by W E Johns
The Prisoner Speaks
How LONG THE Indian had been there, or how he had got there, Ginger, of course, did not know. He did not particularly care. One thing was certain, and that was what concerned him most. The man was ‘treed’ by the wolves as effectively—in fact, more effectively—than he was himself. His plight was a good deal more precarious.
Twice, as he watched, Ginger saw the Indian slip, and climb back to the ridge by what seemed to be an effort. He wondered why the man had not fired at him, or why he did not fire at the wolves. Watching the man’s hands as he clung to the ridge, he suspected the reason; and presently he became fairly certain that his assumption was correct. The Indian had not got the rifle with him. Either he had dropped it in his haste to climb on the roof out of reach of the wolves, or he had accidentally let it slip after he was up. Either way, as far as Ginger was concerned, the effect was the same If the man was unarmed it put a very different complexion on the whole situation, and he began to take a fresh interest in the proceedings.: particularly when, a minute or two later, he heard what he took to be a cry for help.
Opening the side window quietly, he looked out. ‘Hi!’ he yelled. ‘Have you got the rifle?’ The words seemed strangely loud in the icy silence. The wolves stopped their prowling and stared at the machine.
‘No... on ground,’ came the reply, rather faintly.
‘Can you hold on until the morning?’ was Ginger’s next question.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Too cold. Die with cold here,’ came the tragic announcement.
It did not occur to Ginger to doubt the word of a man whose position was obviously far too precarious for him to hope to gain anything by lying. ‘Hold on!’ he shouted.
The last thing he wanted now was that the Indian should die, and carry the secret of the gold with him to the grave—or, as seemed more likely, into the stomachs of the brutes prowling below, who appeared to sense that, of the two men, this was the one more likely to satisfy their appetites.
It did not take Ginger long to make up his mind what to do. There was, in fact, only one thing he could do; for, whether the Indian died or not, he had no intention of taking on the pack single-handed, on the ground, armed only with a pistol. And he lost no time in putting his plan into execution. The self-starter whirred. It did not surprise him when the engines refused to start, for he knew that they must be stone cold. However, it was only a matter of time.
Actually, it took him nearly ten minutes to get the first kick out of one of the propellers. A minute later one engine started with its customary roar. A streak of blue flame shot out of the exhaust. He did not bother about the other engine. One, he hoped, would be sufficient for his purpose. And he was right.
If he had any doubts as to how the wolves would behave in the face of a roaring aero-engine they were soon dismissed. Even before the machine moved, most of them were skulking towards the wood, and by the time it was half-way to the cabin, with Ginger making the night hideous with occasional bursts of throttle, they were in full flight. Slowly, on the alert for any sign of treachery, he taxied the machine right up to the cabin wall and then switched off. ‘Stay where you are until I tell you to move,’ he called to the Indian; and then, jumping down, he picked up the rifle, which he could now see lying near the cabin wall half buried in snow.
‘All right, come down,’ he said curtly. ‘Be careful what you are doing or you’ll get shot.’
He stepped back as the Indian slid off the roof, bringing a small avalanche of snow with him, and fell heavily to the ground. Ginger did not take his eyes off him for a moment, but he saw that, unless the man was a clever actor, he was at his last gasp. He was so stiff with cold that he had difficulty in getting him to his feet.
Ginger, stooping down, took the Indian’s knife from his belt and tossed it, with the rifle, into the machine. He kept him covered with his pistol, and with some difficulty managed to get him into the hut, where he allowed him to sink down again near the stove. Still keeping one eye on him, he lit the lamp, by the light of which he saw that the man was really in a bad way. There was blood on his left arm, from which he assumed that his bullet must, after all, have wounded him. The stove, he discovered, was out, but he did not bother about lighting it. The lamp would give a certain amount of heat.
‘Now,’ he said, turning to his prisoner, ‘I am going to ask you some questions. If you are wise you will answer them truthfully. You can understand English, I think?’
‘Sure,’ returned the Indian weakly, with a soft American accent.
‘Where is the gold?’
The Indian did not reply.
‘Where is the gold?’ asked Ginger again.
‘Gold? No gold.’
‘Don’t lie to me! ‘ snapped Ginger. ‘You know the gold is here. I know it’s here. You’d better remember where it is—unless you want to go back outside to the wolves. You needn’t be afraid to speak. McBain won’t worry you.’
The Indian started, and Ginger knew that his shot had gone home.
‘By the time this business is over McBain will be hanging by the neck,’ he announced confidently. ‘He is probably under arrest by now.’
The Indian looked up. ‘What for, huh?’ he asked.
‘For murdering Mose Jacobs. You were in that too.’
‘No! No—no! Not me!’ flashed back the Indian quickly.
‘We’ll talk about that presently,’ declared Ginger. ‘What I want to know first of all is where McBain has hidden the gold. Speak up. You’d better tell me what you know. It’s your only chance of escaping the rope.’
The Indian looked worried, but he did not answer.
‘They’ll make you speak when they try you for murdering Mose,’ went on Ginger remorselessly. ‘You killed him, didn’t you?’
‘No.’
‘Was it McBain?’
‘Yes, McBain,’ agreed the Indian sullenly.
‘How do you know?’ fired back Ginger.
‘I know.’
‘How do you know? Did McBain tell you?’
‘No. I guessed. Then I found the—’
‘The what? Come on, out with it.’
‘He hit Mose with—the butt end of his gun.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I saw him cleaning blood and hair off his gun afterwards.’
‘What did he clean it with?’
‘A towel.’
‘Where did he put it?’
The Indian hesitated.
‘Come on,’ prompted Ginger.
‘He put towel under some sacks in the corner of office.’
Ginger was more than pleased about this piece of additional evidence—always assuming that the Indian spoke the truth, and he could think of no sound reason why he should lie. ‘Of course, there is a way you can save your own neck if you like,’ he went on insinuatingly.
‘How?’
‘By turning Queen’s Evidence. You tell the truth to the police and maybe they’ll let you off. If you don’t tell all you know it makes you as bad as the actual murderer. Remember that when we get back to-morrow.’
The Indian started. His dark eyes sought Ginger’s. ‘Back—to-morrow?’
‘Yes. You’re coming back with me. What else did you think you were going to do?’
Again the Indian did not answer.
Ginger was not particularly concerned about the Indian’s fate. What he wanted was all the evidence he could muster against McBain, particularly the gold that would prove his guilt, so he spent some time in planting in the Indian’s mind the idea that if he confessed all he knew there was a chance that the law would take a lenient view of his association with McBain. He assured him that McBain would certainly be hanged, and in this belief he was sincere. ‘If you won’t tell me where the gold is, you’ll jolly soon tell Constable Delaney when he gets his hands on you,’ he concluded. ‘For the last time, where is the gold?’
The Indian turned his face slowly towards the stove. �
�Under there,’ he said simply.
Ginger could have kicked himself for not thinking of it; or rather, for overlooking such an obvious place. Looking at the stove now, he saw that it stood on a small piece of thin iron sheeting, which had probably been supplied with the stove. Seizing the upper part, he dragged it aside. He swept the iron sheeting away with his foot and a cavity was revealed. Reaching down, his hand came into contact with a small bag, or sack, of harsh material. He dragged it up into the room, and knew from its weight that it contained gold.
There were eight sacks, each tied and sealed. On the side of each one was printed in black letters MOOSE CREEK GOLDFIELDS INC. There was only one other thing in the cache, a small iron object, and for a moment he wondered what it could be; but when, on the base, he saw the brand of the Moose Creek company, he understood. ‘A spare seal, eh?’ he murmured. ‘So that’s how McBain was able to do the trick. And he came here to do it. Well, when we get back to Fort Beaver with this little lot several people are going to get a shock.’
The Indian said nothing. Ginger, having obtained what he wanted, had nothing more to say. The only thing that remained was for him to wait until daylight and then get back to Fort Beaver as quickly as possible.
The lamp had taken the chill off the room, but it was by no means warm, and although the Indian had recovered somewhat he looked far from happy. Ginger examined the wound in his arm; it was only a flesh wound, but sufficient to cause the Indian to lose a good deal of blood. which, with the exposure he had experienced on the roof, accounted for his weakness.
Ginger remembered McBain’s fur coat. He did not need it himself, but it struck him that his prisoner would be more comfortable in it, so he lifted it from its peg intending to hand it to him. As he took it down, something sharp pierced his forearm, bringing an exclamation of pain and surprise to his lips. The object, whatever it was, seemed to be in the sleeve, so thinking that it was possibly a thorn, he examined the sleeve carefully in order to remove it. He was some time finding the object, but at length he located it in the turned-up fold of the sleeve. Taking it out, he regarded it for some moments in silence, an extraordinary expression on his face. He glanced quickly at the Indian, but the man’s back was turned towards him and it was clear that he had not noticed the incident. Slipping the object quickly back into the turn-up of the sleeve, he spread the coat over the shoulders of his prisoner.
The night passed as slowly as any he could remember, but at long last the grey dawn for which he had waited shed its feeble light through the window. There had, of course, been no question of going to sleep with a dangerous character like the Indian in the room.
He went over to the window and looked out. Nothing moved. There was no sign of the wolves.
‘Well, it’s daylight and I don’t see any wolves,’ he told the Indian.
‘The wolves go back into the wood at dawn,’ was the cold reply. ‘They not come out again now.’
‘Well, come on; on your feet. We’ll get along,’ ordered Ginger.
The Indian pleaded to be left behind, to be given his freedom, swearing that he would never work for McBain again. But this was something Ginger was not prepared to grant.
He compelled his prisoner to help him to carry the gold across to the machine.
When the last of it was safely on board, he closed the hut and made the Indian sit beside him in the Jupiter, reckoning that once in the air the Indian would be powerless to do any harm—unless he deliberately did something calculated to crash the machine and kill them both, which hardly seemed likely.
It took Ginger some time to start the engines, for they were very cold, but in the end he got them going, and just as the first rays of the rising sun flashed up over the horizon the Jupiter roared into the air on its return journey to Fort Beaver.
Had Ginger known what was happening there his cheerful confidence would have received a rude shock. As it was, he was so pleased with the success of his mission that he hummed softly to himself as the landmarks he recognized slipped away behind.
‘They must have wondered what has happened to me,’ he thought seriously.
At the Eleventh Hour
As WE KNOW, the others had more than once wondered what had happened to him. But now, as they stood under the fatal tree with the end so near, he slipped from their minds.
It was Biggles who knew first that the machine was coming; his keen ears picked up the drone of the motors before he saw it.
‘Here comes Ginger,’ he said, by which time others in the crowd had heard it too.
There was a quick babble of excited conversation. The immediate preparations for the hanging were temporarily abandoned, and several people pointed to the fast approaching Jupiter.
‘Never mind about that,’ shouted McBain. It was almost as if he sensed that the oncoming aeroplane was a danger to the success of his plans. Ferroni, who was him, raised his voice in a demand that the hanging should be proceeded with, but the attention of the crowd was distracted by the behaviour of the machine.
At first it seemed that the pilot was going to glide straight to the aerodrome and land, but at the last moment the machine turned suddenly, as if the pilot had observed the crowd and wished to see it at close quarters. Straight over the tree at a height of not more than fifty feet the Jupiter soared, and then went into a tight circle. The watchers on the ground could see the pale face of the pilot looking down at them.
‘Come on; ain’t yer never seen an airyplane before? Let’s get on with the hangin’,’ roared McBain. But the noise of the Jupiter’s engines so drowned the words that only those in his immediate vicinity heard them.
‘What does he think he’s up to?’ Delaney asked Biggles, who was watching the side window of the control cabin.
‘I don’t know,’ he answered, ‘but I rather fancy that he is going to throw something out. Yes, he is,’ he went on quickly, raising his voice, as a bulky object blocked the cabin window. ‘Watch your heads, everybody.’
The next moment a dark object was hurtling downwards, turning slowly as it fell. There was a yell of alarm from the crowd, each member of which took steps to make sure that it did not hit him; only the prisoners and Delaney remained still, eyes on the falling object, which finally crashed to earth in the middle of the scattered spectators, but, fortunately, without hitting any one.
The actual moment of impact produced a curious effect: so curious, in fact, that it is doubtful if any one of the watchers had the slightest idea of what had happened. There seemed to be a sort of brilliant yellow flash, almost like a tongue of flame, which licked along the short turf for a brief moment before it disappeared. The phenomenon had occurred about ten or twelve yards from the tree.
‘What the dickens was that?’ ejaculated Algy.
‘Goodness knows,’ replied Biggles, who was still staring at the spot; he could see a small, buff-coloured object, and beside it a yellow streak. Then the crowd converged on it and it was hidden from his view. There was an excited whisper, almost a hiss, and then a shout went up.
Delaney had run forward with the others. ‘Stand away there!’ he ordered crisply.
Curiously enough, the crowd gave way to him, as though it once more respected his authority. Mass hysteria is a strange thing; it can die down as quickly as it can arise; and thus it was in this case. It was as if the crowd had been shocked by what it saw on the ground.
Delaney perceived his opportunity, and was not slow in taking advantage of it. ‘Stand clear!’ he snapped. ‘Don’t touch it, anybody. And that goes for you, too, McBain,’ he went on curtly.
One of the first to reach the fallen object had been McBain, and he stared at it as if he could not believe his eyes. Delaney stooped and picked up something from the ground; it looked like a piece of torn sacking. ‘Moose Creek Goldfields!’ he cried in an amazed voice. Then, a tone higher, he added, ‘Boys, it’s the Moose Creek gold!’
The words were received with a loud buzz of excitement, and every one pressed forward to se
e the pile of yellow dust that had burst from the bag when it had hit the ground.
Delaney placed two men on guard over the gold. They obeyed without question. Then he strode to where the prisoners were still standing, the ropes around their necks. The crowd, its anger melting in the face of this new mystery, surged after him.
‘What do you know about this?’ Delaney asked Biggles sternly.
‘Not much more than you do,’ replied Biggles. ‘I suggest that you let the boy tell his story in his own way. Here he comes, now.’
Ginger, who by this time had landed, was, in fact, marching towards the crowd; and he did not come alone. In front of him, covered by his automatic, walked the Indian, draped in a long skunk-skin coat.
The crowd fell silent as it watched the approach of this curious procession. On all faces was astonishment not far from incredulity.
Straight through the crowd to where Delaney was standing Ginger marched his prisoner, the spectators forming a lane to allow them to pass. His eyes opened wide when he saw the dangling ropes and for whom they were intended.
‘What’s the idea?’ asked Delaney, the words sounding strangely loud in the hush that had fallen.
‘I’ve brought back evidence to prove that my friends, who have been arrested for the murder of Mose Jacobs, or the theft of the Moose Creek gold, or both, are innocent,’ cried Ginger. ‘I have brought back the gold,’ he went on. ‘Some of it you have seen.’ He pointed in the direction of that which lay on the ground. ‘The rest is in the aeroplane.’
‘Where did you find it?’ asked Delaney.
‘I found it under the floor of a cabin up on the edge of the bad lands—where the thief had hidden it until such time as it suited him to collect it. This Indian was left on guard over it, and he will tell you to whom the cabin belongs. It belongs to Brindle McBain.’
McBain, white with passion, pushed his way to the front. ‘What are you saying?’ he snarled.
