Panting from his efforts, trembling with eagerness, Wally leaned his bicycle against a tree, scrambled behind a stone wall, and crouched on the ground. He was none too soon. Almost immediately came the sound of wheels on the highway, and a hack turned into the lane and swept by him down the incline to the river. At the gate by the lower barn it stopped, and the sound of voices came back, as of greetings and exclamations. Then the gate was opened and shut again; and the tread of horses' hoofs and the rumble of wheels died away in the river mists.
PLAYING INDIANS
Wally's first impulse had been to get to the scene of excitement at the earliest possible moment, in order to lose nothing of the spectacle. Like most boys, he regarded himself as unfairly treated if fun was going on in which he had no share. But here he had met an obstacle. He was alone—and, as everybody knows, a boy can have no fun alone. Moreover, when he came to think of it, he had really done nothing and seen nothing. He had no tale to tell the boys the next morning that would not be met with "Then what did you do?" Close on the heels of these impressions followed the reflection that it was a dirty trick to play on the captain of the nine in the baseball season, that Poole was a friend of his, and that the kidnappers belonged to a class to which by all rules of tradition and custom his own class was to be antagonistic. Poole's predicament appealed to his sympathy. When he imagined the insolent delight of the captors at the success of their raid, they seemed in some way his own enemies, striking at him. Would the seniors find their president and bring him back? He sincerely hoped they might.
Wally mounted his bicycle and rode homeward. As he went a great purpose gradually swelled his heart and put force into his pedal strokes. He left the bicycle at the usual place, but avoided the front door as too perilous and crept in through the kitchen and up the backstairs to his room. There he pulled on a dark jersey, slipped into his pocket the flash lamp which Uncle Joe had given him at Christmas, and crept out by the kitchen door again to his faithful wheel.
Ten minutes later Wally sat in his canoe, paddling vigorously up the river. Dusk had faded into darkness, but the stars gave appreciable light, and the river was familiar to him. He knew every turn and shallow in the stream, every clump of bushes on the banks, every group of trees, every leaning stump. He passed the wide mouth of Little River, lying silent at the foot of the new Playing Field, and entered the straight stretch beside the Park, where the tall, overhanging trees on either side and the sluggish, murky water beneath formed a gloomy tunnel through which the wind blew, chill and dispiriting. But Wally was not one to be frightened by the bugaboo of darkness; the mysterious depths had no terrors for him. His work kept him warm, despite the wind, while the strip of stars above his head cheered with their friendly presence. He could see, too, on the water, not clearly but well enough to make his course; and his thoughts, set eagerly on his destination, were unaffected by the perils of the way.
So the little craft pushed its nose steadily upward against wind and current, while the gurgle of water from the paddle was hardly audible above the sighing of the wind through the naked branches.
And now he was abreast of the entrance to the cove, a broad inlet stretching deep into the woods, and crossed midway by a causeway and bridge. Over the bridge led the forest road along which the kidnappers had taken their victim. It came out close to the river again beyond the next point, and Wally, fearful that hostile eyes might peer at him from the darkness, put into practice the trick of silent paddling he had learned the summer before,—dipping the blade vertically into the water and lifting it cautiously at the end of the stroke. Another bend would bring him in sight of his goal!