Canoe Boys and Campfires Part 28

"Yes," replied Randy. "The rascal is sound asleep. He didn't budge."

"I'm glad of that."

The boys looked timidly down the hole, and crouched closer to the wall.

Far below, through the network of crossed beams, they could see the eddying flood. It looked immeasurably distant.

"You don't expect us to go down there, I hope," queried Clay.

"No, but I intend you to lower _me_ through," answered Ned. "If I can reach one of those rafters I will be all right. It won't be a difficult matter to get out on land. Then I will hurry around to the door, liberate you fellows, while Moxley is sleeping, seize his gun--and then away for freedom."

Ned drew a long breath at the prospect.

"Now this is what I want you to do," he resumed in a calmer tone. "If the rafters are too far below me you must let me down to them by one of your coats. Brace yourselves now so you can stand the strain."

The boys obeyed and Randy stripped off his coat in case it should be needed.

Then Ned lowered himself at one end of the hole, and swung clear down.

He pulled himself up, and clung by his elbows. "No good," he whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "The nearest rafter is a foot below. Let me have the coat. It will be safer than trusting to your hands. I might drag you down with me."

The three boys braced themselves around the hole, and took a firm grasp of the upper part of the coat.

"All right," whispered Randy.

By a dexterous movement Ned transferred his hold from the planking to the more precarious support and slipped downward, hand over hand. An instant later his feet touched a broad, solid beam.

CHAPTER XXIV

AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER

The instant the tension relaxed the boys drew the coat up.

"All right!" came Ned's voice from the darkness. "Put the plank back in place now and keep very quiet. Wait a moment," he added quickly.

"Something just occurred to me. I may be right and I may be wrong, but at all events don't you fellows be scared if you hear a big splash."

"We won't," whispered Randy.

Then the plank was dropped noiselessly over the hole.

Ned straddled the rafter--it was too dark to risk an upright position--and made his way to the nearest end, which terminated in one of the walls of masonry that formed the sides of the sluiceway, and on which the mill partially rested. Then he turned around and crept to the other end, where he found the same state of affairs.

His fears were now confirmed. The mill rose fairly from the two stone walls, and there was no way of escaping overhead, even had the other rafters been within reach. His only chance lay in the flooded waterway underneath.

Ned had more than half expected this, and was therefore prepared for the emergency. Without hesitation he swung from the rafter and dropped through eight feet of s.p.a.ce into the turbid flood.

He went clear under, but came to the surface quickly, and swam with vigorous strokes down the wasteway. Both the air and the water were warm, and he felt little discomfort.

Between the reflex current from the creek on top, and the undertow from the sluiceway beneath, he was buffeted about considerably before he succeeded in emerging on the spit of land between the mill and the creek. He squeezed the water from his clothes as well as he could, and started up the slope through the stones and bushes. A misty drizzle of rain was still falling.

He redoubled his caution as he neared the upper end of the mill.

Creeping on hands and knees to the door, he peeped cautiously over the threshold. He was hardly prepared for what met his gaze.

He had confidently expected to find Moxley sound asleep, and instead of that the fellow was sitting upright with his gun across his knees, and his bottle in one hand. Perhaps the splash made by Ned's drop into the wasteway had wakened him without arousing his supicions. He had no present intention of going to sleep, for he moved a little closer to the light of the lantern, and filled his pipe.

For a moment Ned felt the disappointment keenly. He knew what a severe blow it must be to his companions. It was out of the question to rescue them now, for Moxley was directly between the door and the closet.

Ned had been so sure of effecting his plan without hindrance, that it had not occurred to him what step to take in case of failure. But a brief consideration of matters raised his spirits, and he resolved to seek the nearest farmhouse and obtain help.

"That is a far better plan anyhow," he reflected with satisfaction.

"Moxley will be captured, and we will recover our watches and money. And we won't have to start down this flooded creek in the dark, either, I must be quick, though, for Moxley might happen to open the closet and discover my absence. I wish there was some way of letting the boys know what I am going to do."

This was manifestly impossible, so Ned crawled away from the door and crossed the sluice to the foot of the hill. He could not withstand the temptation to go up the creek and have a look at the canoes.

He found them all safely out of reach of the flood, for Moxley was too shrewd a man to let them go adrift, and perhaps cause an investigation that would frustrate his plans.

As Ned was turning away his eye caught a sudden gleam from the c.o.c.kpit of Clay's canoe, and on making an investigation he was surprised to find Randy's gun. Moxley must have overlooked it.

The weapon was useless, for the ammunition had been carried off, but Ned shouldered it and started briskly down the creek. At the sluiceway he found a well trodden footpath, and followed it along the rear side of the mill, and thence by the base of the hill to a wagon road which began abruptly at the edge of the wasteway, where there was no doubt a fording to the opposite neck of land.

Ned concluded that the road led to the home of the man who owned the mill, and he was about starting off in haste when his eyes fell on a boat that protruded from a clump of bushes a few yards down the sh.o.r.e.

On going close he recognized it instantly by the peculiar arrangement of the seats. It was Mose Hocker's boat. Moxley had carried it off when he stole the gun.

"I say, young fellow, don't be quick with that shootin' iron; I want to talk to you."

The voice came from a thicket a few feet up the bank, and as Ned stood still with fear and amazement, a man slipped out and stood before him.

Ned instantly guessed the ident.i.ty of the newcomer.

"You are Bug Batters?" he asked quickly.

"Yes, I'm Bug Batters, and I reckon you are one of them canoein' chaps.

I took you fur some one else at first--fur the man what put this boat here."

"You mean Dude Moxley," said Ned. "Well, I can tell you where he is. In spite of your warning we all fell into his hands, and I'm the only one that's free so far."

He went on with his story and quickly made the situation clear.

Bug was amazed to learn how close his old companion was.

"It's a purty bad fix," he said slowly, "but I reckon we can't get your friends out of it. It's a pity you have no loading fur that gun. You see, Moxley is a bad man and won't listen to argument. We'll have to think over the matter a little bit, and meanwhile I'll tell you how I come to be here."

Both sat down on the boat, and Bug began his narrative.