Part 38 (1/2)

They ”went careful,” stealing up the steps and entering with caution; but they found nothing more alarming than the four bare walls, the ash-strewn, fireless hearth, the musty smell of a long-unoccupied house.

Near the back door, at a spot where the dust was thick, Uncle Pros bent to examine a foot-print, when an exclamation from Johnnie called him through to the rear of the cabin.

”See the door!” she cried, running up the steep way toward the cave spring-house.

”Hold on, honey. Go easy,” cautioned her uncle, following as fast as he could. He noted the whittling where the sapling bar that held the stout oaken door in place had been recently shaped to its present purpose.

Then a soft, rhythmic sound like a giant breathing in his sleep caught the old hunter's keen ear.

”Watch out, Johnnie,” he called, catching her arm, ”What's that?

Listen!”

Her fingers were almost on the bar. They could hear the soft lip-lip of the water as it welled out beneath the threshold, mingled with the tinkle and fall of the spring branch below.

Johnnie turned in her uncle's grasp and clutched him, staring down.

Something s.h.i.+ning and dark, brave with bra.s.s and flas.h.i.+ng lamps, stood on the rocky way beneath, and purred like a great cat in the broad sunlight of noon--Gray Stoddard's motor car! The two, clinging to each other on the steep above it, gazed half incredulous, now that they had found the thing they sought. It looked so unbelievably adequate and modern and alive standing there, drawing its perfectly measured breath; it was so eloquent of power and the work of men's hands that there seemed to yawn a gap of half a thousand years between it and the raid in which it was being made a factor. That this pet toy of the modern millionaire should be set to work out the crude vengeance of wild men in these primitive surroundings, crowded up on a little rocky path of these savage mountains, at the door of a cave spring-house--such a food-cache as a nomad Indian might have utilized, in the gray bluff against the sky-line--it took the breath with its sinister strangeness.

They turned to the barred door. The cave was a sizable opening running far back into the mountain; indeed, the end of it had never been explored, but the vestibule containing the spring was fitted with rude benches and shelves for holding pans of milk and jars of b.u.t.termilk.

As Johnnie's hand went out to the newly cut bar, her uncle once more laid a restraining grasp upon it. A dozen men might be on the other side of the oaken door, and there might be n.o.body.

”h.e.l.lo!” he called, guardedly.

No answer came; but within there was a sound of clinking, and then a shuffling movement. The panting motor spoke loud of those who had brought it there, who must be expecting to return to it very shortly.

Johnnie's nerves gave way.

”h.e.l.lo! Is there anybody inside?” she demanded fearfully.

”Who's there? Who is it?” came a m.u.f.fled hail from the cave, in a voice that sent the blood to Johnnie's heart with a sudden shock.

”Uncle Pros, we've found him!” she screamed, pus.h.i.+ng the old man aside, and tugging at the bar which held the door in place. As she worked, there came a curious clinking sound, and then the dull impact of a heavy fall; and when she dragged the bar loose, swung the door wide and peered into the gloom, there was nothing but the silvery reach of the great spring, and beyond it a p.r.o.ne figure in russet riding-clothes.

”Uncle Pros--he's hurt! Oh, help me!” she cried.

The prostrate man struggled to turn his face to them.

”Is that you, Johnnie?” Gray Stoddard's voice asked. ”No, I'm not hurt.

These things tripped me up.”

The two got to him simultaneously. They found him in heavy shackles.

They noted how ankle and wrist chains had been rivetted in place.

Together they helped him up.

As they did so tears ran down Johnnie's cheeks unregarded. Pa.s.smore deeply moved, yet quiet, studied him covertly. This, then, was the man of whom Johnnie thought so much, the rich young fellow who had left his work or amus.e.m.e.nts to come and cheer a sick old man in the hospital; this was the face that was a stranger's to him, but which had leaned over his cot or sat across the checker-board from him for long hours, while they talked or played together. That face was pale now, the brown hair, ”a little longer than other people wore it,” tossed helplessly in Stoddard's eyes, because he scarcely could raise his shackled hands to put it right; his russet-brown clothing was torn and grimed, as though with more than one struggle, though it may have been nothing worse than such mishap as his recent fall. Yet the man's soul looked out of his eyes with the same composure, the same kindness that always were his. He was eaten by neither terror nor rage, though he was alert for every possibility of help, or of advantage.

”You, Johnnie--you!” whispered Gray, struggling to his knees with their a.s.sistance, and catching a fold of her dress in those manacled hands. ”I have dreamed about you here in the dark. It is you--it is really Johnnie.”

He was pale, dishevelled, with a long mark of black leaf-mould across his cheek from his recent fall; and Johnnie bent speechlessly to wipe the stain away and put back the troublesome lock. He looked up into the brave beauty of her young, tear-wet face.

”Thank G.o.d for you, Johnnie,” he murmured. ”I might have known I wouldn't be let to die here in the dark like a rat in a hole while Johnnie lived.”