Suddenly a shout from the onlookers behind called them back to thebreach.
"The roof!" they cried. "He is climbing out by the roof!"
McCausland and Silsby stepped back to see the top of the hut, whileShagarach rushed in once more and reached at the ceiling with his bough.
There on the top of the hut, his body half emerging where the planks hadbeen shoved aside, McCausland for the first time saw the long-missingoaf, and Dr. Silsby his peeping Tom. But Shagarach was groping within,vainly smashing upward in the darkness.
With wonderful strength the fugitive raised himself erect, sprung fromthe insecure footing of the slippery boards, and began clambering up theledge.
"After him, Wolf!" cried McCausland, and the bloodhound, nerved by histones, tore up the ledge in the monster's wake. McCausland and Silsbyclambered as best they could on all fours, and presently Shagarach,hearing the outcry, followed them. The crack of the inspector's revolverwas heard once, but the fugitive had turned like lightning and hurledhis adze. McCausland uttered a sharp cry as the pistol was struck fromhis hand. The fugitive then stood for a moment on the crest, twenty feetabove them, outlined in hideous distinctness against the pale patch ofsky. But, espying the hound at his heels, he had given a mad plunge, andthe onlookers, who had drawn nearer, heard a heavy splash behind theledge. The bloodhound paused at the summit.
"After him, Wolf!" urged McCausland, and the dog's plunge was heard, asheavy as the man's.
"It is a pool," said Shagarach, gazing into the black water below him.
"Hemlock lake," answered Dr. Silsby. "The land beyond it is marshy formiles."
"And no boat?" asked McCausland.
"One at the upper end, a mile or so, kept by a farmer."
"Then it all depends upon Wolf," muttered the detective. The water sideof the precipice afforded no stair for descent, and the party slowlypicked its way down the ledge which it had climbed, and made a circuit,so as to stand on the grassy edge of the pool.
"Wolf!" cried McCausland. The dark heads of man and dog had longvanished from sight. No answer came but the night sighing of the treesthat fringed the dark lake. A pale quarter-moon arose in the open skyand lent a translucent gloss to its opaque surface. The swallowstwittered high in air, reduced to the size of a bee-swarm. But the lakegave back no tale of the two that had entered it.
"Wolf!" cried McCausland, again and again. He whistled till the woodsechoed. He clapped his hands with a hollow reverberation. A plash closeby startled the listeners. But it was only a pickerel rising to his foodor a bullfrog plunging in. Again the mysterious terror invaded thehearts of the pursuers, and the women clung nearer to the men, clutchingtheir bosoms.
Had man and dog reached the other side in safety, there to continuetheir terrible race? Had they fought their death struggle in the water,and one or both of them sunk to his doom? Who could tell? The lakeguarded its secret.
"It is dark," said Shagarach, but McCausland lingered on the bank,shading his eyes with his right hand. In his left the empty handcuffclanked.
"We have failed," said Dr. Silsby. Then McCausland started with a jerk.
"To-morrow," he said. "To-morrow may tell."
"The way back will be hard to find," said Shagarach.
"Light these," said Dr. Silsby, cutting a pitch-pine bough. It blazed upalmost at the touch of a match, and as the others followed his examplethe forest was strangely illuminated, weird shadows playing about theparty. One coming upon them might have taken them for some brigand banden route to their mountains with plunder.
"We'll miss the guidance of the hound going home," said Shagarach, andthe women shuddered at the prospect of being lost in the forest atnightfall. It was an unfrequented place. But there were boys presentwhose holiday ramblings might now be turned to good account.
"Yes, we shall miss Wolf," said McCausland, looking behind him, as ifstill hoping for a signal from his faithful hound.
"Let us explore the hut," proposed Shagarach, entering.
"And tear it to pieces," cried Dr. Silsby.
Instantly the roof was torn from the rude pile, and its remainingtimbers, hardly more than rested on end, almost fell asunder ofthemselves. A strange heap was revealed by the flickering torches. Astool, a sheet of tin laid over a clam-bake oven, some cans of preparedfood, half-empty, an old coat, a blanket and a collection of knives,spikes and other weapons, picked up or stolen, that would have made aformidable array in the belt of a pirate. One of the lads, who hadlighted a dry rush for a torch, was about to touch off the newspapersthat lay about in great profusion, when McCausland sharply checked him.
"Bundle those up," he said, and the boys obeyed, while the inspectorcuriously scanned one of them by Dr. Silsby's torch.
"I thought so," he cried in triumph, motioning to Shagarach. "This isdated, like the others, only two days back--a New York paper again.The----" he pointed to the name. "He knew where to look for sensations,you see."
"A vitriol-throwing case?" asked Shagarach.
"Read it for yourself," said the detective.
"At my leisure. We may as well start."
"Has any one a compass?" asked McCausland.
"Nonsense," replied Dr. Silsby. "Do I need a compass with the flora toguide me? There is the fern bed ahead of us, and, by the way, I thinkI'll gather a few more specimens."
"Not now, doctor," remonstrated Shagarach, and the frightened womenechoed him.
"Tut, tut," said the botanist. "Have I slept out o' night in the woodssince I was so high to be frightened by a little miscalculation of time?Who asked you to come?" he said to the followers, and the coolness withwhich he rooted up several ferns actually reassured his timidcompanions. "I'll take your newspapers to wrap them in," said he to oneof the boys, but McCausland interposed.
"Something else, doctor."
"My hands, then," said the botanist, cheerfully. And in fact he guidedthem out by his trained remembrance of the vegetation he had passedalmost as quickly and surely as the hound had led them in by his scent.
It was then Miss Senda Wesner proved to Shagarach that for all herreputation as a chatterbox she could be prudent on occasion. For sheselected a moment when Shagarach was bringing up the rear, to slip offthe arms of her escort and pluck the lawyer's sleeve.
"Do you know who he was, Mr. Shagarach?" she asked.
"Who?"
"The crazy man, I saw him plainly on the top of the rock. It was thepeddler in the green cart that used to come to Prof. Arnold's."
The Incendiary: A Story of Mystery Page 42