I says, “Say, Briggen, what you trying to do, scare us fellas?”
“No,” says Briggen, “but us Pelham fellas want to get that Stoner and Red Head and we want to get ’em quick, so they won’t come back to this place no more; we are gittin’ tired of their foolishness; we can’t be wasting all our time watching out for them two hard guys.”
I got up and says, “Briggen, you and your fellas go back where you come from, and rest easy, in a little while we will settle Stoner’s Boy.”
Ham Gardner laughed loud. “Listen to Hawkins,” he says, “listen to him.”
I says, “Git out, before we throw you out.”
Briggen stepped up to me and put his shoulder to mine. “Hawkins,” he says, “I been a purty good friend of yours, but dern if I am gonna listen to you talk to any of my fellas that way.”
I put my hand on Briggen’s shoulder.
“Briggen,” I says, “you and me ain’t got no room to kick; we are both in the same boat. All I got to tell you is that us fellas are just about ready to catch Stoner in his own hidin’ place. Please go back to your side of the river and don’t spoil our plans.”
Briggen looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “All right, Hawkins,” he says. “I got to believe you.”
“Believe me,” I says.
Which he did.
SATURDAY.—There being no school today, all of us came down to to the houseboat early. Dick Ferris called the meeting, and we all went in and took our places around the table. “Well,” says Dick, “to-day is the day we are going to look for Stoner’s hiding place.”
But all of us fellas felt like it was no use anyhow, because we tried so many times and never found it. Some of the fellas, like Frankie Kane and Oscar Koven and Hal Rice skipped out as soon as the meeting was over. They didn’t want to hunt for Stoner at all.
Clarence Wilks would have skipped out too, but just as he walked to the door, the door opened and the Skinny Guy walked in. “I been sick,” he says, “but I come to take you fellas to Stoner’s hiding place; now is a good time to go, because he is gone, and we won’t have to watch out for trouble.”
I says, “Link, are you sure Stoner has gone?”
Link nodded. “Yes,” he says, “I saw him going back this morning.”
Dick Ferris says, “Link, you just tell us how to get to the place. We don’t want you to walk that far, because you ain’t well.”
Link says, “Thanks, get me a piece of paper and a pencil.”
We got paper and pencil, and Link sat by the table for a half hour drawing a map of the way to git to Stoner’s hiding place, and explained to us all the marks by which we could find our way.
I says to Link, “There’s been a strange man watching our houseboat this week, so you keep your eye open, because he is after the Red Head.”
Link look worried. “I’ll stay right here in the houseboat, Hawkins,” he says.
I says, “All right, we will be back soon.”
It must of been 3 o’clock by the time we reached the place where Link’s map said we must start to climb the cliff path that led to the opening of Stoner’s hiding place. Link had told us the opening was a hole in the cliff, with a top like a half of an umbrella. We looked a long time till at last Bill Darby found it. We all ran up to the place he called from.
“Who’s going in first?” asks Dick.
“I’ll go,” I says.
I led the way into the dark cave. But I heard a voice from the darkness call out—“Don’t come one step farther, stand where you are.”
It supprised us. We all fell back. We stumbled back to the opening. Coming out of the cave, with a rifle pointed straight at us, was the Red Head, Monk Bridges. He come close up and said, “I know you are coming for me, you low-down cowards. Ain’t you ashamed of yourself to hunt down a poor fella what’s done you a good turn.”
I stepped up in front of our fellas. “Monk,” I says, “if you got the heart to shoot, why go ahead.”
He held his rifle pointed at me a minit, but I didn’t move. Monk give a little cry and lowered his gun. “Hawkins,” he says, “you win, I ain’t got the heart to do it; come on, take me, turn me over to the guard.”
I walked up to him. I says, “Monk, what’s the matter with you, what kinda guard you talking about?”
The Red Head laughed, and there was a false ring to that laugh, it seemed more like he was crying and laughing both at the same time. “How can you stand there and ask me,” he says, “you know the guard of the School for Bad Boys is on my track.”
I didn’t have time to answer. Somebody was coming up the path. We all turned and looked. It was the Skinny Guy and the stranger man who came to our houseboat to ask about the Red Head.
“COMING OUT OF THE CAVE, — WAS THE RED HEAD, MONK BRIDGES.”
Link seemed to be happy. “I told you I would find him, Mister Glendover,” says Link, “and here he is.”
Link run up to the Red Head. “Monk,” he says, “Monk, Mister Glendover wants you to come back with him.”
The Red Head turned quick to look at the stranger man. His face was like stone. But all of a sudden there came a smile, and he run over to the stranger man.
“Mister Glendover,” he says, “I thought you were a guard—”
Link put his hand on Monk’s mouth. “Mister Glendover wants you, Monk,” says Link. “He says he won’t scold you no more, and I will come up to see you every week, if you will go back to work.”
Monk said he would go.
That’s the story. It wasn’t a constable. It wasn’t a guard from the School for Bad Boys. No sir. It was the gardener, from Watertown. It was the gardener who took the Red Head in and give him work when the Skinny Guy asked him to.
We forgot about Stoner’s hiding place. We followed Monk and Link and the gardener man down the path. The gardener had his arm around Monk’s neck. The Red Head was trying his best to keep from crying.
“It’s all right, William,” says the gardener to Monk, “we will go right back and see those geraniums and those ramblers and pinks, and the honeysuckles—say, you boys gott’a promise to come up and see us gardeners at work.”
Which we did.
CHAPTER 16
The Spider Web
MONDAY.—Us boys made up our mind we would make a trip into Stoner’s hiding place this week, even if we had to run a chanst of getting trapped by the gray ghost. I knew where it was now. When we found the Red Head last week coming out of that cave door we never saw before, I was sure that it was the place.
I spoke to Jerry Moore this morning about going up to the cliffs once more. He looked like he wasn’t very anxious to go. I says, “We ought to hunt out Stoner in his own den.”
“Yeah,” says Jerry, “but how do you know what you are running up against in that cave?”
I smiled and said, “Jerry, what’s to hurt you in a cave if Stoner’s Boy is out of it, and we can wait till he is out before we go in?”
Jerry waved his hand and said, “Hawkins, that whole cliff is hollow; there are a hundred different caves in there. No man in this world ever found out how many ways there was to git in and out of that hollow cliff.”
“That’s true,” I says, “but you ain’t afraid of the dark, are you?”
Jerry cackled a funny laugh. “Dark,” he says, “me afraid of the dark? What you take me for, Hawkins? I am over six years old, and I ain’t afraid of the dark; it’s what the dark hides that makes me afraid.”
I walked over close to Jerry. “Say,” I says, “you don’t mean there’s something else in that cave besides Stoner’s Boy and bats?”
Jerry nodded his head. “Yes, I mean just that,” he says. “I told you once before about that big spider web, and that giant spider; dern if I ever seen spiders as big as that.”
I laughed. I says, “Jerry, I been thinking about that spider, but I come to think that Stoner’s Boy just fixed up something to scare us and keep us out of the cave.”
Jerry says, �
�Yeah, I thought about that, too. I had a notion that thing was painted on the wall or the floor or something.”
“Well,” I says, “that’s just about what it is, Jerry.”
But Jerry shook his head. “No,” he says. “No, Hawkins, a painted spider can’t move, can it?”
“No,” I says.
“Well,” he says, “I saw this dern thing move out of its web, and believe me, boy, it can travel some. I don’t want to ever run a race with a spider like that; it must be one of those kind that scared Little Miss Muffet who sat on a tuffet.”
I didn’t laugh at this last crack of Jerry’s. I was thinking hard. If that was true what Jerry said, good Lord, us boys been playing purty close to some awful danger ever since we been hanging around here. But I says, “Jerry, we got to get this thing settled up some way.”
“Show me,” he says. “Show me how, and I’ll be your helper.”
TUESDAY.—The Skinny Guy looked like he had something to tell me when I came down to the houseboat this afternoon. So just as soon as the meeting was over, I went outside with him, and we went down to the riverbank and sat down on a skiff that was turned upside down. “All right, Link,” I says, “what is it?”
He grinned. “How did you know?” he asks.
I says, “Aw, I can tell when you got something on your mind; speak up like a good soldier.”
He laughed. “You are a bear,” he says. “Dern if you can’t read my mind. I been trailing Stoner’s Boy all day.”
I looked at him kinda hard. “Link,” I says, “you are a funny guy. Sometimes you are a’scared to death of Stoner, and then again you go following him around like you want to git in trouble.”
Link looked serious. “No Hawkins,” he said, “you got me wrong. I ain’t a’scared of him when I am following him; it’s only when he is following me that I gotta be careful.”
“All right,” I said, “go ahead; what did you see?”
Link looked up the bank first; then when he saw no one was around, he said, “I know how we can trap him, Hawkins.”
I nearly fell off my seat when Link said that. Next minit I bust out laughing. “Ho, ho, Link,” I says, “you are funny; sure enough, there ain’t nobody around here who can trap him.”
Link bit his lip. “Listen, Hawkins,” he says, “will you go up into his hiding place with me?”
“Sure,” I says, “come on, we will start right now.”
Link held my arm. “No,” he says, “not now.”
“Why,” I asked.
“Because,” Link says, “Stoner is there.”
“Ah,” I says, “that’s a white horse with a different color. Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Of course I don’t want to hunt for trouble.”
“No,” says Link, “there ain’t no use doing that. You know the old saying, don’t rush in like fools, or you will be an angel before you know it.”
“Yeah,” I says, “that’s a good rule to live up to if you want to live to be an old man.”
“Well, I do,” says Link.
I didn’t say no more, but I thought to myself if Link ever grows to be an old man, he will be the skinniest bean pole I ever saw.
“Good-bye, Hawkins,” he says. “When I let you know, be ready to come along.”
I says, “Wait a minit, Link. I just want to give you warning; watch out for the giant spiders that live in the cave.”
He looked at me like he didn’t understand. “Spiders,” he repeated, “oh, I ain’t afraid of them things.”
Then he run off, and I went up to tell Jerry Moore.
WEDNESDAY.—Lew Hunter got us boys together after our meeting today and made us practice some new songs, which we got to sing up at the school hall on commencement night. It’s purty hot weather to stay indoors and sing, but the songs Lew got are fine ones; every fella likes to sing them. One of them is called “Row, Boatman, Row,” and you know us fellas like to sing about things of that sort because we all live on the river, and every fella owns a canoe or a flatboat or something.
Then he has another one called “The Mists of the Morning,” that most of us like, but none of us understand it very well. But that don’t make no difference; as long as it sounds nice when we sing it, we don’t have to understand the meaning. Lew says the minister told him to teach us some songs for commencement night, and we want to show him that we can sing.
THURSDAY.—While we were singing in the houseboat this afternoon I looked out the window and saw the Skinny Guy coming up the path from the river as fast as he could. Without making any fuss, I touched Jerry’s arm, and we slipped out the houseboat together and waited for Link. The sound of the singing in the houseboat was purty. Lew Hunter’s soprano voice and Dick Ferris, tenor, and all the others singing purty good, too, come out the open window like a real choir, singing:
We row all day in the current along,
Our voices united in loud swelling song.
No thought of the toil nor the tumult of the day
Can ruffle our bosoms nor lure us away.
“Listen to that,” I says to Jerry. “Sounds like a warning for us; we better not let Link lure us away.”
“Aw, shucks,” says Jerry.
The Skinny Guy come up out of breath. “Come on,” he says. “Stoner’s Boy just went up to Watertown in his gray launch; now is our time to go up to his hiding place.”
“All right,” says Jerry, “lead the way, Link.”
We followed Link, and the strains of our boys singing in the houseboat followed us, until we stood in front of that opening, on top of which the rocks and bushes stick out like a half umbrella. “Golly,” I says to Link, “I didn’t think it was so near.”
“No,” says Link. “You wouldn’t have guessed it; he was close enough all the time to hear us singing in our houseboat. Come on in.”
We followed Link in. All of us pulled out flashlights and lit up the walls and floors, and the inside of that cave, with the lights shining on it, was like crystals, sparkling and glittering. The further we went the better I liked it, until Jerry whispers to me, “Watch out for spiders.”
That took the joy out of it, and I would have given Jerry a swift kick, but he hurried ahead.
“Up this way,” says Link.
We walked up a passageway that led round and round and up and up. At last we stood up on a shelf of rock that sloped down.
“Watch out,” says Link. “Don’t slip, or you will fall down into that ditch.”
Jerry got down on his stomach and crawled over to the edge and looked down. “Ditch,” he says, turning to look at us. “I should say it is some ditch—why, that must be a mile deep.”
I crawled over to where Jerry was lying and looked down. It was too dark to make out how deep it was, but I could hear water running, and I knew that Cave River passed through this part of the cave a long ways down.
Jerry and I crawled back to where Link stood grinning at us. “You don’t mean to say this is Stoner’s hiding place, do you?” I asked.
Link nodded his head. “Yep,” he says, “right acrost that ditch.”
“Good night,” I says. “How does he get acrost?”
Jerry laughed. “Easy,” he says, “just lay a board acrost and walk over.”
“Where’s your board?” asked Link, grinning at Jerry.
Jerry took another look and scratched his head. “That is right,” he says. “It would take a purty long board.”
“Yes,” says Link, “and there ain’t a board around here. I’ve looked over the whole place; I could always come this far and no farther, but I saw Stoner’s Boy sitting by a campfire on the other side of this ditch, when he had me prisoner. I was tied hand and foot, lying right here where we are standing, when the Red Head come and set me free, but I been wondering ever since how that Stoner fella got over there.”
“Well,” I says, “let’s get out of here right away. He might be back, and you don’t know what kinda traps he has laid for us in this dark place.”
/> So we picked our way back as close to the wall as we could get and kept our flashlights turned on ahead of us. We were mighty glad to see the daylight coming into the opening again, and heard the strains of our song coming to us from the houseboat:
Then, boatman, row us o’er the stream,
With steady hand, and splashing oar.
We’ll glide beneath the moon’s soft beam
Till home again we’ll be once more.
“That’s me,” says Jerry, “home again, fast as I can git.”
Link held us. “Wait,” he says, “I got a way to trap Stoner’s Boy in that cave.”
“Tell it to us tomorrow, Link,” I says. “It will keep.”
“I guess so,” says Link.
FRIDAY.—Today we sat and told the fellas in our meeting that we had found Stoner’s hiding place. Link said he had an idea to trap Stoner’s Boy.
I says, “How?”
Link says, “If you fellas will come with me next time Stoner goes up there, I think I know how.”
“All right,” we says. “When you know he is up there, let us know; we will put a guard by his launch, so he can’t get away.”
Link went right out to get on the track of Stoner’s Boy.
Jerry and Bill Darby and Dick Ferris and me sit there a long time and figgered out how we could fix this plan so that it wouldn’t fail.
“The best thing,” says Dick, “would be to keep your eye on his gray launch and hide the fellas down there, because if he gets away from us in the cave if our trap fails, we can surely catch him when he runs to his launch.”
“Yes,” says Jerry, “we will certainly watch his boat.”
SATURDAY.—We practiced singing all morning, there being no school, every fella coming down early but the Skinny Guy. “He’s out on Stoner’s trail,” I said to Lew Hunter.
Lew made a face. “I’m awful tired of Stoner’s Boy,” he says.
“So are we all,” I says. “We will get him soon though, Lew.”
“I wish you would,” says Lew.
It was late in the afternoon when the Skinny Guy showed up. “Everything is set,” he says. “Stoner’s in his den, his launch is under the willows; we can take our time. I got all my things ready to trap him.”
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