Lonesome Town

by E. S. Dorrance and James French Dorrance

  CHAPTER XXV--HUNTERS HUNTED

  Really surprising was the detailed topographical knowledge which thewestern trail-blazer had acquired during recent adventures. He pickedtheir way through the tumbled terrain of the park heights as if from amap. That he knew the up-and-down maze better than the officers nowafter them was demonstrated when they gained the path that representsthe ultimate democracy of horsemanship by a scramble down a rocky slopewith none of the pack in sight.

  His immediate objective he confided to Jane in case accident shouldseparate them. A moment of straight riding would take them through theWomens Gate into West Seventy-second Street. There he would slip intothe Hotel Majestic and a telephone booth to enlist legal reenforcements.

  Both overlooked, however, an important factor in Central Park'sequipment--the net-work of wires spread over its length and breadth forfacility of the authorities in imminent cases more or less like that ofthe moment. Only when a man and woman riding ahead of them were stoppedand questioned by the police guard at the gate did Pape suspect that analarm had been telephoned ahead of them. His plan was abruptly altered.Turning the horses, as if to continue an objectless canter, they startedback over the path gained with such difficulty, trotting until beyondofficial view, thereafter breaking into the gallop of a pair of"renters" anxious to get the most possible out of their five-dollar hourin the saddle.

  Canon after canon gaped in the apartment-house mountain range on theirleft, marking streets passed. Their hope grew that, unmolested, theycould pass out Pioneers Gate at the northwest corner of the park.

  But that hope, too, was outsped. Hoof-hammering behind caused both toglance over-shoulder at a bend. Three of the city's mounted camepounding after them.

  Pape looked about to make sure of their location. The bridle pathspilled into a pool of shadows at the bottom of a gorge; granite wallsrolled back from trail-side. Recognition of the region which he had beenexploring with Polkadot on his first clash with law and order aided inwhat was of necessity a lightning-changed decision.

  "Can't make Pioneers Gate." He signaled Jane to draw rein. "We'll taketo--bush--turn the cayuses loose--hide-out until they've given us--up."

  He swung from saddle with the last panted period, expecting the girl tofollow his example. When, on her delay, he hurried to her assistance, hesaw that she was leaning upon the nose of her saddle, her lips pale asher cheeks. Bodily he lifted her to the ground and found her a temporaryrest against a path-side stump. After turning the horses about, helooped their reins and, with a back-to-stable slap upon Polkadot'ssplotched rump, started them down-park.

  White-circle death sentences painted upon withering elms, poplars andbirches pointed the course over which he half-carried the "sweetpardner" exhausted by excitement too long sustained. When they came upona brush-fringed depression, which at home he would have called an elkbed, he bade her take to cover; himself crawled back to spy out themovements of the pursuit.

  At the top of the last rise in the bridlepath, the police riders met theempty saddlers. They sounded greatly disturbed. From such scraps ofloud-pitched conversation as carried, Pape pieced together theirassumption that the fugitives had abandoned their mounts for a short-cutto the west wall. He saw two of the trio dismount and begin combing thebrush in that direction, while the third remained on guard over the fivehorses.

  All of this was fortuitous in that it promised time for them to reach adefinite objective which he had in mind--a place where the spent girlmight rest and both hide until darkness draped the park for theirescape. His sense of semi-security weakened, however, on noticing that apolice dog was of the party; that the "mounty" on hostler duty wassending the animal up the brushy hill on the east--their side of thepath. Slithering back into the depression, he awaited for severallong-drawn minutes the alarm-bay of the canine officer, dreading theworst, yet not wishing to share that dread unnecessarily.

  Jane first felt the spell of the two brown eyes focused upon themthrough a patterned veil of brush. Nervously she caught his arm;pointed. Soon a long, black-tipped nose rent the veil, sniffing througha fountain spray of vine abloom with pale blue, bell-shaped flowers.

  The police dog had located them. But why the delay of his bayed alarm? Amoment more and he answered for himself. With suppressed whines andinsinuating wriggles there broke from the clutch of the vine none otherthan Kicko of the Sheepfold, his sense of duty evidently overcome bydelight at the reunion.

  Pape's joy transcended the Belgian's. Never had he bestowed a morefervid embrace than that which encircled the ruffed neck. Jane, too,patted their four-footed friend and bedecked his collar with a spray ofthe flowering vine which had been torn down by his impetuous entrance.

  "Pin one of those blues roses on me," Pape asked; when she had done so,added: "Out home we call that 'matrimony vine.' I wonder whether its usehere as a decoration is any sort of sign that----"

  "I wonder," Jane interrupted more crisply than he would have thoughtpossible in her wilted state, "whether Kicko will lie low like a gooddog instead of a police officer while you explain about those papers youtook from the judge?"

  Because he believed absolutely in signs--hadn't a sign pointed his wayto her?--Pape was willing to wait for the answer to his question.Indeed, he had not earned her answer until after the Granddad Lauderdaleriddle had been solved. With a shrug and a sigh he took from his pocketthe sheaf of brown engravings.

  "These, as you may have surmised, are certificates for stock in theMontana Gusher Oil Company. See." He opened and handed her one. "Theyare signed with names of dummy officers, as were the others. But theyare blank as to owner and number of shares--right strong evidence thatthe honorable Samuel is the man behind the fraud--that his fat littleneck is the one I came East to wring."

  Jane nodded. "I was waiting to see Aunt Helene and make sure before Itold you what I suspected. You see, it was a good while ago when asalesman interested her in the stock. She was about to invest when JudgeAllen interfered. Rather, he told her that he knew the stock wasn'tworth the paper on which it was engraved. Except that my time hasbeen--well, a bit full since yesterday afternoon, I'd have got the factsat once and given them to you for what they were worth. In predicamentslike ours, the rule of _noblesse oblige_ should hold."

  "Do _we_ need rules to hold?"

  Illustratively Pape seized with one hand the slim, ringless fingersstill caressing the spray of matrimony vine--his other had a firm gripon Kicko's collar. His touch, voice and eyes were full of appreciationfor her good intentions. It was hard to have such a good--or bad--memoryabout the absolute justness of one's desserts; hard to crush those bluebells within her pink palms and not entirely forget--She was soappealing in her languor and dependency that there seemed ample excusefor his asking the right to protect and sustain her. Looking at thematter in this tempting light of the underbrush, he might be expected toowe her an explanation of that kiss in the cab--to tell her that to himit was their betrothal.

  And yet----

  Although Why-Not Pape rarely questioned opportunity, there were sometimes and some women and some hopes--Rather roughly he dropped herhands; next offered her a memorandum which he had found folded insidethe sheaf of stock-certificates--a list of names, with figures set downopposite.

  "The writing is his beyond doubt--Judge Allen's," she declared after amoment's scrutiny.

  "Clinches the proof of his guilt in the oil deal. It is a 'suckerlist'--the names of stock biters and the price per bite. It is--" In hispause Pape gave the girl a look that was at once exultant for himselfand regretful for her. "It is your family friend's ticket to the Atlantapen."

  To distract the very natural distress which he saw in her face, heforced cheer to lighten the murmur of their exchange.

  "But let's get to the famous cryptogram, lost and at last regained. Nowwe can read it as a whole."

  Allowing the jealous Belgian to wedge himself between them, Pape spreadout the wrinkled sheet upon the hairy back; in guarded tones read:

  List to
the Nubian roar And whisper of poplars four. They tell of bed-rock Where rests a crock Brimful of Fortune's store.

  'Tis on a height The vault you'll sight Of buried might. 'Twill lead you right, Bring delight, Win the fight.

  Eighteen and twelve will show The spot. Begin below. Above the crock A block will rock, As rocks wrong's overthrow.

  List, then, the Nubian roar. List whisper of poplars four. Climb, then, the height. Read signs aright. Count eighteen--twelve. Take heart and delve. Obey. You'll want no more.

  For moments the three of them--counting Kicko--pondered in silence. Two,at least, were considering the crypt's applicability to the height ofJudge Allen's selection. It seemed a possible place, except for slightdiscrepancies, such as the absence of any particular "roar," anuncertain number of poplars among the pines and the lack of a "vault,"except for the rock-tomb of Pape's untimely--proved so--burial. In boththe hope grew that, should they make good their escape with theincriminating evidence against the little lawyer-leader, the gang's workon the flat would be suspended until after recovery of the documents.Even should Allen force the search, on being freed, they were wellammunitioned for rebuttal in court.

  One by one--in silence this time--Pape again scanned the enigmaticlines.

  "I'm here to say," he made comment, "that granddad went in forinexpensive verse. I'd say free, except that it rhymes."

  "Free? We've paid a greater price than you imagine, Peter Pape. And ifall we are to gain is the unmasking of Sam Allen----"

  "We're going to gain everything--more than you can imagine from thelittle you love me yet," he reassured her, not to mention himself. Then,again, he took himself in hand. "I, for one, am getting in something ofa hurry," he tacitly apologized. "If you'll hold to our side-kick here,I'll take another scout."

  As before, he wriggled over the rim of their hideout; was gone tenminutes or so; on his stealthy return made report:

  "They've driven off our nags, but left a horse-cop on patrol. A pair ofpatrolmen are snooping along the west wall and the northwest gate isdoubly guarded. The Allen pull sure has pulled fast and many, this earlyevening. There is nothing to it but to lie low here until night. Mightysorry for you, precious pal. I know you're about all in. But they ain'tgoing to pinch Miss Jane Lauderdale, of _the_ Lauderdales, twice in thesame twenty-four hours--not in my extant company."

  "I'm afraid they're going to have a chance." The girl caught at his arm."The dog--didn't he join you?"

  "Kick? No. How did he get away?"

  "Oh, I'm so sorry! He wrenched himself from me. I thought--I _hoped_ heonly wanted to follow you. Didn't dare call out for fear----"

  "Another false friend, eh? Looks like this is our day for uncovering'em. The pup had a flea-bite of conscience, I reckon."

  Jane disagreed. "Not intentionally--_please_, not Kicko! Don't make medoubt everybody. It's only that he likes a 'party.' The more the merrieris his motto, if he has one."

  "And he's gone for the more?"--Pape, rather grimly. "Well, they mustn'tfind us here, that police 'party' of his, whatever the motive back ofhis invitation. The sooner we move on the safer. As a matter of fact,I'm headed for another place--a perfect hide-out. If you feel able let'sbe stepping lively. If you don't, I'll enjoy stepping for you--that isto say, toting you."

  They started up the hillside, keeping in the brush wherever such grew,skulking low-backed across the open spaces. Although the girl scrambledafter him, evidently determined not to be a drag upon the hand to whichshe desperately clung with her two, she lost her footing on the rockwhen near the top and fell face forward. Her urgent little moan that hego on without her was denied strongly by the pair of arms that gatheredher up, and clasped her like a woman, not a baby, against a hearthard-hammering from more than the violent exercise. Thus did he step forher--"tote" her to sortie's end.

  She felt herself deposited upon a wooden step. Looking up, sherecognized the stone block-house literally "perched" upon the top of theprecipitous granite hump up which they had come.

  In the inspirational light of a refuge of to-day Pape had rememberedthat olden fortress which he had been surveying when detected by the"quail" cop, Pudge O'Shay.

  Straightening to the sheet-iron door, he tried the knob, then thecomparative strength of his shoulder. But the protection so generouslyaccorded park rovers of earlier wars seemed denied them. Investigatingthrough one of the oblong loopholes, he saw that the door was fastenedwith a spring lock which could be opened without a key from inside.Straightway he gave his consideration to the fifteen-foot stone wall.

  Never had the Westerner aspired to plaudits as a human fly, yet noHellroaring cliff had been sheer enough to forbid his ascent. Pullingoff his boots, he essayed the latest in difficulties stocking-footed;after several slip-backs, went over the top. The door thrown wide, hegathered Jane up and stumbled with her over a slab-like doorsill thatwobbled under their weight.

  "Odd," murmured the girl looking about, "that I should be hiding fromthe law in this favorite relic of Grandfather Lauderdale! One of hisfoibles as a Grand Army veteran was to come here at sunrise on victoryanniversaries and run up a flag on that staff. Some sentimental parkcommissioner gave him a key and he never missed an occasion."

  "Might have left some furniture scattered about--a few _chaises longues_and easy chairs," Pape complained. "Still, you ought to rest easy on thefact that those get-'em specialists will never think to look for us inhere."

  After making sure that the door had latched itself, he doffed his coatand spread it for her to sit on, with her back to a cleaner-than-mostsection of the wall. Although only the cuff of one out-flung sleeveformed his seat, he felt more comfortable, by contrast with recentrigors, than in all the long stretch of his past--or so he claimed toJane.

  The hour was the veribest of the whole twenty-four group, he remindedher. Wouldn't she enjoy it? Evening was lowering shadows into the park.Didn't she feel sifting into the roofless block-house the atmosphere ofrest-time and peace? Outside the trees were full of birds, as busy aboutgoing to bed as the families of any flat-house in the city. Couldn't sheimagine with him that the dulled clatter rising from the streets was therush of some great waterfall of the wild or of winds through a forest orof hoofed herds pounding over a distant plain?

  Soothing was Pape's illusion that he was back in his limitless West, butrudely was it broken. Slowly, soundlessly he got to his feet; approachedthe sheet-iron door; with every sense alert, listened. A sharp knock hadsounded from without. No illusion was this. Jane, too, had heard. Shehad straightened against the stone wall, in her wide eyes and tightenedlips the reflex of his thought.

  Peace, safety, rest-time? Evidently, not for them!

  Had some member of The Finest outwitted them? Was the block-house toprove, not a refuge, but a trap?