Blacksheep! Blacksheep! - Meredith Nicholson (freenovel24 .txt) 📗

give it back. You'll find it tucked away in your collar-box in the top drawer of your bureau. I guess that's about all, so you can trot back to the front of the house."

With a finality that closed discussion she fell energetically upon the dishes, and he left her to join the Governor and Congdon. His enlightenment as to the complexity of human nature was proceeding. Sally was wonderful, astonishing, baffling. He did not question that this time she had told him the truth. He was touched by her confession that her escapade was merely an experiment to test her blood for inherited evil. There was an enormous pathos in this; Sally needed help and guidance. He would discuss the matter with the Governor the moment they had disposed of their more urgent affairs.

III

At nine when Congdon announced his intention of going to bed Archie assisted him as usual.

"This air's setting me up," said Putney, as Archie inspected the crippled shoulder. "The doctor told me to begin exercising that arm as soon as the soreness left it. How does the wound look?"

"Like a vaccination mark in the wrong place; that's all. You certainly had a close call, old man. Only a few inches lower and it would have pierced your heart."

In their hours together Archie had never been able to free his mind of the disagreeable fact that he had so nearly killed Congdon; and he was beset now by the thought that sooner or later he must confess his culpability in the Bailey Harbor shooting. Congdon was accepting him at face value, and the thing wasn't square. Every time he touched the injured shoulder his conscience pricked him.

"I've got to tell Congdon I shot him and that he was in no way responsible for Hoky's death," he announced determinedly to the Governor, whom he found pacing the street in front of the hotel.

"Of course you'll tell him, but not yet. I'm mistaken in the man if he acts ugly about it. The proper way to tell a man you've tried to kill him and that he's carrying the scar of your bullet is to mention it incidentally, when you're walking home from church with him, or allowing him to sign the check for your lunch. Seriously, it was merely a deplorable error on both sides and I believe he'll see it that way. But until we get some other things cleared up we'll let him think he killed Hoky, just to keep him humble. And now that he's off the invalid list we'll let him share some of the little adventures that lie before us. Tonight we've got a matter on hand that's better done by ourselves. If you think he's safe for a few hours we'll go ahead."

He stopped on the way to the wood-bordered shore and produced from a fence corner an electric lamp and two revolvers.

"Stick one of these in your pocket. We're not going to add to our crimes if we can help it, but I owe somebody a shot for that nip in my cap."

A stiff wind from the open lake was whipping up battalions of whitecaps that danced eerily in the starlight. At a point half a mile from the village the Governor flashed his lamp along a bank that hung over the beach and found a canoe and a row boat hidden in a thicket.

"We're all fixed. Good old Leary planted these things for us while we were at supper."

He gave the whistle Archie remembered from his first encounter with the Governor, and in a moment Leary stood beside them.

They had carried the boats to the water's edge when the Governor suddenly stood erect. The monotonous tum tum of a gasoline engine was borne to them out of the darkness.

"Carey has a boat of some power," the Governor remarked, "and as he carries no lights we've got to take the chance of sneaking round him or getting run down. We must impress it on Ruth and Isabel that they're not to attempt to run the blockade. Then we've got to get rid of Carey; put him clean out of business. You and Red take the row boat and trail me; I'll scout ahead with the canoe. If one of us gets smashed the other will pick up the casualties."

The canoe shot forward, the Governor driving the paddle with a practised hand. The row boat followed, Leary at the oars and Archie serving him as pilot. As they moved steadily toward the middle of the bay they marked more and more clearly the passage of the launch as it patrolled the farther shore.

Leary pulled a strong stroke and Archie was obliged to check him from time to time to avoid collision with the Governor's craft. At intervals passing clouds dimmed the star-glow and in one of these periods a dull bump ahead gave Archie a fright.

"Steady! I'll be all right in a moment!" the Governor called reassuringly.

He had run into a log that lay across his path and the canoe had attempted to jump it. When he reported himself free they went ahead alert for further manifestations from the launch, which for some time had given no hint of its position.

They were two-thirds of the way across the bay when the Governor gave the signal to stop and they drew together for a conference.

"They must be keeping watch," said Archie calling attention to lights on the shore. "If we could land without frightening the girls to death—"

The Governor whistled through his teeth. Somewhere to the left of them as they lay fronting the camp, a sharp blow was struck upon metal. It was repeated fitfully for several minutes.

"It's Carey tinkering his engine. He's been playing possum off there."

The launch was so near that they heard the waves slapping its sides. Archie and Leary gripped the canoe tight while the Governor listened for any indications of a change in Carey's position.

Suddenly Leary sprang up in the tossing boat.

"Look ahead!" he exclaimed, leveling his arm at a shadow that darted out of the darkness and passed between them and the launch. The Governor saw it and stifled a cry of dismay.

"Two women in a canoe! They're going to run for it!"

"They are fools!" growled Leary settling himself to the oars and swinging the boat round.

The Governor had already turned the canoe and was furiously plying his paddle. A lantern shot its beams from the phantom craft, but the light vanished immediately.

"There goes his engine," the Governor called as he took the lead. "He spotted that light and will try to run them down."

Isabel and Ruth, attempting to elude Carey's blockade and seek help at Huddleston, were forcing a crisis that might at any minute result in disaster. It was close upon midnight, and there was no help to be had from either shore. A fierce anger surged through Archie's heart. There could have been no safer place to commit murder than the quiet bay at the dead of night. Ultimately the bodies would be washed up; there would be the usual inquiries and a report of accidental drowning.

It was incredible that Carey would attempt to run down two women on the dark bay and it was apparently his intention to circle round them and drive them back to the camp. Neither the canoe of the adventurous women nor the launch was visible from the row boat, though the engine's rapid pulsations indicated the line of Carey's pursuit. To shout to the daring women that help was at hand would only alarm them, and Archie crouched in the bow, peering ahead for the silhouette of the Governor as his canoe rose on the waves.

The launch executed a wide half-circle, stopped and retraced its course. Leary, refusing to relinquish the oars, swore between strokes, the object of his maledictions being the invisible Carey, whom he consigned to the bottom of the lake in phrases that struck Archie as singularly felicitous. In spite of their steady advance and the frequent turns and twists of the launch, the canoe and row boat seemed to approach no nearer to the enemy. There was no doubt but that Carey knew a craft of some kind had put off from the camp and he was determined to intercept it; but he was still unconscious of the presence in the bay of the three men from Huddleston.

The Governor called to Archie to stop following and move in the direction of the town, independently of his own movements, thus broadening the surface they were covering with a view to succoring the canoe. As though with malevolent delight in the fear he was causing, Carey rapidly changed the course of the launch, urging it backward and forward with a resulting wild agitation of the waters. In one of these evolutions it passed within oar's length of the row boat.

"Keep on swearing!" cried Archie. "He's not a man; he's the devil!"

The launch passed again, like a dark bird skimming the water, and he took off his shoes and threw aside his coat.

"If that blackguard keeps this up we may have to swim for it! Give me the oars; I want to warm up!"

They were changing positions when the launch, executing another of its erratic evolutions, again swept by. A second later they were startled by a crash followed by screams and cries for help. Leary whistled shrilly to attract the Governor's attention and bent to the oars.

Carey shut off his power the moment he struck the canoe, whether in sudden alarm at the success of his design or in the hope of picking up the victims of his animosity was a question Archie left for a more tranquil hour's speculation. A shout from the Governor announced that he was hurrying toward the scene of the collision.

The launch, running full speed, had struck hard and it was sheer good luck that the camp canoe had not been cut in two and the occupants killed. The drumming of the engine had ceased but a searchlight sweeping the water indicated the launch's position. The beam fell for a moment upon the Governor, paddling madly; another sweep of the light disclosed two heads bobbing on the waves some distance away from him.

"Bear left!" cried Leary, seizing an oar. "Slow down! Stop!"

Archie backed water and the bow sprung high as Leary plunged into the bay.

The light playing upon the scene from the launch fell in turn upon the struggling women, the Governor and Leary swimming toward them, and Archie steadying the row boat ready to aid in the rescue. The appearance of unknown men evidently frightened Carey, for he turned off his light and retreated toward the inner recesses of the bay.

The rescuers were now dependent upon sound and the starlight in the urgent business of marking the position of the young women. A hand grasped Archie's trailing oar and in a moment with Leary's assistance he had gotten one of the women into the boat. The men now redoubled their efforts to find the second victim of the catastrophe, shouting to keep track of one another and to hearten the girl who was somewhere battling for her life.

A faint cry, hardly distinguishable above the commotion of the waves, caught Archie's ear and he jumped into the water and swam toward it. In making a stroke his arm fell upon the side of the overturned canoe. A pitiful little whimper startled him; he touched a face and his fingers caught in a woman's hair. The canoe still retained enough buoyancy to support him, and his lusty cries brought the Governor to his side, followed an instant later by Leary, laboriously pushing the boat before him.

They worked in silence save for the sharp commands of the Governor. The boat had to be balanced against the lifting of the second figure over the side, and Leary managed this, while Archie and