CHAPTER XII
NATE WEBSTER CALLS ON THE BOYS
Garry waited not to discover what the flying shape might be. Raising his rifle to his shoulder he fired straight at the black mass, pumping the shots from his magazine as fast as he could work the mechanism.
He retreated hastily as he fired, and at the second shot heard a scream of pain, then there was a thud as some body struck the ground and writhed and clawed.
Garry fired two more shots at the screeching mass and then all was quiet and the struggling ceased. The sound of the shots had, of course, wakened Simmons, and he rushed forward to where Garry was standing.
“What is it? Are we attacked? Did you kill him?” The questions were shot out rapidly.
“Don’t know yet what it is, but if you wait a moment I’ll have a look,” said Garry.
Just then Ruth came hurrying out. She had snatched a burning stick from the fireplace and held this as a torch. It must be remembered that this entire occurrence took far less time than it takes to tell it.
Taking the flickering torch from the girl, Garry advanced to where the dark mass lay, and looked it over. The others crowded around him. It was a dark animal built something like a lioness, and as it lay stretched out looked to be almost seven feet long, measuring from tip of the nose to the tip of the tail.
“What is that, a lion?” asked Simmons.
“Why, yes, it is a specie of lion; I suppose you could call it that,” answered Garry. “It’s generally called a mountain lion; sometimes a panther, and by the natives a ‘painter.’ Its correct name is Puma. Say, he is sure a beauty, isn’t he? Good thing he gave warning of his approach and put me on guard, for if he had dropped on me from the edge of the cliff, he would have made mincemeat of me with those terrible fangs and sharp claws.”
“Are they generally to be feared?” asked Simmons.
“Of course they’re nothing you would want to take into your cabin and lay down beside,” answered Garry, “but as a rule they are not very courageous. This one must have been ravenously hungry to have even thought of attacking a human being. Generally they prey on deer in the forest, and if they summon up enough courage, will go on farm land and raise havoc among sheep and young cattle. This is such wild land here, that it had probably had nothing to eat for some time, hence its attempt to light on me. I wish there were more time and no element of danger around here, for I would like to skin it and take the pelt back with me as a souvenir of the night. Perhaps we can come here after we have taken Ruth home and get it.”
Garry had still an hour to stand on guard, and so Simmons went back to sleep. The boy was tired himself, and welcomed the coming of the hour when he was to be relieved.
At the appointed time, he roused Simmons and handed over the rifle.
“Don’t hesitate to shoot if there is anything suspicious, and that will wake me to come to your aid. However, I don’t think there is much chance of anyone coming at this time of the night.”
Garry was asleep almost as soon as he had touched the boughs, and knew nothing until he felt a hand shaking him. He looked up and saw that it was just getting light.
“Now for a quick breakfast,” he cried, leaping to his feet, “and then back to civilization and safety.”
The breakfast over, they hurriedly left the place.
“We won’t have to bid any tearful farewell to this place, will we Garry?” said Ruth.
All felt fresh and they made fine time in returning over the course they had come. Since there was no need for stopping and searching for trail, they covered the distance in much less time than it had taken Garry the previous day.
The worst of the going was the track from the cabin in the ravine to the brook, but from there the walking was comparatively easy. They had started about six o’clock and by half-past nine reached the point where Garry had discovered the campfire the day before.
“That reminds me,” said Garry to Ruth, “I haven’t given you back your locket yet. You should keep that as a prize, for it was the first clue that eventually led me to where you were imprisoned.”
“I shall keep it all my life,” declared the girl.
Simmons kept urging the others to hurry, for he wanted to get on the ground and see what had been done by the impostor who had paraded under his name. He did not seem to take much comfort in the statement of Garry that the false Simmons had been arrested, so Garry kept silence.
At the river bank, Garry bade the party wait while he looked at the place where the birch-bark canoe had been secreted.
The canoe was gone.
He hastened to the place where he had concealed his own craft, and was relieved to find that it was still there, safe and sound, just as he had left it.
He drew it from its hiding place and let it down into the water and paddled swiftly to where Simmons and Ruth were waiting. They embarked and then Garry pushed out into the river, plying his paddle with long, swift strokes, that fairly set the canoe dancing on the water.
“There,” murmured Ruth, as she sank back against one of the thwarts. “Now I feel really safe. I was afraid any minute that I would see the horrible face of LeBlanc and have him pounce on us out of the woods.”
“Twenty minutes more now and we’ll be in an auto, provided we can hire one, and speeding toward Hobart,” said Garry.
He was as good as his word, and soon the little party were at the hotel, where he arranged for the hiring of a flivver to carry them home. The hotel keeper evinced some surprise at the sight of the others, but Garry did not take the trouble to enlighten him.
“By the way,” said Garry, “do you happen to know of any boys around here that own a birch-bark canoe? I happened to damage one that I found on the other shore, and would like to leave my name in case you should hear about it.”
“Nobody in these parts owns a bark canoe,” declared the hotel man positively, “but I’ll take your name if you want me to.”
“It will take us almost as long to go by auto as it would to walk across through the woods,” said Garry, “for this is a mighty roundabout way; but it will be easier than walking, and I think we all have earned a little rest.”
“If you don’t mind a little bumping occasionally,” said the chauffeur, “I can get you to Hobart in about two hours; but it’s over a long stretch of road that is hardly more than a lane.”
The party was unanimously agreed on preferring the bumps to the extra time, and accordingly the driver changed his direction and took a course that led him to what seemed to be nothing more than an abandoned tote road.
The driver spoke the truth when he said it might be a little bumpy.
“Whew!” said Garry, as he was lifted almost a foot out of his seat and came back with a thud that jarred nearly every bone in his body. “I’m beginning to think that we are getting more than we bargained for.”
“I told you there were a few bumps,” said the driver, grinning.
“You’re right,” declared Simmons, “only it seems that we are missing the road altogether and just jumping from bump to bump.”
“Never mind,” consoled Ruth, as she hung on to the side of the tin chariot. “We are getting to Hobart all the quicker.”
Finally they struck decent road again, and the driver stepped on the gas and fairly made the car fly over the road.
When they reached the outskirts of the little village, Ruth directed them to Aunt Abbie’s house, and in a few moments she and her grandfather were clasped in each other’s arms. Good old Aunt Abbie was fluttering around, alternately patting Ruth on the shoulder and then Garry.
“Now we’ll have dinner right away,” she declared. “You people must be starved.”
Aunt Abbie’s idea of a panacea for all the human ills of the body was a “good meal.”
“Where are Dick and Phil?” asked Garry.
“Oh, they went traipsing off to the postoffice a few minutes ago,” said Aunt Abbie. “If you just ring up there on the ’phone you may find them there. They flustered all around the house this morning worrying about you, and then went out.”
Garry manipulated the telephone, for as in most small villages, the telephones are old style and one has to turn a crank or generator to call central.
Denton himself answered the ’phone. He was mighty pleased to hear Garry’s voice and expressed himself as “being plumb tickled to death to talk with him.”
“Yes, your friends are here, and some time they’ve been having while you were gone. Want to talk to one of them, or shall I tell ’em to hike over to Aunt Abbie’s right away?”
Garry told the postmaster to do the latter thing, and then went back to where the others were assembled.
“Now let’s hear all that’s happened,” he said to Mr. Everett.
“I guess perhaps we’d better wait till the boys get back, and let them have the fun of telling you themselves. It’s been pretty exciting, though, what with bank burglars and masqueraders of the law.”
Just as Aunt Abbie called that dinner was ready, Phil and Dick came tearing in. They leaped on Garry, shaking hands with him and pounding him exuberantly on the back.
“I told grandfather here,—yes, we call him that now,”—said Dick as he saw the look of wonder on Garry’s face. “I told him you would bring home the bacon.”
“Well, I like that,” put in Ruth indignantly. “Are you insinuating that I’m fat, Mr. Dick? Bacon yourself!”
Everyone laughed at Dick’s stuttering apologies, and then Garry demanded that they tell the story of their adventures since he left them.
Phil and Dick in turn recited what they had done, their stories being constantly interrupted by exclamations from Aunt Abbie, who became more and more excited as the stories were told, even though she knew what had transpired during the preceding hours.
“And, so we decided not to wait for you to come back,” said Phil, as he took up the concluding events. “We went and got the sheriff and brought him to the postoffice, where we laid the whole matter before him. He didn’t want to take any steps at first, because he could not conceive of a U. S. officer not being straight. Then Mr. Arthur, the bank president, came in, and Denton called him in and asked his advice. He took our side immediately, and told the sheriff to go ahead and get Simmons. I wouldn’t say for sure, but I guess that Arthur has a lot of political influence in the county. At any rate, the sheriff went ahead on his say so, and came back with Simmons. There the whole thing was put up to him, and say, you should have heard him explode. He threatened everyone with all kinds of things,—said he’d have the whole postoffice department here, and hollered about country sheriffs interfering with Federal officers and all that sort of stuff. And the more he hollered, the madder the sheriff got at being called a ‘hick,’ until if Simmons, calling him that for want of a better name, had proven his innocence then and there, I don’t believe the sheriff would have let him go without an order from the President.
“Finally Dick came to bat with an idea that was seized by all hands as the only sensible thing to do. He suggested that Denton send a telegram to the postal authorities at Washington with a description of the man and asking if it checked up. The masquerader shut up like a clam then. The sheriff wrote out his description and Denton sent the wire. About two hours later he got an answer saying that no man in the postal service with the name of Simmons answered that description, and ordered him held pending an investigation. My guess now is that there’s another inspector hot footing it here from Washington about this time.”
“Good land of liberty. Will you people come in and eat? That dinner must be stone cold by now,” said anxious Aunt Abbie.
“I’d rather get a look at this chap before I eat,” said Simmons. “I want to know who’s been using my name and papers that were taken away from me when I was captured.”
“Well, if that’s all you want, go in and eat till I run upstairs. I have his picture up there,” said Dick.
The party marched into the dining room, and in a moment or two Dick was back with the group picture he had taken the first day they arrived.
“There’s your man there,” said Dick, pointing out the impostor.
“Yes, I’m right,” said the inspector, after a hasty scrutiny. “His name is Sullivan and he’s been discharged from the service for some little time now. I’ll go down and rescue my badge and papers after awhile.”
Dinner was a merry affair, since it was in the nature of a re-union.
“Now,” said Aunt Abbie, when all had finished, “I’ll get that big dog of yours something to eat. I’ve had to keep him down in the cellar while you boys were out, else he’d have chased himself to death all over town looking for you.”
“I’ll take it to him,” volunteered Garry. He had no sooner opened the cellar door than Sandy leaped on him with a bark of delight, and the two friends, boy and dog, had almost a rough and tumble.
There was little to do for the real Simmons. He held a conference with Denton, and then proceeded to the lock-up, where Sullivan was waiting before being taken to the county jail.
Here he succeeded in getting a full confession from the impostor, who saw that since he had been caught, there was nothing to be gained by concealing anything. Knowing what he did of the service, he knew that the authorities would work relentlessly until they had searched out every fact and pinned it on him.
Simmons then wired an account of the affair briefly to his superior, stating also that complete report would be mailed. He prepared this report and then allowed the boys to read it.
They protested when they finished it, for it was largely a glowing account of their ability and bravery in doing the work they had done. Simmons, however, silenced their protests by stating that whatever they thought, that was his idea, and that was the way that the report was going.
But one thing did Sullivan refuse to tell, and that was the writer of the threatening letters. Simmons caused fingerprints to be taken of all the captives, and though not pretending to be an expert, knew enough of the science to be able to declare that none of them compared with the print on the letter.
It happened that Dick’s photography stood in good stead at this time, for Sullivan had destroyed the originals, and but for the photographs, there would have been no evidence.
“I take that to mean only one thing,” declared Garry. “There is no one left on whom suspicion could rest except Jean LeBlanc, and when LeBlanc is caught, I am sure you’ll find that is his fingerprint. It is probable that Sullivan knows that LeBlanc is still free, and thinks that by keeping silent he may aid his confederate in crime to some degree. Now we seem to have this gang pretty well rounded up. Only Jean and Baptiste are at large, and I’m hoping that they will soon be under lock and key. That pair are not fit to be free and are a menace to any community where they may be located.”
Later on in the afternoon, as they sat about relaxing after their strenuous adventures, the ’phone rang and Aunt Abbie said that Dick was wanted. He came back a few moments later and remarked:
“Cut down that list of our enemies to one. The sheriff says he sent out word to all the authorities in the county last night, and one caught Baptiste this morning at the railroad station. Wonder if there isn’t some way we can get Jean? That would sure be a complete round-up then.”
“I don’t know what we can do,” said Garry. “Only thing to do is to be vigilant every moment and wait for him to try some trick, as he undoubtedly will. Then we can muster a posse if necessary and run him down. He’s such a slippery customer, though, and seems to find out what’s going on so quickly, that now his whole gang is arrested, he’ll probably seek safety for a time in hiding.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” said Phil. “I’ve got a strong hunch that he’ll be coming after our scalps pretty soon. We’ve been lucky enough so far to thwart him in every nefarious move that he has made.”
“Well, time alone will tell that,” said Garry. As he spoke, there came a knock at the door, and the boys nearly fell off their chairs when they heard Aunt Abbie say in the high-pitched voice that she used when excited:
“Well, great land o’ Goshen. Nate Webster! I haven’t seen you for years!”