by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER VI THE BLACK SHACK
As Johnny gave the pole at the side of the boat a vigorous shove, thenanother and another, he found no time for thoughts other than directingthe silent maneuvering of his clumsy bark. A prod or two on this side,then as the boat swung to the right the same number of pokes on the otherside, and he moved silently down the narrow channel. A division in thenarrow course was greeted with delight. If the man who had fired thatshot was following he could not follow both channels at once.
"That gives me a fifty-fifty chance of escape," Johnny thought as hechose the right fork.
It is hard work, this poling a boat while lying flat on one's back.Johnny found himself perspiring at every pore. Yet he persevered, and hisperseverence was rewarded for, as he moved slowly forward, he came to aplace where the channel was cut squarely across by another.
"A four corners," he rejoiced. "I might go straight ahead, or to theright or left. The natural thing to do would be to turn right, so I goleft."
Skilfully he maneuvered the turn and went gliding down the new channel.
Ten minutes later, still lying on his back and looking up at the clouds,he lifted his pole without a sound into the boat and then allowed himselftime to think matters through.
Who was this intruder upon his privacy; this would-be killer? What hadbeen his motive? Was he connected with the firebug affair? It would seemso, for in this city Johnny had not gone against the wishes of anyonesave that firebug.
"Well, old boy," he whispered, setting his teeth tight, "you'll not getme, and what's more, give me time and I'll bring your dishonorableoccupation to a sudden halt. See if I don't!"
For a time after that he lay there looking up at the slow moving clouds,but they brought him no peace. He was annoyed at the situation that hadso suddenly presented itself. He had come here to think things through;yet how does one dare to engage in an all absorbing chain of thought whenat any moment some form of craft may come gliding in upon him and--bam!his head is blown off!
Manifestly there was no thinking to be done. What then was to be hiscourse?
"Shall I lie here baking in the sun till dark, then sneak away home?Hanged if I do!" he exploded almost out loud. "This channel has some sortof an end that brings a fellow to shore. I'll poke along down it and whenI'm there I'll make a break for it."
In this undertaking he was more fortunate than he had hoped. He had notpoled himself a hundred rods when he came to the piers of a low railroadbridge that crossed the swamp.
"Huh, easy enough," he breathed.
Sitting up, he drove his boat under the bridge and out on the other side.After that, knowing that the embankment must hide him from the enemy ifhe were still on the marsh, he stood boldly up, poled his boat to shore,drew her up beside the railway, then crept up the bank to peer over atthe other half of the marsh. He was now well above the tops of the rushesand could plainly see every foot of the marsh.
"Huh, fellow'd say I dreamed all that," he grunted. The place wascompletely deserted. Even the black birds were gone.
Off on the far side of the marsh he made out a shack he had never seenthere before. A rude black frame set on posts, it seemed oddly like somedark ghost of a house that had walked to the edge of the swamp in thehope of seeing its reflection in the water.
"I wonder if that shack's got anything to do with--anything," he mused.
Even as he thought this a man came out of the place and walking around acorner of the house disappeared at the back. He was a large man; thatJohnny could tell plainly enough. And it seemed that the man limpedslightly. But of that he could not be sure, the distance being too great.
It was a thoughtful Johnny who walked back down the track to the neareststation, then took the train for the city. Matters were getting serious,very serious indeed, and he had not thought things through at all.
"I must go over to the scene of that last fire," he told himself. "Do itas soon as I get to the city. May learn something there."
He did go there. It was night when he arrived. The great, black, burnedout skeleton of the Simons Building loomed above him as he searched, andits vacant window holes stared at him like the empty sockets of a skull.Somehow they seemed to accuse him of slowness and stupidity. He fairlyflinched beneath their stare.
His search did not last long. Where the office of the one time recreationcenter had been was now a twenty foot pile of smouldering rafters,plaster and brick.
"Nothing to be learned there," he murmured as he turned away.
At that same moment he caught sight of a dark shadow that flitted pastthe corner of the Simons skeleton, and after that he distinctly caught achuckle which ended in well formed words:
"This is only the beginning."
Johnny shuddered. But courage did not desert him. With a dash he wasaround that corner. His bravery was to no avail. If there had been afigure there other than a ghost, it had vanished. Nor did a carefulsearch reveal any living creature.
"Only the beginning," he murmured at last. "This calls for hustle. In thefuture I shall use different methods. If I see a suspicious character,the pink-eyed man or the man with hooked nose and limp, I shall have himarrested and look for a reason after. But maybe I won't see them again."
That night brought good fortune. As the clock struck twelve, Johnny waswalking through the zoological garden and there, quite by chance, ransquare into what was to prove to be one of the most spectacular fires ofhistory.
"Fire! Fire! Fire!" came ringing out upon the night.
One sweep of the horizon, then a surprised exclamation escaped Johnny'slips. "The Zoo is on fire!" He then made a dash for it.
Fortunately he was not far away; most opportune, too, was the fact thathe knew a great deal about the Zoo. Endowed with a natural interest inall living creatures, especially those of strange lands, he had manytimes visited this particular place.
He knew at a glance just where the fire had its origin. The building wasextremely long and low. Birds and beasts were arranged in order accordingto size. First the monkeys, then wolves, hyena and the like; then lions,tigers and all other large creatures. At the extreme west end were twolarge rooms inhabited by no living thing. One room was a sort of officeused by the keeper and the other a store room for a great quantity ofmaterial of anthropological interest, mostly from the Arctic. Thismaterial, no longer upon display, lay heaped pile upon pile; garments,blankets, spears, harpoons--all dry as dust and food for flames. It wasin this store room that the fire was already fiercely raging.
"Perhaps there is yet time," Johnny panted as he came racing up.
"Time for what?" demanded a policeman who had arrived before him."Where's the fire department?"
"They'll be here in a moment." Johnny tried the office door. It waslocked. With a spring he was away, then back, shoulder first, at the doorwith a blow that splintered a panel.
"Here, don't do that!" shouted the policeman, springing forward.
He was a second too late, for Johnny had once more rammed the door. Thedoor went in, and he with it.
The thing he did then would have seemed strange had there been anyone byto see it. The fire, already bursting through the partitions, scorchedhis face and hands, but into the smoke he plunged, to drag away, not someobject of great value, but a very ordinary desk telephone. Gripping thewires of the phone he yanked them free, then with this trophy under hisarm he made a dash for safety.
Under the screen of smoke he escaped the eye of the policeman. Havinghurried to the edge of some bushes, he examined the thing under his armfor a moment, then with a grumbled: "I thought so," began coiling thewire about the phone.
Having done this, he shoved the whole affair far under the bushes, thenturned his face again toward the fire.
By this time the tumult was appalling. Vying with the shrill scream ofapproaching fire sirens and the clamor of gongs, was the mad roar offrightened lions and tigers, while above it all sounded the wildtrumpeting of the elep
hants.
"It's going to be a terrible fire," Johnny shivered. "Too terrible totell."
At that moment he darted suddenly forward. He felt sure he had recognizeda familiar stooping figure in the gathering throng. Johnny had decidedthat it was about time to begin making a few arrests and ask questionslater.
