Part 35 (1/2)
When Wagg had driven along far enough so that the native could not overhear, he hailed Vaniman through the trap in the top of the van.
”Did you hear that?”
”Yes.”
”Is that Devilbrow within grabbing distance of what we're after?”
Vaniman returned a hearty affirmative. He had been able to see those craggy heights from his window in Britt Block. The thought that what he wanted to grab and what Mr. Wagg wanted to grab were not exactly mated as desired objects did not shade his candor when he a.s.serted that Devilbrow was just the place from which to operate.
”All right!” chirruped Wagg. ”Us for it!” He displayed the first cheeriness he had shown on the trip. He whistled for a time. Then he sang, over and over, to a tune of his own, ”Up above the world so high, like a di'mond in the sky.” This display of Wagg's hopeful belief that the fifty-fifty settlement was near at hand served to increase Vaniman's despondency.
Obeying the native's instructions as to the route, Wagg soon turned off the highway and drove along a rutted lane which whiplashed a slope that continually became steeper. Soon he pulled up and told Vaniman to get out and walk and ease the load on the horse. Wagg got down and walked, too.
The trail up Devilbrow was on the side away from the village of Egypt.
The way was through hard growth. There were no houses--no sign of a human being. Wagg's cheerfulness increased. And he said something which put a glimmer of cheer into Vaniman's dark ponderings.
”There's no call to hurry the thing overmuch. If I recuperate too sudden and show up back home it might look funny, after the way I bellowed about my condition. There's plenty of flour, bacon, and canned stuff in that van. I reckon we'd better get our feet well settled here and make sure that n.o.body is watching us; the money is safer in the hole than with us, for the time being. My pay is going on and the future looks rosy.”
A c.o.c.k partridge rose from the side of the lane and whirred away through the beech leaves that the first frost of early autumn had yellowed.
”And I've got a shotgun and plenty of sh.e.l.ls! Son, let's forget that we have ever been in state prison. In the course of time that place is about as wearing on a guard as it is on a convict.”
The log camp was behind a spur of the rocky summit and was hidden from the village below. Wagg commented with satisfaction on the location when they had reached the place. The van had been concealed in a ravine which led from the lane. The work of loading the horse with the sacked supplies, and the ascent of the mountain, had consumed hours. Twilight was sifting into the valleys by the time they had unloaded the stuff and stabled the horse in a lean-to.
There was a stove in the camp, and the place was furnished after a fas.h.i.+on with chairs and a table fas.h.i.+oned from birch saplings. The blankets of Wagg's camp equipment made the bunks comfortable.
Wagg had been the cook as well as the captain of the expedition. He did better that evening with the wood-burning stove than he had done with the oil stove of his kit.
After supper, before he turned in, Vaniman went out on a spur of Devilbrow and gazed down on the scattered lights of the village of Egypt. As best he could he determined the location of the Harnden house.
He felt as helplessly aloof as if he were a shade revisiting the scene of his mortal experiences.
CHAPTER XXV
THE FIRST PEEP BEHIND THE CURTAIN
The next day Wagg went out and shot two partridges and contrived a stew which fully occupied his attention in the making and the eating. He had suggested to Vaniman that he'd better come along on the expedition after the birds. Vaniman found a bit more than mere suggestion in Wagg's manner of invitation. With his shotgun in the hook of his arm he presented his wonted appearance as the guard at the prison. It was perfectly apparent that Mr. Wagg proposed to keep his eye on the promiser of the fifty-fifty split. But Wagg did not refer to the matter of the money while they strolled in the woods.
As a matter of fact, days went by without the question coming up.
Wagg had previously praised himself as a patient waiter; the young man confessed in his thoughts that his guardian merited the commendation.
Wagg was plainly having a particularly good time on this outing. He displayed the contentment of a man who had ceased to worry about the future; he was taking it easy, like a vacationer with plenty of money in the bank. On one occasion he did mention the money in the course of a bit of philosophizing on the situation:
”I suppose that, when you look at it straight, it's stealing, what I'm doing. I've seen a lot of big gents pa.s.s through that state prison, serving sentences for stealing. Embezzlement, forgery, crooked stock dealing--it's all stealing. They were tempted. I've been tempted. I've fell. I ain't an angel, any more than those big gents were. And you know what I told you about mourners chirking up, after the first blow!
I figure it's the same way in the bank case. They have given up the idea of getting the money back. They're still sad when they think about it, but they keep thinking less and less every day. They've crossed it off, as you might say.”
The two who were bound in that peculiar comrades.h.i.+p were out on the crag where they could look down upon the distant checker board of the village. Vaniman, in the stress of the circ.u.mstances, wondered whether he might be able to come at Wagg on the sentimental side of his nature.
”The little town must have gone completely broke since the bank failure.