Chapter XXIII: A Visit in the Night

As Johnny Thompson returned to Drew Lane’s room in the early evening of that day, he found himself now in a mood of high exaltation and now in one of deep depression. He felt that he had, half by good fortune and half by earnest endeavor, come close to the solution of a crime that had filled the front pages of the nation’s press for days. At the same time he found the accusing hand of Fate pointing straight at a friend.

To Johnny friendship was a sacred thing. He worshiped often at the altar of friendship. To his friends he gave his utmost in loyalty and devotion. Never until now had he asked himself the question: “What am I to do if one of these friends proves unworthy of this loyalty and devotion?” There had been no need. But now—

“There’s the matter of the jimmy bar found in the speed boat,” he told himself gloomily. “There is the shoe that made the invisible footprint on the sheet. There is the wrist-watch band studded with green stones from Isle Royale. There is that place down by the river front from which I was ejected. Ejected!” He chuckled at this. They had put him out of the place, right enough. But he had done plenty to them after that, those two bouncers. “Yes,” he sighed, “it sure looks bad!”

He was relieved to find that both Drew and Tom were away. Letting himself in by a key Drew had given him, he dropped into a chair and for a full half hour sat there alone in the dark, thinking; and those were long, long thoughts.

“After all,” he sighed, as at last he sat up in his chair, “one’s first duty is to his nation and her laws, to the whole community and not to one individual who has gone wrong.”

At this he switched on a light and began to write. When he had finished he placed on Drew Lane’s desk a concise statement of all that had come under his observation regarding the kidnaping of the Red Rover. To this he attached a single newspaper clipping. He had found this after hours of search in a humble sheet which bore the name “Mining Gazette.” This paper was published in a small city far up on the North Peninsula of Michigan. The clipping read:

MYSTERIOUS PLANE HEARD OVER ISLE ROYALE

_Pierre LeBlanc, the head lighthouse keeper on Passage Island, four
miles off Isle Royale, reports by radio this morning that late in the
night he heard the drum of an airplane motor in the direction of Isle
Royale. It is his belief that the plane landed in one of the bays or
harbors of the island. Whether it took off later, he was unable to
tell._

_Since the only persons on the island are a fisherman or two and a
care-taker at Rock Harbor Lodge, the reason for this mysterious landing
will not soon be known._

“Drew,” Johnny wrote after pinning the clipping to a sheet of paper, “this newspaper was printed the day after the Red Rover’s disappearance. I have stated all the facts as I have them, and leave you to draw your own conclusions.

“Here also is an envelope containing some shavings. Have Tom examine them. They may have been made by the knife he has been seeking.

“One thing more. I found the picture of your friend of the scar and the fiery eye in the Rogues’ Gallery. Can’t be any mistake. He is Bat Morgan. His home is in St. Louis. That is probably why you did not find him when you really wanted him.”

After scribbling “Johnny” after this note, he dropped a paper weight on it, pulled his cap down over his eyes, caught an elevator and was soon out in the cool air of night.

* * * * * * * *

“I wonder!” There was a look of longing in Berley’s eyes as she stared at Ed’s half burned out fire. “Wonder if we dare venture out into the night.”

“Why?” The scout shot her a glance.

“I was thinking of our summer home. Do you have the key?”

“Yes.”

“It would be fine if Red could see it. I—I want him to come back when summer comes.” A dreamy look overspread her face. “Good old summer time,” she murmured, “with southern breezes whispering softly, birches gleaming white in the moonlight and strange birds singing one another to sleep. Summer time—” She was singing softly now: “Good old summer time. Will you come and play with me?”

Red grinned in spite of himself. Then his face sobered as he replied huskily:

“Perhaps—if summer ever comes again for you and me.”

He had not forgotten, would not forget as long as they were on the island, that they were escaped victims of kidnapers, that those men were still about and that he carried in his pocket the magneto parts that would keep them from escaping from the island.

Why did he not cast these bits of metal into the lake where water is deep? Because he had hopes, rather wild hopes, but hopes all the same, that some one would arrive at the island who could pilot that powerful plane. He could not. Ed could not, but there were many who could. So he clung to his hopes and to the magneto parts.

“Come!” said Berley Todd, snuffing out the candle. “Come with me to the place where I have always found happiness—my summer home.”

Obeying her command, Ed strapped on one “shootin’ iron,” handed the other to the young football star, and then led the way out into the night.

The darkness at this moment was complete. Later there was to be a moon, a fact long to be remembered. With the unerring instinct of a woodsman, the scout led the way over the winding path. Berley and Red followed silently.

There were sounds in that night of darkness. Off to the right the snapping of a twig sounded like the report of a gun.

“Probably Old Uncle Ned,” the girl whispered.

And then, from Ed: “Here we are. Now for the key.”

Up a tall flight of stairs they tiptoed. Next moment they were inside some place that seemed vast and silent in that darkness.

“Wait!”

Berley moved about. There were sounds of shades being drawn.

“Now.”

A match flared. Shavings on the hearth blazed up. Soon a great fire on the wide hearth was burning freely and the place was as light as day.

They were safe enough for all that. The massive door was locked and barred. The windows were high from the ground, and all were shaded.

Red took the place in with one sweeping glance. The fireplace was immense. Up from this ran a wide chimney covered by a curious rug woven by Indians.

Before the fire were wide-seated, comfortable chairs. On the mantel stood a rustic clock made of birchwood. Berley set this going. Its cheerful tick-tock, tick-tock filled the silent place.

As Berley stole a glance at the young football star she read approval in his eyes, and was satisfied.

“Makes you think of those places you read about in English history.” His smile was good to see. “There should be a whole quarter of beef roasting over the fire, spears and armor hanging on the walls, the head of a wild boar above the mantel.

“But after all it’s great just as it is. I only wish we were here under more happy circumstances.” He dropped into the chair farthest from the blazing fire.

“We’re safe enough for the present, at least,” said Ed, lighting his pipe.

Berley Todd sent him a smile of gratitude. It was evident that for one short evening she wished to feel safe and quite at home.

Our minds are strange. One moment we may be in the dark, surrounded, we imagine, by hostile foes. Our minds are filled with all sorts of forebodings. The next we are before a blazing fire in our own home where we have known peace, and presto! all is changed; fear goes, peace comes, we know not how.

“I’m glad you like it.” Berley Todd spoke as one in a dream. “When I think of the good times we have had here, and of the trips we have planned before this fire! How good it all was!” Her voice trailed off to nothing.

Red saw from the look on her face that she was thinking: “Oh, bury me not on the lone prairee.” He wished she might forget entirely for one short hour.

“Tell me about it, those other days.” There was an unaccustomed gentleness in his tone.

“Those golden days?” Her face brightened. “How we would sit here planning by the fire! ‘To-morrow we will round the Point in the little boat and go far back into Tobin’s Harbor; back to Talman’s Island. There are wild raspberries growing round that cabin. And some great old speckled trout lie in the rocks nearby.’

“Talman’s Island!” Her voice changed. It was shot through with fear and pain. “That is the island where they were holding us prisoners, you and I. There’s another little island close by where they stayed themselves in a tumble-down cabin.

“Tell me,” again the girl changed the subject, “how did they come to get you?”

“Took me in my sleep. Rolled me up in my blankets on the Pullman and shoved me through the window. I went to sleep waiting for the train to move up and pick up the rest of the squad. Carried me down the river in the speed boat, then over to some place where they put me on the plane. Then, thunder through the night, the roar of motors, and there I was in that cabin, there on the island.

“And you?”

“It was all absurdly simple,” she sighed. “One can’t be rich and happy, it seems, these days. Perhaps no one should wish to be. I don’t know.” There was a world of questioning in her tone.

“Our home is large. The grounds that surround it are broad. I loved to walk there in the moonlight alone. Had I been the cook or the maid, I might have walked in peace. But the daughter—

“Well, two men seized me one night and carried me away in a car. I kicked out and bit and tried to scream. It did no good.”

She paused as if exhausted by the very thought of it.

“They brought me up here,” she began again, after a time. “Just as they did you. I had been in that little pen of logs a whole day before they brought you. It—it was rather terrible. But by and by it came to me that I was on Isle Royale.

“Do you know,” a faint smile played about her lips, “if I must leave this gloriously beautiful world, which of course some time I must, I’d sort of like to be on Isle Royale when that day comes. It wouldn’t be so hard, the parting. And somehow I feel that, after all, it’s just passing from beauty to more beauty.”

For a long time after that there was silence in the room. Only the ceaseless rush of waters on the shore, and the friendly tick-tock of the clock disturbed the stillness of the night.

“They wanted you to sign a paper,” Red suggested after a time.

“The kidnapers? Yes, they did. Wanted me to say I was in great distress. Wanted me to beg my father to give them money, twenty thousand dollars, to save my life.”

“And you wouldn’t.”

“No.” Her big blue eyes shone with a new light. “Why should I? They are outlaws of the worst type. If I had done what they wished I would have been helping them. I have not much strength. I have a little. If they get my father’s money they will be encouraged, will go on with their terrible business. They will take some one far weaker than I, a defenseless baby, perhaps.

“Some time one must die.” Her eyes were large and round. “Why not now, if need be, and for a good cause? If they catch me again and put an end to me, my father will spend his fortune hunting them down. What finer tribute could one have to one’s memory?”

“What indeed?” Red’s eyes shone with true admiration. “But they’ll not get you.”

Berley Todd did not reply. Instead she rose and began walking slowly back and forth in the large room. She was humming, and the words were these: “Oh, bury me not on the lone prairee.”

“Now,” said the boy with a laugh that came perilously near being a sob, “it’s time we were going back.”