A Woman at Bay Part 23

"That was in the middle of the summer, and it was farther south--not far from the railroad tracks."

"Well, what happened then?"

"That was the time he helped me."

"How was that?"

"I can't never tell you exactly how it was, but somehow I had got my foot wedged in the root of a tree, and I had been tryin' an hour to git it out, without success. The tree was hard, and I was just tacklin' that root with my knife--I'd have cut through it in about an hour, I reckon--when 'long comes that feller Handsome that I had saved from the hole in the rocks. He had an axe on his shoulder, and when he spied me he stopped, and laughed, and laughed until I got mad.

"'Caught in yer own trap, ain't ye?' he axed me.

"'I be,' says I. 'You've got a axe, and mebby you kin help me out o'

it.'

"Well, he did. He chopped the root in a jiffy, and I was free; but, bless you, I could 'a' done it myself with my knife in a hour, anyhow.

All the same, I was grateful to him, and we sot down on a log and chinned for a while."

"What about?"

"He asked me what I was doing around there, and I told him that I was thinking of looking over the swamp below the tracks a leetle, with some idea of settin' traps there late this fall and winter, and he said as how he wouldn't advise me to do it. He said as how I wouldn't be likely to ketch the sort of animals I was after, and that some of the animals might ketch me; and, as I ain't exactly a fule, I ketched onto what he meant, and I ain't been nigh that place since. And then it turned out afterward as I thought it would, them hoboes had a hidin' place in that very swamp."

"Right you are, Bill!" said Nick, laughing. "Is that all the conversation you had with Handsome?"

"Every bit of it."

"And you have never seen him since?"

"Never. Hold on; he axed me that time if I had ever mentioned the fact of our fust meetin', and I told him I had not. He seemed pleased at that, and he told me never to mention it. I allowed that I didn't see no reason why I should, and he laughed at that and seemed entirely satisfied."

"That is excellent, Bill. Now, we will get at those plans. I don't want to lose any time."

"Would you mind telling me why you axed me all about them two meetings?"

"Not at all. When I go out into the woods in the character of Bill Turner, I am likely at some time to run across Handsome himself. I want to be posted, so that he won't know but what I am you. I don't want him to catch me; see?"

"Yes. But do you suppose you kin fix yourself to look enough like me so's he won't know the difference when he sees you?"

"Certainly."

The old man shook his head.

"I don't believe it," he said, "but maybe you can. How about the voice?

Your voice ain't no more like mine than a----"

"I can do that, too," replied Nick, exactly simulating the voice in which the old man was speaking; and he looked around him in wonder, and then at the detective.

"It does beat all!" he said at last. "I guess you're some too many for me, sir."

"Shall we get at those plans now?"

"Right away."

Turner brought out paper and pencil, and, having cleared the top of his table, he began to work.

First he drew a large circle on the paper, and at one edge of it he made a cross.

"That there cross is Calamont," he said. "Where we be now; and all that's inside of the ring I've made lies to the east of here, from nor'-nor'east to sou'-sou'east--and east. You understand?"

"Perfectly."

"Well, jest about in the middle o' that ring is the place where I think them fellers would hide. It's the best place for them."

"Tell me about it before you draw anything; or, rather, talk while you are drawing."

"That's jest what I'm going to do. Now, you follow my pencil and pay attention."

"Go ahead," said Nick.

"When you leave here--if you start from Calamont, which I suppose you will--you start right about here. You take a general direction nor'east from here at first. You'll find a path through the woods after you git about two miles from here, and that path will lead you several miles.

But about here it'll disappear, and you won't have nothin' to guide you 'cept what I show you and tell you now."

"Exactly," replied the detective.

"Up here, at about the time you lose all trace o' the path, you'll come to a deep ravine. You want to follow up the middle of that, to the top.

And when you git to the top of it you will think that you have run up ag'inst a cliff, and there ain't no gettin' out of it without goin'

back.

"But that ain't so. There's a waterfall at the end of the ravine. It comes around a sort of a twist in the rocks, and if you ain't afraid of gettin' damp, you follow around there, and you will find as nice a piece of steps cut in them stones as you ever saw in your life. Indians cut 'em more'n a hundred years ago, so I'm told.

"Well, they take you to the top of that cliff. When you're up there, you find you're in another ravine, not so deep as t'other. Right here that would be," he added, making a mark with the pencil.

"All right," said Nick.

"About a mile farther up that second ravine you want to leave it. You'll find a big dead oak that hangs out over it, and beside the dead oak there is a path up the side of the ravine. It is one of my own paths.

You get up it by hangin' onto two things you find there for the purpose.

I put 'em there more'n twenty years ago, mister."

"Go ahead."

"When you git to the top, you want to branch off this way--so. You'll find a clearin' about there, and off to the east you'll see some high hills. You want to make for them."

"And those hills, I suppose, is my destination."

"That's where the caves are. That's where you will find the gang if they are hiding anywhere in that 'ere region."

"Now, tell me about the caverns. Tell me how to find them."

"They're easy enough to find--some of 'em is; others ain't. Wait a minute."