The High School Left End Part 6

"Oh!" guessed Dave. "Then you're going back and make your own search of the place?"

"You're clever," nodded Prescott, with a low laugh. "Yes; it may be that Hemingway and his companion have made a fine search.

Or it may be that they've missed clues that a blind man ought to see."

So the two High School boys sat there, in the buggy drawn up at the side of the road, for the next fifteen minutes. In that time the launch took on the waiting pa.s.sengers, and the light played over all that part of the river, then started down stream.

d.i.c.k slowly headed the horse about, this time driving much closer to the river's bank than he had done before.

"There's a lantern under the seat, Dave. I saw it when we started from 'The Blade' office. Haul it out and light it, will you?"

For some minutes the two High School boys searched without much result. At last d.i.c.k and Dave began to move in wider circles, away from the much-tramped ground. Then, holding the lantern close to the ground, Prescott moved nearer and nearer to the railway track, all the while scanning the soil closely.

"Look there, Dave!" suddenly called Prescott. "No-----Don't look just yet," he added, holding the lantern behind him. "But tell me; you've often seen Mr. Dodge. What kind of boots did he wear?"

"Narrow, pointed shoes, and rather high heeled for a man to wear,"

Darrin answered.

"Exactly," nodded d.i.c.k. "Look there!"

Darrin bent down over a soft spot in the soil close to the railway roadbed. There were three prints of just such a boot as he had described.

"You see the small heel print," continued Prescott, in a whisper.

"And you note that the front part of the foot makes a heavy impression, as it would when the foot is tilted forward by a high heel."

"I don't believe another man in the town ever wore a pair of boots such as made these prints," murmured Darrin excitedly. "And they're headed away from the river, toward the railroad! And look here---other footprints of a different kind!"

"You're right!" cried Prescott, holding the lantern closer to the ground and scanning some additional marks in the soil. "Coa.r.s.e shoes; one pair of 'em brogans! Mr. Dodge had companions when he went away from here."

"They may have been forcing the man somewhere with them," quivered Darrin, staring off into the black night about them.

"No; not a sign of a struggle," argued d.i.c.k, still with his gaze on the ground. "No matter who Mr. Dodge's companions were, he went with them willingly. Gracious, Dave, but we were right in believing the banker to be still alive! Coat and hat at the water's edge were a blind! Mr. Dodge has his own reasons for wanting people to think him dead. He has sloped away. Here's the track.

Which way did he and the fellows go?"

"Away from Gridley," declared Darrin, sagely. "Otherwise, Mr.

Dodge would have been seen by some one who would remember him."

"We'll go up along the track, then."

This they did, but the roadbed was hard. Besides, anyone walking on the ties would leave no trail. It was slow work, holding the lantern close to the ground and scanning every step, besides swinging the lantern out to light up either side of their course. Yet both lads were so tremendously interested that they pushed on, heedless of the flight of time.

They had gone a mile or more up the track, "inching" it along, when they came upon an unmistakable print of Mr. Dodge's oddly pointed boot and narrow, high heel. They found, too, the print of a brogan within six feet of the same point.

"This is the way Dodge and his queer companions came," exulted Dave.

"But I don't believe they followed the track much further," argued Prescott, pointing ahead at the signal lights of a small crossing station. "If Mr. Dodge were trying to get away from public gaze he wouldn't go by a station where usually half a dozen loungers are smoking and talking with the station agent."

"We're lucky to have the trail this far," observed Dave Darrin.

"But we can't follow it accurately at night. Say---gracious!

Do you know what time it is? Half-past one in the morning!"

"Wow?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Prescott, halting and looking dismayed. "It'll take us a good many minutes to get back to where we left the horse.

It'll be after two o'clock when we hit 'The Blade' office. Dave, we simply can't follow the trail further tonight. But we must strike it first thing in the morning. It'll be a big thing for 'The Blade' to be the folks to find the missing banker and clear the mystery up."

"Unless Dodge just kept on until he came to one of the stations, and took a train. Then the trail would be a long one."

"He didn't take a train tonight," returned Prescott, shaking his head. "If he wanted to disappear that would be the wrong way to go about it. He'd be recognized from the descriptions that will go about broadcast. No, sir! Mr. Dodge must be hiding in some of the big stretches of woods over yonder. A regiment could hide and be lost in the great woods."

"It's a trail I hate to leave," muttered Dave Darrin.

"But we've got to wait until daylight. We can't do much in the dark, anyway. I've got to get back to 'The Blade' office. Get your bearings here, Dave. To make doubly sure I'll cut a slice out of this tie to mark the place where we found this print, for it may be indistinct by daylight."

Marking the location d.i.c.k Prescott wheeled and began to hurry back, followed by Darrin. In due time they reached the buggy, took the light blanket from the horse, unhitched and jumped in.

Fast driving took them to "The Blade" office.

"You didn't learn anything, did you?" questioned Bradley.

"Yes; we did," d.i.c.k informed him. "The police, with their launch didn't get any trace of Mr. Dodge, did they?"

"No," admitted the news editor. "I've talked with Hemingway within the last hour. The police will begin dragging the river by daylight."

"They won't find the banker that way," chuckled d.i.c.k. "He's alive."

"Have you seen him?" demanded the news editor.

"No; and I'm not going to say too much now, either," returned d.i.c.k, with unusual stubbornness. "But 'The Blade' wants to take the keynote that Theodore Dodge is alive, and will turn up. I believe Dave and I are going to make him turn up during the next spell of daylight."

"We surely are!" laughed Darrin.

Mr. Bradley pressed them close with questions, but neither boy was inclined to reveal the secret of the trail along the railway roadbed.

"We're going to keep it all as our own scoop," d.i.c.k insisted.

"And please, Mr. Bradley, don't post the police about our idea.

If you do, the police will get the credit. If we keep quiet, 'The Blade' will get all the credit that is coming."

The news editor laid before d.i.c.k all the proofs and copy that had been prepared so far on the absorbing mystery of the night.

Prescott made some newsy additions to the story, and through it all took the confident keynote that the vanished banker would soon be heard from in the flesh.

The work done, and Bradley having already seen to the return of the horse to the livery stable, d.i.c.k and Dave went into an unused room, where they threw themselves down on piles of old papers.

Tired out, they slept without stirring. But they had left a note for the office boy who was due at six o'clock to sweep out the business office.

That office boy came in and called the High School pair at a few minutes after six. d.i.c.k's first thought was to instruct the boy to telephone the Prescott and Darrin homes at seven in the morning, sending word that the two boys were safe but busy. Then d.i.c.k hastily led the way to a quick-order restaurant near by. Here the boys got through with breakfast as quickly as they could.

That done, they bought sandwiches, which they put into their pockets.

As they came out of the eating house the streets were still far from crowded. Laborers were going to their toil, but it was yet too early for the business men of the city to be on their way to offices, or clerks to the stores.

"Now, let's get out of the town in a jiffy," proposed d.i.c.k. "We don't want to have many folks observing which way we go. We'll travel fast right up along the railway track."

Once started, the two boys kept going briskly. Both had been drowsy at the outset, but the impulse of discovery had them in its grip now, and fatigue was quickly forgotten.