Kitabı oku: «Dorothy Dixon Solves the Conway Case», sayfa 4
Chapter VII
RAVEN ROCKS
Bill Bolton dropped one of the gasoline tins he was carrying and grasping the other with both hands, hurled its heavy bulk at the stranger. The tin caught the man full in the chest.
As he staggered back, Dorothy felt herself seized from behind. A quick twist and pull sent her antagonist hurtling off to the right. It was not for nothing she had put in long hours mastering the complicated throws and holds of jiu jitsu, that strenuous art of Japanese wrestling.
She freed herself in time to see Bill crash his fist into the face of a third man.
“Come on!” he yelled, and they raced for the line of trees.
But their troubles were not over yet. Straight ahead and directly in their path, another dark figure was leaping toward them. There was no time to dodge – to swerve. Bill dove at the man, stopping him short and bringing him to the ground with a clean tackle just above his knees. The force of contact was terrific. For the fraction of a second neither the tackler nor his opponent moved. Then as Dorothy, trembling with excitement, bent over them, Bill scrambled to his feet.
“Are you hurt, Bill?” The girl’s voice was breathless with concern.
“No – only winded – ” he gasped. “Be all right – in a minute.”
Dorothy gripped him by the arm and they trotted forward again, gradually increasing their speed as Bill regained his breath. From behind them came the calls and angry shouts of their pursuers.
All at once, the inky black blur of the woods loomed before them.
“Keep along the edge of this pasture toward the wood road,” Dorothy whispered quickly. “I’m going to start a false trail. Maybe we can fool them. You get your breath – join you in a minute or two.”
She sprang into the underbrush, crashing over low bushes, snapping dead twigs and branches under foot with all the clatter of a terrified cow in a cane brake. Then the noise stopped as suddenly as it started, and Bill was surprised to hear her light footsteps at his heels.
“I want ’em to think we’re hiding in there,” she explained hurriedly. “Can you run now?”
“You bet!”
They sped along the edge of the wood, spurred by the thought that the ruse would delay their pursuers and perhaps throw them off the trail altogether. From their rear came the sound of a rough voice issuing commands. Men were beating the underbrush, cursing in the darkness.
Both Dorothy and Bill had got their second wind and were running much more easily now. Then Dorothy tripped on the uneven ground and would have fallen had not Bill thrust out a steadying hand.
“Thanks,” she said jerkily as she ran. “Look over my shoulder. Lights back there.”
“Wonder they didn’t use ’em before,” was Bill’s only comment.
Dorothy slowed down to a fast walk and Bill also slackened his pace.
“We must be nearly there,” she panted, “though since we had to drop the gasoline, there doesn’t seem much use hiking over to the plane.”
Bill nodded in the darkness. “Think we’d better get back to the house?”
“Yes; they’ll never see us, especially now that they’ve got their flashlights going – that glare will blind them. I vote we keep on along the valley until we pass the wood road, then swing across this pasture again and up the hill till we strike the road. That will take us back to the Conway place and – ”
“Look!” Bill’s exclamation arrested her, but his warning was unnecessary. Far above, a sudden rift in the clouds brought a full moon into view. The woods, the open pasture and the steep hill down which they had traveled almost blindly a few minutes before were now bathed in clear, silvery light as bright as day. As they dashed forward again, a shout from behind told them they had been seen.
“Stop or we’ll fire!”
“There’s the trail, Bill – it’s our only chance!”
Men were calling to each other behind them and she caught the sound of heavy feet pounding along in their wake. As she and Bill turned into the wood road and sped down its winding stretches under the arch of intertwining boughs, a revolver cracked several times in quick succession. Overhead, the bullets went screaming through the branches.
“Shooting high to scare us,” wheezed Bill. “’Fraid we’re running into a dead end.”
“Maybe not – this moonlight won’t last – clouds too heavy.”
Dorothy wasted no more breath in speech. Her every effort was centered in keeping up with the long legged young fellow who seemed to cover the ground so easily and at such an amazing rate of speed.
Presently they swept out of the wagon-trail and into the glaring moonlight of the woodlot. Shouts and calls from their pursuers but a short distance behind now, lent wings to their feet. At the far end of the open space, Dorothy’s amphibian lay parked where she had left it.
“Not that way!” warned Bill and caught her arm as she started to swing toward the airplane. “Straight ahead!”
There was no time for argument. Dorothy swerved and dashed across the lot, following his lead. Straight ahead lay a narrow belt of woods which ended abruptly in precipitous cliffs towering upward almost perpendicularly for several hundred feet to the top of the ridge. What Bill’s plan might be, she could not guess. Those sheer palisades certainly could not be scaled. What could his objective be? If they turned up or down the valley the enemy would be sure to hear them tracking through the thick underbrush. And there would be no chance of outflanking the pursuit, for the men were between them and the Conway house.
She and Bill were trapped at last – trapped by walls of rock and the encompassing passing ring of the enemy.
They reached the farther edge of the field where a hurried glance behind showed them that the men were plunging out of the wood road. Then the moon, perhaps ashamed of the trouble he had brought them, swam away behind another cloud formation, and once again the world was sunk in darkness.
Bill’s fingers gripped her hand.
“Follow me. Walk carefully and hold your arm before your face. It’s a case of feel our way till we get used to the gloom – and there’s no sense in losing an eye.”
He led onward through the wood and although Dorothy could see nothing but an opaque blackness before her eyes, Bill never hesitated in his stride. With his hand behind his back, he pulled her forward as though guided by an uncanny knowledge of invisible obstructions in their path.
“How do you do it?” she marveled. “Don’t tell me you can actually see to dodge these branches and tree trunks?”
She heard him chuckle.
“Not see– feel. I learned the trick in the Florida swamps last summer. Osceola, chief of the Seminoles, taught me.”
“Oh, yes! He’s a wonder in the woods. How is it done?”
“Tell you sometime. Here we are – at the Stone Hill River. You’ll have to get your feet wetter, I’m afraid, but it’s only a small stream, not deep. We turn right, here.”
“Golly, it’s cold!” Dorothy splashed into the water behind him.
“Brrr – I know it. Lift your feet high or you’ll fall over these boulders. And please try to make as little noise as possible.”
From the direction of the woodlot came a prodigious crashing and threshing. The pursuit had gained the woods.
“Noise!” she said scornfully, floundering along in his wake. “Those thugs can’t hear me – they’re making too much racket themselves. I suppose, Bill, you’re working on a plan, but what it can be is a mystery to me.”
“You mean – where we’re bound for?”
“Yes. We can’t get back to the big pasture and the hill up to Stoker’s house. They’ll head off any play of that kind.”
“I know that. Stand still a minute, I want to listen.”
“But Bill – ”
“Sh – yes, that must be it!”
“Must be what?” There was impatience in Dorothy’s tone.
“The waterfall I was trying to find.”
“You don’t mean to tell me you’re planning to crawl behind a waterfall and hide! Honestly, Bill, I – ”
“Oh, nothing like that,” he answered coolly, “the fall isn’t big enough.”
“Look here, will you please– ”
“All right, calm yourself. We haven’t much time but I guess they’ve lost our trail for the time being. On the way over here in the car, Terry told me something of the lay of the land. He’s crazy about hiking, you know, and mountain climbing. He’s walked all over the reservation and he knows it like his own back yard.”
“Yes, yes, what of it?”
“Well, Terry told me that there is just one possible way to get out of this Stony Hill River Valley on this side. That is, unless one goes a mile or two up or down the valley. There are entrances to the reservation at either end – dirt roads that cross from the concrete turnpike over to this ridge above us.”
“But there is a way out?”
“Yes. A sort of trail up the cliffs. It’s not marked on the map of the reservation. Terry found it last summer. Pretty tough going even in daylight, I guess.”
“But how on earth can we find it in the dark?”
“Terry told me that a smaller stream flowed into this creek at just about this point, and that it drops into the river gully by way of a low waterfall. It was the sound of that fall I was listening for. Hear it just over there to the right?”
“What’s the next move?”
“We turn our backs on the waterfall, and cross this stream. The trail starts in a kind of open chimney in the foot of the cliffs. The map calls these young precipices Raven Rocks, by the way. If you think it is too dangerous, we can let those chaps catch us. They’ll probably let us go soon enough. They’re trailing the wrong party, though they haven’t realized it. What do you say?” Bill’s tone was non-committal.
“I know, they took you for Stoker Conway. But don’t you see, Bill – ” her tone was firm, “they must not find out their mistake. While they’re tracking us, they will leave the Conway house alone, and that’ll give Terry and Stoker a chance to hunt for the book and the letter.”
Bill’s reply was flippant, but there was a note of relief in his voice. “Chance to get a good night’s rest, you mean!”
“They’re not going to bed – ” Dorothy pulled her companion toward the opposite bank of the stream. “Terry told me so.”
“Thank goodness we’re out of that,” she exclaimed a moment later as they climbed the steep side of the gully. “If there’s anything colder than a trout stream, I’ve yet to find it. I’m soaked nearly to my waist – how about you?”
“Ditto. We’ll be warm enough presently – just as soon as we hit Raven Rocks.”
“Wish we had raven’s wings – we could use ’em!”
“Listen!” Bill stopped suddenly in his tracks.
“Don’t say that,” she whispered – “reminds me of old man Lewis!”
“They’re coming this way. I guess they got tired of beating the woods for us. Take my hand again. We’ve got to find that chimney.”
They went perhaps ten paces more when Bill brought up short again.
“Here’s the cliff – wait where you are – be back in a minute.”
He drew his fingers from her clasp and she heard him move off. Standing in utter darkness she could hear the men splashing toward them along the shallow river bed, and still others tramping through the woods with flashing lights that moved nearer every second.
Not once did her alert mind question the advisability of trying to scale Raven Rocks on a coal-black night. Not once did she waste a thought on the danger of that perilous enterprise. Dorothy Dixon never counted the cost when it was to help a friend. Her entire attention was centered on their pursuers. Who they were, or why they sought George and his letter were points of little consequence now. All that mattered was that they be kept on their search for as many hours as possible.
Presently they would come abreast and their lights would pick her out at the foot of the cliff. The sopping skirt of her frock sagged about her knees, dank and clammy beneath her slicker. She gathered it in her hands and squeezed what water she could from it, more for want of something to do than for any other reason.
No longer could she hear Bill stumbling about. What could have happened to him? The lights were only a dozen yards away now. In another minute or two their glare would pick her up for a certainty.
For the first time that evening, Dorothy became fidgety. Bill had told her to remain here. That was an order, and must be obeyed. But – oh! if Bill would only come!
Chapter VIII
THE CHIMNEY
Then on her right she heard a soft rustling, immediately followed by a low call:
“Dorothy, where are you?”
The words brought her joyous relief. “Coming!” she replied in a cautious whisper, and with her left hand feeling the almost sheer wall, she hurried toward Bill’s voice.
From the darkness he grasped her hand and spoke close to her ear. “I’ve located the chimney, Dorothy.”
“Good! I was getting worried. Is it far away?”
“No. Only a few steps.”
“What kept you so long, Bill?”
“Had to find the rope.”
“What rope?”
They were moving now in the direction from which he had come.
“The one Terry hid in a niche of the rocks. Talk of hunting needles in a – ”
“But do we need it?”
“Couldn’t risk the climb without it. You’ve never done any mountain scaling – I have.”
“Well, what’s the dope?”
They had stopped and Bill took her arm. “Here – let me knot this end around your waist. First, ditch the slicker, though. You won’t be able to climb in that. I’ll take care of it for the present.”
He took her coat and she felt him make the rope secure.
“I’m tied to the other end,” he told her.
“But what’ll you do about my slicker, Bill? If we ever get to the top of the ridge, I’ll need it.”
Bill was busy and didn’t answer for a moment. Then – “Your coat and mine are rolled up and lashed to my back,” he explained. “I’m going first. I know more about this kind of thing than you, and my reach is longer. May have to pull you up the hard places. Don’t be afraid to put weight on the rope when I give the word. But if you slip – yell.”
He did not say that a slip on her part would in all probability pull him with her to crash on the rocky ground below. Bill Bolton did not believe in being an alarmist, but she understood just the same.
“Thanks, I’ll do my best, Bill.”
“Start climbing.” His voice came from above her head and she felt a jerk on the rope. “This chimney is a fissure in the cliff, and it slants slightly upward, thank goodness. Reach above and get handholds on the rock projections first. Then pull yourself up, until you find a foothold. When you put your weight on your feet, press your legs against the side walls. That will keep you from slipping. Take it easy and rest as much as you like. This kind of thing can only be done slowly.”
“I’m coming,” Dorothy said quietly and she pressed her body into the niche she could not see.
“That’s the stuff! I’ll rest while you climb. And while you’re doing it, I’ll keep the rope taut and out of your way.”
Dorothy was silent. Groping in the darkness above her head, her fingers came in contact with a rough projection. It was little more than a small knob in the rocky side of the chimney, but she managed to get a firm grip on it with her right hand. Her left found another projection slightly lower on the other side. She exerted all her strength and slithered upward.
Drawing her knees up she sought rests for her feet on the sides, but the rock seemed absolutely smooth. For an instant she was at a loss. Then remembering Bill’s advice, she pressed her legs against the chimney walls and pushed.
That her body moved upward so easily came as a surprise. It was hard to realize that sheer walls would give such a purchase. Almost at once her shoulders were above the hand holds and she could raise herself by pressing downward until her left knee was planted on the same projection that she had gripped with that hand.
Braced firmly against the rock, she looked for higher hand holds, found them and soon was able to get her left foot on to the place where her knee had been. With her weight on that foot, it became a simple matter to plant her right in the opposite niche. Straightening her body, she lay forward against the slanting cliff and rested.
“Go ahead, Bill,” she called in a low voice as soon as she could speak.
“O.K., kid,” came the prompt reply from overhead. “On my way.”
Pressed against the wet rockface she could hear the scrape of his boots and the heavy breathing of muscular strain. Her own thin soled shoes were sodden from the wet of the woods and pasture. Worse still, the leather was bursting at the sides. And this climb would probably complete their ruin. By the time she reached the top, they would be beyond walking in at all. Never again would she board her plane shod in pumps.
“Come along!”
Bill interrupted her soliloquy, and using the same tactics as before she continued to climb.
The first drops of rain she had felt at the bottom of the cliff now increased to a steady downpour. Dorothy became soaked to the skin. Water from her leather helmet ran down her forehead, forcing her to keep her eyes closed most of the time.
The cliff, wet and slippery from the preceding storm, was soon slick as a greased slide. Twice she lost her foothold and would have fallen had not her sharp cry warned Bill in time. How he managed to stick to his precarious perch and bear her weight on the rope until she found a grip on the rock again was more than she could fathom. Each time she slipped her heart almost stopped beating. And the horrible emptiness at the pit of her stomach made her feel deathly ill. But she never wholly lost her nerve. Climbing, then resting, she kept steadily on.
But her strenuous exertions and the almost continuous strain on muscles ordinarily little used was wearing down her vitality. Would this terrible climbing in the dark never end, she thought. Her whole body ached, her arms and legs felt heavy as lead. Wearily she raised her right hand seeking another hold. When she felt Bill’s fingers grasp her own, she started. The shock very nearly caused her to lose balance.
“Now your other paw,” said his well-known voice somewhere above in the gloom. “That’s the way – up you come.”
Then before she really understood what was happening, Dorothy was dragged higher until she was seated beside Bill on a narrow ledge. His right arm held her tightly. He was puffing like a grampus.
She wriggled and wiped the water and perspiration from her eyes with a wet, clammy hand.
“Sit tight – old girl,” Bill’s words came in little jerks. “I know you’re used to altitudes in a plane, but this is different. I guess you’ll get a shock when you look below, so – steady.”
Dorothy opened her eyes and was glad of his supporting arm. Far below, at the foot of the cliff, pinpoints of light moved hither and yon, puncturing the darkness.
“They know we’re somewhere up here,” he said softly. “Heard you when you slipped, I dare say. Well, we’ll take some finding – and that’s no lie,” he chuckled.
“Why – I – I – had no idea we’d come so far,” she stammered. “Those lights look miles away.”
“Three or four hundred feet, that’s all.”
“Funny – it makes me almost dizzy to look down there. You’re right – it is different from flying altitude. Bill, do you think they’ll find the chimney?”
“Maybe. But they’re not likely to try to use it – not tonight, anyway.”
“Why not? We did it.”
“We were sure of a way up – they aren’t. And I don’t imagine they bargained for any blind climb up cliffs like these in the rain and darkness. They wouldn’t mind slugging one of us with a sand bag, but when it comes to real danger, they’d count themselves out.”
“Gee,” Dorothy giggled nervously. “I wish I’d been able to!”
“Count yourself out? Well, I don’t blame you, kid. Nerve-wracking isn’t the name for it. But you certainly stood up well. Do you feel able to go on now?”
“Yes, I suppose so.” Her reply was rather weak.
“Then we’d better get under way. Terry said the chimney was the worst of it and we are through with that now. It ends at this ledge.” He helped her to her feet. “Brrr – that wind is cold on wet clothes. If we don’t get moving, we’ll cop a dose of pneumonia, sure as shooting!”
“You’re a nice, thoughtful fella, Bill,” Dorothy smiled grimly in his direction. “Trouble is your thoughtfulness is oddly strenuous at times. Is there much farther to go?”
“We’re more than half way,” he assured her, “and from now on you’ll get more walking than climbing.”
Dorothy wanted to laugh but was too tired to do so.
“Lead on, MacDuffer,” she cried gamely. “I’m lame, halt and blind, but I’ll do my best to follow my chief!”
“Atta girl,” he commended. “Give us your paw again, we can travel better that way.”
“We’ll travel, all right – that is, unless our friend Terry is a dyed-in-the-wool fabricator.”
“Hopefully not, as they say in the Fatherland,” he chuckled. He caught her hand in his and they started on a climb up the steep hill that ran back from the ledge.
As Bill had predicted, the going here was not nearly so difficult as it had been in the chimney. So far as Dorothy could tell, the cliffs, which were covered with a grass-grown rubble, sloped in at this point, and at a much easier angle of ascent. Whereas the chimney was almost perpendicular, here, by bending forward and aiding progress with occasional handholds on bushes and rocky outcroppings, it was possible to do more than merely creep forward.
A slip, of course, would be dangerous. It would be hard to stop rolling, once started down the incline; and unless a bush or a boulder were conveniently in the way, a bound over the ledge would be inevitable – and then oblivion.
She did not like to think about it. Bill guided her up the incline and did so with uncanny accuracy, considering the darkness, and the fact that he had not travelled this trail before. She came to the conclusion that the worst was over, when he stopped abruptly.
“Sit down and take it easy,” he advised. “This is where I’ve got to see what we’re doing.”
“Surely you’re not going to show a light?” she asked in alarm, and sank down on the rocky ground.
“Have to,” was his quick reply. “Those guys below us know we’re up here, so what does it matter?”
“But I thought we were almost at the top.”
“Almost, but not quite. Look at that!”
A beam of light shot upward from his torch, and turning her head, she saw a sight that sent her heart down to the very tips of her ragged, soaking pumps.
They had indeed come to the top; but merely to the top of this steep hillside of bushes and rubble. Where this ended, a few feet away, the naked rock towered almost perpendicular. Forty feet or more from its base this wall jutted sharply outward, half that distance again.
She sprang to her feet, an exclamation of dismay on her lips.
This rock canopy above their heads, this absolutely unscalable barrier to their hopes extended in both directions so far as the eye could see.
Bill, who had moved several feet downhill, was flashing his light back and forth along the rugged edge of this roof of rock beneath which she stood.
“How far does it go?” she asked in a small voice.
“According to Terry,” he replied, “right to where the cliffs end – both ways – and without a break or a tunnel. But you can’t walk along underneath very far, because this slant we are on is only forty or fifty yards wide. Beyond it in either direction there’s a sheer drop.”
“Then – we’re out of luck.” Her tone was entirely hopeless.
Bill laughed shortly. “Where Terry got down, we can get up – but it’s not going to be easy – and that’s sure fire!”
