CHAPTER XXVII--THE CLEW OF THE LAMP

The tunnel in the rock proved to be some ten feet long. It was blocked at the end by small-sized bowlders piled upon each other.

Clearing them aside, Sergeant Dick put out his head. He saw a deep gully, or dried-up water-course, ascending at right angles to him, at a gentle gradient, between overhanging cliffs which only permitted of a faint glimpse of the night sky.

Sergeant Dick told the man behind him what he could see, and to pass the word back along their line to Inspector Medhurst. Then he proceeded to climb out of the tunnel.

His men followed him; and they started searching the ground at their feet for tracks.

Where the ground was soft were innumerable cattle and sheep tracks, and a few horse tracks. Nearly all of these led upwards. One or two tracks, nearly obliterated by the others and by rain and wind and dust, led downwards.

“These downward tracks are weeks old, that’s plain,” said Sergeant Dick. “The others are more recent, but still all the cattle tracks are several days old. It’s plain to me--”

“Dick!” It was the inspector’s voice. And, raising his head with a respectful “Yes, sir,” Dick saw Medhurst wriggling out of the tunnel mouth above them.

“You’ve found tracks?”

“Yes, sir. Mostly cattle tracks. It’s pretty evident, inspector, that this gully is the secret way to and from the gang’s duffing-yard, which is above us. Judging from the tracks they can’t have taken any of the stolen cattle out for some time--several weeks--so we ought to make a grand haul.”

“I’m coming through with the rest of the men, except Morton and Geddes, who are guarding our prisoners.”

The inspector and the other five police troopers climbed down beside their comrades; and Medhurst said they would first ascend the gully to the rustlers’ duffing-yard.

Falling into line, the troopers followed their two officers up the winding water-course. It took them a good twenty minutes to come to its upper end. Then they suddenly debouched upon a fairly level expanse of ground, and, beyond a slight intervening ridge, they looked into the same cup-shaped valley which Sergeant John Dick had discovered from the other or southern side of the range.

And his skill as a tracker was also verified; for there, sure enough, were the horses, steers, and sheep he had seen before dotted about the valley, darker blurs against the dark background in the faint light of the stars and overclouded moon.

“Excellent!” exclaimed the inspector. “This is a coup. The gang evidently recognized the hopelessness of getting the beasts away before our coming, and decided to consult only their own safety by getting back to their homes as quickly as possible.”

“We may find something that may tell us who the rest of them are in the log-hut on the other side of the valley, inspector,” said Sergeant Dick.

“Quite so,” agreed Medhurst. “Yes, we’ll see what the hut contains. Be in readiness for an ambush, men! There’s no saying that some of the gang haven’t entrenched themselves in the valley, although I don’t think it is likely. Spread out more, and walk stooping, carrying your rifles at the ready!”

But they crossed the valley to the other side without any molestation, except that they disturbed some of the sleeping horses and cattle.

The moon shone out bright and full again from a fairly clear sky as they drew near the “lean-to,” which, as its name explains, was built up against the cliff.

The door stood half open! But still, fearful that this might only be a ruse to lure him and his _posse_ into some diabolically arranged death-trap, Inspector Medhurst called a halt and asked for a volunteer to go forward and make sure that the hut was empty.

“I’ll go, inspector,” Sergeant Dick answered, promptly.

Medhurst would have been exceedingly sorry to have lost his capable young subordinate, but he did not like to pass him over for one of the troopers.

“Very good! I don’t need to tell you to be careful, I think.”

John Dick advanced, bending nearly double, and ready to drop flat to the earth at the first gleam of a rifle at either of the two windows in sight, or any suspicious sign within the half-open door.

He was within twenty feet of the hut when his keen sense of smell detected the strong, unpleasant odor of an oil-lamp burning badly.

For a moment he hesitated, half scenting in this a trap for their destruction. Then he determined to risk it, and flew swiftly forward to the door of the hut.

But instead of at once thrusting it wide open, as five men out of six would naturally have done in the circumstances, he did not touch the door at all. He simply stepped half round it, and flashed his electric torch about the room.

And then he saw what a terrible trap had been laid for them--_how a touch upon the door would have blown him to atoms_!

Behind the half-open door was a barrel on end, three-parts full of gunpowder, as he could see through a hole knocked in its top. And balanced on a strip of wood across the hole was a vilely smoking lamp screened about with a square of cardboard so that its light only showed upon the roof.

Just touching the cardboard screen was a short plank of wood resting on heaped-up boxes, its other end set against the door.

If the door had been pushed back, the plank must have been, and the lamp overturned into the gunpowder, and any one entering would never have known what had hurt him--not in this world at least.

Sergeant Dick felt himself go cold all over, as he comprehended the awful doom which might so easily have been his.

He stepped forward promptly, however, gingerly lifted the lamp from its dangerous position, and set it upon the table, turning it higher to put an end to its vile aroma.

It smoked badly, and the chimney was all black. He therefore took it outside and blew it out, and called to his comrades to come up.

When they did so, and he pointed out to Inspector Medhurst the diabolical trap that had been laid for them, one and all the troopers indulged in furious anathemas against the dastardly White Hoods.

“Look round the hut, lads, and see what you can find,” ordered their leader.

“The lamp, I think, will prove a clew, inspector,” quietly said Sergeant Dick. “As a matter of fact, I have seen it before, and that quite recently.”

“You have--where?”

“_At ‘Water Castle.’_ Inspector, I believe the Arnold family make up the rest of the gang of White Hoods. I have believed so ever since you rescued me from the gang’s hands this evening, but I had no real proof beyond my own vague suspicions until now. The leader’s voice it was that first made me suspect the family. I could take my oath it was _Aunt Kate’s--Mrs. Arnold’s_! And I know that the fellow who climbed the tree was Abner Arnold; while this lamp I can swear to having seen in Aaron Arnold’s bedroom during the siege of the ‘castle’ by the Ogalcrees.”

“Thunder! You don’t say! But--but what about the letter written in blood we found on Seymour, threatening the gang’s vengeance against all at ‘Water Castle’? And, again, weren’t all the male members of the family with you when you were captured by the gang? Ah, I see, I see! You think that the letter was only an artful ruse to avert suspicion, and Old Alf and his sons promptly disguised themselves--donned white hoods and smocks--when you were blindfolded.”

“Exactly, sir! And put on their primitive armor, too. It was probably hidden, close by the scene of our hold-up by their womenfolk.”

“But--but, good heavens, you don’t mean to infer that all the women of the family are also mixed up in this? That, that lovely girl--Old Alf’s niece--and his daughter, that weak-minded, poor girl--Jenny I think they call her--have helped in the atrocities the gang have committed, and could lend themselves to--to such a diabolical scheme of vengeance as you have just frustrated?”

“Don’t ask me, sir--don’t ask me,” John Dick replied in such a heartwrung voice as made Medhurst look surprisedly at him.

Then a look of sympathetic intelligence swiftly crossed the inspector’s face.

“Some of the women of the family are in the gang, undoubtedly, as I told you before, sir, but--but it is just possible that the--the two you mention, the niece and the daughter, are innocent of all complicity. God only grant it be so,” he added in tones not meant for his superior’s ears.

“Yes,” John Dick went on, “it’s pretty plain to me, now, how they worked the oracle--how the gang worked matters to-night. As soon as the male members of the family and I had gone off this evening, Aunt Kate and the two daughters-in-law, I should say, took a canoe and made for the north side of the hills or cliffs. The foreman of Lonewater ranch told you that he saw _three_ White Hoods riding round the north side of the range towards the Seymours’ place. They were Aunt Kate and the two daughters-in-law, without a doubt. The three had a hiding-place on the lakeside where they assumed their ghost-like disguise, and, of course, the two Seymours made up the five who held us up, round the other side of the range.”

“And by riding this way, up the gully and across the valley here, they might very easily get to the waterside before you. You naturally moved slowly and warily, to guard against falling into an ambush or warning any of the gang on watch.”

“That is so, sir. And the squatter and his four sons would just bring up the number of the bandits to what it was when they were going to hang me.”