CHAPTER XXXII.
IN THE VALLEY.
“This is the way. Come on, Spofford. You boys want to hustle if we expect to do any work to-night.”
Daley spoke, and his auditors were not alone his three companions.
They were pursuing a tortuous path along a dry river course in a valley, and it was not difficult to keep them in view and be near to them at the same time, and Marcus and Dean plodded on directly on the trail of their enemies.
“The hunter said that we had better go to what he calls the bowl. He says that Crazy Meg has a regular haunt near there.”
“Well, we’re near it now; only a little further, I reckon,” responded Daley to Spofford’s remark.
It was less than an hour later when the quartette of plotters found themselves in a spot that was strange and weird in the extreme.
The valley narrowed, then widened, circling out and forming a place that bore a resemblance to a sugar bowl.
Stunted trees and underbrush covered the rocks, and there was only one path leading to the cliffs above, a narrow ledge of stone that seemed too frail and irregular for travel.
“The hunter said that Meg comes here every night to talk in her insane way to the witches. We must hide ourselves and keep perfectly quiet,” said Daley.
Daley and his companions bestowed themselves among the shrubbery, and Dean and Marcus just where the outlet to the indentation was located crouched down among some vines, their proximity all unsuspected by the plotters.
Then there was entire silence for over an hour, during which Dean and Marcus awaited developments anxiously.
They came at last.
From some near spot on the cliffs overhead, suddenly and startlingly, rang out a piercing shriek of insane, mocking laughter.
Then at the point where the ledge of rocks descended, appeared a light.
It was borne by a woman, elfish in face and form--Crazy Meg.
She answered the description given of her by the tavern people too accurately to be mistaken.
She bore a flaming pine-wood torch in her hand, and she began to descend the narrow ledge of rocks with the ease and carelessness of a sure-footed antelope.
As she did so she waved the torch to and fro slowly and seemed to chant a weird gibberish-like incantation to the dark spirits her demented fancy evidently believed haunted the spot.
At the lowest and last rock of the ledge and just within a few feet of the lurking Daley she paused.
Her eyes gleamed fitfully, and she glanced wildly all about her.
“White witch, black witch, red, green, yellow, all of you, come here!” she cried in shrill, unnatural tones.
She waved the torch fiercely, and looked around more quietly as it seemed that she imagined the witches she had summoned to be near her.
“Now, then,” she said, “we are all here. Ah, you love old Crazy Meg, for Meg is sharp and faithful. Soon her army is to be ready. Soon she will batter down all the asylum doors. She has her captain to lead the men on. Ha! ha! she has her captive, and he screams for liberty, and begs for liberty, and offers to pay for liberty, but he cannot go free. Why, my bonny witches? Because he is just the man to lead an army to victory. Such a strong arm, such a quick way, such a bold heart. I saw him kill a man like a flash. He can kill all the asylum people so, too. I followed him and made him my captive. Ha! ha! And I have money now--thousands and thousands of dollars, and I know great secrets. My captive fears me. I could send him to the dark, cold jail. Ha! ha! ha! ha!”
The weird effect of the words on the listening Dean and Marcus was indescribable.
They little dreamed the dark mystery that underlay the rambling soliloquy. They were only startled, terribly awed at the mystic scene.
Not so Daley. Evidently he thought only of recovering the stolen money, and believed that the moment for action had arrived.
Of a sudden he sprang up from his covert and grasped the woman’s arm, with a quick order for help to his companion.
“Woman, you are our prisoner.”
A wild cry escaped the lips of Crazy Meg.
She jerked her arm loose. She dashed the flaming torch direct in the face of her captor.
With a scream of pain and rage, Daley recoiled. Then, like a flash, Crazy Meg dashed up the ledge and disappeared.
“After her!” shouted Daley, frenzied with pain.
“We can’t climb that ledge,” demurred Spofford.
“Then hasten to the cliffs beyond here. Quick, she must not escape.”
So electrified by all the exciting scene had Marcus and Dean been, that they had not thought of their enemies coming suddenly their way.
Before they could move aside or retreat, a strange thing happened.
Spofford, rushing away in obedience to Daley’s orders, fell directly over them, struggled to his feet, seized them, and with a cry of amazement and suspicion, dragged them into the flare of the torch, which had fallen among a lot of dry brush that had blazed fiercely, illuminating the vicinity plainly.
“What’s this?” gasped Daley aghast.
“Spies!”
“No! Hold them! hold them!” shouted Daley, as Dean and Marcus endeavored to wrest themselves from Spofford’s strong grasp. “Why, one of them is--you young traitor. It’s Bob Grant.”
Marcus Ellison stood condemned. Daley glared fiercely at him, then in stupefaction at his companion, so like him in dress.
“Dean, now run for it.”
For once, in impulsive excitement, Marcus Ellison had done two unwise things.
He had counted confidently on being able to escape.
He had inadvertently shouted out Dean Mercer’s real name.
As he spoke he tried to trip Spofford up. The latter was too wary for him, however, and the attempt failed signally.
“Dean?” repeated Rodney Darringford, coming forward and staring at the captives. “Tim, look at that boy.”
Tim Downey peered sharply into the face of Dean.
His suspicions aroused by Marcus’ words, he seemed to recognize him.
“It’s Dean Mercer!” he gasped.
“What?” cried Daley, “the boy we sent to the reform school?”
“The same.”
“Impossible!”
“It’s him,” affirmed Tim stoutly. “My, what a get up. Say, Rodney, what does this mean, with him, of all persons, on the same trail as ourselves?”
The episode of the capture of the boys acted as a complete divertisement from the quest of the hour, to the plotters.
They secured both boys with ropes. They discussed their capture, the mystery of their being there, and their possible motives, in low, suspicious tones.
“We’re in a bad fix, Dean,” whispered Marcus, as they lay side by side on the ground.
“I fear so.”
“Daley does not know which of us gave the alarm at the judges’s house at Millville, but he does know that I have played traitor to him.”
“And that I would not be here if it did not mean trouble for him and his friends.”
Daley was indeed, mystified and suspicious. He could not comprehend how Dean Mercer had escaped from the reform school.
He talked with Tim confidentially, while he sent Spofford and Rodney to scour the cliffs for some trace of Crazy Meg.
“See here, Tim,” Marcus heard him say, “what does this all mean?”
“What! Those boys?”
“Yes.”
“Trouble. That fellow Mercer has found out all our plans, that is sure.”
“Maybe he’s told others?”
“I don’t think he’d dare to--he’s afraid of being arrested.”
“What shall we do?”
“I know what I’m going to do.”
“What is that?”
“Make myself scarce.”
“Not run away?”
“Yes. Some time the truth will come out, and of course the burning of the _Spray_ and the robbing of Mercer will be traced to me. As to Rodney, he must take care of himself. His father hired me to burn the _Spray_, and Rodney cashed the check for the eight thousand dollars. I shall make myself scarce.”
“When?”
“As soon as we recover the money from Crazy Meg.”
“And these boys?”
“Keep them prisoners.”
“We can’t do that very long.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too much trouble.”
“We can for a day or two, until we find this woman again.”
“And then?”
“Send Mercer back to the reform school, and get some of your friends in Springfield to take care of the other boy until we are safe out of the country.”
Just then Spofford and Rodney returned from an unavailing quest for Crazy Meg.
“No use to-night, Daley,” said Spofford.
“We’ll wait till morning, then.”
Two hours later the quartette was asleep, trusting to the stout bonds that secured their captives to prevent their escape.
The two boys did not sleep, however. They strained and tugged at their bonds, but it was no use. They withstood all efforts to sever them.
Finally Dean spoke cautiously.
“Marcus.”
“Yes, Dean?”
“Look there.”
“Where?”
“On the ledge.”
“A moving figure?”
“Yes.”
“It’s the woman.”
“Yes; it must be Crazy Meg.”
In the dim light they watched breathlessly the stealthy form that began to descend the ledge of rocks.
It reached the last rock, and moved to where the boys were.