/^ A TVHPA T"KT ^1T TTTV"VL T Y Tr^ 1 CAP IAIN CLIFTON LIS i , L v>x" UNI?. OF CALIF. LIBRARY. LOS ANGELES Sandy motioned sharply, his pistol cuddled close to the cape over his right arm. SANDY FLASH THE HIGHWAYMAN OF CASTLE ROCK BYi CAPTAIN CLIFTON LISLE Author of "Diamond Rock," ''Fair Play," "The Daniel Boone Pageant," "Christmas on the Meuse," etc. NEW YORK HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY COPYRIGHT, IQ22, BY HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC, CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I THE CANDLESTICK . I II THE TRAPS , 23 III THE HEARTH RUG ... . ; .... 43 IV THE RIDLEY OTTER ......... 62 V THE STAG OF HUNTING HILL ...... 85 VI THE BEAVER DAM . 113 VII THE CAVE 135 VIII THE ESCAPE . . . , 157 IX THE BATTLE OF THE PRATT .., . . M . 178 X THE LOST TRAIL . 202 XI SIGNAL HILL .......... 217 XII THE MASK ..... , . . ; . ... 235 XIII THE LOG SET . M . . . . : 254 ILLUSTRATIONS SANDY MOTIONED SHARPLY, HIS PISTOL CUD- DLED CLOSE TO THE CAPE OVER HIS RIGHT ARM Frontispiece FACING PAGE THERE WAS A FLASH OF GRAYISH FLANK AS THE STAG TURNED AND LEAPED 92 THE HORSE THUNDERED PAST THEM IN A SCUD OF FLYING SNOW, THE RIDER LOW BENT ON THE ANIMAL'S NECK 178 I COULDN'T DRAW SWORD NOR PISTOL, FOR THE FELLOW'S PISTOL AT MY BACK 276 } SANDY FLASH CHAPTER I THE CANDLESTICK HAT'S the very thing we're looking for, Bob! the snow?" .The younger boy bent eagerly forward bet- ter to examine the track before him. "I see it's a trail all right, and not a cottontail's. Blessed if I know what made it, though. D'you, Dave?" The taller lad smiled in half-hidden amusement at the eagerness with which his chum was seeking to unravel the mystery. "Surely! You would, too, if you'd only put in more time out in the woods like me, 'stead of fooling with that horse of yours every chance you've got from chores. It's a coon made it. Coon, Bob, and here's where we get him!" "I say, Davey! Hold hard! Don't be so cock sure of everything. I mayn't know much about trapping, but I've hunted coons myself with houn' dogs too many times not to know something of 'em. They live in trees, I'd say. Tall ones mostly. If a fellow chases 'em, why they " " 'Course they do! I've seen their hairs, black like, 2 SANDY FLASH sticking to the old gums over on Blue Hill many a time. Once you get 'em on the run, they make for the highest tree they can see. It'll be an evergreen, like as not, if there's one close by. And then they keep its cover be- tween 'em and you. I know all that. But they stay on the ground lots, just the same, when it's quiet. I've found their marks round hollow logs and stumps. That's why I hunted so close for a trail in here. Look at this well, Bob, and you'll be able to mark it better the next time." The two boys bent down to study the tracks at close quarters. There they were, quite clear in the soft snow, leading across a little glade in the forest toward the near- by stream. David Thomas, the younger boy, was a lad of fifteen, wiry to the point of leanness, but lithe and supple and tough as a bit of hickory. The Welsh blood in him showed in the high-cheeked eager face and darkish hair. The boy loved all outdoors with a silent sort of passion that he could not well explain. To walk the woodland for untold miles, by himself, in any kind of weather, to watch his trap lines and cubbies in winter and fish and hunt and stalk in summer and fall, this brought a glow to his mind and a tingle to his muscles that enabled him to stand far more than many a lad years older. Dave Thomas had lived all his life on a farm near the Rose Tree in Upper Providence and he knew from daily practice the meaning of a farm boy's chores. They came first. Once done, however, and done thoroughly, then he was free to make what use he would of his spare time. His father, Hugh Thomas, was a fair man and a wise one, for all his strict ways of rearing a family, since by such an under- THE CANDLESTICK 3 standing with his boy, Dave not only did his chores gladly, but well. He knew that on this depended his chances for a Saturday now and then with traps or gun in the woods near his home. That, to the boy, was as the very breath of life. The old Welsh blood, with its dark touch of aloofness, ran unusually strong in him, tending to make him a bit broody at times and apt to keep apart from other boys his own age. His life-long friendship for Bob Allyn, how- ever, was unshakable. It was the best thing in the world for him, too, as it served the purpose of bringing him out of himself. The very contrasts in their natures drew the lads together unconsciously. Bob Allyn, fair and rugged, was nearly seventeen, a good deal taller and heavier than Dave, but lacking the quickness of thought and action that marked his chum. Bob loved horses and dogs with the same feeling that Dave loved his traps and his lonely forest trails. The boy was able to do much with the young stock on his father's place near Sycamore Mills, thanks to this same sym- pathetic understanding of them. He had broken in more than one colt that the men had almost despaired of. The very calmness of his Scotch nature, his way of thinking things out thoroughly, a bit at a time, enabled him to gain a control over animals and impart a confidence to them that many seemingly keener boys could never hope to equal. Bob made no claim of understanding trapping, however. His interests were in riding and jumping and schooling young horses far more than in the pitting of his brains against the wild things of the wood. This morning, thanks to Dave's repeated urging, he had 4 SANDY FLASH made an exception and ridden over early from Sycamore Mills, bent upon joining his chum in a day's tramp along the banks of Ridley, and a search of the possibilities for a new trap line near Hunting Hill in Edgemont where game was still plentiful. The winter had been a cold one and pelts had primed in splendid fashion some time before this Saturday when the mid-December frosts had broken a bit and the waters of Crum and Ridley ran free from ice almost as though a spring thaw had come. Winter mild spells come that way now and again in the County of Chester, and the year of Our Lord 1777 was no exception. A slight fall of snow the previous morning had left a clean slate for tracking and the boys had been quick to take ad- vantage of the ideal conditions. "Couldn't be anything but a coon track, Bob; look here," Dave was on his knees pointing. "See how it's shaped just like a foot with long toes. A regular mark like a little child's bare foot, only for it's being smaller. Coons always make " "Reckon you're right, Davey, now we can see it well. I remember a track like that last summer. It was in the dust of our garden patch, but I wasn't sure what made it. It was the time when the sorrel filly was coming along so nicely at the jumping and I didn' have half a chance to puzzle it out. Sure was fond of sweet corn though, coon or no coon. I say " The chill, midwinter hush of the forest snapped sud- denly with a sound that brought both boys to their feet. From the top of Hunting Hill, high above, there had rung out a sharp cry for help that cut through the frosty air like the crack of huntsman's thong. There was a mo- THE CANDLESTICK 5 merit's silence, as the echo died away far beyond Edge- mont and the Willistown Hills. Then came once more that faint call for aid, shrilled by distance, yet throbbing with mortal pain or terror. That was all. Bob dropped his traps and began to struggle after David up the slope, the unexpectedness of the alarm sending his heart thump- ing wildly against his ribs. The pitch of Hunting Hill was steep and the snow, though only an inch or two in depth, had a provoking way of slipping downhill beneath the boys' feet as their mocas- sins pressed through it to the matted leaves beneath. Dave, more familiar with the woods and in better condi- tion for climbing, soon outdistanced his companion, but the latter kept at it close behind him up the slope. Since that second piercing cry for aid, no further sound had disturbed the frozen chill of the noonday. As they panted on to the more or less level summit of the hill, the boys broke into a run, forcing their way through the under- brush in an endeavor to reach the spot whence the call had come. That there was urgent need of haste there could be no doubt. The speed of the racing lads soon checked to a jog, then to a struggling walk, as a tangled thicket of greenbriers, foxgrapes and thorns barred their way. Dave paused, his quick mind seeking to recall whether or not he had ever found a path round them on previous tramps to the hill. Bob did not hesitate, but without a thought for rent clothes or thorn-scratched face, he crashed into the thicket and fought his way to the other side. For once, he had acted with a speed that left Dave in the rear. His great strength stood him in good stead. The boy literally tore 6 SANDY FLASH his passage clear, leaving a lane through which the younger lad could squirm. As he burst free from the clutch of the greenbriers, Bob found himself in a little glade where a path crossed be- tween the trees, running off to the right. The boy's ruddy cheek had a rip that slashed it from jaw to ear, so that the blood trickled down his neck in crimson stain. There was no thought of smarting face, however, in Bob's mind, as he came into the open. In utter bewilderment, he checked his pace, striving to understand the sight that lay before him. Across the glade, a score of yards away, just where the forest path looped round a huge white oak, stood a man on tiptoe. Yet, strangely, he seemed to be leaning back against the tree. Both arms were high above his head. Dave pushed his way clear of the bushes and halted be- side Bob Allyn, alike dumbfounded, as he tried to make out the meaning of what he saw. The man before them, standing half sideways to the boys, was stripped to the waist and for all his reaching upward, never uttered a sound nor moved at the lads' approach. Something seemed to be wrong with his breathing for his ribs rose and fell spasmodically with strain. Dave recovered his presence of mind first and leaped forward to see more clearly what the man was about. "He's tied, Bob ! Quick ! Get him loose ! " A moment later both boys were beside the oak, working at the rawhide thong that bound the prisoner's wrists to- gether. The man, evidently well past middle age, was in pitiful shape. His hands had been secured against the oak's trunk where a small branch offered a convenient THE CANDLESTICK 7 fastening place for the thong. His coat of tough frieze and his woolen shirt had been roughly snatched off, ex- posing the upper portion of his body to the bitter winds of the dying year. Across his chest swelled great raw welts as though he had been lashed with a whip. One cut had ripped the skin. That he had kept silent from no choice of his own, was due to a gag, at first unnoticed by the boys. The thing was fast choking the breath from his lungs, as he strove to get air past the thick wad of paper that had been crammed in his mouth and made fast there by a strip of cloth partially covering his nose. A slash or two from Bob's jack knife severed the thong and allowed the man's body to slide forward to the ground. A moment later, his numbed arms were free. Bob chafed them in an effort to restore circulation, while Dave tore the bandage from the sufferer's lips. The gag seemed to have caused him the greatest pain. Soon his panting ceased and he was able to stand on his feet. Hur- riedly the boys helped him to put on his ripped clothing. Then for the first time he spoke, his voice uncertain from the ordeal. "A narrow call, lads! An old fellow like me can't stand over much of this weather in the buff! I'd frozen stiff as any jack herring before long, muzzled and spread-eagled that a-way!" "What happened? Who " Dave looked about him, seeking some explanation of the extraordinary position in which they had found the prisoner. "We heard a call for help and ran up from the creek," volunteered Bob. "I say! What in the world did they do it to you for? Who Where Ve they gotten to?" 8 SANDY FLASH "One at a time, lads, one at a time ! " The man swung his arms and stamped about in the snow, trying to warm his chilled and shivering body. "Are you armed? That's the first thing. If you are, quick, give me your guns! We'll try to catch the blackguard before he gets away. He can't be half a mile from here right " "We haven't a thing. Not even a pistol/' said Bob. "We were trapping over this way " "Then it's no use trying to find him now. Not the least. We'd best hurry down to the road at Edgemont Corner. There might be some people passing by to warn! I'll have to raise the countryside! We'll " "Let's start then; it'll be easy to follow the tracks if we begin right off! "Tell us what happened as we go!" Dave was quite beside himself with excitement. The man savagely stamped the wad that had been his gag deep into the snow. Then he turned toward the northern edge of the wood. Dave's mind was keyed to its sharpest, as he tried to think out some plan of immedi- ate action, but it was the more thoroughgoing Bob whose inspiration helped the most. He paused suddenly. "Oh, I say! Let's stop a second! That's the paper he gagged you with ! None of us looked at it at all! Maybe it might" "Won't do any harm to look, if you can make head or tail of it, chewed that a-way. I doubt it's more than any old thing he had handy in his pocket though. Let's hurry!" The man turned back without much show of enthusiasm and watched Bob dig up the half-chewed pulp from the snow. THE CANDLESTICK 9 A few minutes' effort at reading the legend soon con- vinced them that their seeming loss of time had been well spent. The paper was the upper portion of an official hand bill or notice. Almost illegible from wind and weather, it must have been roughly torn down from some place where it had been posted. Its five minutes' lodge- ment crumpled in the prisoner's mouth had not served to make it the more readable, but between them the anxious little group in the glade contrived to make enough of it to serve their purpose far better than they had hoped when they paused to look it over. The paper was part of an official notice of the county offering to all and sundry the sum of $1000 reward for the capture, alive or dead, of a certain James Fitzpatrick, alias Captain Fitz, alias Sandy Flash, twice a deserter from the American army under Washington, now said to be at large within the bounds of the said County of Ches- ter, terrorizing the people, robbing the highways, waging cruel war on patriotic Whig farmers and making it un- safe, especially, for the tax collectors to venture abroad without guard. The description followed. Tall, broad- shouldered, of enormous strength, yet notedly active and swift of foot, hair bright red the recent victim cried out as he read aloud the items. "I knew it! The man himself! The very spit of him! His hair was red as a burning rick and his arms like the beam of a Kennett plow! Sandy Flash! Why, he's been" "Sandy Flash!" Dave's voice shrilled high. "The highwayman from Hand's Pass! He'd never come here so far away, yet " io SANDY FLASH "It couldn't be any one else! I knew it!" The man shook the ragged paper at the boys excitedly. "To think the ruffian nearly choked the life from me with the reward for his own capture! It's like I've heard tell of him. Hand's Pass, did you say? Why " "Yes, in the Valley, where the Great Road to Lancaster climbs over the hills," replied Dave, who had once visited kinsfolk close by Duffryn Mawr and so knew the Valley country well. "I know that," answered the man, "but that's not the only place he keeps hidden in from all the hue and cry that's hot upon him for the villainy he's done the tax men and the rest. I wish it were, but the rascal has a secret place near where I come from out in Newlin. And he's been seen, too, in West Bradford, more's the pity. Only a" "What more does the paper have on it? I say, we'd best begin to get something done." Bob had been listen- ing as eagerly as Dave, but felt that the time called for action, not a recital of the highwayman's secret lairs. They bent once more to decipher the rumpled, sodden handbill, but little of value could be made of it. There was a description of an accomplice of Sandy Flash, one Mordecai Dougherty, with a lesser reward for his capture. Colonel Andrew Boyd, of Sadsbury, Lieutenant of the County of Chester, had a line calling upon all law-abiding men to unite in capturing both outlaws, dead or alive. The Executive Council endorsed this. The torn sheet broke off at that point, but little more was needed. The two boys looked significantly at the man as he returned it to his pocket. THE CANDLESTICK n "Lads, we're not clear of this fellow yet, not by a long shot, nor won't be, long as we stand here gabbling in the woods with nary a gun between us. Small doubt he's on the Strasburg Road this minute, looking for my horse. He must" "Your horse! What happened?" questioned Dave. "Come on, lads, we'll hurry along and I'll tell you the whole thing as we go. But first suppose you tell me who you are. Live near abouts?" The man moved off once more toward the northern edge of the woodland and fol- lowed the path at a rapid walk along the high ground that swept in bare, snow-covered fields before them. Beyond the next hill ran the Strasburg Road, the rutted lane that crossed the dip of the valley from the hill south of Newton Square, passed through Crum Creek ford, climbed a bit to Edgemont, thence dropped down over Ridley near Hunt- ing Hill, and on toward the Turk's Head Tavern far to the west. Bob lengthened his stride until he had come abreast of the man. "Now then, we'd best get this thing cleared up from the start," he said quietly, "if we're to catch anybody or do any good at all. We know it's Sandy Flash and that's all we do know. I'm Bob Allyn from Sycamore Mills yonder in Middletown. This is David Thomas. He lives by the Rose Tree over Blue Hill. What happened to you on the road?" Dave squeezed in beside his chum along the narrow lane, as they hastened on. After a moment, the stranger began his explanation. "You're right, lad, right as trivets. A man can't da much if he's in the dark. Nor boys, either. I'm glad ia SANDY FLASH Fve got your names, for Hugh Thomas I've known this many a day. Who doesn't know him, I wonder? The best farmer that ever came out the Old Welsh Barony!" The man smiled toward David, then continued. "It's precious little I've to tell and mighty little pride I've got left in the telling. I'm Peter Burgandine from Newlin way. Your father, John Allyn, knows me, lad. I was coming down toward Pratt House at the Square where I've a cattle deal with Jehu Evans over to Marple. Know Mm? Reckon you do, young Allyn. Just as I jogged along a bit west of Edgemont, where the road goes high over the hill, out steps a man from a patch of sumac and cedar bushes. He was favoring the off leg right badly and waved me to stop. 'Course I did, supposing he'd gone and gotten hurt some way. As he came close, he sort of leaned against my horse's shoulder. I started to get off and as I swung clear of the pummel, he straightens up and reached under his coat to snatch out a pistol! Then he leveled it at my head. In broad daylight, mind you, not half an hour gone!" Burgandine rubbed a moment at his wrists, as he kept up his hurried stride. "I had two pistols, loaded, on my saddle, but I hadn't any time to get 'em from the holsters, as I was halfway off before he showed his weapon. That man meant trouble! He ordered me to let go the horse and he sent it galloping down the road, pistols and all, with a wave of his arm before I could snatch at the reins. Then he drove me before him off the highway and over the top of the hill, out of sight. What could I do with his pistol in the crook of my back?" The old man laughed slyly. "I went along with him quiet as a lamb all right. Who wouldn't, THE CANDLESTICK 13 seeing that the money for the cattle deal was in two little bags at the bottom of the holsters! He never so much as" "Didn't the fellow get the money after all?" broke in Bob. "Oh, I say" "That was clever all right! But where'd your horse get to?" Dave pressed forward, eager to learn more. "The good Lord only knows," Burgandine replied with a hopeless shake of the head, as the three scrunched along, over the dry snow. "Last I saw he was galloping past the hill toward Street Road, gone clear to Westtown or Thornbury by now, I reckon! Well, boys, I may have saved the shillings for Friend Jehu, don't know yet, but it came precious close to tallying me dear! Once clear of the road, the blackguard searched me from top to toe and only found a couple of fippenny bits. He must have thought I was carrying money, for he went into a rage at not finding any. Then I began to see in what a dangerous pickle I was. I reckoned at the time it must be Sandy Flash. He poked me along before him, hidden by a hedgerow, till we came to this path. Then we reached the woods. I didn't know what he'd do next, but when he began to threaten me with his pistol and say he'd blow my brains out unless I told him where the money was, I decided to make a break for it." The man paused, scanning the empty landscape of snow that rolled away in a great bowl-shaped hollow to Newtown in the east. Not a thing moved, save a distant crow, low flying, like a black smudge against the white of the opposing hills. "That was a mistake. As I jumped for him, he hopped 14 SANDY FLASH sideways, tripped me up and cracked me a nasty wallop along the head with the barrel of his pistol. I'm not so spry as I used to be, nor young as I was once, and it sent me groggy a minute. By the time I'd come round, he had me tied. Could have killed me. That's about all, I reckon. The brute cursed me for a Whig and for trying to get away and said he'd teach me a lesson and find out where the money was at the same time. I think he tool^ me for a tax man or a bailiff when first he spied pistols on the saddle. "You saw what he did. After he'd torn my coat off and my shirt, trying to find money pockets in the lining, he tied me up with the thong of my own riding crop, then lashed at me with a hickory withe till I was fairly welted raw! You saw it? I knew I'd freeze or die if he kept it up, so I called for help. I'd been afraid to before when he had me under his pistol, but now it was my only chance. It seemed a precious slim one in this wild place. He may have heard you boys climbing the hill. I don't know. Anyway he stopped cutting at me all of a sudden and pulled a crumpled bit of paper from his coat tails. That was the gag and I nearly choked on it. Guess I would have, if you fellows hadn't come up when you did. Then he cut me one last fearful lash and walked off, saying he'd leave me to think it over. He'd not been gone two min- utes, though it did seem nigh a fortnight, when you came through the briers. That's all there is to tell, I guess. The thing now, lads, is get a posse and catch him, not talk about it." Peter Burgandine had received a manhandling that might well have cooled the ardor of a younger man, yet THE CANDLESTICK 15 the sturdy old farmer of Newlin was as eager to come up with the highwayman and bring him to justice as the two boys at his side were keen to join him in lending their aid. A few moments more brought them over the high ground and in sight of the road that ran east to Edge- mont crossways. There was no sign of Burgandine's horse, so they turned into the lane and moved on quickly toward the distant inn at Newtown Square, where the farmer still hoped to meet Jehu Evans, the cattle man. As they strode along, Burgandine continued his story. The man, like most of his neighbors in Newlin and Marl- borough, well understood the ill repute of the outlaw with whom he had just dealt. Silencing the eager queries of Bob and Dave, he began at the beginning so that they might realize the danger they had missed. "They call him Sandy Flash, lads, but his real name is James Fitzpatrick," Burgandine explained. "I know, because he hails from my part of the country out in West Maryborough, across the Brandywine. I never re- member seeing him, though. Had I, that hair of his would have stuck in my mind ! It's more flaming fire than any- thing else. John Passmore, by Doe Run, told me only last week, when some one was speaking at the store about Sandy Flash at Hand's Pass holding up the travel on the Lancaster Great Road, Passmore, he up and told me the man had been bound out to him as a lad years ago. "Used to be a decent sort, at that, learning his trade, blacksmithing and horseshoeing, same as you'd do or any other young fellow in the country. He's the powerfulest strength you ever heard tell of. A bull of a wrestler, John Passmore said, and famous fine at hunting and rolling 16 SANDY FLASH bullets. Never did a scurvy trick all the time he was at Passmore's place, he didn't, just wore his prentice apron like a good one. Then the war came and he went with the county troops to New York. The Flying Camp, it was, they called it. But it ruined him. The discipline he couldn't stand." Burgandine sighed, then went on. "They say they flogged him for some little thing or other and it turned him savage. Swam the Hudson River, that he did, with bullets spraying all about him. They caught him in Philadelphia town, where he'd gotten mixed up with that brigand, Moses Doan, the terror of Bucks. Well, the sheriffs, they clapped Sandy Flash into the gaol on Walnut Street, like a shot, then, more fools they, they went and let him out again. Because he said he'd go on fighting with the redcoats! Fighting with 'em! He told the truth for once. He tricked 'em fair! He fought his own neighbors with 'em at the Brandywine last fall and been hand in glove with Cornwallis ever since! \Vhen the troops moved to the town, he stayed behind and look at what a pass he's come to now, tying people up to trees and lashing 'em with withes! There's not a farmer safe from Tredyffrin to Nottingham! No, not from Coventry to Kennett!" Burgandine stopped a moment to look up and down the road, but the way was deserted. As they passed a wood that covered a hill to their right, Dave glanced up at the trees. It was the height of Castle Rock, a place he had never trapped. Mentally he resolved to give it a try, as soon as he and Bob Allyn should find a chance to finish their line at Hunting Hill. By the time Burgandine had ended his story, the trio iad passed the Boot Road where it forked back toward THE CANDLESTICK 17 White Horse Hill. Soon they turned to the left at New* town crossroad. Half a mile north of it was the Square. The stone Pratt House Inn appeared as they topped the hill. The tavern stood in the southwest angle formed by the Goshen Road crossing the one through Newtowr*. Fully a score of horses were tethered to the railing in front of the door. "What's happening at the Pratt?" cried Peter Bur- gandine, as he saw the unusual crowd. "Surely there's no sale to-day! 'Twas only Jehu Evans I looked to see here. Hurry, lads, we'll have a tale to tell that'll set the pack of 'em to horse and scouring the country in short order!" "We're in luck for sure," sang out Bob, catching the eagerness in the farmer's tone and wondering how best he could borrow a mount for the chase. "It won't take us five minutes to gallop back across country to where Flash" "Looks as if they'd galloped a lot already," interrupted Dave, his alert eye noting even at that distance the faint steam that rose above the horses' flanks in the cold air. "They've had a meet of the fox hounds somewhere and then ridden here for a round of ale. I wonder " Burgandine broke into a run. Followed by the boys, he dashed in the tavern and flung back an inner door leading to the taproom. The long chamber was crowded to overflowing. A man, near the bar, was trying in a loud voice to make himself heard. Most of the others were standing round the fireplace, drinking country ale, scrap- ing mud and snow from their cowhide boots and, them- selves, shouting in a way that made it quite impossible to i8 SANDY FLASH understand a word. As Burgandine slammed the door, there was a momentary pause. The farmer from Newlin was instant in availing himself of it. "Quick, neighbors!" he cried, "Get what guns you can and help! Sandy Flash's come down from the Valley! Held me up this very morning not half an hour gone. Is Farmer Evans here from Marple?" "Sandy Flash!" The words roared from the man who had been speaking as they entered. "Sandy Flash! Man alive, we've just lost track of the devil after the hottest chase that ever horse laid hoof to ground in! Raced all the way from Brandywine to Crum Creek crossing! Saw him last by White Horse hollow! Did you what did " The man broke off with a bellow like a bull and smashed his fist down upon the bar in excitement. A glass tumbler lost balance and fell to the floor with a shatter of frag- ments, but he gave no heed. "The villain held me up, I tell you, in Edgemont! Just under the butt of Hunting Hill!" Burgandine swung up his arm for silence. "He must have gotten free from you and" Amid a babble of voices that almost deafened them, Dave and Bob listened to the astounding story. It was soon told. The men, farmers from Birmingham, had re- ceived word that the hated highwayman was in their neighborhood. Hastily they had formed a posse to ride him down. Their clue had been good and they had suc- ceeded in surrounding the wood in which the outlaw lay bidden. By clever horsemanship, however, the man had leaped a great worm-fence that bound the covert and so escaped, only to be pursued for many miles. Not far THE CANDLESTICK 19 from White Horse in Willistown, he had eluded them as their utterly exhausted horses fell far behind his condi- tioned one. Disheartened, they had searched about here and there, until, following the Goshen Road, to the east, they had dismounted at the Pratt House Tavern for a rest before their five and twenty mile ride home. The men were dog-tired and in as ugly a mood as well could be. The story of Peter Burgandine did not tend to make them any calmer. Threats grew loud as the enraged men plied the farmer and the boys with questions. First, how- ever, they explained to them that Jehu Evans had not yet come to the inn. "We'll teach this Sandy Flash to tie up a peaceable man ! A tree is what he needs himself, a good stout one with a noose to it! That'd flash him, once and for all!" The threat came from the big fellow who seemed to be in charge of the posse. As he made it, he put down his tankard and tapped a brace of pistols that were stuck handily through his belt. "Come on, men, the boys'll show us the way. Friend Peter has had enough for one morning! Indian Hannah, by Newlin's Rock, will soon heal his welts with a bit of her herb salve when he gets home. We'll run this scare-cat to earth like the sneaking fox he is. One round, all round, of the good old brown October! Has everybody finished?" "Not quite, sir! Seein' as I've not begun yet. Rest ye merry, gentlemen all ! " The door swung open and a man entered so quietly that neither Dave and Bob were aware of his presence until his low-pitched voice had shocked the noisy company to silence. There was not an instant's doubt in the mind of any one as to his identity. His red 20 SANDY FLASH hair told that, as he swung off his great black hat with its scalloped brim. Sandy Flash had little need of an intro- duction to the posse that had been chasing him from Birmingham and the Brandywine, at risk of neck and limb, since early dawn. Nor did he in turn seem in the least put out by finding himself in their midst. Quite unconcerned, he swung the muzzle of his old-fashioned, brass-bound pistol round the room until every man there had felt it boring into the pit of his stomach in a sickening personal sort of way. It kept them, one and all, standing where they were. That was exactly what the highwayman had counted on that strange, contagious fear of the crowd held by the spell of another's iron nerve. "That's the way, me hearties!" He smiled. "Your hands a little higher, over there. You ! " The voice steeled suddenly and the man's hands shot upward toward the raftered smoke-stained ceiling. "That's better. A jolly ride enough, we've had! It's whetted me gullet, for a fact!" Sandy Flash motioned sharply, his pistol cuddled close to the cape over his right arm. The crowded room in- stantly obeyed, leaving a passageway from doorway to the bar. Bob Allyn shrank back instinctively, as he saw the man's burly form advancing. Dave was shoved into the corner by the backward surge of the crowd against him. Old Peter Burgandine sucked in his breath with a gasp of anger and surprise, as he stood rooted to the spot. Calmly, in no haste, the highwayman strode down that roomful of armed men, every one of whom, with the exception of the farmer from Newlin and the boys, had THE CANDLESTICK 21 come out with the express purpose of taking or killing him. Each waited now for his neighbor to make the first move. They waited too long. For an instant only was the outlaw's back toward them. Then he swung about just in time to sweep the swaying forms to control once more with his menacing pistol. He had won; they knew it. The rest was easy. Facing them, he reached backward along the bar for a jug of apple brandy. With his left hand he filled an empty glass and drained it as though he were drinking a toast at his own table. No one moved. No one spoke. "Gentlemen, all! To our next! It beats huntin' the fox!" He flung the glass in shivering fragments on the sanded floor. "May she end for us both as sportin' a frolic as this! Rest ye merry!" Sandy Flash crossed the room toward the door, this time keeping the men covered carefully as he moved. He knew well that even cowed men cannot be goaded too far, once they have begun to collect their wits. At the en- trance he paused. Reaching under his long cloak, he drew out a second pistol from his belt, cocked the flint- lock with a snap and broke into a laugh. Then he shook his first weapon free from the fold of the cape and tossed it across the room toward the fireplace. It struck the floor with a bang and clicked against an andiron, like a smith's hammer on a forge. A man cried out sharply. Dave stretched on tiptoe the better to see. The weapon ceased rocking to and fro and lay twinkling on the stone-flagged hearth, touched to fire by a shaft of light from a window. It was a well-burnished candlestick of brass ! The outlaw in pure bravado had held up the posse with 22 SANDY FLASH a candlestick. An empty candlestick, its butt concealed beneath his cloak! He had picked it up from the hall table of the inn before entering the taproom. Again he laughed, real merriment in his tone. Peter Burgandine could stand no more. The old man broke from the crowd with a shout and leaped, bare- handed, toward the door. He was a foot too late. The jamb shook as the heavy oaken panels slammed to and the key turned in the lock. Willing helpers rushed forward and the stout old boards strained under the combined weight of their shoulders, but galloping hoof beats told them they were wasting their strength. As they burst through the shattered planks, Sandy Flash disappeared round a bend in Newtown Road to the north, waving his hand in ironic farewell. CHAPTER II THE TRAPS THE next five minutes at the Pratt House would be hard to describe. It was Bedlam on the rampage. Bedlam with a temper worn thin by failure, weariness and disgust at its own stupidity. The boys and Burgandine were tossed aside by the rush, as the men from Birming- ham crushed past them through the broken doorway. There was a wild scramble at the horse rail. Each man tried to get his mount untied first until amid kicks and oaths and a cracking of whip thongs, the posse got under way and galloped north. It looked like a vain pursuit. "That horse of his can lead 'em a mile! I say, did you see his stride?" Bob gazed after the last of the men as they swept round the bend toward the Leopard Tavern. "He's way ahead already!" "I hope they shoot him dead," Peter Burgandine spoke solemnly. "Lads, there's such a thing as law and order. That murdering scoundrel has set authority at naught within the county. 'T would be a blessing if the men could catch him and chain him in the gaol!" "I only wish I'd gotten hold of a horse!" Bob sighed. "It's just like my luck to miss a chase like this. I reckon they'll gallop twenty miles before they're through. Oh, well, can't help it now, so there's an end to it! " "How about the traps?" Dave, seeing the excitement 23 24 SANDY FLASH had ended as far as they were concerned, began to recall the work they had set out to do. "I think we'd just as well start back and set a few by Hunting Hill where we dropped 'em." Bob reluctantly agreed. Before they turned toward home, however, the innkeeper came out of the door with an invitation that they join Peter Burgandine in the kitchen and eat a bite of dinner. Both boys accepted eagerly, be- ginning to realize for the first time how far they had tramped since breakfast and how long ago it was that they had eaten. While the good wife bustled about and set be- fore them two platters heaped with boiled beef and cab- bage and flanked with a great bowl of sassafras tea, the host showed them a secret chamber where he was busily hiding what spare coin and silver he had in the inn. The room was underground, a sort of dungeon reached through the floor of the kitchen closet. To tell the truth, however, Dave and Bob were more intent on the steaming, wholesome food before them than they were on the raising of the floor board and the lower- ing of the ladder. Little did either of them dream of the part that same hidden chamber was to play in their lives. Had they any way of looking into the future, they would have forgotten their plates and gone down the opening with the innkeeper, as he carried his valuables below. When he had finished the work, Peter Burgandine drew up the lantern he had been holding at the end of a rope. The farmer extinguished the candle in it and came over to join the lads at table. He was full of the doings of Sandy Flash and only too glad to share them with his ex- cited audience while they topped off their meal with slabs THE TRAPS 25 of wheaten bread dipped in treacle. Dave and Bob were good trenchermen always. Their hearty country appetites soon began to make an impression on the heaped-up platter. "They tell a great tale of how he gave the slip to a pair of soldiers, come up from Wilmington for to take him," said Burgandine, spreading his treacle on his slice of bread. "It was last summer, before he'd gone to the hills. I heard Neighbor Passmore speak of it. He ought to know, as it happened right on his farm in West Marl- borough. Sandy Flash was working there one day, mow- ing in a field, after he'd run off the second time from the army. It wasn't far from the tenant house where his mother lives a nice enough old Irish woman she is, too, according to John. The two soldiers knew him from his red hair and they got him covered before he saw them. The sly rascal! He gave up like a suckling lamb, only begging them the favor of bidding a good-by to his old mother and fetching a coat for to cover himself with. They marched him up before 'em to the house. Just as he steps inside he grabs his gun which he always kept handy behind the door. Then he swung on those two white-livered cowards and threatened to blow their brains galley west on the doorstep, as the jack tars have it! They ran! What do you suppose Sandy did?" Bur- gandine chuckled in spite of himself. "He went back to his mowing! That he did." "Who's the other fellow the one they talked about in the reward?" Bob's mind had been turning over each de- tail with true Scotch deliberation. He began to devour another great hunk of bread. 26 SANDY FLASH "Dougherty, I think it was," said Dave, who always had a knack at recalling names. "Yes, that's it, I'd know Mordecai Dougherty the min- ute I set eyes on him. He comes from Nathan Hayes' farm at Doe Run. Seen him there many a time," Peter Burgandine's voice was bitter. "I've often heard of Sandy Flash at Passmore's, but never just happened to come across him face to face. Dougherty's a dangerous scoun- drel, but Flash's got the brains. More's the pity ! " A few minutes later the lads finished their meal and with many thanks to the innkeeper and his wife, prepared to take their departure, leaving the farmer from Newlin still engrossed in his recent experience. What had be- come of his horse, he did not know. Luck favored the boys, however, for just as they were bidding Burgandine farewell, up drove Jehu Evans, the belated cattleman, in a sledge. "In with you, Peter, and we'll drive down the Stras- burg Road!" cried the newcomer. "That horse of yours must be on it somewhere and we'll save the money yet. Going that way, past Edgemont, boys? Want a carry?" It was a tight squeeze, for sledges, as they were called, were small in those days to fit the narrow, winding lanes that passed for roads, but soon the two men were in the seat, while the lads caught foothold, one on either runner. Evans clicked to the horse and away they went, Dave and Bob calling their thanks to the landlord on the steps of the inn. It was a jolting, uncertain ride, at best, for them, but the excitement of the morning had roused their spirits and each counted it a merry lark. In half an hour they had left the men and were back THE TRAPS 27 at the spot where they had dropped their traps on hearing Burgandine's cry for help. It seemed an age had passed, rather than a couple of hours, since that alarm had come to them. Dave was soon bending over the coon trail in the snow. "A coon sure does like corn, the Indian maize, just as you said, Bob, and apples, too. They come up close to our house, sometimes, and eat the windfalls. Even climb trees after good ones. They chew up a lot of lizards and bugs, as well. A man once told me they'd kill birds, fledglings, I mean, and eat eggs quick as a wink ; when they could get 'em." "I reckon they will. Father says they'll eat fish and frogs. Most all animals fill in on things easier to get, though berries and worms and stuff that they can find most anywhere." "Yes, and nuts, don't forget them. Those are the things I always try most to find out. The more a fellow knows of what animals eat, why, the easier it is to trap 'em. Many a time I've walked all day in the woods just to make sure of something that might come in handy later on when pelts were prime. Once I saw a coon eating honey! They like that best of all, when they come on .some old bee tree full of it. You'd never think now " "I say, Davey! You surely are a queer one! Snooping round by yourself like any old broody hen, yet you've got a plan to it all the time! " Bob laughed good-naturedly at his chum, then stood up. "Well, let's get to work. I'm dead tired! Let me be the trapper this time. I'll put one right in the middle of the trail here and cover it with leaves. I mean a bit further along where we've not tram- 28 SANDY FLASH pled round it. Bet this is a regular coon path like the " "It's a path all right, but you'll never see hair nor hide of coon if you go about it that way," Dave chuckled at the mistake of his husky companion. "You may know horses and be able to ride 'em over fences, but you're a mighty poor sort of woodsman,, Bob, I'd say. A coon's clever as a fox, most, in some ways, stupid as any old hen in others. I used to put traps in their trails and I never caught one like that yet. They always go round it somehow or other. Just like a fellow can hardly ever trick 'em with a deadfall. Watch here." Dave lost no time in putting his woodcraft to work. Bob Allyn threw down his heavy bundle of traps to lend a willing hand. Together the boys soon were hard at it, making the coon sets, all thought of the highwayman far from their minds. Getting a line on where the path led down through the forest toward the west bank of Ridley was a simple matter, for the tracks showed up readily enough in the light snow. By good chance, the bushes and trees had not yet begun to shake off their silvery burden and thus pock the ground confusingly as always happens after a snowfall of this kind. Dave's next move was to seek out a couple of rotting logs, fair-sized ones, yet such as he and Bob could move handily. This did not call for a very long search, as the woodland had been partially cut over many years before and small logs were to be found lying about in the brush. The boys lugged these logs to the trail and threw them across it at right angles, taking care not to step on the trail itself, but to work from both sides of it. They THE TRAPS 29 dropped the logs about twenty yards apart. Then Dave made ready his traps. The laa had never seen the improved steel ones of to- day, but those that he did have were workmanlike and handy for all that. Of iron, with crude, though powerful, steel springs, they had been made at the log smithy on the road to Nether Providence, where the blacksmith had hammered them out on the anvil under the direction of a woodsman who had taken an interest in the boy's love of the open. The traps were very good, some of them quite like the best designs of the present in essential parts. Dave was especially proud of an arrangement on a few of them whereby the jaws were able to close upon an ani- mal's leg in two places, thus making it almost impossible for the foot to be gnawed off, as happens so often with ill- made traps. There was also a sort of metal lug on the jaw of some of them which the boy was trying out with a view to prevent this same thing. All in all, the woodsman had done his work well, seconded by the smith, and Dave was fortunate, indeed, to be the owner of a set of traps that were considerably ahead of the rough ones in use about the countryside of Providence and Edgemont at that time. A trap, one of medium size, perhaps four or five inches across, was carefully set at the end of the log, lengthways that is, its jaws running in the same direction as the log. The boys then covered the metal lightly with leaves and a sprinkling of snow. One log had rotted away a good deal at the end and here a trap was hidden just within the trunk itself and covered with a handful of rotten, 30 SANDY FLASH punky wood dust. The iron chains were also covered with snow after having been fastened securely to the logs or nearby trees. The sets were made in as short a time as it takes to tell it. The boys picked up their other traps and walked through the woodland that grew down to the very edge of the stream on their right. In spite of their delay with Burgandine and Sandy Flash, they were de- termined to carry the trap line up Ridley at least as far as the end of Hunting Hill. That had been their original plan when they had left home early in the morning. As they went along they kept a sharp lookout for signs. It would not do to pass by any likely places for a set. The woods were stark and bare in midwinter bleakness, yet so thick was the forest of chestnut, oak and ash, poplar, beech and maple, that one could not see very far in any direction. Dave led the way, his eyes searching keenly here and there among the trees. By the brookside the leafless alders and dogwood made it hard to see the bank, but the boys were patient and worked their way along carefully. "What was the good of throwing those logs across the trail?" asked Bob, after a long pause. "I'd think the traps could have been set just as well in the place where the coon had walked. They'll come back there again, like as not. They often do." He had been pondering over this part of the set ever since he had helped Dave carry the logs and lay the traps. Unable to solve the mystery, his painstaking mind would not let the matter drop. The boy wanted to know; the why of everything. "Coons are queer things. They're like the Indians THE TRAPS 31 father used to see when he was a boy, camping by the Cathcart Rock in Willistown. You know, where the great meadow is. They never walk over a thing if they can go round it. Coons don't, nor redskins either," answered Dave. "They like to find a hollow log, if they can, and crawl into it. Maybe they get worms or grubs there. I don't know. Anyhow, that's what they do. If a coon comes along the trail back yonder, going down to water, he'll go sniffing and snuffing along to the end of the log, to see if it's hollow. We'll catch him sure as you please if he does. The trap in the hollow end is the best, but the others just at the ends are mighty good, too. And mind you, never set crossways to a path or hole or trail. The jaws of the trap don't close fair and square, that way. Set 'em lengthways." Bob cannily stored this information away in his mind for future use. Clearly there was a good deal more to this trapping game than just tramping about in the cold carrying a lot of heavy traps and chains and things. Incidentally, Bob needed some pelts as well as Dave. Pelts meant money. With enough of them, he might be able to save up toward a new saddle. There was another long pause, then Bob spoke again. "Say, Davey, how much do you think we'll be able to get for our pelts this year? I guess it all depends on how many we catch and how good they are, doesn't it? Pity we didn't begin regular trapping like this last year." "They always want good skins, the men that buy for the towns. Some regular trappers make a fortune, most, selling to 'em but they're lots further back in the woods than we could go, those real trappers. Over at the inn at Newtown Square, they'll buy pelts from us, though. AIL 32 SANDY FLASH we can get hold of. I was talking to the landlord there about it, when you were busy with Burgandine. He said he'd gladly take our furs and pay us best he could for the good ones. When I asked what kind fetched the most, he said beaver and otter. But they're hard to find as an eel's foot!" Dave laughed, then spoke more seriously again. "Let's get to work and catch an otter. There must be some of 'em left hereabouts, I'll bet. And we might even get a beaver, if we tried hard enough to find their dam. An otter's the hardest of them all to trap, though. Come on! My! If it wasn't war time, we could make lots of money." The boys moved off in silence. Hunting Hill in Edgemont was a good way from home, but Bob had agreed to ride over on his horse from Syca- more Mills now and then during the week days to look at the trap line there, with the understanding that the pelts won be divided equally between him and his chum. Dave's share in the work lay in overseeing the setting of the line and visiting it on weekends when he, too, could be spared from farm chores. The lads soon left the coon sets behind, working a short distance down-stream. Then they turned back and ap- proached a sweep in Ridley where the waters swung through a meadow that sloped up to the winter skyline on their left. The trees rose sharply across the clearing, covering to its very top a high cone-shaped hill. The height was nearly an eighth of a mile away. The waters of Ridley, six or seven yards in width, swept round the base of it. That was the goal of their trapping Hunt- ing Hill in Edgemont, known from the days of the Lenni- Lenape Indians as a covert for game. On the summit of THE TRAPS 33 the same eminence they had rescued Peter Burgandine that very morning. Neither boy had thought for that now, however. Dave had never trapped in this neighborhood before, although he had trudged over the hill on the west bank of Ridley many times and found game signs aplenty. His dark eyes began to glow with that sharp, keen passion of the chase that had come down to him from the mists of the past a heritage of unconquered generations who had stalked and hunted for their livelihood on the hills of far- off Wales. There was nothing moody about him now. Even Bob, familiar as he was with his chum's ways, could not fail to notice the eagerness that began to set the younger lad a-quiver. "Bet I find signs before you do, Bob," whispered the excited boy, lowering his voice unconsciously, as though he were stalking. "Bet I do ! I know I will because " "Should think you might, seeing you tramped over this way just before the snow. I say, Dave, you're keen as mustard, all right, when it comes to trapping. Puts me in mind of a terrier after a rat! Must be lots of game here; it's wild enough. See all those rabbit tracks criss-cross- ing? And look at that big hawk yonder ! There it goes into the wood!" Bob Allyn pointed ahead to where the brook disappeared in the forest at the foot of Hunting Hill. The great roving bird of prey glided from view, uttering the shrill challenge of its kind the questing call of a hawk. Dave did not answer. The boy had suddenly come to a halt, gazing at a patch of briers close at hand. Bob, noting the action, froze stockstill beside him, thinking his 34 SANDY FLASH companion had sighted game. Though they had no guns along, the traps being heavy enough as it was, yet it would be fine sport to stalk a bit just for practice, if they came close enough upon anything worth while. Following Dave's gaze, the older boy could detect noth- ing. The open meadow lay before them; the little clump of thorns and greenbriers stood bare against the back- ground of snow. Bob waited while Dave ran forward a few steps. Then he followed. "I say, Dave! What in the world ails you?" "Nothing. Thought that sapling looked sprung, bu there's nothing on it." Dave's voice showed ill-covered disappointment. "This is where I made that rabbit snare I was telling you of, Bob. I saw it'd been sprung as soon as we came out of the Woods and I wanted to see how close you'd come to it before you saw the rabbit." He broke off with a dry laugh. "But there wasn't any rabbit ! He must have touched it and gotten away. Look at the snow all knocked off the bushes? I tried awfully hard to make a good snare, too. Right in a regular rabbit run through these briers. See the tracks everywhere?" He reached up to examine the dangling loop. "Oh, well, a fellow can't make a catch every time. Just like breaking a colt. Takes a deal of patience, Davey. Let's set it again and go on," consoled Bob. "That otter and beaver business sounds pretty well worth while to me. I've been thinking it over all along through the woods. If we could get an otter, it'd be better than all the rabbits from Edgemont to Chichester! I'm going to try for one, anyway." He watched Dave as the latter rapidly set the rabbit snare in place. THE TRAPS 35 "You're right about the pelts. A rabbit skin isn't worth a fippeny bit for anything I know of," said Dave, "but it takes skill to snare 'em just the same and we can use all the meat we can get. You don't suppose I'd trap at all, do you, if we didn't need the food and the hides?" Dave worked at the trap among the briers. "That's why I wanted to get one in a sapling snare to-day. I've often got 'em that way before. Fresh rabbit is mighty good, when my mother broils it, I can tell you!" As he was speaking, the boy bent down the tough, springy young hickory and cleverly fastened its top close to the ground with a couple of forked sticks set so that when one of them was moved at all it released the other and allowed the sapling to spring upright. The noose made fast to the hickory, was a simple affair of thin hair- woven cord amazingly tough, so spread that when the tree sprang, the loop would instantly draw tight about the neck or body of the animal that had caused the sticks to fall and the trap to be sprung. Dave set this cord loop carefully in an opening between the briers. Then he twisted a few thorn sticks so as to block the other open- ings on either side. The working of the rabbit snare was not unlike the well-known figure 4 trap, only instead of a box or deadfall, the moving of the sticks resulted in the freeing of the tree. For bait, Dave stuck a small apple on the trigger stick. He had brought it along in his pocket for this very purpose. As he finished the work and straightened up from the runway, he heard an exclama- tion of surprise from Bob, who had been following the maze of tracks about in the snow, while he had been busy with the apple. 3 6 SANDY FLASH "I say! There's been more than cottontails round here, Dave, and not so long ago at that! See here! " Bob was on his knees pointing to a little patch of snow that lay cupped in a hollow between two outcropping rocks. "If that's not the mark of a boot, plain as White Horse Hill on a clear day, I'll miss my guess. What did " "It sure is." Dave was crouching, on the instant, low beside his comrade, scanning the unmistakable outline of a heavy heel. "But where's the rest of the trail? There's snow all about." "That's just what puzzled me while you were fixing the bait. I saw this was a footmark all right and I knew you couldn't have made it in your moccasins last time you were here. Do you think " "Sandy Flash!" Dave leaped to his feet. "He might have" "No, couldn't be the highwayman." The older boy's voice was tense with excitement in spite of the calmness he tried to put in it. "He couldn't very well be here and up with Burgandine at the same time. And we were close by just before that, you know. I thought of Sandy Flash first thing till I saw it couldn't be. It might " "Where's the rest of the trail? It doesn't seem to lead anywhere " Dave eyed the mark. "But there isn't any more to it. That's the puzzle!" Bob swung his arm in a circle. "I say! Not a sign!" Dave's answer was to jump to his feet and to look about him with a roving sort of glance that would have delighted the heart of a woodsman in that it quartered the ground systematically for all its quickness. He did not need much backwoods skill to read the story of that footprint, once THE TRAPS 37 the beginning of it had been found. Step by step he fol- lowed it up, as the full meaning of the legend unraveled. Bob had failed to trace it, mostly because he had searched too near the lone print rather than casting wide to pick it up further away from the snare. At the edge of the brook the tracks disappeared, but a line of boulder step- ping stones, clean of snow, showed a way across to the wooded bank on the other side. The boy paused, un- certainly. "I did have a rabbit in that snare! Sure as can be I did, this very morning!" Dave spoke sharply, his sud- den anger flaring quick, as he took in the signs before him. "Some poaching thief has seen it and robbed my set! Let's follow back again to the snare and see if we can make any more out of it. I'd say it was Sandy Flash in a jiffy, if it weren't we'd seen him at the inn and knew he was with old Peter right after he got away from those men." At the end of fifteen minutes little more had been dis- covered. The footmarks here and there among the rocks showed that a man, evidently wearing boots, had come down stream from the direction of Hunting Hill. On near- ing the snare, he must have noticed it, as his tracks in the snow showed that he had come to a halt. Both boys could see that clearly, as the signs were plain at this point. So far the trail had been easy, but it was a good twenty yards nearer the creek than the clump of briers that hid the clever rabbit loop. From the place where he had stopped, the man had used some care in avoiding leaving a trail as he approached the set an easy matter enough, for the ground was littered with stones and boulders 38 SANDY FLASH blown free from the dry, powdery snow. He had simply stepped from one to the other until he had reached the sapling, then having removed the rabbit, he must have gone back to his original path near the brook and thence crossed over on the stepping stones placed there at hazard by nature. "Somebody's poached my snare all right. It's plain in the snow as if he'd left us a letter telling how he did it! " Dave stopped disconsolately on the bank pushing hunks of snow into the water with his foot. "I just knew there'd be a rabbit in that loop. I counted on him for dinner! It'd be fresh as a daisy, too! If he finds the other sets, the whole trap line'll be done for. Any one low enough to rob" "Who do you think it could be, seeing as we've counted Flash out of it? Would any of the fellows from Provi- dence way or Springfield be mean enough to follow you up and " Small good it did the angry trappers to guess. The proof was there that the snare had been pilfered, but who was the poacher and how long he had been gone were questions that could not be answered. It was already ap- proaching evening. They had other sets to make before hurrying home to chores and supper, so the boys, in disap- pointment, turned once more toward Hunting Hill. Their luck changed quickly for the better once they had entered the denser woodland of the covert. This time it was Bob who first saw tracks worth scanning. Glancing about a rocky slope that rose a score of yards above the brook, he spied a broad trail, wide apart, equidistant, leading upward among the beeches. He was climbing THE TRAPS 39 toward it almost before he had time to point it out to Dave. The fever of the woodsman was getting into his blood, too, and spurring him on. There could be no mis- taking that track. Even Bob Allyn, untrained in the ways of the wild, knew that few animals aside from the skunk, dared walk so boldly and unconcerned as went that line of steps up the hillside. The prints of the feet were not very large, almost triangular in shape, with the five toes forming a perfect semicircle. Earthy scratch- ings through the light snow showed where the skunk had sought worms among the roots, but evidently there had been too much frost to keep him very long at work in search of his favorite summer provender. Dave spotted the hole first, close by the roots of a huge beech tree. Eagerly he pointed it out to the slower climb- ing lad who was not finding it so easy as his lighter com- panion to scramble up the steep and slippery hill. "There's his earth! Knew we'd come on it up here somewheres! Didn't have to go round by Robin Hood's barn to see it, either! We'd have smelled him long ago if it'd been summertime. Look, Bob, he's using this hole all right. See those black hairs stuck on the sides ! That's proof, sure as pudding! They'd be red if a fox had the hole. Whee! We're going to get this old codger quick as a wink!" Dave's excitement was fast mastering him, as Bob came panting up to the earth. "Then there'll be lots of skunk-oil liniment. Mother was saying we needed some mightily about the house. "Once father got a big skunk and we made two full quarts of oil from the fat that covered him just under the skin. You never saw the like of it! We ought to have 40 SANDY FLASH luck here. A skunk's awfully easy to trap, only they've a way sometimes of gnawing their foot off. A deadfall's really best, for it breaks their backs right away and there's no bother with the scent. Besides, they don't suf- fer any. But we'll put a plain trap here for luck." Dave looked at Bob a moment strangely, then reading the thought on the latter's frank face, he said: "Bob, you think I'm mighty cruel, don't you? I can see you do, so you might as well say it. But just remember this. I've never trapped yet except when we really needed the meat or the pelt money at home. And I've never let any ani- mal, big or small, suffer a moment longer than I could help it. Whenever I can, I use a deadfall and I visit the trap lines regularly. Don't forget that, for it's the truth. And it's fair, too." "I know all that, Davey. 'Course we have to trap or we'd go cold as well as hungry winters like this. Let's fix it." The boys soon had a medium trap, the same kind they had used at the coon set, in place just at the entrance to the hole. The chain was fastened securely at the foot of a tree with as little leeway as possible. Then they cov- ered the whole thing with leaves. Last of all, Dave reached into the earth and stuck his bait on a stick a few inches beyond the trap. It consisted of a bit of meat he had brought along in his pocket. The meat was decidedly prime. As they were sliding and scrambling down the hillside, Bob examined the tracks once more. Not half so quick as David, the older boy, none the less, had a way of making lasting use of whatever he learned. Now he THE TRAPS 41 was laying those new tracks away in his mind where they would be well remembered. "It's queer how a little animal like a skunk can walk straight as an arrow through the forest wherever it wants to go, not even afraid of a bobcat or a bear," mused Bob. "I say, did you ever know, Dave, that a skunk can blind a fox for good if he sprays him fairly in the eyes? I had a dog nearly ruined that way once. Old Rambler, it was. I guess you remember the time it happened? They say nothing living can close with a skunk, once the " "They give you three fair warnings, though, and don't spray you if you don't bother 'em," interrupted Dave, eager to show his own observant woodcraft. "If you ever meet with one, Bob, and he stops and stamps his front foot a couple of times, you'd better go back or round. If he raises his tail, it's almost too late. But if you see the white tip of it straight up in the air and you keep on toward him," Dave laughed, "why, just bury your clothes before coming over Rose Tree way! That's all!" The short afternoon was fast wearing on to twilight, as the skunk set was completed, so the lads turned south for home and supper. It had been a day of adventure, a day that Dave and Bob would remember as long as they lived. The boys were tired, dog tired, yet filled with a feeling of satisfaction for work well done. "We can get over the creek all right down by the stones. It's shorter." Dave plodded wearily on. "It's lucky they are there when the water's high." "Go first. You know the way best," answered Bob, his mind still intent on the new wood lore he had learned. 42 SANDY FLASH A hundred yards before them, a man slipped from view behind a mighty chestnut a veritable sire of the forest. As Dave turned down the glade toward the crossing in Ridley, the fellow hissed softly between pursed lips, and motioned with his arm. In answer, a second figure ap- peared for an instant, then dropped back between the cedars that had covered him. The tired lads rounded a bend and drew nearer with never a glance at tree or thicket where the footway passed between them, never the faintest thought of impending ambuscade. CHAPTER III THE HEARTH RUG A I ^HE sudden parting of the bushes was the first inti- JL mation the lads had of the men by the path that, and the sight of a figure springing toward them from the chestnut. Both boys halted in alarm. A moment later a hearty laugh reassured them, as it echoed through the dimming lanes of the forest. One of the men came for- ward into clearer view. "Caught you napping that time, the pair of you! Made you jump nigh out your skin, we did!" "Father ! I say ! " Bob looked again to make sure, then, joined in the merriment at his own expense. "None other ! " sang out John Allyn, so hugely pleased at the success of his little ruse that he failed to note his son's excited face or even catch the purport of his alarm. "None other, 'I say' or no! We just thought, Neighbor Thomas and I, that we'd put in a bit of a Saturday after- noon ourselves in the woods to show we weren't so old or so dead to fun as you lads most likely reckoned we were!" John Allyn laughed again in glee. The whole affair was the sort of lark that the great good-natured farmer loved to take part in on those rare occasions when he could find the time from work. "That we did, boys, that we did," volunteered Hugh Thomas, David's father. He was a spare man, wiry like 43 44 SANDY FLASH his son, but with an endurance that never seemed to tire. He stepped closer to see whether his boy still carried a trap at his belt. "All set, are they, right and proper? That's the way to go about it! I'm glad as John Allyn, here, I came along, though it did seem a bit like passing by more needful things at first. A long day you've made of it for a fact!" "Oh, father," interrupted Dave, eager to tell of their adventures, "we've had the wildest time you ever heard of. First, we heard a " "It was Sandy Flash, the highwayman!" broke in Bob, unable longer to restrain himself. With both lads trying to speak at the same time, a troublesome task their par- ents had to get at the bottom of the Newtown outrage. At last, it was made clear to them and their many questions answered. The older men grew serious at once. Hugh Thomas stood motionless in thought for a moment, then nodded at his companion. "It's a bad day for us when Sandy Flash comes riding our end of the country. I've heard tell of his thievery and mischief many a time, John. But we may have seen the last of him, at that. I surely hope so. What a vain jangling they must have made of it at the Square! In- stead of closing with him! That's drinking for you!" He fairly snorted in disgust. John Allyn agreed. The man was too interested now in his boy's trapping to pay much heed to the chance of the outlaw coming back. Till he did, at any rate, there was no need of worry. The posse had been quick in pur- suit. Perhaps, even now the blackguard had been seized. Farmer Allyn shrugged his shoulders as though to dis- THE HEARTH RUG 45 miss the matter altogether, then glanced toward the warmly glowing west. "I reckon we'd best be hastening back, friends. I only wish we'd thought to come to the woods earlier, for I'd like to have seen the sets you made. I've a bit to say about this trapping business. Hugh and I've been talk- ing it over as we walked along. The thing's a piece of useful work we both think well of. Especially, if you two go about it in earnest and really get the pelts. Tell 'em what we've decided, Hugh." The older Thomas turned down the path toward the stepping stones, speaking over his shoulder, as he moved off. "Come on, then. I'll tell you everything after we cross the creek. It'll be dark, as it is, before we're back to Blue Hill lane. Look yonder at the sun, lads. 'Twill be fair as a bell to-morrow. 'Red at night is shepherd's delight.' I can hear your granddaddy saying that now, David. The old gaffer knew weather with the best of 'em." The little party swung off in single file, the men lead- ing. Once safely across Ridley, they availed themselves of the more open going to walk abreast. In this manner, they made steady way toward the Providence Road above, while Hugh explained to the boys what they waited to hear. "You see, it's this way. The war and the taking of so much food and supplies for our troops has meant that things are not going to be half so easy to get hold of, this winter, as they used to be. Not hereabouts. You boys'll have to do your part in keeping the farms up to the mark. That'll mean harder chores for the pair of you, but the 46 SANDY FLASH trapping is apart from that. Before the winter's out, we'll need every last pelt you're likely to get. More, too. If you can show us that there's game about worth taking, 'twouldn't surprise me if we older folks joined in the work ourselves a bit, when we've time to spare from the farms. That has to come first always." Hugh paused till the others had joined him in scram- bling over the wayside wall of stone. As they dropped down the bank to the road, he went on speaking. "Pelts can help us in many ways. We can get the women folks to make 'em up into good snug caps and mufflers and mittens for us all. We can even make a fine coat or two out of the big ones, if you boys prove to be the trappers you ought. Then John, here, has another great thought on it. He says we might let you have as much time as we could possibly spare and that in return for the sport you'd get from it, you two should agree to put the gain toward buying what little you could for the men of the army. They're camping out in the wet and cold over somewheres by the Valley Forge right now. Even pelts and hides would help 'em mightily. I heard that close to ten thousand men were setting up their huts there!" The boys fairly shouted in approval. To tell the truth they had been a mite uncertain as to just how far their parents would favor the regular trapping work they had in mind for the winter. In ordinary times it would have been easy to find all the leisure they needed, but with the county in disorder, food of many kinds very scarce, sup- plies hard to get hold of in the little wayside hamlets, each boy knew well that his first duty was at home, work- THE HEARTH RUG 47 ing his hardest there to keep up the chores assigned him. "Then we can put out another line of traps, can't we, Dave? At Castle Rock, maybe! Oh, I say! You could easily see to one and I could try " "Hold steady there, lad! Easy dpes it!" Hugh Thomas broke in, smiling at the boy's enthusiasm. "It's best to do one thing well while you're at it. Now, listen here. This is to be serious work, mind, not play. I want you, David, and John Allyn looks to Bob to go about this rightly or not begin at all. Set one line of traps and set 'em well. Arrange between you to have 'em seen to dur- ing the week. Then on Saturdays you both can have all day at it. Every fortnight you can have a whole after- noon for the work in mid-week, turn about with Bob. I'd give every day, to boot, but there's the chores you must help me with and then there's the schooling in the morning. War or no war, any boy of mine must get a bit of that, though a sorry time it is these days to find place or person who's a chance to teach him!" Hugh paused, while big John Allyn nodded in confirma- tion. The sound, hard-working farmers of the neighbor- hood, those who had originally settled along the reaches of Darby Creek and in the Old Welsh Barony that ran from Merion in the east far up past Haverford to Tredyf- frin in the Valley, these men had paid great heed for gen- erations to the schooling of their children. When no regu- lar dominie was to be had, as was too often the case, they made out the best way they could themselves, assigning lessons at which their boys and girls could work to profit in the long winter evenings and as often as they could be spared from chores during the busier hours of daylight. 48 SANDY FLASH The Quaker children usually attended week-day school of a more or less regular nature in the old Friends' Meet- ing Houses at Haverford, Ithan and elsewhere through the county. Books were few, but the Bible was in every homestead, while often a Pilgrim's Progress or even a Paradise Lost served the purpose of reader and speller combined. From such as these, Dave and Bob had learned their letters and to parse. It must be admitted that in mathematics they had not gone so far, although they were founded in the elements of that creditably enough. It had been driven home to them by practical examples of its use in the daily life of the farm and in the village markets where their fathers drove cattle for exchange. When Dave's father now said that trapping was for week-ends and then only, both boys knew that he meant it. There was no questioning of his authority or judg- ment. "The thing we all must do this winter, boys, is help our- selves as best we can. Soon as ever I saw you two were really earnest about the trapping, I began to turn over in my mind how, if you went about it right, you might bring in quite a bit of game to line our larders. That and the pelts for making some warm and handy things we need would more than offset the time from work. Neighbor Allyn agreed, so out we came to Ridley Woodland, know- ing we'd find you here or up by Pickering Thicket yonder." "Easy as rolling off a log," quoth big John Allyn, smil- ing as he recalled the startled look on the lads' faces, when THE HEARTH RUG 49 his ambush had been sprung. "Bob, you jumped like a scared woodchuck back there ! Truly, you did ! " "They both did," went on Hugh. "We could track you finely, once you left the road. It was the same as follow- ing the slot of a deer like I used to do on the hills of Tredyffrin when I was your age. Many's the time I've hunted 'em over there, visiting the Walkers or the Wil- sons in the Valley. Davie, here, comes by his trapping well, I'll tell you, so you'll have to pick up every trick of it you can, Bob." "And remember it's real work, you're doing, son," added John Allyn. "We've got to depend a lot more on our own fields and our own forests than we've been doing of late. To say nothing of our streams. Tell us now what sets you've put out to-day. And how you made 'em? With Sandy Flash and poor old Peter, the wonder is to me you've found a chance to lay a one of 'em." The boys soon related the story of the rabbit snare that had been sprung. Then they told of the coon sets they had made in the ends of the logs, and Dave described the skunk trap, taking care to give his chum the credit for first noting the tracks. By the time the boys had finished, they had reached the lane that ran from the slope of Blue Hill off toward the hollow of Ridley Valley where Syca- more Mills nestled among the trees to the west. The Allyns, father and son, turned off here, bound for their farm a mile or so away. Dave and Hugh Thomas waved them farewell and kept on toward the Rose Tree corner, where they, too, soon turned aside and entered the long lane that led up to the Thomas homestead. The boys had 50 SANDY FLASH agreed before parting that they would meet again the following Monday and see what luck had come to their traps. Dave was hungry as a bear after his long tramp and the excitement of the morning, but Mistress Thomas had taken that into account when she had begun to make ready the evening meal. By the time chores were ended and Dave had washed, the iron pots and pans and little skillets were already smoking on the hearth. Hugh Thomas moved the great oaken table nearer the fireplace, lighted a second tallow dip and took his place at the board. Then he nodded to his wife. The woman left the hearth where she had been stooping and took her place be- side her husband, while Dave hastened to his stool. Mr. Thomas bowed his head and spoke a word or two of rever- ent grace as was his custom. Never a meal was eaten in that household without this simple form of offering thanks. The supper that followed was a plain one in that nearly everything on the table had been home-grown. None the less it was ample and wholesome, even for the hungry man and boy so ready to fall to upon it. First, came a great pewter platter heaped high with baked potates. They had been done to a turn, snuggled deep in the ashes of the hearth, then dusted clean. Dave and his father had put many an hour of toil and care to the growing of them, but now the bin was full, a goodly winter supply assured, pro- vided it did not fall a prey to some marauding foragers. With the potatoes were juicy slices of home-cured, hick- ory-smoked ham, piping hot. Dave's mouth fairly watered at the smell of it, as the lid was removed from the THE HEARTH RUG 51 dish. Last of all, Mistress Thomas knelt by the hearth and pulled from the coals a three-legged iron pan full of cornmeal cakes. This was a special treat, indeed, honor- ing the day's tramp. The griddle-cakes had been made from the ground meal of Indian maize, the great grain crop that farmers were already beginning to call corn and grow in quantity. Up until recently, however, they had rather looked down upon it in the county, quite content to purchase small supplies from the Lower Country, as need for it arose. Placing the corn cakes on the table, Dave's mother took from the fireside cupboard a bowl of treacle and a plate of fresh butter, the sweet, unsalted article that her boy loved. True to the Welsh breed in them, Dave and his father, as well, would have none of the salted stuff that many dairymen were in the habit of making so that they could keep it longer, then sell it in the town on market days. For the Thomases there was nothing to take the place of freshly churned, real home-made butter, sweet as any cream. The bread, too, that lay in a great golden loaf in front of Mistress Thomas's place, had been made from wheat grown on the farm. Dave well recalled the day he and his father and some kindly neighbors had cradled that wheat, every rod of the great field. Then tied it by hand in even bundles with strands of Indian hemp. That had been Dave's special care. Afterwards, the harvestmen had gathered these bundles and laid them up in cocks, taking heed to keep the rows as straight as a line of tents in army bivouac. Each cock had been cleverly topped and thatched to turn the rain, a masterpiece of farmcraft 52 SANDY FLASH in itself. Indeed, the farmers of the neighborhood had long taken an unusual pride in the handiwork of hus- bandry. Last of all had come the garnering of the grain, the piling of the bundles on the sledges to haul them to the threshing floor. Wheeled wagons and wains were still uncommon for the rougher forms of field work. Dave enjoyed this threshing of the wheat more than all the yearly routine of the soil. Somehow, the boy sensed the vast tradition of the thing, the vital link between it and the history of the race. It made him think of passages his father used to read each evening from the Bible. He never quite understood what there was that held him so, but the steady swing and thumping of the flails, the scat- tering grain, the flying chaff, when winnowing had begun, all this gripped him strangely, often coming back to his mind in vivid pictures, as he tramped the forest trails for game. It seemed a kind of new miracle to the boy each time he watched the slowly rising waves of gold that meant the bread they ate. Then, later on, it was always sport to take a sack or so of it, as they chanced to need the flour, and ride with them slung behind the saddle of a horse to the grist mill down in Haverford, where his father liked the milling best. As he put it, "The stay of the bread's from the grind of the millstones." Dave thought of these things in a dreamy sort of way, as he watched his mother slice the loaf. Then he fell to again on more potatoes and ham, corn cakes and treacle, smooth dabs of melting butter a-plenty. A pewter pitcher of sassafras tea served to fill his mug as often as he wanted it. After all, about the best part of a long day's trudge in the woodland was a glowing hearth at home and THE HEARTH RUG 53 a supper like this when the tramp was over. The boy heaved a sigh of pure happiness and pushed back his seat, but dessert was yet to come a further surprise of his mother's. It was a great apple dumpling literally drip- ping in cream! "There, my dear," she said proudly, putting it before him on the table, "how will that top off a busy day? Here's yours, Hugh, not one whit smaller, so don't look jealous. There's my own, the little fellow! 'Tis a shame to eat so much in war time, I do declare it." "We farming men and trappers must find our forage, rain or clear, eh, David?" laughed Hugh Thomas. "Pon my soul, three dumplings in a row! For all the world like the arms of William Penn. I've seen 'em many a time carved on the mile stones along Old Gulph Road! Fall to, lad, and show your mother what a good Welsh trencherman you are. Old Thomas ap Thomas, my grandfather, could eat more than any man in Merioneth- shire, they do tell of him." Dave obeyed with no further urging. As he ate, he re- lated to his mother the events of the day. After the supper things had been cleared away, the boy helped the woman with the dishes, then returned to the fireside. This was the hour he loved best. Stretched at full length upon the soft hearth rug, he let his tired body relax, while his mind, always active, turned over, a point at a time, every in and out of woodcraft that he knew. He was going to make good at that whatever hap- pened, just to show his father and John Allyn and his good friend Bob that their confidence in his skill had not been misplaced. As he lay there, gazing at the coals 54 SANDY FLASH through half-shut lids, the boy's imagination wandered back into the olden days of the county, the past that was even now becoming a tradition, although Hugh Thomas himself could recall as a boy having seen a few of the pioneers. Those were the days when real trappers were plentiful about these very fields and Dave's interest quickened as he thought of them. "Father," the lad spoke suddenly, though in a low voice, as he watched his mother replace a kettle on the notched bar of the hob. "Father, I've often wondered what the old-time Indians used to cook their messes in before the white people came to trade 'em pots and pans and things?" Hugh Thomas edged his high-backed chair nearer the corner of the ingleside, then lighted a church-warden pipe of clay. It must have been nearly two feet from bowl to mouthpiece. For a moment he puffed in silence, eyes half closed. "Pipes, now, they made of clay, only not in the very least like the one I've got here. Indian pipes are mostly short, son, with a thick tube. I once saw a really fine one belonging to a sachem, I think it was, but it had been carved from pot stone and was red. Cooking stuff, you said? Most all of their kettles were baked from clay with a bit of sand or a dash of quartz thrown in. They got a lot of that right from the North Valley Hills in our own county, I reckon. A few used pot stone, as they called it. Remember once when I was a lad about the size of you now, I wandered far up Crum to the Cath- cart Rocks in Willistown. The great Nawbeek Meadow lies just beyond the ravine there, and that's where the In- dians used to camp in the olden time. Most every year you'd find 'em there in those days. I watched their women folks busy at the cooking. They had clay pots, but not glazed at all, inside or out. Two little holes were let in the top edge of 'em so's they could run a stick through to hang 'em up. They'd build a wee fire under it, put the hunks of venison or whatnot in and boil it. "That great pasture there you ought to see some day, David. You and Bob Allyn would like it. It must have been a camping place for redskins ages by. Even now a body can find all manner of flint knives there. And as many stone arrow heads and hatchets as you'd want. They're grooved and scraped away where they tied the handles on 'em with strings of gut and sinew. No doubt you've seen plenty? Aye, lad, it's a great thing, a kind of holy thing, to me, looking back at the strange peoples who lived their lives right here in our own hills before ever a white man came! What ways they had of living, too!" Hugh Thomas took the pipe from his lips and gazed a moment at the logs upon the firedogs. He was seeing again the camp of the Delawares as it had stretched be- fore him many years ago where willowed Crum loops so smoothly through the Nawbeek pastures. He was living once more his own boyhood, working back into the past and making it real to his son as only a Celt can. A log cracked midway and fell from the andirons with a snap- ping of sparks. The man straightened suddenly in his chair. "Look, David, at the Quakers flocking to their meet- ing! It must be Old Merion, there's so many!" He nodded at the sparks, then went on, "I'll warrant you're 56 SANDY FLASH not clever woodsman enough even now to tell me how the Lenapes made their war canoes in the days when they had no metal? They could do it, all right. None better!" "Yes, I can tell you," laughed David, glad to prove his father mistaken. "They burned out big trees till they were hollow. Just like we made our own horse-trough two years ago!" "Right enough, so we did. I'd forgotten that. You scored that time! But I mean how did they manage to get the trees down? We chopped ours, but they had no steel axes. I watched 'em at it once. The young braves made a fire of hot coals close about the roots, then others took long poles, saplings, with wet swabs of blanket on the ends. They kept dabbing the upper part of the trunk with the wet stuff so it couldn't catch fire. They brought down the biggest tree they needed that way, where a white man would like have set the woods ablaze." Hugh sucked at his pipe a few moments, while Dave snuggled more comfortably on the rug. The fire had sunk to a warm glow of coals and the farmer responded still more to its call. There were few things he loved better than to sit thus for a while with his boy during the long winter evenings, telling him of the older day when men's very lives and that of their loved ones depended on woodcraft and their skill with trap and gun. Hugh Thomas was a plain man, but he sensed unconsciously that any love for the open, any contact with the clean breath of out of doors that he might give to his son would prove in the end as wholesome a part of his education as all else put together. In this view, he was at one with THE HEARTH RUG 57 his neighbor, John Allyn. Slowly now he bent over and scooped up a ruddy coal in his palm, just enough ashes about it to prevent a burn. Carefully he brought it to the bowl of the church-warden and relighted the tobacco, then sat back contentedly drawing at the long stem. "Davey, you'll never know what a place this was for game, this county of ours between the Schuylkill and the Brandywine and on beyond, far to the pines of Noting- ham and Oxford. It was not so long ago, at that. 'Tis a fact. Why, once I saw myself a flock of wild pigeons roosting in Martin's Hollow. They broke the branches from the trees, believe it or no, but they did. They came to the woods in the cool of the evening with such a racket and a jangling a man could scarcely hear his own voice! In the morning, I went there again with a gun and saw the great boughs that had cracked under their weight. Saw it with my very eyes! Of course, we've still some of them left and the wild turkeys, too. Besides, the small game a-plenty. But the deer are hard to kill these days, I know right well. And bear! I doubt you could see many 'cept in the Welsh Mountain. Up in the Nant- meals, maybe, there might still be one or two. Remem- ber, lad, you'll have to use some skill to trap the worth- while pelts these days." Then Hugh Thomas went on to speak of the rough life of the past. How bitter a time the first farmers had when the countryside was partly tilling land and partly forest primeval for the most part neither one nor the other. How that no one in the county bothered then to seed to timothy or clover and how little they used to think of lime and manure for the soil. And how they 5 8 SANDY FLASH always grew the same crops year after year wheat, rye, oats and barley, often over and over in the same field with no rotation. Indeed, the man shook his head as he spoke of it, wondering that any yields at all were har- vested in the days when his grandfather drove his ox- team plow so patiently up and down between the field stumps. "But how did they ever come to find out the things they can't get along without nowadays?" Dave queried, keen in the details of the farm that meant his father's livelihood. "That's what I can't make out." "I hoped you'd ask me that," smiled back the other. "How did you come to use traps like those you showed me yesterday, the ones that had the side lugs on 'em? Your first ones were not like that at all." "I know they weren't. I had to change 'em. The plain ones didn't work so well after a bit and I lost a lot of muskrats and one mink, even, got loose from 'em. I knew something was wrong so I kept on trying out dif- ferent fixes and I asked all the folks I knew what they used. That man over in Aston " "That's your answer as to why we haul lime from the Valley kilns to-day and why we seed clover with the wheat, when we didn't use to do a bit of it. The land got weaker and weaker till we had to try a few things and ask other folks what they'd tried. It's the same in every- thing, I reckon, son. You've just got to keep on trying 'em out and trying again and only using what's best. There's mother stirring. That means bed." The quiet evening had slipped by so speedily that THE HEARTH RUG 59 neither man nor boy had given thought to the hour, but Mistress Thomas had kept tab on the tallow candle set in its brass stand by the ingle-nook. She always put a light there after supper, then sat by the glow of the hearth busy at a household task till the dip had burned low. When it did, the time had come for bed. To-night she had been interested intensely in her boy's story of the affair at the Pratt House Tavern and his description of the sets he and his chum had made, as well as in the rambling talk of her husband, but she knew that he and David must be worn by their busy day. Accordingly, she arose and put the wooden frame they used for candle dip- ping on its peg in the corner. She had been making ready for the work to begin bright and early Monday morning. The wick strings had been tied to their places and clipped to proper length, while the man and boy were talking. She began, thrifty housewife that she was, to bank the fire, but Dave scrambled up from the rug and took the little iron shovel from her. Soon he had the hearth stone clean and safe for the night, the hot coals blanketed in ashes against the need at breakfast. Hugh Thomas knocked the tobacco fragments from his pipe and laid it carefully on the mantel. Then he un- hooked a great brass bed-warmer from its nail in the ingle and filled it with steaming water, refilling the heavy iron kettle on the hob with cold water from another pail. In the days when there were no stoves to heat a room,- no way at all, in fact, save open fires, and when the kitchen was the only place where a fire was usually burning, country folk contrived to keep themselves as 60 SANDY FLASH snug as they could wish by such means as this. Dave had no brass warmer, but he lifted from the hearth an earthenware jug full of water that had been warming there all evening. He corked it tightly, then slipped it into the woolen cover his mother had made for it. Put at the foot of his bed, he knew that no night could be too cold for him in his little room upstairs. A final glance at the fire and the windows, a testing of the bar across the door, and the Thomas family were ready for rest. It was from evenings such as this that Dave drew much of his passion for the country about him. The lad remembered always the things his father spoke of while the logs burned to embers on the hearth. He had a way of weaving them into living pictures and applying them to the scenes described. Often as he wandered far from home in the Rose Tree neighborhood, his eyes alert for signs of track or trail, he would people the woodland with figures that were real to him. Very real. Blessed with a vivid imagination, he far outrivaled Bob Allyn in getting down to the throbbing heart of the countryside and living as a part of it. This same power of the mind made him a better woodsman, also, than the older boy, for Dave had an uncanny way of thinking himself into the brain of the animal he was after. In short, he was alive all the time. He was awake to the mysterious beauty that gripped him, as he looked out on the roll and swell of the farmland and forest encircling his home. His mind answered uncon- sciously to the thrill of it, nourished, as it was, by his fit, strong body. THE HEARTH RUG 61 Dave Thomas was still a boy, but he had worked out a good many problems of his own under the clean urge of outdoor work and play. This same joy in everyday life was due in large meas- ure to his father's way of making even the most com- monplace things glow with interest for him. The boy had learned early the priceless secret of keenness, no matter what the thing be that engaged his attention. He liked to play, as he needs must work hard. To-night, he took his candle with a sleepy laugh and followed his parents to the floor above. Tired he surely was, from the miles he had tramped that day, but happily tired, his mind in a mellow warmth of content. The rescue of Peter Burgandine, the adventure of Newtown Square, the escape of Sandy Flash, all these had slipped from him. Drowsily Dave sank to slumber, his last thought for the traps by Ridley water. CHAPTER IV THE RIDLEY OTTER SUNDAY passed quietly enough for both Dave and his friend Allyn over at Sycamore Mills. Only nec- essary chores were seen to on the farms. The Thomases spent the afternoon at neighbors' in Nether Providence, while Bob and his parents put in most of the day driving by sledge to church at Old St. David's. It was a long pull for the team all the way to the Radnor line, as the sledge was far more heavy than the swiftly moving sleighs and cutters of to-day, but the horses were stout beasts with a dash of good old Shire blood to lend them courage. Past the ridge of the Providence Road, they glided onward, the chime of bells tinkling merrily in the keen air as the boy tried to point out where the trap line had been set. The bulk of Blue Hill was in the way, how- ever. Down the slope they went at creditable speed, across the Crum by Bartrams Bridge, then up to Snake- house Wood, a great dark pile of forest that seemed to hang above them on the slopes. Swinging to the left, they settled to a steady pull across the Newtown Hill and the Square beyond. Here, as they drew up in front of the Pratt House to water, Bob was able to ask of the posse the afternoon before. Its luck had been, as he knew it must be, poor. Sandy Flash had escaped. The landlord knew nothing further of Burgandine. Indeed, 62 THE RIDLEY OTTER 63 he had not seen him or Jehu Evans, either, since the two men had driven off with the boys to look for the runaway horse. The church of St. David, patron of Wales, lay in a little hollow of pines and other evergreens not far from Darby Road. It had been built in 1715, and was already looked upon as ancient in the countryside. While they were driving through the church yard after service, John Allyn pointed toward the quaint low tombstones grouped about the door. "Many's the Welsh name you'll find yonder in God's Acre, son. No doubt our neighbor Thomas has kith and kin a-plenty amongst 'em. They used to tell how William Penn himself came to preach in the Old Barony once upon a time and not a soul could understand him there because he didn't use the Welsh tongue, but the English! It's a good thing we've gotten over that part of it anyway or else little you'd learn of trapping from Davey." John Allyn chuckled and swung the sledge out past the lich- gate. Then he flicked at the pair with the whip and turned toward Sycamore Mills. During the rest of the drive Dave and his father kept up a constant flow of conversation, centered for the most part on horses, for the elder Allyn was as keen a judge of horseflesh as was his boy. Dearly did he relish the joy of a fine team or a clever saddler. They were making plans now for the breaking of the spring colts, as the Allyns had always added largely to their income by breeding one or two of their mares each year. They disposed of the young stock in the town where a good market had awaited them until the war. Bob's mother 64 SANDY FLASH took but little part in the talk. To tell the truth, she was more engaged with thoughts of how she best could provide her family with a comfortable living during the winter. It was no slight thing to have supplies so scarce and the country overrun with all sorts of thieving ruffians ready to strip bare the first homestead that should fall within their power. These Tory agents had already worked far more harm than any of the regular troops of the Crown, who were scrupulously honest in paying for whatever they commandeered. Only a fortnight be- fore, some cattle had been seized this way over in Con- cord and driven off with threats. The women of the countryside were uneasy. When Bob went to bed on Sunday night, he had the fullest intentions of rising early and getting over to Dave's in time to make a good start for the trap line the next morning. A storm of sleet and snow, however, upset his plans. It would be out of the question to do any useful work with the sets in such weather, so the boy contented himself with putting in a good day by the fireside, stitching at a pair of new names he was helping his father to make. It was mighty hard on the fingers, but he managed to turn out a neat bit of leather work at that, before twilight dimmed the leaded windows and supper smoked on the board. Between farm chores and bad weather, neither Bob nor Dave found an opportunity for going up Ridley to- gether until a week had passed from the day they first put out their traps. Bob had looked the line over by himself in mid-week, it is true, galloping there on horse- back, one afternoon when he could be spared from home THE RIDLEY OTTER 65 but that was all. Two coons taken in the log sets had been his reward. A proud boy he was when he rode with them into Dave's lane on the way back. The boys arranged at that time to go up the stream on Saturday, regardless of the weather. Meanwhile they counted the days and wondered if ever a week had passed so slowly. Like all things it came to an end at last and the lads set out bright and early in the morning. Their small success had whetted their eagerness for more. It was a brilliant winter day, neither too hot nor too cold, but just enough tang in the air to make both boys feel the surge of keen health. They walked fast, swinging along over the crisp snow with the stride that eats distance and does not weary. As they hurried on, a flock of juncos kept pace with them for a field or two, flitting busily about on the bare twigs of the sumacs that lined the wayside walls. Here and there a chickadee, with his quaint, betraying cap of black, swung like a jolly circus tumbler among the berries of the bittersweet. All nature seemed awake, keyed high to the sharp cold beauty of the day. Just past the top of Blue Hill, the boys caught a vivid flame of color as a cardinal flashed to the shelter of a cedar before them. It was all so clean, so full of things to look at and to watch for, so vitally alive, this countryside of theirs, that the boys could scarce restrain their overflowing spirits. "They never saw a sign of him then, Sandy Flash, I mean, after he rounded the turn beyond the Square?" Dave it was who spoke. "Look, there's Hunting Hill yonder. Let's cut down to the stream across this field." "Not a trace," answered Bob, joining the other beyond 66 SANDY FLASH the fence. "After we left the inn and came back to set the rest of the traps, they hunted round everywhere, far over as the Eagle and down toward the Buck, but there were too many marks in the road, they said. Besides, his horse was fresh. I say, hasn't he got a wonder! It'd been resting while he was busy with Burgandine. I told you we stopped at the Pratt last Sunday, didn't I? Father was over to the Square again yesterday, and they think Flash must have gone back to the Valley hills in Cain for good. He's not likely to bother us here any more." "Did you learn whether Burgandine got back his horse and the money? I mean did your father hear of it yes- terday?" Dave's mind swung round to the old farmer from Newlin. "He surely was welted, for fair, poor old fellow!" "Father says he's all right. That Evans man caught up with Peter's horse near the Street Road, and he rode home in the afternoon. Sandy Flash did get some stuff from a house beyond the Square, though. They hadn't heard of it Sunday, but father got the news yesterday." "I didn't know that! Whose, Bob? What'd he get?" Bob paused before replying, collected himself, and leaped across a small stream. The lad was big even for seven- teen, but fit and close knit, hard as nails, from farm chores and riding. Dave landed lightly as a cat beside him and they turned left in the forest. "Oh, not much money. It was Thomas Lewis's place below the Pratt House that he robbed. Some silver, it was. Solid, father heard, too. Mugs and things fetched out from Wales in the old days. Lucky, I'd say, he couldn't carry much with him." THE RIDLEY OTTER 67 "He'll not be able to do anything with that kind of stuff, will he? Reckon he's gone where he can lay hold on shillings and sovereigns 'stead of old tankards! Pewter, like as not. We've lots of it at home that came from Merioneth in the old country." The boys crossed Ridley Creek to the west bank, hop- ping from stone to stone, and reached the meadow south of Hunting Hill. A couple of rabbits swinging high in the sapling snares served to bring their minds back to the work in hand. One had just been caught; the fur was still soft and warm. Dave, forgetful of his wood- craft in his pride of success, ran forward with a cheer and took them from the loops. Putting the frozen one in his bag, he quickly bled the newly killed cottontail from the mouth, propping the teeth open with a bit of stick. Then he cleaned it carefully without removing the fur. His fingers were deft, showing he had done it many a time before. While he was busy, Bob reset the trap snares. Already the older lad had become quite handy in the ways of the wood and longed to put his new-found knowledge to the proof. "The more rabbits we catch, the better," Bob finished setting the bait on the trigger stick. "The confounded things are ringing all the young apple trees, and the peaches, too, over in our orchard. Chew the bark right off 'em! A tree can't live without bark, no matter how good's the trunk." <k l know. Same at our place. Glad we got this one fresh. We'll have him for lunch. Be pretty good a cold day like this! I'll bet the army's shivering up by Mount- joy Forge!" 68 The other traps, set the previous Saturday, were visited in turn and Bob pointed out where he had found the two coons on Wednesday afternoon. To-day, the skunk trap, in the hole on the side of the hill, proved a real disappointment. It had been sprung, but no sign ap- peared of an animal having been caught in it. The bit of meat, however, had gone. Dave looked the hole over long and carefully. Then his eye caught a telltale sign. "I thought so! Fox! Vixen, like as not. It smelled that rotten meat, before any skunk came along, and it got it off the stick some way or other, keeping clear of the trap the while. I bet she set it off on purpose, too! They're that crafty and clever." The lad stood up, holding in his hand a long reddish-brown hair tipped with white. He had picked it from the side of the earth. "That's fox's brush, sure as Judgment!" "Well, we don't want to trap it, then!" Bob's jaws set ominously. His tone showed very decided views on that point. "I'm right glad we didn't get it. Hope he's slick enough to stay out of every set we make! It's a shame to trap a fox in a country like this where most all farmers have a lot of sport in winter hunting 'em with hounds. It's not fair and I won't be any party to it!" "Never fear." David had to laugh at the real anger beginning to boil up in his usually calm and deliberate chum. "Don't worry, Bob, you old hunting squire! We'll not try to trap or shoot 'em hereabouts. Couldn't catch 'em this way in the first place, 'cept by luck. Father tells me never to try it, so you can rest easy. You're right, though. It's different altogether in other THE RIDLEY OTTER 69 parts of the country where they can't ride to hounds and hunt 'em properly in a chase. There they have to shoot foxes and trap 'em to keep 'em down. But here with all the hounds there are about the townships, why" "Yes, I see that," Bob was still doubtful, "but we've got to be mighty careful. I wouldn't ruin neighbors' sport for anything. I say, let's get an otter or a beaver. That's something worth while. We mustn't forget we're after what'll help the folks at home and the men across the Valley by Tredyffrin. They're freezing as it is." "I know it and I'm with you, Bob. That's why we're both here. Let's set this skunk trap first, same as before, only without any bait. It might catch one of 'em coming in and it won't bring any foxes here. I'm sure this is a skunk's hole." Dave replaced the trap in the opening and covered it once more with pebble-weighted leaves. Then the boys slid down the bank and worked their way upstream, on watch for any sign that might betray the presence of an otter. A muskrat colony offered them a tempting trapping place, however, before they had gone very far. It was too good to pass by, so they stopped to look it over. A small natural pond had been formed in a clearing by a collection of logs wedged against the boulders. Once, perhaps, the beavers had laid its foundations, but the tracks about the snowy banks were unmistakable. They were very distinct, the hind feet about two inches in length, the front ones much smaller. Both boys recog- nized them at a glance. The prints wove serpentine pat- terns here and there and everywhere. Between the foot- 70 SANDY FLASH marks could be seen the light, wavering trace that told of the tail, scaly, hairless, flattened, carried on its edge. The muskrats use this to steer by when swimming, as both lads knew. In the midst of the pond, where a few frozen cat-tails rose stiffly, a sorry reminder of summer's glory, were the muskrat houses themselves, great beehive affairs, from four to six feet in diameter. No external open- ings were visible, but Bob Allyn and Dave knew that none were needed. The younger boy had learned the summer before, and since explained to his friend that these strange nests were entered from beneath the water, and that they were practically frost proof in the bitterest cold of winter. How air penetrated their closely-woven sticks and reed and mud neither lad knew. Dave had also told Bob that the muskrats seemed to be divided, as though split by some family feud. Many of them, the builders, he had found in houses like those before them in the pond. Others, which he called bankers, seemed to delight in a hermit's life off by themselves, making their lonely homes by burrowing up into some steep bank from beneath the water's edge. The bankers, especially, made slides in the mud. When much younger, Dave had once mistaken these commonplace slides for the sort made by otter. Now, however, he knew better. "This is the best place we've come to yet! Look, Bob!" Dave pointed at the tracks. "Aren't they just like a pear with the toe marks circling round in front? The hind feet do most the swimming, that's why they're biggest, I guess. We'll set a lot of traps here. You can never get 'em in a deadfall or snare. A three or four- THE RIDLEY OTTER 71 inch spring is what they need. Look at that! They've been washing some yellow lily roots in the water. They always wash what they eat like that, then brush the rest into the stream. Wash it two or three times. I've seen 'em. Cleanest things alive!" The boys noted with delight all that promised so well for them. The water of the pond had not frozen over entirely on their side and it was here that the tracks were most numerous and the signs of lily roots abundant. They looked like sad enough fodder, for a fact, but the animals must have dug them up from the unfrozen mud far below the surface and found something of nourishment still in them. Indeed, in winter, when they cannot get watercress, they will eat any roots. Dave and Bob were soon making the sets and using the best woodcraft they were capable of, while at it, as muskrat pelts would fill a needed want in both their homes. Dave made the first set, placing his trap in the shallow water back of the roots of a great buttonwood that rose from the pond's border. He fastened the chain to a pole and then propped it far out. "That's so's to drown him right away, before he can chew his foot off," he explained to Bob. "Soon as ever he's caught, he'll swim to deep water and the trap will hold him down. It saves him suffering and it keeps him from getting free both. See? The stick makes the chain hang over the deep part." Dave took an apple from his pocket, halved it, tossed a piece to Bob, then fixed his portion on a stick above the trap where the water was about three inches. Bob put his trap on a log that jutted several feet into 72 SANDY FLASH the pond where the stream showed the stillness of depth. He fastened the chain to the extreme end. Then he made ready to lay the half apple on the log for bait. "Try this." Dave dug down into his pocket again and pulled out a small parsnip. "It's what they like best of all. This and muskrat meat, itself. Doubt if you catch anything, though, with the trap stuck up on a log like a sore thumb. In the spring, when water is really high and the spate has flooded 'em out from the banks, then they'll climb on logs and things. That's the time to get 'em that way. I once got four, though, by hanging the traps a wee mite under the water, round the end of a hunk of log that I had anchored in a deep place with a lot of stuff they liked on top of it. Regular supper party for 'em! They " "What do they like most, 'side from roots?" asked Bob, still interested in the tracks. "Oh, most any greens. Parsnips, best of all, I reckon, and apples. They'll ruin a garden, quick as a witch, if they've half a chance to get at it. Chew up all the carrots and turnips you've got. A good way from water, too. Let's put a couple of traps over the end of the log, just for luck, with the apple and a parsnip hanging so's they can see 'em and climb up to get 'em." This was done and Dave led the way further upstream. The lad was in his element. Every bit of woodcraft shown to his friend meant infinite satisfaction to him. He had been the butt of many a joke among his fellows for wasting his days tramping about in the woods alone. Now was his justification. Now was he able to prove to the other that his time had been well spent, after all. THE RIDLEY OTTER 73 Dave was leader to-day, Bob the pupil. And he was an apt and eager one, at that. Bob it was who first caught sight of the muskrat slide half a mile above the pond, where a high mud bank compelled them to crawl with considerable care along the edge of the brook. The hole, visible a little way under water, where the current was too swift for ice, gave them the clue. A trap was set at the entrance to it and staked far out over deep water as before. Another trap was set at the foot of the slide. The boys used parsnips for bait at a third trap, dangling them just above the place where it lay on the bottom a couple of inches below the surface. They hid their last traps right in the middle of a muskrat trail that showed, deep cut, along the bank. "That ought to answer for a few of 'em, builders and bankers, both." Dave pushed the parsnip bait securely in place. "The great thing with the rats, Bob, is to have the chain well out over deep water. Sometimes I just tie the trap to a long stick, not fastened to the bank at all, and let it go at that. They swim out and dive and then the trap holds 'em under, like I said. Some people even weight their trap a bit, but I never do. Father thinks I ought to. The thing's not to let 'em suffer any longer than we can help and that's the way to do it." "Why are the chains so long? I'd think they'd stand a lot more chance of getting away like that than if you made 'em short." "It's just the opposite. The longer, the better. If the chain's too short, it gives 'em something to pull against and they'll get away, nine out of ten. Anything 74 SANDY FLASH will. If the chain's long, with lots of leeway, and if it's fast to something that'll bend a bit and give, why, they can't get the steady pull they need to break away. They can't get their foot loose. I like water sets best, though, because you can always fix 'em so's to swing into deep water and that's the end of it. "How about dinner? We've got most the sets made." Dave Thomas was not cruel. He trapped because he knew the pelts were needed and the money, too. He trapped as humanely as possible with the material at hand. He did not relish the thought of being told any of these things by the bigger boy. However, he had no need of worry. Bob was as hungry as he. A day like this in the open would make any ore ravenous. A few moments later and they had a fire going, flint and steel serving them for a light. The rabbit was skinned, cut up, and broiled as steak over the glowing coals. The boys were old hands at this job, both of them, and no time was wasted. Bob Ailyn sat back against a great beech tree, enjoying the heat that radiated from the small fire. It was just enough to warm his mocca- sined feet without danger of cracking the soft leather. Dave was cook and worked away at his steak till it was done to a turn. "I reckon there's different kinds of trapping for most everything, isn't there?" said Bob, at last, nibbling at a hot and juicy morsel held in his fingers. "How many kinds do you know, Dave? I say, did you ever count 'em?" "Never did, Bob." Dave cleverly skewered a fresh piece of meat on a stick and went on with his broiling. THE RIDLEY OTTER 75 "There're traps and traps and still more traps. And ways to use 'em without end. It depends on what you're after. I divide 'em into three main lots, myself, but there're more, like as not. I always think of the ones that crawl and climb trees; skunks and coons, all those, you know. Then there're the water ones, the beavers and otters and mink and muskrats and the like of that. Last of all, there's the game that runs, deer and the big ones. Foxes and catamounts and bobcats come in a class by themselves, I reckon. They're " "Never thought of splitting 'em up that way. Makes it easy to keep 'em clear, doesn't it?" interrupted Bob. "I say, climbers, swimmers, runners! That's fine!" "It's why I do it." Dave's mouth was fuller than it should have been, but Bob contrived to understand him in spite of it. "The climbers, they want deadfalls or traps, just like we've got out for 'em now. The runners want snares. The swimmers, they have to have traps. What's too weak for an otter or a beaver is too strong for a mink or a muskrat and that's what makes it all so hard. A trap'll cut the leg clean off one thing and not hold another. I reckon trapping's as clever a game as your horse schooling, most, and a deal harder to learn!" Dave's teeth picked hungrily at a bit of meat stuck on the end of his rude wooden spit. Then the boy laughed. He knew Bob Allyn was beginning to appreciate the woods, as he had hoped he would. "That's a fact, Dave, it is real work to master, but I'll show you a thing or two about horses that'll surprise you one of these days when the ground clears off a bit. Turn about's fair play. There's plenty to learn in one ?6 SANDY FLASH same as t'other. The bread's in the bag there by the stump. Help yourself, and sling it over. Thanks!" "What don't you understand now about trapping, Bob?" Dave settled himself by the fire, having tossed over the loaf. "A whole lot, Dave, but I'll get it in time. The hard- est part, I reckon, is knowing what to use as bait for each thing. That and the scent I've heard tell of. It all seems different. How can a fellow keep 'em straight?" "Yes, that is hard. There's lots and lots of stuff I've tried anise-seed oil and oil of peppermint for scents. They smell like all get out! Animals can sniff 'em a long way off, that kind of mess, and follow it up to see what's there. All that stuff is good for a trail when you're after fisher black cat, I mean. But I doubt if any of 'em are left round here now. Then a fine thing for bait is real animal scent. That'll fool most all of J em. Chicken droppings, I reckon, about tops the lot, but I've used bad meat already, like we put in the skunk's hole back yonder." "Fine when foxes don't come and eat it 'stead of skunks," laughed Bob. "A man once told me, the one who helped make the traps over at Providence forge, that he'd used manure from a sheep pen and caught more with that than any other thing. They all have their special ways, every trapper has. He laid trails with it up to where his traps were hidden, and he buried traps in it, and he even rubbed it on 'em and on his shoes and gloves when he was working at the sets. It's fine. But we've no sheep now." "Why not try it then next time? We have a nice THE RIDLEY OTTER 77 flock. Might as well work these things out, Dave, and see for ourselves which really is the best. I say, suppose I bring some over next week? We can give it a fair trial, anyway." "It's the only way to learn try 'em out, like you say." Dave began to cover the fire with handfuls of snow. "Once I went away and left a wee bit of a fire going. It very nearly took all our woodlot on the hill by the time some rain came and put it out. I learned a thing or two that time that I haven't forgotten yet! Father saw to that." He heaped on more snow. "It's a mighty good habit to get into, Dave, even in winter." Bob picked up a stick, red hot at one end, and twisted it round and round on the ground until he had extinguished the fire amid a spluttering of sparks. "The trouble of the fires in the woods all comes to us, from the old Indians, the Lenapes, like Indian Hannah up at Newlin's rock in Bradford. My father says that when he was a boy and first came into the Rose Tree country, the woods used to be burnt over every year or so by the Delawares. They even burned the Valley Hills clear of brush so they could see to chase the deer better when they'd gotten 'em to running along the ridges. Then they burned over the low places so's they could plant their corn there and their little patches of tobacco. It wasn't anything like so thick in the woods then as now, father says, but the trees they did have in 'em. were lots bigger and finer. In the very early days when the Swedes were at Upland, a man could drive a wheeled cart straight through the forest!" "The white people copied the burning," broke in Dave,, 78 SANDY FLASH "but we didn't use any sense about it. Now it seems like we burn the best woods we have and have to chop scrubby stuff for the timber we want! They had a ter- rible fire, that way, down in Bethel, only last spring." "This's out anyway." Bob poked the sodden remains of the fire. "It can't cause harm now. I've got one more rabbit bone to pick, Dave, and I'm through. How about the traps themselves? You once said the best men put kill-scent on 'em. We didn't do a thing to ours." "Oh, everybody thinks something different about that, but for what we're after I don't reckon any's needed. Water sets don't have to be treated, 'cause it's no use under water, naturally. Coons and skunks I've often gotten with plain traps so I just never bother doing any- thing at all to 'em. There're lots of ways of fixing 'em, though." "That's what I mean. What's the best thing to put on a trap, if a fellow is out after some animal crafty enough to need it?" "Rusty traps are good as any that I know of. Don't cost anything either, not even trouble," replied Dave. "Just let 'em hang out in all winds and weather till you're ready to use 'em. The only bother is that you do have to mind the spring getting a bit too rusty and the jaws sticking fast or moving too slow. It's a fine trick, some- times, to bury traps and chains and all in the chicken yard. That kills the man scent and the iron smell both. I once tried smearing a trap with wax and tallow from a penny dip, because I'd heard it was fine, but it didn't work so wonderfully well for me. Guess I didn't do it right, 'cause they say it's a pretty fair way to treat 'em. THE RIDLEY OTTER 79 You've got to be careful to cover the whole thing, if you're going to do it at all." "How about us? Can't they smell us folks on the traps, the land sets, when we've gone and picked the traps up and lugged 'em about and set 'em?" queried Bob. "That's the hard part, really." Dave knocked the damp snow from his moccasins preparatory to moving on. "A fellow ought to have a special outfit, I expect, if he's trapping real suspicious things like bobcats and so on. I wish I could get hold of a pair of buckskin gloves tanned in smoke. They're great! I'll have to try to make me a pair this winter some time. They can be buried, too, in the barnyard, like the traps. That helps. The best of all, the very thing we ought to have, are gloves from a deerskin not tanned at all. If I ever shoot a buck, that's what I'm going to get from it! My father says I'll never kill a point stag in all the county, but we'll have to show him he's wrong, I reckon." "Yes, and we'll do it, too," laughed Bob, "if ever we find the deer. There're lots I've seen on the hills, but too wild to get near 'em. Oh, well, smoked gauntlets would do us for a while. We're after beaver and otter, first, you know. They're water sets." The boy's canny Scotch mind never allowed vague possibilities to turn him from the work at hand. "Yes, and we'd better be getting down to the stream now, I'm thinking, if we're ever to find that likely place I told you of. If we did want deerskin and couldn't get it, they say calfskin's nearly as good. Untanned, with the hair side out. We could easily get that whenever we wanted it, and make gloves or mittens out of it, too. So SANDY FLASH And big pads for the knees. You have to have 'em for when you kneel fixing the sets. We're right in having moccasins on now, though you would like to have come in spurs like a hunting squire, I'll bet." Dave grinned good-naturedly at his chum. "A heel mark'll ruin chances quick as a wink. That, and smoking. But we don't either of us have to bother about that. I'd rather have good wind than smoke any day." The boys reached the bank and turned up Ridley, seek- ing the place where Dave had had the good luck of coming upon otter the previous summer. He had been working his way along the stream, north of the Strasburg Road, far up near Dutton's Mill, when he had heard faint splashings at a distance like stones falling into water. Creeping closer, he had spied a family of otter at play. It was truly a remarkable sight. One after the other, the sleek-coated, glistening creatures had climbed the steep bank by a well-beaten path. Then they had moved to the top of the slide in a series of awkward leaps their characteristic gait. The boy had watched them long, scarcely daring to breathe, while they slid. It fascinated him as nothing had ever done before. Again and again they had climbed from the stream and coasted, flat on their bellies, down the smooth mud furrow with a splash to the water below. The slide was eight or ten inches wide and as high as the bank. It led into the deepest part of the pool. As each otter slipped downward with the speed of lightning, front legs pressed closed back to its side, the slot became wetter and more slippery. An involuntary movement on Dave's part had ended the play and sent the startled animals THE RIDLEY OTTER 81 diving from sight beneath the surface. He had searched the place and found the hole, however, about a foot wide, in the bank. The other entrance was, he knew, some- where under water. Probably deep behind the roots of an ancient chestnut tree where the stream had swung in- ward and hollowed out the shore line. Five-toed tracks had printed the mud all about and a half-eaten catfish on the grass had told the boy what the otters were dining on. He had laid the whole story away in his mind for use in the winter. This was one of Dave's treasure troves of memory and he guarded it well. Now he and Bob were nearing the spot and both lads' excitement rose proportionately. This was to be the real test. This would prove their claim to the brotherhood of trappers, the clan of the woodsmen. Their tramp of many miles through forest and field, bog and thicket was forgotten. The stream just below the pool turned from its course in an ox-bow bend. Dave, already clever woodsman enough to remember this, left the bank and cut across through the brush. By so doing he unexpectedly stumbled upon another important bit of otter history, for quite by accident he noticed the unmistakable leaping tracks of that animal in the snow before him. Clearly, otters, too, knew the value of short cuts and used them. Eagerly Dave followed the marks, Bob close behind him. The awkward tracks ended at the pool, now partially open, partially frozen. Both lads shouted with glee, forgetful of all save the fact that otters were still here if they themselves were true trappers enough to catch them. It did not take them long to get everything ready. They made the set with a toothed trap of good size. It 82 SANDY FLASH was their only large one. They put it just in the middle of the slide which was visible for all the ice and snow. Dave laid the trap carefully there, about six inches under water and covered it with a handful of wet leaves, too heavy to wash off. Bob meanwhile cut a stick, eight or ten feet long, and fastened the four-foot chain to it. This pole he made secure to the bank, the other end ex- tending out over the deep water. It was the same arrange- ment Dave had used for muskrats, only larger. The younger boy watched it all with approval. His chum was coming on famously in wild lore. "That's fine, Bob! If it thaws a bit and they begin to use the slide, we'll get one sure as preaching. Wish we could find a beaver dam, though. It's easy to get an otter there, sometimes, just at the foot of the spillway, so they say. Queer we never saw beaver signs before we got this far along." "Yes, I was sure we would have." While Bob made fast the long pole, Dave turned his attention toward exploring the bank, unable to forego the chance of gaining some new trick of the wood while he had an opportunity for it. Suddenly he called out excitedly, so strange in tone that the other boy sprang up. "Here, Bob! Quick! I've found a track big as a bear! And another Oh, I say " The boy, in his excitement, lost his balance and slipped down the snow, barely saving himself a ducking in frigid Ridley. An instant later he had climbed again to the hole. Bob joined him there and together they studied the prints. They were otter, by all odds the largest they had ever seen. But it was not the animal tracks alone which THE RIDLEY OTTER 83 brought them to their knees, studying the marks in per- plexity. "It's the biggest otter trail I ever heard tell of, Bob!' But " Dave pointed toward a bootprint on the bank close by. "But somebody's after him already! We're too late!" The lad's voice quivered and almost shook with the bitterness of his disappointment. He had counted on this far more deeply than he realized. "Yes, and he's gone and put his own trap in the hole, itself, for certain sure! Oh, I say!" Bob Allyn broke off unexpectedly and reached into the opening as far as his arm would go. He did so, gingerly, fearful of a crushed finger or a broken hand. Dave could scarcely keep his eyes from the splendid five-toed tracks beside him. They told of a king among otters and he knew it. For the first time, he felt hope- ful of winning the most difficult creature of the woodland. "Can you feel it? Where's the chain?" Dave's eyes flitted here and there about the earth's mouth. "By crickets, we may get an otter yet, Bob, and fool 'em all!" "Don't know, Dave, but look what I have gotten T What do you make of that!" The boy had pulled his arm out quickly and now sat back on his hunkers. He held in his hand a small silver mug of antique fashioning, somewhat dirty from the dry earth of the hole, but still polished and twinkling in the afternoon light as he turned it about. On the one side were initials. Both lads cried out instinctively as they read the letters together an old-fashioned T, followed by an L. "What the where how " Dave's voice failed him. 84 SANDY FLASH Bob seemed cool, although he was fighting hard to keep under his own excitement. "Don't you see! I reached in to feel for a trap, and " "It's do you think could it be Thomas Lewis's " "Whose else! It must be his! And it's not been in the damp long, either!" Bob struck the cup on his knee, knocking out the earth. "Oh, I say, can't you under- stand? Can't we've gone and tracked the biggest otter of 'em all, Davey, lad, but this is bigger still. It's Sandy Flash himself!" CHAPTER V BOB'S hand shook a little as he held the silver tankard. Vainly he strove to appear unconcerned, but the importance of the find was too much even for his steady nature. Dave, equally tense, collected his wits first. This was the sort of thing that his woodland training had helped develop in him this facing of sud- den crises that called for action on the moment. The lad's Welsh brain was keen and quick. "Bob, we've got to find out where he is! He's still close by. He must be! Let's try to trail him to his hiding place. And get the men together ! " "Easy to say, hard to do! " This laconically from Bob, who had been getting himself in hand, too. "Sandy Flash has been here. He's come along the creek after robbing Thomas Lewis's and he's seen this hole and pushed the silver cup in it. He must have planned " "Maybe there's more here! He made off with quite a bit, you said." The younger boy jammed his arm into the otter opening, but nothing further was found. Bob Allyn and Dave wasted little time in vainly searching further, but their haste in leaving the pond of the otters proved fruitless. They tracked the highway- man's bootprints for a little way, then, as on a previous occasion, the marks disappeared among a tumbled pile of rocks and boulders that pushed through the snow 86 SANDY FLASH along the brookside. Bob, the fox hunter, cast about in a wide circle, hoping to strike the trail further on, but not so much as a single track rewarded him. Sandy Flash had no intention of being followed and, as a matter of fact, had taken a great deal of care to leap from rock to rock, as he left the neighborhood of his treasure. After an hour spent in working along both sides of Ridley, the boys finally gave it up. And wisely. Already the after- noon was growing late and they had a long walk home. Putting the cup in the bag with the frozen rabbit from the snare, they turned south. An hour later they had climbed to the higher ground of the ridge where Provi- dence Road offered fair going. At the lane near Blue Hill, they parted; Dave to hurry on to his house with the story of Thomas Lewis's silver, Bob Allyn to follow the narrower way downhill, eager to reach Sycamore Mills in time for supper. Before they said good-by, how- ever, it had been agreed between them that they would get in touch the next day and join the men in further search, if a posse of farmers should decide to go out once more in an attempt to run down Sandy Flash. Neither lad realized at the time that it was Saturday afternoon. As a matter of fact, nothing was done on Sunday be- yond a vain search for the rest of the silver up and down the Ridley Woodlands. None of the neighboring farm- ers of Providence felt it worth his while to take up the wild-goose chase that had failed so signally the week before when supported, as it was then, by a red-hot trail. Dave saw no more of his chum until the end of the week, when, chores attended to, Bob rode over bright and early, merrily calling outside the Thomases' windows: THE STAG OF HUNTING HILL 87 "Hey, there! I say, Dave! Oh, Dave! How about riding over to the traps this morning? We can get there lots quicker than walking and easily see to the sets. Did we have luck last Thursday? You got over, didn't you?" Dave was out of the house with a cheer before Bob had swung clear of the saddle. The big lad's horse snorted and shied away from the enthusiasm of the boys' greeting. "To-day? Finest thing can be! Wait, Bob, and I'll ask father let me take Duffryn. He needs some work, that horse does, and a bit of a go like this'll just fix him. Only a minute!" Dave Thomas bolted into the house. A moment later he returned, his warwhoop of joy proclaiming the good news. Hugh Thomas had noted with considerable satisfaction the faithfulness with which his son had been attending to the farm chores since he had given him permission to trap regularly. What extra time he had allowed the boy to go with Bob on Saturdays and occasionally during the week by himself, had been mighty well spent,, accord- ing to his reckoning. Farmer Thomas was shrewd. Not vainly did the canny blood of Merionethshire run strong in him. If he could keep his boy interested in manly outdoor sports, in the real joy of the countryside, why so much less were the chances of the lad growing rest- less and wanting to drift off to the army before he was old enough to think of that. Dave's longing for trap- ping and the life of the wilderness, his way of wander- ing off by himself, was not without its dangerous side in the mind of his father. The man recognized these tendencies and sought to offer something to satisfy them, 88 SANDY FLASH something to fill the natural drift of the boy and give him what he wanted while still on the farm. He knew that trapping was a form of service to the freezing men at Valley Forge as well as a needful help to conditions at home. Accordingly, when Dave burst into the kitchen with his plea for a chance to ride Duffryn to the sets up Ridley, Hugh Thomas gave ready consent. Five minutes later, the boys were on their way, trot- ting along toward Hunting Hill. Dave told briefly of his failure to find anything when he had looked the line over on Wednesday afternoon. Near the rabbit-snare meadow, the younger boy swung off, throwing his mount's reins to his comrade. "Lead him round for me, by Edgemont corner, will you, Bob, and I'll meet you on the road. Near the ford. It won't take me long to run down here and look over the sets we've got in the hollow. Then I'll join you and we can cover the whole line on foot." "All right, Dave. We can see to the other traps further up best that way the rest of 'em. I hope we've had some luck! The best place we've come across anywhere on Ridley is that otter pond. It'd be worth while to get that big fellow! It's the" "It's the biggest otter Ridley water ever saw! Or the whole county, I guess, for the matter of that! Say, steer clear of Sandy Flash if you come across him hiding any more stuff! He might tie you up and spank you with a hickory stick!" Both chums laughed, and the bigger boy rode off, leading Duffryn. He could ride, could Bob Allyn, ride with the best of them. Practice had given him his seat, THE STAG OF HUNTING HILL 89 his closely gripping thighs, but his hands, light and gentle on the reins as any woman's, were the inborn gift of a horseman. True hands are part of one's nature; no amount of training can give them to one who has not been blessed in the first place with this crowning at- tribute of the rider. Dave's tour of the trap line was short, but well worth the trouble. His first haul offered a rabbit in the snare loop and another in the coon set at the hollow log. The last was disappointing, but trapper's luck, so the lad made the best of it. The second log set showed two sprung traps, empty, but no trail of any kind. A fresh fall of snow accounted for that much, but he could find no hint of how they had been sprung. Dave, none too cheerful, hurried on to the skunk set on the hillside. Here, he had been successful. Surely this was an agree- able change from the blank he had drawn on Wednesday last. This was the sort of luck that set his eyes to sparkling with eagerness, that thrilled his whole body with the surge of living. He had scored a point in the game of outdoor chance. A large skunk was in the trap, a big fellow, evidently recently caught, as there was no sign of an attempt to gnaw at the imprisoned foot. The boy got a stick, chose a strategic position well above the hole and worked at the chain. It was not long before the animal, in answer to the jerking of the trap, had discharged the last of its scent, filling the hole and the ground below it with suffocating, choking stench like the odor of burning rubber, only infinitely worse. Then Dave risked it and managed to get the chain undone, keeping back from 90 SANDY FLASH and above the hole. He tried not to breathe. Indeed, he was hardly able to. A turn or two of the chain about the end of his long stick and he had retreated to one side. Then, not waiting for the animal to secrete any more scent fluid, he pulled it from the hole and swung it down the bank deep in the waters of Ridley. A few moments later he drew it out dead. Dave looked at the rich, thick fur of the pelt. It was a beauty, undeniably, and prime to a day. The color was almost solid, scarcely a touch of white on it. The tail was bushy and full. The animal was well above average size. This, indeed, had been a catch worth while one that served to restore the lad to higher spirits. Happily, he hung the body of the skunk to a low branch where it could dry out of harm's way. Then he rinsed his hands in the brook and hurried up the hill, whistling merrily as he climbed. A moment later, he recalled the muskrat pond further along stream, so he turned back and cut through the underbrush to look it over. These traps were as lucky as the skunk set, for each held a muskrat securely. The stick had worked just as planned and the animal in that particular set had been swung out into deep water and drowned. The two traps at the end of the log had ac- counted for their catch in like fashion. At the rat slide, however, farther along Ridley, one trap had not been sprung, although the parsnip was gone. Dave decided it might have fallen off its stick, so he put another in its place. He took two muskrats from the other sets. Replacing the traps, he hastened onward by the stream, eager to rejoin his companion with the story of their THE STAG OF HUNTING HILL 91 surpassing luck. Two rabbits, one large skunk, five musk- rats, this was a red-letter day for sure. Then there was still the otter pond. That would be the real test of their ability. Dave walked fast and soon had reached the edge of the Strasburg Road. He caught sight of Bob waiting for him there near the ford. "I say, thought you'd been tied to a tree this time! What kept you so long?" Bob's voice carried shrilly across the snow. "See we've had luck how many? What'd we get?" "Five!" Dave lifted his heavy bundle of muskrats and swung them high, so that the other boy might see. Truly it was as much as he could do to hold them up. "Five of these, Bob! And a skunk, too! The biggest fellow you ever saw! Left him by the creek. And two rabbits. They're both" "Steer clear of me, laddybuck, if you've been meddling with a polecat!" Bob made pretense to run away. "Oh, well, reckon you'll do long as you stay down wind! I've left the horses in that barn near Edgemont. The MacAfees'. Cunningham, their man, said it was all right. They're out of the cold there." "That's fine. Now we can work up the creek on shank's mare and get to the pond in no time. I'll bet " The boy ceased speaking as his chum broke in excitedly. "Oh, I say, Dave! Look over yonder! Quick! The beauty! it's " Bob dropped his bundle of traps in the snow and ran up the wayside bank pointing toward a treeless knoll a few hundred yards south of the road. Silhouetted against the cold sky of early winter stood an antlered stag, a white-tailed kingly creature from beam 92 SANDY FLASH to pointed tine, alert, head high, its questing nose swing- ing here and there to the breeze. Dave gasped, then hissed at his chum: "Be quiet, Bob! Oh, can't you be still! You'll" It was too late. The head with its glorious crown of points swung round sharply, the delicate nostrils ringed wide and red, blowing a cloudy breath of challenge upon the frost-keen air. There was a flash of grayish flank, as the stag turned and leaped, then the white flag of the tail bobbed and fell from sight and bobbed to view again and was gone beyond the swell of the hill. Madly the boys broke through the fence line, loudly they cheered, but any thought of chase was out of the question. They had no guns; the tracks proved hopeless. As they gazed out across the bowl of the valley toward the Edgemont ridge, over the icy sheen of Ridley, east- ward up the slopes, they caught their last view and wel- comed it with a ringing halloa ! The spot moved steadily on across the snowy upland. Once only did it stop as it topped a rise, pausing to glance back, sharp etched again against the sky. The boys could do nothing. Sadly they pointed and longed for hound or gun. The next moment the stag passed from sight, as it sank the hill. "That's the thing for us, Dave! I say, we've got to get him! Just got to! I'd rather have that buck than the king otter itself! Almost! Wouldn't you? We'll come out here again with guns and stalk it! I told you there were still lots of deer about!" "First of all, we'll never come to Hunting Hill or anywhere else without a gun! I'll tell you that for fair! Never again long as I have anything to say about it. T3 C bd bJC THE STAG OF HUNTING HILL 93 Why the deuce couldn't you keep still, Bob, when he came so close on the little hill there? It's fine to talk of plenty of deer, just after you've gone and scared the biggest one we've seen clean away. Wait till your father hears that!" Still arguing hotly, the lads turned back from their vain pursuit. Picking up the muskrats, they crossed the road and kept on by the side of the creek, seeking the luck that might await them at the otter pond. Each boy was out of sorts. They knew they had acted in a way that would have brought upon them the scorn of any woodsman. As they entered the fringe of forest that veiled the hollow, a man armed with a gun stepped from the coppice behind the knoll where the stag had first broken view. Catching sight of the boys, he watched them in silent anger till they had rounded a bend. Apparently, he had been following close upon the animal when they had startled it to flight. Now with a muttered curse, he stood looking after them. "Hum! Fine enough ye be at trappin', fine enough, me hearties! But a bit too close to home." He noted the lay of the landscape about him glumly. "Beside, I can't have ye scarin' away any more stags. An' me hard after stalkin' it to a shot, the neatest buck that steps the Three Counties ! Trappin', is it? Hum! Ye'll be back, little fear. Ye'll be passin' by this way, me beauties, soon enough. A royal welcome ye'H find waitin'! That ye will!" Closely and long Sandy Flash studied the fringe of woodland that marked the brook below. Then sullenly 94 SANDY FLASH the man turned and strode off among the chestnuts toward Hunting Hill. Meanwhile, Bob and Dave, unperturbed by suspicion that they were being watched from above, walked on- ward through the brookside beeches, intent only upon the buck they had seen and the anticipation of the otter sets. Twenty minutes after crossing the Strasburg Road, the boys were deep in the little glen that hid the stream below Dutton's Mill. The otter pond was soon reached. Dave, forcing his way ahead, came first to the high bank. Down he slid, his eyes everywhere seeking signs of recent tracks in the freshly fallen snow. He was not disappointed, for the same peculiarly awkward, leaping footprints that they had noticed before showed that the otters had been moving about in the neighbor- hood of the slide since their last visit. As Bob came up, they both caught sight of the pole to which their trap chain had been fastened. It was leaning at a sharp angle well out over the stream. The lads shouted together at this discovery, too keen to heed the tradition of the forest silence. But their joy gave place to chagrin when they had pulled the trap to shore. It had been sprung. An otter had been responsible for that, as a tuft of fur, sleek, brown fur, of finest texture, soon proved. Dave looked the trap over thor- oughly, turning it about in his hands. Fast between the powerful iron jaws, the bit of pelt told the tale. It was not a foot, as he had at first supposed, but a wad nipped from the chest of the animal. The color showed him that. Clearly the otter had come off from its encounter with the trap set but little the worse for the ordeal. And 95 doubtless a good deal the wiser. It was patent it must have learned a lesson of experience likely to make fur- ther success with a trap well-nigh out of the question. "Know what's done it?" questioned Bob at length. "We nearly got him, sure enough, didn't we?" The feud over the stag had slipped from his mind with a facility that boyhood alone can command. "It's hard to say just what did happen." Dave sprung the toothed jaws open, allowing the bit of fur to fall to the ground. Picking it up, he went on. "That's otter, all right. Looks to me like one of 'em must have been swimming or ducking about near the slide a few inches under where it isn't frozen. Maybe he tried to coast down it a little way. Must have stumbled on the trap somehow, belly first, so that his chest hit it 'stead of his foot. See? They're so darned quick and squirmy, just like eels, you know. I reckon he twisted out of it before the spring could close on more than a bit of his hair." The lad allowed the trap to snap shut with a metallic clash. "I say! That's speed!" Bob whistled. "You're right enough, I guess. No other way for it to happen. Bet we'll never get him again that one. Hope to goodness it wasn't the big fellow! What now? There're tracks enough about to " "Try for 'em again the same way. All I know to do. They're here all right, a-plenty. Look at that log over there. The poplar trunk running out in the water. See the pile of droppings on the end? Otter droppings, that is. It's one of their regular ways. It's up to us to go get 'em. They're waiting for us, Bob!" 96 SANDY FLASH Between them, they reset the trap in the slide about six inches below the surface of the water. Then they fixed the long stick with the chain exactly as they had done before. Neither lad felt much hope of success, yet on the other hand, they realized how very near they must have come to attaining it when the fur had been snipped from the very breast of the animal before it had made good its escape. "The trouble with otter is that they're just about the slickest thing that swims," said Dave disconsolately, as they ended their work. "It's harder to get one than most anything 'cept fox. We might try " "None of them for us!" Bob was instantly on guard. "You know I told you foxes were the one thing we wouldn't go for. My father " "Only said they were hard to get." Dave chuckled in delight at the way his friend had risen to the bait. "Hold your horses, Bob! I'm getting to be a bit of a fox hunter myself ! I'm not going to kill any more ground- hogs these days, either, 'cause they're the fellows that dig the holes the foxes use. Guess you knew that? How about working along upstream? I've got a small trap in my pocket that we could use for mink. We might find a likely place for 'em." "Fine! We've lots of time. It's hardly noon by the sun. We can ride home quickly afterwards. I'd like to get a nice mink pelt for my mother." "I heard David Cunningham say there're plenty of 'em up here where the creek's narrow in the hollow. Guess we'd better move along." Epth boys set great store by the woodcraft of the THE STAG OF HUNTING HILL 97 friendly man who worked on the farm of William Mac- Afee just north of the Strasburg Road between Edge- mont and Castle Rock. His hints nearly always proved sound. They moved off now in Indian file, Dave leading. This time the boys made slow progress, as it was nec- essary to keep a close watch for tracks along the very border of the water and here it was hardest for them to walk. A good hour passed before they found what they wanted. It was time well spent. No doubt remained as to the presence of mink when luck finally came, far up past the mill, where Ridley narrowed and wound its way across the Barrens. The dead body of a muskrat first caught the boys' eyes. It lay on the bank, close by the water's edge. A clean-cut incision in the neck showed where the blood had been sucked from the animal to the last drop. The flesh was not otherwise torn. "Mink!" Dave picked up the muskrat and turned in triumph toward Bob. "They're at it like cats and dogs all the time! Mink and muskrat never stop fighting, you know. A mink's as wicked as a weasel, most, when it comes to killing and sucking blood. Cunny was telling me that they'd go for anything to get bloody meat. Even a little lamb or a pig! That's true. He's seen 'em at it." "Did you ever catch one?" Bob, practical as ever and steadfast to the work in hand, looked at the stiff carcass. "How?" "Oh, yes. Cubbies are best. Got one or two of 'em last year that way. Water sets are all right, though. We'd better try one of those to-day and make a cubby later on when we've more time." Dave studied the tracks that told of the fight between 98 SANDY FLASH the mink and the unfortunate muskrat. The bank rose sharply here, to his left, leaving a narrow strand along which the mink had evidently been walking when the at- tack began. The boy, all eagerness as he read the marks, pointed them out to Bob. He was literally seeing that fight in his mind's eye, living it himself from start to finish, with all the vivid detail of his imagination. "We'll trust to luck he'll come back this way again. We'd best set the trap right here, I guess. Queer how they fight, mink and rats, every minute. A mink never eats a thing but meat it's got to be fresh and raw, too. That's why they're so savage! Look, Bob, where it first pounced on the poor muskrat! See how they fought!" "I'm not so sure they only eat fresh meat," Bob as- serted himself with confidence. "I once saw a mink, actu- ally watched him, down by our stream, and he was tear- ing away at a piece of rotten, maggoty stuff one of the dogs had carried there and left. It was that bad, a fel- low could hardly come close to it, yet " "Then he was after the maggots in it, not the meat it- self," reasserted Dave. "They'll eat maggots all right. I've found rotten meat, too, that they'd torn apart to get at. But they never eat it. It's one sure way to know it's mink you're on to." The tracks along the narrow ledge of shore were grouped in pairs, perhaps fifteen inches apart, the left foot first. Dave called this to his comrade's notice. "It's pretty easy to tell mink that way from the tracks because they're always like it. When I built my cub- bies last winter for the ones I got, I made 'em of sticks about a foot square and a foot high maybe a little THE STAG OF HUNTING HILL 99 more. They had three sides and I put up the trap right in the open side, covered over. Then I put the bait way in the back and roofed 'em over with more sticks and snow. Father told me how to do it right." "What did you use for bait? Parsnips or apples or what?" "Meat, I said. Got to be meat. They only like it bloody, just as I told you. Muskrat's best, but rabbit or chicken's most as good. I've used a dead muskrat that I'd just caught. A mink has lots of curiosity, like a coon, I reckon, so he hunts round investigating the cubby. 'Course he can only get in one way and so he steps on the trap as he creeps toward the bait at the back. An- other thing, minks always crawl through every hollow log they come across, exploring 'em like. We're apt to get one in that coon set of ours, back yonder, where we covered the trap with the punky wood and put it inside. Wouldn't surprise me a bit, if we did." Dave noticed a point a rod or two beyond where the pathway narrowed to a few inches. It was ideal for the set he had in mind. Staking his trap securely to a nearby stump, he placed the set just under water at the very edge of the brook. In order to get it below the surface, he had to scrape out a handful or two of pebbles and mud. He then hid the metal with leaves. Sure that all was ar- ranged as cleverly as his woodcraft could direct, he looked about the bank. A large rock, a good foot round, lay near to hand. With Bob's help, he managed to lift it and drop it in place squarely upon the narrow shore be- tween the water and the bank, very effectually blocking the passage. However, a moment's survey convinced him ioo SANDY FLASH that this was not all that he needed, for spying a par- tially fallen branch nearby he pulled that down, too, so that it rested on top of the rock. "I ought to have lopped that bough off in the first place. Anything could climb over the stone by itself. It's all right now, though, nothing can get past it and the limb, both, unless they climb all the way up the bank. If a mink comes marching by, and he's certain sure to, sooner or later, he'll step round it in the water. And there's the trap ready waiting for him! It's as sure a set for 'em as you can make. Simple as pie, too, isn't it?" Dave grinned, "Once you know how!" "Sometimes when the bank doesn't run up steep and make a little path like this down below," he pointed, "it's fine to stake down fresh meat, rats or a rabbit or a bit of raw chicken, close to the water edge. They'll see that sure, coming along. Then you put the trap near it. In a cubby always, the bait's got to be, of course." "Have to find their tracks first, I guess, same as most everything else." Bob splashed some water with a stick upon the marks made by him and Dave during the set- ting of the trap. "I say, we've made a deuce of a mess here, tramping all about the place." "Yes, and gotten good and wet, too." Dave kicked out a well-soaked moccasin. "The thing's first to find out where the minks have been coming from the tracks then make the sets and the cubbies for 'em. Naturally! Roundabout stumps, sometimes, and covered with leaves, gives a pretty fair place." He pulled a large stick from where it had lodged THE STAG OF HUNTING HILL 101 against a boulder and joined Bob in splashing water along the path where they had trodden the way to a muddy slush. Whether or not water would do any good, he did not know. The next fall of snow would hide their traces, at any event, so neither boy bothered very much about it. "That'll do, I reckon. If any more mink come by, they'll trot along the path. And they'll have to step in the water, to get round, so that's the best we can do for 'em. Hadn't we better be starting back, Bob? I'm starved almost hollow as a grouse log. Really! And we've nothing to eat with us, either. 'Less you feel like a try at raw rabbit or some muskrat meat? That's about the cleanest thing there is. Tastes a little like chicken." "No, I reckon not. We'd best be getting along now. Your turn to fetch the horses this trip. Meet me on the Providence road. I'll go straight down creek and pick up the skunk. I know the place you left it. The muskrats and the rabbits I'll take along now. I say, give me the bag, will you? That's it!" They trudged off without more debate. Half an hour later, they rejoined one another at the spot where they had parted in the morning. Bob slung the skunk across the pummel of his saddle, then climbed up himself. Dave hung the rabbits in the game bag over his shoulder and the muskrats, lashed together in a bundle, half and half across his own saddle bow. It was a well-satisfied pair of boys that parted company at the Thomas farm- stead. Never had they dreamed of such luck at their traps within so short a time. It had come to them as a result, really, of the long days of earnest work that 102 SANDY FLASH Dave had put in studying the life of the forest before he got his father's approval for systematic attention to the sport. His patience was reaping its reward. The main thought in the minds of both, as they turned their horses' heads apart at the crossways, was for the stag of Hunting Hill. That was a matter demanding ac- tion, immediate, brooking no delay. They would try for it Monday. As they called farewell and jogged off, the future looked very rosy to them, as well it might They had left one important consideration from their reckon- ing, however. Neither boy gave thought to the presence of Sandy Flash in the neighborhood, though the finding of the silver cup from the Lewises' might well have warned them. Neither suspected for an instant that they had been watched by the outlaw that very morning. Nor did they know that this was not the first time, by any means, that he had been near them while they were tending their traps. Sandy Flash had taken cognizance of their presence when chance had led him upon Dave's rabbit snare in the meadow a fortnight before. The dangling game had filled a needed want in his larder. It was the day after this that he had come to Hunting Hill again, this time with Peter Burgandine. Indeed, having strapped the old farmer to the oak, he had suddenly recalled the snare, not so far away, and determined to revisit it. Having set it again, he would come back to the tortured man, trusting that the interval in the killing cold of December might serve to loosen his tongue and show way to money. Hear- ing the boys hastening up the slope, he had sought his horse, tethered near the Strasburg Road, and ridden off. THE STAG OF HUNTING HILL 103 The chase from the Brandywine had been enough for one day. Then had followed, on a wild urge of the moment, the daring affair at the Newtown inn when he had bearded the posse itself and disappeared. In the afternoon of the same day, he had circled back, pilfered the Lewis home of its silver and disappeared under cover of twi- light. Sandy Flash since then had not gone back to Hand's Pass nor to Newlin or Bradford, as the good people fondly supposed. The great rock retreat near Cain Meeting was empty. Rather he had been lying quiet close by in Edgemont, craftily maturing plans of his own, getting himself as snugly fixed in his new lair as possible. The trapping operations of Bob Allyn and Dave soon drew his attention to them and more than once he had been within gunshot, as he shadowed their steps from tree to tree along the brook. Had Dave but known it, it was none other than the outlaw who had taken two coons from the log traps and neglected to reset them before the boy came by the Wednesday .previous. Sandy was living well in his cave at Castle Rock, thanks to the abundance of game and to the convenient endeavors of the boys. The first real hint that came to him of danger from them grew out of their set at the otter pond and their finding of Thomas Lewis's silver tankard. The high- wayman had, just as Bob suspected, hidden his loot in several handy nooks and crannies here and there through- out the woods of Edgemont and Newtown within reach of Castle Rock. It so happened that he had the stolen mugs with him when he had made his way toward his hiding place, circling roundabout under cover of the Rid- 104 SANDY FLASH ley Woodlands. Seeing the otter hole in the bank not far from Button's, he had slipped the cup in it for safe keeping, never suspecting that the boys would trap so far up the narrowing stream. Besides, he was making a com- mon cache of all his plunder high among the crags of Castle Rock, where no chance rover would be apt to stumble upon it. He hoped soon to remove everything there. Put on guard by the discovery of the silver, Sandy Flash had at last made up his mind to watch the boys in earnest. He was quite ready to go any length where his own safety was concerned or where the carrying out of his schemes seemed threatened. Particularly, what he had in hand just now. The man was a strange mingling of bestial cruelty and selfishness, warped with a strand of what might have approached chivalry. His lashing and torture of old Peter Burgandine had shown one side of his degenerate nature. And the Newlin farmer was not the only one who had been tied up and beaten in like fashion. On the other hand, stories were rife of Sandy Flash occasionally showing a kindly disarming friendship toward his fellows, even giving the money he had taken from well-to-do to help more poor and needy folk he met with on the way. Once while riding back to his cave in the Valley Hills, between Cain Meeting and the old stone mill, he had come upon a poor woman bound to market. She had a few shillings and pence tied carefully in her kerchief, but, even so, feared the chance of meeting with the dreaded robber. On seeing Sandy Flash, she had asked him to THE STAG OF HUNTING HILL 105 go with her through the wood, explaining her anxiety for her little treasure, should she be stopped by the highway- man. Sandy very courteously went with her to the far edge of the copse where the road stretched down through open fields toward the hamlet in the Valley. There, he stopped, took off his hat and made himself known, pre- senting the astonished old lady with a golden sovereign before he slipped away among the trees. Another twist in the man's nature was his love of dare- deviltry toward the authorities and the farmer posses that vainly tried to bring him to a reckoning at the bar of justice. He had even gone so far as to round up two of them, while they were out hunting the hills for him one day, and he had given them a lasting taste of the lashing that Burgandine had endured. All in all, however, the man was a dangerous scoundrel, well deserving to be hung. The few tricks he had played on his pursuers and his occasional gifts to the poor, these vastly exaggerated in the telling, blinded a person here and there to the real villainy he was guilty of in the county and to the utterly heartless way in which he usually treated his victims. It was thanks to these mis- guided folk, luckily only two or three in all, that the out- law was able to escape capture and fare as well as he did, hidden away in his many places of concealment. They kept him in ammunition and food, what little of both he needed, apart from the results of his robberies. Most of his provisions he could get himself with his flintlock. Like many clever criminals, Sandy Flash knew the value of appearing in a hero's guise before the simple io6 SANDY FLASH folk, whenever he could. He invariably turned this pose of helpfulness to good account, with never the faintest heart throb of sincerity in it. The stag he had been stalking this fair morning would have meant smoked venison enough and to spare for many weeks had not the boys startled it away from all chances of a shot at that time. Sandy put that fact to their reck- oning against the time he should have a settlement of scores. He had a way of doing this that meant small good for those concerned. It is strange how little things alter the whole trend of the future. The mild Saturday on which the boys had ridden over to look at their traps by Hunting Hill was touched with a bite of keener breeze as it grew toward noon. This had led Bob to stable the horses at the Mac- Afees', as he had explained to his chum, so that they might be out of wind, until it was time for the return ride, Coming home, it was Dave's turn to walk back for them to the corners and on to meet Bob again by the road above. As we know, the boy had done it. So it was that Sandy Flash waited vainly till well after one o'clock for the lads to approach him on foot, past the lower reaches of Ridley, where he had concealed himself. It was cold up there on the hill, bitter cold, standing still, as the wind came flooding sharply up the valley. The man cursed his folly for not having stalked them to the brookside in the first place. Not knowing they had gone far on to the mink track, he had mistakenly fancied that they would come back as soon as they had worked a little way along the stream. At last, he gave up all hopes of seeing them and turned his steps toward Castle Rock. THE STAG OF HUNTING HILL 107 It did not take him long to reach a strip of woodland that swept from the southwestern slope of that hill up a swale in the ground to the ridge topped by the Providence Road. This high ground divided Crum on the east from the waters of Ridley on the west. The outlaw could move about pretty much as he pleased in both valleys with plenty of cover and little chance of being seen. It was only while crossing the road on the bare hilltop that he had to make use of any special care to avoid detec- tion. Even then it offered not the least difficulty to one trained, as Flash had been from boyhood, in the ways of the wood. Castle Rock in Edgemont is a high hill bearing almost the same relation to Crum Creek that Hunting Hill does to Ridley. The forested slope on the east runs down sharply to the edge of the brook. On the south, it drops more gently to a narrow open valley, cut by the silver sparkle of a swift little stream. The Strasburg Road bounds the northern foot of Castle Rock where the oak woods stretch upward from wayside thicket to the weathered boulders that top the summit far above. It was here at the peak of Castle Rock that the wooded hill had won its name. And rightly so. Jutting high among the ancient oaks and hickories, yet thoroughly hid- den by them, bulked a great mass of granite. A huge tower of it, gray, moss-grown, irregular, battered here and there, with lichened shafts of rock reaching far above the rest, it caught and held the eye like the crenelated merlons of some crumbling old-world barbican. The sides were solid in places, rising sheer for many yards. Near the foot of the rocks, where the granite broke from io8 SANDY FLASH out of the solid core of the hill and pitched its tower among the trees, a little opening hid behind a screen of vines and briers. It was the only entrance to a natural cleft or cavern in the rocks. Instead of trying to crawl up to this from the west, through an almost impassable tangle of thorns and briers and wild-grapevines, Sandy Flash circled the pile and then crept round its face, clinging to a little ledge of granite that offered fair footing to one who knew the way. Above the opening he paused, pushed the matted screen back from the rock with his foot, then lowered himself gingerly from grip to grip, toehold to toehold, till he dropped from sight onto a platform below. The vines swung back promptly to their former position above his head. The outlaw stood within a perfect network of interwoven thorns of such thickness that even the winter loss of leaves had not forced them to lay bare the secret beneath. Assured that the screen was as before, the man bent low and pushed his way along the narrow crack in the granite. A fair amount of light enabled him to see, some of it coming from within, through a crevice in the roof. A moment later, he stood erect in the middle of a good- sized cave, brushing the dust from his sleeve. The place was dry as a bone, high enough for him to walk upright in some places and quite large enough for several men to sit down in comfortably. A rude fireplace had been built in one corner by the simple expedient of rolling together some flat stones. A darkened streak up the sloping wall of granite showed the outlet for smoke. It escaped through the same little split that let in light near the en- trance. A penny dip stuck on a harrow tooth driven in a iog crack served to light the place, when Sandy had scratched at his flint and flashed a bit of powder in the pan. The candle spluttered a moment, then burned with a clear yellow light. A bundle of clothes near the fireplace stirred, as a man sat up suddenly rubbing his eyes and stretching, turn by turn. He was not nice to look upon. Unshaven, dirty to a degree, sullen and evil-eyed, the fellow had none of the swaggering neatness that marked the bearing of Sandy Flash. Rather he looked every inch the thieving black- guard that he was. Mordecai Dougherty yawned loudly, then spat in the embers of a dying fire. "Wot luck, Cap'n? Any buck meat?" "Little enough, me sleepin' beauty!" Sandy Flash set the candle so that the light fell across the hearth. "Shake out there, Mort, an' cut me a bite o' pork from the hunk yonder, like a good fellow. I'll stir up a fire. The lads with the traps ruined the finest hit o' venison for us ye ever clapped eyes on. The buck I told ye of, it was. The very same!" "Snared it, the dirty raskils?" Mordecai bent to draw a villainous looking knife, none too clean, from its rest- ing place in his left stocking. Then he set about slicing the meat. "I said ye ought to've knocked 'em off fer fair, the brace of 'em, the time wot they first found yer siller drinkin' mug." "I'm runnin' this party! When your ways're wanted, they'll be asked for. Not sooner. Understand? No, they didn't snare the deer. Naturally not! How'd they know to? Scared it off the very sights o' me gun, though, the beauty that it was, too! Foolin' with traps and no SANDY FLASH snares, and all that, they were, over in the other valley. Reckon ye never thought o' seein' to our own nags, now, did ye?" Dougherty's answer was to lay aside the meat and make his way out of the cave, followed by a hearty curse from his leader. By the time he had returned, the fire was un- der way, taking some of the chill from the cavern. And a cleverly built fire it was. Very small, of the driest wood, it served to boil a pot of water and cook the simple meal, yet it gave forth practically no smoke. Sandy Flash went on with his tale, describing the stalk of the stag and his vain wait for the boys' return. Mordecai Dougherty offered no further suggestions, but it was clear that he felt that the presence of the lads and the knowledge they had, justified extremes. The man was lacking in Flash's brains, but he was every whit as cruel in destroying what stood in his way. Just now both men had plans brewing of considerable import. They lost no more time in getting to them. "I've gotten the whole thing pretty well lined up, Mort." Sandy Flash carefully replenished the fire with more dry sticks, using an iron rod as a poker. He had found it in the cave. "That message ye brought me last night from Moses Doan turned the trick for a good 'unl So they're to ship the gold toward Head of Elk, are they? Reckon it's less likely to be captured there, eh? How about it's gettin' down there first, says I! How about that, me hearty?" "This comin' week, it is. We heard it all. Old Doan he sez wot " Dougherty paused, as Sandy Flash mo- THE STAG OF HUNTING HILL in tioned for silence in a way that showed he looked for obedience. "They're afraid to use the main road through Chester, I take it? It'd be too risky for 'em. Hum! They're to come straight west, are they, just as Doan told me he thought they would, when he spoke o' me comin' to Castle Rock in the first place? Think o' that, me dear! They're to ride right by our door, ye might say on the Goshen Road! Ye've told me so! It's a favor truly they're after doin' us. An' not a one the wiser!" Flash laughed. "Thinkin' I'm back in Cain or Bradford! They'll wake up more sudden than they fell asleep, that they will!" "Ye're forgettin' the cup an' the boys wot found it. It's not our'n yet, that gold ain't, nor like to be, either, long as ye let that pair o' sneakin' spies have the run o' the country. They'll be fetchin' a halter tether fer us both, Cap'n Fitz, before " "Oh, no, they won't! Rest ye easy on that. Listen, now, to what I'm tellin' ye, an' stow the gab. Ye're pow- erful strong in talk, but poverishin' little work it is ye're doin'." Sandy Flash ran over the fuller details of his plot for the enlightenment of his accomplice. Tipped off by the infamous Moses Doan, through Mordecai, who had acted as go-between, it appeared that Flash had learned some while before of the authorities covertly collecting large sums of money for use in buying military stores. This, in gold coin, was to be moved as soon as might be from its present precarious hiding place close to the enemy's lines. Arrangements had just been made to do this by couriers, one of whom was to ride out past Newtown ii2 SANDY FLASH Square and the White Horse, then south to the Brandy- wine by the Street Road and on toward Head of Elk. All secretly and under cover of darkness. Sandy Flash had acted on Doan's advice and moved to Castle Rock a fortnight before, bent upon lying quietly in wait until he should have received further word. All was now in readiness and the tip had come with the ar- rival of Dougherty at the cave the evening before. Sandy disclosed a few of his own plans as the conference ended. He lent emphasis to his words by speaking slowly, tapping the hearth stone with the iron rod. "Do ye understand now, me hearty, why ye've no man- ner o' need to be botherin' about 'em? 'Tis perishin' little that couple o' game cocks'll have to do with this deal! Ye can tell Moses, too, he's no need o' worry." Sandy chuckled at the look of unbelieving surprise be- ginning to dawn in the face of his companion. It gave way to a sort of grudging admiration, as the meaning of the leader's words sank deeper. Mordecai Dougherty was a brute and hardened to most things, yet now he whistled softly. "Ye'd not try that! It's but lads they be after all, Cap'n. Ye couldn't." "Oh, couldn't I? Just bide a wee an' see who couldn't! Do ye know what the rider's to carry? In solid coin o' the realm, me beauty! " Sandy's lips purred as he named it. "Now, how about it, lads or no? Eh?" Dougherty nodded. Meanwhile, at Sycamore Mills, Bob Allyn had just wheedled his father out of a promise to let him have Mon- day off for a try at the stag. He little knew to what the chase would lead him. CHAPTER VI THE BEAVER DAM THE two boys put in a quiet Sunday. A few neces- sary chores in the morning were gotten over with as soon as might be. Then came the reading of family prayer, as neither the Allyns or the Thomases were able to arrange for the long drive to church, this particular morning. But both families replaced this with a little service of their own at home, as was their custom. A late dinner kept them at table till mid-afternoon. Before one could realize it the short winter day had slipped on to twilight and the sun began to set across the hills of dis- tant Thornbury. There was a queer, uncertain light there in the west. John Allyn looked at it a moment critically as he came up from the barn by Sycamore Mills. Then he shook his head and spoke to Bob, who was walking beside him with a pail of milk. "That's a lovely sight, if ever there was one, son, but it's got the token of change in it. Mind how the wind's gone down and the snow's got a yellow streak to it off there under the sunset? By to-morrow we'll have it in a different quarter. I feel the weather breeding in my bones already. 'Tis a queer thing that, but it rarely fails." Bob had thought of riding over to Dave's after supper, but now he gave up the idea. He studied the sky care- fully. Of late, he had begun to take an interest in such 113 ii4 SANDY FLASH things. Not only did he appreciate more than he used to the unsearchable beauties of coloring burning so vividly there before him, but he also was learning what a vast wealth of practical information the clouds and the sky and the sunlight contained for those who had schooled themselves to read the lessons aright. He knew that his father was the best teacher he could have, for big John Allyn had been making his farming earn him a livelihood from boyhood, thanks in no small way, to his skillful judging of wind and weather. Bob now noted the for- mation of the clouds and the coloring on the hilltops with a view of putting their signs to account. The beauty of the thing held him a moment, then with a shift of thought, his mind turned toward Dave and the passion of his chum for the open and all the ways of nature. "Father, I reckon you're like Dave Thomas." Bob laughed, as he looked at the tall form of his parent. "Dave's always busy studying out what's going to happen next to the weather and telling what hour it is from the sun and the stars, if it's night. Everything like that. I used to laugh at him, but I'm going to pick up a bit of it myself. Look yonder, at that funny twist of cloud with no glow on it at all. Looks just like smoke from a chim- ney to me. I say, what's it mean?" "I'm glad you saw it." Mr. Allyn glanced at the cloud his son had spoken of. "It's just a freak of the wind! Know what it puts me in mind of, though? It's for all the world like the signal fires the Delawares used to make in the olden days. They'd send 'em up when they were out hunting, sometimes, when they'd gotten on the track of a big herd of deer. Then when they made their camps THE BEAVER DAM 115 they kept signal smokes going most all the time, telling outlying parties I don't know what. Used to scare the old-time settlers mighty near out their skins for fear it was trouble brewing. But it never was hereabouts, thanks to Penn's Treaty." "Where did they make the fires?" asked Bob. "On the highest hills they could?" "Yes. They had fixed places more or less. One was the Cathcart Rock in Willistown. Then another was Signal Hill beyond Old St. David's, Radnor. The oldest fire rock of all was great stone down by Lewis's Mill, near the Darby Road. They say the Indians used that for a thousand years and more. I reckon they did, from all the smoke that's on it to this very day. I once saw one in Middletown, too." Father and son climbed the little slope to the house and went indoors. Supper was waiting. As they ate, the talk veered round to the chances of finding the stag. Bob made ready for an early start by going to bed in good season. He knew what he could look forward to, once the stalk began. Monday morning dawned in a smother of fog a thaw faint with the tang of the distant sea. Blurred trees dripped with the moisture of it. Hedgerows lost them- selves in swirling eddies of it. Even farm buildings, familiar barns and sheds and corncribs, rose in gray, un- certain masses, different altogether from their wonted selves. But little wind stirred the mist and what there was came drifting in from the east, over the hills of Upper Providence. John Allyn had discerned the face of the sky truly. The change had come over night. n6 SANDY FLASH Dave, near Rose Tree corner, was up in the wet chill of earliest dawn, seeing to his cnores. Like Bob, he had his father's consent to take the day off in search of the deer. And he had no idea of being late. At the crossing where the lane from Sycamore Mills joined the Provi- dence Road, the boys hailed one another gleefully. This was a red-letter day one that did not come to them often and right royally their spirits were rallying to it. A mo- ment's pause settled their course of action. First they would go cross country to Hunting Hill, looking at such traps as chanced to lie in their way. Then they would work north by the Ridley Woodlands on the watch for signs of deer. Hugh Thomas had heard of their particular stag being viewed several times lately on the forested slopes of the high ground over toward Fairie Hill and the Rising Sun in Willistown. Both lads de- termined to seek it first in that quarter. They could ask for report of it as they crossed the farms beyond the Strasburg Road. They felt that such an antlered crown could not have escaped notice in the neighborhood for long. As they followed Ridley north, they could spare a mo- ment's passing to look at the otter and mink sets since these were along their line. Bob had brought a large trap with him on the chance of finding a beaver dam. Each boy carried a flintlock, powder horn and bullet pouch. Then they had a sandwich or so crammed in their pockets, simple wheat bread and cheese, which they could munch as they went along. This was to be a tramp of many miles at best and they were eager to travel un- THE BEAVER DAM 117 hampered and avail themselves of daylight to the last moment. The first traps they visited were unsprung, just as they had left them two days before. A coon, however, re- warded them in one of the hollow logs. While Bob des- patched the pugnacious creature with a merciful blow on the head, fearing to risk the noise of a shot, Dave ran on to the next log. Here the trap was still set, so they hid their spoil and hastened to the bank where the skunk had been caught on the Saturday preceding. This was empty, but the trappers were not downcast by it. They could hardly be expected to fill all their traps in so short a time. "We've been lucky enough as it is to satisfy most." Dave made sure that the trap was in working order. "But I reckon nobody's ever really satisfied with what he's got, do you? The more he has, the more he wants ! We both ought" "I'm ready to call us lucky! " Bob shifted his flintlock into the crook of his arm. "We'll clean out the whole country in no time, if we keep it up like we've begun. Do you know, Dave, I think we ought to use judgment in this trapping game. I mean we ought to trap only what we really need, and what there's lots of. If we don't, why first thing you know we'll begin to run out of a supply!" "That's a funny one!" Dave laughed. "How could anybody ever make a dent in all the game there's here- abouts? Why, there's so much of it that we could make the whole army fur coats and lug 'em over to the Valley Forge!" ii8 SANDY FLASH "What about the fish in the Brandywine, then?" broke in Bob. "Don't you know only a few years back the stream had heaps and heaps of shad in it far up as the Forks in Bradford and miles beyond, too? Where're they now? There's not a one, hardly, only trout and bass and fall fish, and all because folks have fished the shad out and built dams for 'em and set nets for 'em whole- sale. Why, if they just keep on like they've started, we won't have any game left some day." "We've not over-set our end of the country, at any rate." Dave picked up his gun and together they turned from the earth. "But it's worth thinking of, as we go on trapping. Let's see how many we've caught all together so far." He fell to checking over their list. The walk for several miles proved uneventful. No trace or slot of deer greeted them. At the pool where the musk- rat houses rose like queer haycocks through the mist, the boys took several animals, safely drowned, from the traps. This was not much of a surprise, but it did give them a pleasant tingle of satisfaction. Luck was evidently with them still. "Rats are stupid things." Dave sprung the trap he held, letting the dead muskrat flop upon the snow. "A fellow can make sets and catch 'em, day after day, and they never seem to understand enough what's going on to be afraid." He replaced the trap in the water and se- cured the pole. "Let's move along, Bob." A disappointment awaited them at the pond in the glen where the set had been made for the otter. It was just as they had left it, although fresh tracks were in evidence a-plenty about the bank. Unmistakable, among THE BEAVER DAM 119 the others, ran those of the giant they had noticed before the king otter of the pool. The boys were clearly at fault somewhere, yet neither of them knew in what way. It would have been no small comfort to them had they understood that the otter is regarded by the professional trapper as one of the most difficult of all animals to take. When they had nipped a bit of fur from one of them, they had come as near success as they were likely to in that small place where every otter was now doubly on guard. Not knowing the difficulties before them, they kept dog- gedly at it, which was, after all, the best thing they could do. The mink set in the water by the foot of the bank re- stored them to high feelings the instant they caught sight of the animal in it. It was a fair-sized one, probably twenty-five inches from muzzle to tail tip, and the fur was prime. Especially did the catch justify the wisdom of the way they had laid their trap. It showed that they had read the signs aright and tried for mink where mink were. Two minutes' delay served to reset the trap in the same place. "It's a regular walk they have along here, like as not, where they come hunting after muskrats," volunteered Dave. "We might as well try it again. This pelt's fine. We'll get a jolly good price for it at the Pratt. Or we can see what mother can make out of it. Your mother, if she'll do it." "No need for a cubby here, I guess, or whatever you call 'em." Bob stroked the sleek fur. "The water set does just as well, it seems to me. Besides, it's lots easier. Nothing to it but putting in a trap. We'll divvy up on the pelts to-night. I think we ought to have enough pretty 120 SANDY FLASH soon to take over to the Valley Forge for caps and things." "All right. Here's for the water set again," said Dave. "Sometimes you have to have cubbies, though. They're good things, all right. It's the only way you can get a fisher a black cat, that is. I heard a fellow once say there're lots of 'em back in the mountains where the green timber grows spruce, they love, fishers do." "I say, how'd he get 'em?" Bob pricked up his ears for what might be useful. "Did he try in the woods?" "Built cubbies for 'em. Over in the pines of Birming- ham, it was. Just like mine I told you of for mink. Only bigger. His were a good two feet long and a foot wide and high. Then he covered 'em over with spruce boughs for thatch to keep the snow from filling 'em up. He said the less you fooled round 'em, the better. Fishers are scary as the pop of a weasel ! The great thing's to make the cubby, then leave it strictly alone!" "Wish there were some fishers round here, nearer than way off there. It'd be great to get a big thing like that!" Bob sighed. The fever of the trapper had gotten deep in his blood. He wanted to accomplish everything at once, now he had tasted the joy of the start. "Our buck isn't so very small, you know," the younger boy grinned, as he saw that his comrade had almost for- gotten their real mission. "We've still to get him to-day. It would be rare if there were fisher about, but I've never heard of one close by in Edgemont or Providence. Not since father was a boy, anyway. Must be lots in the Welsh Mountains, though. \Ve could easily get over there, if they'd let us mal;e a hunting trip of it sometime.* THE BEAVER DAM 121 "That man I spoke of told me how to get 'em. You use a big trap, 'bout the same as we did for the otters. Then you make the cubby and put in the trap. You've got to hitch the chain to a sapling spring pole so that when he's fast, it'll yank him up in the air. Just like that rab- bit loop of ours, only the trap and all goes up with this. It takes a real good sapling with lots of spring. It's hard to find the right kind, he said." "Should think it might be! How much does a fisher weigh?" queried Bob. "Don't know. Never even saw one." Dave pushed his way through a thicket of alders and began to climb toward the higher ground. "Let's get out of this hollow. It's thick as cheese! Can't see a blessed thing for the fog. We could easily pass by that deer and never know it. How much does a fisher weigh? A good deal, I reckon. Their pelt's as big as all get out! The trick of catching 'em is to lay a long drag with some bait or other a piece of rabbit is what the man used. He said it was still better to put some fox scent or even aniseed on the bait, then pull that along with a strip of rawhide thong behind you. Then you go and make some cubbies, here and there, where you drag the bait. There ought to be a bit of bait in each cubby. The greatest trouble must be to find the right kind of saplings to yank 'em up, I'd think." "We'll have to try it, anyway, sometime, just for the fun of it. That laying a drag with more than one cubby along it, sounds pretty good to me." Bob slung his heavy trap and chain over his shoulder. "I say, it was mighty foolish lugging this thing along to-day with the gun and 122 SANDY FLASH all, wasn't it? It'll only be in the way, if we ever do come up with the stag. Pretty much like a needle in a hay- stack, finding him in this fog. What's a fisher's tracks look like? Ever see 'em?" "Don't know. I never did. But the trapper said they were mighty hard to trail, the fishers themselves were, so I guess they keep their tracks scarce, too. If you ever come on any pine marten where there's lots of spruce trees, why then you'll find the fisher, sure as can be. I know because " The boys had climbed up from the cleft of the valley and now saw that they were on one of several bare hills that dropped away in rounded contours as far as the eye could carry through the east wind's shifting haze. The mist had largely cleared away up here, patches of it only still veiling the bottom in fleecy waves of fog. Across the field in which they stood came the melodious baying of a hound. It was that which had brought Dave to a halt, his words unfinished. Luck was with them this day, for sure. The boys scanned the view in all directions. It was blank. "That dog's after something, sure as preaching!" Bob spoke. "It's just as apt to be a deer's trail as not." "Let's run over and see then. It just might be that buck! This is near where they said they saw him last time, you know. Come along!" Dave broke into a jog trot, Bob Allyn at his side. They were right. An old hound was busily working away at the slot of a deer. There was no mistake about that for the cloven hoof marks showed up clearly in the soft snow. And they were large, too. A full-grown stag. THE BEAVER DAM 123 The difficulty, however, lay in the fact that the trail was not fresh. The manner in which the dog labored over it soon convinced them that they were wasting their time in depending on his ancient, though laudable, endeavors. The stag had passed that way, but how long before neither lad was clever enough to guess. "There's only one thing to do. And do it quick!" Dave passed the hound and hurried on. "That old dog'll spend the day working round here in this one field, yowl- ing and towling along the line for dear life. But he'll never get forward! We've got to run it ourselves, far as it goes in the snow. Maybe it may get clearer by and by. Let's try!" "All right. Get to it then!" Bob's powerful stride brought him alongside the smaller boy. Without further word they settled down to what they knew would be the real test of the day a grueling match of endurance and pace. It was not hard to follow the slot, but it was hard to keep up the speed that they felt absolutely necessary if they hoped to come within gunshot of the deer before dark. For more than five hours they trudged on, speak- ing little, now climbing to the uplands where they could search the countryside in all directions, again drop- ping with the winding, uncertain trail to the bottom of the little valleys where they could scarcely see a hundred fog-dimmed yards ahead of them. The boys were be- ginning to tire as the winter afternoon came on. Their bread and cheese served to pick them up, however, and they kept right gamely at it, following the hoof marks step by step. The hills, now, were topped a good deal 124 SANDY FLASH more slowly than at first, with occasional rests to ease their breathing. The snow, too, seemed a lot more slip- pery and bothersome than it had in the morning. Dave was hardened to walking, thoroughly hardened to it, but he knew another fast climb or two would bring him to going on his nerve alone. It was not so much the dis- tance as it was the pace that was telling. Bob plugged onward stolidly, showing little outward signs of distress, despite the bad going. His good Scotch grit would carry him forward that way till he stopped from exhaustion. Luck came to them as they slumped downward toward a little glade where the mist swirls played among the green spires of a cedar thicket. Indeed, it was the cover of the fog that helped them, for both boys were long since too weary for much thought of woodcraft. The stag had been resting and feeding here since early morning. Now the sound of approaching steps sent him bounding through the cover with a slither of falling snow behind him, as the cedar boughs swung wide to give him passage. The boys forgot the miles they had covered and sprang for- ward on the instant, guns in readiness. Now was the time for skill. "I say! It's him!" Bob sank on one knee, forgetful of grammar, as he whispered to Dave, and motioned with his gun barrel. "We're up to him at last. We've got to stalk now for a shot! Who'd have thought we'd ever " "Hush! Be still, can't you!" Dave's hard grip on the other's arm made him wince. "He must have been in there eating! We're close to him still, I think. Listen! Let's one of us try for a shot from the other end of the THE BEAVER DAM 125 hollow where he'll come out! He's got to go that way, you know." In whispers that choked with excitement, they made their arrangements. Dave, it was agreed, as the more skilled of the two in woodcraft, had best slip round the copse and take up a position at the glade's end, while Bob would work straight through the thicket. If he got a view he was to fire. Otherwise, his stalk would serve, at least, to keep the deer on the move toward his friend's hidden point of vantage below. There was little time to do more or to make further study of the lay of the land. This was a serious handicap, as both boys had no idea at all where they were. They did have knowledge enough of the country, however, to understand that the glen must needs open on the larger valley somewhere to the south. Silently as they could step, they parted, Bob to wait for a reasonable time, Dave to swing round the western border of the coppice. Luckily for the boy, the wind, such as penetrated the sheltered ravine, came from the stag toward him. The ground broke away sharply here from the rolling upland hills to the north and west on which they had been tramping all day. Had he but known it, he was in the hollow through which Crum Creek flowed south toward Castle Rock. The boy, hampered by the fog, and the new angle from which he was approaching the open valley of the Strasburg Road, had not the very vaguest idea of his whereabouts. He knew what he was trying to do, though, and he made such fair speed at it that he came to the end of the glade before the stag had broken cover to a view. 126 SANDY FLASH The deer, alarmed by the first disturbing approach of the lads, had soon grown calm again and, on hearing noth- ing further, had begun to browse along the side of the creek. By and by, it grew uneasy as instinct still whis- pered that something was wrong within danger distance of its shelter. The kingly animal ceased lipping at sap- ling shoots, mildly alarmed, and froze to an image of tense grace. Only its sensitive nostrils twitched as they stretched wide, quivering to test each strand of scent that came to them on the quiet air. Then the glorious head went round and he turned till he had proved the breeze in every quarter. It told him nothing. Yet he was not satisfied. Something was wrong and he knew it. It came to his brain sharp and insistent, not to be ignored, through some forgotten sense that humans have long since lost. He caught, ever so faint and far away, the deep baying of the old hound, still worrying along the trail that the boys had followed. That gave him no concern at all. Unable to locate the danger, but none the less acutely aware of it, the stately creature blew his nostrils clear at last and stepped daintily down the hollow. He would not hurry his pace, but he would move along till that uneasy feeling left him. So it was that by the time he approached the end of the coppice, Dave had been able to conceal himself behind a clump of cedars in readiness for a shot. The boy was so excited, as he waited prone on the snow, that he could scarcely pour the priming powder in his flintlock's pan. Further to the north, Bob had crouched, unmoved and stiff, as long as he could control his impatience, then he THE BEAVER DAM 127 had risen and begun to slip from tree to tree, eyes leaping down the vistas ahead of him. He made no attempt to follow the tracks, for the stag had wandered about as he nibbled until the slotted cover looked like a maze. All the boy hoped for was a view within gunshot. He had the vantage of wind on his left quarter, so need not fear be- trayal there. The mist eddies bothered him provokingly, for they seemed to hang heavily like a blind among the close-growing patches of cedar. The lad had loaded and primed his gun like a good woodsman, while waiting for Dave to get to place. The stag hunt ended in a manner that was startling, though it came to each boy in a different way. Bob viewed just as the buck crossed an open glade far ahead. The animal had paused there before venturing out into the meadowland of the valley beyond. The tall lad swung up his gun, steadied the stock to his cheek with a reassuring cuddle, played the sights a moment till they rested in line behind the stag's shoulder where he wanted them, then, bracing himself on widespread feet, he squeezed off the trigger, too keen a sportsman to jerk it even in the stress of firing at such a splendid target. Flint struck steel with scratching click and fat sparks flamed to the firing pan, but the powder did not flash. The instant the boy had raised his arm, a puff of wind had soughed down the hol- low and the cedars had swayed gently in answer to it, shaking little snowslides from their boughs. A pinch of clustering flakes, tobogganing downward, came to rest full upon the priming of the flintlock a second before the spark could ignite it. Bob dropped the gun to the crook 128 SANDY FLASH of his arm with a mutter of anger and disgust while he tore at the stopper of his powder flask. The boy's face went white with the disappointment of it. By the time he had reprimed, the stag had gone from view. There was nothing for it now, but wait till the sound of Dave's shot should reassure him. To run for- ward seeking a second try would mean the spoiling of his comrade's chances. Further, it would tend to bring him into his line of fire. Bob wisely stayed where he was, peering toward the opening in the trees. Of deer or Dave he caught no trace. As a matter of fact, a moment before the stag had paced to the covert's edge and paused to choose his line across the fields, Dave's mind had turned from thoughts of hunting with a suddenness that he had never before experienced. A hand laid on his shoulder set him rigid in dumb surprise, a surprise all the more painful in that his every instinct had been keyed to mark the buck's ap- pearance. A pistol at his head quickly turned his aston- ishment to bewilderment and terror. Indeed, it paralyzed him completely. The sudden shock of the thing held him motionless, his heart contracting with stabs of pain, his skin prickling hotly, as he sucked in his breath. That was the natural physical reaction to the unexpectedness of it. Dave was brave as the next, but he had a human body and it functioned as suqh. An instant of real tor- ture, and the boy's brain began to register once more, as the quickening blood flooded back. He turned his head, rolling sideways, to see, from where he had been lying in the snow. For a wild instant, he had guessed at a joke, but now he knew he was in mortal danger. THE BEAVER DAM 129 "Not a peep from ye!" A jab that hurt accompanied the whisper and the pistol muzzle poked savagely in his rib. "If ye lift so much as a sound, I'll drill ye to a sieve! Stand up an' do as I tell ye. That's it!" Dave did so. He was afraid now, terribly afraid, but he was no coward. He was a lot more self-possessed, ac- tually, than his captor gave him credit for. The boy had wit enough to keep his head and to see the folly of re- sistance. He was fairly trapped and in the man's power, whoever he might be. The only game left for him to play was one of instant compliance. Besides, there was Bob Bob still unwarned in the covert. That settled it. He would obey orders and give no hint of his comrade's presence. The matter of his own escape could come later, when they had gotten a bit away from the neighborhood of the unsuspecting Bob. Led by the man, the pistol ever nudging his side, Dave slipped back into a dense thicket. Its screen had served to hide the former's stealthy approach when he had stalked in upon him, as the lad lay on the ground, every sense quivering in anticipation of the stag. The cedars swung close, as they passed and climbed the bank. That was all. The whole thing had not taken more than a minute. The stag had leaped away toward the open bottoms when the boy and man had first moved, but otherwise the cov- ert's end was as before. In the meantime, Bob, at the other end of the wood, was calm as usual, though the mishap with his priming had rendered him bitterly angry. That, and the excite- ment of the chase, finally wore down even the Scotch pa- tience of the lad. Would Dave never fire? What in the i 3 o SANDY FLASH world was the matter with him, anyway? It probably was five minutes, but it seemed like an hour to the uneasy boy, when he could stand it no longer. Springing to his feet, he made way down the glen, heading straight for the opening where he last had seen the deer. This was dan- gerous in view of his companion's position, but Bob was too impatient to think of that and too untrained a woods- man to appreciate the risk. It was at a point halfway down the hollow that fate took a hand in the lives of both boys. Bob stumbled. Had he not stepped on the bit of stone that rolled away so provokingly beneath him, he must have kept on and found at once the telltale tracks where his comrade had gone into the thicket at the point of his captor's pistol a few moments before. As fate arranged it, however, Bob did step on that wobbling bit of stone and he did stumble for fair, bringing up on hands and knees with a bruising jolt. The large trap he carried swung round in the fall and welted his leg a crack that he remembered for many a day. Then he first saw the water, a broad gleam of it, and the ice, through the trees, with a silvery mist float- ing close above it. To his left, visible under the low-hanging cedar limbs, ran Crum Creek. He would have passed it by unwittingly had he not fallen just where he did. As he hopped about on one foot, rubbing his leg, the sheen of the water, cou- pled with the sting of the scratch, recalled the purpose for which he had been lugging the trap about with him all day. Dave must have seen the deer and withheld his fire for some good reason, Bob hazarded a reassuring guess. No doubt a shot would whang out at any moment now down below. Meanwhile, he would steal a march on his trap- ping chum by looking at the pond, for pond it surely was. That meant muskrat or beaver. Bob grinned in delight and forgot the pain on his shin. Vividly he recalled what Dave had once told him of the value of a good beaver pelt a prime skin. Chuckling to himself, he limped to the water's edge. "This is a find! The greatest bit of luck I've ever had ! I say ! This'll make good old Dave wink green for envy! I might get one, at that, if only they're here beaver 'stead of rats. That'd mean something for the soldiers, all right, if I could sell it for all it's really worth in silver!" Bob did not know a great deal about trapping, but he had taken in everything that his chum had told him dur- ing the last few weeks and he remembered enough of it to recognize a beaver sign when he saw it. The pond was not a disappointment, nor was it anything to become es- pecially elated over. The dam was there and it was the work of beaver. A glance at the make of it and at the chewed-off ends of the logs proved him that conclusively. Also, that it was a long-established one, although the slides or runways by which the tireless workers had floated their timber to the dam breast were still in evi- dence. Here and there a gnawed stump stood in mute wit- ness of their work. Bob noticed subconsciously that the birch trees, what few of them there were, had suffered more than any other kind. Beavers everywhere seem to single out these trees to gnaw upon. Their tooth marks shov/ed up very clearly like the bites of a wood-carver's chisel. 132 SANDY FLASH Eagerly Bob quartered the pond's edges for tracks, but he could not find any that he was sure of. Had he been skilful enough to locate them, the big lad would have been surprised at the resemblance they bore to the familiar tracks of a muskrat. Very much larger, of course, yet the shape is much the same, though the beaver shows but four toes. The front feet are webbed and register this in the print they make in the mud. Bob sat down on a convenient stump to lay his plans. He did not waste much time about it. Beaver had dammed the pond and dug the runways; they had chewed down the trees and barked the birch saplings. Even without tracks they might still be there, as the melting snow might well have destroyed fresh marks. He would make the set and leave the rest to luck. Recalling what Dave had told him, he chose the largest log slide, one that looked as if it might be still in use, and put his trap at the foot of it. The thaw had melted the ice at a point where the slide emptied into the pond, so that he had no trouble whatever in setting it there about six or seven inches under water. He knew beaver were always pottering about their dams and getting down new logs to reinforce it. This was the best spot to try. Bob next cast about for a stout stick to fasten his chain to. He had been warned by Dave that beaver would chew themselves free from anything green or from wood that rose above the surface. Having found the dry kind of wood he wanted, Bob staked the chain to it securely and drove it under water. It was a hard thing to do without falling in himself, but he finally suc- ceeded, perched precariously on the bank. He regretted THE BEAVER DAM 133 that he did not have a much longer chain, for with it he could have made the trap fast to a log that lay tempt- ingly out in the pond six or seven feet away. Then it would have been a simple matter to have weighted the bed-piece of his trap with a stone tied to it and to have set the thing on the log. A bit of popple or a birch branch laid above it would have served as bait. Had he only been able to do this, his chances of luck would have been vastly better, for the snared beaver, granting he caught one, would have dived from the log the instant the trap snapped upon its foot. The weighted set would have done the rest. And speedily. Bob sighed. It is hard to know how to do a thing better, then have to let a second-rate makeshift serve. At that, he had done a finer job of trapping than he gave himself credit for. Even Dave would have had to admit that, if he had been there to see it. With a last look at the trap in the log slide, the boy picked up his heavy flintlock. It was high time he had hurried on to find what had become of his comrade. And of the stag as well. It did not take him long to see that something must have gone wrong. The tracks at the cover's edge were clear enough. Bob dropped the butt of his gun and leaned upon the long barrel, as he frowned over them. He saw where Dave had crept forward to the screen of the little bush patch. He saw the other footprints deep cut in the snow. He read the trace of Dave's getting up and walking back toward the cedars that veiled the slope of the hollow. Any suspicion of a struggle was farthest from the boy's mind, as he noted the undisturbed marks. Some one 134 SANDY FLASH had evidently joined his chum and they had gone off together. Perhaps, it was Bob Allyn straightened with a start, as a voice rasped from the bushes near him. "Drop that gun where ye stand! An' drop it soon! Ye're covered 1 Put up yer hands!" Quicker than voice could carry or brain could act, Bob's eyes flashed from the tracks at his feet to the bank above. He saw a motionless form bulking large against the green, he saw the leveled muzzle of a pistol sloping toward him from the cedars. His brain pictured vividly; he knew he was trapped, but it was beyond the man and behind him that the boy's gaze held itself in helpless, incredulous horror. Bob's breath came short between his teeth, as he gulped and cried out: "Dave, oh, I" Then, without a thought, not knowing what he did, the lad swung up his gun and sprang blindly toward the slope straight for the point where the threatening pistol flashed as flint struck steel. CHAPTER VII THE CAVE WHEN Bob Allyn had whipped up his weapon and jumped for the bank, he had acted solely on im- pulse, although hi a dim way he seemed to sense that he could not fire. Behind the man at the edge of the cedars lay his chum, prone upon the ground. Any bullet from Bob's gun, were it to miss its mark or were it not to stop in the man's body, needs must go on straight for the fallen lad. The sight of Dave had spurred Bob to instant action, with wit enough left to hold his fire. In answer to his leap came the flash and whang of the pistol, as the man discharged the leveled piece. He was Mor- decai Dougherty, Sandy Flash's yoke-fellow in crime. That the bullet did not lodge in the boy's brain was due to no fault in his aim or intention. Dougherty had done his best to kill the lad, but squeezed his trigger an instant too late. As he had fired, the barrel had been knocked sideways in his grasp by a quick blow of a cudgel. Flash himself had leaped to view from behind the cedars. "Damn your eyes! Do as ye're told for onct, can't ye!" Flash cried out as he swung back his heavy stick and stood facing Mordecai. Both men were fairly quiv- ering with rage. For the barest fraction of time it looked as though the outlaw chief were out of hand and on the point of striking his accomplice. Hot wrath flared quick 135 136 SANDY FLASH in the flush of his face and showed in the set of his angry lips. Then he turned away with a jerk of the head and cursed as he sprang down the slope toward Bob. The lad had seen the flame of Dougherty's pistol, but he had leaped already and could not stop. An instant later the sear of the bullet burned across his shoulder, as though some one had hit him, hit him suddenly and hard, with a club. The heavy lead pellet, low in velocity, large in size as a slug, merely grazed the flesh of the boy's right arm at the shoulder, but such was the force of the blow that it swung him round completely on his feet and bowled him over. As he fell, he dropped his gun, reaching instinctively with the other hand to cover the wound. Before he had stopped rolling, Sandy Flash had snatched the flintlock from the ground, slung it up the bank toward Dougherty and caught hold of Bob's coat. The wrench of it nearly forced a scream from the wounded boy. "Where're ye hit? Serves ye right for runnin' into a gun that a-way, ye blind fool! Sit up!" Dragging the half-conscious boy roughly forward, propped against his knee, the highwayman tore open Bob's coat and bloody shirt, exposing a welt that traced the course of the bullet. He ran his finger cruelly down the raw wound, then moved back, letting Bob fall over suddenly. "Reckon that won't be the death of ye, me hearty. More scared than anything else. Hey, Mort, hog-tie this one 'fore he comes round, will ye? Then we'll have the pair of 'em where we want 'em. Eh? Gasps like a Brandywine bass, by the Lord ! " Flash's anger had died THE CAVE 137 away as quickly as it had flamed to the surface, once he saw the boy had not been killed. It was not so with Mordecai. Bob had never fully lost consciousness, although the shock of the bullet had paralyzed him for the time being. He knew he was hit. He knew he was falling. That was all he did know clearly till the jab of the outlaw's finger burned the open wound like a red-hot poker and made him pant with pain. The jolt of tumbling back- ward on the ground served to bring him round entirely. The boy's shoulder scratch amounted to little in spite of the anguish and the flow of blood. As soon as he had gotten himself in hand from the shock, he was able to take in what was going on about him. Mordecai Dougherty, livid as a thunder cloud, slid down the bank. He had wanted to shoot the boy, once and for all, and he had done his best to do it, in spite of the orders he had received from his superior. Now he had lost the chance, though everything had been set in his favor, when Bob had failed to drop his gun. The man was sullen enough at best, but his leader's burst of anger had stirred the lowest depths of his nature till his brutish face set white with the fires of smoldering rage within. Disappointment, black temper and a sly cunning showed all too plainly in the twist of the scoun- drel's mouth and in his shifty eyes, as he bent over the boy. C T11 larn ye to know a pistol's end from a chestnut bur!" He rolled the unresisting lad on his face with a sudden kick of his heavy boot. Then, with a wrench that brought a cry of agony from Bob's lips, he whipped i 3 8 SANDY FLASH the boy's hands together behind his back and made them fast there with a turn of dirty rag. The torture for an instant was almost more than the lad could bear, when the first stretch of the shoulder pulled the tendons beneath the seared flesh, but it was only that sudden stabbing dart of pain that wrung a hint of weakness from him. After that, Bob lay as the man had kicked him, face downward in the snow, while his wrists were knotted securely. He made no effort to cry out. Indeed, the shock of the wound had left him too dazed and helpless. The boy moaned a little from time to time, as Mordecai yanked heartlessly at the wounded arm. Once the tall lad almost choked, as he swallowed a mouthful of snow in a gasp for breath. A last savage pull at the fastenings and the man had done. He pushed Bob over on his side, regardless of the bleeding wound that dyed the trampled surface of the snow a fiery crimson. "There ye be! An' there ye'll stay! Now, how does it feel to be in a trap?" Dougherty laughed in rasping sarcasm. "Ain't so pleasant some ways as a feather bed, they do say." He stood up. The laugh turned to a scowl, as he spied Flash bending over the other prisoner some distance off. "Yer rotten foolin' with these fellers'll be the end of us yit. Wot the deuce, I sez! The chanct I had an' then ye ruinin' it, ye chicken livered " The epithet between the man's teeth was so unspeakably vile that had he heard it, even Sandy Flash could not have let it go unchallenged. Dougherty knew his chief, however, and took good care to hold his mut- tered curses under breath. THE CAVE 139 "All right, Mort." Sandy Flash swung round. "Ready? Gotten him tied to suit? Can he walk?" "Sure he can that, the pulin' baby. It's but the prick of a pin wot he's got at all." The man shoved the boy with his foot, but not so much as a moan came from Bob's gritted teeth. The boy was himself now and game, fighting with his last ounce of strength to play the man. Had it not been for the sucking gasps for breath that racked him, one could not tell that he was in pain at all. "This one here," Sandy Flash motioned toward Dave, "is all quiet. Right as a pickle! Ain't got the spunk of the big feller, though, or he might of raised a rumpus, too, when we nabbed him. He never so much as lifted finger!" "Speakin' o' that, it seems to me he nearly bit the thumb off ye, Cap'n, wotever the lamb was doin', when ye started to put the gag to him. Ha! hal Ye let go quick enough!" Sandy Flash ignored the laugh. Reaching down with a mighty heave he yanked Dave to his feet. The lad's arms were tied like his chum's behind his back and a gag had been placed in his mouth by the ready expedient of a stick set fast against his jaws, forcing them open in a strained uncomfortable way. Still he could breathe all right. Sandy ripped loose the knot that tied his feet. "Put the silencer on your beauty, too, Mort, an' come along. No more shootin', mind ye, an' raisin' the coun- tryside. Ye needn't be killin' the lad in the bargain, with that rip in him." The outlaw glanced at the cut as the boy lay on the ground. The bleeding had nearly stopped, but the wound looked cruelly painful for all i 4 o SANDY FLASH its slight penetration. "Gag him an' come on. An' stop that maulin' of him. I'll not tell ye so again." "Wot the " Mordecai broke off, thinking the better of it. "Right ye be, Cap'n, right ye be! This here bird's ready now, soon as ever I makes sure he won't be warblin' no pretty ditties fer to call out the folks, onct we begins to move. Open yer jaws, sweety, an' try chawin' on this here candy stick! 'Tis a lollypop fer to tickle yer tongue ! " The man rolled Bob over on his back and forced his mouth wide by a sudden jabbing of his thumb and fore- finger against the boy's cheeks. Before he could close it again, Mordecai had set a piece of wood, bit-like, be- tween the jaws and tied it there. Then he pulled Bob to his feet, steadying the wounded lad till he had gotten over the star-shot dizziness that swept before his eyes. The outlaw replaced the ripped coat upon the cut and turned toward the slope where Flash was waiting. "Forward ho! Cap'n Fitz! I'll folly on. We've a mighty open bit o' goin' fer to cover, it strikes me, 'fore ever we comes to that there palace of our'n on the Castle Rock." Dougherty held fast to Bob's arm and pushed him up the bank. "I've got this un's gun. Will ye lug the other?" "All right. The light'll help us." Sandy Flash glanced about, noting the quick deepening of twilight shadows in the glade, as the winter day drew on to dusk. "In half an hour ye couldn't see your granny's belted cow, not for the lookin'. We'll hide a bit at the road and cross when it's darker. Eh, Mort, me hearty, ye can rest THE CAVE 141 ye merry this night! It took a long wait to get 'em, but now we've nabbed the pair of 'em and " "Wot good on earth will that do us, I likes to know?" Mordecai shook his head. "Wait an' ye'll see soon enough, me doubtin' Thomas. Ye haven't mislaid the gold an' the feller who's to ride past with it, have ye?" "Wot's that got to do with this here brace o' bucks? They ain't got a brass farthing apiece." "They're not goin' to have any chanct, one way or t'other, to spoil the broth, what with their trappin' an' ;wanderin' about the whole place day an' night. That's what! Runnin' into what don't concern 'em! That's why we've gotten 'em. An' trouble enough I've had to do it, small thanks to ye. After we're through an' gotten the gold put where we want it, why, then it'll be time an' plenty to finish with these here. Ye know what I was tellin' ye in the cave tother day?" "Why not now, then, seein' as we've gotten 'em safe an' sound, an' one of 'em half shot in the bargain? Say, Cap'n, wot's the use o' runnin' more risks than need? Let me have 'em half a jiffy, an' ye'll not hear the squeal of a pig, so much, from the pair of 'em!" Dougherty motioned toward his leg where the haft of his dirk pro- truded from the top of the woolen stocking. "Mort, me beauty, ye've not got the brains of a calf, for all your bloody blatherin'. It'd do us no good to murder the brats. They're more ways o' killin' a cat, they say, than chokin' it with cream!" Sandy laughed. It was not a nice sound to hear. i 4 2 SANDY FLASH Dougherty half turned and looked at him curiously. A few moments later the little group began its march toward the crossing of the Strasburg Road and the height of Castle Rock. The shadows had already lengthened till the bowl of Crum Creek Valley lay filled with a con- fusing play of light, golden and violet and dark to the color of purple asters against the sweep of the snow. The men walked rapidly, keeping close to the west bank of the brook, where the gloom of alders and willow trunks gave shelter to their passing. Twenty minutes after they had left the cedar glen, they were climbing Castle Rock. Bob was in a bad way, what with the shock of the wound and the manhandling he had received from Dough- erty, but the big lad got no pity from either of his captors as they dragged him along. Dave was far better off. He had not been tied so roughly and he had had a chance to collect his thoughts. The boy had listened to everything that was said by the men. He had no vague idea to what they referred when they spoke of the rider and the gold, but he understood clearly enough that some villainy was afoot. One thing was especially clear. He must devise a way of making good his escape with Bob before the men could come to an agreement as to what they should do with them. From the little he had seen of Dougherty's heartless savagery and Flash's veiled threats, the sooner they were out of their hands the better it would be. Haste was urgent. At the same time, he felt that he ought to learn something more of the devil's scheme his captors were plotting. That it was of considerable mo- THE CAVE 143 ment, there could be no doubt. The boy knew much depended on him and his chum. The realization of their responsibility seemed to awaken his latent mother-wit Dave had given up without a fight, when Sandy Flash had surprised him waiting for the stag. He had sub- mitted tamely to being tied, because he thought that by so doing he was giving Bob a chance at escape. It was only when he found out too late that the men were in ambush for his comrade, as well, that the boy made a last desperate attempt to struggle, to cry out in warn- ing. Then it was that he had bitten at the outlaw's hand as the gag was crammed into his mouth. Dave reproached himself with all the bitterness that a boy is capable of when he realized that he had failed in the one thing he had tried hardest to do. He was human enough to fear what Bob might think. The older boy had not hesitated. He had leaped forward in the face of a pointed pistol, when he saw his friend in trouble. He had been shot. But Dave what had he done in the crisis? Meekly given up and let his chum walk unwarned into the trap! The lad tortured himself unmercifully with self-reproach and contempt. He must make good now to redeem himself in the eyes of his friend. It were better to die in the effort and have done with it than let Bob think he had failed him so miserably and played the coward. Once the men had reached the top of Castle Rock, they lost no time in getting their prisoners into the cave. A light was made and the boys were ungagged. Sandy Flash slit the bonds that bound their arms. While Pave swung his to and fro, trying to get some circula- 144 SANDY FLASH tion in them, Bob nursed his shoulder. The wound had stiffened and made him wince at every motion. Dave turned toward his chum. He could not endure the re- proach of another moment's silence. "Bob I you know I didn't I tried" The words would not come from the lad's lips as he saw the blood- soaked shirt and the torn coat of homespun beneath the older boy's hand. "Can't I fix it up a little? I say oh, Bob, you mustn't think I went and let 'em get you! I never thought they were still in wait till it was too late to warn you." "It isn't a thing. Just a scratch. What's the matter, Davey? I'll be all right in a jiffy. It's a bit sore and stiff, that's all. Honest!" Sandy Flash came over to where the boys were talking. He held in his hands an old-fashioned pair of leg irons, clumsy and heavily wrought. A rusty chain rattled from them. "This'll hold ye quiet in our little nest, me hearties! Now just one word. Mind, it's the last, so be wise an* take it in. Ye're here to stay till I see fit to let ye go. Understand? If ye lift a finger to get away, I'll not touch ye, but " He nodded across the gloomy cavern to where Mordecai was working over the fire, amid the flickering red of the shadows, like some giant of the olden time. "But he will! Ye've seen what a gentle fellow he is. You have anyway, me big buck." Sandy Flash eyed Bob appraisingly. "That's where we stand. Do as I say an' the friend yonder will not touch ye. But if ye don't, why Clear, is it? Well, then, out THE CAVE 145 with a leg apiece. That old sheriff in Newlin had only a pair o' these when I lightened him of his stuff, but I reckon they'll do for two, as well as for one." The irons rasped apart with a creak as the rusted jaws were pulled, but they were serviceable enough and tough withal. The metal clicked ominously as it closed about Dave's left leg. Sandy Flash pushed aside Bob's right foot and clipped the band about the left ankle with a savage jerk. The chain was half a foot long, com- pelling the lads to stay close together side by side. "How's that, Mort?" Sandy laughed, as the other came over to see. "I've got 'em both by the left foot, so that when they stand up one faces one way an' one the tother! Not run far away that a-way, I reckon, less they want to turn into a merry-go-round-the-Maypole ! They can lie down all right, too. Now then, let's get a bite to eat an' a bit of heat in this frozen hole, while the lads stay neatly hobbled on their picket line!" He crossed the cavern and began to work over the fire, while Dougherty busied himself with the meal. It did not give promise of being a sumptuous one. In a moment, however, the leader came back to where Bob sat shivering on the floor. He had with him a small firkin of water that had been warming over the sticks on the hearth. "Boy, ye'd better wash out that cut a bit. Here's some water an' a dry rag to tie it up with." The man spoke almost kindly. It was one of the shifts that made his character such a web of contrast. A few moments before he had been planning unspeakable abuses to force the i 4 6 SANDY FLASH boys to his will. Now he had veered round and fetched the bandage. Dougherty shook his head and muttered to himself. He could make nothing of his chief. Dave took the little jug of water before Bob could reach for it. Then without more ado he pulled back his comrade's clothing and began to wash the wound with the cloth. This done, he tied it up as best he could. At all events he felt it might keep some dirt from the ripped flesh. Last of all he fixed the arm in a rude sort of sling made from his own neckerchief. Bob helped him clumsily, wincing from pain, as the arm was moved. The slug had seared its way considerably deeper than at first appeared. "Thanks, Dave, a lot. I say! That's fine! You're handy as can be regular medico! It feels a lot better already. Really, it does! Let's pull that blanket over us now and try keep warm. The fire's making this place pretty decent." Dave began to explain once more his action earlier in the day. The boy's conscience would give him no rest and the less Bob said of it, the more the younger boy felt that he had well deserved his chum's contempt. However, he stopped finally, when he saw that Bob understood what had occurred. "I say! Don't go on like a fool, Davey. Please don't! I knew you couldn't help it. We've got to get out of this mess. And pretty quick, too, it seems to me." He lowered his voice. "Let's think of that now. This thing's beginning to look mighty serious for us." It was a good deal easier, however, to whisper of escape than to carry it out. For over an hour the lads lay THE CAVE 147 huddled up in their blanket, trying to keep some warmth between them, while they whispered in low tones. When the men had made ready the meal, the boys were given a share of it, such as it was. Not much, but it served to cheer them in a surprising fashion, for they had feared they might not get even a taste of it. Bob sat back against the wall with a boylike sigh of content, chewing away at a hunk of stewed rabbit. Little did he fancy that it had come from their own snare by Ridley and the men did not bother enlightening him. Finally the lad's mind, wearied with thinking of the predicament they were in, turned back to the beaver dam and he told Dave briefly of the set he had made there just before being captured. The story filled the young trapper with delight. After all, they would get away from the cave some way, some time. No good could come from vain worry. Dave grinned, present dangers slipping from him, in a flood of enthusiasm for his favorite sport. "Oh, that's great, Bob! You set it well, too. Was there very much ice? If it " "Not so much." Bob touched gingerly at his shoulder. "Some, though, out in the middle." "If there's ice, the way they try for 'em is to cut a wee hole in it just over where the water's about fifteen or twenty inches deep. Then they go and put the trap through it on the bottom, right under the hole, you know, and cover the opening up with some snow to pre- vent it freezing solid again. The beavers see the hole by the light coming through it and they come near then to breathe. That makes 'em step on the trap as they are reaching up." 148 SANDY FLASH "It's about the cleverest thing I've heard tell of yet in the trapping line!" Bob's voice was low but full of enthusiasm. "That's a pippin, Davey! If we ever get out of here, we'll try it. I wish to goodness I knew how we could get out." "Yes, so do I." Dave went on with his description. "And it works as well as any, they say, too, that ice set does. My! If we could only get a beaver, it'd help us more'n anything else, most. And we could use the oil they have. It's great to smear on traps to hide the man scent. Father used to get 'em when he was a boy in Valley Creek, near St. Peter's, Whiteland. There's a great place there, close by Cedar Hollow. He made a kind of ointment out of it, father used to. I've often heard him tell it and how he went and caught 'em through the ice." "I never knew beaver had that scent." Bob hitched the blanket about his shoulders. "Did you ever see one skinned?" "No, I never did, but all the old trappers use it just the same. Another way father got 'em, when he trapped, was to put his set at the entrance to their houses under the water. You can see their mounds sometimes, like muskrat dens, only bigger, in the dams they build. They're most of all like rmiskrats anyway, eating bark from trees and chewing yellow pond lilies and things like that. Then they store stuff up to beat all! That's why they're so hard at work all the while getting ready for winter laying in fodder like we fill bins and hay mows! Father's seen 'em at it many a time." At the mention of Hugh Thomas, Bob suddenly recalled THE CAVE 149 with a start that he had promised his own father to be home in good time that evening, if such a thing could be managed after the long day's hunt. Until this moment, his mind had been so filled with trapping and the pre- dicament he and his chum were in that no thought of home had entered. He stirred uneasily beneath the blanket. "I say, Dave, I've just remembered I told father we'd call off the hunt before dark, wherever we happened to be so that we could get back in decent time. Whatever will they think now? It's well in the night and we don't know that we'll be freed for days. Can't tell when they'll let us go!" "I've been bothering about that right along," the younger boy replied, as he helped pull the covering over his companion where the other's restlessness had tossed it off. "We are in a sorry pickle here, that's a fact. And our folks at home will worry all right, but it can't be helped far as I can see. I didn't want to make things any worse by talking to you about it. Being shot is bad enough for once. So I talked traps. But it's not so blue as it seems. Not yet. Really, it isn't, Bob. Our folks know we're way off somewhere after that stag and they'll think we've been delayed. Why, father wouldn't take it strange if I wasn't back for another day yet!" "My father would. Or rather mother'd begin to worry. She got all upset at our meeting Sandy Flash when I told her of it last time. Still, I reckon you're right about to-night. They'll be sure to think we're staying in a farmhouse after a long hunt. We'll plan some way of getting out of here in the morning. We've got to. I bet 150 SANDY FLASH the men leave the cave then. That's our one chance." "No doubt of it, Bob. Let's get the best rest we can now, though. We'll need it before we see the end of this!" Both boys were feeling the effects of their ordeal. They were a good deal more scared than either cared to admit. Bob Allyn, usually unable to look on the gloomy side of anything, was still weak and shaken by his wound. Dave, though unhurt, felt the blame for his chum's suffering. The younger boy had done more than he appreciated, however, in driving away from Bob's mind the worriment about their parents which had begun to distress him. Little by little nature asserted herself, and the boys rested more calmly. The very closeness of their bodies, the animal warmth of contact beneath the blanket served to lull them, to give them a feeling of security. After all, the human race has never gone very far beyond the tribal stage. In time of trouble, we all want to herd together, feeling the surety of numbers. The boys were silent a long time, cuddled side by side in the dim flicker of the tallow dip that spluttered from the. wall of the cave over near the fireplace. Though dry, the place was cold and the few sticks made little impression on the chill. The blanket wrapped tight about them served to keep them fairly comfortable, in spite of the strain of being chained so fast together. To make the most of it, they had twisted the covering under and over them as snugly as they could. Scarcely realizing it, first Dave, then Bob, drifted off in a doze, their senses lulled by the gloom of the place and their bodies fairly worn to exhaustion by the stalking of the stag and the THE CAVE 151 excitement of their capture. That had been overwhelm- ing. There was little to disturb their deepening slumber. The men sat crouched by the glow of the fire, talking in low tones. Apparently they were on the best of terms once more. It must have been half past nine when Sandy Flash got up, stretching a booted leg toward the logs, as he looked at the boys. The sound of their breathing told of the untroubled sleep that held them fast. There was no deception here and he knew it. Flash Ibent low and crossed the cave on tiptoe to feel in a bag that lay in one corner. He drew out of it a small bit of paper and a quill. Then he shook the leather saddle case softly till he had touched a vial of ink. He rattled it in his hand. "Dry as Job's coffin ! " Sandy Flash came back to the fire. "Fetch me a dip of water from the pail yonder, will ye, Mort? That's the way. We'll soon have this here softened up to write to the King's taste. Then I reckon we'd better be gettin' the thing done so's we can leave it over to Rose Tree where they'll be sure an' find it in the mornin'. It won't take us more'n a jiffy! Don't make a racket, Mort. Go easy, can't you!" "Wot'll you write, Cap'n?" The man paused, then fetched the mug of water, without disturbing either of the boys. "Oh, just a line from one of 'em sayin' the tother has been made off with by Sandy Flash an' that he was followin' over toward the Valley for to try an' get his friend free. They know I was hereabouts two weeks gone, 'cause that old feller from Edgemont raised a hullaballoo 152 SANDY FLASH when I tied him to a tree. That'll be a plenty to set the farmers chasin' clean across to Cain up the Valley, just where I want 'em. Then, to-morrow night, while they're still gallopin' hell for leather, a-lookin' for the lads in the country over yonder, we'll have the whole place here free for what we're planning to do. The thing's plain as apples on a tree!" "Don't see it." Dougherty shook his head. "Won't work! If one was caught an' tother was tryin' fer to get him loose an' follyin' us on, how'd he come to write a letter to his folks at home an' leave it where they'd find it first thing? If he was that close, he'd run in fer help, I'm thinkin'. It's no go, Cap'n Fitz. No go! Wot I sez is we'd best " "I haven't thought it all out yet." Sandy Flash tapped irritably with his foot on the stone floor of the cave. "I've been busy most plannin' for the gold an' the man on horseback. I reckon maybe What would you do?" Flash, a rare thing with him, felt a moment of uncer- tainty. He saw his hurried plan was weak. Dougherty was right. It never would work. "Wot I claims as the trick to turn is a letter askin' fer what they calls a ransing. To be left over in what-ye- may-call-it, far from here as ever ye please. These here farmin' folks haven't anythin' much to give fer a brace o' brats like these, but they've a good deal o' siller tankards an' one thing an' another stored away. That we knows. More than that, too, hidden away in cellars an' garrets! Now, seein' their boys have been an' gotten made off with, they'll either try to raise a bit o' coin the same which we don't really want since we're after bigger THE CAVE 153 game altogether, or they'll fly hot-headed after us to wheresoever we says they're to leave the money. That's just what we wants 'em to do! Wot I knows of 'em, they'll do it, too, not wastin' no time collectin' funds. These here fellers are fighters, Cap'n! As fightin' fools as ever Lee's Legion! If they up an' chast ye all the day when they hears ye're in the neighborhood, like as they did a bit ago from Birmingham, wot'll they do when they finds their brats took off by ye an' held fer pay? Why, they'll rare up an' tear the country loose ! " "Ye've brains after all, Mort, me hearty!" Sandy grinned with quick approval. "We'll do just that. What's more we'll give the lads a taste that'll make 'em waste no time doin' what we say. I'll write this ransom thing now an' then we'll have 'em sign it, hot off, so as that we can leave it over to their place this night. They'll do it quick as ever we put it to 'em. An' their folks'll find it at crow o' cock!" "Where they live?" Mordecai Dougherty watched Sandy as he mixed the dried ink. "Do ye know, fer sure?" "Not just where, I don't. Down Providence Road somewhere. They'll tell us where their folks are, too, I reckon. They'll sign soon enough, never ye fear, onct they see what's comin' to 'em if they don't. We've no time to lose hagglin' over it. Wake 'em up, Mort. No, better wait, I guess, till we're ready to begin on 'em proper. It'll scare 'em more, comin' sudden thata-way!" Sandy Flash's face was a fiend's mask of cruelty as he grinned. The degenerate instinct that had led him to lash old Peter Burgandine so wantonly now turned 154 SANDY FLASH toward the helpless boys with all the more abandon for his recent kindness in bringing Bob the bandage for his wound. Flash felt that he had weakened in that. Dougherty, blackguard that he was, saw the change in his leader's eyes and wondered at the wave of disgust that swept over him for the other's brutality, though he little suspected to what end the man would go. Sandy Flash bent low to the fire, blowing the embers in a hot glow between cupped hands. As the flames rose and twisted in answer among the sticks and gleaming coals, he picked up the little bar of iron from the hearth. It had done duty as a poker and as a support on which to rest the skillet. This he pushed into the heart of the flaming wood, turning it about and working it in with a practised play of wrist that spoke the smith. "They'll talk, the sleepin' beauties! They'll sign an do whatever we ask 'em! They say fire an' heat makes iron run. Aye! An' words, too, I'm sayin'! Heat's a great persuader when ye put it to a body right. Just rest ye easy, Mort, me dear, an' ye'll see how to make the good round sovereigns flow from a tax collector's pocket when he swears he hasn't ha'penny to his name! I've tried heat an' iron before. It'll work! It'll sweat 'em." "It's crueller nor me ye be, Cap'n Fitz, fer a fact." Dougherty looked uneasily toward the fire. "I've killed afore this, when I has to, but I never took to torturin' children. I fights as hard as the best, but I fights men!" "Never ye fear, Mort, me darlin'! Don't be boilin' over before there's need. They'll not take much o' killin' this night." He pulled out the rod and spat on the THE CAVE 155 end that was beginning to glow dully. "J ust a touch or so, a bit o' persuadin' to wake 'em up an' ye'll see a pair o' lambs! Tis but a good old gipsy trick, I'm after usin' on 'em! Are ye ready, me buck, to hold the darlin's while the shearin's on? If there's bleatin' to distress your ears or wake the neighbors, just roll up their heads in the blanket an' sit on 'em. There's precious few will hear anything in this wilderness, I'm sayin'!" Sandy Flash rose from his knees, holding the smoking bar of iron in his hand. Dougherty felt covertly for the knife in his stocking. He had no fear of Dave, misjudg- ing the strength of the lad because he was a boy in size, but Bob's great build and play of muscle had not been lost upon him earlier in the day when he had tied the wounded boy's wrists. Shackled as both youths were, he would take no chances. As the outlaw crossed the cave, Dave stirred uneasily and awoke. For an instant he did not know where he was, but the bite of the anklet as he shifted his feet brought back his surroundings with an unpleasant shock of reality. It also awoke Bob. The big lad groaned, as he turned and felt the sting of his shoulder. Then, simultaneously, the boys caught sight of Sandy Flash standing over them with the dull glow of the iron in his hand. Neither lad realized at all what he was about. The scene held motionless for a full half moment in the shifting murk of the cavern. Then three things hap- pened at once. Dave, awake at last and half mad with terror, caught the pungent taste of hot metal and saw the purpose of the bar in the outlaw's grasp. Dougherty forestalled the 156 SANDY FLASH lad's attempt to move by throwing himself bodily across both boys, meshing them helpless under his own great weight in the tangling folds of the blanket. Sandy Flash, quick to seize the opening offered, bent forward and snatched with his free hand at Dave's arm, as the boy writhed in helpless panic to squirm away. The lad's sleeve ripped sharply, then tore off. The bared flesh gleamed white to the shoulder as the muscles whipped and strained beneath the skin. The highwayman exerted his strength with a sudden wrench that forced the boy's elbow backward, bent cruelly tense against his knee. Dave's breath sucked gaspingly. Suddenly Flash started and turned his head. A whistle had sounded without the cavern. Very thin and faint, but none the less a whistle, rising and falling twice in unmistakable notes. CHAPTER VIII THE ESCAPE AS long as they lived Dave and Bob never went through such a moment of mental agony as that immediately preceding the note of the whistle. It was as though some unseen power had laid hold upon the four actors in the cavern's drama and held them motion- less. Though inert in body, the boys were active in mind, most torturingly so. They knew they were help- less. They saw what the men were about. What had prompted such a sudden attack of fiendish cruelty upon them, neither lad could guess. It was enough to feel themselves crushed beneath the bulky form of Dougherty, tangled in the folds of the blanket, their feet chained fast together with Sandy Flash and his smoking bar of iron bending over them. Bob had been slower to awake than Dave; longer at a loss to know what had happened. The weight of Mor- decai Dougherty upon him and the smothering fold of the blanket pulled over his head had goaded the boy to fury. The stab of the wound lent its spur to the fight. It was in the tearing and writhing of his struggle that the covering was ripped to one side and he caught sight of Dave's arm bent backward in the outlaw's grip. For the first time the shocking horror of it struck him. Bob braced himself for the effort and tore one hand free. Then with a scream of rage and pain the lad smashed 157 i 5 8 SANDY FLASH his fist upward, seeking Mordecai's face. The man dodged by ducking, driving his chin deep into the bullet- ripped shoulder where the boy's knuckles could not reach him. At the same time he caught the flailing arm and pushed it above the lad's head. Bob, coming into his full growth, was fit and clean and hard as nails from the out of doors, nearly as strong as the blackguard pinning him down had the fight been fair. Drink and foul living had long left their mark on Mordecai, so that his life told in the scales against him. But the lad was wounded. The odds were too high; the man won. The quick, agonizing push of Dough- erty's chin into the throbbing shoulder was more than any one could bear without a flinch. That slight shudder of pain gave the brute on top his chance. He was instant to seize it. Bob set his teeth and went rigid from neck to heel as he fought the pressure inch by inch. His breath came in long pants that broke from his lips with sobs. Every muscle in the well-knit body stretched and quiv- ered with the strain. Sweat stood out on the boy's forehead in spite of the cold. With his free foot he scratched for a purchase on the slippery stones. If only he could get his other hand loose from the blanket wound tight about him! Again the breath broke from the boy in a coughing sort of groan as his chest relaxed a little. It was piteous. Bob's lips drew back from his clenched teeth, his eyes set in the torture of effort, but Mordecai let the whole weight of his body push the arm upward. Slowly it began to move. Muscle and nerve and sinew could stand no more. The boy sobbed out another gasp and went limp, his arm at full length above his head. THE ESCAPE 159 Dougherty reached like a flash with his free hand to help his chief, pinning Bob's arm helpless with his left. Then it was that the whistle had sounded. The next two minutes passed in a confused nightmare for the prisoners. Terror, hope of rescue and pain blinded them to what was taking place. All they knew was that Sandy Flash had sprung upward, dropping Dave's arm. Mordecai grasped it by the wrist before the wiry lad could wrench it away. The man still lay sprawled upon them, mashing them down. Flash paused, then tossed the iron bar upon the hearth, where it fast lost its reddish glow. Then he disappeared in the narrow crevice that gave exit from the cave. Dave and Bob felt the crisis passing for the moment at least. Dougherty seemed to sense the change in their tense bodies. He let go his hold and scrambled to his feet. The dirk gleamed in the candle light as he drew it from his stocking, but he could have spared himself the trouble. The boys sat up, crowding back against the wall. Neither spoke. The pounding of their hearts smothered them. A shuffling of steps in the passageway and the outlaw was back. A man in a long riding cloak and three-cor- nered hat edged in after him. The atmosphere cleared. Dougherty returned the knife to his stocking. Bob gritted his teeth and felt at the wound. His hand came away bloody. "The devil's to pay! " Sandy Flash was white with ex- citement, his eyes glinting in the firelight like those of a man who has been drinking. "They've changed the date. The whole thing's in doubt!" "To-night, I tell you!" The stranger broke in with 160 SANDY FLASH quick, sharp tones. "There's scarcely time to get there. You must act at once!" "Ye means the gold?" Mordecai Dougherty turned from the boys. "Doan, he sez to-morrer, as clear as as clear as ever can be. Not to-day, but " "They've changed it! Can't ye understand? I tell ye they've gone an' changed it! Torley here has just bin tellin' me." "Moses Doan got word this evening. Late, it was, too late. He rushed me out to Castle Rock to try to get you word. With the three of us, he said we might still be in time!" "Oh, it's Dick Torley, is it? Me ole pal Dandy Dick!" Mordecai squinted in the uncertain light. "I couldn't tell wot ye were, not no ways fer lookin' I couldn't. Very fine in yer new cloke! Ye've come in the nick, as the sayin' is! We've just bin busy with these here young bloods! A kind of barbequin' of 'em, ye might say!" Sandy Flash had been taking a bullet pouch from a rude wooden box in the corner. At Dougherty's garrulous mention of the boys, he whirled round with an oath that silenced the other. Dougherty had long since learned to heed his chief. It paid to do so. "Will ye stand gabblin' an' dawdlin' there all night, ye " The tone altered as he faced Torley. "When do they leave the town, Dick? Any change in the road? Is there to be a guard? If Doan had only minded his end of the game, we'd stand a show out here. Lettin' a feller know at this late hour, small wonder if they pass us by." "He couldn't help it, Captain Fitz, not possibly, he THE ESCAPE 161 couldn't. We didn't know ourselves till close by seven that they'd leave with the gold to-night. They're coming this way for sure, straight to Head of Elk. The Goshen Road to the Square, then west through White Horse. There's one with the money and one as guard. They feared too many might give the thing away. What are you doing with the boys? Did they learn of anything?" Sandy Flash slung the loop of the pouch over his shoulder and reached for his powder horn. It lay with a pistol belt on a ledge of stone. Slowly he spat toward the fire. "Oh, the boys? No, they had scant chance! They'd been prowlin' an' pry in' round here for two weeks gone. Settin' traps. Spyin', like as not. Easy could have bin anyway. I'd take no risk on 'em. Hurry up, Mort, ye slowpoke, we've not a second to lose! Can't ye see it's on the Goshen Road we ought to be this hour gone! I nabbed 'em this afternoon, Dick, for to keep 'em out of harm's way till we'd finished the work." Flash kicked the rod of iron close to the hearth. As he did so, he glanced at Dougherty, who had started slightly at the clang of the metal. It was an ugly look and full of meaning. Quite clearly the outlaw chief did not see the need of sharing his methods of persuasion with all his companions in crime. Dougherty scowled back by way of reply. The man still resented Flash's show of temper earlier in the day, when the leader had raised a cudgel to strike him, at the cedar thicket. Mordecai fairly gasped at the knavery of it, as the other went coolly on. "They're quiet enough lads in all an' give no manner 162 SANDY FLASH o' trouble, but Mort, here, nigh blowed the shoulder off the big buck. I saved him ; but a pretty pickle it'd bin for us to be killin' lads the like of them. An' all to no purpose. Mort always acts without thinkin' that way. Hot as a pepper! We'll let 'em go safe an' sound, onct we've turned the trick in hand an' are ready to cut away for it! " Flash smiled across the cave at the look of stupe- faction on Dougherty's face. Bob eyed the stranger deliberately, while he sized up the man and weighed his chances. Then he addressed him as the newcomer crossed the rude hearthstone for a look at the prisoners. "That's a lie, a straight lie! I don't know who you are or what you came for, but it isn't true he's telling you!" Mort whistled softly to himself. He feared Sandy Flash more than any one else on earth and his mind was of such a type that he could not grasp the thought of another daring to oppose Lim, much less a wounded boy, like Bob, who had just gotten a taste of what he might expect. Dick Torley glanced from the lad's strained face to that of Sandy Flash. Then he smiled. "The other man did shoot me, that's truth enough, but Sandy Flash was trying his best to " Bob's voice was steady. "Just as you came in!" Dave, shocked to momentary silence by his comrade's bid for aid, saw the slim chance of the dare and grasped it. If the outlaws could only be split among themselves, there might still be some hope for them. The man Torley seemed of a better sort than THE ESCAPE 163 his two companions. "The poker! He had it red hot and tried " " 'Twas scarin' 'em ; I was after, just puttin' a snatch o' wholesome fear to 'em, that's all. I'm ready, Dick. We had a tussle just now as ye came; the big buck nearly worked loose. Don't ye be botherin' with 'em. Ready, Mort? We'll rope 'em up an' get down to the road. We've not a second to lose!" Bob tried to speak, to tell of the horror they had so narrowly missed, but the three men had little time to waste. His words were choked off by the very gag he had suffered from on the way to the cave. Dave, too, was tied and muzzled at the same time. Both boys saw the folly of resistance, so gave in with sinking hearts. While the men bound his arms and rammed the gag between his teeth, the younger lad fairly sobbed with mortification. In his frequent day dreams his imagina- tion had always gotten him free from such predicaments with a facility that was flattering, to say the least. Now, face to face with facts, there seemed to be no way out of it at all. The suave surface of Dandy Dick Torley had misled the lad, for the man gave no heed whatever to his rush of words, apart from an amused laugh. He knew a thing or two of Flash's reputation. Dave lay on a rumpled blanket, limp and beaten outwardly, yet in very despair his wits were keen and active. He had sense enough to listen to his captors talk, as snatches of it came to him. "There's three of us now. That means two in one place I'll take the other," Sandy Flash spoke in a low 164 SANDY FLASH tone, but rapidly. "The messenger, the feller with gold, I mean, he'll be sure to stop at the Square. May have a change of horses for him there, him an' the guard. Did they say anything about that in the town?" "We couldn't find it out. No time. But it's the only place they could change between here and the Turk's Head. He won't go that way, either, beyond the Street Road, so I reckon it'll be at Newtown Square that he'll get a fresh post of horses." "Good! Ye'll go there now, fast as ye can. Get near, but keep hidden. Wait till they reach the inn, then ride back to the ford of the Goshen Road. Don't let 'em see ye whatever ye do! When ye get back to the ford, Crum Creek, right below Echo Valley, where the Boot Road joins in, turn sharp to the woods on the left. Ye can't miss it, for Goshen Road's straight as any arrow from the butt of Newtown Hill down. I'll be there waitin'. Where's your horse? Then, Mort, here, he can stay with me. We two will " The words grew indistinct. The men had done their work. And well. The lads lay rolled in a heap, half hidden in shadows. Back to back, their arms were lashed first together, then to one another, with strips of blanket. Their left ankles were fast in the leg irons. The gags were securely knotted behind their heads. The prospect of staying cramped in such a position on the cold floor of the cave was not a trifling matter, particularly for the older boy whose wound had gone quite long enough without adequate attention. Flash led the way, blowing out the candle. The two men followed him from the cave. The prisoners were left to themselves, their bodies a black smudge THE ESCAPE 165 amid the shadowy play of the firelight. The sound of their breathing rose from the floor in labored gasps as they sucked air past the gags that were partially choking them. How long they lay there, the boys never knew. At first, there was considerable light from the sticks on the hearth. Little by little, the flames died down, as the dry wood crumbled to a hot glow of embers and the shadows ceased to leap grotesquely about the walls. Dave began to shiver uncontrollably as he breathed. Bob's jaws set hard. This fight against the cold could very well be the end for both of them and they knew it. It was the gameness of his struggle to keep himself in hand that helped the older boy most, for, fighting dumbly, he put the whole force of his body against the chills that crept over him again and again. He would not give in. He would hold himself rigid till the shaking passed. He would The stick Flash had used for a gag snapped suddenly between the convulsive grinding of the lad's jaws. With a cough of relief, he spat it out, together with the chok- ing wad of cloth. A trickle of blood ran down his chin from the scratch where the broken wood had torn the side of his mouth. That bit of freedom was the one thing that gave him courage for further effort. That, and the now constant shivering that passed through his chum's body. Dave was a wiry boy, lean, with no sur- plus fat to ward off cold. The dim chill and damp of the cavern shook him distressingly, biting into his very mar- row. He knew his danger and was beginning to let the fear of it get the better of him. 166 SANDY FLASH "I say, Davey, all right? Can you move at all?" Bob coughed blood from his mouth. His words were the first sign the younger boy had of the breaking of the gag. "If you can, try and wiggle a bit. If only we both could edge over together, we'd get nearer the fire and stop freezing to death anyway. Our feet are pretty free, guess they forgot 'em in their rush." The very ability to speak, to explain, made the rest easy easy, that is, apart from the exquisite torture of scraping the rawness of his wound over the stone floor, as the husky boy slid his body, inch by inch, toward the saving heat. He waited each time till Dave seemed ready, then together the lads gained their hard fought fraction of space. Tied helpless as mummies, the four wrists fast together, it took some time to reach the hearth, but the struggle served to warm them almost as much as the dying charcoal. Then Bob made his next discovery. "I say, Dave, if we both turn our heads sideways, I may be able to get at that gag of yours. Twist round far as ever you can and bend back your neck. I'll turn and bite at it. If we really try don't mind how it hurts we've got to work it now or we'll never do it!" Gasping with the pain in his shoulder, Bob moved his head as far to the left as it would go, while Dave craned his upward from the floor and held it so that the knotted cloth of the gag came within reach of his chum's teeth. Never had the boys known the nerve torture of straining muscles beyond their reach and attempting to hold them there, but they learned it now. Three times Bob caught a loose bit of the rag in his teeth and three times he had THE ESCAPE 167 to let his head fall back. The lad's body ached with the effort, ached all over with stabs of real and burning agony, till he had begun to pant as though he had run a race. The wounded shoulder was forgotten in the greater pain, but he kept on. The tendons on the right side of his neck and about his shoulder blades throbbed agonizingly, literally scorching with pain. The fourth time he got a grip that held. Then came the test. Back and forth he worried the knot, an inch each way, every move gaining a little, every motion costing a hew fight to resist the desire to let go. He wanted to drop back and relax, his whole body cried for it, every fiber protesting with knifelike cuts. The small of his back suffered most, that, and his cramped arm muscles, as the sensitive nerve centers rebelled against the unusual exertion. Dave's neck was twisted round and upward as painfully, but his lighter build made it easier for him. Bob's teeth set like a bulldog's in a last desperate grip, then he let his head fall backward. He could do no more. His whole body slackened from the strain all but his jaws and his brain. He bit hard to that wisp of rag and hung on. The weight tore loose part of the knot. Savagely he snapped at the remaining end, gasping and half crying. He could not stand the anguish in his arms any longer. It was like searing fire. He could not raise his head again, try as he would to force his body to the will of his mind but he had ripped the knotted gag! Dave did the rest. A minute later he had shaken the wad from his mouth. "That's something! Oh, Bob, your i68 SANDY FLASH arm must be some done for! I can't stand the cramp in mine much more, but yours with the wound I'm sorry!" Bob Allyn lay silent, his eyes shut, breathing hard and short. The cold was growing more intense and neither lad could endure much more of it, with their circulation slowing up as it was. There was now no light in the cavern except the glow of the ashes which scarcely served to show them where the fire had been. Bob had done what he could; the boy was equal to no further effort in that chill till he should have recovered from the shock of the wound. Dave felt the relaxing of the other's body and recognized the danger. They were hardly bestead and he knew it well enough. "Come on, Bob, let's try for the cloth on our wrists. It's only a bit of a rag. We've got to do something or the cold'll get us! Remember what happened to that man last winter over in Uwchlan?" "I certainly do." Bob roused himself with a mutter. "He rolled up in a wolf's pelt, fur side out, 'stead of next his body, poor fellow, and they found him in the spring frozen stiff as a board. Pleasant thoughts you're having, Dave, seeing we're like to come by the same end, our- selves. Unless Flash comes back and slits our throats! That man had a fur to start with, while we've nothing at all. If only this stone floor wasn't so cold, we might " "Bob, all we need is something to rub the strips of blanket against, something sharp. Brace up for a try! Let's feel for a stone. We'll do it yet!" Twenty minutes later the lads' arms were free. Their THE ESCAPE 169 wrists were chafed bloody, but the loosening of the bonds had been a good deal easier than they had looked for. The outlaws had left them in the hurry of excitement incident to reaching the road in time to intercept the courier. Torley's sudden appearance at the cave and the message he had brought was enough to upset even Flash's usual calm, for after a fortnight of effort in keeping under cover, the change in plans had all but ruined his chances. Moses Doan had done what he could in the town, but at best Torley could not have gained more than an hour or two over the authorities' mounted agent. Small wonder that the boys had been gagged without mercy and tied without proper care. Dave's first move was to throw a pile of sticks on the fire. He could stand upright and reach about without making Bob stir at all, as the leg iron had a bit of leeway in its half foot of rusty links. Then the smaller boy turned his attention to the wounded shoulder. The bandage he had put on earlier in the evening had been rubbed to one side in the scuffle and as Bob had edged his body, crablike, along the uneven floor. It was not much of a task, however, to rip a piece from his shirt and tie the arm up again. Then the boys set about the problem of freeing their feet from the shackles. They knew their time was short. The men might be back at any moment, one of them at all events. Besides, what with the heat of the new fire to drive the chill from their bodies and the torturing cramp gone from their arms, their spirits had picked up amazingly. Dave was excited as though he had found 170 SANDY FLASH a new trail in the woodland. Bob was more quiet, as his blood began to warm him, but the set of his jaws boded small good for the men who had hurt him when he was down. The Scotch training in the lad, stern and straight, cried out rebelliously for fair play. Particularly, he wanted to match his strength against Dougherty's, the scoundrel who had kicked him in the side as he lay on the snow. New courage came to the lad, as he saw their chances of freedom growing with every moment safely passed. "If only we can smash this rotten thing off." Dave shook his foot angrily till the chain rattled. "We still might do some good. They didn't know when the men with the money were to get to the Square at Newtown. I'm all mixed up, myself, about it." "We've got to get away from here, that's sure, before they come back. If we don't, they'll kill the pair of us. I say, Dave, do you know we might be able to reach the inn up there, for a fact! I reckon it's a tax collector they're lying in wait for. That's what Sandy Flash does mostly. But that fellow from the town looks as if it was something pretty big. Get that stone by the fire, Dave, and try to smash the chain. Lam it hard! Lop it off! If we could break it, it'd be most as good as getting the whole irons away!" The stone did the trick. At the third crushing blow, the rust-bitten links flattened and one cracked partially open. A twist of the poker by way of a lever severed the metal entirely. "That's the stuff! We've got to leave the band on our ankles, I reckon for a while, anyway." THE ESCAPE 171 "Tie the end of the chain against our legs with a strip of blanket and it won't bother us so much. It's the best we can do now at any rate. Let's hurry!" The boys worked with feverish haste, binding the odd links above the metal bands, making the whole thing as snug as they could. An hour after the men had left them, trussed back to back and helpless, they were free and able to move as fast as they wanted despite the weight of the broken irons on their left legs. In the dark they could go no quicker than a walk anyway. Leaving the fire as it was, they squeezed into the crevice and pushed their way to the natural platform of rock beneath the thorn screen. Their flintlocks and ammuni- tion they could not find, although they wasted scant time in search. Chiefly they wanted to get clear of the rocks undetected. From the ledge onward, it was hard to feel their course in the gloom, but the fog had lifted considerably with the chill of night and the star gleam of the winter con- stellations helped them. Once in the oaks that ringed the massive pile of the Castle, the boys paused to hold a consultation and to get their bearings aright. It would not do to rush blindly toward the Square for all they knew straight into the arms of Sandy Flash once more. On the other hand, they realized they would have to act immediately, as it was already after eleven at night and the rider from town must be nearing the crossroad inn, if indeed, he had not already passed it. "Let's keep together this time. We can put up a better fight that way than by ourselves. If that man ever tries again to touch us with " 172 SANDY FLASH "What'll we fight 'em with?" Bob's voice was a low whisper. "I might have fetched that poker he had, but now we've not a thing. Bare hands or nothing, I guess it's got to be." "I only wish we could have found our guns," Dave broke in, "but they've hidden 'em somewheres or taken 'em with 'em. I've got this, though." The boy held out his hand. A long knife sheated in leather showed up dimly. "It's like the one Dougherty had in his stock- ing. I found it in the cave back there. We can use it!' 1 "That's the stuff! Let's get our direction and hurry." Bob looked at the sky. "The Dipper's right over yonder, let me see, there's the North Star. See it, Dave? Get it by the Pointers, right over by that branch? We've got to work along almost due east for the Square. It's quite a ways, too!" "Not by the roads though, we can't go. They're on 'em. I reckon they're right below us somewheres now, Sandy Flash and Dougherty, between here and the Goshen ford. He said they'd split, you know." "Yes, and we've got to cross the creek below the Stras- burg ford to miss 'em. It'll be full of ice, but there's no other way because they'll likely watch both roads west. I say, let's hurry!" As quietly as they could, Dave and Bob hurried over the frozen ground, trying to work toward Newtown Square, yet at the same time keeping the forest-shadowed slope of Castle Rock between them and the place they knew the outlaws must be. The waters of Crum proved their greatest obstacle, as they could find no convenient stones to cross on. The boys, well hidden in the tangle THE ESCAPE 173 of trees, paused and looked despairingly at the brook slipping past them. Like deep-piled velvet lay the shadows on the water, blue-black, impenetrable, unbroken, near the bank, etching the outline of the forest oaks, further out, where the star gleam turned the mirrored surface to a sheen of faintly burnished steel. Silent and deep and biting cold, it ran, with only a fringing shelf of ice. To wade meant a midnight soaking to the waist. Irresolutely, they checked a moment, yet mindful of the cost of delay. "What's it to be?" Dave glanced at the water. "Think you can stand it, Bob?" "Got to. Looks awfully cold, doesn't it?" The big lad shivered in spite of himself. Then his mind turned back to Dougherty and how the man had kicked him so brutally and so needlessly when he was down. The boy's lips set thin and hard. "I guess it'll kill the pair of us with chill, but it's the best we can do, Dave. They're at the ford and the man is riding toward 'em. I've been letting you do everything to-night, but it's time we stopped being babies!" "I'll try it, if you will! It's kinder more shallower there at the bend. Hear it purring?" Dave glanced at his friend, relieved to note the return of energy as the wound shock wore off under the spur of excitement. To tell the truth, he had been worried all evening by Bob's most unusual lack of initiative. Dave had failed to ap- preciate what the other had suffered from the low velocity slug of Dougherty's pistol. "We've got to get in, so the sooner, the better. Come along!" Bob chose the most likely spot and stepped 174 SANDY FLASH down. He was really beginning to feel like himself again for the first time since afternoon. By luck the brook broadened here and lost proportion- ately in depth. The boys climbed out on the slippery eastern bank, well soaked to the thighs, yet dry in body. Their teeth chattered uncontrollably, none the less, as they hastened along. Dave shivered, breathing short and hard, as he took up a jog in hopes of getting warmer, but the chain about his ankle worked loose from the cloth and he lost a precious minute in making it fast again. After that, he contented himself with a brisk walk. The remembrance of Sandy Flash's face as the blackguard had strained back his arm and held the hot iron over the bared flesh was enough to lend courage to the boy. He thought about it in a puzzled way. "Bob, what do you suppose they were trying to burn us with that iron for? We'd not moved nor done a thing. Sound asleep, too. It seems queer to me." "I've tried to make that out myself, Dave. All I can think of is that they're either raving mad or maybe did it to scare us. That, most likely. To make us tell 'em something they wanted to know. They sure did scare me! When I woke up with that Mordecai fellow on top and saw Sandy Flash most breaking your arm and that poker of his wheel I'll never forget the look he had on his face. I say! Like some animal's more'n a man's! Lucky for us that other one came along when he did!" "It certainly was! Let's hurry it up, Bob. Think we'll be in time? This darned old chain is going to be loose again in a minute! Hang it all!" Climbing the slope of Newtown Hill was no easy matter THE ESCAPE 175 what with the snow and the wet clothes and the handicap of the leg irons holding them back. Suddenly Bob laughed to himself. "Reckon I'm going crazy, Dave, but what do you think I've been scheming over ever since we crossed the creek back there? I've been thinking of how to get that old otter we missed the other day." "Otter!" Dave looked toward his chum in bewilder- ment. That was the last thing he had been thinking about. "Are you crazy? What put otter in your head to-night?" "Yes, the otter, the big one up in Ridley, you know- Silly, I reckon, but it's been on my mind as much as Sandy Flash. Because I know now how to get it. A sure thing!" "Won't hold us back any to tell me, I guess. Must admit I've not been thinking much of traps to-night. The otter! Of all things! How'll you go get him, Bob? Salt on his tail or magic pass and magic word?" Dave laughed a little hysterically. The strain of the last few hours was beginning to tell on the high-strung boy, as well it might. Bob, for all his hurt, was the more com- posed, his stolid nature standing him in good stead. One would hardly have taken him for the shocked and wounded lad of the earlier evening. "No, I'm not joking either, Dave. Really mean it. It'll work, too. Just you wait and see if it doesn't. Remember where " "Look, Bob, we're almost there!" Dave's strained whis- per broke in. "Vender's the crossroad at Newtown Square! We're in time!" He vaulted the wayside fence,, 176 SANDY FLASH forgetful of his chain, and dropped to the ditch below. The boys had been cutting cross-country and come into the Goshen Road a couple of hundred yards west of the Pratt House Tavern. It lay round a bend on the hill, a little to their right. "Can you run, Dave? We'd better "< Bob pointed and cried out. The lad never finished his sentence. Things had begun to happen along the narrow stretch of road that rose sharply before them. The midnight calm cracked with such amazing suddenness that they paused, too taken aback for an instant to move. A shot, an outcry and the sound of shouting recalled their mission and sent them running up the rising ground as hard as they could go. Just as they topped it and caught sight of the white-walled hostelry, another shot echoed across the snowy pastures. "It's the fellow from town and the man Flash sent' here!" Dave pointed, as he ran on, breathing hard hoping against hope that the chain might not break loose again from his leg and trip him. "They must have gotten" "They're fighting at the inn! We're in time! They're here! Oh, I say " Bob Allyn hugged his wounded arm close. "Lookout! We're in for it now, Davey! They're beginning to shoot!" Out of the turmoil before them came the rush and throb of pounding hoofs. A flintlock flared brightly against the dark and the boys ducked instinctively as the slug whined overhead, thudding savagely into an oak THE ESCAPE 177 behind them. Bob grabbed his comrade's arm, pulling him to one side of the road. "They're trying for Flash's man on the horse! He's running away. We'll be hit here next thing I Get low.! Duck for it, Dave!" Each knew enough of firearms to treat them with re- spect. An instant later, they were deep in the shelter of the ditch, but still stumbling along as fast as they could toward the inn. The horse thundered past them in a scud of flying snow, the rider low bent on the animal's neck, spurring madly, hat off, greatcoat streaming behind. The lads swung round, as he dashed by, shielding their faces from the frozen lumps that hurtled back at every drive of hoofs. The sound of galloping died quickly, as the man turned the bend and sank from sight beyond the hill toward Brook's Wood. Bob and Dave still stood in the ditch, looking after him. "That wasn't it must have been " Bob rubbed the pelted snow from his face. "It wasn't their fellow at all! Not Torley! I say, Dave, it's the man with the gold and he's heading " Dave clutched the other's arm convulsively, as he fin- ished his companion's sentence. "Straight for Flash at Crum Creek ford! They must have hit the guard ! " CHAPTER IX THE BATTLE OF THE PRATT WHEN Sandy Flash with his two accomplices slipped from the cavern at Castle Rock, leaving the boys cramped and shivering upon the floor, the leader of the outlaws had already thought out his plan for trapping the couriers and making off with the gold. He knew the authorities were moving it under cover of night, depending more upon the secrecy than upon a larger force to guard it. The very fact that Moses Doan had got wind of their change in date showed they were suspicious, wary. That meant they would do all to push the thing with despatch, rushing their men post haste toward Head of Elk, speeded by a change of mounts as often as could be arranged for in advance. All this Doan had learned and passed on to Flash through Dougherty and Dick Torley. It was upon his knowledge of the route they were to follow that the outlaw based the ambuscade. With three on his side working together, supported by darkness and surprise, he had small doubt of the outcome. On reaching the Strasburg Road below Castle Rock, Sandy Flash sent Torley to fetch his horse from the bushes a short distance away. He and Mordecai re- mained on foot near the ford. Flash was no longer un- easy about the altered plans, although he had counted mightily on this particular hold-up ever since Doan first 178 bJD a <u _c -o c THE BATTLE OF THE PRATT 179 heard of the gold shipment and determined to get it with his aid. Torley rejoined them a moment later, rolling up the tether strap that had fastened his horse. The three men drew under the shadows and talked in low voices. Sandy Flash repeated his instructions to Torley, stressing the place where he was to rejoin them after seeing the courier arrive at the inn. The brook ford and the pitch of the banks on the Goshen Road would make a place ideally staged for their purpose. The highwayman had long since learned the elementary requirements for success at his dangerous game. He had not the least idea of courting trouble. "All clear? By the Boot Road fork near Echo Valley! Good ye know the country, Dick. Then best o' luck an' be off!" Sandy Flash nodded up the road. "There's just one thing, Captain Fitz," Torley hesi- tated, then spoke on rapidly, "I've thought of. If this fellow's on guard, as he ought to be, he'll maybe notice the tracks in the snow and see 'em for fresh. Not one chance in a thousand, but how about this? Suppose I get me now to the tavern, watch for 'em to come, then just as they're changing horses, take a shot at the pair? If I can wing the guard, so much the better. But the main thing is that the fellow with the money'll think the game is up and he'll ride for his life. Whether they're one or two, they'll pull slow for the ford by Echo Valley they've got to. Then when they hear no chasing, they'll think they're clean away. That'll make it all the easier for you and Mort Dougherty. And I might get a chance to knock the guard over, at that. It won't take " "Can ye be sure of it? The folks at the inn'll be warned i8o SANDY FLASH before this, small doubt, to have the fresh post ready and saddled. They'll be up an' about. If ye shoot, they'll jump in to help 'em quick as a weasel. That'd ruin every- thing. I think ye'd best " "I can take my time near the inn and see which carries the coin. It's a rare fat sum and weighs it, every ounce! Never fear! I'll know soon enough who's got it. If you see one coming down the road, he'll be your man. Under- stand? If there's two, why, you'll know I've missed the shot. Then you and Mort'll have to handle the pair. Shall I try it? The scare of it'll help you mightily." Sandy Flash saw the cleverness of the trick. If it only succeeded in stampeding or separating the riders and mak- ing them think that the danger had passed, it would be well worth while. No one knew better than the outlaw of the Brandywine that a man is seldom so unprepared as when he relaxes from a strain. Dick Torley had hit upon the one thing most likely to bring this about with the least danger to them all. Flash was clever enough to avail him- self of anything his followers had to offer provided it seemed reasonably sure of success. He changed his own arrangements promptly. As Torley cantered off, bent on nearing the Square from the south, Flash and Dougherty hurried into the woodland beyond the Strasburg Road. Following Crum Creek through the ravine where they had captured the boys that afternoon, the men soon came to the Goshen ford. Flash looked about him with more than his usual care, studying the lay of the roadside shadows and the shelter of the tree trunks. "The fittest place in the Three Counties, me hearty! THE BATTLE OF THE PRATT 181 The ford'll make 'em slow to a walk, howsoever fast they come from the Square. The down slope, ye know." Mordecai glanced round him. Somehow or other, he could not feel the enthusiasm of his chief. "Looks all right to me, Cap'n, but wot I sez is supposin' they don't come this here way at all? Supposin' they goes off some'eres else. Wot then?" "Oh, it's here they'll come, all right, never ye fear. Doan was sure of it. He told you clear enough, didn't he! " "So he sez to me larst time I saw him. But wot's to pay if they don't? That's wot I asks, Cap'n, wot's to pay if they up an' changes? It's " "Ye're devilish low to-night, Mort, with all your ifs! What's ailin' ye? Ye know right well he said they'd fol- low the Haverford Road from town to the " "That he did. He told me clearly. From the town to Couperstown, then over the crick an' on up to the New- town crossing!" "Straight to the Square by the Goshen Road. Ye told me so yourself, when ye came. Your very words. From the Square on west. It's plain as a Quaker's bonnet! " "True, I did an' that's Doan's own words. None other. Luck'll play fer us or agin' us. It's all luck, so wot's the use o' fightin' it? The place is fit enough to trap the devil himself in, that it is!" "There's no better betwixt us an' the Brandywines. Ye told the truth there. Sure an' the black murk o' fear is on ye this night, whatever's the cause. Cheer up, me buck, an' ye'll see the neatest game ye've ever set an eye to! I only wish the ford was not so near the cave, though. Means we'll have to clear out o' here the minute we get 182 SANDY FLASH the stuff. A good thing we got holt o' the boys when we did. We can leave 'em tied there an' ride for the Valley hills, hell for leather, or maybe Newlin. Soon as ever they raise the hue an' cry, some farmer'll find 'em like as not and turn 'em loose again." "Frozen stiff as pine cones, they'll be, 'fore mornin', I'm thinkin', if we lets 'em stay up there, wot with no fire an' the winter night bio win' over 'em that a-way. It's a damp hole enough an' they're but yearlings after all. 'Course we saves ourselves, that's first, but it wouldn't take much time fer to slip by an' cut the hobbles off 'em." "I thought ye wanted to slit the throats on the pair of 'em, like a couple o' shotes, a bit ago? Cut 'em off, head an' tail, branch an' rush, as the parson used to say? Ye're changin' like a weather cock, me buck, to-night!" Sandy Flash grinned to himself. He saw that his brutality had stirred up such sympathy toward the boys as his accom- plice was capable of. The man took it as a compliment. "If ye're so tender-hearted, better have stayed in the town with Doan. It's easier to play the spy there than the man out here. A deal easier!" "I only was a-sayin' " Mordecai was apologetic once more, as he felt that his chief had detected the passing weakness. In truth, his attitude had changed since the afternoon. Then, he felt the boys a menace; he had really tried to kill the big one with his pistol. Now, as prisoners, he no longer feared them. After all, what were they but lads. "Mort, ye've lots to learn. A whole lot!" Flash spoke with emphasis. "To-night, for one thing. Ye'll be tellin' Moses Doan a rare tale enough o' the way I was torturin* THE BATTLE OF THE PRATT 183 the lads. Small doubt of it, the minute ye meet him. Well, go ahead an' tell him what ye like, but remember this. Not once did I touch the boy with the iron. Not once did I maul 'em like ye did the big one when he was hurt. Comin' to that, I didn't shoot 'em, either, nor yet try to kill 'em. You did. See the difference. Mort, me boy, if ye'd brains, ye might mark reason in all this, but ye've none, so one minute it's brutal cruel ye be an' the next ye're repentin' an' weak. An' all the time, ye're get- tin' nothin' done. But me I only scared 'em once, scared 'em real, while I was at it, an' was fair to gettin' all I wanted of 'em, an' they not a whit the worse. Come, get yonder to the shadow an' mind your eyes. I'll take this side." Dougherty crossed the road, shaking his head in the darkness. It all sounded plausible enough, but then he had seen Flash's face as he had strained back Dave's arm earlier in the evening. He did not need any explanation as to that. Dougherty felt again that strange surge of re- pulsion for the other's bestial cruelty. He had followed Flash in many a blackguardly undertaking before, but it had always been man against man not shackled, wounded boys as opponents. What saving good was latent in the fellow revolted at the thought. Quietly the men took their places, one on either side of the way, both well hidden by the trees. Echo Valley, dreamy and faint with haze, lay before them, its snow mist-gray and silver beneath the stars, its peaceful pas- tures rolling upward to the black rim of Brook's Wood and the Newtown Hill. Between dark fencerows ran the Goshen Road, straight as any street from ford to forest. 184 SANDY FLASH Midnight passed. Meanwhile, Torley, the third of Flash's band, had been riding hard. Before Dave and Bob had had time to free themselves and escape from the cave, he had reached the neighborhood of the Pratt House Tavern and concealed himself behind a fallen chestnut tree near the north-east angle of the road. The man had previously tied his horse in a clump of bushes two hundred yards away. For almost an hour he waited, hugged tight in his cloak, as the wind cut sharply across the level up- land from the Radnor Hills to the east. It was raw and damp with thaw, but chilling to the bone. Nearly one hundred years before, William Penn, the great Proprietory, as they called him, had stood on the same spot and, noting the spacious plain, prophesied that here would spring up the first inland town west of his little City of Brotherly Love. He had called the place Newtown Square against the time the village should come into being. To-day, well over two centuries since that prophecy, all that stands at the crossroad is the ancient building that housed the Pratt House inn the only sign of the town that never was. It must have been well after midnight when a distant pounding caught Torley's ear. He shivered, then peered over the log. The throbbing hoof beats carried far in the still, moist air, but he could see nothing. He waited, listen- ing eagerly. There could be no mistake. Up the Goshen Road, the double rhythm told of galloping strides, muffled and dulled to a thud in the snow, but unmistakably horses horses coming at speed from the dark. Torley sank to his knees behind the fallen tree and primed the pan of his flintlock pistol. At the same moment a shaft of light THE BATTLE OF THE PRATT 185 stabbed out upon the whitened road before the inn as the door opened. Some one came into the yard carrying a lantern. Clearly the change of horses had been well timed. While the light bobbed toward the stables, Torley looked again over the trunk of his sheltering tree, then ducked quickly. Two horsemen were in view now, thun- dering down the road. They were not sparing of their mounts, either, a hint that they counted on a fresh relay at the inn. The outlaw had chosen his place well, for it commanded the crossways, the Pratt House and the roads that led away from it, north, south, east and west. Torley could see surprisingly well in the star light, as the riders drew near. One galloped in advance, perhaps ten yards, while the other kept hugging the side of the way, evidently doing what he could to dodge the lumps of snow tossed back by the leader's driving hoofs. Both men were armed, the first horseman with pistols, the second with a short blunderbuss strapped over his shoulder. He, too, carried heavy holsters at his pummel, marking him as the guard. Cloaks muffled them against the cold of mid- night. It was not for that, however, that Torley searched, as he sought to keep under cover and see as much as he could at the same time. Ah, there he had it! The men were abreast of him now, easing their horses at sight of the inn and the moving light by the stables. Close tied to the cantle of the leader's saddle was the outline of a bulky roll the sort of leather bag used by post boys on the road. That was the gold! Torley smiled at the ease of his trick. Then he cocked his pistol. 1 86 SANDY FLASH The riders jogged past within twenty yards of the man's position. Torley could hear the faint complainings of their saddles, as the leather stretched and gave to the play of the horses' gait. He could catch the sharper tinkle of curb chains on the cheeks and the occasional click of a spur buckle next a stirrup. All the little indescribable sounds of horsemen and their gear. He saw the breath rings blowing wide from the animals' nostrils, as they reached at their reins and pricked ears for the warm stalls beyond. So near was he that he could have shot either of them with scarcely an aim, but he knew the game he was playing and waited for the change of mounts at the stable. Once the gold in that leather cantle roll was on the fresh horse and the man in the saddle, then it would be time enough to deal with the guard. Torley's part in the plot called for skill and no one knew it better than he. If he fired a second too soon, the courier might dash back for the safety of the inn. If he fired too late, he might miss the guard altogether. His task was to make the horsemen think the attack had come from the tavern to force them to flee from it. The out- law half wondered whether it would not have been better to have held by Flash's original scheme and fallen upon the men, three to two, at the ford, far away from any possible help. It was too late for that now, of course. The scant time lost in changing horses gave token of the value the couriers set upon speed. They swung from their saddles before they left the road. Torley could see them loosening their girths, as the horses moved toward the stables. The light reappeared in answer to a hail, and the hostler ran into the yard. A moment later, he dis- THE BATTLE OF THE PRATT 187 appeared again, leaving the lantern on the ground. Tor- ley steadied the long-barreled pistol on the log and aimed calmly, deliberately, swinging his sights from one to the other as the two men moved about, unsaddling. Just as the stable boy came into the lantern glow, pulling the fresh post horses behind him by their halter shanks, the inn door opened again and another man came out. Tor- ley did not know him, though, as a matter of fact, it was the keeper of the tavern. The four men spoke together in low tones, so low that the outlaw could not catch a word, but he could see that they were in a hurry from the manner in which the bridles were slipped over the animals' heads and the saddles re- girthed. Then the hostler picked up the light and held it high, as one of the men felt at the buckle of his throat- latch and let it out a hole. Silently they mounted and turned from the yard. Torley covered the guard, moving his pistol carefully as the horsemen came toward him out the gate. He could not miss. The light was advantageous here, throwing both men and horses into black silhouettes. The man with the cantle roll turned to the left on the Goshen way, gathered reins and clicked to his mount. Torley waited an instant, noted that they were taking up the same positions they had followed in coming to the inn, then saw the leader's horse start with impatience at the touch of roweled spur. He paused a few seconds more and knew that the time had come. He fired. It was almost point blank. His arm was steady. That was the shot that came to the ears of Dave and Bob Allyn, as they hastened up the hill from the west. At the flash of the flintlock, the leading horseman, he who 188 SANDY FLASH had been on the point of a gallop anyway, drove both spurs into his mount's flanks with a slashing rip. Down the slope he charged with never a glance behind, past the unseen lads in the ditch, round the bend and out of sight. The innkeeper shouted and turned for the door of the house, seeking a weapon. The hostler, almost in direct line of fire from Torley's pistol, saw the flash across the road, caught a passing second's blur of white face behind it, as the powder flared in the pan, then dropped his lan- tern and ran. It was quite the wisest thing he could have done, for Torley had let go the firearm the instant he had pulled the trigger, and reached for another in his belt. A blind shot from the landlord in the doorway had been the second report heard by the boys. Torley had paid no heed to it, whatever, but calmly discharged his fresh pistol along the Goshen Road. It was this which had sent its leaden slug pinging just over the heads of the two lads. Torley had purposely fired wide. He did not see Bob or Dave at all, but wanted to make sure that the courier would not risk coming back to help the other man. The guard lay on the ground, pinned beneath his dying horse. The bullet had entered the poor beast's body back of the shoulder and bowled it over before the startled rider could jump clear. At first Torley had intended to aim at the man, then at the last moment he had unac- countably lowered his sights and shot for the horse. It would serve his purpose quite as well and, after all, save needless murder. Seeing the animal down, lashing out its life in spasmodic kicks, and the man fast in the stir- rup irons, unable to rise, Torley replaced the pistols in THE BATTLE OF THE PRATT 189 his belt and ran for the shelter of the trees before the people at the tavern could rally to pursue him. He wanted to reach his horse and from that point of safety await de- velopments. By the time Dave and Bob Allyn had raced up to the Pratt House, slowed in their efforts by the metal round their ankles, the innkeeper was out in the yard, reloading his flintlock and peering across the white-gleaming fields for some sign of the lone attacker. The stable boy had returned from the shelter of the sheds. The lantern had been overturned in the rush and gone out, so the landlord sent the hostler on the run for another light. Then he and the boys hurried over to the man in the road, still pinned close beneath the struggling horse. The poor brute stiffened convulsively, as they neared him, and seemed to hold its breath. Then with a groaning sigh, long drawn and truly piteous to hear, it twisted its head and neck far up over its back. A slow shudder shook the body and the head thudded limp, while the legs extended to their full length. The lips strained back from the teeth in ghastly fashion and the agony passed. Bob, seeing the animal was done for, bent to drag the man from beneath. The death of the horse and the blood-stained snow made the boy weak, for a moment, and a little sick, but he kept well in hand and fought it off. "Where are you hurt? Did it were you hit, too?" Only then did the lad see that the man lay heavily, not at- tempting to extricate himself. "I say, Dave, he is hurt! We'll have to roll the horse off him. Quick! Maybe he's shot somewheres ! Pull at his cape ! " It was a well-nigh impossible effort as one can realize I 9 o SANDY FLASH who has tried to move such a mass of limp and unman- ageable weight, but between the four of them, they suc- ceeded at last and drew out the unconscious form. The man was not badly injured, as they saw to their relief, once they had gotten him clear. His head had struck heavily in falling, knocking him out for the time being. His eyes opened, as they eased him to the snow. Evi- dently he recognized the innkeeper, for he struggled to sit up. Then he felt at the side of his head and motioned toward the horse. "The saddle! Hurry!" The man tried desperately to rise. "The oh, can't you get it! They'll be back caugh ah ugh " He groaned, reached awkwardly for his forehead and fainted a second time in the hostler's arms. Dave's ear alone caught hint of meaning, as the mutter trailed off into snoring gasps of unconsciousness. He saw Bob and the innkeeper working hurriedly to unloosen the man's neckerchief. He felt the hostler shift his position and let the body settle back against his knee. Dave glanced toward the guard's face. It was blue-gray and drawn in the lamp light. The boy had a working knowl- edge of accidents and realized that the blow, as the horse fell, must have given the poor fellow a slight concussion. A trickle of blood at the nostrils confirmed this. It would be many minutes at best before the man could speak. The catching breath alone told that. Saying nothing, unnoticed by the others, Dave slipped round the little group, crossed the road and dropped to his knees at the side of the dead horse. There, the lad THE BATTLE OF THE PRATT 191 felt for the girth straps beneath the flaps. He would pull the whole thing off, if he could, and lug it to the house himself. However, he saw almost instantly that there were no bags there. Bewildered, he began to feel over the leather in the star light. The man had certainly mumbled about his saddle the moment he had regained consciousness. Dave knew he had not imagined it or heard wrongly. Then the pistol holsters caught his eye and the boy's mind whipped back to Peter Burgandine and the ruse the old farmer from Newlin had played so cleverly on the Edgemont Road. Seizing the butt of the one he could reach, Dave pulled it free and drove his hand deep in the case. The bulky holster, made to house a horse-pistol, ammunition and all, was empty. Again the lad worked at the girths. He would get the saddle off at any rate. It was in lifting the flaps of the old-fashioned skirts that he noted their weight. The trick began to dawn upon him, even before he could feel and bend the heavy leather. Dave slipped his hands along the inner lining, then whistled softly. He had heard enough from Sandy Flash and his men to know that it was minted coin they were after, sovereigns of the king. He had it now beneath his fingers gold, heavy gold, more of it than he had ever dreamed of. It was a simple trick and a very old one that the courier and his guard had played. The guard was the man who carried the treasure concealed in the leather skirts of his saddle and in the paneling of the tree. The whole thing had been slit for the purpose, then stitched fast. The plan was to divert attention in case of trouble i 9 2 SANDY FLASH to the saddle roll shown conspicuously at the cantle of the leading rider. This was empty. If they were stopped during their midnight gallop, there would be some chance for the guard to make good his escape, while the other was the center of interest on the part of the attackers. As a matter of fact, both men felt that their main reliance lay in speed and secrecy. The utterly unlooked-for on- slaught at the inn, within help of the people there, had up- set their well-conceived arrangement. The first horse- man had naturally taken it for treachery on the part of the landlord, and had gotten clear as fast as he could. The one with the gold did not know at the time what had occurred beyond the flash and the fall of his horse. He was a luckier man than he imagined, for Torley's action in aiming at the animal, not himself, was entirely on the spur of the moment. Dave raised his head to call Bob, then first became aware that he was by himself. The three figures near the light had picked up the unconscious man and were mov- ing with him across the yard, dragging him on his heavy riding cloak. Thanks to Bob's size and strength, and despite his wounded arm, they were managing to move the burden without calling on Dave for help. The younger boy glanced up and down the Newtown lane. The way was clear, but it would not do to leave the saddle where it was unguarded. Two or three minutes were required before the under flap tore loose from the dead bulk of the horse upon it and the boy was able to drag it toward the inn. The whole thing, saddle, holsters and gold, was more than he could lift clear of the ground. Had Dave looked to the northeast, across the low fence, THE BATTLE OF THE PRATT 193 he would never have walked so calmly through the yard, nor would he have paused to grip the saddle with one hand, while he raised the lantern with the other. The land- lord had left it in the snow. As it was, he did not even hear the click of Torley's pistol, as the man cocked it twenty yards away. The outlaw had run for shelter the moment he had seen the guard's horse fall in answer to his shot. From the shadows of a neighboring spinney, he had watched the man and the boys gather to the aid of the helpless rider. At that distance, he had no way of recognizing Dave or Bob. Indeed, he had long since forgotten all about the lads held prisoners in the cave at Castle Rock. It was only when he noted Dave leaving the group near the light and beginning to work over the saddle that he dared venture nearer. He was half persuaded to turn back, mount his horse and circling the inn, canter to the ford, perhaps in time to be of help there. When the boy bent quickly down, however, and seemed to be pulling at something heavy, the man could resist no longer. It would do no harm to satisfy his curiosity and great good might come of it. Sandy Flash and Dougherty were well qualified to take care of one scared man between them. Stepping lightly on the damp snow, he dodged across the field and slid to cover at the log, where first he had established his lookout. From here he watched Dave jerk the saddle loose and start for the tavern. Then it was he cocked his pistol, half raising it. He could not be sure what the boy was about. That the gold was actually there, almost within his reach, he had no way of guessing. Tor- ley hesitated, then slipped over the fence line to the road. 194 SANDY FLASH This time his pistol was leveled, steady and sure, as Dave's outline sprang into sharp distinctness against the flood of light from the Pratt House door. Meanwhile, the man with the saddle roll had done ex- actly what Sandy Flash had hoped galloped fast as ever he could lay hoof to ground down the Goshen Road, up the rise to Brook's Wood, then over the hill to Echo Valley and the Crum Creek ford below. His horse was fresh and he made the most of it, sparing neither crop nor spur. For the first furlong, he did not realize that he was alone, that his companion had gone down under the shot. Had he known it, he would have reined up short and fought his way back to help him, for the man had courage. When he saw what had happened, it was too late to return in the face of what appeared a clear enough at- tack from the inn. His one chance now lay in riding on to the next change, giving the alarm and trying to get back before the gold in the saddle had been discovered. That he was not the one shot at surprised him. At the ford, he eased his mount and played unwittingly, fatally, into Flash's hands by letting the animal suck up a swallow or so between his bits. It was while off guard thus, near the juncture of the Boot and Goshen Roads, that the highwaymen sprang their dastardly ambuscade upon him. The cowardly affair was shorter than it takes to tell it. A shot from the cedars, a rearing plunge of the horse amid the spray of the ford, a cry that choked off in a horrible sucking moan that was all. Flash dragged the man from the water, while Dougherty caught at the flying reins and pulled the beast to a halt further up the THE BATTLE OF THE PRATT 195 road. The two men bent over the courier. He had a bullet through the neck. Two minutes after the flash of the flintlock, he was dead, mercifully spared from suffer- ing, never even knowing what hidden blow had struck him from the saddle. A little later, Flash tossed aside the man's waistcoat. He had searched the body from head to foot, he had gone over the horse's tack, sparing nothing. In a white passion of anger, he had ripped the empty roll from the cantle and hurled it to the creek but first he had blown the acrid smoke from his pistol barrel and reloaded. "It's Torley that's ruined the whole thing! The bloody fool, I might have known it! " There followed a stream of vituperation whose filth kept even Mordecai silent. "Well, what are ye standin' there lookin' at me for? The gold's still gold, ain't it? It's not ours yet, is it? Think I like killin' a man for the sport of it! Huh?" Flash turned irritably from the quiet face in the snow. The eyes stared too fixedly, too wonderingly upward above the horror of the blood-soaked stock. He did not want to re- member those eyes. "Ye're damned well mistaken, Mort! Run quick for the nags at Castle Rock, ye fool, an' stop your wall-eyed starin'! I'll bide here for Torley or case the other fellow comes! Run! The gold's at the Pratt House, man, I tell ye, an' we're goin' there to get it!" Dougherty turned and bolted through the trees. Two miles to the east, Dave was, at this moment, pull- ing the heavy saddle across the tavern threshold. On en- tering, he found himself in a small room to the right of the bar. The flicker of a candle on the taproom ceiling told him where the injured guard had been carried. He 196 SANDY FLASH could hear Bob's voice there and the hum of the inn- keeper's tones, but before joining them, his first move was to shut and bar the east door. The one to the north was already fast. Little did he suspect the nearness of the man outside or that he himself had been within an ace of death. Torley's better judgment had saved the boy, as the outlaw saw the folly of stirring up a hornet's nest single-handed and perhaps to no purpose. If they had to force the place, they would do it together, Flash and Mort to help him. No doubt the gold was safe in his friends' hands by now, anyway. He held his fire and slipped into the shadow of the tavern wall. The door fast barred, Dave breathed more freely, though little there was to disturb him in the midnight calm. He hurried across the room, scraping the saddle after him on the cleanly sanded floor. At the door to the taproom, he saw Bob standing beside a long settee on which they had stretched the guard. The hostler and the innkeeper were working over his head with some sort of a wet bandage. Dave wondered vaguely how they could have gotten it so soon. He saw the man was still uncon- scious, breathing in long-drawn snores that rattled alarm- ingly in his throat. The innkeeper heard the boy at the door and swung about. In the excitement that followed, the hostler was left to bind up the guard's head, while Bob and the land- lord helped Dave rip the saddle. A glance was enough. The gold was there, far more than seemed possible in so small a space, but the work had been done cleverly and the saddle was a huge, old-fashioned affair to begin with. THE BATTLE OF THE PRATT 197 The landlord pointed to the little cut they had made in the leather, where the sovereigns glinted through. "We can't have this lying round, that's one thing," he shook his head. "He must have known of it, the devil that fired. More'n I did! All they bothered telling me was to have the post change ready for two and stout fresh horses at that. They never so much as hinted what was being carried, the ones who ordered the relay didn't!" "Oh, Flash had it all from some fellow in the town. They knew the whole thing. We heard 'em!" "Yes, and the other one " "Flash!" the landlord cried out in startled wonderment. "Sandy Flash! What's this you're saying? Quick, lad, speak quick!" Between them, the boys enlightened him as far as they were able, telling of the plot to seize the gold as they had heard it from Torley's report to Flash. The older man knew a good deal of the outlaw from past experience. His forehead furrowed deeply, as he heard the name of Sandy Flash repeated and realized the gravity of what was tak- ing place. Interrupting their story, he dropped the sad- dle and called to his helper in tones full of anxiety. He made no effort to conceal how he felt. "Quick, Jim! It's Sandy Flash again! I might have guessed it. They'll be on us any minute, when they miss the gold! The bench, there, shove it against the door! Run, lad, look to the windows! See to the back door and the one in the hall that gives on Goshen Road! We'll hold 'em off! Boys, you'll have to help. We've a gun or two somewheres! Hunt 'em up, Jim! Take the settle i 9 8 SANDY FLASH to the hall and make a barricade! Quick, before they rush us! Don't bother with that fellow's head, he'll come round all right. Pile some chairs there!" The boys did as they were ordered. The heavy settee, reinforced with an upturned table, was shoved against the main door, while the other was blocked with ale kegs. It was the best they could do. The brew was heavy enough, at that, rich country making. The hostler, Jim, ran quickly from window to window, testing the oaken bars; the landlord hastened upstairs to reassure his wife and see that she kept out of danger. As he came down, he beckoned to Dave. "We'll show 'em a fight, lad! I learned a thing or two about it once! They'll be breaking in any minute now, like as not, but we'll be good and ready for 'em! Better get this out of the way, though, first," he pointed to the saddle on the floor. "Do you mind the pit I showed you last time you were here? The " "Under the kitchen closet?" The secret chamber where the landlord had hidden his silver while Old Bur- gandine held the light, flashed instantly into the boy's mind. "Oh, yes, it's back there!" "Well, get the gold in it quick as ever you can, boy! You'll find the ladder somewhere. I must help the others. Here, Jim, run quick with him! Seen to the windows? Good! Hurry! They may be close about us now ! Bet- ter keep back from the light The four defenders were determined to make the best of it and hold the tavern. The silence and the calm out- side did not encourage them at all nor mislead them into supposing that there would be no further trouble. Rather THE BATTLE OF THE PRATT 199 it worked upon their nerves and made it all the harder for them to wait, inactive and tense, expecting something to happen. The landlord, whispering his orders, crouched behind a pile of upturned furniture in the hall, flintlock in hand. Bob, armed with an old-time fowling piece, was in the taproom, watching the windows. Jim, the hostler, had a leaded hunting crop which he carried with him, as he accompanied Dave to the kitchen in the rear. All to- gether, it was not much by way of armament, but then the walls of the old stone inn were thick and the doors and windows barred with oak. Best of all, the little party had courage. The landlord had not gone in vain to Louisburg Siege in the old days of '45. He was of fighting stock and aimed to prove it now as he had with PepperelPs New Englanders. Dave hurried through the dim hallway, felt his steps across the kitchen, and sank to his knees at the closet, prying for the boards he knew would lift. Had he not been shown the secret of loosening them on his former visit, he never could have released them now. Even so, he took a great deal longer than he should have, wasting time in nervous haste. When the flooring had been moved, Dave grabbed the saddle with a sigh of relief and slung it over the black pit. His hand clasped the slit in the leather to hold the packed coins in place. Then suddenly he thought better of it, dragging it back. "I reckon I'd better take it down myself, hadn't I, not drop it and spill all the gold? We'd never get it gathered again. Where's the ladder he had, Jim?" Making as little noise as they could, the man and boy searched by touch until they had found it behind a tall 200 SANDY FLASH dresser in the corner. To lower it into the pit through the narrow opening was harder than they had anticipated, but they got it in place at last and Dave went down. The stone-walled space below was inky black, damp, earthy. The boy groped about for the sides, feeling his way inch by inch as his fingers touched the sweat of masonry. It was slimy like snails and he shuddered. The darkness was more than lack of light down there. It was a smothering pall, heavy, devoid of life. Dave completed the circle of the room and felt his way back to the ladder, his out- stretched arms waving before him like antennae. As he grasped the lower rungs, vastly relieved, he called to the hostler above in a thin whisper, a bit uncertain. The silence and the dark had crushed the vitality out of him, what was left after the ordeal he had been through already that night. "Hurry, lower me the saddle, will you! Quick, Jim, I can reach it from here and ease it down ! " There was no reply. Fearful of raising his voice fur- ther, Dave began to climb upward. He regretted that he had wasted any time at all stumbling about in the murk of the pit. Better if he had tossed down the gold and been done with it, whether it spilt all over the place below or not. The hostler must have slipped away to join the others for some reason. Dave listened. The tavern was still, still as death. He climbed a rung higher, felt for the saddle and pulled it toward him. The noise it made scraping on the sand of the floor seemed deafening. Dave's heart thumped pain- fully. In a kind of quick panic, he worked the heavy thing through the opening, pushed it to one side and let THE BATTLE OF THE PRATT 201 go. The boy's nerves had frayed again and he knew he would have to scream aloud if he did not get rid of the saddle, if he did not get out of the place and that right soon. He wanted to be with the others, to see them, anything but this black pitch of terror that pressed in on him from every side. Just as he pulled his body half through the trapway, fighting gamely to keep his nerve in hand, a sound from the kitchen door sent the lad's heart fluttering once more against his ribs, choking him, stifling him with fright he could not control. The noise was faint, indescribably low, a mere thread of sound, yet unmistakable. Some one was working at the wooden bar, working at it steadily from the outside. The boy hesitated a second, then by a convulsive twist of his body got clear of the ladder. He was too late. The door across the darkened room had opened. CHAPTER X THE LOST TRAIL THE first hint of danger that came to the landlord was when hostler Jim slipped into the hall and whispered excitedly that he thought he had heard some one at the rear door. The young fellow wanted to bor- row his master's gun, but the man insisted on going him- self and so lost a precious moment or two in warning Bob. The boy would have to shift his position from the tap- room and guard the front hall with its two doors. That was the weak point in their defense. The defenders of the inn had waited in such a strain of silence that they were jumpy, nervous, fearful of a trick. Sure that the front was being taken care of, the innkeeper and the hostler tiptoed back to help Dave get the gold into the room below without further delay. That done and the flooring in place, they could barricade the kitchen door, if necessary. The innkeeper knew that Jim had long since seen to the great oak bar that crossed from jamb to jamb, resting in sockets of hand-wrought iron. As they felt their way through the hall, the hostler in front caught the scraping noise of Dave pulling the sad- dle toward the trap, but he feared to call out to him. If the outlaws were close at hand, it would be just as well to let their welcome come as much of a surprise as possible. The lad gripped his crop far down by the loop and swung back the loaded butt. It was not a weapon to be passed 202 THE LOST TRAIL 203 by lightly. At the hall door leading into the kitchen, he paused. The darkness was impenetrable. Not even the windows could be placed, their gray outline blotted by heavy shutters. Jim held his breath and listened. He knew that the saddle had been dragged down the trapway, but that was all. The place was heavy with silence, black, ominous, oppressive. Nervously he strained for some hint of Dave on the ladder, so that he could whisper a warning. The landlord, stepping as lightly as he could, edged forward beside him, clutching his flintlock, peering vainly into the dark. Even the banked fire on the hearth was invisible. He, too, tried to make out some sound, breathing through his mouth and swallowing in little pants of excitement, as he bent forward. "I can't hear a thing, Jim. What do you say? Get the Thomas lad from the closet, then push the table agin the door. Hey? Quick! If they try to rush us, it'll be hot! " "Ssh! I'll go 'cross the room and tell the boy first. He's still below! We've got to get the ladder out, too, and put the boards down before they begin to shoot!" The hostler ceased speaking, his fingers tense on the heavy hunting crop. Across the pall of darkness from the outside door came the same scratching he had heard when first he had slipped away for aid. Unconsciously, he clutched with his free hand at the innkeeper's arm to at- tract his attention. The older man shook the lad off, as he cocked his piece. He, too, had heard. This was his kitchen they were trying to enter, his own tavern, and he proposed to show them something they had not counted on. The man's anger had been aroused in earnest. The trick 204 SANDY FLASH of the candlestick rankled sore in his mind, ever since Flash had humiliated the posse and escaped, not so long before. "Slip back, Jim, lad, you've got no gun! They're try- ing to work loose the bar of the door! Hist! Get thee back, they're coming in!" The voice was barely audible, but the hostler could make out enough to shake his head stubbornly in the gloom. He stood where he was. "I'm all right, sir. Ready for 'em with the leaded end o' me crop! I think they're slidin' up the bar with a knife or something! Sounds like it." "Don't let 'em hear us, Jim! It's halfway loose they've gotten it already. Let 'em open it all the way, now, lad, and we'll give it to 'em hot and heavy when they least ex- pect it! Get back, I tell you, they'll be shooting next!" "Hush! The boy's comin' up the ladder now! I'll have to get him stopped ! " Everything happened so quickly from then on that the Battle of the Pratt, as Dave called it afterward, was over before either he or Bob Allyn knew what was taking place. The outer door moved open just as the boy on the ladder pulled himself onto his hands and knees, free of the trapway. He saw the widening strip of gray, as the reflection from the star light on the snow broke the dark- ness of the room. Simultaneously, he heard Jim's whisper from the inner door and knew that he was not alone. He also realized that there was no time to think of replacing the flooring of the closet. Dave dropped flat on his face, as the kitchen flamed and rocked to the thunderous roar of the innkeeper's flintlock. Then came the smoke, black THE LOST TRAIL 205 clouds of it, filling the place with the reek of gunpowder, acid, choking, stinging the eyes. Dave, seeing he was between the lines of fire, followed the only course open to him and hugged the floor. He might well have stood up, for the battle was nearly over. Torley had gotten his fill of a Pratt House welcome! When he had seen Dave dragging the saddle into the tav- ern, he had slipped across the road and disappeared into the shadows of the wall. From here, he had listened at the door and again at the windows of the building. Though he could make out no words through the thick- ness of shutters, he could hear sounds enough from within to convince him that something had put the people there on guard. Perplexed, he began to wonder whether the lad he had seen with the saddle could possibly have caught sight of him beyond the fence and yet have had the cour- age and coolness to walk calmly up to the door with his heavy burden. That set the man thinking. Why had the boy taken so much trouble with that same saddle? Heavy it was, undoubtedly, and hard to pull along, but bare of cantle roll or bags. The other horseman had car- ried that. Torley was quite sure of it. Then it was that he thought of the back door. He would look into the thing a little further before joining Sandy Flash, past Echo Valley. The rest was easy. Reassured by the darkness within, and the silence, that no one was on guard in the kitchen, the man had slipped the blade of his long knife between the door and the jamb. He did not know whether he would be able to force an entrance that way or not, but he felt that it would, at least, do no harm to try. It was 206 SANDY FLASH somewhat to his surprise, when he located the oaken bar and realized that he could work it from its sockets. And readily enough, too. After all, many doors in the coun- try depended, like this one, on bars, as locks were looked upon as a needless luxury. Torley's luck was still hold- ing fair. The heavy bar slipped free with a jolt. Torley replaced the knife in its sheath, drew his pistol and pushed the door quietly inward. Then he stepped across the threshold and paused to accustom his eyes to the darkness, as he sought to get his bearings. Before he could stir, the innkeeper had fired. It was as much the vivid flash and the startling surprise of it as anything else, that sent Torley staggering backward, his own weapon still clutched in his hand trigger unpulled. Hard upon the powder flare came the whang of the leaden bullet as it splintered the jamb beside him, that, and the report of the flintlock, magnified many fold by the narrow walls and low-raftered ceiling of the room. The man clapped a hand to his bloody cheek where a sliver of wood had ripped it to the bone, then turned and leaped through the door with a low curse of pain. As the sweep of his cloak filled the gray rectangle of light, Jim came to life and action. Instant, darting speed hurled him through the air like the bound of a catamount. The stable boy had started toward the closet, when the door began to open. As the man entered, Jim had hesi- tated, fearful to move lest he betray Dave and the secret room below. Then the landlord had fired and the outlaw had turned to flee. Jim knew his time had come. Two great springs brought the lad to the doorway. Up swung the crop in a whistling arc. The boy struck, struck with THE LOST TRAIL 207 all the power of his arm. Not in vain had he strapped and rubbed and curried horses since he was a little lad. Had the leaded butt fallen on the man's head it would have brained him. No hat could have turned the weighted momentum of such a blow. There was a terrific impact and the ash plant split in pieces. Jim had swung too high, the leaded end had crushed in the lintel. Before he could recover, the courageous lad pitched headlong to the snow without, the broken remnant of the crop fast clutched in his fist. Quick as a flash, Torley whipped about. He knew he was beaten. He knew his failure had lost all chance for Sandy Flash and Dougherty to effect a successful attack backed by surprise. In a blind rage of fear and disap- pointment, he sought to tear his pistol clear of the cape fold entangling it. He would account for one at the inn anyway. He would pay the score of his bleeding cheek. The man cursed vilely, for the hampering cloak clung fast about his arm and he could not snatch it loose. With a final wrench, the weapon swung free. Torley's finger gripped for the cocking piece of the trigger. In the strug- gle, it was small wonder, however, that he had lost the priming. The flint scattered vain sparks and Torley slung the long pistol about to catch it by the muzzle. Then with the curved handle and butt upraised, a vicious, crip- pling bludgeon, he sprang for the hostler. Jim still lay face downward, knocked breathless in the snow. The stable boy owed his life to Dave Thomas. Before Jim could know what Torley was about, before he him- self could possibly have warded off the blow from the mace-like pistol, Dave had reached the door and taken 208 SANDY FLASH in the situation. He dove at the man with no thought, no plan, just hurled his whole body at the ruffian's knees. The two came down in a kicking, struggling pile, to be joined an instant later by Jim, who pitched into the fight with a fury that speedily brought the man to terms. That was the end. Two minutes more and the landlord had gotten the outlaw tied to a chair, Jim, Bob and Dave as- sisting. There was little pugnacity left in the fellow. He understood his danger pretty well. Before bringing him indoors, however, the flooring of the kitchen closet had been carefully replaced and the door shut. Torley refused to speak when questioned, nursing his torn cheek in silence, so they had to content themselves with a renewed watch. Jim and Dave took the rear door again, this time fastening the bar so that it could not be pried so easily from its sockets. Jim waited till he had everything fixed to his satisfaction, then he crossed the room and held out his hand. He was ill at ease, but determined to acknowledge his debt to the boy whose wit and action had saved his life. "Thanks, Dave Thomas. I ain't so good at talking but that there dive o' your'n bowled him over jist about in time for to guard me brains. Hopes you know I oh ; how I ah, shucks, you understand, I reckon " "Don't be thanking me," Dave reddened uncomfort- ably. Of all things in the world, he most dreaded a scene. "We've done pretty well, to-night, all of us, and I reckon we'll be able to hold out, too. Do you think Flash and Dougherty'11'come here when they guess the gold's still at the inn and this fellow of theirs doesn't show up? They'll begin to suspect something pretty soon." THE LOST TRAIL; 209 At a sign from Jim, Dave bit his lip. He had forgotten all about the outlaw in the chair. To cover up, he talked on hurriedly, taking care to make no further mention of the treasure. It was not lost upon the boy, however, that the man had heard. Uneasily he realized that he had be- trayed his own identity. Up to this, Torley had never connected Dave or Bob, either, with the lads he had seen on Castle Rock. Now it seemed as though he must be sure of it. It was after two in the morning, when the landlord re- turned to the kitchen. He had decided to risk letting the boys get some sleep. He and the hostler could take turns on guard. Indeed, it was high time for relief, as Dave had already nodded off more than once, try as he would to keep awake. Bob was even more exhausted. The shock of his wound had given way to the inevitable reaction with the passing of excitement. He felt sick at his stomach and weak. The landlord carried in his hand a stout file. They had all been so anxious, so fearful of a sudden rushing of the doors, up to this hour, that none of them had spared a moment's thought for the broken irons still tied to the boys' ankles with the strips of blanket. A few moments steady filing forced the rusty anklets apart and the metal bands clinked to the floor. "There! That'll feel a bit more comfortable, won't it?" The man put the file on the mantelpiece and kicked the leg irons toward the hearth. "Now you're ready for a nip of sleep, the pair of you. Curl up yonder in the bar where there're rugs a-plenty. I'll call if trouble comes. In the morning, 'twill be time enough to worry getting 210 SANDY FLASH home. Your folks are sleeping sound right now, think- ing you're biding the night in a farmhouse. Get a good rest while you can." No more urging was required to persuade them to lie down on a pile of buffalo robes that the innkeeper spread for them in the taproom. Before the man had left them, they were fast asleep. The next they knew, the room was full of light from opened shutters and the hall echoed to the babbled tone of voices, high pitched with excite- ment. It was seven o'clock and a clear, cold morning. Not a trace of yesterday's fog was to be seen. The boys soon learned that the innkeeper had taken on the rounds of the lower rooms himself, as it drew toward dawn, sending Jim on horseback to warn as many neighbors as possible and to raise a posse. He had been led to this by the pleas of the injured courier who had recovered consciousness shortly after the capture of Tor- ley. The man had explained to the landlord that it was a question of government funds that were involved. He had said that he and his companion had been warned es- pecially to look out for Sandy Flash and to keep clear of the Valley roads for that very reason, as the outlaw was known to have a hidden stronghold in Cain Township somewheres. Why Sandy Flash and Dougherty had not come to Torley's aid and attacked the lonely inn to win the gold, no one of the tired watchers could understand. It was not like the usual way of the highwaymen. It puzzled the landlord and made him uneasy. He had no way of knowing of the murder of the first courier or of Flash's haste in sending his accomplice back to Castle Rock for the horses. What had occurred was THE LOST TRAIL 211 simple enough. Mordecai Dougherty had hurried off to carry out the orders of his chief. He had gone to the cave for a mislaid strap and there discovered the escape of the boys. Five minutes' frantic galloping saw him with Sandy Flash once more near the Crum Creek ford. The" news he brought served to calm the outlaw's temper. The man had not become the most notorious highwayman of the countryside without learning the value of discretion. None were more reckless, more daring, than he when he saw the scene was set to play it to his gain. But he could also tell when to bow before force of circumstance. In this, lay the secret of his criminal success and long free- dom from capture. The Pratt House would be warned by now, he realized, whatever had happened to Torley there. The boys, too, must already be raising an alarm in the neighborhood on their own score. The escape from the cave at Castle Rock settled it. That meant he had no near-by retreat safe from pursuit. The time had come to leave this end of the county and seek another of his lairs to the west. Disregarding Mordecai entirely, the blackguard left the dead courier without so much as a glance and can- tered through the ravine. There was no use now in con- cealing his mount's footprints. The boys would be sure to lead the chase to Castle Rock whatever care he used. At the cave, Flash snatched his few belongings together, crammed them into a saddle bag, rolled up his blanket and crawled out once more to rejoin Dougherty below. Then, leading the spare horse, he and the other galloped west on the Strasburg Road toward Edgemont. He had the boys' guns strapped securely to his own saddle. At 212 SANDY FLASH the crossways by the Providence lane, they parted, Dougherty turning south, bent upon regaining the town by roundabout ways and by-paths, Flash riding speedily north toward White Horse Hill. He, too, soon left the traveled road and took to the fields. Before doing so, however, he turned loose the led horse and sent it gallop- ing still further northward. When the pursuers had come upon the trail, they would find two horses headed toward the Valley. That might give them a wrong start, anyway. As to Sandy Flash, he would be safe on his way to Newlin or Marlborough in the west long before the sun was up. If pushed by ill chance, he could go on as far as London- derry, where no one would dream of running him down. This was all unknown to the keeper of the Pratt House tavern, of course, so the man did what he could and called in the neighbors. It was their voices which had aroused Dave and Bob in the morning. There were many plans of what should be done first, but the innkeeper wisely put an end to vain jangling by taking command himself. He assigned to the courier the task of guarding the gold where it was until he should come back. Par- ticularly, he forbade mention of its hiding place being made to any one. Then he saw that they all had a snatch of breakfast and a piping hot dish of tea. This was to be a hunt from dawn to dark and he wanted no one fall- ing out before they had run their quarry to a kill. Last of all, he borrowed mounts for Dave and Bob. He looked dubiously at the latter's shoulder. The wound was swollen and angry, for all its being but a flesh scratch. "Lad, that's bad, powerful bad. You'd better have it done up properly before the poison gets hold of it. Your THE LOST TRAIL 213 father knows well how to fix it. It's no shape for riding all day and that's what we're like to do." "I'll have it done up right, soon as ever I get me home," Bob answered. "Dave and I've got to go along with you far as the cave, you know, or you'd never find the way in. Then we'll go on to the Rose Tree with the word of what happened. Father'll come out and Hugh Thomas. Lots of 'em. They can ride fast and catch up with the rest of you. I'm all right!" The boy was game. Soon the cavalcade was ready to start. There were over a dozen men in the posse from near-by farms, all armed with guns or pistols. They felt that they were too late to do any good, but it seemed the only course left open. The innkeeper explained that it was after mid- night when the attack had occurred and that it would have been foolhardy to try and get word to them any sooner than he had. He had need of all his little force to guard the doors and windows, with a prospect of the rush on the tavern taking place at any moment. Knowing Sandy Flash, the men agreed with him. The boys led the way with the warlike innkeeper along- side, as they turned from the inn. At the end of Brook's Wood, where the Goshen Road dips to Echo Valley on the right, they could see plainly how the other horseman had sunk the hill, galloping hard. Five minutes after- wards their worst anxieties were confirmed by sight of the looted body lying stark and cold, face upward in the ditch. It was close by the thicket at Crum Creek ford where the Boot Road runs in from the southeast. They covered the murdered patriot with a horse cloth and hur- 214 SANDY FLASH ried southerly through the ravine. The boys pointed ex- citedly to fresh hoofprints, as they went. A tight-lipped, silent group of men surrounded the cave on Castle Rock, working in upon it like skirmishers under the guidance of Dave and Bob. The tavern keeper was the first to enter the cavern itself. He claimed it as his due, being an old soldier, trained to danger. The place was cold and deserted. The only signs they found to tell of the recent occupancy were ashes on the hearthstone and a lost spur by the entrance. Flash had dropped it as he hurried out. The landlord tossed it angrily aside amid the rubbish. The posse had soon remounted on the run and picked up the tracks again in the lane below. They followed them with little trouble to the Providence Road and saw the parting there. So far all was clear as a printed page. The men split without loss of time, one group galloping north toward White Horse, the other south toward Blue Hill and Rose Tree corner. The boys were with the lat- ter. It was the next day before they heard of the failure of the north-bound riders. Of the two trails in that direc- tion, one lost itself in a clever loop by a shallow stream. The dead courier's horse ended the other in a White Horse barn whither it had wandered in search of warmth. With the boys' party, there was luck as bad. They fol- lowed Dougherty's tracks readily enough for a mile or so, then missed them in a field where the snow had blown clear. Though they picked up the line further on, the hoofprints soon merged with others in the churned slush of a traveled road. It was quite useless to waste more time over them and the disheartened posse broke up. THE LOST TRAIL 215 Dougherty might well be in Bethel or Lower Chichester by now, for all they could tell. After all, the gold was safe and that was the main thing. The boys were largely responsible for it, too. Their escape from the cave and warning of Flash in the countryside had undoubtedly spared the tavern from attack. Dave and Bob pulled out when the posse halted, and gave their reins to a man who kindly offered to lead their mounts back to the Pratt House for them. They were already within easy walking distance of home and eager to reach there as soon as they could to reassure their par- ents. The lads thanked the man and cut away across the fields. Each was too worn with the events of the last day and night to appreciate just what they had been through, yet under all their exhaustion, was a feeling that they had played the game about as well as the next. Bob spoke first, as he eased the bandage on his shoulder. "I say, that stag hunt didn't fetch much venison for us, Dave, did it? But it sure gave us a taste of most everything else! Seems as though we'd been fighting bat- tles fur a week and had an Indian massacre in the bar- gain! And only a scratched arm to show for it!" He laughed a little ruefully. "Flash and the rest are far away as Christmas pudding now, but the poor soldier back there is lying dead by the ford with a " "Yes, but we did do some good, Bob. Don't forget the gold. They'd have it with 'em now, sure as shooting, if we hadn't warned 'em at the Pratt!" "Warned 'em! We got there when the damage was done, I'd say!" Bob recalled their desperate efforts to climb the Newtown Hill in time. "Two minutes sooner 2i6 SANDY FLASH and we might have saved the man's life. Oh, well, the gold's all right. That is something, after all, I suppose. And they've gotten that rascal Torley where they want him. Gotten him good and tight! Reckon they'll hang him, too. We were lucky, right lucky to save our skins!" It was true, they were lucky indeed. CHAPTER XI SIGNAL HILL A TALE it was, the lads had to tell their parents an hour later, when they reached their respective homes. Dave came to his farm by the Rose Tree first and asked his companion to bide for dinner, but Bob shook his head and plodded on across fields to Sycamore Mills. The older boy was weary enough to rest a while, but he knew that his mother would be anxious. Perhaps already some rumor of the night's excitement might have reached her. He kept on and came to his own home as soon as he could. The boys were exhausted, more than they had ever been in their lives, but a hearty meal and a good night's rest did wonders to refresh them. They had passed through an ordeal with Sandy Flash that might well have shaken the nerve of any one, but they appeared little the worse for it. After all, their outdoor life, their constant exercise in work about the farms, their clean, wholesome way of looking at things, these had done much to harden their powers of resistance and recovery. Bob's arm gave trouble for a day or two, paining him mostly at night, as he lay in bed, then under his mother's skilful nursing, it healed rapidly and with no infection. The woman knew the value of cleanliness in dealing with such hurts and every bit of bandage that she put upon it was made of the whitest lint, boiled and reboiled before use. Her care in this little detail probably saved her son 217 218 SANDY FLASH a good deal more suffering and risk of danger than he realized at the time. It was only later on, when he had had more experience with such things that he came to un- derstand the unspeakable ravages that often followed im- proper treatment. Bob Allyn, like other boys of his time, picked up a lot of useful knowledge this way from the practical application of it in every day affairs. He did not always know the why of things, any more than did his elders, but he did know that certain things worked out for the best, while others did not. The day after the murder of the courier and the escape of Sandy Flash, the entire countryside was combed as it had never been before in an effort to come upon some trace of the outlaw or his accomplice. Men rode the lanes and the woodland rides from Middletown to Con- cord in search of hoofprints; they gathered at every cross- road and tavern, vainly hoping some favorable hint or clue might appear. Springfield, Aston, even distant Thornbury and Haverford joined in. But nothing came of it. A troop of Light Horse galloped over from Signal Hill in Easttown to help in the search. It was under the command of Harry Lee, the clever cavalryman from Vir- ginia who had already given Colonel Tarleton many a sharp brush for his pains in trying to corner him. The boys took the coming of the troopers with delight and did all that they could think of to show them the hidden by- paths, but it did no good. As he rode off toward the north, Lee called back his thanks, urging the lads to slip over some day to his station on the high ground beyond Old St. David's, if they cared to see what an army out- post looked like. They promised eagerly to do so. SIGNAL HILL 219 By the end of the week, the good folk of Edgemont and upper Providence had given up hope of ever apprehend- ing the lawbreakers. Calm returned to the countryside. The story of the gold leaked out shortly afterwards and that caused another stir, but meanwhile it had been spir- ited away in safety by the troopers. Report of its ar- rival near Head of Elk, far south by the Maryland bor- der, came to the landlord at the Square about a week later and he in turn passed the good word on to Dave and Bob, Of Sandy Flash, not the least vestige was found. He had simply vanished from the county. Moses Doan, the town accomplice, fled to the neighborhood of Bucks, where he contrived to shake off his pursuers and disappear. Mor- decai Dougherty went with him, or at least this was gen- erally so rumored. The boys, content that the trouble had passed, so far as they were concerned, turned again to their trapping with more zeal than ever. Wisely they de- cided that it was the most important bit of work they could do in spare time while winter lasted and pelts stayed prime. They now followed it with system, extending their line of sets beyond Hunting Hill, far up Ridley, almost to the forks at Goshen Meeting. The possibility of encountering the outlaws again did not cast a moment's shadow over the lads' minds. It was as well for them that the circumstances attending their final meeting lay hidden in the future, unknown, unfeared. Meanwhile, the trapping held them, fascinated them, as luck came each day and the year drew on toward its close. The winter snows helped them considerably, piling deep in the valleys. Farm chores were not forgotten or allowed to suffer, for all the time they gave to the woods. Each 220 SANDY FLASH knew that he was a part of the home team and did his share accordingly in pulling the load. Had it not been for their lost flintlocks, they might have forgotten Flash altogether. One cold day in January saw the two of them riding northward on the Providence Road, bound for Lee's out- post at Signal Hill in Easttown. It was a good morning's jaunt away, but they had started early and hoped to look over a few of their traps as they passed by. The winter had come on in earnest now and the bitter weather was giving them some of the best primed skins of the year. Good luck had been with them and many a sleek warm pelt they had carried home in triumph since their first at- tempt with the coon traps back in December. To-day, a great roll of these skins had been strapped securely to the cantles of their saddles. They were the reward of two months' toil fur mittens, fur caps with heavy ear tabs, fur mufflers, snug and soft all made up into shape from the pelts Dave and Bob had carried home. Mistress Thomas and Bob Allyn's mother had worked on them to- gether, taking turns in coming over to each other's house of an afternoon, when they had the chance. Now the furs were ready to be worn by the soldiers who stood so bit- terly in need of them. Light-Horse Harry Lee's com- mand was the first to receive any. "I say, Dave, this looks a bit more like being of use, doesn't it? I'll bet they'll be glad to get 'em! It's been the finest kind of fun trapping 'em, too. We've both had" "They surely will be glad. It's a terrible sight across SIGNAL HILL 221 the Valley where the main lot of the troops are. They've got a camp there on that big hill near the Mountjoy Forge. Father went over last week. He says it's about all they have got! No shoes, lots of 'em! Hardly any food! Not much of anything, 'cept some log huts. It's cold enough here in Providence with all the clothes we need, but over there on those bare hills whee!" "Yes, it's awful for 'em. With the people like Flash making it all the worse, that's what makes me the most mad. I wish they'd gotten him, when he was here in our country! Oh, well, we're doing what we can to help. It's a fine lot of furs we've trapped for 'em here, even if they are rough and readymade. And we'll have plenty more by the time the winter's out, never fear. Seems to me we've done about as good this year as any one. And it's only " "It's still January," Dave finished the sentence for him. "Lucky we've been and lucky we'll be." "Yes, that's just how I feel about it. There's skunk and coon and Bob began to check off the list of game on his fingers, but Dave again broke in. "And muskrats. Don't forget all of them we've caught! And the rabbits, that makes four kinds. Then there's the minks and the weasels. Plenty of weasels, when we didn't want 'em." He whistled a bar of "Pop! Goes the Weasel." "It's a real year for us! You're right, Dave. Most everything we tried for 'cept beaver and the big otter. He's haunted!" "Thought you were sure to catch him with a scheme of 222 SANDY FLASH your own?" Dave grinned slyly. "That otter! Haven't heard so much about it lately. Salt for his tail give out or what?" "Haven't tried that yet, Dave! Saving it up for the last. The winter's not over, you know. Don't begin crowing too soon. As it is, I've gotten most as many pelts as you. And I found the beaver dam, first, at that! " Bob could not keep the triumph from his voice as he recalled the discovery of the pool in Crum the afternoon they had been captured by Sandy Flash and Dougherty. "I saw that pond first, mind, and I put the first set in it, too!" "Yes, you did. But you never got a beaver!" Dave laughed. "You weren't even sure that beaver were there till we went back together that other day and I showed you the four-toed tracks they'd gone and made in the mud. You'd have put it down as muskrats, I'll bet. Tessup!" "We'll get one of 'em yet, never you worry. The main thing was to find the pool. And I knew perfectly well that beaver 'd made it. I saw where they'd crawled up and gnawed the birches and the popple." Bob was big and good natured enough to let the younger boy carry on the fun at his expense, but he knew the beaver find was his credit, none the less. "Maybe you did. I was only joking. Reckon we'll get all we want if we set traps there long enough, but the big otter's the main thing. You were so cock sure of get- ting it that I thought you really had a plan all ready to try. Something new! I'd rather get that same old otter than most anything else in the county!" "So would I, Dave. And I'm not through going for SIGNAL HILL 223 him, either," Bob stopped speaking with a cough. It did not ring quite true, but Dave gave scant heed. "What do you aim to try this time?" Young Thomas glanced at his companion, eager to hear more, but Bob had no intention of giving away his scheme. "See there?" Allyn suddenly drew rein and pointed to an ancient apple tree by the wayside. Its gnarled and slanting trunk bore witness to the storms it had weathered in winters past. "I say, Dave, did you ever happen to hear how this old road through Upper and Nether Provi- dence came to be planted with those apple trees every mile, all the way from Edgemont down to Chester. That's one of 'em there. Bet you never heard how, for all the old-time things you're full of!" "Never did, Bob. Always thought they just naturally sort of grew here. Didn't they?" "Give me an orchard like 'em, if they did. No, sireel Not those pippins. There was a surveyor named Henry Hollingsworth, way back in 1687, nearly a hundred years ago. And he put all these trees out when he made the Providence Road, every one of 'em. Father told me once that when he was a boy, they were most all of 'em stand- ing. Hollingsworth told his friends in England that he'd planted an orchard in the Province over nine miles long!" Bob Allyn saw that he had led his comrade success- fully away from thoughts of the otter. As a matter of fact, Dave had guessed aright. The big lad was working even now on a new plan of his own to take the lord of the pool in face of every discouragement that had come to his efforts hitherto. So it was that he took no great relish in being made the butt of the other's jesting. Neither did 224 SANDY FLASH he care to have Dave inquire too deeply as to the manner in which he proposed to go about trapping it. He wanted to try out his plan first, then surprise his chum. Young Allyn was a good deal better woodsman of late than he had let the other suspect. He had the knack and the training to remember odds and ends that came to him day by day. "I guess he had one that long if he set out all these trees himself! Nine miles! Crickets!" Dave laughed. "Whoa, there, Bob! Wait a second! We're past Blue Hill and I most forgot the traps down this end of Ridley. We'd best" "Think we've time to look 'em over? It's quite a way from here to Signal Hill, 'you know. We've come slow. Still I reckon we can do it. It's early. Lead the horses round to meet me on the other road, will you, and I'll jog through the woods on foot. In a jiffy, too! Keep 'em out of the wind, if you have to wait. Mind they don't chill!" Bob slid from the saddle, as his friend drew in. Then he tossed his reins to Dave and unfastened a gun from the side of the pummel where he had made an ingenious boot to hold it. The piece was an old, though serviceable, weapon of his father's. "Reckon I won't find much. It's getting on in winter now, and they're foxy as can be down this end of the stream where we've trapped so regular, right along. Take the horses easy, and you won't have to wait long. I'll hurry. Thanks!" Bob climbed over the wayside wall and jogged down SIGNAL HILL 225 the slope toward Hunting Hill. He was fit now as ever in his life and the pace he set scarcely winded him. His guess as to luck proved near to the mark. A muskrat and a skunk were all the sets had to offer by way of game. One trap did hold a weasel, but the animal's skin had been so badly torn as to be worthless. The skunk was not large, though vicious to a degree, and Bob paid the pen- alty of haste. He could easily have shot the animal dead without half aiming, but between disappointment at the small catch and his eagerness to get forward to rejoin his companion further up stream, he only succeeded in wounding it. Before the second slug put an end to its fighting, he had gotten an ample dose of scent on his leg- gins. The big boy grinned sheepishly to himself. He had given way to temper and he knew it. That would mean another joke for Dave. Shouldering the flintlock, he trudged toward the road with a wry face. As he hurried on, alert for any sign of tracks, he noted the depth of ice by the shore. It was a wonder that he had found anything in the land sets during such a biting spell of weather. The wild life of the wood were wont to take refuge from such a frost deep in their holes and dens, until hunger itself drove them out in search of ra- tions. Bob snuggled his muffler, high about his ears, and hastened along. Dave would be getting restless the next thing, having to hold the horses this long. Besides, there was always the risk of cold for them. Bob Allyn was a horseman before all else, and he never fully forgot it, even when deep in the lure of his traps. However, he need not have worried, for when he did 226 SANDY FLASH come out on the Strasburg Road, he found Dave waiting for him in the shelter of a cedar grove. The lad waved a welcome and asked of their luck. "Not much to boast of, Dave, and that's about the best I can say for it. A skunk that's mighty small and a musk- rat. Oh, and I forgot, there was a weasel, too, but it was all chawed up. I left it back there by the creek. No good." "Where're the others?" Dave led the horses out into the road preparatory to mounting. "Got 'em?" "Yes, here," Bob Allyn held up the trophies. "See, the rat isn't half bad. Make a nice bit of pelt at that. What do you say if we skin 'em right now and take 'em over to Signal Hill with the ones we've already made up?" He reached for the long knife that hung from his belt in a leather sheath. Dave, glancing at the sun, saw that it was still quite early in the morning and that there would be ample time to reach Lee's men by noon. He turned the horses back to the shelter of the cedars and tethered them there. Then he crossed the road to help his friend. Both boys had had so much practice at the job that a few moments sufficed to peel the skins from the muskrat and the skunk. Throwing the offal over the fence, they tied the new hides to the other furs, then swung to saddle. Cheerily urging the horses to a trot, they moved swiftly off toward New- town Square and the road north. The going was splendid. Just a nice coating of snow, dry so that it did not ball up in the horses' feet. Turn- ing to the right at Paper Mill Lane, they left the New- town Road arid dropped to Darby Creek close by the SIGNAL HILL 227 Township of Radnor. Here they came into an ancient highway laid out in the days of the Penns. A level stretch of it, the Darby Road, ran westward through the woods and fields of Happy Creek. The temptation was too great for the boys to resist. With a shout of challenge, Bob clipped heels to his horse's sides and plunged ahead, just as they passed the Church of Old St. David's. Dave was behind him like a flash, eager to share in the race that lay before them. The heavy bundles were forgotten as was the long ride they had come that morning, but the mounts they bestrode had taken it easy and so entered into the sport of the gallop with quite as much flash as the boys in the saddles. Perhaps three-quarters of a mile they went at speed, the keen wind whipping their cheeks to scarlet before the road began to swing to the right and dropped sharply downward. That would have ended the race, for a little ford lay at the foot of the slope, but Dave's bundle of furs broke loose from its fastenings before they reached water. Panting and laughing, he pulled up, while Bob, with the hands of the born horseman, lightly eased his own mount from gallop to canter and canter to trot. Then gently playing the reins, as the animal reached at the bits, he came to a halt. The furs luckily had not scattered, so a few moments were enough to replace them on the cantle. The boys rode on more leisurely, breathing their horses as they started up the gentle slope of Signal Hill. "The first mile out and the last mile in, you know, Dave," said Bob, patting his mount's sleek neck. "That's a great rule for keeping horses fit. If you begin with 'em easy when they're cold from the stable, they'll carry 228 SANDY FLASH you far. Then when you're coming back again it's just as much to remember. Never bring a horse to stall hot or winded if you can help it. We don't over at our place and that's why we can sell 'em so well to the folks who want light ones for riding. Ours are fit as fiddles from the time they're foaled. It's only a few little things like that which keeps 'em so. Look, yonder's the house where Lee said he was stationed. I thought there'd be a fort or something round the top of the hill! There's not a thing!" Bob's voice was full of disappointment. "They've gone away and left the place. Else we'd see a flag. They'd surely fly one, wouldn't they? That's it. They're left. The ride's all for nothing." Dave scanned the hill before them, but no sign of military bivouac such as they had imagined was to be seen. "We might push on across Tredyffrin," he continued, "and give the fur things to the soldiers at Valley Forge. I know the way all right. There's a little lane that runs straight across from here. We could make it in time. I once went there with father a long time ago and we passed right by here some- wheres." However, the lads could have saved themselves any bother as to the need for a longer ride. The farmhouse on Signal Hill was still the outpost of Light-Horse Harry in spite of its peaceful, unfortified appearance. As they rode closer, a guard challenged from a little hut or shelter of boughs craftily hidden in the side of the road. There was considerable confusion on the part of Dave and Bob when they realized that they had been under ob- servance for the last mile or more. The boys were ques- tioned, but evidently they were known by their errand, SIGNAL HILL 229 for the sentry soon passed them along toward the house where Lee himself welcomed them. Then it was that they received the surprise of their life, news that made them bitter at the thought of what they had missed by so nar- row a margin. Only two or three days before a fight had occurred about that same old building a skirmish that promised fair to develop into a pitched battle before it had ended. Lee chuckled as he led the boys about the rooms inside and pointed out to them his system of defense, his barri- caded doors and loop-holed windows, his look-out high in the roof. The officer modestly turned the whole thing off as more or less of a joke, but even the untrained boys quickly realized the gallantry and the courage that had directed the fighting. Colonel Tarleton, it appeared, with some two hundred hostile dragoons had slipped up close to Signal Hill early in the morning. He was bent primarily upon foraging and plundering the countryside of Easttown and Radnor, but getting word of the outpost on the high ground, and see- ing at once its strategic importance with regard to the main body of the army at Valley Forge, he had determined to rush the place, off hand, and take it by surprise or storm. A Tory had told him that Lee was there with a mere handful of men, some fourteen troopers of the Light Horse. As a matter of fact, only eight were available that morning. The Virginian's position was simply a link in the line of outguards and signal posts that were swung in a great circle round to Gulph Mills and the river be- yond Rebel Hill. There was no intention of making the place into a holding position. Tarleton had misjudged his 230 SANDY FLASH man, however, for when his cavalry had broken from the shelter of the forest and charged up the slope to the house, they were met with a volley of shots that told of prepara- tion inside. All that January day the fight had gone on, the odds of the thing almost beyond belief. Two hundred well-armed cavalrymen outside against eight men inside. It was not as though the dragoons had to attack entirely in the open either, for the slope of the hill was covered here and there with clumps of trees and bushes that would have afforded the best of cover to the men, had they the least idea of how to avail themselves of it. Again and again the sol- diers under Tarleton had tried to rush the house, to set flame to the stable, to concentrate a killing fire on the shutters of the windows, but their bright uniforms made them too good a mark for comfort. Lee had his Vir- ginians placed well; they all knew how to shoot. Late in the afternoon, as dusk crept up from the misty pool in the meadow below, things began to look bad for the de- fenders. Powder ran low. Just in time, relief had come. "Yes, I thought they'd gotten us then, for sure," laughed Lee, as he helped Dave undo one of the bundles so that he could examine the fur caps and mufflers his men needed so badly. "It was half dark outside and we couldn't see 'em well as they crept up. The funny part of it all was that they waited till the day was over before they really began to attack like they should have done in the very first place." "How?" said Bob. "How ought they to have fought?" He ripped apart the second bundle. "Under cover?" SIGNAL HILL 231 "Why, yes, naturally! They could have crept up close and picked off the whole eight of us in half an hour, if they'd used any sense about it. The trouble is when Tarleton and his like begin to fight, they're brave as lions and they fight fairly enough, but their poor muddled heads are too full of what the drill masters say. It all must be done just so. Or it's wrong. This time it was wrong for 'em, all right, as reinforcements reached us from the army in time. Colonel Stevens came with 'em all the way from the Forge near Mount Misery or what- ever they call it. Heard the firing, they say." "To think that we missed it by a couple of days!" Bob grinned, but his heart was sore. The boy was begin- ning to feel that he was quite big enough to have some share in the fighting, if it came as close to home as this. Lee, however, soon set the boys at rest in their minds. The furs they had brought were the very things he needed most. That and rations. It was bitter work keeping the signal station in touch with other outposts at all hours during the frosts and snows of midwinter and the troopers with him were scantily clad, even the best of them. The officer spared no pains to make the lads realize that their work was not only appreciated, but a very necessity un- der the existing want. He went so far as to call in the men who could be spared from outpost duty so that the boys could distribute the caps and mufflers themselves. A meal, chiefly noteworthy for its scantiness, brought home to the trappers a realization of the privations com- mon to army life in the field. "War is only nice in the story books and in the tales of those who've forgotten what it's really like," said one of 232 SANDY FLASH the sergeants, noting the expression of wonder on Dave's face. "It's a hard, grinding job at best, war is, but it's seldom full of the glory we look to see. It's mostly hun- ger and cold and wet, that and the filth of it all, which is the worst. But when it comes, why, there's nothing for it but to turn to with a grin and make the best of it, I reckon. Each in his own part. You lads can do more than half a battery of guns, if you just keep on getting pelts to keep the cold from us, the way you've been do- ing. And maybe a slab of fresh meat, if you've luck with that buck you spoke of. That'd be a feast!" The hint put new determination in the boys. Shortly after the midday meal, they said good-by to the troopers and rode off for home. A long time they were silent. They had too many things to think about for much con- versation. Hitherto, the war had passed by them wholly, except for the occasional raids of freebooters like Sandy Flash and Doan. Their families had not suffered much; there was no tea, sugar was hard to get hold of, that was about all. Rumor of battle and skirmish had come to them in Providence from time to time, but not the breath of war itself, not the sight of shivering men, almost bare- footed in the snow, not the wounded as they had seen one poor fellow in the outpost with a bullet through his cheek. The fight at Signal Hill, small and of no especial impor- tance as it was, served to drive home the fact that cour- age was not necessarily a part of great engagements. The tide of the Revolution never came nearer to them or to their quiet farms than it did that cold January day when Tarleton had led his charging cavalry to the attack on SIGNAL HILL 233 Signal Hill, yet as long as they lived the boys were the better for their knowledge of that fight. In a way they could not understand, they sensed the unconquerable spirit of the thing. They began to see what men meant by that which they called their country. "I say, Dave," Bob Allyn spoke at last, as they crossed the Darby Creek and settled to the climb on the other side. "When I get home I'm going to tell father all I saw and ask if we can't put in some more time in the woods. A little more, anyway. There are deer about and think what it would mean to those fellows back yonder if only we could get the stag we saw at Hunting Hill ! Why, it'd be meat enough to feed 'em for a month! Fresh venison 'stead of moldy pork and rotting hominy!" "I was just thinking the same thing. I know my father'll let me do it, too." Dave clicked at his horse. The beast was beginning to lag a bit, tired by the work of the day. "Never click your tongue like that to a horse, Davey, when you're riding with anybody. It makes the other person's horse start on and some time or other it'll cause trouble if one horse happens to be a bit frisky. All right when you're driving in a wagon, maybe, but no good man with a horse ever does it under the saddle." Again the boys rode onward for a time in silence. They could not keep their minds from the lonely outguards they had left at Signal Hill. Suddenly Bob glanced at his chum, then spoke sharply: "Tell me, Dave, I just thought of something, did that sergeant tell you about the way the attack first came up the hill? I mean how Tarleton got his men close about 234 SANDY FLASH the foot of the place under shelter of the trees? You were with me when he began to talk about it, after we'd something to eat, then you went out with Lee to get that other cap with the big ear pieces that he thought would fit him. Did you hear the rest of it?" "Not another word, but I reckon I heard all there was to tell. He said that the redcoats got into the woods from the east, across the Darby road, coming there by a little path from near Old St. David's. And that another lot of 'em came more from the south, as if they'd followed the lane that runs north like from Saw Mill Wood and what they call the Round Top. I heard all that before I went out. Wasn't that all he told you?" "I say ! I never knew you didn't know ! " Bob whistled in pure amazement. "I was sure he'd told you " "Told me what?" cried Dave, beside himself with im- patience. "For pity's sake, tell me and have done with it!" "Told you who led the dragoons to Signal Hill!" Bob spoke seriously enough for all the other's haste. "The Tory who gave away the secret of the post and the few troopers they'd left in the house! They saw him m the fight. Sandy Flash!" "Sandy Flash!" For once Dave was taken aback be- yond the power of his control to hide. "That means he's" "It means he's close about us at his sneaking deviltry again! It means I'm mighty glad I've got a gun !" Bob tapped the boot that held the flintlock to his saddle. CHAPTER XII THE MASK THE rest of the ride back to Upper Providence, how- ever, proved to be as peaceful as either boy could have desired. The roads were deserted for the most part and what few people they did meet with were farmers bent upon reaching home before dark. At the Pratt House inn by Newtown Square, Dave and Bob stopped to rest their horses with a sup of water and a bit of hay, while they themselves went indoors to warm their stiffening fingers at the fire. Dave half shuddered as he recalled the night of alarm they had spent there only a few weeks before. While he was looking at the bullet rip in the kitchen door, Bob explained to the host the news he had heard of Sandy Flash's reappearance and the part the outlaw had played in the skirmish at Signal Hill. The man laughed in great glee when he learned of the gallant manner in which Light-Horse Harry had repelled the at- tack and held the station against such odds. "That's the sort of man we need!" cried he, slapping his leg in enthusiasm till the dust rose from the coarse homespun of his knee breeches. "Eh, lads, the war will soon be over at this rate. If eight men and an old farm- house can hold off such a crowd of well-drilled troopers all the day, what would Friend Lee have done if he'd all his Legion with him! Tarleton would have run hot- 235 236 SANDY FLASH foot nigh to Tinicum Island. So it 'pears to me, he would, 'stead of trying to take the hill in Easttown ! " Neither the boys nor the landlord really worried very much about Flash. Wherever he might be, it was clear that he proposed to keep under cover since no one in the neighborhood of the Square had gotten word of his return. Warmed by the hearth glow and a fine dish of sassafras tea, Dave and Bob thanked the kindly natured man and his wife. Then they remounted and rode the rest of the way toward Rose Tree. The day was far spent by the time they parted at Blue Hill lane, but the remembrance of the joy their pelts had brought to the ill-clad soldiers at Signal Hill left a warm little flame of satisfaction in their hearts. They knew beyond all gainsaying that they had been of use. And that was much to them. They had proved to their own good conscience that their days of trapping and hunting were far from mere idle hours of pleasure, keen as had been their enjoyment of the sport. Dave waved his arm and passed round the bend into the woodland spinney that lay between him and home. The setting sun had lengthened the shadows of the chest- nuts to gigantic proportions. The snow curled crisp and smooth as cream along the fencerows. There was no wind. The peace of the evening had slipped upon the countryside with the coming of twilight. The boy, under the spell of it, drew a deep breath, tasting the cold, sweet air that felt so sharply pleasant to his lungs. It fairly made him tingle with the burning life of it, the amazing energy of all outdoors. Again he straight- ened in the saddle and breathed full, before he settled THE MASK 237 once more to the stirrups with a little shake of comfort. It was fine to be alive, to feel so keen and strong and fit, every muscle and fiber of his body in tune to the glory of the passing day. Dave was right in his guess about the permission when he asked his father a little later on that he and Bob be given more time to try for the deer. Hugh Thomas had not been himself all the way to Valley Forge across the Radnor Hills without seeing the crying need for every bit of help that could be given. A load of fresh venison would do much to relieve the hunger of one out- post anyway. "Take the next day you want, son. I'll lend my gun. See Bob Allyn and let me know when you plan to go. It's all I want to know. Only don't be getting caught up again by Sandy Flash. He'd brand you right this time. It might go lots worse with you!" The farmer laughed, as he recalled the story of the boys' escape and their desperate haste through the woodlands to New- town Hill with the broken leg irons still fast about their shins. He knew the danger they had been in, probably a good deal better than the boys themselves, but Hugh Thomas was never the man to draw a long face at trouble passed and done with. Dave took his father at his word and rode down to see Bob the very next evening after milking chores were over. The boys soon agreed upon a day. The earlier the better, it seemed to them, so Thursday morning of that week was chosen. They asked big John Allyn if it would be all right so far as his need of Bob was concerned and found to their great relief that it would. 238 SANDY FLASH That gave them two days leeway to get ready and to do a few extra chores by way of making up for the time to be lost. All their preparations were in vain, however, for the long walk on Thursday, from gray dawn until sunset light, showed them not so much as a slot of the stag they longed to win. One small doe was viewed, off on the highlands of Radnor Barrens, but far too distant for a shot even had they cared to try for it. Discouraged, they trudged homeward, feeling that they had lost their last chance for the worth-while prize the day they had cornered it so neatly in the cedar thicket of Crum. A gleam of hope came to them from the vague report of a blacksmith who had heard of the stag being seen and recognized the week before. However, this was far away in distant Fallowfi eld and uncertain hearsay at best. The boys could not bring themselves to put much reliance in it. Nor did they feel it worth their while to follow such a weak clue so far to the westward across the Brandywines. As sometimes happens, clouds break just when they seem the darkest and so it was in the case of the deer of Hunting Hill. The young trappers got him. In truth, they were as much surprised at it as were their parents. If the real facts be told, their luck was luck alone and not in the least a result of woodcraft or patience. "I say, Dave, this ought to have come from sticking at it," Bob laughingly called to his chum, as they were skinning the carcass. "But it didn't. If we'd gotten it as we should, it would be just like two boys in a fairy tale. They always overcome all odds and win in the THE MASK 239 end, you know. But we why, we just blundered into it and couldn't miss! Reckon that's what mostly happens in real life, don't you expect?" It was the truth. The two lads had left their homes quite late one morning to see to the trap line. They had given up all chances at the stag in disgust as not worth the time spent upon it, although Dave had taken his father's gun along for luck. Ever since that day when they had lost their first great opportunity, he had never failed to carry a weapon. It paid to be prepared as events turned out. The boys had parted below the ford of Ridley, one going straight upstream, the other leading the horses round as usual to the MacAfee barn near Edgemont. More often than not, they rode to and from the sets these days to save time. Bob, for he it was who had gone along the brook on foot, was more than halfway through the cover, when a sound of break- ing branches caused him to pause and look sharply ahead. He checked himself to a dead halt the next moment, one foot half raised, as he looked again to make sure. His breath caught in a little gasp of astonishment. Down the side of the stream, not three hundred yards away, raced Dave, making scant noise in the drifts of powdery snow, except as his feet broke through and snapped a fallen branch beneath. The younger boy stopped when he caught sight of Bob, in the glade, then he tossed up his hand and motioned frantically. Before the sound of his voice could carry through the wood, young Allyn had one wild moment of panic. Was it Sandy Flash! But his companion's shout rang in a posi- tive scream of triumph to reassure him. 240 SANDY FLASH "The buck! I've gotten the buck! Hurrah! I've killed it! I tell you, Bob, the stag" Bob Allyn dropped his trap chains, breaking into a run, for his chum was quite beside himself with excite- ment, leaping about in the snow like a madman, eyes wild with the thrill of his first big deer. "Oh, Bob I I I got him square! It's the very one we saw before, too! Hu-hurry, can't you, and see it! Hurrah!" "Good boy!" Bob slapped his friend a hearty bang of congratulation upon the back as he dashed up to him. "Now we'll have some fresh meat for Lee's men ! Where'd you see it? Are the horses all right?" "Yes! I'd gotten 'em in the stable. Cunningham was there. And I left 'em with him!" The boy was panting from the strain of his luck. "Then I hurried down the road to meet you near the crossing. I I," he stuttered, then forced a grip on his enthusiasm and checked the rush of words. "I spied the buck on the side of the hill up there. It looked as big as a barn! Really!" "Sure it was the same one? The stag we saw in the cedars? Hey, there, Davey, I say! Stop spinning round like a top and tell me!" Bob laughed at the other's way of showing his joy. "Oh, Bob, I've told you so a hundred times alreadyl It's just above there on the road. Come and see for yourself. Whoop-pee!" He leaped in the air for very joy. Bob Allyn was seventeen now and deliberate with countless Scotch generations behind him, but he could hold out no longer against the contagion of the younger THE MASK 241 boy's spirits. He gave way to a surge of enthusiasm that carried him off his feet, as a full realization of their for- tune dawned on him. Dave was trembling with the thrill of it. Together, the boys raced up Ridley water for the road, both yelling like wild Indians. It was all too un- believable to be true ! As they pushed their way through the bushes, Dave panted out further details of his for- tune. He had stalled the horses, as Bob already knew, leav- ing them in the care of their good friend at the MacAfees'. Afterwards, he had been calmly walking down the Stras- burg way to meet Bob at the ford, when to his utter amazement he had viewed the stag. The great deer was a good way above him to the right. Evidently, it had returned to its old haunts near the Rising Sun in Willis- town after wandering far afield for several fortnights. Dave had retained the presence of mind to drop flat in the ditch the instant he caught sight of it just a fraction of time before the graceful creature turned its head. "I just had pure luck! That was all there was to it. Bob! Beginner's luck, I reckon you'd call it. It was a long way too far off to shoot from where I was, but it was side-on to me and looking hard as ever it could across the valley and the brook. I think there must have bee?n a doe or something yonder in the Greenbriers beyond by the Barrens. Maybe in the Pickering Thicket. He was busy watching something over there, anyway, and didn't see me. My! What a target! I peeped out of the corner of my eye at him and then spied a gipsy fence running uphill from the road. It was a good deal nearer him and I knew that if I could reach 242 SANDY FLASH it once and crawl up, I'd stand some hope of a shot! Worth the trying for, anyway. "I just did my best to move like a worm, Bob! I twisted and edged along the ditch in the snow till I got to it. That old fence! And then I squeezed close to where a bar was broken. It got me a good deal nearer the place where the deer was than I'd thought it would. A lot nearer! And the wind was coming strong right from him to me. I pushed the old gun through the panel and rested it on the lower rail where it was smashed. Couldn't ever have gotten him, if I hadn't, that far away. He never knew what hit him! Just reared up and " "Where did the bullet go? The head or the " Bob, human, therefore envious, was hiding his chagrin as best he could. It was a hard pill to swallow, this seeing his younger chum win the prize of the year. "No, not the head. Just back of the shoulder. It knocked him dead as a farthing! Just like that man's horse the highwayman shot, up at the Pratt, the time Flash got away. You know! That's why I aimed there. Very same spot! Look yonder! There he is! See his horns! Beat you to it, Bob, you old slow coach!" Dave darted across the road with Bob Allyn in swift pursuit. Together, they climbed the open field beyond, running hard, saving their breath for the pitch of the hill before them. The lighter boy thought he had the race without an effort, but soon enough he found he had misjudged the other's power of stride. Neck and neck they jockeyed for the lead till Bob broke away and ran the last ten yards a winner. At that, he was not ahead THE MASK 243 by more than a fraction of space. The pair came laugh- ingly to a halt beside the body of the stag. It lay there on the smooth snow, where the sun had melted the deeper drifts from the southern slopes. Truly it was a prize they might feel proud of, even if chance luck had been responsible for putting it in their way. However, both lads recalled that this was not their first meeting with the buck of Hunting Hill nor their first shot at it. The former chase and its stagger- ing end in the cedar thicket was a thing that neither of them would forget as long as he lived. It made this seem a little more like a reward for their perseverance. The animal lay on its side, head thrown back, the great spread of horn resting on the ground. Each antler was crowned with the tines of a full-sized stag. Dave checked them off in silence. Somehow or other, the excitement had gone from the bo}'s, as they stood above the kingly body and studied the great lines of it that spoke so strikingly of speed and drive and power. Never before had they been close to a buck of such proportion. It sobered them, filled them with a kind of reverence for the fleetest creature that moved in all the forests round. "I say, Dave! Look at those horns! See the points, will you! And the spread of it, too. There's a crown for you! It'll make a right fine rack for your room. I mean over the fireplace, home." "I never saw the like in all my life. I can't believe I really got it! 'Deed I can't, Bob! Wait till father sees him!" Dave touched the tip of the great tines. "He seems grayer somehow than he did before, when he was a little way off. Notice it?" The lad felt the 244 SANDY FLASH sleek neck almost fearingly. He was suffering from buck fever, had he only known it, yet recovered spirits soon enough when he remembered the cheer all this fine venison would bring the outpost at Signal Hill. Dave shook off his depression with a laugh as he dropped to his knees beside the carcass. There was plenty of work for him before that same good meat would be of use to the men with Lee. "The gray color in his coat means the middle of winter, I think," hazarded Bob, running his hand against the grain of the hair. "All white-tailed deer get grayish like in cold weather, then in summer turn brown as can be. That's so as to save 'em. Coat sort of makes a match with the trees and the snow, 'cording to what season of the year it happens to be. I've seen that lots with the small deer we used to have down Ridley below our place. Let's get to work with the skinning." "Can't do it very well here. Not half so good as we can at home where we've a rack and a pulley to hoist him up high while we work. The thing they use to cut up the hogs at butchering time, you know." "That might be the best way." Bob eyed the body, trying to estimate its weight, but his experience had been too limited with game of such tremendous size. He soon gave it up. "Surely! We can do it in no time then," urged Dave. "I'm going to get the horses now, and then lead mine back with the buck over the saddle like a poke o' meal going to mill! Whoop! Hurrah! Won't they open their eyes when they spy us coming down the lane! Wait for me here, Bob." THE MASK 245 "You're right! That they will! Father '11 turn a hand- spring, most, he's teased me so about not being a good hunter. I'll come along now for my horse, too. I say, this is different from the time Sandy Flash scared it off the sights of our guns! Remember the cave and that old poker of his? This big buck was what led us there!" "Not likely to forget it, are you? Seems like a sort of dream to me now. Wonder what he'd do, if he got hold of us, Sandy Flash? Or the other fellow! " Bob laughed. Then the lads turned downhill for Edge- mont and the barn of William MacAfee. As they has- tened along, they said little, too thrilled by the thought of their wonderful luck. By the time they had gotten the unwieldy bulk of the stag across Dave's saddle, they were weary enough. Three or even four boys the size of David could never have managed it, but Bob's great height and power of shoulder finally succeeded. The horse was quiet and well accustomed to loads, so that the greatest difficulty was in calming the animal's in- stinctive fear of the dead carcass. Once lifted on, how- ever, and strapped fast to the saddle with the legs tied underneath, the boys lost no time in leading their mounts to the road. They were more than eager to reach home and show the prize to their people. Skinning and cutting up into manageable chunks was harder than they had looked for, but they finished the work at last and carried the meat over to Signal Hill in a great farm sledge a day or two later. A right royal welcome they met with from Lee and his hungry troopers. Even the unfortunate fellow with the wound in his face seemed cheered beyond measure at the sight of the hearty 246 SANDY FLASH meal laid out in the farmhouse kitchen. It was the first that any of them had tasted in many a day where there was enough on the board and to spare for all. During the drive home, Bob brought up the matter of the beaver dam again. "I say, Dave, if we ever hope to get any beaver we'd best go over to the pool there in Crum some of these fine days and really try for one. Ridley's all right, but we've trapped it so much they're shy. Next thing you know it'll be the end of winter and pelts'll begin to go off a bit." "Any time you say, Bob," replied Dave, reaching to tuck the buffalo robe more snugly under his leg. "Warm enough? Sit tight on the rug while I yank it closer. That's it. How about this Saturday for the beaver? Suits me." "Good as any. And we can take a couple of traps along and try different ways. That scheme of your father's seemed to me the best. You once " "What one was that? The set in the runway? You tried it, didn't you, the time " "No, not that one. But the other. You know. Where you take a hatchet along and cut a little hole in the ice, then put the trap down below it. In the water where it's not too deep. I " "Oh, yes! I remember now. That's a pippin of a set! Best of all! Father used to try with that over in the Valley. He got the great Cedar Hollow beaver that way. Told you about it once, didn't I?" "Yes. Well, why not try the same thing here? And then when they see the light coming in at the hole they'll THE MASK 247 swim over to it under the ice and reach up. Whoops! Away goes their hind leg in the set and they're drowned in a jiffy. It's a real clever way of making it, I think. We could have used it long ago if the pool had only been frozen right when we were there. My! But it's cold! Glad we're most back!" As soon as the boys reached home, and broached the matter to their parents, tall John Allyn gave ready con- sent. Indeed, since the killing of the deer, he had been so proud of his son that he would have granted the lad anything he could within reason. Ever a boy at heart, himself, he loved to see other boys making good at what they had set out to do. Especially was he filled with satisfaction when he caught a hint of the determination that had kept his own son so faithfully at trapping. He knew that the lad had been bitterly disappointed when luck gave the younger boy the deer, but he rejoiced to see that this dulled in no way Bob's effort and spirit. As he used to say to him: "Bob, there's too little life in most folks. They don't catch the joy of doing things heartily enough. Not by half, they don't and that's the trouble. Possum souls, I call 'em! Why I'd lots liever lose a good fight with my whole spirit in it than win most all the world with not the sport of trying!" Hugh Thomas, however, did not look at the thing Just as they had expected. The farmer could no longer resist the lure of trying his own hand at the game. Though they were anxious to make the sets themselves, the boys were delighted at having him come along, so keen for the fun he proved to be. The man kept them attentive 248 SANDY FLASH all the long walk over, as he talked of the experiences of his own boyhood days with traps and snares and old- time gun. At the pool, Hugh Thomas showed them how to cut the hole in the ice properly and how to place the set as it ought to be below it. While there, they put two other traps in position. One of these was near the dam, where the beavers had locked the tree trunks as only beaver can. Another was on a log in the spillway below, where the water was not frozen. They agreed to look the pond over the next afternoon, as it was the only day the boys could be spared for some time. Still talking of the olden days, they trudged homeward over the drifted fields, but back of it all in the minds of the three was the thought of the shivering men by Mountjoy Forge in the Valley. That was the driving need for every pelt they could win. After noontide dinner, the next day, true to plans, Dave and Bob set out, bent upon making the most of the short hours of light. "I thought so." Dave feigned disgust, as he looked at the traps. "Only one caught and that is in father's! Reckon he does know a thing or two about it, after all. He'll crow loud over this!" It was true. Hugh Thomas had made the ice set well and a fair pelt was his reward. However, the boys knew the trick of it now and reset all three traps in the same way. Before the winter was over, they, thanks to Hugh's lesson, succeeded in catching almost as many beaver as mink and lesser game, but not all of these were in the Crum Creek pool, of course. They had to THE MASK 249 walk or ride many a weary mile into the deeper wood- lands after them. This afternoon, loaded down with Hugh's catch, they turned south along the brook and followed the same route they had taken so unwillingly the day Flash and Mordecai Dougherty had made them captives. Neither boy knew just why, but as they approached the height of Castle Rock, with its gloomy pile of rocks bulking like a ruined tower upon the summit, a desire to climb again to the cave possessed them. "What do you say, Bob? You willing? Suppose he's there?" Dave shuddered in mock fear. He felt quite sure that the outlaw was not there or anywhere else in the neighborhood. If he had, he would have been the last to suggest running needlessly to danger. "If you want! We've got a gun." Bob Allyn was unarmed, carrying the beaver, but the other boy had Hugh Thomas's flintlock slung across his shoulder by a strap. "We'd better keep our eyes open, though. No sense heading into anything blindfolded!" "Not the least bit," Dave approved heartily of that. "Let's stalk it. Shall we? Just for a lark!" Separating, they began to close in upon the entrance to the cave, working their way from cover to cover, scant as that was beneath the chill of midwinter. Still, it was sport of the best and it gave them good practice as well as thrill. They both had felt from the start their pre- cautions were not really needed and they were right. The cave was as empty as it had been the morning when Flash had fled from it. 250 SANDY FLASH "Here's the old fireplace. Look!" Bob kicked at the ashes with his foot. "And here's the same little rod he was getting into shape for you, Dave. My! But it's dark in here. Got a light?" Dave did not have the needed tinder, flint and steel, so the boys were forced to content themselves with what reflected snow sheen came slanting in through the hole in the roof. It was not enough temptation to dally, so they crawled again to the outer ledge of rock beneath the vines. Since they had been there before, these had lost most of their leaves and now afforded little or no cover. Bob kicked at them with his foot, then pushed over a loose stone from the ledge. Watching it bound down the precipitous slope in front of them, he suddenly touched Dave's arm. "I say, what about going down this way? We can make it easy enough now there's so much snow caught between the rocks. Did you ever know, Dave, that this place up here used to be a great find for buzzards' eggs?" "So somebody said. Oh, yes, Cunningham up at the MacAfees', it was. He was telling me about it the other day when I left the horses in their barn. The very time I got the deer. He came here last summer to look for 'em, Cunningham did, and found a nest they were using." "That's what he said to me," Bob giggled delightedly. "Did he tell you what happened next? It always strikes me so funny I have to laugh! Kind of disgusting, too." "He did! And mad he was about it!" Dave joined in the other's merriment. "Good old Cunny! He saw the nest up among the rocks, and he thought he'd just sneak close to it without much bother from the big THE MASK 251 bald-jowled buzzard that was perched on a dead stick of a tree a bit higher, eyeing him kind of sleepy like. Cunny crawled along all right, then just as he spied two of the finest eggs you ever heard tell of in the nest, and was reaching for 'em, away went all that ugly old critter's craw on top of him. He caught it full and plenty!" "I'd often heard tell they'd do that, turkey buz- zards." Bob still chortled with glee. "But I never knew it for sure. Reckon old Cunningham got about all the egg-gathering he wanted for a while. Must have been a sight!" "So he said. Can't blame him, myself. There's the very place where the nest was. See it up there? By the split rock?" Dave pointed. "Not worth climbing to, though. How about getting on down? It's kind of late. I'll go first." Crawling over the snowy face of the drop was not the easy job they had fancied, but each lad had plenty of training in taking care of himself, so down they got in safety. At the foot, young Thomas rested for a moment on a boulder, while he worked some loose snow from the top of his moccasin. Bob busied himself breaking a yard- long icicle into bits and shying it against the trunk of an oak tree that offered a target tempting his skill. One slim foil of ice caught by some trick of chance in the bark, remaining there as though it were an arrow. "I say! Look yonder, Dave! Who's Robin Hood now? Bet you couldn't do it like that in a hundred years!" He ran forward pointing, but the splinter of ice fell from its place as he neared it. "Oh, too bad!" He bent forward to pick up the dart, but it had sunk 252 SANDY FLASH from view in the drift that lapped the foot of the tree. He dug down after it with his gloved hand, as Dave walked toward him. "Come along, Bob." The younger boy stamped till the moccasin settled comfortably once more to his foot. "It's awfully late. Really, it is. What in the world have you got in your hand? Looks like a " "That's what I wrmt to know myself!" He was hold- ing up a queer piece of blackened leather about six or seven inches long and almost as wide. A string of raw- hide thong dangled from one corner. He had come upon it near the roots of the oak, buried in snow. "Now tell me! What can you make of that!" He slapped the stiffened, moldy leather sharply against his leg to clear it of ice, then suddenly held it at arm's length for the other's inspection. Dave, facing it, saw first what the thing really was. "A mask! Turn it round, Bob, and see!" He reached for it eagerly. "Let's have it a second. The strangest one I ever saw! But that's what it is, all right. Look here!" He raised it to the level of his face and peered through the twin holes at his chum. "Isn't k that?" It was, in all truth, a sort of rude mask or face-guard, cut from heavy leather. Eye holes had been let into it neatly enough. The thong was attached to one side at the top, while another hole was punched opposite it, evi- dently for making it fast, when worn. The significance of it drove home to the boys' minds sharply, instantly. "Feel it?" Dave tried to bend the leather. "Hard as any board! But it's made from a " "A blacksmith's apron!" Bob looked at the eye spaces THE MASK 253 more closely. "And the man that cut these holes knew how to handle his tool, too! It's stiff now from lying in the weather, but that's what it's made of, all right. See the stains? He's smoothed the edges with a smithy's paring knife!" "How how long's it been here, do you think?" Dave felt a little shiver of warning creep up the back of his neck. "Could Sandy Flash have " Bob glanced quickly round, but the afternoon was still and hushed as ever. Across the little valley, the glory of a winter sunset touched the snow on Edgemont Hill to a flaming diadem of silver. Allyn hesitated a moment, then flung aside the mask. "We can't tell how long, Davey. Not now. It's Flash, though, must have made it! Hurry! Take the beaver, will you ! Let me have the gun ! " CHAPTER XIII THE LOG SET what I can't make out is why he'd ever use a like that." Bob Allyn was helping his father at milking, the Monday morning after finding the mask. "It wouldn't give him any real guard, though it was heavy as could be. I say! Easy there, Dolly!" The boy pressed his head closer to the cow's flank to avoid the swish of her tail. Then he went on with steady play of wrist and fingers till the bucket frothed full. "Do you think, father, he's been back at Castle Rock? Good Dave and I got home before it rained last night and froze all over everything." "He may well have been, son, he may well have, but I doubt it. It's a pity you didn't bring that mask home with you. I'd like to have had a look at it. From a leather apron, you reckon? I'll wager it was just to hide his face, and he made it out of whatever he happened to have handy. Oh, well, we've no manner of trouble this many a day, so why complain! As granddaddy used to have it: ' 'tis time and plenty to bid the Devil good morn- ing when you meet him.' Wise old gaffer!" "I guess it's the best way to look at it. Maybe we weren't on the watch coming home last evening, though! I wanted Dave Thomas to give me his father's gun and for him to take the beaver. He told me he reckoned not! He's plenty of courage, Davey has, for all his size!" 254 THE LOG SET 255 Big John Allyn chuckled to himself. This was the sort of spirit he liked to find in boys. He admired the younger lad's holding on to his flintlock quite as much as he did his own son's wish to have it. "We'll have a look at the mask again, some of these days, Bob. There's likely a clue to it we wot not of. Dave Thomas did as he should have done in keeping his weapon. A man mustn't let other folks do his fight- ing for him, you know! All through? Mother's waiting for a fresh pail, you'd better hurry. She can strain it now while I finish here in the barn. It'll take no time at all. I'll be in for breakfast. Don't wait, I'll be right after you." While the farmer busied himself completing early chores, Bob carried the milk to the house. The queer mask puzzled him provokingly, the more he thought of it, but he never did solve its mystery. Nor was he able to find it again. John Allyn was probably right in his supposition that the thing was a disguise which Flash had cut from his smithy's apron, because he happened to have it near at hand. Many years afterwards, the old bit of leather was unearthed once more at Castle Rock, moldy and warped with wet and exposure, but unmistakably the same as that which Bob and Dave had tossed so carelessly aside the afternoon they caught the beaver in the Crum Creek pool. After breakfast, Bob's father went out on the steps and looked earnestly at the winter clouds. He seemed to feel in his bones what he was wont to call a "skift of snow." However, it did not bother him much, for a little later he called to the boy and told him that 256 SANDY FLASH he wanted him to ride on an errand of importance far up in the country near Goshen Meeting. With proper judgment of pace, the lad would have ample time to reach there by noon, deliver the message, then be home in Providence before the day was spent. Bob started at once, glad of the chance for a long jaunt in the saddle, icy though the roads were. It was the sort of work he loved. At Goshen, he saw the farmer, gave the message about the purchase of a heifer, then, having eaten a hearty dinner, turned his horse's head toward home. It was a good deal later in the afternoon than he had realized, but there was still no need for rush. Just beyond Button's Mill, Bob drew rein. For an instant he hesitated, uncertain of the time, then he nodded his head quickly with decision. Sliding from the saddle, he gave his reins a twist or two about a branch that jutted from a wayside sassafras and turned once more toward the west. He glanced anxiously at the sky. The sun was just sinking over Rocky Hill, a riotous glory of color that made the boy pause in wonder at its beauty. It was not that, however, which held him to-day so much, as it was the look of the cloud banks fast rolling up from the forest rim more to the north. The fiery splendor did not deceive him at all. Weatherwise, as all his people, he had long since learned to read the signs of sky and cloud and wind. Farmers, dependent entirely on the land and what they could win from it, the Allyns had unconsciously gained a respect for nature and her moods. They were sprung from folk racy of the soil. Their bread, their very livelihood, came from their ability to interpret and heed the warnings of the out of doors. THE LOG SET 257 Those dull gray clouds, heavy, low-lying, sweeping in over the highland between the Turk's Head and Goshen Meeting, meant snow. And Bob knew it. Again he looked at the sun, reckoning the daylight left him, weighing in his mind whether or not he would have time to slip down the ravine to the otter pool and still reach home before snowfall. He rather felt he would not, but then there was the log set, his final try for the king otter. He had put it out a few days before, unknown to any one, and staked everything on the result of the effort. The evening air, chill with coming snow, the rising wind, the ominous storm cutting fast into the west, decided him. He would risk it. If he did not, it might be days before he could get so far up Ridley again. Bob yanked the reins to test their hold, then with a pat on his horse's neck, slipped from the lane and hastened through the forest. It would not do to keep the animal standing in the cold very long. Late in the day though it was, everything had been attended to, and the boy was free to do as he pleased. He had neared the haunt of the otter, jogging along above it on the Boot Road without really noting the ap- proaching clouds. Fairie Hill, White Horse, Edgemont and home lay before him. It was not so terribly far, at that. The going was bad, too slippery for speed, de- spite the roughing of his mount's shoes. A bit of snow, provided it did not come too savagely, might well give footing and help him on his way. That thought decided him. Bob, hurrying along far down the hollow, pushed aside the last of the alders. The branches cracked slightly, a 258 SANDY FLASH shower of ice crystals falling from them in the dimming glow of sunset. The thicket was a fairy-land, a veritable place of make-believe, studded with jewels, brilliants in silver settings, diamonds cold with the evening hush of the forest, amethysts aflame with the blaze of the reflected sky. Each tiniest twig of bush and brier, vine and sap- ling, stood out sheathed in ice, stiff, distinct, a thin saber of light and fire, amazingly beautiful, sparkling, unreal. Beyond lay Ridley, silent beneath its frozen surface, the falls hushed, the pool of the otters partially veiled in lengthening shadows. A midwinter rain, blow- ing up unexpectedly the night before, had turned to sleet, then frozen in a change of weather. The result was the loveliest of nature's pageantries a twilight forest transformed by the magic of an ice storm. Luckily the wind had been low and few branches had broken beneath their silvery burden. Snow had not yet fallen. Bob had no thought for that, however. He had made up his mind and, storm or no, he would see to his traps. The boy's eyes were ahead, searching through the bushes and tree trunks, darting here and there over the pond, keen and eager for signs. Suddenly he broke through the glass-like wands of the undergrowth, and slid with a rush down the slope of the pool. At the bank, he stopped, heart running high in excitement. Had the new trap been sprung? Could luck have come to him at last? Bob had learned a deal of woodcraft since that day, so many weeks before, when he and Dave had made their set for coon in the hollow log near Hunting Hill. He had come to love the chance of it all, the good luck and the bad, the skill of his hands and brain against the THE LOG SET 259 greater cunning of the wild creatures he sought to snare. He had tasted, too, the surpassing zest of being put upon his mettle. He liked that, especially. It stirred up the manhood in him, made him feel that fighting urge which comes to every healthy boy, spurring him on to see a thing through, however difficult ; once he has begun it. The great Ridley otter, that savage old lord of the brook, was still at large, still leaving its tracks, five-toed, deep-printed, boldly defiant, all about the banks. That was as much, however, as Bob ever saw of it. Those same tracks had come to mean a sort of challenge to him. Their very individuality marked them as apart from the other tracks and trails he had followed. They had tempted him into the woodland many a day by himself. They had led him to slip away from Dave, whenever he could do so without the other's knowledge, and trudge far up Ridley toward Button's Mill, there to stalk the pond with all the patience of an Indian, to lie for hours in the cold and wind, to try trick after trick, set after set, seeking the one that might take the old otter, for the nonce, off guard. Bob meant to get that particular otter, if it took all winter. The lad was the more determined because he felt that Dave had given up the game as useless, that his comrade was contenting himself with joking at his expense. The older boy was quite wrong there, but the thought drove him doggedly on in the face of repeated failure. The thing had started the night they had escaped from the cave at Castle Rock, when Bob had foolishly boasted of a scheme that could not fail. Unfortunately, like many other fine projects in the world, it had failed, failed 26o SANDY FLASH not merely once but several times. Since then, the boy, with true Scotch determination, had had scant peace of mind. -When Dave had gotten the stag, it seemed as though the last straw had come. That was several weeks ago. To-day, Bob had come down to the pond with more anxiety than ever. He had done his level best. If his last plan failed, he knew of nothing more he could try. He had made use of every wile, every trick of trapping, every kind of set and cunning snare that he could think of. He had laid traps in the otter slide itself. He had hidden them above the slide and in the hole up the bank, and again, along the water's edge. He had even built crafty cubbies and despairingly concealed sets in them, but all to no purpose. Sometimes he had been successful in catching other game, but never the giant otter on which he had put his heart. Mink and muskrat were all very well, welcome enough in the race for pelts he was running with Dave, but the big king otter was what he felt he needed to offset the stag of Hunting Hill. Nothing else could quite do that. The nearest he had come to luck was the day when he had caught a small male otter by trapping in the short-cut that the animals used overland from one bend in the stream to another. Even then, the catch was marred by the thought that Dave it was who had told him of this otter characteristic and put the particular scheme in mind. Back of all his efforts lay the knowledge that the men of the army were freezing, literally freezing to death, through lack of proper clothing to turn the chills of winter. Bob Allyn was going to catch that otter THE LOG SET 261 and take its skin to Valley Forge if it was the last thing he ever did. To-day's outlay was different from any he had tried before. It was Bob's very own. The lad halted at the edge of the thinly frozen pond and scanned the surface dubiously. Last night's rain had touched everything with a sheath of silver, but the ice of the dam was pitted and mushy beneath. Bob tested it with practised toe. It bent a bit, straining and groaning, as ice sometimes will, but he knew it would hold. Slowly, cautiously, he began to edge along over the treacherous going toward a log, a poplar trunk, that lay embedded well out toward the middle. Peering forward through the shadows that fast were veiling the ravine, the boy sought vainly to mark the set at the end of the log, but snow clouds had sud- denly blotted the flare of sunset. He could distinguish nothing very clearly. He would have to work his way out to the poplar itself. Bob's final try for the otter was the cleverest thing he had done since he had taken to trapping in the fall of the year. The lad had hit upon the unique scheme of setting his trap in the poplar log, not on it. Actually sunken in the top of the wood itself. He had gone out to the log and worked there in safety despite the un- certainty of the ice. That had been before the rain. Otter droppings at the very end of that poplar had caught his eye the time he and Dave had first come up Ridley and seen the giant tracks. The boy thus had as a founda- tion for his set the knowledge that otters were in the habit of climbing on that particular log. His first try, the simple trick of putting a trap on top of it for them, 262 SANDY FLASH had failed utterly, discouragingly. Now, however, he had developed the idea. He had cut away a thin slab of moss, half a foot or so from the end. Then he had gouged out the bark and wood beneath until he had made a little depression as deep as he needed. Setting the trap in it, he had carefully replaced a thin cover of moss, taking care to conceal the chain, too, in a groove cut in like fashion. When he had finished, it was quite impossible to detect any sign of the set. Bob had finally baited his snare by putting a branch of popple, a tender, new-growth shoot, on the log a foot above the spot where the trap lay hidden. He had found some gnawed sticks of that wood one day near the pool and rightly judged that the otters liked to chew the bark. Whether they would touch it in winter, he did not know. It was as well thought out a plan as any woodsman could boast of. Best of all, the lad had used his own good brains in building it up, one point after another, the whole thing founded upon his first-hand observation of the habits of the animal he was after. Bob Allyn felt a little glow of pride as he edged out over the pond. If he did succeed, if his woodcraft made good, why, Dave himself would have to yield the trapping prize to him. It would outweigh the lucky shot that won the stag, for this was work, not luck, from start to finish. The film of ice about the log was the only bit of luck in his favor. That must have killed his scent as well as the warning taint of metal. On the other hand, he feared it might have served to lock the trap and prevent its closing fast enough. Bob moved forward another foot, then tried to halt, THE LOG SET 263 as the slippery surface beneath snapped unexpectedly with a loud report. It was not bending now, it was splitting away from him in alarming cracks. Like snakes, he saw the fissures opening in twisting lines of black against the sheen of ice. He watched them a moment fascinated, those widening cracks, noting the ebb and flow of the water as it welled up through the rending edges. Then, wise in the ways of a country boy, he dropped flat on his stomach and squirmed crablike for the log, attempting to distribute his weight over as great a spread as he could and at the same time keep his body in motion. It was his one chance. Even as he fought to save himself from the yielding ice and the black depths of the pool be- neath, Bob's eyes peered toward the end of the fallen tree. He could not see the trap; it was too dark. The waters of Ridley rolled up and all support seemed to drop away below. The boy kept his head, struggling madly against the paralyzing cold. He knew if he once went under in that current, he would be drawn far downstream toward the dam where ice was thicker. That meant death, death beneath a roof he could not break. A rat drowning in a trap! Bob in sudden terror gripped at the slippery edge be- fore him. It crumbled away, mushy, in his grasp. His water-logged clothing, heavy homespun, drew him stead- ily downward, irresistible, all the weightier for the sucking tug of the stream about his booted feet. He made a herculean effort to resist, to keep afloat by savage strength, thrashing out wildly, all judgment gone in a panic oi fear. The boy's head went under. 264 SANDY FLASH It must have been well after eight o'clock that night when Dave Thomas met his chum's horse coming rider- less into the lane, head tossed high, broken reins lashing from side to side. The storm had rushed down from the northwest in fury two hours earlier, driving the snow in vicious drifts before it, uprooting the ice-laden trees, tearing loose great branches from the oaks themselves, crushing young apples and pears in the orchard to ruin. It was no night for any one to be abroad. Luck alone had sent the terrified animal to the shelter of the Thomas barn, just as Dave came out of it. Nine times out of ten, the horse would have turned aside at Blue Hill and sought its own stable, but to-night it had come to the other familiar barn. Dave had gone down there to see that all was well for the night against the blizzard, and he now was struggling, head held low, to regain the house. A glance sufficed him. Bob must have been hurt somewheres. Either the horse had slipped and thrown him or he had been struck by a falling branch. It was trouble of some sort, clearly, and desperately serious. Dave was a quick thinker. He already knew that his chum had ridden up toward Goshen Meeting that morning, expecting to be back before dark. He knew it because John Allyn had stopped in at the Thomas farmhouse late that afternoon to see his father. While there, he had mentioned to Dave that Bob was off on an all-day errand in connection with a cattle sale. The big farmer had added further that the boy spoke of something he hoped to attend to at the MacAfees' some trapping thing or other, he thought it was, with the man there. There was but one thing to be done now. Dave's mind THE LOG SET 265 was working at lightning speed. Get over to Edgemont without delay, see if Bob had gotten that far on his way home, then, if he had not ; set out on the road toward Button's Mill, with Cunningham along to help. Dave, "for all his quiet ways, could put plenty of action into play once he realized the need for it. Catching the ripped reins of Bob's horse, he knotted them fast, swung to the saddle, turned the unwilling beast hard about and plunged doggedly through the mounting drifts for Provi- dence Road. Not till he was well past Blue Hill, brought almost to a standstill by the lash of the wind and the cut of snow in his face, did he remember that he had left no word with his people. It was too late now, how- ever, and the boy sunk his head deeper between the collar of his coat and kept on. Unconsciously, he noted his progress by the ancient markers of the wayside the few remaining sentinels of the Hollingsworth Apples. He could not get back now, even if he wanted to. It was all he could hope for to reach the MacAfees' and leave the exhausted horse there. Just how he ever did manage to make the little farm near Castle Rock Dave never knew. The last few hun- dred yards from Edgemont crossways, he covered on foot, plunging and staggering about in the snow, dragging the sullen horse along behind him by the bridle reins. Twice the animal fell headlong in a drift and Dave had all he could do to get him on his feet again. The lad was ready to give up, conquered by the cold, the smother- ing beat of the wind, and the snow about his feet that held him back so cruelly, when at last he viewed lights in the MacAfee windows. They were far off and looked 266 SANDY FLASH the size of sixpence, but they gave him new courage. That, and the thought of Bob. Perhaps, even now, his comrade was lying out in this storm, pinned beneath some crippling bough, dying slowly under the savage whip of the wind, the cold no life could long resist. Dave struggled toward the welcome gleam, little guessing the truth. At the farm lane, the boy turned in to the north, shutting his eyes against the driving gale. He would stall his mount first, then run for the house and Cunningham's help. The stable shed lay to the rear, a little way uphill. Dave hurried on, new strength coming to him, as he neared his goal. Even the horse, nearly done for, now plunged through the drifts with some show of effort; he, too, sensed shelter ahead. They came at last, half blind, numb, weak with chill, the pair of them, into the lee of the stable, rough-hewn of logs dovetailed together. Dave entered, struggling, gasping, rubbing his eyes clear. Then he felt for a tying shank. There was no time to lose. The place was dim-gray, indistinct, hazy with light from the snow without. He could hear other horses near him, munching steadily, grinding away at their hay. Now and then one of them shifted restlessly in the deep straw or paused, gulping, to lip more fodder from the rack. It was a comfortable, reassuring sort of sound, one that he knew well. The boy's vitality quick- ened on the instant to the warm, moist air of the place, the animal heat, the momentary let-up from the sav- agery of the blizzard without. He would tether the horse, as soon as he could find that provoking shank. He knew it was there. Then with Cunningham, he would THE LOG SET 267 Dave ducked and flung up his arm. Why he did so, he could not say, but that instinctive warding of a blow, that defense quicker than mind can function, saved his life. A man had sprung at the lad from the shadow of the stalls, without warning, without sound, aiming a vicious, crushing blow for his head. Dave's quickness in dodg- ing, as the shadow filled the doorway, allowed the club to whistle harmlessly past him. It flew from the fellow's grip with its own momentum. They closed on the in- stant. Dave was too startled, too bewildered, to under- stand at all what was happening, but he knew that he must fight and fight for his very life. That was enough. The struggling pair toppled over, each striving to get some purchase on the other, as they rolled about in the straw. Dave was never more fit in his life. Farm chores had steeled his muscles, sweated out the fat. Outdoor work and sport, day in, day out, under every sort of weather, about the place and in the forest, had tough- ened him amazingly, blending leanness with a deceiving power of speed. Clean, straight living had lent him en- durance and the grit to hang on. He felt the man trying for his throat and fought the harder. The boy had passed sixteen this January and knew a thing or two about a rough-and-tumble. He twisted clear, leaving half his coat and the shirt beneath it in the fellow's fingers. An instant later, they had closed again, this time the boy getting in a smashing blow on the other's body before the clinch. Over and over went the two of them, their breath*com- 268 SANDY FLASH ing in short grunts, their lungs straining for air, as first one, then the other, rolled deep in the stifling straw dust. That was the worst of it. Dave managed, for the time being, to save his throat from the man's attack, some instinct warning him to fight first for that. At the same instant, he put his own good fists to use, jabbing repeated blows with either arm into his assailant. He struck and struck hard at short range, smashing for all he had in him at face and jaw and kidneys. At every opening, he struck. Not that he did not suffer in return. The man, missing his try for the lad's throat, fought for his unfair hold again, now going after the boy's eyes to gouge them. Once his fingers got purchase about Dave's hand. Be- fore the boy could wrench it free, the right thumb had been snapped back and crippled. An old trick and vicious, excruciatingly painful, sickening one with nerve shock. The ruffian's fight was foul from start to finish while Dave's previous struggle with cold and wind and punishment of snow had taken his strength, sapped his power of reserve. But he fought on, the boy did dumbly, warily, watching for openings, instant to take advantage of them. Two minutes more and the man and boy were blown winded to a deadlock fast rolled in a clinch, Dave below, stretched half in, half out, the shed door, the other lying heavily upon him. The boy still kept his hold on the man's wrist, however, as they both gasped and strained for the fresher, snow-chilled air outside. Dave's face was blackened with dust and dirt, scratched with savage rips from the man's fingers. A smear of THE LOG SET 269 blood ran from his mouth where his lip was torn. A fist blow had done that, but the lad had saved his jaw and chin in time. He knew the vital nerve centers and guarded them like a clever boxer. His clothes, such rags as still were left him, hung in patches. The thumb was a stab of fiery torture. But the man on top was little better off. A faint gleam from the storm penetrated the open door and Dave saw the face above him, clearly, distinctly, for the first time. It was disfigured with blood and bruises, matted with stubbled beard and dirt, yet unmis- takable. Mordecai Dougherty! The accomplice of Sandy Flash! The man who had so nearly taken their lives the day he and Bob had been seized by the highwaymen! In a flash, the lad recalled the cedar thicket and the cowardly attack upon them there. Then the later terror of the cave at Castle Rock! A convulsive, wrenching turn took the outlaw off guard. Over they rolled again, kicking, striking, tearing like brute beasts while the straw chaff rose in choking clouds about them. Dave saw that the man was desperate. He knew that he could look for no mercy. If he died for it, the boy was determined to pay off his old score first. Blind with rage, sucking for air, spitting out dirt and blood, his flesh slippery with sweat and grime, torn bare to the waist and gleaming, the lad writhed and twisted, struck and kicked, madly spending his strength to gain a telling hold, to land a crippling blow. He had no plan. He fought as a trapped beast fights to save his life. It was not a nice thing to see. 270 SANDY FLASH Suddenly Dougherty's hand, quick drawn for a smash to the face, touched the club he had dropped at the first rush of the boy. His fingers closed upon it and he uttered a grunting sort of laugh. Dave saw the move and struck upward with his crippled right, lashing out despite the torture in the tendon, every nerve and sinew and well of grit in his body backing up the blow. It fell short. Dougherty swung the bludgeon. At that very instant, two hundred yards down the lane, Bob Allyn was picking himself out of a snowdrift into which he had fallen. The boy was bitterly cold, weary with tramping. Angry, too, at the loss of his horse and the ducking he had met with in Ridley. That had been the worst, of course, and he realized, even in his disgust, that he should the rather feel thankful for his life. Just in time, as he had gone under the water and the ice fragments had closed above his head, Bob's struggle had brought him in touch with a branch of the submerged poplar trunk. It had been an easy matter then for a lad of his strength to pull up on it and so to shore. Half an hour in the Duttons' kitchen by the mill saw him warmed and dry in borrowed clothes. Then, against the protests of the miller, he had started for home, riding away just as the first snow flurries began to dance down the upland meadows from Rocky Hill. They soon cov- ered the icy going of the old Boot Road and led Bob into a false feeling of safety. He quickened his pace. By Fairie Hill, he and the horse came down together in a scrambling pile, luckily unhurt, save for a bruised knee. Before the boy could get to his feet, the animal, already cold and fidgeting under the long delay of the THE LOG SET 271 ride, had broken free. It was sullen lad enough who heard the hoofbeats throb to silence off where White Horse Hill bulked gray before him through the blinding scuds of snow. There was nothing now save walking and Bob set about it with the best grace he could muster. The storm, coming as it did from his back, helped a bit, but the wind and drifts soon convinced him that he would never make Sycamore Mills that night. Nor the Rose Tree either. He had suffered more shock than he had reckoned with, plunging into Ridley through the ice. Wisely, he turned aside at Edgemont. He would put up at the MacAfees' overnight, then on in the morn- ing for home. As to the horse, he could do nothing about that now. The contrary brute had taken things its own way and would have to face the storm as best it might. Bob heaved himself from the snow of the lane and struggled onward. The lighted windows of the farmhouse looked mighty inviting and warm, a fair haven in need. The boy had faced about all he could stand for one day. And he knew it. He saw by the time he had neared the building that the good people had not gone to bed as early as usual. Doubtless William MacAfee and his wife were making the most of their son's leave Captain Robert MacAfee, of the Continental Line. Bob had heard that he was there for a day or two. Rachel Walker, a neighbor from Tredyffrin, in the Valley, was also stopping with them on a visit. Dave Thomas had told him so. Cunningham, as keen a trapper as the boys themselves, and their rare good friend, to boot, made the fifth of the little Edgemont household. 272 SANDY FLASH Bob glanced through a window as he fought his way round to the kitchen in the rear, mildly surprised to see no one within. It was too cold for delay, however, so he pushed at the door without knocking, glad to find it unlatched this late at night. He entered, blowing on his numbed hands, relieved, yet vaguely puzzled. Foot- steps overhead caught his attention and he crossed to the stairway. Something was wrong. Somebody must have been taken ill and seriously. The confusion of the room, the opened drawers in the dresser, the people all above, pointed to that. Could the Captain have been brought home wounded? Surely he would have heard of that? The boy hesitated, then set foot on the lower step. He would call softly and see if At that very moment there came a thud overhead, followed instantly by a scream and the sound of a struggle, terrifying in its sudden shattering of silence. Bob Allyn sprang up the stairs two steps at a time. Reaching the room above, he saw a sight that mo- mentarily paralyzed him, halting him, breathless, at the door, unable for the moment to take in what was happen- ing. Captain MacAfee, in his stocking feet, the buff and blue tunic of his uniform off, was close locked in a fero- cious struggle with another man, toppling here and there about the room, upsetting chairs, crashing into the table, threatening with every move to bring the plaster from the walls. Mistress McAfee, his mother, death-white with terror, the back of her hand pressed to her mouth, crouched in a corner. Her scream had come to the boy below. Now, she was too frightened to utter a sound. THE LOG SET 273 William MacAfee, the husband, lay struggling on the floor, piteously trying to rise. Not at her, however, nor at the old man, did Bob gaze in astonishment before hurling himself into the fight. The fellow in the grip of the Continental officer was Sandy Flash! The high- wayman himself! Fast about the scoundrel's waist hung Rachel Walker, hampering him, dragging him down, bravely pinning his arms in a twist of the coverlet snatched from the bed! The boy, after that startled pause, regained his pres- ence of mind and leaped through the door to help. He reached the men just as Flash lost balance and fell. The captain was on him like a shot. Rachel Walker, as quick to seize her chance and follow it up, whipped the coverlet over his head, drawing it tight about him, smothering him in its folds. She was a young woman and strong. Before Bob could do more than grip at Flash's free arm, as it flailed and lashed about in vicious blows, be- fore he could fairly get his weight on it to help the cap- tain, the night without roared to the discharge of a flint- lock. The glass of a casement tinkled sharply below. Captain MacAfee, still fighting desperately for the out- law's wrists, called sharply to his mother: "The gun! His pistol! Give it to the boy! Quick, you, fire down the stairs when they rush us! Shout for Cunningham! Call for help!" He redoubled his effort to hold the man straining so savagely beneath him. Sandy Flash fought like one pos- sessed. His strength was incredible, but the bed cover- 274 SANDY FLASH ing smothered and meshed him for the time being. A pistol, evidently his, lay on the floor beyond the elder MacAfee. The urgency of the captain's voice brought the old lady to her senses. As Bob cocked the weapon she thrust into his hand, he heard voices below. And hurried steps. A door slammed. He was just in time! They were rushing the house already The lad ran for the stair- head. Then he dropped his pistol arm, quite limply, and fell back, amazement rendering him speechless. Dave Thomas was leaping toward him up the steps, blackened face scarcely recognizable for blood and dirt. Close be- hind him sprang Cunninghim, his eyes wide with anxiety and fright. Bob cried out sharply: "Dave! What the I say" "He's gotten away!" The boy's excitement had driven his original fear for Bob entirely from his mind. Indeed, he had forgotten what had brought him to Edgemont, and that he had looked for no such meeting with his chum here. "Fired through the window and galloped off in the storm! Dougherty, it was, Flash's man!" The younger lad, still panting, half naked, foul with the sweat and grime of his struggle, held out a rusty sword. "Look, Bob, he dropped this as he ran! In the snow! What's how did you happen " He stopped as his eyes for the first time caught sight of Rachel Walker and the captain still struggling over the writhing form on the floor. Old William MacAfee had crawled to his knees, blood trickling down the side of his face. The man was dazed, evidently in a good deal of pain. THE LOG SET 275 "It's Flash himself!" Bob, recalled to the urgency of the moment, found voice and shouted excitedly. "We've got him down! Quick, Cunningham, help! I say, Dave, let me past " The serving man and the boy sprang through the door in answer, quick to aid, while Bob, pistol in hand, rushed by them down the stairs. The lad was fully awake to their danger. His job it was to bolt and bar the house and do it soon. Before Dougherty could return to help his chief. Half an hour later, Captain MacAfee finished telling the boys of the attack, as he sat in the kitchen, flintlock on knee, guarding Sandy Flash. The outlaw lay on the floor, across the room, trussed hand and foot, quite helpless, white with impotent fury. The part that Rachel Walker had played in his capture, the realization that a woman and a boy had helped to overcome him, mad- dened him to rage unspeakable. Cunningham had ridden off as fast as he could through the drifts, to summon aid and alarm the neighbors. Before he left, he prom- ised both boys that he would get reassuring word passed on to their parents, so that they could ease their mind on that score and not worry about anxiety at home. The women were above with William MacAfee, seeing to the wound in the old man's head. Dave and Bob had explained their presence in the house to their mutual en- lightenment, while they were helping barricade the lower story. They were taking no chances on Mordecai Dough- erty's return. "I'd been sitting quiet all evening here in the kitchen 276 SANDY FLASH with my folks, the old people, you know, making the most of a short leave from the Forge. That blackguard yonder knocked at the door." Captain MacAfee glanced toward the figure on the floor. "Cunningham had gone out some time before. I let that ruffian in, thinking he must be some neighbor caught in the storm. Never suspicioned a thing! He pulled a pistol on me instanter! Said he'd come round to levy dues on cursed rebels! My share, he allowed, was one hundred and fifty pounds! Sterling, at that! Likely I'd have it! Then he drove us all before him up the stairs. I couldn't draw sword nor pistol, for the fellow's weapon at my back! He or- dered us about and fairly plundered the house, looking for money. What little we had was hidden well. Finally, he struck me with his butt and told me to take the very pumps from off my feet and give 'em to him! I had to! As he was trying 'em on, one foot resting on the bed, Rachel Walker, my mother's friend upstairs, she grabbed the pistol from his fist! Bravest thing I ever saw! I jumped in to help and so did father. He hit that old man before I could get at him! Hit him good and hard, too! You saw the rest. Rachel Walker had lots of nerve!" Captain MacAfee's face set sternly a moment. Then he ended his story. "She took him off his guard, but you came in the nick of time to pull us through. With- out your coming when you did, Bob Allyn, I'd have had my hands full, and to spare! That man's like a bull o' Bashan! I'd never have kept him down alone. To say nothing of the other scoundrel getting upstairs to help! I couldn't draw sword nor pistol for the fellow's pistol at my back. THE LOG SET 277 Owe that part to you, Dave, my friend." He glanced across the room. Dave shook his head, blushing quick with pleasure none the less. The lad was striving to wash the stains of fight from his body with a damp towel. His sprained thumb had been bandaged. "Don't thank me, Captain, thank David Cunningham! As I do! I didn't do a blessed thing 'cept nearly get killed! Couldn't find a tether for my horse. Was feel- ing for it by the stalls. All of a sudden, he hit at me with a club! Near the door, he was, that fellow Mor- decai, out there. And I ducked to his shadow in time. We had it pretty hot then for a minute or two, each catching the other some pretty good stingers and getting 'em in return. But I saved my chin, the while! "Then all of a sudden, I saw it was Mordecai Dough- erty. That set me to raging! He'd kicked Bob, here, when he was hurt and down, the last time, you know, and he'd helped with the poker in the cave! I did my best! He got me under finally in the straw, half choked. Then he found his club by luck and picked it up. The one he'd lost, you know, at the beginning. My hand interfered and I couldn't smash him like I ought. Reckon I was about done for, but Cunningham must have heard the racket as he was coming past. Anyway he " "Mighty lucky he came back when he did! He'd gone up the hi 1 ! to see if the sheepcote was tight against the storm. It's a blizzard, this time, for certain, lads!" Captain MacAfee kept his eyes on the prostrate form of Sandy Flash, as the wind pounded at the door and 2 7 8 SANDY FLASH roared about the eaves and chimney pots. The flames on the hearth quivered high in answer, leaping up the maw of the fireplace, or, now and then, spluttered angrily to sudden whirls of snow driven downward by the gusts. "He said" "Yes, and that he came past the stable just when he did, too! Another second and I'd been brained, like as not, I reckon ! As it was, Cunningham jumped in and we all had a rough and tumble of it. That took off what few clothes I'd left on!" Dave pointed ruefully to his scanty remnants. "That fellow's like a bear! He most ripped me apart and tore me naked, then broke free! We lost him in the dark. He fired through the window, at us, after he'd gotten on his horse, but we were running then across the kitchen to see what'd happened here! I picked up the sword he dropped from his saddle. Didn't have it on in the stable, anyway. It'll make a fine corn- knife!" He laughed, then grew serious again. "If only he hadn't got clear! I think I could match him by myself in a fight that's half fair ! Thumb and all ! " "Reckon you could, Davey, you old lion, but I'm most glad, myself, he's gone." Bob spoke slowly, lowering his voice so that the man across the room might not catch his words. "Yes, even if he did get me once, like he did. This Flash fellow is the one we really wanted and both of us helped a good bit in the getting of him. Do you know, Dave, I half think Dougherty was on our side that night at the cave, when Sandy Flash had the poker. Dougherty's a brute, all right, but he seems to be mostly that way when Flash drives him to it. He never was cold cruel, thinking things out ahead of time, THE LOG SET 279 like that beast over there!" Bob shuddered, as he re- called the expression he had seen on the outlaw's face. "We got the leader of the highwaymen and you helped as much as I did, too. Remember that, Dave. I'll wager Dougherty'll not cause much trouble, now, by himself. He's too" "Maybe you're right, but I hope they get him all the same! I certainly hope they do. I wonder " Dave thought of his recent fight and grinned wryly. Sprained thumbs are sore reminders. As long as his was throbbing as angrily as it was, the boy was not likely to feel much pity for the man who had caused it. Dave Thomas was human. Could the boys have read the future, they would have seen how close was their forecast to the facts. Mordecai Dougherty was not captured, it is true, but never again was he heard of in the County of Chester. Sandy Flash, alias Captain Fitz, was taken to Chester Gaol and after several vain attempts at escape, received sen- tence of death. On the morning of September 26th, 1778, he was hanged in the yard of the old Courthouse there. The man paid just price for his crimes, his vicious cruelty and the wanton damage done his neigh- bors. The reward of one thousand dollars, offered by the authorities, was divided between the MacAfees and Rachel Walker evenly, Dave and Bob maintaining that they themselves had not been the actual captors. All this, however, lay far ahead, as Captain Robert and the boys stood guard, that night, snug in the kitchen by Castle Rock. The snow swept in staggering buffets about the walls, tearing at the windows, pelting them with the cruel 280 SANDY FLASH fury of driven ice. The wind whipped down from the Willistown Hills, loud with the crash of falling trees and splintering branches. Bob listened a moment to the tur- moil without, then got up and moved from the fireplace. "I say, Dave, I forgot to tell you! Nearly! After I left Evanes' I came down by Dutton's Mill and had a look at the otter pond. I'd put a new set there the other day on the sly, and I wanted to see how it worked. Knew this snow'd tie us up ever so long." He crossed the room. "It seemed like a pretty fair try to me and so" "So did salt on their tails, last time, didn't it?" Dave chuckled delightedly. Bob was so serious about the thing that his chum could never resist the chance to tease. Really he admired him vastly for his keeping at it. "What'd you try now, Bob? Better be careful or you might get something you never bargained for. Was it a weasel or " "Not this trip, Davey, boy, nor a muskrat either. Look!" The big lad smiled good-humoredly at Dave's patronizing air, then stooped beneath the kitchen settle where the shadows lay dark upon the floor. Straightening suddenly, he swung round, his prize held high. Dave leaped to his feet with a shout of joy, even his wounded thumb forgotten in sheer astonishment and delight. Bob smiled again and turned toward the hearth. "This is what really fetched us here, you know, Davey. The two of us, to-night. This started it!" He grinned and held out the great sleek pelt, a thing of beauty, lovely, tremendous in size, amazingly soft in the firelight. THE LOG SET 281 "This is what ended Sandy Flash!" He nodded toward the prisoner. "I say! Won't father be glad!" Dave touched the fur, then without a word reached for his comrade's hand. He gripped it hard, a game loser, quick to yield to the other's luck. Bob Allyn had trapped the Ridley otter. The log set had won the king of the pool ! THE END A 000132261 9