wen I tries to get away."
"Who was he?" asked Burton.
"He called hisself de Oskaloosa Kid," replied Charlie. "A guy calledBridge was wid him. You know him?"
"I've heard of him; but he's straight," replied Burton. "Who was theskirt?"
"I dunno," said Charlie; "but she was gassin' 'bout her pals croakin' aguy an' turnin' 'im outten a gas wagon, an' dis Oskaloosa Kid he croakssome old guy in Oakdale las' night. Mebby he ain't a bad 'un though!"
"Where are they now?" asked Burton.
"We got away from 'em at the Squibbs' place this mornin'," said Charlie.
"Well," said Burton, "you boes come along with me. If you ain't donenothing the worst you'll get'll be three squares and a place to sleepfor a few days. I want you where I can lay my hands on you when I needa couple of witnesses," and he herded them over the fence and into themachine. As he himself was about to step in he felt suddenly of hisbreast pocket.
"What's the matter?" asked one of his companions.
"I've lost my note book," replied Burton; "it must have dropped out ofmy pocket when I jumped the fence. Just wait a minute while I go lookfor it," and he returned to the fence, vaulted it and disappeared behindthe bushes.
It was fully five minutes before he returned but when he did there was alook of satisfaction on his face.
"Find it?" asked his principal lieutenant.
"Yep," replied Burton. "I wouldn't have lost it for anything."
Bridge and his companions had made their way along the wooded path forperhaps a quarter of a mile when the man halted and drew back behind thefoliage of a flowering bush. With raised finger he motioned the othersto silence and then pointed through the branches ahead. The boy andthe girl, tense with excitement, peered past the man into a clearing inwhich stood a log shack, mud plastered; but it was not the hovel whichheld their mute attention--it was rather the figure of a girl, bareheaded and bare footed, who toiled stubbornly with an old spade at along, narrow excavation.
All too suggestive in itself was the shape of the hole the girl wasdigging; there was no need of the silent proof of its purpose which laybeside her to tell the watchers that she worked alone in the midst ofthe forest solitude upon a human grave. The thing wrapped in an oldquilt lay silently waiting for the making of its last bed.
And as the three watched her other eyes watched them and the digginggirl--wide, awestruck eyes, filled with a great terror, yet now andagain half closing in the shrewd expression of cunning that is a hallmark of crafty ignorance.
And as they watched, their over-wrought nerves suddenly shuddered to thegrewsome clanking of a chain from the dark interior of the hovel.
The youth, holding tight to Bridge's sleeve, strove to pull him away.
"Let's go back," he whispered in a voice that trembled so that he couldscarce control it.
"Yes, please," urged the girl. "Here is another path leading toward thenorth. We must be close to a road. Let's get away from here."
The digger paused and raised her head, listening, as though she hadcaught the faint, whispered note of human voices. She was a black hairedgirl of nineteen or twenty, dressed in a motley of flowered calico andsilk, with strings of gold and silver coins looped around her oliveneck. Her bare arms were encircled by bracelets--some cheap and gaudy,others well wrought from gold and silver. From her ears dependedornaments fashioned from gold coins. Her whole appearance was barbaric,her occupation cast a sinister haze about her; and yet her eyes seemedfashioned for laughter and her lips for kissing.
The watchers remained motionless as the girl peered first in onedirection and then in another, seeking an explanation of the soundswhich had disturbed her. Her brows were contracted into a scowl ofapprehension which remained even after she returned to her labors, andthat she was ill at ease was further evidenced by the frequent pausesshe made to cast quick glances toward the dense tanglewood surroundingthe clearing.
At last the grave was dug. The girl climbed out and stood looking downupon the quilt wrapped thing at her feet. For a moment she stood thereas silent and motionless as the dead. Only the twittering of birdsdisturbed the quiet of the wood. Bridge felt a soft hand slipped intohis and slender fingers grip his own. He turned his eyes to see theboy at his side gazing with wide eyes and trembling lips at the tableauwithin the clearing. Involuntarily the man's hand closed tightly uponthe youth's.
And as they stood thus the silence was shattered by a loud and humansneeze from the thicket not fifty feet from where they stood. Instantlythe girl in the clearing was electrified into action. Like a tigresscharging those who stalked her she leaped swiftly across the clearingtoward the point from which the disturbance had come. There was ananswering commotion in the underbrush as the girl crashed through, aslender knife gleaming in her hand.
Bridge and his companions heard the sounds of a swift and short pursuitfollowed by voices, one masterful, the other frightened and whimpering;and a moment afterward the girl reappeared dragging a boy with her--awide-eyed, terrified, country boy who begged and blubbered to no avail.
Beside the dead man the girl halted and then turned on her captive. Inher right hand she still held the menacing blade.
"What you do there watching me for?" she demanded. "Tell me the truth,or I kill you," and she half raised the knife that he might profit inhis decision by this most potent of arguments.
The boy cowered. "I didn't come fer to watch you," he whimpered. "I'mlookin' for somebody else. I'm goin' to be a dee-tectiff, an' I'mshadderin' a murderer;" and he gasped and stammered: "But not you. I'mlookin' for another murderer."
For the first time the watchers saw a faint smile touch the girl's lips.
"What other murderer?" she asked. "Who has been murdered?"
"Two an' mebby three in Oakdale last night," said Willie Case moreglibly now that a chance for disseminating gossip momentarily outweighedhis own fears. "Reginald Paynter was murdered an' ol' man Baggs an'Abigail Prim's missin'. Like es not she's been murdered too, thoughthey do say as she had a hand in it, bein' seen with Paynter an' TheOskaloosie Kid jest afore the murder."
As the boy's tale reached the ears of the three hidden in theunderbrush Bridge glanced quickly at his companions. He saw the boy'shorror-stricken expression follow the announcement of the name of themurdered Paynter, and he saw the girl flush crimson.
Without urging, Willie Case proceeded with his story. He told of thecoming of The Oskaloosa Kid to his father's farm that morning andof seeing some of the loot and hearing the confession of robbery andkilling in Oakdale the night before. Bridge looked down at the youthbeside him; but the other's face was averted and his eyes upon theground. Then Willie told of the arrival of the great detective, of thereward that had been offered and of his decision to win it and becomerich and famous in a single stroke. As he reached the end of hisnarrative he leaned close to the girl, whispering in her ear the whilehis furtive gaze wandered toward the spot where the three lay concealed.
Bridge shrugged his shoulders as the palpable inference of that cunningglance was borne in upon him. The boy's voice had risen despite hisefforts to hold it to a low whisper for what with the excitement of theadventure and his terror of the girl with the knife he had little orno control of himself, yet it was evident that he did not realize thatpractically every word he had spoken had reached the ears of the threein hiding and that his final precaution as he divulged the informationto the girl was prompted by an excess of timidity and secretiveness.
The eyes of the girl widened in surprise and fear as she learned thatthree watchers lay concealed at the verge of the clearing. She benta long, searching look in the direction indicated by the boy and thenturned her eyes quickly toward the hut as though to summon aid. At thesame moment Bridge stepped from hiding into the clearing. His pleasant'Good morning!' brought the girl around, facing him.
"What you want?" she snapped.
"I want you and this young man," said Bridge, his voice now suddenlystern. "We have been watching you and followed you from the Squ
ibbshouse. We found the dead man there last night;" Bridge nodded toward thequilt enveloped thing upon the ground; "and we suspect that you hadan accomplice." Here he frowned meaningly upon Willie Case. The youthtrembled and stammered.
"I never seen her afore," he cried. "I don' know nothin' about it.Honest I don't." But the girl did not quail.
"You get out," she commanded. "You a bad man. Kill, steal. He know; hetell me. You get out or I call Beppo. He keel you. He eat you."
"Come, come, now, my dear,"
The Oakdale Affair Page 17
