The Merry Anne 31
"No, he ain't," drawled a sleepy voice.
"I can't get comfortable," growled Wilson. "How is a man going to sleep
with this hay sticking into your ears and tickling you?"
"Next time I take you out, Bert," said Beveridge, "I 'll bring along a
pneumatic mattress and a portable bath-tub and a Pullman nigger to carry
your things."
"That's all right, Bill. Wait till you try it yourself. There are
spiders in the hay, millions of 'em,--and if there's anything I hate,
it's spiders."
"Here," said Harper, "take some o' my pillow. I ain't having no
difficulty." He threw over a roll of cloth, which Wilson, after some
feeling about, found.
"Hold on, Harper, this isn't your coat?"
"No, it's part of a bundle of rags I found here."
"What's that!" Beveridge exclaimed. "A bundle of rags?"
"Feels like part of an old dress," said Wilson.
"Give it here, Bert. I 'll take what you've got too, Harper." With the
cloth under his arm Beveridge found the ladder and made his way to the
floor below. Then he lighted a match.
The others crawled to the edge of the mow and looked down into the
cavernous, dimly lighted space.
"Look out you don't set us afire, Bill."
"Come down here, Smiley, and see what you make of this."
It was not necessary to summon Dick twice. He swung off, hung an instant
by his hands, dropped to the floor, and bent with the special agent
over what seemed to be the waist and skirt of a gingham dress. The
examination grew so interesting that Harper and Wilson came down the
ladder and peered over Dick's shoulders.
"You see," said Beveridge,--"here, wait till I light another match. Take
this box, Bert, will you, and keep the light going? You see, it isn't an
old dress at all. It's rather new, in fact. Mrs. Lindquist would never
have thrown it away--never in the world. Now what in the devil--what's
that, Smiley?"
"I didn't say anything. I was just thinking--"
"Well--what?"
"I don't know that I could swear to it, but--you see, you can't tell the
color very well in this light."
[Illustration: 0287]
"Oh, it's blue, plain enough."
"You're sure?"
"Perfectly."
"Looks nearer green to me. But if it's blue, I've seen it before."
"Where?"
"The day I was at Spencer's. There was a girl there, the old man's
sister-in-law, and she wore this dress."
"Are you perfectly sure, Smiley?"
"Well--dresses aren't in my line, but--yes, I'm sure. I noticed it
because her eyes were blue too--and there was this white figure in it.
Her name is Estelle. She waited on table, and--"
"Go on--don't stop."
"Wait up," said Wilson. "If you've got it identified, I'm going to quit
burning up these matches. There are only about half a dozen left."
"All right. Put it out." And they talked on in the dark, seated, Dick
and Beveridge on the tongue of a hay-wagon, Wilson on an inverted
bucket, Harper on the floor.
"Why, she waited on table; and then McGlory disappeared and I had to go
after him, and I found him talking to her--"
"Hold on!" Beveridge broke in. "You say you found her and McGlory
together?"
"Yes. I guess we're thinking of the same thing. From the way they both
acted, I rather guess it's an understood thing. It wasn't as if he had
met her there by chance, not a bit of it. And I've been thinking since,
it seems more than likely that she would go wherever he went."
"That's right!" Beveridge exclaimed. "I'm sure of it. I know a little
something about it myself."
"You do?"
"Yes. This McGlory has left a wife behind him in Chicago."
"Madge, you mean?"
"Yes. The main reason he took up the offer to go out with you, Smiley,
was so he could get up here and see this--what's her name?--Estelle."
"So there is more than a fighting chance that where she is you 'll find
him."
"Exactly."
"And that means that he has been here to-day."
"Right again."
"Then who sailed the schooner for Canada?"
Harper, leaning forward in the dark and straining to catch every
syllable of the low-pitched conversation, here gave a low gasp of sheer
excitement. There had been moments--hours, even--during the day when
the object of this desperate chase had seemed a far-off, imaginary thing
beside the real discomforts of the tramp through the pines. But now, in
this sombre place, they were plunged into the mystery of the flight, and
he had been the unwitting means of deepening the mystery.
"That sort of mixes us up, Beveridge," said Smiley.
"Never mind." Beveridge's voice was exultant. "We're hot on the trail
now. This taking to the woods is about the neatest thing I ever did."
"You're right there, Bill," Wilson chimed in.
Until now Dick had supposed that the land chase had been entirely his
own notion, but he said nothing.
"Look here, Bill,"--it was Wilson breaking the silence,--"there isn't
any use of our trying to sleep to-night. Let's break out and run this
thing down."
"How are you going to know your way in the middle of the night?"
"Make 'em show us."
"Suppose you can't make them?"
"I know--you're still thinking about that boy. But we are no nearer him
than we were an hour ago."
"Listen a minute!"
They sat motionless. There was no sound; nothing but the heavy stillness
of the night.
Wilson whispered, "Think you heard something?"
"S-sh!"
A key turned softly in the lock. Then the door opened a little way,
and against the sky they could see a head. Wilson drew his revolver.
Beveridge heard the hammer click, and said quietly, "Don't be a fool,
Bert. Put that thing back in your pocket."
"Are you's in there?" came a voice from the door.
"Yes. Come along."
The door opened wider to admit the owner of the voice, then closed.
A moment later a lantern was lighted and held up before the grinning,
excited face of the farmer's son.
"Come on, Alex. What do you want?"
The boy slowly approached until he stood before them; then he set the
lantern on the floor, where it cast long shadows.
"What is it, my boy?"
Axel looked knowingly at them. "Say," he whispered, "I know what you's
are. You're detectives."
"Oh, we are, are we? What makes you think that?"
"You're detectives. I know."
"Sit down, and talk it over. Do you smoke?"
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