CHAPTER XXIII.

HELEN TALKS TO RENFRO.

Renfro awoke early the next morning. The room of the cave in which he was confined was dark and the air seemed colder, more mouldy than on the night before. He wished that they had left the foul smelling lantern in his room, though the evening before he had hoped it would be removed.

His wrists and ankles felt numb. Last night they had ached for quite a long time. He decided while he lay alone in the dark that when Bart or Maggie came in he would ask them to ease the cords a bit. But when, after more than an hour, the old man, still wearing the low brimmed cap and surly air of the night before, came into the room Renfro decided not to even mention the tightness of the cords.

It was the same smoking, ill smelling lantern of the night before that he swung in his hand. He set it down near the bed, looked at Renfro, and then felt of the cord around his wrist. “Not so bad as that--not that bad, though it was a long time,” he muttered to himself.

He rose heavily and fumbled his way through the door back into the other room. This time as he had done every time before he closed the door after him. “No use doing that,” Renfro thought, “I’ve already heard Helen’s voice.”

The old woman came back with him. She carried a bowl of steaming stew in which onions were one of the principal ingredients. That was evident from the odor. And with it were several slices of toasted bread.

“Do you want some coffee?”

Renfro decided that her voice was not gruff through a habitual bad disposition but exposure and poor food and it might have been suffering. He forced a smile when he assured her that he would rather have some milk if she could give him some.

“After a while,” she promised, “presently when I go up to the grocery.”

When it was evident that he was going to eat the stew, the old man helped him raise himself to a sitting posture. Then he cut the cords on his wrists. “Now eat,” he said and spoke without any surliness. “And when the door is fixed a little more you won’t be tied any more.”

A grim smile came onto his face. “You are too smart a boy to have loose for a time,” he said.

Renfro was interested in the way he spoke. At least it was evident from what he said that he was to be kept in captivity quite a time. While he ate the stew which was not a disagreeable mess, he wondered what sort of confusion was raging back in Lindendale. Would the detectives decide that it was a kidnaping plot? Would they set out on another trip to a far off city for more evidence?

He was sure they would not do that. There was Mary, who had shared with him conjectures concerning the identity of the owner of the missing eyebrows. She would tell them about the trips to Captain Pete’s, to the big house, and from there he was sure it would be easy for detectives to work their way to the old barn.

He smiled contentedly and ate on until the bowl was almost empty. If he had known that Mary thought him safe at the home of one of his friends, that his mother believed the same, that full charge of the secret investigation had been given over to the detectives he would have been discouraged to the despair point.

After he was through eating, old Bart fastened new bandages, much wider but stronger than the others on his wrists. But they were a distinct advantage, for they did not hurt half as badly as had the others. And when he had changed the narrow ones around his ankles to the wide variety, Renfro, though far from being in a pleasant posture, was not uncomfortable.

As soon as they made the discovery that he was going to be agreeable and not cry or abuse them over his imprisonment, the old couple became much less hostile. Renfro knew from their attitude that they did not want to hurt or punish him--but merely to keep him shut up until they had made some plans concerning Helen Wier.

“Well if it’s money they’re after, they’ll sure ask dad for some too, as soon as they discover who I am,” he began to think and then remembering Mary, decided that they wouldn’t get far with their plans before they were discovered.

After promising to bring him something to read the old man took up the dilapidated lantern and followed his wife, who had gone back into the other room several minutes before. Renfro heard him lock the door between the two rooms of the cave; and later give some commands to his wife and Lang Tammy, who was once more in the cave.

Though the lantern was gone the cave was not so dark as it had been. Renfro moved until he discovered the source of the light. It came from over the top of an old door--the one, he felt sure--that the old man had spoken about nailing more firmly before he should be turned loose.

He twisted at his thongs. They were tied too tight to ever be torn loose. He tried them with his teeth but they were too tough for him to make more than an impression on them. And making impressions would only harm him, for once discovered they would be responsible for closer watch than ever being put over him.

Quietly he lay back on his pallet and waited. In the other room they were talking in muffled tones. A long conversation followed, a bustling noise, and then silence.

And finally out of it came a voice which Renfro knew. “Who is in there?” it demanded. “Is it any one who knows me? I’m Helen Wier.”

Renfro could have shouted for joy. “I’m Renfro Horn,” he answered. “Where are they gone?”

“Up town,” Helen was just outside the locked door. “I’m not tied like they say you are, but I’m locked in. Tell me everything you know--about mother and father and everything. And why don’t they find me?”

Renfro had to pitch his voice loud and make it peculiarly piercing to reach her through the heavy door and the big room of the cave. He told her of everything he knew, how her letters had reassured her mother and kept her well.

“Yes, they let me write them,” Helen’s voice seemed changed, more piercing, more strident. Renfro decided that it was from her life in the cave. “They’re not mean to me--and they don’t want money. They’re keeping me, to get even with father.”

Quietly and without any emotion she told her story. Bart had been sentenced to fifteen years in the penitentiary by her father years ago. He had served most of those fifteen long years which had meant separation from his family. While there he brooded over the loneliness of himself and became almost a maniac, with one purpose in mind--namely to get even with the judge who had sentenced him.

At first he had decided to kidnap the judge himself. He had kept that thought in mind for years. When his old cellmate had gone free one day and they had given him another he had been given a chance to plan for the future, Captain Pete’s brother had been put in his cell and he, in time, told of his home, of his crime, and the hidden cave in which he and his confederates had at first made the counterfeit money.

Getting bolder the counterfeiters had moved into the cellar of the big house and been discovered. But only the part of the story which was concerned with the cave had interested Bart. From that time on he made his plans. As soon as he was free he would come back to Lindendale, kidnap Judge Wier and imprison him for months in this hidden cave. Separation from his family for that time would give him just a hint of what Bart had served on account of his sentence.

“Maggie told me all this,” Helen put her lips close to the key hole for her throat was getting tired through talking so loud. “She wants me to know all of it so that when they let me back to father I can tell him all of it and understand exactly how and why Bart got even with him.”

“But isn’t Captain Pete in it?” Renfro persisted in asking a question though Helen was still talking.

“No, neither he nor his brother. They just happened to discover the cave and then they knew where I had been hidden. They’re afraid of Bart. They won’t ever tell until I’m safe back home and Bart and Maggie are away and safe in another part of the country, and happy because they’ve had revenge.”

She talked a little while longer about the life in the cave. She and Renfro conjectured together on the probable time they would be imprisoned. And Renfro didn’t tell her of Mary Dugan’s knowledge of all his clues and his hope of rescue from her. A surprise he decided would be a good thing for Helen Wier.

After a time they, following Helen’s fear that the old woman would return, lapsed into silence. Renfro sat and studied the door around which came in small shafts of light. Now if he could only manage to get loose before that door was made more secure he felt that he could work his way through the door. But if--

And in the other room there came confusing sounds. Bart and Maggie had returned, and a scuffling and barking and cavorting around told him that they had brought with them Lang Tammy.