CHAPTER IX
THE CRAFTY PLAN OF MR. GOUGER
The late afternoon sun shone with a softened light in the valley through which Wolf creek flowed dark and sluggish from the Ship woods. The stream itself looked very dark, indeed, where the shadows of the trees lay on the deeper pools. Where the sunbeams struck the ripples the water had a brighter, clearer hue and tinkled sweetly, soft and low, for the current was moderate.
Looking up stream from the low wooden bridge at the public road, one could see that a sharp, irregular, wooded steep marked the limits of the valley on the east. The rise of ground began only two score yards distant from the water and with it began, also, a thick growth of mostly small trees and brush.
Rough ledges of sandstone and conglomerate rock cropped out of the earth in many places here, but the strip of land between the stream and the hillside was cleared of timber and lay quite level. Two parallel paths through the coarse grass and among the straggling bushes marked a primitive roadway midway between the slope and the creek. It extended back through the valley, apparently, to where the woods a quarter of a mile distant from the highway, stretched down from hill to hill, hiding the creek and all beyond.
As the sun was going down there rolled along the unfenced public road skirting for nearly two miles this southern boundary of the Ship woods, a heavily laden touring car.
"The bridge! The creek! That old trail through the valley—By Jinks, we're here!" cried a shrill young voice from the car. The machine had come to a halt where the rough road led back from the highway just before the bridge was reached.
"Yes, we're here and blessed if I see anything very thrilling about it!" came another voice, in tones of decidedly less enthusiasm. "At any rate, though, we are here."
Is it necessary to state that Paul Jones was the first speaker and that Dave MacLester was the second?
"Well, scoot ahead, somebody! See if we can get down the bank and into that pair of ruts through the grass, yonder, without turning turtle or blowing out a tire."