Part 27 (2/2)

The punt was slow enough, but it moved faster than the raft, even though the latter was propelled by two persons instead of one, and gradually it drew farther and farther away. With their eyes on Hooker, they watched him reach the sh.o.r.e, leap out, abandon the punt and run toward the railroad. Still watching, they saw him, later, making his way down the track toward Oakdale station.

As soon as the raft touched the low, flat sh.o.r.e, they left it to float whither it might and followed Roy.

”I'm glad he went toward town,” said Osgood, as they reached the railroad.

Shultz's ankle seemed to have grown much worse while he was on the raft, and it was in great pain and with the utmost difficulty that he crippled along over the ties. At times he caught his breath with a hissing sound or groaned aloud as the swollen limb gave him an extra sharp twinge.

”It's no use for me to follow Roy any farther,” he finally admitted.

”I'll be lucky if this old prop doesn't give out completely before I get to the village.”

”If it does,” promised Ned, ”I'll get you there. Leave it to me. I'm ready to pack you on my back any time.”

Presently they approached the old lime quarries, which had been practically abandoned until Lemuel Hayden came to Oakdale, bought them, opened up new and unsuspected deposits, and revived the industry of lime burning. They could see the deserted workings, a tremendous black hole in the ground some thirty or forty rods away, when from beneath the shadowy bank of the graded roadbed, Hooker, who may have been resting there, sprang forth. Shultz saw his first movement, and shouted to Osgood:

”There he is, Ned! Catch him-you can catch him now!”

Ned did not need to be urged; he was off like a shot. Shultz followed, setting his teeth and trying to forget his injured ankle. Down the bank he leaped, mainly upon one foot, and on he ran, limping across the rough and stony field. He could see Osgood straining every nerve to overtake Hooker, who was running straight toward the old quarry.

”He's got him! Ned's got him!” panted Shultz. ”The quarry will stop him!

He can't get away!”

But, as they drew near that mammoth hole in the ground, a different thought leaped into Osgood's mind. Hooker seemed to be fleeing blindly and totally heedless of anything. What if, in his distraught state of mind, he should not realize the danger that lay in his path? What if he should not see the quarry until it was too late to stop?

Horrified, Ned shouted a warning; and at that shout Hooker, still running, turned his head to look back.

Shultz, seeing all this, gulped to keep his heart from choking him. Sick and weak with apprehension, he stopped, his arms outflung, his hands wide open, his fingers spread apart.

Over the brink and into the quarry plunged Hooker. As he fell, a wild and terrible scream rose from his lips. Shultz clapped his hands to his ears to shut out that dreadful cry.

”Oh! oh!” he groaned. ”It's all over now! That's the end! He's dead!”

CHAPTER XXVI

THE CONFESSION.

Distracted, scarcely realizing what he did, with that terrible cry from Hooker's lips still ringing in his ears, Charley Shultz turned from the old quarry and limped away as fast as he could go. In his mind he carried a dreadful picture of Roy Hooker, lying bleeding, battered and dead at the bottom of that great excavation, and for the time being Osgood was wholly forgotten.

On his hands and knees, Charley crawled up the railroad embankment. One of his hands happening to touch a stout, crooked stick, about a yard in length, he grasped and retained it instinctively. When the track was reached, the stick served him for a cane as he hobbled away.

”It's awful-awful!” his dry, bloodless lips kept repeating. ”And I'm to blame for it all! I'm the only one who is really to blame. I thought some of the rest should help shoulder the load, but I was wrong. It's up to me; I can see that plainly enough at last. If I'd only seen it in the first place, perhaps-perhaps this terrible thing might not have happened.”

After a time he remembered Osgood, and halted, looking back toward the quarry.

”Why doesn't he come? Why is he staying there? He can't do anything now.

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