Phil Way was never so perplexed–never so at a loss to know what to do. Looked to as the leader and the captain in all things, he usually was quick to suggest, quick to decide and quite generally for the best. His heart–his nerve–whatever it is that keeps the mind steady and alert at such time–came nearer failing him now than ever before.
All the boys, Chip included, were on the beach. Several times Phil's cries had been repeated by the others. At last–
"We must get the skiff," Way declared. "If Dave's on dry land we can find him when daylight comes, if not before. But if he's holding on to an upset boat, though too weak to answer us, maybe, we've got to find him right off."
Leaving Paul to guard the camp and keep a bright fire burning, Billy and Phil, with Chip accompanying them, were soon running toward the old clubhouse. They carried the oil lamps from the car and thus made good progress. But the skiff was found dry and seamy. It would be necessary for one or another to keep bailing constantly, they saw, the moment they launched her.
And where were the oars? In their excitement the boys had not noticed the absence of this very necessary equipment until the boat was in the water. With frantic haste they searched here and there. The rays of their lamps were far from powerful and close inspection of each nook and corner must be made to see what might be there.
The excessive stillness, the atmosphere of loneliness and melancholy that hung always about the Point and its deserted buildings seemed intensified tonight. The shadows cast by the two lamps seemed unnaturally gaunt and ghostly. With all their activity the three lads could not but be impressed by these things, but they were too occupied to be frightened by them.
"At last!" Phil's voice came low but quick. In another moment he drew a pair of oars from behind an unused door whose lower panels a charge of buckshot had shattered, apparently, and which was now stored in a corner of the automobile shed.
"Whatever will we bail with?" asked Billy, finding the skiff already to have taken considerable water.
"I know," came a prompt answer and Slider disappeared in the darkness. From behind the garage he brought in a few seconds two empty tin cans. "There's no end of 'em among some weeds back there if we need more," he said.
"No! You keep bailing, Chip, and you, Billy, hold the lights! Off we go!" and Phil shoved away the moment all were fairly on board. From the black shore line to the east they could see the campfire shedding a bright light for a little distance over the waters; but except for this and the rays of the auto lamps Worth held the darkness was like pitch.
"Paul's blaze will be our light-house. We want to hit toward the middle of the lake, just about opposite the camp, then straight over to the far side," spoke Way, breathing fast. "Keep me guided right, Bill." He was pulling hard.
The incoming water kept Slider more than busy. With a can in each hand he scooped to right and left. Worth found it necessary to give Phil very few directions for Way was a splendid oarsman and the light craft swept forward rapidly.
Every minute or two Billy sang out MacLester's name. Eagerly he scanned the water as far as the lamp rays fell, but heard nothing, saw nothing.
Not until the north shore was almost reached did Phil slow down. Then he let the boat drift forward easily while watching for a landing place. "Raise the lamp higher," he called over his shoulder.
Billy did so and as the skiff floated nearer the quite steep bank rising from the water at this point, there came suddenly into the lighted circle a flat bottomed fishing boat. It was the scow MacLester had used and it was empty.
CHAPTER VI
IS NO NEWS GOOD NEWS?
The fishing boat lay drifting, but only three or four yards from shore. Had Dave effected a landing or, in the darkness, had he tried and failed? That which quite possibly, even probably, had happened was a thought that filled even Phil with apprehension and despair.
"Light the way! I'll pull close in shore," he said, trying hard to swallow the lump in his throat.
The bank where the skiff's nose soon touched was steep, yet easy to be climbed as its height was only a few feet. But there was no sign that anyone had been near it. Otherwise the dry earth would have shown the imprints of toes or heels. This was quickly proved when, Phil steadying the boat and with a root and a straggling shrub to help him, Billy crept quickly to the top.
"Still, we don't know just where Dave may have run in. It's queer that he let the scow drift, if–even if he expected to go right back," said Worth in a hushed tone, from the edge of the low bluff.
"Queer what became of the man who called him over here, if such a thing as Mac falling into the water may have happened," observed Phil. "And Dave could swim–why, almost across the lake, if he had to! He could save himself if there was nobody pulling him down."
Throwing Billy a line by which to hold the boat, Way and Slider followed him up the bank. They walked some distance in each direction along the shore but the feeble light of the oil lamps showed no trace of David MacLester nor yet of the mysterious person who had summoned him. The thought, "crooked work," was in the minds of all three.
"After all, it's the water I'm most afraid of. If Dave fell and hurt himself or was pushed into the lake–but never mind. One of us must go back to Paul and the others will have to–look further," said Phil at last.
Billy was chosen to return to camp. What Phil meant to do, with Slider's help, was drag the lake in this vicinity. If Dave had gone to the bottom, due to some accident or injury, it might not yet be too late to save his life. Such things had been done, Way said, but he spoke without his usual confidence and very, very gloomily.
Returning to the skiff, the boys ran along side the fishing boat and drew the latter to shore. Phil and Chip tied her to a projecting root and Worth bade them good-bye.
With a long, steady stroke he pulled for the southern shore and the bright light blazing there. But it is one thing to row for the fun of it, when the sunlight dances on the ripples, and quite another to cross a strange body of water–and alone–when inky darkness spreads everywhere.
The swelling of the wood had now pretty well stopped the skiff's leaking, yet again and again Billy paused to bail out. The unpleasant thought that he would find the water pouring in too fast for his best efforts harassed him. He could not see, so he often put down his hand to feel and thus make sure the boat was not filling. So at last did he float into the rays of the campfire's light and a minute later stand telling Paul the unhappy discoveries made.
The thought that Dave and the strange man, having found their boat drifting beyond reach, may have started to walk around the head of the lake and so come on foot to the camp, had suggested itself to Billy as he rowed. Mentioning this to Paul he set out, with a small camp lamp in hand, to explore the shore in the direction indicated.
Thus left alone again Jones was the most dejected and sorrowful young fellow one could easily imagine. To keep the fire blazing high was all he could do to be of any possible assistance. Inactivity was hard for him to bear at any time. Especially was it hard when his thoughts were so disturbed and his anxiety so great.
It was coming daylight when at last Jones saw the fishing boat approaching. In it were Phil and Billy and Chip; for Worth, having traversed the whole upper border of the lake without result other than to tire himself exceedingly, had spent all the latter part of the night with Way and Slider.
To the great astonishment of these two he had suddenly appeared to them out of the darkness. He had broken his lamp to bits in a painful tumble into a dry water course the undergrowth concealed.
Several hours the three lads had then spent alternately dragging the lake's bottom with hooked poles, looking up and down the steep bank for footprints, and here and there going some distance back into the woods vainly searching. Even before the dawn appeared their lamps went out. With difficulty they had then embarked for the opposite shore. Daylight came as wearily they worked their heavy craft forward.
The one hopeful fact the boys found in a sorrowful review of the situation, as they stretched their tired limbs upon the ground, was that the dragging of the lake in the vicinity where Dave's empty boat was found had been without result.
"We'll get some rest–a few minutes, anyway, and a cup of coffee, then we'll see what daylight will do to help us," suggested Phil.
Yet it was scarcely more than sunrise when the search was resumed. Crossing to the north shore in the skiff, Billy and Paul set about a minute inspection of the dry earth of the bank and of the woods for a long distance up and down the water's edge. Leaving Slider in camp, Phil made the detour of the east shore on foot.
As Way drew near the scene of the fruitless work of the night he discovered close in shore an old log lying just under the water's surface and partially imbedded in the earth of the bank. A short, stubby branch projected its wet and slimy tip an inch or two above the water. A slivered end that had risen considerably higher was freshly broken. Not completely detached, it lay almost level with the water's surface.
But a more interesting discovery still was unmistakable footprints in the dry earth. The footprints were made by MacLester. Of this Phil was certain. It was to the large projecting splinter, broken from the old log, that Dave had tied the boat, perhaps. Yet how had the slow and heavy craft broken from its mooring? And what was of vastly more consequence what had then happened to Mac?
The scene of Way's discoveries was some distance from the spot in which the fishing boat had been found. It was farther to the east, also, than search along the bank had been carried during the night; but the lake at this point had been dragged again.
Examining the ground carefully, Phil sought to find some further evidence concerning the missing boy's movements. He discovered nothing of importance. Going forward, then, to Billy and Paul, now working toward the westerly end of the lake, he told them of his discoveries. Quickly they returned with him.
To make their search thorough the three boys undertook to inspect the ground covering a wide area at this point where they believed their friend had landed. Several hundred feet from the water they made an interesting discovery. In a little patch of earth, made bare by the burrowing of some small animal, there were three footprints. One showed the mark of a shoe such as Dave MacLester wore. Two other tracks were broad and heavy–the imprints of coarser footwear.
It was a marked relief to the three chums to find such good cause to believe MacLester was not drowned; but what in the world had become of him? Had he been enticed away? Had he been taken captive by some unknown enemy?
In vain the search for other footprints,–anything to cast additional light on the grievous problems,–was carried further. Every prospect ended in disappointment. It was long after noon. The boys had penetrated several miles into the woods and they at last acknowledged themselves completely baffled.
Murky was a name they often mentioned as they counseled together. They could think of no one else who might have a reason for doing them all an injury. But why should Murky wish to make Dave or any of them a prisoner? His only motive could be that he feared they were searching for the stolen money he considered as his own. He had warned Chip Slider to keep off that track, the boys knew.
"We'll hunt till dark, then if we have no success and get no word at all, we will get the sheriff and a lot of men from Staretta! We will find Dave and it won't be very pleasant for Murky or whoever is to blame for this," declared Way. "There's more back of the whole matter than we can make out–more than we can even guess right now, you'll see!"
The boys returned to camp. The thought had come to them many times that Chip Slider might know a great deal more than he had told. They remembered Link Fraley's words about the boy. But they could not accuse him without any ground for doing so. They could find no evidence that Mac's disappearance had not occurred just as Chip had told them. And he had twice repeated the whole story the same as in the beginning.
It was a heart-sick group that ate a hasty lunch of bread and coffee in the woodland camp. Now for the first time, however, Paul told of the lonely time he had had during the long night–told of the noises he had heard in the distance, along the beach. He was quite sure that bears and deer, as well, to say nothing of numerous smaller creatures, had come to the lake to drink and bathe. He believed they would have come quite close to the shack but, for the bright fire he kept blazing.
Ordinarily the boys would have found great interest in such a subject; but today their spirits were at too low an ebb, their minds too disturbed over the unaccountable loss of their friend to permit their attention being otherwise occupied.
All except Billy set out after lunch to learn whether the suspected Murky had deserted his usual hiding place. Slider was the guide. He led the others quite directly to the logs where the tramp had made his bed and headquarters.
The fellow had apparently departed. He had left the pan and other utensils taken from the boys' camp but the blankets he had carried with him. They were nowhere to be seen, at any rate.
More certain than ever, then, that it was this unscrupulous villain who had decoyed Dave across the lake and in some manner forced their friend to accompany him, the lads hurried back to camp.
Again they rowed to the north shore and with utmost determination plunged into the hot, close woods.
CHAPTER VII
THE LONG-HIDDEN TREASURE IS UNCOVERED
And now, while the weary young searchers were hastening resolutely into the woods to the north of the lake, they were leaving in the forest to the south one who would well bear watching. I do not mean Chip Slider sitting alone, tired and melancholy, beside the shelter of poles, wondering if there could possibly be any place where trouble did not come. No–not Chip, but a man who at this moment stood looking into the little valley where the last camp of the road builders had been.
A somewhat portly, somewhat pompous and self-important appearing individual was this man. His bristly hair, cut very short, was tinged with gray under the large, loose-fitting cap such as golfers and motorists wear. His face was smooth, puffy and red. His very eyes, more touched with red, also, than they should have been, as well as his pudgy hands indicated self-indulgence and love of ease.
Presently the cap and the person under it moved from the rise of ground, above the road builders' last camp, down into the valley. With a smile that had too much of a sneer about it to be pleasant, the man ground his heel into the gravel where the Longknives' road had come to its troubled ending. With the same disagreeable sneer in his manner that accompanied his unpleasant smile, he turned here and there, noting how the brush and stunted stalks of mullen were springing up all about the unfinished task the workmen had left.
Startled suddenly out of his reverie by a bluejay's scream, or some other noise–he may have fancied it, he thought–the man looked hastily, searchingly about him; but satisfied, apparently, that he was alone, he moved leisurely into a shaded place and sat himself down on a stump–another token of the great road that had been begun but never completed. Quite carefully he drew up his trousers at the knees, then picked from his hosiery, whose bright color showed in considerable expanse above his oxfords, some bits of dry grass and pine needles gathered in his walk. Mr. Lewis Grandall had come, apparently, to view the work his perfidy had caused to be abandoned.
For a long time the unfaithful treasurer of the ambitious Longknives sat in silent meditation. He had noted with some satisfaction that a growth of brush screened his position from easy discovery should anyone chance to pass that way; and now his thoughts ran back over the circumstances leading up to his present personal situation. Quite steadily his eyes were fixed upon the unleveled bank of gravel, the half-hewn logs and all the unfinished work in the general picture of desolation and abandonment before him.
It is doubtful, perhaps, if Grandall realized his own responsibility for the waste and ruin on which he looked. At least his face bore no trace of sorrow, no expression of sincere regret. The same dull sneer was in his eyes, the same defiant air was in even the poise of his body and the heel that, with a certain viciousness, he dug into the dry earth.
Lewis Grandall's start in life had been attended by bright prospects. If only he had been found out the first time he yielded to temptation in scheming to get money by dishonest means, he might still have made his life a success by turning at once to the right road; but not being detected, he became bolder. From mere trickery and deceit it is but a step to out-and-out thievery. Grandall took that step and more. Yet he managed for long to cover his tracks sufficiently that few suspected and no one publicly accused.
One would have supposed that, being accustomed to the handling of other people's money in his banking work, he would not easily have been tempted when he found himself with a large sum of the Longknives' funds in his possession. Neither had he any pressing need of this money at the time he laid his plan to appropriate to his own use the cash intended for Nels Anderson's army of road builders. He merely thought he might some day be glad to have at his command a secret reserve large enough to maintain him indefinitely.
So did he plan the pretended robbery by which a former woodsman he had long known made off with the suit-case wherein he carried the money for Anderson's long overdue payroll. His original purpose had been to make some sort of division of the cash with Murky; but there was not anywhere in the Grandall code either honor or honesty. It was a particularly bright idea, indeed, so Grandall himself considered when the thought came to him that he might have the unsuspecting Murky relieved of the suit-case before the fellow had so much as seen what was in it.
The plan was put into effect. Slider, weak of morals, but strong of arm, was chosen for the work. To him Grandall told as much of his whole scheme as he thought necessary, but told him nothing whatever that was wholly true, with the possible exception of the statement that Murky was not to be trusted because he talked too much.
Having been a beneficiary in a small but largely crooked lumber deal Grandall had once managed, Slider entered into the robbery scheme most willingly. With the general result the reader is familiar; but in detail it may be added that, in keeping with the promoter's plan, he who relieved Murky of the suit-case hid it later just where few would suspect it might be hidden.
That place was almost within gunshot of the very spot where the money would have been distributed had it reached those for whom it was intended. This not only suited Mr. Grandall's convenience, but kept Slider in a comparatively safe locality, as well. So many men had been engaged on the work near Opal Lake that the presence of any kind of person in working clothes, in that vicinity, would occasion no remark.
Thus had Slider secreted the suit-case in a decaying heap of drift along the identical little stream beside which the great gravel road had ended. There had Grandall found and quietly removed the riches the very next day. Then the dishonest treasurer limped back to his hotel, for he was supposed to be scarcely able to move, owing to his "injuries," as a result of the robbery.
Nearly three years passed. The suit-case lay undisturbed where Grandall hid it and its valuable contents were intact. If the Longknives' treasurer had had occasion to make use of this money, meanwhile, he had been either afraid or unwilling to do so. But he knew where it was. He knew that in an emergency he could lay hands on a moderate fortune whose existence he believed none suspected. The thought bolstered his courage in scheming the method of more than one piece of trickery and dishonesty.
Then came the end, as sooner or later in crooked plans it must come–Failure! They all fail,–it is inevitable,–at last. The wrong-doer faced the necessity of flight.
Grandall's defalcations in the bank did not appear at once. A small matter–the "padding" or falsely increasing of some petty bills for material furnished the city–had started an investigation. It was to the amazement of everyone who knew the man that a long, long chain of shady operations and even petty stealing, even the robbery of his own friends, was by slow degrees uncovered.
Toward the last, it was apparent, Grandall had been driven to the most painful desperation. Night and day he must be on guard to keep his deceptions covered up. Constantly he must devise new practices in deceit to conceal others that once had served, but now, daily and hourly, were opening at most unexpected points revealing the treachery, falsehood, hypocrisy and rottenness they erstwhile had secreted.
Like a common thief, the guilty Grandall stole away in the night. Behind him he left all that might have made life useful and pleasant–home, friends, hope and ambition. Lying for some time hidden in a distant city, he at last felt it safe to travel by a circuitous route to Opal Lake.
At a country railroad station he stepped quietly off the train. With no luggage but a small handbag he slipped into the woods. A long tramp brought him the following day to the abandoned clubhouse. The very atmosphere of oppressive loneliness there pleased him because of its assurance of his safety from discovery.
How little Grandall guessed, or even suspected, that at just this time he could not have come to a place more fraught with danger to himself will never be known. No knowledge had he of the eyes that stealthily watched him. No thought had he that the moment he appeared with the stolen suit-case in hand, ready to slip away to hoped-for safety in a distant country, a lurking enemy would leap upon him.
The thief sat for a long time contemplating the ruins where so abruptly the road building had ended. It was not until near evening that he strolled slowly toward the clubhouse. The general course of the gravel drive he followed, but in the main kept a few feet to one side, that the trees and brush might screen him.
He had no fear here, yet he knew some boys were in camp not far away and not even by them did he wish to be observed. For he would spend one night of rest in the clubhouse room that once had been his own; and then he would be away–gone for all time from these and all the scenes of his younger life.
Yet a pair of heavy, scowling eyes watched Grandall's every footstep–saw him enter the clubhouse–saw him seat himself restfully in the empty living-room beside the great fireplace and proceed to make a supper of sandwiches and fruit from his small satchel.
Murky could not have been more vigilant had his own life been at stake. Not only his determination to gain again the stolen money that had been taken from him, but his hatred of that person the victim of whose double-dealing he had been, made him watchful, and a very dangerous man.
Quite suddenly in the afternoon had the vexed and oft-disappointed tramp discovered Grandall. It was while the latter stood beside the ruins where the gravel road had reached its ending. In delighted surprise Murky with difficulty suppressed a cry. Dropping instantly to the ground, he pressed over his mouth both his dirty hands lest some exclamation he could scarcely resist should betray him. "Blame me!" Under his breath he muttered the words with almost fiendish pleasure.
His worst enemy then was the occasion of those sounds that had startled Grandall from his reverie. But he felt himself so entirely alone, so wholly free from any probability of being observed, that he had given the slight noise not a second thought. During all his afternoon of sinister gazing upon the ambitious enterprise his act had wrecked, he still believed himself as completely alone as a man well could be in any vast woods or wilderness.
And even when Grandall left the little valley and walked in silent meditation to spend one night more–but one–in the old house on the Point he heard no footsteps coming on behind. His thoughts were far from pleasant ones but they occupied him fully. The sullen hatred so clearly shown in the expression of his eyes and lips was but a reflection of all that passed within his mind. Friends or foes, men were all alike to him, and those who had never voiced a word against him he reviled equally with those who had been his dupes, and with the men whose accusations had caused his flight, as well.
Coming to the clubhouse, Grandall lingered for a time up and down the weed-grown walk leading to the garage. Then while it was yet light he went down to the rotting pier and looked long and earnestly across and up and down the lake. Slowly he returned and, entering the house, went at once down cellar.
In the pitch darkness he felt his way to the rear of the steps leading from above. Striking a match or two, he examined by such flickering flames the rough uneven wall. With bare hands, then, he seized a projecting corner of one of the large flat stones and pulled it easily from place.
If this part of the wall had been laid up with cement or mortar it had been broken down some time before, as would appear very probable, for the masonry that Grandall now brought tumbling to the floor concealed a deep aperture in the dry, sandy earth.
The thief's next lighted match revealed the hole and also revealed a damp and discolored leather case.
Still crouching in the dark cellar Grandall managed to work the rusty lock and lay the suit-case open. Then he struck another match and its dim glow disclosed the carefully packed bundles of bills, and among them a bag of coin. He nodded his head in a satisfied way. He had assured himself on first arriving at the old house that the treasure was safe; but he would not remove it from the hiding place until he was prepared to leave, he had decided. Now he was ready.
And where was Murky?
As a matter of fact, from his concealment among the bushes near by, he was trying to decipher the room upstairs that this lone visitor to the old house would probably occupy. He had lost sight of Grandall when the latter had quickly entered and gone to the cellar. But it was only for a little while that the scowling eyes searched the open door and the windows in vain.
As Grandall came up to the living-room carrying the discolored suit-case, he glanced quickly all about him. Possibly some sense of his guilt came to his mind now that the evidence of his theft was squarely in his hands, and for the first time he appeared apprehensive. Yet he paused only for a few seconds. He saw to it that all the first floor doors were bolted from within, and slowly climbed the stairs to the sleeping rooms above.
As if quite at home the man entered that room whose long, low window opened upon the little balcony toward the lake. He smoothed down the mattress and brought a blanket from an adjoining chamber. Opening the window wide, for these upper rooms were very close and warm, he drew the suit-case to the better light he thus admitted and proceeded to count the money it contained.
The night was hot, the air seemed stifling, but when he had satisfied himself as to the amount of the treasure, Grandall returned the packages of bills and the bag of gold and silver pieces to their places, then closed and locked the window. He locked his chamber door also, before lying down to sleep. As if that could save him now!