that covered a pocket, and drew out a split lead sinker. This was just what he needed for soldering the coil to the needle.
With his pliers he bent the end of the coil tightly about the center of the needle, and widening the split in the shot with his knife, slipped it over the needle where it was held to the brass coil.
Using the handle of his knife, he carefully pounded the sinker until it held of its own accord. Soldering was now a simple matter.
Garry lighted a small fire, and when the dry branches had burned to coals, thrust the screwdriver into the glowing bed.
“That spoils a good screwdriver,” thought Garry, “but at least it’s in a good cause.”
As any boy knows that has ever used tools, heating a screwdriver, if it is a good one, ruins the temper and makes it easy to break when struggling with a refractory screw.
As soon as the blade had gotten sufficiently heated, he applied it quickly to the lead sinker and caused it to melt and fuse around the needle. Two or three applications of the hot screwdriver were necessary before the job could be called complete, and then Garry sat back and surveyed his work with satisfaction.
Now remained only the biggest question of all. Would this crude contrivance work? Garry felt that it would, since it followed in principle the theory of the detector.
The quickest way to find out if it was workable, of course, was to try it out, and this he immediately did.
Noting that all the rest of the radio outfit was in good condition, he adjusted the headpieces and tuned up back and forth over the tuning coil to get the proper range. Soon he heard frequent buzzes in the receivers and knew that everything was all right. Now came the crucial test of the detector. He moved the needle point around on the silicon and soon was rewarded by getting the proper induction, and distinctly heard a voice. The forest-made detector worked!
The voicing was chanting over and over again:
“Boone, Garry Boone. Calling Garry Boone.”
Garry laughed to himself as he thought how much it sounded like a bellboy in a hotel paging one of the guests.
Turning to his sender he called.
“Boone talking.”
This he repeated at intervals, and after a few minutes, in which he divined that Phil and Dick were probably working their tuning coil, he established connection.
But the connection was faulty, and he was afraid that at any moment the detector would fail to work. So he called briefly:
“Have found a clue to Ruth and am on her trail. Am safe. Tell Mr. Everett everything is coming out O. K. What news have you?”
From the other end came this startling, to Garry, news:
“Simmons arrested this morning, and——”
Then all became silent. Only an indistinct buzzing came into the receivers. He worked his tuning coil back and forth, but brought no results. Then he tried switching the “cat’s whisker” to another spot on the cup of silicon, and found that this, too, was futile.
Something had evidently gone wrong with his apparatus. So after a few minutes more of vain attempt to establish connection again, he gave it up as a bad job.
However, the vital thing had been accomplished. He had informed his chums that he was safe, thereby freeing their minds from worry, and he knew that they were on the job at their end. Also his message would prove of great cheer to Ruth’s grandfather and Aunt Abbie.
He could not, of course, understand what his friends had meant by Simmons being arrested. Simmons was the postal inspector, and should be making arrests, rather than be subject to seizure himself.
There was no use, though, in racking his head to try and puzzle out the situation. There was still the important part of his work ahead of him.
He felt hungry and decided to make a hasty meal before going any further. He produced from his supplies enough stuff for a cold lunch, and was wondering if it would be worth while to search for a few minutes for a spring.
Garry figured that five minutes could make no great difference, and looking around for moist ground that would denote the proximity of a spring, advanced a short distance into the woods. He had not gone far when he heard the murmur of water, and pushing ahead, came to a fair-sized brook.
Quickly he noted that there were footprints on the soft bit of shore, and bent to examine them. After some scrutiny he could make out distinctly at least three sets of prints. One set seemed to be made by moccasins, for the prints were blurred and indistinct, and another set was evidently left there by some man who wore a pair of shoes with heels.
What made Garry’s heart beat quickly, was the sight of the third set of prints that were of a certainty made by a girl.
The two sets of male footprints of course denoted two men, and since it was a foregone conclusion that the moccasined walker was LeBlanc, Garry wondered who his companion could be.
He searched about for more prints in an endeavor to find which way the tracks led, but they soon broke back onto the hard ground, covered with countless thousands of pine needles and spears from the spruce trees.
He was about to give up the search and debate with himself as to what course to pursue, when he saw, lying among the pine needles, a dress button.
Garry seized it eagerly. It looked like an ornamental button from a waist or dress. Since it lay some little distance from where he had found the footprints, it must mean that the girl and her captor had come this way.
It was new looking, and was undoubtedly dropped there not very long before the time he found it. Had it been there for some time it would show it had been exposed to the rain and ground.
Filling his collapsible bucket with water, he hurried back, and having made his coffee, hastily ate his meal. The wireless was then dismantled and along with the other contents of the knapsack repacked quickly.
Shouldering his knapsack, and stamping out the remains of the fire, also removing, as far as possible, any trace of having eaten at the spot, Garry made his way back to the place he had found the button.
The discovery had shaped his course for him. It was probable that the trail led up the brook. If LeBlanc had some hideout in the woods, what was more natural than having it near a brook, both for the fact that it was a supply of water and a place where a certain amount of food could be obtained, since Garry, with an angler’s instinct, had mentally decided that the brook abounded in fat trout.
The final reason for believing this to be the proper trail lay in the fact that it was less brushy and thick along the bank of the brook, making it easier walking. Garry walked along for some distance, keeping his eyes glued to the ground in the hope of finding “sign” of some sort to show that his quarry had passed that way.
With a muffled exclamation he bent to the ground and picked up—another button.
Carefully comparing it with the other, he found them to be exactly alike. Then it dawned on him that Ruth in some manner must have been able to detach them from her clothing and was dropping them for the purpose of leaving a trail behind her.
Garry wondered if the locket might not also have been purposely dropped with the same idea in view. The discovery made him hasten his steps, and he fairly tore off yard after yard. The walking was none too easy, for it was not the soft flooring of the forest such as he had patrolled on his father’s land. Here the way was rough and uneven, and as he walked he noted that the grade tended to rise, and thought it would shortly get into hilly country.
Sometime later he found a third, and then a fourth button. After that he found no more. Each time that he had made a discovery, he had marked the spot carefully and made short detours from the path, to see if at any time the party had turned off.
This had naturally taken a great deal of precious time, and peering up into the sky through the branches of the trees, he discovered that he could not see the sun, and judged that it must be at least five in the afternoon.
Garry had gone nearly two miles after finding the last button, and since he could find no more, wondered if he had lost the trail. By the time he stopped to consider this, he found he was at the beginning of a sharp rise in the ground, and figured that he was at the foot of a hill. A few minutes’ hard walking convinced him of the truth of this thought, and he came to what was evidently the top of a high knoll or hill.
There was one thing left to do, and that was to climb a tree and sweep the surrounding country through his glasses in the hope of finding a clue. The brook which he had been following stopped at a spring almost at the top of the little hill. This spring naturally was the source of the brook, which likely ended in the Penocton River.
He selected the highest tree he could find, and since the branches did not begin for some feet from the ground, had recourse to the method he and his chums used.
This consisted of taking a long piece of cord, or better still a stout wire, and circling it around his person and the tree. By alternately lifting this and bracing his heels against the tree, he was able to edge himself up inch by inch till he could reach one of the branches.
From then on climbing was a simple matter. He reached the top of the tree, going as high as he dared before it would bend with his weight. He had shown wisdom in picking the particular tree he had, for it towered above its fellows for several feet.
Garry found he had a good view of the country around him. He was surprised to note that he had made a considerable climb without noticing how great it was, for although he was conscious while walking that he was on rising ground, he had no idea that the gradient was so steep. To one side he could see a little depression, and then a sharp rise that led to a series of ever mounting hills.
At another point there was a depression as though some ravine existed there. He watched this spot fixedly for some minutes, for the sun was just dropping over the horizon, and the vicinity was not perfectly visible. Then he gave a sharp exclamation. Rising from the ravine, or depression, or whatever it was, was a thin spiral of smoke, that grew a little thicker after he had watched it for some moments.
He fished in his pocket and drew out his compass, noted the exact point from which the smoke seemed to come, and then made haste to descend the tree, scratching his hands in his hurry to get to the bottom.
He got to the ground by “bending” one of the limbs. This is a simple matter, as nearly every boy knows. It consists of crawling out on one of the branches until the weight of the body begins to pull it toward the earth. The farther one goes the nearer the earth comes to the limb, until one can drop off and let the limb fly back to its original position.
Calculating the direction by referring to the compass, he set off in the direction of the place from which he had seen the smoke emanating.
While in the treetop he had estimated that it must lay almost a mile away, and the going was hard. The brush was tangled and thick, and the ground rocky. Where there were scattered rocks, the roots of the trees projected as though coming in search of nourishment that was denied them in the rocky soil.
Here and there he noted places where the brush had evidently been torn away to allow some one to pass through.
After almost an hour of tiresome toil, he approached a little clearing, and then became exceedingly cautious and wary. He could see that there was a slight ravine there, with an entrance between two great rocks.
Creeping to this entrance he peered in, and saw that a crude shack had been erected at one end. He must approach the shack without knowing who was in it, or how many might be there. He divested himself of his knapsack, sticking it in back of a pile of brush, so that should anyone approach, they would not be warned of the presence of a stranger.
Then with his rifle grasped firmly in his hand, he walked slowly and noiselessly to the door of the shack. He half expected to be challenged by LeBlanc before he could reach the door.
No one halted his approach, however, and he came up to the door. It was half ajar, and holding his rifle so that he could instantly cover anyone, he threw open the door.
There he saw a sight that made his heart leap.
In one corner of the shack was Ruth, tied hand and foot, and a dirty rag stuffed in her mouth for a gag. In addition to the bonds on her wrists and ankles, she was tied to a projecting log.
He ran over to the girl, whipping his knife from his pocket as he did so.
It was the work of a moment only to cut the bonds that tied her and release the gag from her mouth. Ruth let him free her, and then stood erect for a moment, and being only a girl, dropped over in a dead faint.
The inside of the cabin was nearly dark, and he was searching about wildly to see if there was any water within, when he heard a muffled groan from another corner.
Garry ran to the corner and was astonished to see that a man, tied and gagged in the same manner that Ruth had been, was lying there.
The boy hesitated for a moment before releasing him, and then reflected that he could not be inimical since such drastic measures had been taken to render him helpless.
His indecision was only momentary, and then with a few swift strokes of his knife, he freed the man.
The stranger rose weakly to his feet, and for a moment could not be understood. Garry thought that he must have been gagged for some little time, as his thick speech indicated that his tongue was probably swollen.
“Guess you came just about in time,” he finally managed to utter.
“From the looks of things here you’re right,” answered Garry. “But who are you?”
Then came the astonishing answer:
“Name’s Simmons. I’m a United States postal inspector!”