Chapter XXV: The Trail Leads North

After leaving Drew Lane’s room, Johnny Thompson had walked the streets for hours. He needed to think. He could think best while walking, so he walked.

He had gone back on a man he thought of as a friend. Or had he? At least, it appeared that way to him now. Does there ever come a time when it is one’s duty to turn his back upon a friend? A hard question. He could not answer it.

Three times he passed the flower shop by the bridge. The shop was closed, yet a light cast upon the flowers in the window displayed Angelo’s skill as a florist. He was an artist in this field. No one could equal him. Could a man be an artist and yet be a rascal? Angelo loved music. Often he had talked to Johnny of symphony concerts, and of grand opera. Could one love the best in music and yet be a villain at heart?

He walked across the bridge and back again. The place below the shop was completely dark to-night. No procession of men was passing down that flight of stairs. Perhaps Angelo had nothing to do with that which went on below his shop. Perhaps he knew nothing of it.

Once again his mind took up the problem. Angelo had always been friendly. His smile was contagious. Was it true that a man could “smile and smile, and be a villain”?

He gave the problem up at last, returned to his room, and was soon fast asleep.

He was awakened next moment by the jangling of the telephone. Snatching the receiver, he said:

“Good morning! Johnny Thompson speaking.”

“Johnny,” came back an excited voice, “it’s Drew! We’re on the right trail at last. The old G.G. was right, has been right all the time. The trail leads north, five hundred miles, I’d say. Going in the red racer just after noon. Want to see this thing through with me?”

“You—you mean go—” Johnny was shaking all over.

“Sure! Go north with me.”

“You—you know I do.”

“Right! I’ll be over here at twelve. We’ll have a bite of chow; shoot over to the aviation field, and be on our way.” The receiver clicked. He was gone.

Johnny sat down on his bed. He was dizzy. “The trail leads north,” he muttered. “He didn’t say: ‘Johnny, you’re a brick!’ or any of that sort of stuff, or ‘You put us right.’ Nothing like that. Just ‘The trail leads north.’

“Well,” he thought more soberly, “perhaps I’m not a brick. Perhaps I didn’t put them right. Perhaps I’m a hundred per cent dumb.”

As he sat there alone he realized that he hoped with all his heart that he had been entirely wrong. “And yet,” he murmured, “and yet—

“Oh, well!” he exclaimed, “‘A cup of coffee, a piece of pie and you.’ To-morrow’s another day. To-morrow we shall probably know.

“But five hundred miles due north!” His mind sobered. “Just Drew Lane and I.

“Drew’s developed into a swell pilot. He’ll take us there O.K. But after that?”

He had been through some tight places with Drew Lane, as you will know if you have read _The Arrow of Fire_.

“Tight places,” he muttered. “Looks like this might be tighter!

“But, as I said before, ‘A cup of coffee, a piece of pie and you.’”

* * * * * * * *

As Johnny Thompson and Drew Lane sped northward in the red racer that afternoon, Johnny found plenty of time for thought. Sober thoughts were his. At the airport Drew had said never a word regarding their coming adventure, nor the facts that had led him to take this wild dash into the north.

Like a mill set to grind out products by electrical power, the boy’s mind went over the facts that lay before him. As he closed his eyes he could see a rusty jimmy bar lying in the back of young Angelo’s boat. He could feel the weight of it as he carried it home and he experienced again his sharp surprise as Tom Howe discovered that this was the very bar that had pried open Red’s car window.

“But that proved nothing,” he told himself. “Any one could have hidden the bar in that speed boat.

“But there is the invisible footprint.” His mind was off again. He saw the footprint appearing under the eerie purple light, saw it fade, then appear again.

“And the shoe that made that footprint on the Red Rover’s sheet was found close to the door beneath Angelo’s flower shop.

“But _that_ proves nothing.” He said the words aloud to the thundering motors. “Any one can drop a pair of shoes by your door.

“And yet—” He saw again the figures in that room of mystery beneath Angelo’s shop. Who were those men? Why were they there? Why were so many of them wearing black looks? And why had they attempted to throw him out?

“After all,” he told himself, “it all depends upon the last bit of evidence I turned in, the shavings made by Angelo’s pocket knife. If Tom Howe can show that the shavings found near the Red Rover’s car were made by that same knife, then I shall be convinced. And once one is convinced that a supposed friend is a law-breaker there is but one thing he can do: see that he is brought to justice. No enemy of my country can continue to claim me as a friend.”

But what had Tom and Drew found out? This remained to be seen.

Suddenly his attention was caught by Drew Lane. Drew was leaning far over, looking at something. There was a worried look on his face. But at last he settled back in his place.

Again Johnny saw in his mind’s eye the picture of that glassy-eyed one with the scar. Then a thought struck him all of a heap. “Suppose we are going after that man and his pals. Suppose they are all there, the glassy-eyed one, the big man like a baboon and his son, the three all alike, and the others!” A thrill coursed up and down his spine. A not entirely comfortable feeling took possession of him. They were but two, he and Drew. There was a small black bag at Drew’s feet. It was full of blue-black weapons and ammunition. He knew that. “But two—just two of us.”

He dismissed the thought. Drew was game, game to the last drop. But he was no fool.

Once again Johnny closed his eyes. This time it was a different sort of person who walked across the walls of his memory; a tall man with smiling eyes; very tall and very thin; Jimmie Drury, the reporter from the News.

He had gone to Jimmie to obtain permission to go through the exchange files, and then a curious thing had happened. It puzzled him still. “How’d he know?” he grumbled. “How _could_ he? And yet, he seemed terribly sure.”

Jimmie had been very cordial. “A fellow that’s Drew Lane’s friend is welcome here any time.” He had smiled a broad smile. “What are you looking up?”

“It has to do with the kidnaping of the Red Rover,” Johnny explained.

“The Red Rover!” Jimmie whistled. “What do you know about that case?”

“Several things.” Johnny had been on his guard. “Got a lot of disconnected facts. Why don’t you get in touch with Drew Lane and find out about it?”

“I am in touch with Drew.” A curious look came over Jimmie’s face. “Closer than even he may—” He had checked himself as if he had said too much.

Johnny looked at him and then a curious suspicion had popped into his mind. Jimmie was long and slim, little more than a skeleton in blue serge.

“A—a skeleton. A—” He had nearly thought another word, but not quite.

What he had said to Jimmie was: “Drew doubts the Galloping Ghost; thinks he’s trying to get him off on the wrong trail.”

Then again a strange look had flashed across the reporter’s face as he exclaimed in a tone suggesting anger: “You tell Drew he’d better stick by the Galloping Ghost. He’s giving him straight dope!”

“How could he know that?” Johnny asked himself now as he looked down once more at the masses of black, white and dull green that were fields, lakes and forests far below.

There was little enough time to study this problem, for suddenly Drew headed the red racer downward at a rakish slant.

Down, down, down they went. Once the motor was off for a second.

“This is the place?” Johnny demanded breathlessly.

“Far from it. Something wrong.” Drew spoke rapidly. “Got to go down and see what. Land on the little lake yonder.”

Once more the motor roared. As the plane circled downward Johnny’s hopes fell. “Something wrong! We’ll be here perhaps for hours. And get there too late. What rotten luck!”