A few minutes later, and they brought up at the cottage which had so suddenly become such a center of interest. The phone had been used from Hickory Ridge to inform Mr. Tubbs, who was a big contractor in Fairfield. Others had come from various neighboring homes, for it is amazing how such news flies on the wings of the wind.
The boys moved around among the people for a short time. Elmer made his way inside the cottage, to where he could hear the bereaved mother crying, and between sobs trying the best she could to tell just how it had happened.
"If we only knew which way Dolph went, we might manage to head him off," declared the police head, after a while.
"Oh! if you only could, how happy I would be!" Mrs. Gruber cried, stopping her crying to wring her hands entreatingly. "He is a bad man when he drinks; and he was in a terrible temper because I said I couldn't get him any more money—that my folks wouldn't allow me to turn over another cent to him. Please start right away; and if you bring back my Ruth unharmed I will pray for you every night of my whole life!"
"But how are we to know which way he went?" questioned the officer. "You say he struck you, ma'am, and that you fell down almost insensible. But can you not give us some sort of clue as to which direction he took?"
"Yes, sir, I can," came the eager reply. "Please come outside with me. You see, I seemed to recover after a little, and being almost crazy to know what he had done with my darling Ruth, I managed to crawl out of the door here, though I was so dizzy I could hardly keep from falling. Then I saw him carrying my child in his arms, and just disappearing in the woods over there, close to where you see that dark hemlock, under which," with another choking sob, "she used to play so often."
"Sure of that, are you, ma'am?" asked the man in uniform, quickly.
"Yes, yes, I assure you it is the exact truth, sir. Under that hemlock I saw them disappear," the distracted mother cried.
"I understand what he had in his mind," broke in a man. "That's a short cut to the other road that leads over to Cramertown. Dolph used to live there once. So of course he's heading that way."
To be sure it seemed most reasonable, and not one of the men appeared to doubt the accuracy of the guess in the least. But Elmer was not so sure. He knew that when a man becomes by some act of his own a fugitive from the law, he changes his ways. Cramertown, then, would be one of the last places to which Dolph Gruber would think of fleeing, because he was well known there.