CHAPTER XXIII
DUMMY “GETS IN GOOD”
There was not a weapon found on the three robbers, save the blackjack.The sheriff’s pistol was lost; but once the gangsters had been subdued,they made no effort to attack their captors again.
Besides, Billy and Dummy stood over them with their clubs while Dan tookone of the dim lights from the sleigh and went through the storm to findthe iceboat on which the thieves had reached the spot.
He found it, got some rope, and the wrists of the three captives weretied behind them. And as Dan and Billy were the ones who did the tyingyou may be sure they made the bonds quite as taut as their own had been!
“I don’t see as those fellows have done her any harm, Billy,” the olderboy told his brother in a whisper. “But she’s almost buried in thesnow.”
“And how’ll we get her back to-night?” demanded Billy, anxiously.
“I’m afraid we’re not likely to.”
“Who knows what will happen to the _Follow Me_ away out here? Crickey,Dan! let’s stay and watch her.”
But they could not do that. In the first place, the girls would not hearof it.
“You stay here, Dan Speedwell?” gasped Mildred. “No, indeed! Youmustn’t!”
“Why, I’ll never speak to you again if you don’t go back to town withus, Billy,” declared Lettie, with quite as much emphasis.
“You can see just how we stand with these young ladies, Parker,” brokein the jolly sheriff. “The Speedwell boys forever! And I don’t know butthe girls are about right. We wouldn’t have got this bunch if it hadn’tbeen for the boys.
“Besides, what they tell me makes me believe that this adventure hasbeen a very fortunate one indeed. These men were after those buriedplates and the other evidence. They have maltreated this poor chap,” andhe put his hand on Dummy’s shoulder. “Tom Davis, here, undoubtedly heardabout the buried box before he left the penitentiary. Some of his palsare already there, and prisoners have ways of circulating intelligence.
“Tom, here, got these other two blacklegs to help him, and they thoughtthey’d make a getaway with the box. Now we’ll take that box along withus to Riverdale.”
Dummy and Dan went to the stranded iceboat again and brought back theironbound box. It was all they cared to stagger under in that storm.
As soon as Dummy had been made to understand who the sheriff was, hemade no objection to giving up the box. Indeed, he seemed glad to bequit of the responsibility.
“And let me tell you, there is a reward coming to somebody for therecovery of that box, if not for the arrest of these three fellows,”said Sheriff Kimball. “I shall see to it that this poor lad gets hisshare.”
“Well, we may say that _this_ ill wind is going to blow somebody good,then,” remarked Mr. Parker. “But I believe it is blowing harder thanever, Kimball. Do you know where we are?”
The sheriff had little idea; but Dan knew. His compass came into playand they found that the horses had really headed around and were goingup stream again when they made their halt.
“We certainly got well turned around,” admitted the county clerk.
“Now, you see, Pa!” exclaimed Lettie. “You big men would have dragged usaround in the snow all night, and we’d been lost, and frozen up tightmaybe——”
“I don’t see that your boy knights are going to do much better,”returned Mr. Parker, rather grimly. “This is a bad storm. I wish we hadnever left that farmhouse, Kimball.”
“So do I,” admitted the sheriff.
“We can’t all pile into this sleigh—the horses can scarcely draw it asit is. That box is a weight, and no mistake.”
“I say, sir,” said Dan to the sheriff, again consulting the compass. “Iknow we can get to John Bromley’s dock, all right. It is a gooddistance, but as long as we know which way to head, we’re bound to bringup there if we keep near enough the shore.”
“Sensibly said, boy,” agreed Parker.
“I’ll walk ahead of the horses. You can’t get them out of a walk,anyway,” pursued Dan. “You folks get into the sleigh again, and letthose fellows walk behind. Billy and Dummy will see that they don’t fallout of the procession.”
The sheriff made one amendment to this. He refused to ride in thesleigh, but made Mr. Parker and the girls snuggle down under the robes.He declared he preferred to keep moving, anyway, and he led the coltshimself.
They acted better with him at their heads, for the poor beasts werefrightened and pretty well winded. Thus the procession started—and therewere no stragglers. The dummy and Billy Speedwell saw to that.
They were all tired and half-blinded by the snow and wind; but the workkept their blood in circulation. Those afoot were better off than Mr.Parker and the girls.
The three prisoners suffered a good deal before long. It is not easy towalk at any time with one’s hands tied behind one’s back; but to wadethrough knee-deep snowdrifts under those conditions is very hard indeed.
The cords around their wrists stopped the circulation, too; and the menwere in danger of suffering frost-bitten hands. Tom Davis, theex-convict and the ugliest man in the trio, was the quickest to sufferand make his suffering known.
Like every other bully, he was a coward. He had invented the way totorture Dummy when they desired to know where the hidden box lay, and hehad exulted in the lad’s pain. But he could not have held out againstthe scorching for a minute.
Now he begged and pleaded with Billy to loosen his bonds. He even criedand declared his hands would “freeze and drop off.”
“Then, by crickey!” exclaimed young Speedwell, “you’ll be able to keepthem out of other people’s pockets. Get on with you!” and he poked thefellow in the back with his stick.
“It was all right when you tied us up and left us to starve, or freezein that cave on the island,” pursued Master Billy. “You might have knownyou were bound to get yours.”
Tom blubbered along, stumbling through the snow, and even his matesscorned him.
They were not a pleasant party, to say the least. Once or twice one ofthe prisoners fell. Billy and Dummy helped him up again; and they weresure that the cords held. The guards did not neglect their captives atany stage of the game.
The procession moved slowly on, Dan in the lead. He brought them in nearto the high bank of the Colasha. There were farmhouses somewhere alongthe riverside; but the bank was so steep that it would have been verydifficult to get the horses up to the highway. Furthermore, in thisblinding snowstorm, it was impossible to see a light.
They struggled on with a desperate attempt at cheerfulness, shoutingencouragement to each other, and trying to be brave. But the snow waspiling into such drifts against the shore that it was scarcely possiblefor them to win through.
“Don’t know but we’ll have to strike out on to the clearer ice again,sir,” suggested Dan to Mr. Kimball.
“Where’d you find a piece of cleared ice—unless you cleared ityourself?” grumbled the sheriff. “This is a _nice_ mess!”
“It’s tough on the team,” admitted Dan. “But I reckon we’ll pull throughafter a fashion.”
“I admire your pluck, lad,” grunted the sheriff. “And it’s one o’clockright now!”
“Then we ought to be somewhere near old John’s. He can’t be very farahead——There! isn’t that a light?”
“Where?” exclaimed the sheriff, excitedly.
“Dead ahead. Don’t you see? It’s moving! I believe that’s the littlesearchlight we rigged on Bromley’s wharf. Yes, sir! The good old fellow!He’s hoping we will see it—Billy and I—and be able to get back in theiceboat.”
“Iceboat!” snorted the sheriff. “You’ve a fat chance of ever seeing youriceboat tied up at this dock again until the snow goes away.”
“Well, now!” exclaimed Dan, with some emphasis. “You just watch. Billyand I don’t propose to let our _Follow Me_ lie out there on the riverfor very long. We’re going to win the races next
week in that boat, anddon’t you forget it!”
“I wish I had your hope, boy,” grunted the county officer. “Come up,Dandy! What’s the matter with you, Poke?”
It _was_ the light on Bromley’s dock. The old boatman had recovered fromthe rough usage he had received at the hands of the three robbers, andwas out on the watch for the Speedwell boys.
To say he was surprised at the appearance of the procession is to butfaintly express old John’s emotions.
“Strike my colors!” he ejaculated. “This is the beatenest thing I eversee. And I’d made up my mind that Master Dan and Billy had got intotrouble this time for sure.”
“And you were quite right—we did,” admitted Dan, tenderly arranging thebandages on his wrists.
“And you got them sculpins?” said the boatman, eyeing the threeexhausted captives with much disfavor. “Well! the rest of you pile intomy house an’ git warm. Let them fellers stay out here and freeze a bitmore.”
But he was not as bad as all that. Old John opened the fishhouse andbuilt a fire in the little stove there, and soon the three prisonerswere getting warm, too.
Mr. Parker telephoned to his home and to Dr. Kent’s and so relieved theanxiety of the girls’ mothers. Dan called up his own house and caughthis father just before he started for the barn to get the milk truckready.
“Though, in this storm, it is lucky if we get around. I shall take Boband Betty, rather than the motor truck,” said Mr. Speedwell. “Yourmother says to bring that poor boy home with you. We must look afterhim.”
“And I tell you,” said the enthusiastic Billy, to Mildred and Lettie,“Dummy is going to ‘get in good’—don’t you forget that! Sheriff Kimballsays there will be several hundred dollars coming to him.”
“If there’s any chance of a doctor’s helping him your father will know,Mildred,” said Dan. “Make him promise to come out and see Dummy just assoon as he can.”
“I will,” Mildred declared. “He is a real nice boy, I think. And if helearns to talk and goes to school——”
“Oh, he’ll do all of that!” promised Dan. “We’ll see to it, Billy andI.”
“Do see that he gets a new name—or a better one, at least,” suggestedLettie Parker. “Anybody would be handicapped with such a nickname as_he_ has had.”
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