The thing in the woods
Just now, as I knew, there was a scant foot of water at its deepest.
I was taking no particular heed therefore to my steps when Herrick, a
few paces to my left, called out.
"Take care!" he said. "We're nearly in the creek!"
As he spoke I heard, somewhere near us in the darkness, the
unmistakable sound of rushing water. I stopped abruptly, bewildered,
with the sense of having somehow lost my bearings. As we were going,
the creek should have been a good hundred yards on our left.
And the sound was not the sound of the creek. I had paused at the
moment near the edge of the brook; I could feel soft, saturated moss
underfoot, and I fancied that it grew even softer and damper as I
stood. Something swirled at my ankles, and taking a step forward I
was knee-deep in sudden icy flood.
Incredible as it seemed, the stream was rising. I had barely grasped
the meaning of it when Herrick shouted again. This time he was
answered. A strong shout caught up the echo of his voice.
"Hello, there! Where are you?" It was Herrick.
And the answer came promptly, near at hand now in the darkness:
"Hello! By the dam. Keep clear of the stream; the sluice-gate is
giving!"
XV
SUSPICIONS
The warning came just in time. Herrick sang out and sprang, and I
could hear the splash as he landed close beside me. Together we
forced a way through the bushes and tall weeds and began to scramble
up the sloping bank. It was a thicket of alders and brambles; the
briars caught and tore at our clothes as we pushed through. We came
out not far from the sluice, with the rush of escaping water still in
our ears, and above the turmoil of it I called again.
"Where are you? Is there something wrong?"
"I want help here!"
The voice answered almost from under our feet, midway down the bank
up which we had just scrambled. In a cleared space of the little
thicket a man was standing; my eyes, used by now to the darkness,
could make out his figure outlined against the surrounding bushes.
It was Mr. Crowfoot, and he was bending over something that lay
stretched and ominous among the trampled weeds at his feet. I had
not recognized his voice in the darkness, though it sounded vaguely
familiar. Herrick reached him first, and was on his knees beside the
prostrate figure when I came up.
"An accident, Haverill. I thought so. No, he's alive. How did it
happen?"
"He must have fallen off the gate," said Crowfoot. In the excitement
he forgot to stammer. "I heard him call out and went down after him.
I had only just time to drag him out."
Herrick wiped his hand on the grass.
"Cut his head open," he said briefly. "I think there's an arm
broken. Give me a hand, Austin. We must get him up to the top."
"Compound fracture and a broken collar-bone," said Crowfoot in his
precise tones, oddly precise even in this moment. "I'm glad you
gentlemen came along. The head wound isn't much, but there's
probably a slight concussion. If you will help me----"
It struck me that he took the man's injuries with a remarkable
coolness, utterly at variance with the impression of nervousness he
had given me that morning. It was as if he were the medical man and
we mere lay beings who had happened along. Herrick growled. He had
found his tinder-box, and it flashed a tiny glimmer on the man's face.
"George Freeman!" I exclaimed.
"You know him?" said Herrick quickly.
"The sweetheart of that girl at Sliefer's. He had an appointment
with me this evening. He must have been on his way----"
I stopped short. I thought Crowfoot gave a faint exclamation, but he
said nothing. Together we got the limp figure to the roadway at the
top of the bank, and laid him down. Herrick turned to Crowfoot.
"Was he with you?"
"No. I was walking along the side of the dam. I often take a stroll
of an evening; I sleep rather badly without. He was lying at the
bottom of the sluice-gate when I found him, half in the water, and I
dragged him out. I supposed he had missed his footing in the dark
and cried out as he fell."
Herrick and I exchanged glances. So far the story might be true; we
had both heard the cry.
"Isn't there a railing?" Herrick asked.
"It was broken," said Crowfoot, "and has never been properly
repaired. I have spoken about it several times at the farm, but Mr.
Sliefer has neglected to mend it."
"That's so," I confirmed. "It's been broken a good three weeks.
Hardly anyone passes this way, now the mill isn't working, so I
suppose they haven't bothered."
"Well..." said Herrick. He rose from his knees. "As he's known at
the farm he'd better be taken there. He must be properly moved. We
can't handle him like this."
"I'll go and get help," said Crowfoot.
Herrick looked at him squarely.
"I prefer that we should go together," he said drily. "Austin, do
you mind staying here for ten minutes? I suppose you haven't your
revolver?"
I hadn't. I carried one usually in accordance with Lessing's
suggestion, but at this moment it was locked in one of the surgery
drawers.
"Never mind," I said. "I don't need it."
Mr. Crowfoot hesitated. Then his hand slipped to his pocket.
Herrick had been cleverer than I gave him credit for.
"If you allow me, Doctor Haverill," he said gravely, "I will leave
you my own. I should much prefer it. We are two, and it would be
better that you should not remain here unarmed."
Again Herrick and I glanced at one another.
"Do you usually carry a revolver when you take your evening strolls,
Mr. Crowfoot?" he asked.
"It is a precaution," replied the little botanist, "which I consider
to be quite harmless. As you put a similar question to your friend
just now I presume the habit is not confined to myself."
"Take it," said Herrick curtly. "We'll be back in a quarter of an
hour." And he disappeared with Crowfoot along the path toward
Sliefer's farm.
Left alone, my first and perhaps pardonable impulse was to examine
the chambers of the revolver Mr. Crowfoot had just given me. One of
the cartridges had been discharged. I slipped it back into my jacket
pocket, where it would be ready to hand, and took out my cigarette
case. There was nothing to be done for the man beside me until
further help arrived. I reassured myself as to his condition. It
was as Crowfoot had said. The head wound had bled freely, but we had
already partially stanched it with Herrick's handkerchief. The right
arm and shoulder were fractured, and I suspected a rib as well. He
could not have fallen directly from the sluice-gate, but from one
side, with the bushes and the water to break his fall. If he had
struck one of the heavy timbers immediately below he would have had
his back broken on the spot. As it was he was in no immediate
danger, unless from a concussion the extent of which we could not as
yet ascertain.
I sat down on the beam which marked the beginning of the sluice-wall,
and fell to thinking. The thing had not, to me, entirely the look of
an accident. Crowfoot, on a moment's consideration, and in spite of
the empty cartridge, I exonerated. Freeman had not been shot, and
Crowfoot could have had no object in pushing him over only to rescue
him afterwards, and undoubtedly he had saved his life. Possibly they
had quarrelled, and Freeman had lost his footing, which would account
for Crowfoot's prompt action. Crowfoot was staying at the Sliefers',
in the same house with Freeman's sweetheart, and where a young woman
like Rebecca is concerned there is always a possibility of
misunderstandings; but the idea of little Crowfoot playing the rustic
Don Juan seemed rather absurd. And that question of the sluice-gate
worried me. It had been a dry season, the water in the dam was even
lower than usual; there was no earthly reason why the gate should
give way just then with no extra pressure to account for it.
Sitting on the wall, swinging my feet, with the sound of the water in
my ears, I found myself listening mechanically to its rush. Suddenly
a thought occurred to me. There had been no increase in the volume
of sound since I had been sitting there. If the sluice-gate had
given way only in part, the force of the escaping water would by this
time have widened the fissure.
I rose, and walked the few paces to the top of the gate.
It was as I thought. The lever that controlled the sluice had been
pulled half over. Bracing my feet firmly, I threw all my strength
against it. I had the force of the water to contend with; as I
pushed, the whole neglected structure of the gate seemed to vibrate
and tremble, but little by little I could hear the gush gradually
decreasing, the seething and bubbling below me quieted.
I pushed the lever back as far as I could; it refused to go the whole
way, and I feared to do further damage unwittingly by forcing it.
But the greater part of the escape was checked. I went back to the
wall again and waited.
The minutes dragged. It was a relief to see presently the glimmer of
a light through the trees and to hear Mr. Sliefer's anxious
deep-throated hail. They had taken one of the stable doors off its
hinges, and Herrick and the farmer carried it between them while
Crowfoot walked ahead with the lantern.
I saw Crowfoot glance toward the sluice, but he said nothing. With
as little jarring as might be we lifted Freeman's unconscious weight
on to the door, and I took Herrick's place in the slow procession
back to the farmhouse.
Mrs. Sliefer, with Rebecca, white-faced and stricken, met us in the
yard. They had prepared a room upstairs, and there we got Freeman to
bed and did all that was possible for him. Unconsciousness spared
him the pain of our handling; the fracture was as ugly a one as I
have seen. The concussion was graver even than we had supposed; it
would be days certainly, possibly weeks, before he would be in a
state to answer any questions.
I decided to stay the night, and Herrick, with the Sleifers' hired
man, drove over in the buggy to take a message to Mrs. Searle and
bring back what was needful from the surgery.
In his absence I set myself to gather what information I could from
the Sliefers themselves. George Freeman had been there that evening.
He had arrived earlier than usual, it being his weekly evening off,
and stayed only a short time, saying that he had an appointment in
the village. On Rebecca teasing him, he had said that it was a
business appointment and that she should hear all about it in good
time.
He had left the house at a quarter-past eight. His appointment was
for nine, and it would have taken him nearly that time to walk over,
even by the short cut. It was already close upon nine when we left
the Lessing's cottage to walk home, and at least twenty minutes must
have elapsed before we heard Freeman's cry. How had he employed that
interval, and with what object had he lingered nearly three-quarters
of an hour near the dam? Instinctively I thought of Crowfoot. He
was not in the room, and in the light of what had happened I felt no
hesitation in questioning the Sliefers about their guest.
He had come to them a fortnight ago, engaging his room by letter.
They often took a boarder in the summer, and someone who once stayed
there had recommended them to him. He was quiet and
pleasant-mannered, and anxious to give no trouble, an ideal boarder
from Mrs. Sliefer's point of view, though Rebecca inclined to
consider him "queer." He had stipulated for a ground-floor room,
explaining that for some heart affection he was forbidden to mount
stairs. (I smiled, thinking of the acrobatic exercises Mary Lessing
had witnessed.) They had accordingly arranged the back parlor for
him, which had a door opening directly on the side porch. His meals