The Daughter of Anderson Crow
farmer Grover's possession; and another saw something black on his
thumb, which he now remembered was a powder stain.
"I noticed all them things," averred Anderson Crow, supreme once more.
"But what in thunder did he want with those hair-pins?" inquired George
Ray.
"Never mind," said Anderson mysteriously. "You'll find out soon enough."
"Do you know Anderson?" some one asked.
"Of course I do," responded the marshal loftily.
"Well, what were they for, then?"
"I'm not givin' any clews away. You just wait a while and see if I'm not
right."
And they were satisfied that the detective knew all about it. After
crossing the foot-log the party was divided as to which direction it
should take. The marshal said the man had run to the southeast, but for
some inexplicable reason quite a number of the pursuers wanted to hunt
for him in the northwest. Finally it was decided to separate into posses
of ten, all to converge at Crow's Cliff as soon as possible. There were
enough double-barrelled shotguns in the party to have conquered a pirate
crew.
At the end of an hour Anderson Crow and his delegation came to the
narrow path which led to the summit of Crow's Cliff. They were very
brave by this time. A small boy was telling them he had seen the
fugitive about dinner-time "right where you fellers are standin' now."
"Did he have any blood on him?" demanded Anderson Crow.
"No, sir; not 'less it was under his clothes."
"Did he say anythin' to you?"
"He ast me where this path went to."
"See that, gentlemen!" cried Anderson. "I knew I was right. He wanted--"
"Well, where did he go?" demanded Harry Squires.
"I said it went to the top of the clift. An' then he said, 'How do you
git to the river?' I tole him to go down this side path here an' 'round
the bottom of the hill."
"Didn't he go up the cliff?" demanded the marshal.
"No, sir."
"Well, what in thunder did he ask me where the cliff was if he--"
"So he went to the river, eh?" interrupted Squires. "Come on, men; he
went down through this brush and bottomland."
"He got lost, I guess," volunteered the boy.
"What!"
"'Cause he yelled at me after he'd gone in a-ways an' ast--an' ast--"
The boy paused irresolutely.
"Asked what?"
"He ast me where in h---- the path was."
"By ginger, that's him, right out an' out!" exclaimed Mr. Crow
excitedly.
"'Nen he said he'd give me a quarter if I'd show him the way; so I--"
"Did he give you the quarter?" questioned one of the men.
"Yep. He'd a roll of bills as big as my leg." Everybody gasped and
thought of Grover's hog-money.
"You went to the river with him?" interrogated the reporter.
"I went as fur as the clearin', an' then he tole me to stop. He said he
could find the way from there. After that he run up the bank as if some
one was after him. There was a boat waitin' fer him under the clift."
"Did he get into it?" cried Squires.
"He tole me not to look or he'd break my neck," said the boy. The posse
nervously fingered its arsenal.
"But you _did_ look?"
"Yep. I seen 'em plain."
"Them? Was there more than one?"
"There was a woman in the skift."
"You don't say so!" gasped Squires.
"Dang it, ain't he tellin' you!" Anderson ejaculated scornfully.
The boy was hurried off at the head of the posse, which by this time had
been reinforced. He led the way through the dismal thickets, telling his
story as he went.
"She was mighty purty, too," he said. "The feller waved his hat when he
seen her, an' she waved back. He run down an' jumped in the boat, an'
'nen--'nen--"
"Then what?" exploded Anderson Crow.
"He kissed her!"
"The d---- murderer!" roared Crow.
"He grabbed up the oars and rowed 'cross an' downstream. An' he shuck
his fist at me when he see I'd been watchin'," said the youngster, ready
to whimper now that he realised what a desperate character he had been
dealing with.
"Where did he land on the other side?" pursued the eager reporter.
"Down by them willer trees, 'bout half a mile down. There's the skift
tied to a saplin'. Cain't you see it?"
Sure enough, the stern of a small boat stuck out into the deep, broad
river, the bow being hidden by the bushes.
"Both of 'em hurried up the hill over yender, an' that's the last I seen
of 'em," concluded the lad.
Anderson Crow and his man-hunters stared helplessly at the broad, swift
river, and then looked at each other in despair. There was no boat in
sight except the murderer's, and there was no bridge within ten miles.
While they were growling a belated detachment of hunters came up to the
river bank greatly agitated.
"A telephone message has just come to town sayin' there would be a
thousand dollars reward," announced one of the late arrivals; and
instantly there was an imperative demand for boats.
"There's an old raft upstream a-ways," said the boy, "but I don't know
how many it will kerry. They use it to pole corn over from Mr.
Knoblock's farm to them big summer places in the hills up yender."
"Is it sound?" demanded Anderson Crow.
"Must be or they wouldn't use it," said Squires sarcastically. "Where is
it, kid?"
The boy led the way up the river bank, the whole company trailing
behind.
"Sh! Not too loud," cautioned Anderson Crow. Fifteen minutes later a
wobbly craft put out to sea, manned by a picked crew of determined
citizens of Tinkletown. When they were in midstream a loud cry came from
the bank they had left behind. Looking back, Anderson Crow saw excited
men dashing about, most of them pointing excitedly up into the hills
across the river. After a diligent search the eyes of the men on the
raft saw what it was that had created such a stir at the base of Crow's
Cliff.
"There he is!" cried Anderson Crow in awed tones. There was no mistaking
the identity of the coatless man on the hillside. A dozen men recognised
him as the man they were after. Putting his hands to his mouth, Anderson
Crow bellowed in tones that savoured more of fright than command:
"Say!"
There was no response.
"Will you surrender peaceably?" called the captain of the craft.
There was a moment of indecision on the part of the fugitive. He looked
at his companion, and she shook her head--they all saw her do it.
Then he shouted back his reply.
CHAPTER III
The Culprits
"Ship ahoy!" shouted the coatless stranger between his palms.
"Surrender or we'll fill you full of lead!" called Anderson Crow.
"Who are you--pirates?" responded the fugitive with a laugh that chilled
the marrow of the men on the raft.
"I'll show you who we are!" bellowed Anderson Crow. "Send her ashore,
boys, fast. The derned scamp sha'n't escape us. Dead er alive, we must
have him."
As they poled toward the bank the woman grasped the man by the arm,
dragging him back among the trees. It was observed by all that she was
greatly terrified. Moreover, she was exceedingly fair to look
upon--young, beautiful, and a most incongruous companion for the bloody
rascal who had her in his power. The raft bumped against the reedy bank,
and Anderson Crow was the first man ashore.
"Come on, boys; follow me! See that your guns are all right! Straight up
the hill now, an' spread out a bit so's we can surround him!" commanded
he in a high treble.
"'But supposin' he surrounds us," panted a cautious pursuer, half way up
the hill.
"That's what we've got to guard against," retorted Anderson Crow. The
posse bravely swept up to and across the greensward; but the fox was
gone: There was no sight or sound of him to be had. It is but just to
say that fatigue was responsible for the deep breath that came from each
member of the pursuing party.
"Into the woods after him!" shouted Anderson Crow. "Hunt him down like a
rat!"
In the meantime a coatless young man and a most enticing young woman
were scampering off among the oaks and underbrush, consumed by
excitement and no small degree of apprehension.
"They really seem to be in earnest about it, Jack," urged the young
woman insistently, to offset his somewhat sarcastic comments.
"How the dickens do you suppose they got onto me?" he groaned. "I
thought the tracks were beautifully covered. No one suspected, I'm
sure."
"I told you, dear, how it would turn out," she cried in a panic-stricken
voice.
"Good heavens, Marjory, don't turn against me! It all seemed so easy and
so sure, dear. There wasn't a breath of suspicion. What are we to do?
I'll stop and fight the whole bunch if you'll just let go my arm."
"No, you won't, Jack Barnes!" she exclaimed resolutely, her pretty blue
eyes wide with alarm. "Didn't you hear them say they'd fill you full of
lead? They had guns and everything. Oh, dear! oh, dear! isn't it
horrid?"
"The worst of it is they've cut us off from the river," he said
miserably. "If I could have reached the boat ahead of them they never
could have caught us. I could distance that old raft in a mile."
"I know you could, dear," she cried, looking with frantic admiration
upon his broad shoulders and brawny bare arms. "But it is out of the
question now."
"Never mind, sweetheart; don't let it fuss you so. It will turn out all
right, I know it will."
"Oh, I can't run any farther," she gasped despairingly.
"Poor little chap! Let me carry you?"
"You big ninny!"
"We are at least three miles from your house, dear, and surrounded by
deadly perils. Can you climb a tree?"
"I can--but I won't!" she refused flatly, her cheeks very red.
"Then I fancy we'll have to keep on in this manner. It's a confounded
shame--the whole business. Just as I thought everything was going so
smoothly, too. It was all arranged to a queen's taste--nothing was left
undone. Bracken was to meet us at his uncle's boathouse down there,
and--good heavens, there was a shot!"
The sharp crack of a rifle broke upon the still, balmy air, as they say
in the "yellow-backs," and the fugitives looked at each other with
suddenly awakened dread.
"The fools!" grated the man.
"What do they mean?" cried the breathless girl, very white in the face.
"They are trying to frighten us, that's all. Hang it! If I only knew the
lay of the land. I'm completely lost, Marjory. Do you know precisely
where we are?"
"Our home is off to the north about three miles. We are almost opposite
Crow's Cliff--the wildest part of the country. There are no houses along
this part of the river. All of the summer houses are farther up or on
the other side. It is too hilly here. There is a railroad off there
about six miles. There isn't a boathouse or fisherman's hut nearer than
two miles. Mr. Bracken keeps his boat at the point--two miles south, at
least."
"Yes; that's where we were to have gone--by boat. Hang it all! Why did
we ever leave the boat? You can never scramble through all this brush to
Bracken's place; it's all I can do. Look at my arms! They are scratched
to--"
"Oh, dear! It's dreadful, Jack. You poor fellow, let me--"
"We haven't time, dearest. By thunder, I wouldn't have those Rubes head
us off now for the whole county. The jays! How could they have found us
out?"
"Some one must have told."
"But no one knew except the Brackens, you and I."
"I'll wager my head Bracken is saying hard things for fair down the river there."
"He--he--doesn't swear, Jack," she panted.
"Why, you are ready to drop! Can't you go a step farther? Let's stop
here and face 'em. I'll bluff 'em out and we'll get to Bracken's some
way. But I _won't_ give up the game! Not for a million!"
"Then we can't stop. You forget I go in for gymnasium work. I'm as
strong as anything, only I'm--I'm a bit nervous. Oh, I knew something