After that, by degrees, it subsided. “All drunk and gone to sleep,” he told himself. “What a time to escape!”
Search as he might, he could find no means of breaking the bars of the windows. The plank door was impregnable. At last he gave up and seated himself once more on the stairs to await the dawn.
What occupied his thoughts during these long hours? One might well be surprised. He was thinking of dark, shadowy forests, where the ferns grow rank and the pheasant rears her young. He was seeing a deep, blue-green fishing hole where black bass lurk and great muskies fan the water as an eagle fans the air. Who can say what relief one may find, from surroundings that are terrible, by contemplating that which is beautiful, though very far away?
* * * * * * * *
Drew Lane had just returned to the shack from a disheartening search for some clue that would lead to a knowledge of Johnny’s whereabouts, when an apparition burst in upon him; a person he had known for a girl, but who wore torn and soiled boy’s clothes, and whose complexion had turned a very dark brown.
“You are Joyce Mills!” He stared at her in amazement.
“Yes,” she admitted, dropping into a chair. “And I know where Johnny Thompson is.”
“You know—”
“Listen!” She held up a hand.
In just three minutes by the clock, she had sketched the whole story.