第 17 页

The door was stoutly built, and rendered still stronger by heavy cross bars. The hinges and the bolts were massive. The combined efforts of all four failed to make any impression, and they soon abandoned the attempt.

"Great Caesar! I see it all now," exclaimed Ned suddenly. "That scoundrel is going to carry off our canoes, and leave us to get out the best way we can!"

No one doubted that Ned was right. The boys stared at each other in speechless consternation.

It was bad enough to lose their watches and money, but now they were about to be deprived of everything—clothes, canoes, and tent. It meant the sudden termination of the cruise, and an ignominious return home.

"Let's pound and kick with all our might," suggested Clay. "The door can't hold out forever."

Before any one could reply a heavy tread was heard, and looking through the crevice Ned made the startling announcement that the ruffian had returned.

The boys hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry at this piece of news. They feared a greater misfortune than the loss of all their property.

Crowding close to the crevice—which extended upward the length of the door—they peered eagerly into the room. Moxley had not returned empty handed. He had employed his brief absence in rifling the canoes, and was laden with their entire contents, excepting the dishes and the fishing rods.

He deposited his burden on the sawdust and sat down beside it. Very slowly and attentively he ransacked the bags of clothes, the packets of provisions, and the little japanned tin boxes in which the boys kept paper and envelopes, stamps, fishing tackle, and various other articles.

Then he took the empty grain sack and stuffed it with the clothes, and a large portion of the provisions. He appropriated all the stamps he could find, and pushed the tin boxes aside.

Having completed his arrangements he walked over to the closet and opened the door. Then he sat down on a log facing the boys with his gun across his knee.

"I think I have you chaps pretty tight," he said, wrinkling his face into an ugly smile. "I have a very particular engagement about twenty miles from here, and it was my first intention to start away this morning. But seein' as the rain is still coming down I have changed my mind and will give you the pleasure of my company fur a few hours longer.

"The fact is I've taken quite a fancy to you chaps—quite a decided fancy. There's one young gentleman in your party I'm 'specially anxious to see. I've had a cherished memento of him fur the last ten days, and it's quite a load on my mind because I haven't given him anything in return. It keeps me from sleepin' sound at nights."

Here Mr. Moxley threw out his right leg, and turned the trousers up a few inches, revealing half a dozen red scars on his ankle.

"That's the memento I speak of," he said. "It's a purty one, isn't it?"

There was a breathless pause. The boys turned pale before the ferocious glance of the scoundrel. The mystery was clear as daylight now.

Their captor was none other than Bug Batters's desperate companion. From sheer love of revenge he must have been tracking the Jolly Rovers ever since that momentous night nearly two weeks previous.

Moxley gloated over the consternation and the dread that were depicted on the faces of his prisoners. He did not speak for a moment, but gazed at the boys with a cruel smile that was more terrible than a manifestation of anger.

"Well," he said finally, "I reckon you know who I am by this time. I'll give you just five minutes to point out the lad who peppered me with salt. If you're sensible chaps you'll do it without hesitation. If you try to make a fool out of me I'll serve you all the same way I intend to serve him. I'm a fair minded man, and don't want to punish the innocent with the guilty if I kin help it."

The boys looked at one another without speaking. If Randy was a shade paler than the others it escaped the notice of Mr. Moxley, although he was scanning all the faces intently, with a view to picking out the guilty one by his own powers of perception.

"The allotted time is slipping away," he said grimly. "The right party had better speak up quick. Oh! you needn't look out of the windows. No one comes near this place in the summer, and there ain't a house within three quarters of a mile. I've got you right in my power, and there ain't no hope of escape."

"I hardly think you will get the information you want," said Ned in a firm but husky voice. "I for one shan't tell you, and I advise my friends to do the same. It's not likely we would put one of our companions in your power after the threats you have made. If you wish to avoid trouble in the future you will be satisfied with robbing us, and will let us go without any worse treatment. As for the shooting—no one was to blame but yourself. You had no business to attack our camp that night."

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CHAPTER XXIII

A DARING ATTEMPT

Moxley's face turned a deeper shade of purple, and he made a threatening step toward Ned.

"You're a bold lad," he said with a harsh laugh. "There are not many would dare to speak to me in that way. But it wasn't you who fired the gun that night. I can tell by your actions that you're anxious to screen one of your companions."

He paused a moment and then went on: "You'll find out before long that Dude Moxley ain't to be trifled with. I'll get what I want out of you obstinate pig headed chaps if it takes a week. I know how to bring you to terms. Back you go in that closet now, and there you stay until you can listen to reason. When you hand over the lad I want the rest of you can go free, and so can the other one for that matter—when I'm through with him.

"Perhaps when he finds his companions are suffering for what he did, his conscience will make him confess. But mark you now, if this affair ain't settled by to-morrow's dawn I'll chop up your canoes and burn the tent. I'll do more than that, too. I'll bind and gag you, and leave you here alone. And not a bite do you get to eat, either."

With this ultimatum Mr. Moxley rose, and bolted the door. Then he sat down on the sawdust, and sorting out some crackers and jerked beef from the provisions began to eat greedily.

He was evidently quite satisfied to spend another night at the mill, for the rain was coming down faster than ever. What he had told the boys about the loneliness and security of the place was no idle boast, else he would have made haste to leave the locality with his plunder.

Meanwhile a very excited discussion was being carried on in whispers behind the closet door.

Randy, stricken with remorse for the troubles in which he had involved his companions, was resolved to admit the shooting.

"I'd sooner stand the punishment than see you fellows starving here," he said. "It will save the canoes and the tent, too. I don't believe the man will dare to harm me. He is only trying to scare us."

"Not a bit of it," replied Ned stoutly. "He's a thoroughbred villain, and will certainly take some revenge on you. Your resolve does you lots of credit, Randy, but it won't do. You might repent it all the days of your life."

Clay and Nugget were of the same mind, and earnestly urged Randy to abandon his rash intention.

"Help may be nearer than we think," said Clay. "The man who stopped us up the creek this morning was certainly Bug Batters, and it looks very much to me as though he has been following this Moxley on purpose to keep him from doing us any injury. He may feel grateful to us, you know, because we saved his brother—or rather you did, Ned."

"And Bug Batters knew that Moxley was in the vicinity," whispered Nugget. "That's who he was looking for when we met him."

"I have no doubt that the stranger was Bug Batters," said Ned, "and I think he is trying to prevent his old companion from carrying out his revenge, as Clay suggests. But what has become of Bug Batters now? That is the important question. I am afraid he has strayed off in some other direction. If he came near the mill he could not help finding the canoes."

"He told us he had been down the creek just before we met him," remarked Clay, "but he could not have been all the way to the mill, for the two canoes and the tent were there then, and he did not say anything about them."

"And when he left us he struck back toward the base of the hill," added Nugget.

"It looks very much as though he had lost the trail entirely," said Ned. "He may be three or four miles away. It would be very foolish to count on getting help from him, anyhow."

"Then we don't stand a ghost of a chance," muttered Randy. "You had better let me have my own way. I'll throw myself on that fellow's mercy."

"You won't do anything of the kind," said Ned firmly. "We won't let you. If anything serious happened we would have to shoulder the blame. If you are really sorry for being the cause of this scrape, prove it by dropping your foolish project."

"You take things coolly enough," grumbled Randy. "Do you want us to stay cooped up here for a week, and lose everything we have? Go ahead, then. I won't say any more."

In truth Randy was glad enough to give up his resolve. Remorse had prompted him to make the offer, and he had secretly hoped that his companions would refuse to accept the sacrifice.

"I don't intend that we shall stay here a week, or even a night, if I can help it," said Ned, after a pause. "I have a little plan in my head, but it won't work until evening. If that fails we still have a slim chance left.

"The farmer from whom those chickens were stolen may stray down here in search of the thief, and it is not impossible that Mose Hocker is somewhere about here. This man certainly stole that gun from Hocker's cabin, and if he took the boat at the same time—which I believe he did—Hocker will surely try to recover his property, and will naturally look for it along the creek."

Ned's reasoning—and especially his intimation of a plan to escape—put the boys in a more cheerful mood. They were all thoroughly exhausted for want of sleep, but that was of little consequence compared with the pangs of hunger and thirst they were enduring. They had eaten nothing since the previous evening, nor had a drop of water touched their lips. And it was now past noon.

It was aggravating, nay, maddening, to know that their store of provisions was so close. Well they realized the futility of appealing to their merciless captor.

He had said they should have no food, and they knew he meant it. No doubt he would deny them water also, and they did not venture to ask it.

They could see the fellow plainly. He was sprawled in a lazy attitude on the sawdust, pulling at his foul black pipe. Occasionally he took a flat, greenish bottle from his pocket and tasted the contents with a satisfactory smack of the lips. The fumes of bad tobacco and whisky began to permeate the closet.

So the long afternoon wore on. Moxley seemed quite unconcerned about his prisoners. He was well content to lie on the soft sawdust with his bottle and his pipe, secure from the pelting rain that was falling outside.

Ned kept a close watch upon him, noting with satisfaction that he had frequent recourse to the bottle. His potations would likely induce sleep.

It seemed to the impatient boys that night would never come, but at last the gray light faded from the crevice, and the dusk of evening deepened the shadows in the old mill.

Before it was fairly dark Moxley lighted one of the lanterns that he had brought from the canoes and put it on a log. It was a bullseye, and he so trained it that the yellow glare shone on the sawdust heap.

Perhaps he fancied it an excellent substitute for sunlight, which all tramps love so dearly. At all events he basked in it while he smoked a couple of pipes, and then, after several ineffectual efforts to sit straight, he rolled over on his back.

A moment later heavy snores came from his parted lips. He was undoubtedly asleep.

It may be imagined with what anxiety Ned had been watching this little scene through the crevice.

"The time has come," he whispered to his companions. "Moxley won't wake in a hurry now. But to make sure, suppose you mount guard there, Randy."

"What are you going to do?" asked Randy, as he crouched down on the floor. "Break the door open?"

"Not much. I'll show you in a moment."

The closet in which the boys were confined was built right against the rear end of the mill. Its dimensions were ample—eight feet long and about four wide. Underneath was the wasteway, but its usual roar was now subdued by an influx of water from the flooded creek.

Ned had been quietly examining the situation during the day, and had noted the shaky condition of the floor planks. He now directed Clay and Nugget to stand close to the door. Then kneeling down he inserted both hands in a crevice between two of the planks and pulled with all his might.

A ripping noise, a sharp crack—and the worm eaten plank came free of the beams, leaving a gaping orifice in the very center of the floor, four feet long by a foot and a half wide.

Ned trembled like a leaf.

"Is it all right?" he whispered eagerly.

"Yes," replied Randy. "The rascal is sound asleep. He didn't budge."

"I'm glad of that."

The boys looked timidly down the hole, and crouched closer to the wall. Far below, through the network of crossed beams, they could see the eddying flood. It looked immeasurably distant.

"You don't expect us to go down there, I hope," queried Clay.

"No, but I intend you to lower me through," answered Ned. "If I can reach one of those rafters I will be all right. It won't be a difficult matter to get out on land. Then I will hurry around to the door, liberate you fellows, while Moxley is sleeping, seize his gun—and then away for freedom."

Ned drew a long breath at the prospect.

"Now this is what I want you to do," he resumed in a calmer tone. "If the rafters are too far below me you must let me down to them by one of your coats. Brace yourselves now so you can stand the strain."

The boys obeyed and Randy stripped off his coat in case it should be needed.

Then Ned lowered himself at one end of the hole, and swung clear down.