Doc didn’t say another word. I watched him as he walked quickly to the cabinet where he kept his medicines and things; I saw him take out several rolls of bandages and lots of things I didn’t know what they were—I watched him work hurriedly and put these things into his little grip. Then he turned to me.
“Lead me to him,” he said. “I’ll want to see him as soon as I can, Hawkins.”
It was time for me to go to supper. But I didn’t think of supper. I didn’t think of anything but Simon Bleaker. Think of that poor kid—I would have thought he had better sense. Yes sir, a week ago I would have thought that Simon Bleaker had better sense than to go hobbling around with a broken leg, risking lameness for the rest of his life. But some kids are funny; you can never tell what a boy will do. All I thought of now was that it was my duty to see that a doctor took charge of Simon Bleaker’s broken leg and fixed it for him so he would not go hobbling on a crutch the rest of his life.
I led him quickly to the river path. As we neared the little by-path to the clubhouse, a figure rose out of the dusk to meet us. It was Perry Stokes.
“The Skinny Guy is waiting for you, sir,” he said to me. “He told me to say that he would be waiting in his big launch.”
“Come along with us, Perry,” I said.
The three of us ran down to the little wharf where Link’s big boat, the Cazanova, lay at anchor. As we approached, I saw Link step out of his pilothouse onto the top deck. I hurried up to him.
“I thought you would be back, Hawkins,” he said to me. “You are going back to Bleaker’s hole in the hill, ain’t I right?”
“Good old Link!” I said in a low voice. “You knew I would, didn’t you?”
“Of course,” answered Link. “I’ve known you a long time, Seck. I knew you would get Doc Waters and go back there—”
“What else would a fellow do, Link?”
“Sure. That’s what I waited for. My boat is ready. Let me know when to cast off.”
“Doc is here,” I said, as Doc came up to where we stood. He gripped the Skinny Guy’s hand. “Let’s go.”
Darkness was coming speedily as we started our trip back down the river. And I could not help thinking of other trips by motorboat that we made down a certain river in Cuba, Doc and I, when we were helping out this very same Skinny Guy who was now helping out another boy whom we had no reason to love or care for. For Simon Bleaker had been our enemy, no doubt about that. He had done everything against us that he could. Because he thought we had been interfering with his plans and his pleasure. But what difference did that make to us now? Simon was in need of help; surprised was I, that smart as he was he didn’t know that much for himself. You would have thought that he would know what it meant to hobble around upon a broken leg.
The big launch swung around the first bend at the fastest rate of speed that the old river ever saw. Down past the rotting wreck of the old Smokey City, then past the next bend, and then pulled up at the bunch of trees in which we had discovered the monkey boy, McJinty, with his bow and arrows. And there we ran her nose into the mud and landed.
Perry Stokes was running ahead, leading the way, when we got off. We followed as fast as we could go, but Doc was getting terribly fat, and we had to go slower. Now, this place where we had discovered McJinty in the tree was a shortcut to the old corner in the hillside where the great tree stood. I had not paid much attention to it in the excitement following our chase of McJinty and our successful forced entrance in the tree door. But now, going slower, I had time to notice these things. We were only a short distance, climbing uphill of course, to the very corner where the hills dipped in and came together like two walls at the point where the great tree grew. As we neared the place, I wondered to myself why God had let this giant tree grow in this particularly unusual place. And the more I think of it to this day, the more I am convinced that God made that tree grow there for only Simon Bleaker—for it was Simon only who used it for a secret entrance to his hiding place.
“You will knock, Hawkins?” asked Perry, as I came up. He stood, rifle in hand, before the great tree.
“I will knock,” I answered, and picking up a round stone, of which there was a plenty lying in the place, I tapped upon the tree door—one-two-one-two, one-two-three-four.
I heard the voice of someone—I thought it was Big Ike—calling sharply to someone else not to answer the knock—and then the mellow, even voice of Simon himself, ordering the door to be opened.
Like magic the square door in the bark of the tree swung outward. The minute it began to open, I noticed upon it a hand with the thumb and forefinger missing. Three-Finger Fred! Yes, it was he whose face peered out at us in the gathering gloom.
“Who is it?” he called out. And then, seeing me, he stepped aside. “Come in, Seckatary Hawkins,” he said.
“Where’s Simon?” I asked sharply. “I heard his voice—”
“I am here,” came the same mellow, even voice that I had grown to know these past few months. “If anybody asks for me, Freddie, I am here. Tell them to come. It can’t be helped now. I’m in for it. Let them come, Freddie. Bring them to me, here.”
Three-Finger Fred dropped his head. I caught sight of his tear-dimmed eyes.
“He’s given up, Hawkins,” he whispered to me as I passed by. “We’ve done all we could but—”
Jude the Fifth stepped out of the shadows of the cavern. He stood before my path.
“I’ll forget all the things you did to me, Seckatary Hawkins,” he said. “But I’ll not let you or anybody else give Simon any worry—you understand that?”
“There won’t be no such doings,” said another voice. Big Ike came forward. He shook his fist in my face. “Ever since you came,” he began, “ever since you came, you meddlesome Seckatary Hawkins, he ain’t been the same. He’s worried. You got him to tell you something—why did you ask him about the thing that killed his pony over on Burney’s Field—”
“Stand aside there, please,” broke in Doc Waters. “I must see this Simon Bleaker at once. This poppy talk will keep till later, I’m sure. Where is he?”
“Excuse me, please,” came the mellow, even voice from a dark corner. “Do you wish to see me?”
Without waiting for another word, Doc snatched up the old square ship’s lantern that hung from a nail in the big log that rose from rocky floor to rocky roof. He thrust it into a cavity in the wall of the cavern. Lying upon blankets in this long hole that looked for the world like a tomb was the thin, wasted figure of Simon Bleaker. Wasted—yeah, all but his eyes—his eyes had the sparkle that I never before saw in any boy I ever knew. Whatever I may say about Simon Bleaker hereafter, I will say this now; that he had the smartest, most intelligent look in his eyes that I ever saw in any of the boys we ever had to fight. And it was an honest look—I want to be fair to my enemies—it was the most honest look I ever saw in any boy I ever knew.
How those eyes held Doc Waters! Ah, boy, I’ll never forget that night. No! Simon Bleaker looked up into the face of Doc Waters—a face he had never seen before, and I knew he was wondering what it was all about. Simon would never have called a doctor. He would never have given in! No! Simon was one of the kind that never gives up! Simon was a fellow who, if he had been a soldier, would never have surrendered. He looked into Doc Waters’s kind face with a questioning look.
“You are lame?” asked Doc. “Never mind; I have come to fix you up, sonny. May I trouble you just a minute?”
Doc reached to raise the Indian blanket that covered Simon Bleaker. I saw Simon make a move, as though he would draw the comforter tighter about him. But as he raised, there came a look of pain over his handsome features. I stood close to his head.
“Tell me, Simon,” I whispered. “Tell me you are not the one who plays the part of the Gray Ghost.”
He was about to answer. But just then Doc took hold of his leg, and the pain that I read in Simon’s face told me why he did not answer.
Doc Waters had a pair of scissor
s in his hand, and he quickly cut away the knickerbockers and stocking. I saw him feeling over the injured leg. Simon Bleaker winced once or twice, but finally he smiled.
“You thought always that I was afraid, Seckatary Hawkins,” he said, in that same mellow, even voice. “But I wasn’t. No sir, I wasn’t. I would have fought you and Stoner and Androfski and Shadow Loomis and all the others whose names I don’t know, I would have fought—and—fought—and—fought—and—fought—and—”
His voice trailed off into silence. His eyes were still open. I saw Doc look at me, and there was a smile on Doc’s face. I am always glad to see a smile on Doc’s face. It makes me hope.
“The limb is not broken,” said Doc. “There is a bad sprain. It’s just as well you called me, Hawkins—there is a double sprain; I might call it that, anyway—of course you won’t understand—”
“And fought—and—fought—and—fought,” mumbled Simon Bleaker. His eyes closed.
“There, it’s all right, all right,” said Doc in a soothing voice. He bent low over Bleaker’s head. “And we’ll see that you get even with—”
“The unicorn!” cried Simon Bleaker, springing up, afresh as though all his strength had come back with the thought of that terrible thing that had done his pony to death and made him a cripple. “It was the unicorn, I tell you, the unicorn, the unicorn—”
Doc’s hand soothed that troubled forehead, and with soft words, forced him back upon his own made bed. For a long time there was silence in that cavern place. Doc worked swiftly with his ointments and his bandages, while Bleaker lay back with his eyes closed. At length, the work was done; Bleaker’s leg was bandaged and straight and there was a heavy smell of drugs in the stifling air.
“He will be alright,” said Doc. “Which one of you boys attends him?”
With one bound, all three of Simon’s friends leaped forward—Big Ike, Jude the Fifth, and Three-Finger Fred. “I do,” they all yelled at once. Doc Waters smiled. “See to it that he does not move his legs—for five days at least. I suppose you boys have means of getting food and other necessities?”
“Easy,” said Big Ike. “I take care of all that. Leave it to me, Doctor. I’m sure glad you came. I been wondering what to do—he wouldn’t have a doctor, sir. No, he would go on, stumbling around on the crutch I made for him out of a hickory limb—an’ I knew he needed a settin’ o’ that leg, sir.”
“Stick to him, Ike,” I said. “Stick to him as you would your own—”
And at that moment came a new sound—the sound that I never expected to hear in this place—the sound of the old brass horn—the old brass horn of Stoner’s Boy—
Twice came the blast! Twice it came through the open tree door that all of us had forgotten to close! I took a swift glance—
It was Stoner’s Boy!
Yeah, there he stood, the old Gray Ghost, in cape-coat and broad-brim hat, a gray kerchief covering the lower half of his face, a shotgun, double-barrel, in his hand.
“Stand where you are,” he said commandingly. “I just come for my side pardner—ah! there you are, Freddie with the three fingers. Step out this way, please. You others stand still, and you wont get hurt.”
Three-Finger Fred gave me a sharp glance—but what could I do? How could I help him now, with the Gray Ghost upon us? And at the same time, I saw Three-Finger Fred walk straight to Stoner’s Boy as though he couldn’t help himself, as though he just had to do it whether he wanted to or not. Just a second, the Gray Ghost lingered. And as soon as Three-Finger Fred had passed over the threshold of the tree door, he banged it shut, and we were alone. I could hear the soft pat-pat-pat of their footsteps as Stoner and Fred ran down the path outside.
Doc Waters held up his finger; Simon Bleaker seemed to be sleeping.
“Forget everything,” said Doc, “except that we have a mighty sick boy here who needs much rest. Perhaps I’d better send him to the hospital—”
“No, no,” broke in Big Ike. “I’ll take care of him, Doctor; you let me take care of him, alright? Simon won’t want anybody but me, Doctor.”
Doc Waters smiled upon the big, awkward Swede.
“Very well, Ike,” he said, for he had heard me call him Ike. “Very well, Ike, you stay and take good care of him until I come again. And now, Hawkins, I think we had better go back and get our supper.”
Which we did.
CHAPTER 32
The Plotters
SCHOOL DAYS came around again, and for a week all of our time was taken up with preparations for studies. I can recall now, on that last day of vacation, how lovingly the boys took their last look at the clubhouse as they started off to school. To be sure, we would still have time to meet in the old shack each day, but it was not like being around it all day long with nothing else to think about but our pastimes and our pleasures.
The first week of school we held no regular meetings in the clubhouse. But our captain, Dick Ferris, sent word to everybody that the regular meeting would be held on Monday at four o’clock after school. It was just an ordinary meeting. The subject most talked about was Simon Bleaker’s misfortune, and how we had found him in his cave behind the tree door.
Just as I sat down, alone in my writing room, to write the minutes of the meeting, and all of the other boys had gone out to play except Perry Stokes, who cleaned up after meetings, in came Doc Waters.
“I knew I’d find you alone,” he said. “I’ve come to talk over a few things with you, Hawkins.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I been expecting you, Doc.”
“About Bleaker? Of course. But I have news to tell you. He is gone.”
“What! Not in his cave with Big Ike and the others?”
“No. I have been attending him daily since you took me to him a week ago. His leg has come along nicely; it wasn’t broken. But it was badly sprained, and he should have rested a week or two longer. This morning, when I called, the door was opened by Big Ike, as you call him. He was the only one there. Simon and the others were gone.”
“But you questioned Big Ike, of course. What did he tell you?”
“That Simon’s father had come for him, and had taken him home.”
“Ah, that is good, Doc. I am awfully glad his daddy came for him. Simon was a wild boy. His father will watch him more closely now, though.”
Doc looked at me with one eye shut.
“I don’t believe Big Ike told me the truth,” he said. “I asked him to tell me where Simon and his father lived. He refused. But that isn’t all I came for. What I want to find out is this: what is it that killed Simon’s pony over on Burney’s Field? Why did it make Simon so excited every time you asked him about that? What is it that he calls a unicorn?”
I shook my head.
“Why do you come to me with that question, Doc?” I asked. “Every time there is a puzzle to figure out, you come here for the answer. I’ll tell you this much: there is something over on Burney’s Field. I don’t believe in ghosts. Yet if this thing Simon saw is a unicorn, it must be a ghost, for there never was a unicorn. I looked it up in my big book. It says a unicorn is a horse with a horn sticking out the middle of its forehead, but that nobody ever saw one, so it’s only a fable.”
“We examined the carcass of Simon’s poor old pony,” said Doc. “There was a hole clean through its neck, as if a horn such as that of a unicorn might have done it. We have examined the whole of Burney’s Field, the sheriff and I together. We stayed out there all last night, but nothing came around. We saw nothing, heard nothing. It’s one of the biggest puzzles I’ve ever met since you and I were in Cuba. And if it had not been for Simon Bleaker, I would not have paid any further attention to the matter. But when it killed his pony and nearly crippled him, I thought it was our duty to see that the danger is stamped out. I’m relying on you, Hawkins.”
“I’ll do my share, Doc,” I said. But when he had gone, and I thought this matter out alone in my little writing room, I began to feel that it was hopeless. What could I do? If I monk
eyed around on Burney’s Field, what was there to hinder this terrible thing from doing me as it had done poor Simon Bleaker? I dismissed it from my mind, finished my writing, closed my book, and then walked out of the clubhouse.
What was it that made me avoid the boys as they played in the hollow? I don’t know. But I walked on down the path and kept toward the woods. The solitude of the woods was what I wanted. To think was what I had to do now, and the woods was my place for it. I pondered over this whole puzzle again from the start to the finish. I was so wrapped up in thought that I did not realize how far I had walked, when the sound of something like a twig snapping brought me up suddenly and chased from my mind every thought but of that which I saw ahead of me.
I peered across a clump of bushes. A few paces from me was the old sycamore tree, the old secret post office of Androfski the Silent. But what was a surprise was to see Perry Stokes standing in front of it. The little door in the tree was open, and Perry, standing there, was reading a note that, no doubt, he had just taken out of the secret post office.
“Well!” I said, as I came out of the bushes. “How come you are using the secret post office, Perry? Since when did you connect up with Androfski?”
He did not answer. He held out to me the piece of paper he had been reading. I took it and read the following words, scribbled with a lead pencil:
He is gone. They came today and took him. I am all alone now. I want you to take me back, Andy. I was a good pal to you. I can help you much. So I will promise to stick to you. I will never break away from you again. If you want me back again, put the note in our old secret post office so I will get it. I hope you come and get this so you know I am all alone again. They took him away. They gave us a scolding. They didn’t know what me and Big Ike had done for him. Let me know if you want me back. You know me, Andy.
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