Blindfolded by Earle Ashley Walcott (recommended ebook reader txt) 📕

native, pointing his thumb lazily up the road where the engine lay by the watering tank, slaking its thirst.

"Well, just let me and Lockhart walk ahead," said Fitzhugh gruffly, as we started along the track. "I shouldn't have the first idea what we was here for if you was to be knocked over."

Fitzhugh could not be much more in the dark on this point than I, but I let him have his way. If some one was to be shot, I was ready to resign my claim to the distinction in favor of the first comer.

There were perhaps a score of people about the car.

"There's Abrams," said Lockhart.

"There's no danger, then," said Fitzhugh with a grin. "See, he's beckoning to us."

We hastened forward eagerly.

"What is it?" I asked.

"There's no one here," said Abrams, with a puzzled look.

"Well, this car didn't come alone," I returned. "Have you asked the engineer?"

"Yes."

"And the fireman?"

"Yes."

"And they say--"

"That it's against the rules to talk."

"Nonsense; I'll see them myself." And I went forward to the engine.

The engineer was as close-mouthed as though words were going at a dollar apiece and the market bounding upward. He declined dinner, could not be induced to come and take a drink, and all that could be got out of him was that he was going back to Niles, where he would stop until he got orders from the superintendent.

When I tried to question the fireman, the engineer recovered his tongue, and had so many orders to be attended to that my words were lost in a rattle of coal and clang of iron.

And the engine, having drunk its fill, changed its labored breathing to a hissing and swishing of steam that sent the hot vapor far on both sides, and then gathering speed, puffed its swift way back the road by which it had come, leaving the car deserted on a siding.

"Here's a go!" cried Fitzhugh. "A regular puzzler!"

"Guess it's none of the gang, after all," said Lockhart.

Abrams shook his head.

"Don't you fool yourself," he said. "They've landed below here, and maybe they're in town while we've got our mouths open, fly-catching around an empty car."

"Good boy, Abrams," I said. "My opinion exactly."

"And what's to be done, then?" he asked anxiously.

"For the first thing, to visit the telegraph office at once."

The operator was just locking his little room in the station as we came up.

"No, sir, no telegrams," he said; "none for anybody."

"This is a new way of running trains," I said with a show of indifference, nodding toward the empty car.

"Oh, there was a party came up," said the agent; "a dozen fellows or more. Bill said they took a fancy to get off a mile or more down here, and as they were an ugly-looking crew he didn't say anything to stop them."

"I don't see what they can be doing up in this part of the country," I returned innocently.

"I guess they know their business--anyway, it's none of mine," said the agent. "Do you go in here, sir? Well, it will save you from a wetting."

We had been walking toward the hotel, and the chatty agent left us under its veranda just as the light drops began to patter down in the dust of the road, and to dim the outlines of the distant hills.

"I reckon that's the gang," said Fitzhugh.

"I told you so," said Abrams. "I knew it was one of Tom Terrill's sneaky tricks."

"Shall we take a look for 'em?" asked Lockhart.

"There's no need," I replied.

The home guard of our party received the news calmly.

Wainwright had established a _modus vivendi_ with his young charge, and I saw that he managed to get a word out of him now and then. I had to abandon the theory that the boy was dumb, but I suspected that it was fear rather than discretion that bridled his tongue.

"Do you think the gang have got into town?" asked one.

"They'll have wet jackets if they are on the road," I returned, looking at the rain outside.

"Hadn't we better find out?" inquired Wainwright.

"Are you in a hurry?" I asked in turn. "The landlord has promised to send up a good dinner in a few minutes."

"But you see--"

"Yes, I see," I interrupted. "I see this--that they are here, that there are a dozen or more of them, and that they are ready for any deviltry. What more can we find out by roaming over the country?"

Wainwright nodded his agreement with me.

"And then," I continued, "they won't try to do anything until after dark--not before the middle of the night, I should say--or until the townspeople have gone to bed."

"You're right, sir," said Abrams. "A dark night and a clear field suits that gang best."

"Well, here's the dinner," said I; "so you can make yourselves easy. Porter, you may keep an eye on the stairway, and Brown may watch from the windows. The rest of us will fall to."

In the midst of the meal Porter came in.

"Darby Meeker's in the office below," he announced.

"Very good," I said. "Just take Fitzhugh and Wilson with you, and ask Mr. Meeker to join us."

The men looked blank. Porter was the first to speak.

"You don't mean--"

"I mean to bring him up here," I said blandly, rising from the table. "I suppose, though, it's my place as host to do the honors."

"No--no," came in chorus from the men.

"Come on, Porter--Fitzhugh--Wilson," I said; and then added sharply, "sit down, the rest of you! We don't need a regiment to ask a man to dinner."

The others sank back into their seats, and the three I had named followed me meekly down the hall and stairs.

I had never had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Meeker face to face, but I doubted not that I should be able to pick him out. I was right. I knew him the moment I saw him. He was tall and broad of shoulder, long of arm, shifty of eye, and his square jaw was covered with a stubby red beard. His color heightened as we walked into the office and cut off the two doors of retreat.

"An unexpected pleasure," I said, giving him good day.

His hand slipped to the side pocket of his sack coat, and then back again, and he made a remark in an undertone that I fear was not intended for a pleasant greeting.

"There's a little dinner of a few friends going on up stairs," I said politely. "Won't you join us?"

Meeker scowled a moment with evident surprise.

"No, I won't," he growled.

"But it is a sad case for a man to dine alone," I said smoothly. "You will be very welcome."

"No, sir," said he, looking furtively at my men drawing near, between him and the doors.

"But I insist," I said politely. Then I added in a lower tone meant for him alone: "Resist, you hound, and I'll have you carried up by your four legs."

His face was working with fear and passion. He looked at the blocked way with the eye of a baited animal.

"I'll be damned first!" he cried. And seizing a chair he whirled around, dashed it through a window, and leaped through the jagged panes before I could spring forward to stop him.

"Round in front, men!" I cried, motioning my followers to sally through the door. "Bring him back!" And an instant later I leaped through the window after the flying enemy.

There was a fall of six feet, and as I landed on a pile of broken glass, a bit shaken, with the rain beating on my head, it was a few seconds before I recovered my wits. When I looked, no one was in sight. I heard the men running on the porch of the hotel, so the enemy was not to be sought that way. I set off full speed for the other corner, fifty yards away, half suspecting an ambush. But at the turn I stopped. The rain-soaked street was empty for a block before me. Far down the next block a plodding figure under an umbrella bent to the gusts of the wind and tried to ward off the driving spray of the storm. But Darby Meeker had disappeared as though the earth had swallowed him up.

"Where is he?" cried Porter, the first of my men to reach my side.

I shrugged my shoulders. "I haven't seen him."

"He didn't come our way--that I'll swear," panted Fitzhugh.

"He was out of sight before I got my feet," said I. "They must have a hiding-place close by."

"He must have jumped the fence here," said Wilson, pointing to a cottage just beyond the hotel's back yard. "I'll see about it." And he vaulted the pickets and looked about the place.

He was back in a minute with a shake of the head.

"Well, it's no great matter," I said. "We can get along without another guest for the afternoon. Now get under cover, boys, or you'll be soaked through."

The landlord met us with an air half-anxious, half-angry.

"I'd like to know who's to pay for this!" he cried. "There's a sash and four panes of glass gone to smithereens."

"The gentleman who just went out will be glad to pay for it, if you'll call it to his attention," I said blandly.

"I'll have the law on him!" shouted the landlord, getting red in the face. "And if he's a friend of yours you'd better settle for him, or it will be the worse for him."

"I'm afraid he isn't a friend of mine," I said dubiously. "He didn't appear to take that view of it."

"That's so," admitted the landlord. "But I don't know his name, and somebody's got to settle for that glass."

I obliged the landlord with Mr. Meeker's name, and with the bestowal of this poor satisfaction returned to the interrupted meal.

"Well, I reckon he wouldn't have been very pleasant company if you'd got him," said one of the men consolingly, when we had told our tale of the search for a guest.

"I suspect he would be less disagreeable in here than out with his gang," I returned dryly, and turned the subject. I did not care to discuss my plan to get a hostage now that it had failed.

The gray day plashed slowly toward nightfall. The rain fell by fits and starts, now with a sudden dash, now gently as though it were only of half a mind to fall at all. But the wind blew strong, and the clouds that drove up from the far south were dark enough to have borne threats of a coming deluge.

As the time wore on I suspected that my men grew uneasy, wondering what we were there for, and why I did not make some move. Then I reflected that this could not be. It was I who was wondering. The men were accustomed to let me do their thinking for them, and could be troubled no more here than in San Francisco. But what was I expected to do? Where could my orders be? Had they gone astray? Had the