Chapter IX: Red Goes Into Action

All his life Red Rodgers had been trained for action. In the steel mills there come times when men are divided into two classes, the quick and the dead. Red was not dead. The instant that piercing cry, coming from the opposite shore, reached his ears, he was alert, ready to act. His hand, already on the side of the rowboat, relaxed.

“Oars creak,” he murmured.

Across the dark pool rested a canoe. He was there in a flash, canoe in the water, paddle in place.

“But a weapon!”

He was, of course, unarmed. As his eyes roved about in that narrow space, they fell upon a pike pole. With a stout eight-foot handle and a steel point it was a weapon of a sort, spear or club, whichever he might choose. Reaching for this, he placed it without a sound in the canoe.

Then he slid out into the silent night. The wind, he found, was growing stronger. It chilled him through. “Be warm enough soon.” He set his teeth grimly.

Waves sweeping in from somewhere down the channel threatened to overturn his fragile craft. He handled it with skill. Great black banks of cloud came rolling across the sky. The darkness was intense; yet he knew his direction. He pressed forward—to what? He could not say.

“If it’s a fight, it will be a good one.” His hands grasped the paddle with a grip of steel. “God is on the side of the fellow who fights for the right. There’s nothing right about men who carry away innocent girls and then demand a reward for their return!”

He was sending the canoe forward with strong, sweeping strokes. Now he judged himself to be halfway across, now two-thirds. His pulse quickened. Had he heard a sound? Some one moving?

A question came suddenly into his mind. He ceased paddling. How should he come upon them? In the canoe? He’d be knocked into the water, first pop. Better to land below, then creep upon them.

“Six inches of moss everywhere. I’ll make no sound.”

He changed his course. The canoe shot away.

He beached his canoe among alder bushes, then, pike pole in hand, crept forward. Holding his breath he parted bushes here, crossed a log there, climbed over a moss-covered boulder, then paused to listen. No sound save the rush of water against rocky shores. Boo! How cold it was! How the clouds raced! Going to snow.

“Should be about there,” he told himself, and his pulse pounded.

Ten more steps on the yielding moss, and again he paused. “Just one or two more trees.” A black old spruce stood before him. “Just one or two, and then—”

But what was that? A voice? Some one humming low? Yes, there it was!

“Oh, bury me not on the lone prairee, where the coyotes howl ee-e—”

The song trailed off into nothing.

He stood there too astounded to move. The voice was that of a girl.

“It must be that girl, Berley Todd. But she—she screamed.”

Having regained his power of motion, he rounded the spruce tree’s spreading branches.

And then the moon rolled out from behind a cloud.

What he saw held him spellbound. There stood the girl, her graceful figure swathed in dew-drenched clothing, her face scanning the black waters as she still sang:

“Oh, bury me not on the lone prairee—”

A gasp of astonishment from his lips startled her. She turned with the suddenness of a frightened deer. Then, as she saw his figure outlined against the spruce tree, she cried:

“It is you! I’m glad. I’m drenched with the dews of Heaven. I’m frozen to a statue. Please, let’s hurry!”

Red said never a word. In response to her request he hurried. Five minutes had not passed when their canoe bumped on the other shore. They skirted the boat house, rounded a long low cabin and at last reached a door.

The door, which was fastened, yielded to Red’s sturdy shoulder. Then they were inside.

“Oh-o!” the girl breathed. “How warm it seems! As if there were a fire.”

“There will be soon.”

Red flashed his torch about the room. A large fireplace, built of channel rocks, was just before him. As if they had been expected, the fire was laid, and a box of safety matches lay on the rustic mantel.

A match flared, a slow yellow flame mounted higher and higher and filled the room with light.

“Oh!” the girl cried suddenly. “You are the Red Rover? I—I’m glad!”

“That’s what they call me.” Red did not smile. “I—I’m sorry.”

“Sorry! Why are you sorry?”

“Sorry that you know. I’d rather be plain Red Rodgers who works in a steel mill and has ambitions of his own to become a foreman or a steel tester, or something like that.”

She looked at him in a puzzled way. Then her mood changed.

“Do you know, I believe you’re wet. See! You are making puddles on the floor. And I—I’m sort of dampish myself.”

“We’ll have a look about,” said Red.

Fifteen minutes later they returned to the fire. The girl had garbed herself in patched knickers a size too large, and a flaming red jacket. Red wore a mechanic’s coveralls.

And now he said: “Perhaps you will tell me why you screamed.”

* * * * * * * *

But what of Drew Lane and Tom Howe? And who was the one who stood banging on their door at dawn?

You will be surprised when I tell you it was none other than our old friend, Johnny Thompson. Johnny was not in the habit of banging on doors at dawn. At this moment, however, his business was urgent.

“Just saw the Chief,” he panted. “He sent me over hot-foot with a message for you. He says you are to get those kidnapers without delay and return the Red Rover to his squad.”

“That right?” Drew Lane arched his brows. “Didn’t tell you where we’d be likely to find these kidnapers, did he?”

“He did, and he didn’t,” Johnny replied shortly. Being young and only an amateur detective, he held the Chief of Police in great respect. For that matter, so did Drew Lane.

“The Chief says,” Johnny went on after swallowing hard, “that ‘the public is already aroused. Why couldn’t they have snatched a senator or a governor instead of the greatest football star of the age?’ That’s what he said.

“There wasn’t much time for saying anything.” Johnny’s excitement grew. “Telephone jangling all the time. Newspaper men, university professors, rich graduates, and all the little fellows who’ve bought tickets for Soldiers’ Field to see the Red Rover rove—all calling at once and demanding that something be done!

“The Chief says you are to raid these places.” He passed a slip of paper to Drew. “Suspected of kidnaping—the gangs that hang out in these places.”

“Not without good reason,” Drew grumbled. “You’d think—”

The telephone rang. Drew snatched the receiver. “Sergeant Lane speaking.”

He listened a moment, then:

“No, Chief. Just got the message. We’ll get those raids off at once.... Yes, some evidence—a bed sheet....

“No—no marks. Bullet, and some shavings....

“Seize all guns, oh, sure! How about jack-knives?...

“Not customary? Not against the rules, is it?... A pocketknife is a weapon?... Thought so. All right, I’ll collect ’em.”

Johnny thought he heard the Chief grumble something about “fool college kids collecting pocket knives.” Then Drew hung up.

“Well,” Drew drawled, “time for a cup of coffee and a plate of hots; then we’ve got to get out and give the public a great thrill by bringing those kidnapers right in.”

“It won’t be as easy as that, will it?” Johnny asked.

“Not by a whole lot! The Red Rover must be in his place on the gridiron of Soldiers’ Field when the big game starts or the Police Department is forever disgraced.”

“It’s worse than that,” Johnny put in solemnly. “The Chief says it means his job and yours if we fail.”

“We? Are you with us?” Drew looked at the boy detective hopefully.

“To the bitter end!” Johny grinned. “Never had less of other things to do, and never wanted to do anything quite so much as to help find the Red Rover.

“Think what it means!” he enthused. “Think what sort of fellow the Red Rover is. None of your rich man’s pampered sons! A steel mill worker, that’s what he was. But he’s a student as well as a star. Been leading his class in chemistry and math. Been working his way, too. They say Marmon, the big meat packer, offered to pay his way. He’s a graduate of Old Midway. But Red turned him down; said it wasn’t his idea of good sportsmanship, nor the idea of the Grand Old Man’s. Said he was going on his own.

“And he has. Three years. Steel mill worker in summer, hotel clerk in winter. Who wouldn’t hunt for a chap like that?

“Never had the swell-head either. Always pushing the other fellows ahead of himself when he could. They say he has practically refused to take a play through on more than one occasion when he considered the game won. Insisted on the other chaps having a chance at a touchdown. Went in for interference instead and did double duty. Who wouldn’t want to go out and help get some dirty crook who’s snatched a chap like that? What did they want him for? Revenge, or to get a wad of filthy greenbacks?”

“Bravo!” Quiet Tom Howe sprang to his feet and clapped his hands. “Bravo! That’s a grand oration! I could go to work now without my coffee.

“And, by George, I will! Come on in here, Johnny. I want you to help me try a thing out.” Tucking under his arm the bed sheet he had taken from the Red Rover’s car berth, he disappeared inside his cubby-hole of a laboratory. Johnny followed.

“I’ll bring up a can of coffee and some doughnuts,” Drew called.

“O. K.” was the muffled answer.