Dark Hollow

XXVIII

THE FIRST EFFORT

LEAVES FROM ALANSON BLACK'S NOTE-BOOK, FOUND BY REUTHER SOME MONTHS LATER, IN A VERY QUEER PLACE, VIZ.: HER MOTHER'S JEWEL-BOX

At the New Willard. Awaiting two articles—Oliver's picture and a few lines in the judge's writing requesting his son's immediate return. Meanwhile, I have made no secret of my reason for being here. All my inquiries at the desk have shown it to be particularly connected with a certain bill now before Congress, in which Shelby is vitally interested.

Perhaps I can further the interests of this bill in off minutes. I am willing to.

The picture is here, as well as the name of the hotel where the two women are staying. I have spent five minutes studying the face I must be able to recognise at first glance in any crowd. It's not a bad face; I can see his mother's looks in him. But it is not the face I used to know. Trouble develops a man.

There's a fellow here who rouses my suspicions. No one knows him;—I don't myself. But he's strangely interested in me. If he's from Shelby—in other words, if he's from the detective bureau there, I've led him a chase to-day which must have greatly bewildered him. I'm not slow, and I'm not above mixing things. From the Cairo where our present congressman lives, I went to the Treasury, then to the White House, and then to the Smithsonian—with a few newspaper offices thrown in, and some hotels where I took pains that my interviews should not be too brief. When quite satisfied that by these various and somewhat confusing peregrinations I had thrown off any possible shadower, I fetched up at the Library where I lunched. Then, as I thought the time had come for me to enjoy myself, I took a walk about the great building, ending up with the reading-room. Here I asked for a book on a certain abstruse subject. Of course, it was not in my line, but I looked wise and spoke the name glibly. When I sat down to consult it, the man who brought it threw me a short glance which I chose to think peculiar. "You don't have many readers for this volume?" I ventured. He smiled and answered, "Just sent it back to the shelves. It's had a steady reader for ten days. Before that, nobody." "Is this your steady reader?" I asked, showing him the photograph I drew from my pocket. He stared, but said nothing. He did not have to. In a state of strange satisfaction I opened the book. It was Greek, if not worse, to me, but I meant to read a few paragraphs for the sake of appearances, and was turning over the pages in search of a promising chapter, when—Talk of remarkable happenings!—there in the middle of the book was a card,—his card!—left as a marker, no doubt, and on this card, an address hastily scribbled in lead pencil. It only remained for me to find that the hotel designated in this address was a Washington one, for me to recognise in this simple but strangely opportune occurrence, a coincidence—or, as YOU would say,—an act of Providence as startling as those we read of in books.

The first man I accosted in regard to the location of this hotel said there was none of that name in Washington. The next, that he thought there was, but that he could not tell me where to look for it. The third, that I was within ten blocks of its doors. Did I walk? No, I took a taxi. I thought of your impatience and became impatient too. But when I got there, I stopped hurrying. I waited a full half-hour in the lobby to be sure that I had not been followed before I approached the desk and asked to see Mr. Ostrander. No such person was in the hotel or had been. Then I brought out my photograph. The face was recognised, but not as that of a guest. This seemed a puzzle. But after thinking it over for awhile, I came to this conclusion: that the address I saw written on the card was not his own, but that of some friend he had casually met.

This put me in a quandary. The house was full of young men; how pick out the friend? Besides, this friend was undoubtedly a transient and gone long ago. My hopes seemed likely to end in smoke—my great coincidence to prove valueless. I was so convinced of this, that I started to go; then I remembered you, and remained. I even took a room, registering myself for the second time that day,—which formality over, I sat down in the office to write letters.

Oliver Ostrander is in Washington. That's something.

I cannot sleep. Indeed, I may say that this is the first time in my life when I failed to lose my cares the moment my head struck the pillow.

The cause I will now relate.

I had finished and mailed my letter to you and was just in the act of sealing another, when I heard a loud salutation uttered behind me, and turning, was witness to the meeting of two young men who had run upon each other in the open doorway. The one going out was a stranger to me and I hardly noticed him, but the one coming in was Oliver Ostrander (or his photograph greatly belied him), and in my joy at an encounter so greatly desired but so entirely unhoped for, I was on the point of rising to intercept him, when some instinct of precaution led me to glance about me first for the individual who had shown such a persistent interest in me from the moment of my arrival. There he sat, not a dozen chairs away, ostensibly reading, but with a quick eye ready for me the instant I gave him the slightest chance:—a detective, as certainly as I was Black, the lawyer.

What was I to do? The boy was leaving town—was even then on his way to the station as his whole appearance and such words as he let fall amply denoted. If I let him go, would another such chance of delivering his father's message be given me? Should I not lose him altogether; while if I approached him or betrayed in any way my interest in him, the detective would recognise his prey and, if he did not arrest him on the spot, would never allow him to return to Shelby unattended. This would be to defeat the object of my journey, and recalling the judge's expression at parting, I dared not hesitate. My eyes returned with seeming unconcern to the letter I was holding and the detective's to his paper. When we both looked up again the two young men had quit the building and the business which had brought me to Washington was at an end.

But I am far from being discouraged. A fresh start with the prospect of Reuther's companionship, inspires me with more hope for my next venture.

XXIX

"THERE IS BUT ONE THING TO DO"

A night of stars, seen through swaying tree-tops whose leaves crisping to their fall, murmured gently of vanished hopes and approaching death.

Below, a long, low building with a lighted window here and there, surrounded by a heavy growth of trees which are but the earnest of the illimitable stretch of the Adirondack woods which painted darkness on the encircling horizon.

In the air, one other sound beside the restless murmur I have mentioned,—the lap, lap of the lake whose waters bathed the bank which supported this building.

Such the scene without.

Within, Reuther seated in the glow of a hospitable fire of great logs, talking earnestly to Mr. Black. As they were placed, he could see her much better than she could see him, his back being to the blaze and she, in its direct glare.

He could, therefore, study her features, without offence, and this he did, steadily and with deep interest, all the while she was talking. He was looking for signs of physical weakness or fatigue; but he found none. The pallor of her features was a natural pallor, and in their expression, new forces were becoming apparent, which give him encouragement, rather than anxiety, for the adventure whose most trying events lay still before them.

Crouching low on the hearth could be seen the diminutive figure of Miss Weeks. She had no time to waste even in a solitude as remote as this, and was crocheting busily by the firelight. Her earnestness gave character to her features which sometimes lacked significance. Reuther loved to glance at her from time to time, as she continued her conversation with Mr. Black.

This is what she was saying:

"I cannot point to any one man of the many who have been about us ever since we started north. But that we have been watched and our route followed, I feel quite convinced. So does Miss Weeks. But, as you saw, no one besides ourselves left the cars at this station, and I am beginning to hope that we shall remain unmolested till we can take the trip to Tempest Lodge. How far is it, Mr. Black?"

"Twenty-five miles and over a very rough mountain road. Did I not confidently expect to find Oliver there, I should not let you undertake this ride. But the inquiries I have just made lead me to hope for the best results. I was told that yesterday a young man bound for Tempest Lodge, stopped to buy a large basket of supplies at the village below us. I could not learn his name and I saw no one who could describe him; but the fact that any one not born in these parts should choose to isolate himself so late in the year as this, in a place considered inaccessible after the snow flies, has roused much comment."

"That looks as if—as if—"

"As if it were Oliver. So it does; and if you feel that you can ride so far, I will see that horses are saddled for us at an early hour to-morrow morning."

"I can ride, but will Oliver be pleased to see us at Tempest Lodge. Mr. Black, I had an experience in Utica which makes it very hard for me to contemplate obtruding myself upon him without some show of permission on his part. We met—that is, I saw him and he saw me; but he gave me no opportunity—that is, he did not do what he might have done, had he felt—had he thought it best to exchange a word with me."

"Where was this? You were not long in Utica?"

"Only one night. But that was long enough for me to take a walk down one of the principal thoroughfares and it was during this walk I saw him. He was on the same side of the street as myself and rapidly coming my way, but on his eye meeting mine—I could not mistake that unconscious flash of recognition—he wheeled suddenly aside into a cross-street where I dared not follow him. Of course, he did not know what hung on even a momentary interview. That it was not for myself I—" The firelight caught something new to shine upon—a tear on lashes which yet refused to lower themselves.

Mr. Black fidgeted, then put out his hand and laid it softly on hers.

"Never mind," he grumbled; "men are—" he didn't say what; but it wasn't anything very complimentary. "You have this comfort," said he: "the man at the Lodge is undoubtedly Oliver. Had he gone West, he wouldn't have been seen in Utica three days ago."

"I have never had any doubt about that. I expect to see him to-morrow, but I shall find it hard to utter my errand quick enough. There will be a minute when he may misunderstand me. I dread that minute."

"Perhaps, you can avoid it. Perhaps after you have positively identified him I can do the rest. We will arrange it so, if we can."

Her eyes flashed gratitude, then took on a new expression. She had chanced to glance again at Miss Weeks, and Miss Weeks was not looking quite natural. She was still crocheting, or trying to, but her attitude was constrained and her gaze fixed; and that gaze was not on her work, but directed towards a small object at her side, which Reuther recognised from its open lid to be the little lady's work-box.

"Something is the matter with Miss Weeks," she confided in a low whisper to Mr. Black. "Don't turn; she's going to speak."

But Miss Weeks did not speak. She just got up, and, with a careless motion, stood stretching herself for a moment, then sauntered up to the table and began showing her work to Reuther.

"I've made a mistake," she pettishly complained. "See if you can find out what's wrong." And, giving the work into Reuther's hand, she stood watching, but with a face so pale that Mr. Black was not astonished when she suddenly muttered in a very low tone:

"Don't move or show surprise. The shade of the window is up, and somebody is looking in from outside. I saw his face reflected in the mirror of my work-box. It isn't any one I know, but he was looking very fixedly this way and may be looking yet. Now I am going to snatch my work. I don't think you're helping me one bit."

She suited the action to the word; shook her head at Reuther and went back to her old position on the hearth.

"I was afraid of it," murmured Reuther. "If we take the ride to-morrow, it will not be alone. If, on the other hand, we delay our trip, we may be forestalled in the errand upon which so much depends. We are not the only ones who have heard of the strange young man at Tempest Lodge."

The answer came with quick decision. "There is but one thing for us to do. I will tell you what it is a little later. Go and sit on the hearth with Miss Weeks, and mind that you laugh and chat as if your minds were quite undisturbed. I am going to have a talk with our host."

XXX

TEMPEST LODGE

"What's that?"

"That's the cry of a loon."

"How awful! Do they often cry like that?"

"Not often in the nighttime."

Reuther shuddered.

Mr. Black regarded her anxiously. Had he done wrong to let her join him in this strange ride?

"Shall we go back and wait for broad daylight?" he asked.

"No, no. I could not bear the suspense of wondering whether all was going well and the opportunity being given you of seeing and speaking to him. We have taken such precautions—chosen so late (or should I say so early) a start—that I'm sure we have outwitted the man who is so watchful of us. But if we go back, we cannot slip away from him again; and Oliver will have to submit to an humiliation it is our duty to spare him. And the good judge, too. I don't care if the loons do cry; the night is beautiful."

And it was, had their hearts been in tune to enjoy it. A gibbous moon had risen, and, inefficient as it was to light up the recesses of the forest, it illumined the tree-tops and brought out the difference between earth and sky. The road, known to the horses, if not to themselves, extended like a black ribbon under their eyes, but the patches of light which fell across it at intervals took from it the uninterrupted gloom it must have otherwise had. Mr. Sloan, who was at once their guide and host, promised that dawn would be upon them before they reached the huge gully which was the one dangerous feature of the road. But as yet there were no signs of dawn; and to Reuther, as well as to Mr. Black, this ride through the heart of a wilderness in a darkness which might have been that of midnight by any other measure than that of the clock, had the effect of a dream in which one is only sufficiently in touch with past commonplaces to say, "This is a dream and not reality. I shall soon wake." A night to remember to the end of one's days; an experience which did not seem real at the time and was never looked back upon as real—and yet, one with which neither of them would have been willing to part.

Their guide had prophesied truly. Heralded by that long cry of the loon, the dawn began to reveal itself in clearness of perspective and a certain indefinable stir in the still, shrouded spaces of the woods. Details began to appear where heretofore all had been mass. Pearl tints proclaimed the east, and presently these were replaced by a flush of delicate colour deepening into rose, and the every-day world of the mighty forest was upon them with its night mystery gone.

But not the romance of their errand, or the anxiety which both felt as to its ultimate fulfilment. This it had been easier to face when they themselves as well as all about them, were but moving shadows in each other's eyes. Full sight brought full realisation. However they might seek to cloak the fact, they could no longer disguise from themselves that the object of their journey might not be acceptable to the man in hiding at Tempest Lodge. Reuther's faith in him was strong, but even her courage faltered as she thought of the disgrace awaiting him whatever the circumstances or however he might look upon his father's imperative command to return.

But she did not draw rein, and the three continued to ride up and on. Suddenly, however, one of them showed disturbance. Mr. Sloan was seen to turn his head sharply, and in another moment his two companions heard him say:

"We are followed. Ride on and leave me to take a look."

Instinctively they also glanced back before obeying. They were just rounding the top of an abrupt hill, and expected to have an uninterrupted view of the road behind. But the masses of foliage were as yet too thick for them to see much but the autumnal red and yellow spread out below them.

"I hear them; I do not see them," remarked their guide. "Two horses are approaching."

"How far are we now from the Lodge?"

"A half-hour's ride. We are just at the opening of the gully."

"You will join us soon?"

"As quickly as I make out who are on the horses behind us."

Reuther and the lawyer rode on. Her cheeks had gained a slight flush, but otherwise she looked unmoved. He was less at ease than she; for he had less to sustain him.

The gully, when they came to it, proved to be a formidable one. It was not only deep but precipitous, descending with the sheerness of a wall directly down from the road into a basin of enormous size, where trees stood here and there in solitary majesty, amid an area of rock forbidding to the eye and suggestive of sudden and impassable chasms. It was like circumambulating the sinuous verge of a canyon; and for the two miles they rode along its edge they saw no let-up in the steepness on one side or of the almost equally abrupt rise of towering rock on the other. It was Reuther's first experience of so precipitous a climb, and under other circumstances she might have been timid; but in her present heroic mood, it was all a part of her great adventure, and as such accepted.

The lawyer eyed her with growing admiration. He had not miscalculated her pluck.

As they were making a turn to gain the summit, they heard Mr. Sloan's voice behind them. Drawing in their horses, they greeted him eagerly when he appeared.

"Were you right? Are we followed?"

"That's as may be. I didn't hear or see anything more. I waited, but nothing happened, so I came on."

His words were surly and his looks sour; they, therefore, forebore to question him further, especially as their keenest interest lay ahead, rather than behind them. They were nearing Tempest Lodge. As it broke upon their view, perched like an eagle's eyrie on the crest of a rising peak, they drew rein, and, after a short consultation, Mr. Sloan wended his way up alone. He was a well-known man throughout the whole region, and would be likely to gain admittance if any one could. But all wished the hour had been less early.

However, somebody was up in the picturesque place. A small trail of smoke could be seen hovering above its single chimney, and promptly upon Mr. Sloan's approach, a rear door swung back and an old man showed himself, but with no hospitable intent. On the contrary, he motioned the intruder back, and shouting out some very decided words, resolutely banged the door shut.

Mr. Sloan turned slowly about.

"Bad luck," he commented, upon joining his companions. "That was Deaf Dan. He's got a warm nest here, and he's determined to keep it. 'No visitors wanted,' was what he shouted, and he didn't even hold out his hand when I offered him the letter."

"Give me the letter," said Reuther. "He won't leave a lady standing out in the cold."

Mr. Sloan handed over the judge's message, and helped her down, and she in turn began to approach the place. As she did so, she eyed it with the curiosity of a hungry heart. It was a compact structure of closely cemented stone, built to resist gales and harbour a would-be recluse, even in an Adirondack winter. One end showed stacks of wood through its heavily glazed windows, and between the small stable and the west door there ran a covered way which insured communication, even when the snow lay high about the windows.

The place had a history which she learned later. At present all her thoughts were on its possible occupant and the very serious question of whether she would or would not gain admittance to him.

Mr. Sloan had been repulsed from the west door; she would try the east. Oliver (if Oliver it were) was probably asleep; but she would knock, and knock, and knock; and if Deaf Dan did not open, his master soon would.

But when she found herself in face of this simple barrier, her emotion was so strong that she recoiled in spite of herself, and turned her face about as if to seek strength from the magnificence of the outlook.

But though the scene was one of splendour inconceivable, she did not see it. Her visions were all inner ones. But these were not without their strengthening power, as was soon shown. For presently she turned back and was lifting her hand to the door, when it suddenly flew open and a man appeared before her.

It was Oliver. Oliver unkempt and with signs upon him of a night's work of study or writing; but Oliver!—her lover once, but now just a stranger into whose hand she must put this letter.

She tried to stammer out her errand; but the sudden pallor, the starting eyes—the whole shocked, almost terrified appearance of the man she was facing, stopped her. She forgot the surprise, the incredulity of mind with which he would naturally hail her presence at his door in a place so remote and of such inaccessibility. She only saw that his hands had gone up and out at sight of her, and to her sensitive soul, this looked like a rebuff which, while expected, choked back her words and turned her faintly flushing cheek scarlet.

"It is not I," burst from her lips in incoherent disclaimer of his possible thought. "I'm just a messenger. Your father—"

"It IS you!" Quickly his hands passed across his eyes. "How—" Then his glance, following hers, fell on the letter which she now remembered to hold out.

"It's the copy of a telegram," she tremblingly explained, as he continued to gaze at it without reaching to take it. "You could not be found in Detroit and as it was important that you should receive this word from your father, I undertook to deliver it. I remembered your fondness for this place and how you once said that this is where you would like to write your book, and so I came on a venture—but not alone—Mr. Black is with me and—"

"Mr. Black! Who? What?" He was still staring at his father's letter; and still had made no offer to take it.

"Read this first," said she.

Then he woke to the situation. He took the letter, and drawing her inside, shut the door while he read it. She, trembling very much, did not dare to lift her eyes to watch its effect, but she was conscious that his back and not his face was turned her way, and that the moment was the stillest one of her whole life.

Then there came a rattling noise as he crushed the letter in his hand.

"Tell me what this means," said he, but he did not turn his head as he made this request.

"Your father must do that," was her gentle reply. "I was only to deliver the letter. I came—we came—thus early, because we thought—we feared we should get no opportunity later to find you here alone. There seem to be people on the road—whom—whom you might feel obliged to entertain and as your father cannot wait—"

He had wheeled about. His face confronted hers. It wore a look she did not understand and which made him seem a stranger to her. Involuntarily she took a step back.

"I must be going now," said she, and fell—her physical weakness triumphing at last over her will power.

XXXI

ESCAPE

"Oliver? Where is Oliver?"

These were Reuther's first words, as, coming to herself, she perceived Mr. Black bending helplessly over her.

The answer was brief, almost indifferent. Alanson Black was cursing himself for allowing her to come to this house alone.

"He was here a moment ago. When he saw you begin to give signs of life, he slid out. How do you feel, my—my dear? What will your mother say?"

"But Oliver?" She was on her feet now; she had been lying on some sort of couch. "He must—Oh, I remember now. Mr. Black, we must go. I have given him his father's letter."

"We are not going till you have something to eat. Not a word. I'll—" Why did his eye wander to the nearest window, and his words trail away into silence?