Pete Sledge said nothing to that, did nothing. Vane went out to the road and up the hill. He had expected better of Pete Sledge in the way of courage—though why, considering the fact that the poor fellow had already been frightened half out of his wits, it is difficult to say. At the top of the rise above Forkville he turned into the side road which Pete had indicated to him that morning. It was a well pounded track which cut through snowdrifts at some points, and humped itself over them at others. For a mile or two it passed through white clearings broken by groups of farm buildings and scattered groves, and beyond that it slipped into obscurity between black walls of second-growth spruce and fir.
Vane walked alone, to the best of his knowledge and belief; and he felt lonely. He felt uneasy. Rifts in the marching ranks of the forest admitted pale glimmers of starshine to the road here and there, discovering the depths of the darkness and queer lumps of shadow and weird blotches of pallor right and left to his exploring glances. He wondered just why he had come, not to mention what he would do when he arrived. He remembered that it is recorded somewhere that curiosity killed the cat. It is doubtful if he would have felt any better if he had known that Pete Sledge was behind him, within fifty paces of him. He didn’t know it, but it was so.
Here and there a narrow clearing widened the outlook slightly without enlivening it. At the edge of one of these crouched a little deserted lath mill, its fallen tin smokestack and sagging roof eloquent of failure, disillusion, the death of a petty ambition. This was at least six miles from Forkville, at a rough guess; and as soon as he was past it Vane began looking eagerly into the gloom ahead for a glimpse of the clearings of the Dangler settlement; but before he had gone two hundred yards beyond the deserted mill he heard a piercing whistle behind him. He jumped to the side of the road and crouched there, every sense alert and straining. There had been no possibility of mistaking the significant character of the shrill sound. It had been a warning and a signal. And within ten seconds it was answered, repeated, at a point in the darkness two hundred yards or so farther along in the direction of the Goose Creek settlement.
Vane realized that, with an alert sentry behind him and another in front of him, now was the time for quick action. He didn’t even pause to wonder what the sinister Danglers could be about to make the posting of sentries on the road worth their while. Noiselessly and swiftly he shifted his snowshoes from his shoulders to his feet; and then, after a moment given to sensing his position in relation to the river and Forkville, and the lay of the land, he slipped noiselessly into the thick and elastic underbrush.
The second sentry, the man who had repeated the shrill warning of Vane’s approach was Hen Dangler, one of the middle-aged members of the gang, a nephew of old Luke. Having passed along the signal and heard it answered from the nearest house, he grasped a sled-stake of rock maple firmly in his right hand and closed swiftly upon the point on the road from which the first whistle had sounded. This was according to plan. He ran silently, listening for sounds of a struggle or of flight and pursuit. He heard nothing; and he encountered nothing until he found the first sentry, the original alarmist, flat on his face in the middle of the road and blissfully unconscious of his position.
The unconscious sentry was Steve Dangler, Hen’s son, the very same Steve who was “sweet on” his second cousin, Joe Hinch. After a face massage with snow and a gulp from Hen’s flask, he opened his eyes and sat up.
“What happened?” asked Hen. “Why the hell didn’t you leave him pass you an’ git between us, like we planned? You must of blowed yer whistle right in his face.”
“Face, nothin’. He passed me, all right. Then I whistled—an’ got yer answer—an’ started after him—an’ then—good night!”
“Hell! Say, there must be two of ’em.”
“Wouldn’t wonder, onless I kicked up behind an’ beaned meself with me own foot.”