CHAPTER VI THE RED ROVER GETS THE BREAKS
Drew Lane entered his room at three o'clock that morning. He and Tom Howeoccupied a room together in the Hotel Starling. It was a very largeplace. Their room was on the top floor.
Throwing his coat over a chair he sank into a place by a table in thecorner and allowing his head to drop on his arm tried to collect histhoughts. He had been following clues. A reporter from the News had givenhim a "hot tip" that grew cold almost at once. Casey from the StateStreet Police Station had given him another. It had led to nothing. Afterthat he had begun setting traps. Calling in three trusted stool-pigeons,he had laid out their tasks for them. Having consulted his chief, he hadbegun laying plans for raiding all known hang-outs for kidnaping gangs.After that he had picked up a copy of the city's pink sheet and had readin glaring headlines:
GHOST NO LONGER WALKS. HE GALLOPS.
He had read with some surprise the story of the Galloping Ghost.
"Rotten bit of sensation," he muttered. "I saw no ghost. Don't believeHowe did either. But that shot? Who fired it?"
He glanced at Howe's bed in the corner. Howe lay across it fully clad,sound asleep.
"Like to ask him," Drew muttered. "Like--"
He made a sudden move with his arm. Some unusually hard object restedbeneath it.
To his surprise he found on the table a coarse brown envelope. On theface of it was scrawled:
_Sergeants Lane and Howe._
Turning it over, he dumped its contents upon the table. A handful ofshavings and one very misshapen bullet, that was all; or so he thoughtuntil he thrust in a hand and drew forth a much crumpled bit of paper.
With a quick intake of breath, he flattened the paper on the table.
Words were scrawled across the page. The writing was very bad, as if aright-handed man had undertaken to write with his left hand. In time hemade out the message.
_Here are some important clues. Guard them with care. When raids are madeyou will collect firearms. Collect pocket knives as well. You will hearfrom me later._
"_The G.G._"
"Some crank," Drew muttered.
Then a thought struck him all of a heap. How had the message gotten intotheir room?
"Howe brought it.
"No. That is impossible. Had he read that note he would have folded itneatly. That's Howe every time."
Well, here was fresh mystery. And what of these clues? A bullet. That wasalways important. But where had it been found? He examined it closely."Wood sticking to it," he muttered. "Been dug out."
But what of the shavings? These too he examined. After studying themcarefully he was convinced that some one, while waiting for a secondperson perhaps, had occupied his time whittling a bit of soft wood he hadpicked up.
"The world is strewn with such piles made by whittle-bugs," he toldhimself. He was tempted to toss them into the waste paper basket. Insteadhe slid them back into the envelope.
After that he read the note through again. "Collect pocket knives." Hisvoice took on a note of disgust. "What could be the good of that?"
"'You will hear from me again.' Well, here's hoping."
He threw the envelope to a back corner of the table. But startlingrevelations would drag it again to the light.
"Collect pocket knives." Down deep in his heart he knew that he wouldstart this collection to-morrow. He hated doing silly things. But morethan this he dreaded making fatal blunders. "A clue is a clue," he hadsaid many times, "be it faint as a moon at midday."
* * * * * * * *
The battle Red Rodgers waged after leaving the cabin at the edge of thenarrow clearing on that mysterious island was something quite outside hispast experience. True, he was not unacquainted with struggle and peril.More than once in the vast steel mill he had watched hot sheet steel,caught by a defective roller, curl itself into a serpent of fire, and haddodged in the nick of time. On the gridiron, with mad crowds screaming,with forms leaping at him from right and left, he had over and overbattled his way to victory.
Now he faced neither man-made steel nor man himself, but nature. Beforehim in the dark lay a primeval wilderness; a small wilderness, to besure, but a real one for all that. Here, on a rocky ridge scarcely onehundred yards wide, for ages without number trees had fought a battle tothe death.
He had not gone a dozen paces when he tripped and fell.
He felt ashamed that the girl must put out a slender hand to guide him."I--I've never been in a forest," he half apologized.
"Not even by day?" The girl's awed whisper showed her astonishment. Hernext remark gave him a shock. "Then you have never truly lived."
Gladly would he have argued this point. But this was no time for meretalk. It was a time for action. They were on an island within a bay. Thebay reached far, to a larger island. The larger island was far from themainland. If the kidnaper's statement was to be accepted, there were nopeople on this larger island save the kidnapers themselves.
"I wonder if there are other cabins on this island?" He whispered thismore to himself than to the girl. She answered nevertheless.
"There are none. We must get away as far as we can. To the far end of theisland. Then we must think what is to be done next. Come, we must go.Follow close behind me."
For a full half hour after that they waged a silent battle with nature.Over fallen trees that now tore at them with their tangled branches andnow sank treacherously beneath their feet, around rocky ridges thatoffered dangerous descents into tiny valleys so dark that one might notsee his hand before him, they struggled on until with a sigh the girlwhispered:
"A trail."
Too engrossed was Red in the unaccustomed struggle to ask: "What has madethis trail?"
He was soon enough to know. In his pocket he carried a small flashlight.Judging that they were now far enough from the cabin to use this, hepressed the button, then cast the light down the trail.
Instantly he sprang back. The light was reflected by a pair of large andburning eyes.
A confused impression of brown hair, of antlers like spiked slabs ofwood, and those burning eyes held him rooted to the spot until the girl'shand at his elbow guided him off the trail and into the broad-spreadingbranches of a fir tree. There, after a false step, he tumbled into thefragrant boughs.
Without willing it, he drew the girl after him. After that, for a fullmoment he remained half reclining, feeling the wild beating of the girl'sheart and listening for he scarcely knew what.
When he heard the sound he recognized it; a slow, soft-paddedplump-plump, and he was relieved.
"The thing we have met on the trail," he told himself, "was not a horneddemon, but a giant moose." That he had been utterly at a loss, and thatthe girl had directed their course in a safe and sensible manner, he alsorecognized.
After listening to the padded footsteps until they faded out into thesilence of the night, he assisted the girl to her feet and whispered:
"You are not a real person. You come from a book. Your name is Alice, andwe are having adventures in Wonderland."
"I am real enough." She laughed a low laugh. "My name is not Alice, butBerley Todd. I am five feet tall and I weigh ninety pounds. My favoritedish is blueberries with ice cream on top." She laughed again.
"And that moose, I suppose, was quite an old friend."
"I suppose not. But a moose will not harm you if you give him the rightof way, which I suppose is fair enough since this is his forest.
"But come. We must be near the end of the island."
Red did not ask, "How do you know this?" He merely followed on.
Scarcely a moment had passed when they came out upon a pebbly shore. Andthere, as he flashed his light about, he discovered a nondescript raft ofspruce logs. Dragged half way up on the shore, it seemed for all itscrudeness to be a rather substantial affair.
"I suppose," he said in a low tone, "that t
his entire affair has beenarranged. You knew the raft was here."
Becoming suspicious, he flashed his light into a pair of veryinnocent-appearing blue eyes. "I suppose," he said slowly, "you know whyI have been carried away."
"Don't you?" The eyes opened wide.
"As I live, no."
"Then you'll have to ask some one else. It's plain enough why they tookme. Want my dad's money. Expect my help in getting it. They'll have nohelp from me!
"And now, Mister Man-who-don't-know-why-he's-here, let's thank kindProvidence for this raft which some summer fisherman left here, and shoveoff. Looks like we might go across with nothing more than wet feet. Whatluck!"
"And what do you think is on the other shore?"
"Cabins. Cabins and cottages, fireplaces, blankets, easy chairs, andthings to eat; not so near, but not so far away, either."
Red stared at her in silence. Did this girl speak from knowledge of theisland, or was she romancing, bolstering up courage with dreams thatmight prove false?
He dared not ask. Putting his stout shoulders to work at shoving off theraft, he had it afloat at once. Then, after selecting a stout spruce poleand assisting the girl to a place beside him, he shoved away toward thatother shore that, looming dark and distant, seemed to beckon and towhisper of "cabins and fireplaces, blankets, easy chairs, and things toeat."
"Well," he sighed, "thus far we get the breaks."