The Merry Anne 40

The Merry Anne 40

"He 'll have to do that. If he took to the woods, he would be lost in an

hour--and that means starvation."

 

Pink ventured a pleasantry, "Maybe he's got a compass," of which the

special agent took not the slightest notice; but said, turning to

Smiley, "How are your legs, Dick?"

 

"Fine. Trim as they make them."

 

"Feel up to a dog trot?"

 

"Half a dollar even, I 'll beat you to the deserted house."

 

"Hold on, don't get to sprinting. Save your wind. An easy jog will do

it."

 

All three fell at once into an easy running gait, Smiley and Beveridge

side by side, Pink laboring along in the rear.

 

Five minutes later Beveridge paused for breath. "We must have run nearly

a mile by this time, boys."

 

"Easily."

 

"Not so loud. Doesn't it look to you as if the road turned--up ahead

there?"

 

It did look so; and as they went on toward the turning it grew plain

that they were approaching a clearing.

 

"Wait, boys," whispered the special agent. "This ought to be the

place,--we don't want to move quite so carelessly now. Dick, you go

around to the left, and I 'll take the right; Pink, you give us two or

three minutes and then move in quietly toward the clearing. In that way

we shall all three close in together. Wait a few minutes now."

 

The two men disappeared in the woods, one on each side of the road, and

Pink was left alone in the shadows. At first he could hear now and then

a low rustle as one or the other brushed through the bushes, but soon

these sounds died away. He was standing in the shadow at the roadside,

gazing with fixed eyes at the opening in the trees and stumps a hundred

yards farther along. He wondered if the three minutes were up. It was

too dark to use his watch. Waiting there under the stars, the minutes

spun out amazingly; all sense of the passage of time seemed to have left

him. He moved forward a few steps,--but no, it was too early; Dick and

Beveridge had surely not had time to get to their positions. Still, what

if he should wait too long, and not arrive in time to act in concert

with the others?

 

Out on the Lakes, with a slanting deck underfoot and a dim shore-line

somewhere off in the night, Pink's soul would have thrilled in unison

with the stars, but here, buried in the gloom of the pine stumps,--those

straight, blackened poles that stood in endless monotony,--his soul was

overwhelmed. A panic seized him; he knew he would be late; and he

took to gliding along in the shadows, nearer and nearer, until, seeing

plainly that the road swung around to the right, and that the clearing

was overgrown with tall weeds and was surrounded by a stump fence, he

paused again. His feet sinking at each step in the sand, he made no

sound.

 

He stood motionless. Over the weeds he made out the sagging roof of

a small building. Then, forgetting that his own figure was invisible

against the black of the forest, he dropped to the ground and, flat on

his face, wriggled forward. A row of sunflowers grew inside the fence.

At one point was a cluster of them, standing out high above the weeds.

Cautiously inch by inch he crept nearer. The bunched stalks, outlined so

distinctly against the sky, fascinated him by their resemblance to the

hat, head, and shoulders of a human being.

 

Nearer--nearer--a moment more and he would be able to place his hand

against the fence. He was holding his breath now; afterward he could

never tell what was the slight noise he must have made. Or perhaps it

was the sense that tells one when a person has silently entered a

room that caused the figure--just as Pink, lying there on the sand and

looking up, had made sure that it _was_ a figure and not a clump of

sunflowers--to look around, up and down. Pink scrambled to his feet and

plunged recklessly forward. The man, who had been sitting on the fence,

quietly dropped down on the inner side.

 

A stump fence is not easy to climb, and Pink was on the outer side,

where the tangled masses of roots spread out into a _cheveau-de-frise_

which, in the dark, seemed insurmountable. When he had finally got to

the top, at the expense of a few scratches, a disturbance in the weeds

near the front of the house told him where the fugitive had taken

refuge. He promptly set up a shout.

 

"Ho-o-ho!" came simultaneously from Smiley and Beveridge.

 

"Here he is!"

 

"Where?"

 

"In the--" Pink was balancing on the fence. Before he could finish his

shout a revolver shot sounded from the house, and he went tumbling down

into the enclosure.

 

"What's that! Are you hit?"

 

"No--just lost my balance. Close in--he's in the house." He was getting

to his feet during this speech and feeling himself, not sure, in spite

of his statement, whether it was the noise or the bullet that had upset

him. But he could find no trace of a wound.

 

"Keep your places!" Beveridge was calling to the others. "Keep your

places! Now then, Mr. Spencer, we have you cornered. You can have your

choice of giving up now or being starved out. Which will it be?"

 

No answer from the house.

 

"Speak up! I don't propose to waste much more time on you."

 

This time the fugitive decided to reply; but his reply took the form of

a second shot, sent carefully toward the spot in the weeds from which

the voice seemed to be coming.

 

"Hi!" shouted Pink, "did he get you?"

 

"No. Shut up, will you?"

 

The man with the revolver was plainly an old hand, for now he fired

a third time; and the shot came dangerously near, whether by luck or

otherwise, to shutting up the speaker for all time. Beveridge dropped

hastily behind a log that lay at his feet. Then, disgusted with himself,

he scrambled boldly up and stood on the log.

 

Pink was obediently silent, 'though trembling with excitement. The

stillness of the forest fell suddenly in upon them. For a few moments

nothing was said or done. The man in the house had a momentary advantage

which all recognized. What light the sky gave was all upon the clearing,

and to move, however cautiously, through that tangle of weeds and bushes

without setting the tops to waving, was impossible. The building was so

small that the man could, with little effort, command all four sides.

And so Beveridge decided on a council of war with Smiley. At his first

movement another shot came cutting through the bushes; but he laughed

aloud, and went deliberately on in a quarter circle until he found

Smiley. "Well," he said softly and gleefully, "we've got him."

 

"If we can keep awake as long as he can. What are you going to do now?"

 

"Wait till dawn, and see how he stands it. No, don't look at me. Keep

your eyes on the house. He's too slippery to run chances with. It

oughtn't to be so very long now. How about you--can you keep up all

right?"

 

"Me? Why, certainly."

 

"All right, then. I 'll go around and take the boy's place, so he can

rest a bit. Keep a close watch. So long."

 

"So long."

 

The special agent went on around his circle, and found Pink near the

fence. "I 'll be here for a while, Harper. You'd better try to get some

sleep."

 

"Me--sleep?"

 

"Take your chance while you have it."

 

"Moses and the bulrushers! You don't think I could sleep now?"

 

"Just as you like."

 

To the three watchers there seemed to be a breakdown somewhere on the

line that leads to dawn. The hours dragged until they stopped short. All

the real things of this world, cities and schooners and houses on stilts

and long reaches of blue water, had slipped back into the dim land of

dreams. Nothing was real but the brooding forest, the rank weeds with

their tale of desolation, the sand--sand--sand. Even Beveridge, sitting

on his log, gave way. At each sound from the forest,--a crackle or a

rustle,--he started like a nervous woman. Chilled by the night air and

his wet clothes, he shivered until his teeth rattled.

 

A husky, plaintive voice rose into the night, singing. It came from

Harper's post near the stump fence.

 

"A fu-nee-ral per-cession was a-passin' down a street

 

That was lin'd with mansions stately, rich, and grand;

 

A tiny girl was sobbin', her lit-tull heart most broke,

 

A tear-stained hank-er-chuff was in her hand.

 

A tall and stately gentlemun, touched by her sorry plight,

 

For she was pale and ragged, thin and wan,

 

He stopped and took her lit-tull hand, and gently bending o'er,

 

'Don't cry, my child, I 'll help you if I can.'"

 

 

All the horrors of the night and the forest were gathered up into that

wailing voice. Beveridge shuddered. But Pink was warming up to it now,

sharing his misery with the night. If the verse had been doleful, the

refrain was worse:--

 

"'Mother's in the coffun, sir,

 

Mother's left her home;