They started up the path again, keeping to the right now, instead of turning left as they had when they went to the ball field. The Picnic Pillar was an old rock tower, where every picnic party added a rock to the monument.
Soon they were in a little dell, where the brook bubbled noisily over the rocks, and ferns and mint and watercress grew in abundance. They began climbing the cliffs. Chub’s sneakers gave him good footholds, and he helped to pull Joan up the steep, jutty side of the cliff, up to a flat space where there were more ferns and sweet, spicy-smelling plants. Near the edge of the ridge was the Picnic Pillar, high and towering. Chub found a round, smooth rock, after turning over several until he found one that just suited. He scrambled up on a convenient bowlder, and Joan steadied his ankles for him while he reached up and placed the big stone on the top of the pillar—the most recent addition to the stone erection which was a monument of hundreds of happy gatherings.
“Sh, Jo!” Chub had jumped to the ground and was silencing her as she was about to speak. “There’s that spooky Dummy down there, creeping along. I saw him from up there; he’s just below the ledge—and he’s with Tebbets!”
CHAPTER VI
TIM’S SECOND WARNING
Dummy with Tebbets of the Star! What could that mean, Joan wondered. “Let’s peep over,” she whispered to Chub. “Maybe we’ll get some clews.”
Noiselessly, they crept to the edge of the elevation, fearful of being seen if they stood upright. Stretched out on the ground, clutching the roots of clumps of weeds, they peered over the edge.
There was Dummy, treading with stealthy steps along the path below, and just a few paces ahead of him, just about to disappear into a bushy thicket, was the broad back of the city editor of the Star. Why should the Star editor and Dummy go for a stroll way up here together unless to talk over some guilty secret? It was clear now to Joan that Dummy was a spy, hired by Tebbets. No true member of the Journal family would think of being friends with that awful Tebbets of the rival paper. The two newspapers were often forced to work together, and the two staffs were friendly enough, but just at this time, they were at strained relations over the coming election.
“Tebbets must know the deaf and dumb language.” Joan hardly knew what to think.
“Sure!” Chub snorted. “It’s not so hard. How else could he hire Dummy to do his dirty work? He couldn’t write everything he wanted to tell him—too dangerous. Tebbets didn’t want the picnic people to see him talking sign language, so they came up here.”
“Sh! Some one might hear.” But there was no one at all in sight now and no sound except for the swaying of the trees and the drowsy hum of unseen insects. “I wish Mr. Johnson hadn’t had to hurry off to Cincinnati. You know I promised him not to jump to conclusions, so we can’t do anything.”