The Cruise of the O Moo Page 9

  CHAPTER IX SOMEONE DROPS IN FROM NOWHERE

  Pausing to listen whenever she gained the protecting shadow of anice-pile, Lucile caught each time the pit-pat of footsteps. This soterrified her that she lost all knowledge of direction, her only thoughtto put a greater distance between herself and that haunting black shadow.

  Suddenly she awoke to her old peril. The ice beneath her was heaving.Before her lay a dark patch of water. In her excitement she had beenmaking her way toward open water. With a shudder she wheeled about, andforcing her mind to calmer counsel, chose a circling route which wouldeventually bring her to the shore.

  Again she dodged from ice-pile to ice-pile, again paused to hear the wildbeating of her own heart and the pit-pat of the shadow's footfalls.

  But what was this? As she listened she seemed to catch the fall of twopairs of feet.

  In desperation she shot forward a great distance without pausing. When atlast she did pause it was with the utmost consternation that she realizedthat not one or two, but many pairs of feet were dropping pit-pat on theice floor of the lake.

  As she dodged out for another flight, she saw them--three of them--asthey suddenly disappeared from sight. One to the right, one to the left,one behind her, they were closing in upon her.

  There was still a space between the two to right and left. Through thisshe sprang, only to see a fourth directly before her. As she again dodgedinto a sheltering shadow she nerved herself for a scream. The girls wereaway, but someone, Mark Pence, the fishermen, old Timmie, might hear andcome to her aid.

  But what was this? She no longer caught the shuffle of moving feet. Allwas silent as the tomb.

  For a moment she hovered there undecided. Then she caught the distant,even tramp-tramp of two pairs of heavy, marching feet. Glancingshoreward, she saw two burly policemen, their brass buttons gleaming inthe moonlight, marching down the beach. It had been the presence of theseofficers which had held her pursuers to their shadowy hiding-places.

  If she but screamed once these officers would come to her rescue! But shehad, from early childhood, experienced a great fear of policemen. Whenshe endeavored to scream, her tongue clung to the roof of her mouth. Andso there she stood, motionless, voiceless, until the officers had passedfrom her sight.

  * * * * * * * *

  While Lucile was experiencing the strange thrills of this terrible gameout on the lake ice, Florence and Marian were witnessing mysteriousactions of strange persons out on the lagoon.

  In spite of the lateness of the hour, there were a number of personsskating on the north end of the lagoon, so the two girls experienced nofear as they went for a quarter-mile dash down the southern channel whichlay between an island and the shore. At the south end of the lagoon thechannel, which became very narrow, was spanned by a wooden bridge.

  This bridge, even in the daytime, always gave Marian a shock of somethingvery like fear, for it was here that a great tragedy ending in the deathof a prominent society woman had occurred.

  Now, as she found herself nearing it, preparing for a long skimming glidebeneath it, she felt a chill shoot up her spine. Involuntarily sheglanced up at the bridge railing. Then she gripped Florence's armtightly.

  "Who can that be on the bridge at this hour of the night?" she whispered.

  "Probably someone who has climbed up there to take off his skates," saidFlorence with her characteristic coolness.

  "But look! He's waving his arms. He's signaling. Do you suppose he meansit for us?"

  "No," said Florence. "He's looking north, toward the edge of the island.Come on; pay no attention to him. Under we go."

  With a great, broad swinging stroke she fairly threw her lighter partneracross the shadow that the bridge made and out into the moonlight on theother side.

  Marian was breathing quite easily again. They had made half the length ofthe island on the return lap, when she again gripped Florence's arm.

  "A sled!" she whispered.

  "What of it?" Florence's tone was impatient. "You are seeing thingsto-night."

  The sled, drawn by two men without skates, was passing diagonally acrossthe lagoon. It was seven or eight feet long and stood a full three feetabove the ice. The runners, of solid boards, were exceedingly broad.

  "What a strange sled," said Marian as they cut across the path of the twomen.

  "Sled seems heavy," remarked Florence. "At least one would think it wasby the way they slip and slide as they pull it."

  They had passed a hundred yards beyond that spot when Florence turned toglance back.

  "Why! Look!" she exclaimed. "There's a man sitting on the ice, back therea hundred yards or so."

  "One of the men with the sled?"

  "No, there they go."

  "Some skater tightening his strap."

  "Wasn't one in sight a moment ago. Tell you what," Florence exclaimed;"let's circle back!"

  Marian was not keen for this adventure, but accompanied her companionwithout comment.

  Nothing really came of it, not at that time. The man sat all humped overon the ice, as if mending a broken skate. He did not move nor look up.Florence thought she saw beside him a somewhat bulky package but couldnot quite tell. His coat almost concealed it, if, indeed, there was apackage.

  "Two men drawing a strange sled," she mused. "One man on the ice alone.Possibly a package." Turning to Marian she asked:

  "What do you make of it?"

  "Why, nothing," said Marian in surprise. "Why should I?"

  "Well, perhaps you shouldn't," said Florence thoughtfully.

  There was something to it after all and what this something was they weredestined to learn in the days that were to follow.

  * * * * * * * *

  Out among the ice-piles between the breakwaters, cowering in the shadowstoo frightened to scream, Lucile was seeing things. Hardly had thepolicemen disappeared behind the boats on the dry dock than the darkfigures began to reappear.

  "And so many of them!" she breathed.

  She was tempted to believe she was in a trance. To the right of her, tothe left, before, behind, she saw them. Ten, twenty, thirty, perhapsforty darkly enshrouded heads peered out from the shadows.

  "As if in a fairy book!" she thrilled. "What can it mean? What are allthese people doing out here at this ghostly hour?"

  Suddenly she was seized with a fit of calm, desperate courage. Glidingfrom her shadow, she walked boldly out into the moonlight. Her heart wasracing madly; her knees trembled. She could scarcely walk, yet walk shedid, with a steady determined tread. Past this ice-pile, round this rowof up-ended cakes, across this broad, open spot she moved. No one sprangout to intercept her progress. Here and there a dark head appeared for aninstant, only immediately to disappear.

  "Cowards!" she told herself. "All cowards. Afraid."

  Now she was approaching the sandy beach. Unable longer to restrain herimpulses, she broke into a wild run.

  She arrived at the side of the O Moo entirely out of breath. Leaningagainst its side for a moment, she turned to look back. There was not aperson in sight. The beach, the ice, the black lines of breakwatersseemed as silent and forsaken as the heart of a desert.

  "And yet it is swarming with men," she breathed. "I wonder what theywanted?"

  Suddenly she started. A figure had come into sight round the nearestprow. For an instant her hand gripped a round of the ladder, apreparatory move for upward flight. Then her hand relaxed.

  "Oh!" she breathed, "It's you!"

  "Yes, it is I, Mark Pence," said a friendly boyish voice.

  "I--I suppose I should be afraid of you," said Lucile, "but I'm not."

  "Why? Why should you?" he asked with a smile.

  "Well, you see everyone about this old dry dock is so terriblymysterious. I've just had an awful fright."

  "Tell me about it." Mark Pence smiled as he spoke.

  Seating herself upon the flukes of an up-ended anc
hor she did tell him;told him not alone of her experience that night, but of the one of thatother night in the Spanish Mission.

  "Do you know," he said soberly when she had finished, "there _are_ a lotof mysterious things happening about this dock. I don't think it willlast much longer, though. Things are sort of coming to a head. Know whatthose two policemen were here for?"

  Lucile shook her head.

  "Made a call on the Chinks, down there in the old scow. Came to look forsomething. But they didn't find it. Heard them say as much when they cameout. They were mighty excited about something, though. Bet they thoughtit was mighty strange that there was a stairway in that old scow twentyfeet deep."

  "Are--are you sure about that stairway?"

  The boy's reply was confident:

  "Sure's I am that I'm standing here."

  Lucile protested:

  "But most folks don't use circling stairways much. They don't know--"

  "I do though. I work in a library. There are scores of circling stairwaysamong the stacks and I know just how high each one is."

  "It _is_ queer about that stairway," Lucile breathed. "I must be goingup. I'm getting chill sitting here."

  "Well, good-bye." Mark Pence put out his hand and seized hers in afriendly grip. "Just remember I'm with you. If you ever need me, justwhistle and I'll come running."

  "Thanks--thanks--aw--awfully," said Lucile, a strange catch in herthroat.

  Her eyes followed him until the boat's prow had hidden him; then shehurried up the rope-ladder and into the cabin. She was shivering allover, whether from a chill or from nervous excitement she could not tell.

  The other girls came in a few moments later. For an hour they sat in acorner, drinking hot chocolate and telling of their night's adventures.Then they prepared themselves for the night's rest.

  For a long time after the others had retired, Florence sat in a hugeupholstered chair, lights out, staring into the dark. She was thinkingover the experiences of the past few weeks, trying to put them togetherin a geometric whole, just as an artist arranges the parts of a stainedglass window.

  "There's Lucile's experience in the old Spanish Mission," she mused, "andmy own in the museum. Then there's Mark Pence's visit to the old scow andthe circular stairway. Then there's the blue candlestick. It's rare,mysterious and valuable. Why? The police are interested in it. Why? Thenthere's the police-sergeant's visit, and Lucile's experience on the ice,and the two policemen visiting the old scow, and there's that man on thebridge to-night, the two with the sled and the one sitting on the ice.It's all mysterious, so it ought all to fit together somehow."

  For a long time she sat wrapped in deep thought. Then she startedsuddenly.

  "Blue!" she whispered. "The face Lucile saw in the Mission was blue,illuminated and blue. In the story the old seaman told me the face of thegod of the Negontisks was illuminated and blue. The candlestick I foundwas blue. What should be more natural than that a blue jade candlestickshould be made in which to set a candle with which to illumine the bluegod? Blue jade is valuable. A ring or stickpin set with a small piece ofit is costly. That makes the candlestick both costly and valuable. Allthat," she sighed, "seems to hang together."

  Again she sat for a time in deep thought.

  "Only," she breathed at last, "who ever heard of a tribe of Negontisks inAmerica, let alone here in Chicago? Try to imagine a hundred or morenear-savages, with no money and no means of transportation but theirnative skin-boats, traveling eight thousand miles over land and sea andending up in Chicago. It can't be imagined. It simply isn't done. Sothere goes my carefully arranged puzzle all to smash."

  Throwing off her dressing-gown, she climbed into her berth, listening tothe flag-rope lashing the mast for an instant, then fell fast asleep.