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 took one of the dim lights from the sleigh and went through the storm to find the iceboat on which the thieves had reached the spot.
He found it, got some rope, and the wrists of the three captives were tied behind them. And as Dan and Billy were the ones who did the tying you 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 older boy told his brother in a whisper. “But she’s almost buried in the snow.”
“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 hear of it.
“You stay here, Dan Speedwell?” gasped Mildred. “No, indeed! You mustn’t!”
“Why, I’ll never speak to you again if you don’t go back to town with us, Billy,” declared Lettie, with quite as much emphasis.
“You can see just how we stand with these young ladies, Parker,” broke in the jolly sheriff. “The Speedwell boys forever! And I don’t know but the girls are about right. We wouldn’t have got this bunch if it hadn’t been for the boys.
“Besides, what they tell me makes me believe that this adventure has been a very fortunate one indeed. These men were after those buried plates and the other evidence. They have maltreated this poor chap,” and he put his hand on Dummy’s shoulder. “Tom Davis, here, undoubtedly heard about the buried box before he left the penitentiary. Some of his pals are already there, and prisoners have ways of circulating intelligence.
“Tom, here, got these other two blacklegs to help him, and they thought they’d make a getaway with the box. Now we’ll take that box along with us to Riverdale.”
Dummy and Dan went to the stranded iceboat again and brought back the ironbound 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, he made no objection to giving up the box. Indeed, he seemed glad to be quit of the responsibility.
“And let me tell you, there is a reward coming to somebody for the recovery 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 his share.”
“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 than ever, Kimball. Do you know where we are?”
The sheriff had little idea; but Dan knew. His compass came into play and they found that the horses had really headed around and were going up 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 us around in the snow all night, and we’d been lost, and frozen up tight maybe——”
“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 had never left that farmhouse, Kimball.”
“So do I,” admitted the sheriff.
“We can’t all pile into this sleigh—the horses can scarcely draw it as it is. That box is a weight, and no mistake.”
“I say, sir,” said Dan to the sheriff, again consulting the compass. “I know we can get to John Bromley’s dock, all right. It is a good distance, but as long as we know which way to head, we’re bound to bring up 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 let those fellows walk behind. Billy and Dummy will see that they don’t fall out of the procession.”
The sheriff made one amendment to this. He refused to ride in the sleigh, but made Mr. Parker and the girls snuggle down under the robes. He declared he preferred to keep moving, anyway, and he led the colts himself.
They acted better with him at their heads, for the poor beasts were frightened and pretty well winded. Thus the procession started—and there were no stragglers. The dummy and Billy Speedwell saw to that.
They were all tired and half-blinded by the snow and wind; but the work kept 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 to walk at any time with one’s hands tied behind one’s back; but to wade through knee-deep snowdrifts under those conditions is very hard indeed.
The cords around their wrists stopped the circulation, too; and the men were in danger of suffering frost-bitten hands. Tom Davis, the ex-convict and the ugliest man in the trio, was the quickest to suffer and make his suffering known.
Like every other bully, he was a coward. He had invented the way to torture Dummy when they desired to know where the hidden box lay, and he had exulted in the lad’s pain. But he could not have held out against the scorching for a minute.
Now he begged and pleaded with Billy to loosen his bonds. He even cried and declared his hands would “freeze and drop off.”
“Then, by crickey!” exclaimed young Speedwell, “you’ll be able to keep them out of other people’s pockets. Get on with you!” and he poked the fellow in the back with his stick.
“It was all right when you tied us up and left us to starve, or freeze in that cave on the island,” pursued Master Billy. “You might have known you were bound to get yours.”
Tom blubbered along, stumbling through the snow, and even his mates scorned him.
They were not a pleasant party, to say the least. Once or twice one of the prisoners fell. Billy and Dummy helped him up again; and they were sure that the cords held. The guards did not neglect their captives at any stage of the game.
The procession moved slowly on, Dan in the lead. He brought them in near to the high bank of the Colasha. There were farmhouses somewhere along the riverside; but the bank was so steep that it would have been very difficult to get the horses up to the highway. Furthermore, in this blinding snowstorm, it was impossible to see a light.
They struggled on with a desperate attempt at cheerfulness, shouting encouragement to each other, and trying to be brave. But the snow was piling into such drifts against the shore that it was scarcely possible for 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 it yourself?” grumbled the sheriff. “This is a nice mess!”
“It’s tough on the team,” admitted Dan. “But I reckon we’ll pull through after a fashion.”
“I admire your pluck, lad,” grunted the sheriff. “And it’s one o’clock right now!”
“Then we ought to be somewhere near old John’s. He can’t be very far ahead——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 little searchlight 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 the iceboat.”
“Iceboat!” snorted the sheriff. “You’ve a fat chance of ever seeing your iceboat tied up at this dock again until the snow goes away.”
“Well, now!” exclaimed Dan, with some emphasis. “You just watch. Billy and I don’t propose to let our Follow Me lie out there on the river for very long. We’re going to win the races next week in that boat, and don’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 from the rough usage he had received at the hands of the three robbers, and was out on the watch for the Speedwell boys.
To say he was surprised at the appearance of the procession is to but faintly express old John’s emotions.
“Strike my colors!” he ejaculated. “This is the beatenest thing I ever see. And I’d made up my mind that Master Dan and Billy had got into trouble this time for sure.”
“And you were quite right—we did,” admitted Dan, tenderly arranging the bandages on his wrists.
“And you got them sculpins?” said the boatman, eyeing the three exhausted captives with much disfavor. “Well! the rest of you pile into my house an’ git warm. Let them fellers stay out here and freeze a bit more.”
But he was not as bad as all that. Old John opened the fishhouse and built a fire in the little stove there, and soon the three prisoners were getting warm, too.
Mr. Parker telephoned to his home and to Dr. Kent’s and so relieved the anxiety of the girls’ mothers. Dan called up his own house and caught his father just before he started for the barn to get the milk truck ready.
“Though, in this storm, it is lucky if we get around. I shall take Bob and Betty, rather than the motor truck,” said Mr. Speedwell. “Your mother says to bring that poor boy home with you. We must look after him.”
“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 Kimball says 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 as soon as he can.”
“I will,” Mildred declared. “He is a real nice boy, I think. And if he learns to talk and goes to school——”
“Oh, he’ll do all of that!” promised Dan. “We’ll see to it, Billy and I.”
“Do see that he gets a new name—or a better one, at least,” suggested Lettie Parker. “Anybody would be handicapped with such a nickname as he has had.”