CHAPTER XI
FROM CLOUD TO CLIFF
"Wonder what he thinks he can do," growled Hicks as they sat in therunabout and watched Harry pass them.
"Trying to break his own neck--for nothing," replied Owen. "If hekeeps up that speed we'll get both birds with one sand bag."
"I hope so. He didn't speak, did he? You can see by the way he actshe don't want us around--even now."
"It doesn't matter what he wants--it's what he does."
"You don't think he can save her?"
"He might--and I don't want her saved this time, Hicks, youunderstand. I can't afford it this time. I've said too much."
"Well?"
"Where did you get this runabout?"
"Upper East Side--private party; I didn't want to do any businessnear home."
"That's right."
"How much is this machine worth?" asked Owen irrelevantly.
"Oh, six or seven hundred--it ain't new. Why?"
"If anything should happen to it, there wouldn't be any trouble,provided the bill was paid, would there?"
"I got an idea the owner would grab at $300 for this here buggy.But why?"
"And if this automobile disappeared, vanished--no trace of it; you'resure there wouldn't be any investigation?" pursued Hicks.
"Yes--it would be all right, I tell you. But I want to know whatyour scheme is. How can you use this machine to get rid of Harry?Tell me," Owen insisted.
"Never mind--yet. How do you make the course of the balloon now?"
"I guess she'll go over Quirksborough and then up between Hoxey andBrent."
"Then we can pass him at Quirksborough."
"How do you figure that?"
"He'll stop for gasoline. He hasn't got enough to go more than twomiles beyond there. I saw that he hadn't when we set out."
"What do you want to pass him for? Why not let 'em both break theirown merry little necks an' us pick 'em up an' do the weepin'afterward? That's our music."
"You fool! Don't you think a balloon ever came down safe yet? Don'tyou know that young devil has got his head full of schemes to beat meout' again? I tell you we've got to make sure of this trick. We'vegot to get him."
Unconsciously Hicks brought the machine to a stop as both men strainedtheir eyes at the balloon, now traversing a lower course more slowly.
They saw Pauline stand erect in the basket and lift the heavy anchorover the side.
Harry, going at terrific speed on the deserted road, saw the drop ofthe anchor with a thrill of hope. At least--even if it was useless initself--it showed him that Pauline was brave and calm enough to useher wits. He waved again but there was no answering signal.
Suddenly the balloon itself was lost to sight from the road. At thelowering angle, drawn downward partly by the anchor and partly by thegradual loss of gas, it swung over the hills.
The road led between two hills. Beyond it curved to the east andnorth. As he reached the curve Harry was surprised that the balloonwas not in sight. When after circling another hill Harry had stillfailed to pick it up he was alarmed as well as puzzled. The hills hadmuddled his senses of direction, but he knew that he was near the riveragain--back on the verge of the Palisades. This added to his fears.
There was but one thing to do, though--follow the road. He went onslowly.
Suddenly he uttered a cry and threw on full speed. Over the top of ahigh, jagged cliff, set like a rampart between two bastion knolls, hesaw the upper half of the gas bag.
It veered and tossed in the wind like a tethered thing. The basket wasinvisible, but Harry knew that the anchor had caught on the cliffside.
As he neared it he discovered that what was a cliff on one side was theriver wall on the other. He thanked heaven that the road led to thetop of it. He turned the machine up the road, which threaded narrowledges through growths of bramble and stunted trees.
He saw and turned sick in soul and body, for the pulling of the balloonheld the basket almost inverted, and Pauline was not in the basket.
The anchor had doubled itself into rock or root far down the cliffside. From it the balloon dragged toward the river instead of towardthe shore. The taut rope writhed fifty feet out from the top of thedeclivity.
To the edge of the cliff crawled Harry. He moved rapidly, but at theuttermost verge he paused and covered his eyes with his, hand.
At last he looked down.
To Pauline on her wild flight had come increasing calm. As she feltthe balloon reaching lower levels--though it still soared high abovethe hills--she even allowed herself a little hope. Leaning over, shewatched the shining blades of the anchor dance through the air.Northeastward she could see the waves of the great river dancing. Onthe little anchor, hung her hope of life; in the water beyond thefarthest cliff lay her final peril.
She had lost track of Harry and the other automobile long ago. She hadgiven up all hope of aid from any living thing.
The balloon moved slowly above the palisade. The anchor dragged on thelandward side of the knolls. These were sheer rock that the steeltalons clawed in vain.
The balloon moved out over the river, then suddenly glided back. Aneddy of breeze from the water had turned its course. The anchordangled along the river wall of the precipice.
Pauline seized the rope. She alternately pulled and loosened it,trying to hook the anchor to tree or shrub. Suddenly she was flungforward--almost out of the basket. The balloon had stopped with ajerk. Hopefully, fearfully, she pulled in the rope. The anchor held.The balloon was tugging and swaying wildly, but its tether did notbreak. She looked down at the ledge. Between her and that narrowfooting the only thoroughfare was two hundred feet of swaying rope.She pulled upon the rope again. She dropped two more of the heavyballast bags over the side, and the bag shook and groaned upon itsstays as it dragged the anchor deeper into the rock. She put her feetover the edge of the basket. With her hands clutching the rim, shelowered herself. Taking her hands from the basket and grasping therope, she started down.
The raw hemp tore her hands. The fearful strain upon her arms made hersick and faint. Only desperation nerved her after the first tenyards. The wrenching of the balloon whirled and jostled her. Atfirst, holding only by her hands, she was flung out from the afthalyard like a flag. Then instinct told her to wrap her feet around itand she trembled on. She looked down once, saw the far swaying river,and looked quickly up again. It was not until her groping feet touchedthe rock of the ledge that she opened her eyes again. At the top of aslender rope whirled and veered and battled a balloon with an emptybasket. The sound of creaking ropes mingled in her ears with thechugging of a motor car. The chugging seemed a long way off, but itsnoise seemed to make her dizzy. She sank in a dead faint upon thenarrow ledge beside the hooked anchor.
"Pauline! Pauline! It's I--Harry. Can't you hear me? Pauline!"
There came no sound in answer--only the creaking of the balloon ropein the air, the rasping of the anchor fluke upon the stone.
He sprang up and back to the motor and began throwing out the robes,blankets, tools and chains. He laid a blanket on the ground and beganto slash it into strips with his pocket knife. In the ends of thestrips he cut slits and linked the slits with the chains to form arope. He paused only once in his frantic labor. That was when herushed back to the edge of the cliff to look again and call again-invain. He fastened the chain at the end of his strange line to asapling growing some ten feet back of the verge and with a throb ofrelief saw the other end drop to within a few feet of the unconsciousgirl. He tested the strength of the cable by pulling on it with allhis might. It did not give. He put himself over the cliff side andbegan the descent.
Owen and Hicks had not only lost the balloon, but had lost Harry, too.They could follow him only by the deep cut tracks of his flying car,and these were as likely to be over marshes and fields as on thehighway.
More than once Hicks urged that they turn back.
"We can't do no
good," he argued. "If they ain't dead they ain't--that's all."
"I've got to be sure," muttered Owen.
The little runabout had a hard fight to climb the cliff that Harry'sbig car had taken so easily. But as they came through the grove intoview of the balloon and the empty basket the two felt amply rewardedfor their worry and trouble and toil.
"By George, it has happened. It's done!" cried Owen. No artist gazingon a finished masterpiece, no conqueror thanking the fates for victorycould have spoken with more triumphant fervor.
But Hicks was out of the machine and running to Harry's car. He sawthe shreds of the blankets; he saw the knife; finally he caught aglimpse of the chain that was fastened to the sapling.
"Don't be so sure," grumbled Hicks. "Come on--but come quiet."
He got down on his hands and knees and crawled to the edge of thecliff. Owen followed him. Together they drew back with gasps ofsurprise and anger.
Hicks sprang to his feet. His big-bladed knife flashed in his hand.He sawed excitedly at the small chain. A low curse escaped him as theblade bent on the links.
Owen had dashed to Harry's auto. He was back with a pair of heavypliers. In a flash he had cut the chain. The end of it shot over thecliff. There was a startled cry from below.
It was several minutes before Hicks and Owen looked down again.
The man they thought they had just killed and the girl whom they hadmarked to die stood on the ledge in each other's arms, oblivious oflife or death, or foe or friend, of everything but love.
Pauline was still aquiver with the shock of her waking. A cry ringingabove her had brought her from her swoon and she had looked up to seethe terrible balloon still reeling over her and to find Harry danglingfrom a rope's end not ten feet away.
She rose weakly and stretched out her arms to him.
"Be still; don't move, dear," he called softly.
"You can't help me. You--"
There was a sudden snapping sound from over the top of the cliff. Thechain end of the line fell upon his shoulders. He dropped joltingly tothe ledge and lunged forward toward a further fall. It was the softarms of Pauline that caught and held him. Both trembling a little astheir lips met.
From overhead came the sound of a starting automobile. Harry shoutedat the top of his voice. There was no answer. He stopped quickly andpicked up the severed end of the life line.
"Look; it wasn't broken; it was cut;" he cried. "Good heaven, Polly,who is it that hates us like that?"
For answer she merely nestled nearer in his protecting arms.
They sat down on the ledge, and Harry's keen eyes watched the tantrumsof the balloon in the wind. It was pulling fiercely toward the rivernow, but the anchor held fast.
Suddenly Harry sprang up. Pauline started to follow his example, buthe motioned her to stay where she was. In his hand gleamed therevolver, that he had carried ever since the battle in Baskinelli'sden.
"Who is it?" whispered Pauline. "Can you see some one?"
He raised the revolver in the air, took aim and fired. The balloonrope at his feet suddenly slacked and he caught at its sagging loop togave the anchor from loosening. He fired twice again at the balloonbag, and Pauline, clinging to his shoulder saw the monster that hadheld her a slave to its elemental power, that, like some winged gorgonhad held her captive in the labyrinth of air, crumple and wither andfall at the prick of a bullet; saw it collapse into a mass of tangledleather and rope and slide in final ruin down the smooth cliff.
She looked at Harry with the whimsical smile that she could notsuppress even on the dizzy heights of danger.
"Did you really think I would fly away again?" she asked.
"Hopeless ward," he said. "Pitiful case. Miss Pauline Marvin, crazyheiress--thinks she's funny when she's merely getting killed. No,Miss Flippancy, I wanted a line to slide the rest of the way on," heannounced as he gave the anchor rope a twist around a rock.
Pauline's merriment vanished like a flash.
"Oh, I can't do it again, Harry, I can't," she cried tremulously.
"It will be easy this time," he told her. "Here, give me your hands."
With a piece of the blanket rope he tied her wrists together, andplaced her arms about his shoulders, grasping a rope that sagged awayto the wrecked balloon on the road far below. He placed a leg over theledge, wrapped it around the rope and bracing the other foot againstthe rock wall, started joyously on his fearful task.
Joyously, for if ever man rejoiced at the gates of death it was HarryMarvin. To him the chance to risk his life today was a blessing and aboon. It was what he had prayed for, hopelessly, on the long motordash in the wake of the balloon--just the chance to try and saveher. To die with her was all he asked; to die fighting for her was allhe wanted; and here he was, holding her in his arms on a stout rope,already half way down the cliff.
At the bottom he let her feel the firm earth once more. "Now you canopen your eyes," he said.
With his torn hands he started to lift her arms from his neck; but sheclung there, weeping.
"Oh, Harry, you are so patient, so good and brave, and I have made yourisk your life again for me."
"Sure; that's it; worry about me, now," he grumbled, although he heldher tenderly and close. "When will you find out that my life doesn'tmatter; it's yours that counts?"
"I will never, never do it again," said Pauline like a naughty child.
"You used to say that when you were four years old. It was usually alie," said Harry.
"I love you," said Pauline irrelevantly.
"Then why-in-the-dickens-don't-you-marry me?" he demanded.
"Because--"
She stopped. Steps sounded from the roadway. They peered through thethicket that concealed them and saw Owen approaching.
Pauline hailed him. He turned toward the thicket in obsequious haste.
"Thank Heaven, Miss Marvin," he cried. "It must be a miracle. And youare safe, too," he added, turning to Harry.
"How did you know I was ever in danger?" inquired Harry grimly.
"We heard shots," explained Owen. "We saw the balloon fall and we knewwhat you had done. It was magnificent. I congratulate you."
"Congratulate Polly," said Harry. "She slid out of Heaven, while Ionly slid down hill."
"Where is your car, Mr. Marvin?"
"Up on the hill--if the kind persons who cut the chain didn't take itwith them."
Owen did not change color. "I will go and see if it is there. If not,I'll find Hicks and his runabout. He's waiting somewhere about."
He set off briskly up the road.
"Polly, you still trust that man?" asked Harry.
"One has to trust one's guardian, doesn't one?"
He tossed his hands above his head in a gesture of "Give it all up."
"That's right; keep 'em there," said a rough voice, and a wiry man withwhite handkerchiefs tied over his face below the eyes sprang withcrunching strides through the bushes. "Keep up your hands, I say," hethundered at Harry, as he leveled a revolver.
Pauline was beside him and Harry dared not move. But Pauline dared.With the resourceful courage that always inspired her she whipped hisrevolver out his hip pocket and fired at the intruder's head.
His hat fluttered off into the road. He sprang at Pauline and wrestedthe gun from her. As Harry rushed him, he had no time to fire, but thebutt of one revolver crashed on the young man's forehead. Harry sankunconscious in the road.
Pauline knelt beside him. She was screaming for Owen--even forHicks. Hicks was instantly beside her but not to aid or rescue, forHicks was the man with the handkerchief mask. He half dragged, halfcarried Pauline to a thicket that concealed the runabout. He drew aroll of tire tape from under the seat and bound it cruelly around herlips. He took ropes and tied her hands and feet, placed her in theseat beside him and started the machine. If Harry, struggling to riseout of the dust of the road, could have seen Pauline now, bound andgagged beside Hicks in the runabout
, he would have known her to be ingreater peril than ever the balloon had brought her.
Pauline was not long unhidden. As the quick ear of Hicks caught thesound of wheels, he grasped her roughly by the arm and thrust her intothe bottom of the machine. Without taking his hand from the lever orslackening speed, he pulled a blanket over her and tucked it in withone hand.
"Don't move, either," he growled, "or you know."
A farmer on his wagon came around a bend. His cheery "good morning"brought only a grunt from Hicks, but the sound of the kind voicethrilled Pauline. She struggled under the blanket and almost reached asitting posture before Hicks crushed her back.
The runabout had flashed by, but the farmer had seen something thatalarmed even his stolid mind.
When a half mile up the road he came upon a young man, dazed andwounded, staggering through the dust, he drew rein and leaped out.
A draught of whiskey from the farmer's bottle braced Harry.
"You passed them on the road?" he cried.
"A machine with a man in it and somethin' else--somethin' in thebottom of it that moved," said the farmer.
"A horse," said Harry, "quick--one of yours will do."
The farmer hesitated. Harry thrust money into his hand. "Quick," heshouted.
Together they unharnessed the team. Coatless and hatless, tattered,wounded and stained, Harry swung himself to the bare back of astirrupless steed and galloped out on what he knew was the mostdangerous of all the pathways of Pauline.