Part 30 (1/2)

”There is no time like the present,” he mused to himself, while he hesitated in the doorway. ”If I wait until all is quiet, I will stand all the more chance of being discovered; and, besides, it won't be long until Handsome returns here, and after he has come and crawled into his bunk it will be next to impossible for me to get out of here without rousing him--unless I should drug him, and that will not do at all.

Handsome is altogether too fly for that. He would know that he had been drugged.

”Now, if it wasn't for these white whiskers, I could creep around the edge of the bottom of the cliff to the cabin where Patsy is, without being noticed; and I dare not take them off----”

He stopped there. There was absolutely no use in conjecturing upon the ”ifs” of the question, and so, after another moment, during which he studied the lay of the land intently, he slipped noiselessly out at the door and around behind the cabin, and from there crept on his hands and knees to the bottom of the cliffs. And there he discovered what he had been unable to see in the imperfect light. The gra.s.s there was quite tall, where it had not been trampled by the feet of the motley crew that infested the place, and he found that by lying at full length and pulling himself slowly along on his stomach he would be able to conceal himself almost entirely from view.

Nick made that half circle of the small valley, crawling in that way, and entirely without being discovered; and in that manner he arrived directly in the rear of the cabin where Patsy was a prisoner.

But here a new difficulty confronted him. There was a guard in front of the door, and that guard, strangely enough, was Cremation Mike.

The cabin in which Patsy was a prisoner was built of roughly hewn logs, the crevices and c.h.i.n.ks being stopped with mud and clay. The ground beneath it was hard--rocky, in fact; so there was no possibility of digging under the logs without tools to do it, and even then it would have taken too much time to accomplish it.

Nick turned his attention to Cremation Mike. He was seated upon a convenient stump, smoking a short pipe. His back was toward the door of the cabin, and he was about ten feet from it. The door itself had been fastened by pa.s.sing a freshly cut sapling across its front, and slipping either end of it into rustic slots that had been hastily fas.h.i.+oned for the purpose.

It was plain that there was only one way to get Patsy outside of that cabin, and that was to overcome Cremation Mike; and, having determined upon this, Nick crept forward as silently as a shadow, and so rounded the corner of the cabin, and presently came up half standing, directly behind the unsuspecting outlaw.

Nick did not wish to kill the man, but he did want to knock him out so effectually that he could not interfere in what was to follow, and therefore he had picked up a piece of round, smooth stone, which he had wrapped in his handkerchief.

And now, with this improvised weapon, he struck Cremation Mike sharply on the back of his head, with the result that Mike pitched forward, and would have fallen to the ground had not Nick managed to catch him. Then he laid him down gently upon the ground, and turning swiftly, opened the door of the cabin.

”Quick, Patsy!” he called in a sharp whisper. ”It is I. Nick. Come.”

Patsy, who had not been bound, it seemed, leaped to the door with a low exclamation of surprise and pleasure.

”Bully, Nick,” he whispered. ”I thought it was all up with me that time.

And do you know, it never once occurred to me that the old man might be you. The disguise is perfect.”

”Come,” said Nick. ”There is no time for words now. Follow me, and do exactly as I do. I want to get back to my own sleeping place before my absence is discovered, if it is possible to do so. But, first, is there any sort of a chair or stool inside that cabin?”

”Yes. A stool.”

”Bring it out, if you know where to put your hand upon it.”

Patsy brought it in a twinkling, and, placing it against the stump, Nick propped the senseless form of Mike upon it, so that from the front it appeared as if he were seated there quite naturally.

”He will come around presently,” said Patsy, ”and miss me.”

”Let him. That is what I want him to do,” replied Nick. ”Come on, now.”

He dropped upon his knees again, and, with Patsy following, they crept around through the gra.s.s again along the edge of the cliff, and at last reached the cabin from which the detective had started.

But he did not stop here. He made at once for the entrance to the cavern, which was near at hand, and pa.s.sed inside, with Patsy following closely behind him; and then with his electric flash light, he led the way along the corridor of the cave--for it was his object to find that hiding place to which Turner had directed him in case he found it necessary to hide.

”Keep to the right always in that cave, no matter which way you are going,” Turner had told him with emphasis, and remembering that now, while he wondered if, after all, there were two corridors to the cavern, he followed the rule, and almost on a run--for the pa.s.sage was quite smooth before them--he led the way through.

They came at last to the bowlder to which Turner had referred, and Nick removed the small stone from beneath it. And then he pushed upon it as Turner had directed, with the result that the rock swung open before them, leaving an aperture through which they could easily pa.s.s.