So mystery again resolved itself into the bogy of a telephone line that did not seem to exist. Dexter had ransacked one cabin in futile search of a communicating circuit, and now his perplexity gave him no choice but to go through the same performance at this place. With a sigh and a shake of his head, he lighted a candle, and set about an irksome task.
He went out of doors first, and inspected the ground. The snow held no intruding footprints. Smith could not have been talking to any one who stood within earshot. No wires went out from the cabin, so it seemed equally certain that his voice had not been transmitted over a telephone line. Wireless? That last remaining possibility was easily settled. He searched the interior cabin from end to end, floor, walls, roof, fireplace, prying into every imaginable nook and cranny; and found not one piece or part of radio equipment. Nor was there anything about the place to suggest that the owner might be engaged in any business other than fur trapping. The first streaks of daylight were beginning to filter through the windows when Dexter finally gave it up as a hopeless puzzle.
The boy had been watching from the bunk, without comment, his artless face betraying nothing more than mild curiosity. The corporal scrutinized him with narrow eyes. His pose of innocence was well put on, but Dexter could not help but feel that it was assumed for the occasion. From the beginning he had refused to believe that the young man had told his right name, and the suspicion persisted that he was in some way involved in the affairs of the incomprehensible girl who had quitted this cabin two days before. Whether awake or asleep, he certainly had spoken the name "Alison," and it all sounded strangely like a warning.
Dexter darkly pondered the significance of the words he had overheard. Assuming that the impossible might have happened—that a message could carry by some queer, occult agency through the intervening leagues of forest—then its purport was unmistakable. "Don't come here. Go to Saddle Notch." The boy's speech carried definite instructions. Were the words, by miraculous chance, intended to reach the girl? If she could come and go at will, as the mysterious conversation might seem to indicate, there was but one inference to be drawn: she had escaped from Devreaux.
Following his startling line of conjecture thus far, the rest was only simple logic. If the girl actually had fled from the hands of one policeman, naturally her friends would attempt to warn her away from a cabin where a second policeman had established himself. She would be advised to strike for a safer retreat. Saddle Notch! In a sudden flash of intuition, the corporal persuaded himself that he knew the place. Riding across the west range two days ago he had been struck by the appearance of a peculiarly shaped mountain with two outstanding peaks, and a cleft or notch between, that bore an amazing resemblance to a gigantic saddle. The mountain stood amid a cluster of other high peaks in a wild and lonely region, about twenty miles southwest of this spot. Such country offered ideal refuge to any fugitive who might be hard pressed, seeking to hide.
For a moment the corporal considered the strangely suggested possibilities. No doubt it would prove a futile chase to go ranging through the forests on a flimsy hint of this sort; yet a blind instinct urged him to go. He hesitated for an instant, and then, with a nod and a fleeting smile, he made his decision. If by any millionth chance Alison Rayne had broken away from Devreaux and was traveling to a meeting at the Saddle Notch with some unidentified friend, then he, the policeman, would also be there to keep the rendezvous.
CHAPTER X
BLIND-MAN'S CHASE
With face cold and inscrutable, Dexter crossed the cabin to stand by the bunk. For a moment he regarded the boy in silent speculation. Whatever the young man's hidden thoughts, he was taking good care to keep them to himself. And there was no way to force him to betray secrets. An officer has no right to employ extreme methods in dealing with a law-abiding citizen; and there was no evidence to accuse Smith of any illegal act. Grounds for his arrest or detention were lacking. Even the time-worn pretext of holding a suspected offender as a "witness" wouldn't stand in his case. He had witnessed nothing he could be called to the box for—unless, indeed, he testified to the fact that he had watched a policeman rummaging vainly, and without written warrant, through another man's dwelling. Apparently there was nothing to be done except to grant him the best of the encounter.
Dexter suppressed a rueful laugh, and reached forward abruptly to touch the boy's bandaged arm. "Let's see how you're doing this morning," he suggested lightly.