Lonesome Town Part 35

Turning the horses, as if to continue an objectless canter, they started back over the path gained with such difficulty, trotting until beyond official view, thereafter breaking into the gallop of a pair of "renters" anxious to get the most possible out of their five-dollar hour in the saddle.

Canon after canon gaped in the apartment-house mountain range on their left, marking streets pa.s.sed. Their hope grew that, unmolested, they could pa.s.s out Pioneers Gate at the northwest corner of the park.

But that hope, too, was outsped. Hoof-hammering behind caused both to glance over-shoulder at a bend. Three of the city's mounted came pounding after them.

Pape looked about to make sure of their location. The bridle path spilled into a pool of shadows at the bottom of a gorge; granite walls rolled back from trail-side. Recognition of the region which he had been exploring with Polkadot on his first clash with law and order aided in what was of necessity a lightning-changed decision.

"Can't make Pioneers Gate." He signaled Jane to draw rein. "We'll take to-bush-turn the cayuses loose-hide-out until they've given us-up."

He swung from saddle with the last panted period, expecting the girl to follow his example. When, on her delay, he hurried to her a.s.sistance, he saw that she was leaning upon the nose of her saddle, her lips pale as her cheeks. Bodily he lifted her to the ground and found her a temporary rest against a path-side stump. After turning the horses about, he looped their reins and, with a back-to-stable slap upon Polkadot's splotched rump, started them down-park.

White-circle death sentences painted upon withering elms, poplars and birches pointed the course over which he half-carried the "sweet pardner" exhausted by excitement too long sustained. When they came upon a brush-fringed depression, which at home he would have called an elk bed, he bade her take to cover; himself crawled back to spy out the movements of the pursuit.

At the top of the last rise in the bridlepath, the police riders met the empty saddlers. They sounded greatly disturbed. From such sc.r.a.ps of loud-pitched conversation as carried, Pape pieced together their a.s.sumption that the fugitives had abandoned their mounts for a short-cut to the west wall. He saw two of the trio dismount and begin combing the brush in that direction, while the third remained on guard over the five horses.

All of this was fortuitous in that it promised time for them to reach a definite objective which he had in mind-a place where the spent girl might rest and both hide until darkness draped the park for their escape. His sense of semi-security weakened, however, on noticing that a police dog was of the party; that the "mounty" on hostler duty was sending the animal up the brushy hill on the east-their side of the path. Slithering back into the depression, he awaited for several long-drawn minutes the alarm-bay of the canine officer, dreading the worst, yet not wis.h.i.+ng to share that dread unnecessarily.

Jane first felt the spell of the two brown eyes focused upon them through a patterned veil of brush. Nervously she caught his arm; pointed. Soon a long, black-tipped nose rent the veil, sniffing through a fountain spray of vine abloom with pale blue, bell-shaped flowers.

The police dog had located them. But why the delay of his bayed alarm? A moment more and he answered for himself. With suppressed whines and insinuating wriggles there broke from the clutch of the vine none other than Kicko of the Sheepfold, his sense of duty evidently overcome by delight at the reunion.

Pape's joy transcended the Belgian's. Never had he bestowed a more fervid embrace than that which encircled the ruffed neck. Jane, too, patted their four-footed friend and bedecked his collar with a spray of the flowering vine which had been torn down by his impetuous entrance.

"Pin one of those blues roses on me," Pape asked; when she had done so, added: "Out home we call that 'matrimony vine.' I wonder whether its use here as a decoration is any sort of sign that--"

"I wonder," Jane interrupted more crisply than he would have thought possible in her wilted state, "whether Kicko will lie low like a good dog instead of a police officer while you explain about those papers you took from the judge?"

Because he believed absolutely in signs-hadn't a sign pointed his way to her?-Pape was willing to wait for the answer to his question. Indeed, he had not earned her answer until after the Granddad Lauderdale riddle had been solved. With a shrug and a sigh he took from his pocket the sheaf of brown engravings.

"These, as you may have surmised, are certificates for stock in the Montana Gusher Oil Company. See." He opened and handed her one. "They are signed with names of dummy officers, as were the others. But they are blank as to owner and number of shares-right strong evidence that the honorable Samuel is the man behind the fraud-that his fat little neck is the one I came East to wring."

Jane nodded. "I was waiting to see Aunt Helene and make sure before I told you what I suspected. You see, it was a good while ago when a salesman interested her in the stock. She was about to invest when Judge Allen interfered. Rather, he told her that he knew the stock wasn't worth the paper on which it was engraved. Except that my time has been-well, a bit full since yesterday afternoon, I'd have got the facts at once and given them to you for what they were worth. In predicaments like ours, the rule of _n.o.blesse oblige_ should hold."

"Do _we_ need rules to hold?"

Ill.u.s.tratively Pape seized with one hand the slim, ringless fingers still caressing the spray of matrimony vine-his other had a firm grip on Kicko's collar. His touch, voice and eyes were full of appreciation for her good intentions. It was hard to have such a good-or bad-memory about the absolute justness of one's desserts; hard to crush those blue bells within her pink palms and not entirely forget-She was so appealing in her languor and dependency that there seemed ample excuse for his asking the right to protect and sustain her. Looking at the matter in this tempting light of the underbrush, he might be expected to owe her an explanation of that kiss in the cab-to tell her that to him it was their betrothal.

And yet--

Although Why-Not Pape rarely questioned opportunity, there were some times and some women and some hopes-Rather roughly he dropped her hands; next offered her a memorandum which he had found folded inside the sheaf of stock-certificates-a list of names, with figures set down opposite.

"The writing is his beyond doubt-Judge Allen's," she declared after a moment's scrutiny.

"Clinches the proof of his guilt in the oil deal. It is a 'sucker list'-the names of stock biters and the price per bite. It is-" In his pause Pape gave the girl a look that was at once exultant for himself and regretful for her. "It is your family friend's ticket to the Atlanta pen."

To distract the very natural distress which he saw in her face, he forced cheer to lighten the murmur of their exchange.

"But let's get to the famous cryptogram, lost and at last regained. Now we can read it as a whole."

Allowing the jealous Belgian to wedge himself between them, Pape spread out the wrinkled sheet upon the hairy back; in guarded tones read:

List to the Nubian roar And whisper of poplars four.

They tell of bed-rock Where rests a crock Brimful of Fortune's store.

'Tis on a height The vault you'll sight Of buried might.

'Twill lead you right, Bring delight, Win the fight.

Eighteen and twelve will show The spot. Begin below.

Above the crock A block will rock, As rocks wrong's overthrow.

List, then, the Nubian roar.

List whisper of poplars four.

Climb, then, the height.

Read signs aright.

Count eighteen-twelve.

Take heart and delve.

Obey. You'll want no more.

For moments the three of them-counting Kicko-pondered in silence. Two, at least, were considering the crypt's applicability to the height of Judge Allen's selection. It seemed a possible place, except for slight discrepancies, such as the absence of any particular "roar," an uncertain number of poplars among the pines and the lack of a "vault,"

except for the rock-tomb of Pape's untimely-proved so-burial. In both the hope grew that, should they make good their escape with the incriminating evidence against the little lawyer-leader, the gang's work on the flat would be suspended until after recovery of the doc.u.ments.

Even should Allen force the search, on being freed, they were well ammunitioned for reb.u.t.tal in court.

One by one-in silence this time-Pape again scanned the enigmatic lines.

"I'm here to say," he made comment, "that granddad went in for inexpensive verse. I'd say free, except that it rhymes."

"Free? We've paid a greater price than you imagine, Peter Pape. And if all we are to gain is the unmasking of Sam Allen--"

"We're going to gain everything-more than you can imagine from the little you love me yet," he rea.s.sured her, not to mention himself. Then, again, he took himself in hand. "I, for one, am getting in something of a hurry," he tacitly apologized. "If you'll hold to our side-kick here, I'll take another scout."

As before, he wriggled over the rim of their hideout; was gone ten minutes or so; on his stealthy return made report:

"They've driven off our nags, but left a horse-cop on patrol. A pair of patrolmen are snooping along the west wall and the northwest gate is doubly guarded. The Allen pull sure has pulled fast and many, this early evening. There is nothing to it but to lie low here until night. Mighty sorry for you, precious pal. I know you're about all in. But they ain't going to pinch Miss Jane Lauderdale, of _the_ Lauderdales, twice in the same twenty-four hours-not in my extant company."

"I'm afraid they're going to have a chance." The girl caught at his arm.

"The dog-didn't he join you?"

"Kick? No. How did he get away?"

"Oh, I'm so sorry! He wrenched himself from me. I thought-I _hoped_ he only wanted to follow you. Didn't dare call out for fear--"

"Another false friend, eh? Looks like this is our day for uncovering 'em. The pup had a flea-bite of conscience, I reckon."

Jane disagreed. "Not intentionally-_please_, not Kicko! Don't make me doubt everybody. It's only that he likes a 'party.' The more the merrier is his motto, if he has one."

"And he's gone for the more?"-Pape, rather grimly. "Well, they mustn't find us here, that police 'party' of his, whatever the motive back of his invitation. The sooner we move on the safer. As a matter of fact, I'm headed for another place-a perfect hide-out. If you feel able let's be stepping lively. If you don't, I'll enjoy stepping for you-that is to say, toting you."

They started up the hillside, keeping in the brush wherever such grew, skulking low-backed across the open s.p.a.ces. Although the girl scrambled after him, evidently determined not to be a drag upon the hand to which she desperately clung with her two, she lost her footing on the rock when near the top and fell face forward. Her urgent little moan that he go on without her was denied strongly by the pair of arms that gathered her up, and clasped her like a woman, not a baby, against a heart hard-hammering from more than the violent exercise. Thus did he step for her-"tote" her to sortie's end.