Back Aa

Woman at Bay

<h2 class="newchapter">CHAPTER XII.</h2> <h3>BILL TURNER, THE WOODSMAN.</h3> When Nick Carter arrived at Calamont, he was disguised as a lumberman. It was not exactly the season of the year for lumbermen to enter the woods, unless they were measurers, who were engaged in preparing in advance work for the winter; so that was the character which Nick Carter adopted. Measurers go into the woods, measure trees on the stump, as it is called, blaze them with cabalistic marks, and otherwise prepare the way for the workers with the axes and saws who are to come later. It is well known that some of the most expert lumbermen in the world are French Canadians, and so Nick adopted this character, and he knew that as such he could wander at will around the woods and mountains of that region without danger of being suspected for what he really was. If any of the hoboes who made their headquarters in that region should see him, they would not be inclined to suspect what he really was, and the only actual danger he would stand in would be that they might be inclined to knock him on the head or shoot him from ambush in order to possess themselves of the few articles he had in his possession. [Pg 129]And for that very reason he adopted the disguise of a French Canadian lumberman, for it was rarely that they were supposed to have anything more than what they carried in sight on their backs. The month was September, and therefore warm. The leaves in some places were getting yellow and red, although there had been no frost; but oak leaves turn earlier than others. When he descended at Calamont Station, he stood there on the platform until the train had pulled out, and the other passengers who had arrived by it had departed their several ways. Then he approached the baggageman. "Me want find ze man named Beel Turner," he said slowly. "What's that?" asked the baggageman. "Me want find Beel Turner." "Oh! Bill Turner, is it? Well, go up that street there until you come to the post office. You'll like enough see an old, white-whiskered chap standing there, chewing tobacco. That'll be Bill Turner." "Beel Turner? He ees known here? No?" "Known here? Gee! He has lived here since the oldest inhabitant was a baby. He has always lived here. He is about a thousand years old, my man; but as strong and as lively as a kid yet. You'll find him somewhere around the post office." [Pg 130]Nick thanked him in his broken English and strode up the street. Sure enough, when he arrived in the vicinity of the post office, he saw a white-whiskered man standing there, and he approached him at once. "You ees Beel Turner?" he asked modestly, sidling up to the man. "I be," was the response, while Bill Turner fixed his clear gray eyes upon the detective. "What might you be wantin' of me, stranger?" "I have—hush!—I have some money for you, Beel Turner. Can you take me where we can talk so that nobody will overhear us?" Turner eyed him suspiciously for a moment; then he turned abruptly away with the remark: "Come along with me, stranger." Nick walked beside him through the town to the very end of the main street. Then they turned into a roadway, which led up a steep hill for some distance, and which presently brought them to a modest cottage that was almost hidden under the brow of the hill. "Here is where I live," said Turner. "I live here all alone, 'cept a cat and two dogs. But the dogs hev got old like me, now, and they can't go out among the hills as they used to; although, bless you, I reckon I kin walk jest as fur as ever I could, if I try. Come in." [Pg 131]Nick followed him inside, and Turner offered him a rocker near the open window. The whole house was as neat and clean as if it had the care of a woman. "Now, mister," said Turner, "what hev ye got on yer mind?" "In the first place," replied Nick, in his natural voice, "I am not what I seem to be. I am not a lumberman, or a Frenchman—or a Canadian. I am a detective." "Sho! You don't say so. Well, that beats me. Sure, ye do it fine, mister. I would never hev suspected at all that you are not what you seem. But go on." "I have come here after that gang of hoboes who infest the neighborhood for fifty or sixty miles around this place. I am principally after the woman who is their chief. Do you know who I mean?" "I reckon ye must be referrin' to that there Black Madge and her gang." "That's right." "Well, yer up agin' a proposition. That's all I kin say about it." "I know that; and what I want of you is to get you to help me with that proposition, Bill Turner." "Ain't I too old?" "Not a bit of it." "Is there good pay in it?" "The very best; and there is fifty dollars down for[Pg 132] you right now—if you are inclined to do as I want you to do." Nick took a roll of bills from his pocket as he spoke, and laid it on the table before the avaricious glances of the old man. "Well, sir," said Turner slowly, "all I've got to say is this: If I can do what you want done, I'll do it. I want that money as bad as anybody could want it and not grab it right now where it is lying; but I have never had a penny in my life that I didn't get honestly, and I am afraid that I'm too old to do what you want done." "I tell you that you are not." "Then, in that case, I'll take the money and put it in my pocket—so. There! Now, go ahead. If the work is honest, and such as an honest man can do, I'll do it—if I ain't too old, and you say I ain't. But if the work ain't honest, I'll return your money. Now, what is it, mister?" "I want you first to promise that you will not reveal my identity. I must be Jules Verbeau to you to the end, and you must forget that I am not he in fact." "You kin consider that done, sir." "Second, I want you to answer some questions for me." "Fire away." "How well do you know the hills and mountains,[Pg 133] the ravines and gulches, the rocks and the caves around this region?" "As well as I know that dooryard in front of you," replied the old man, pointing through the window. "I know every inch of the country—every inch of it." "Now, another question which you will not understand at once: Do you know how to use a pencil, and is your hand steady enough to draw plans for me?" "Yes, sir. I began life as a draughtsman; but that was when I was a boy." "That will suffice. Now—could you draw a plan of different parts of the mountains, so it would be plain enough for me to follow without your being present with me?" "That would depend upon you, sir. If you are a man who has some woodcraft in your make-up, I say yes. It would depend upon you." "We will consider that question answered, then. Now, have you any idea to what part of the mountainous region around here—say, within fifty miles of where we are seated—the hobo gang would select in which to hide themselves?" "I think I could guess it to a dot." "Why?" "Because there is one region up among those hills which is exactly fitted for them; and from which you couldn't drive them out with a thousand men. That's why!" [Pg 134]"Good. That sounds as if it might be the place they would select. How far is it from here, as you would travel afoot." "A matter of thirty miles." "Now, can you draw me a plan of that region?" "I kin." "And how to get there?" "I kin." "And are there caverns there? Do you suppose those people are hiding and making their headquarters in caves?" "Yes, to both questions. The hills round that 'ere region are honeycombed with caves. Some of 'em is big, and some of 'em is little; but there's a lot of 'em there." "Good; and you know them well enough to give me a working plan of them? What a sailor would call a chart?" "You bet I do." "Now, another subject: Have you ever traveled away from here? Have you ever been to New York, for instance?" "Never in my life. I've always lived right around here. I don't suppose I have been ten miles away from here, except in the woods, in forty years. But in the woods I sometimes used to go a good ways." "I've no doubt of that. How would you like to make a visit to New York?" [Pg 135]"I should like it very much—only it would cost such a lot, you know." "Suppose your expenses were paid?" "Well, that would be different." "How much, in cash, will you take for your whiskers, Mr. Turner?" "Now what the devil do you mean by that? Are you making fun of me?" "Not at all. I was wondering if fifty dollars more, down, would induce you to shave off your whiskers." "Humph! Jest tell me what you are getting at and I'll answer you." "This: I want to disguise myself so that I look like you. I want to go out in the mountains as you would go out. While I am making believe that I am Bill Turner, I want you to take a trip to New York, and to live there, at my house, and take it easy, see all the sights, go to the theatres and the museums, and all that, until I return, and I want you to shave off your whiskers, and let me blacken your brows and otherwise make some changes in your appearance, so that if any of the people from Calamont should happen to meet you in the street down there they wouldn't say, 'Why, there is Bill Turner!' Would you consent to do that?" "For another fifty dollars down?" "Yes." "I would. When do you want me to shave?" [Pg 136]"I will tell you in good time. First, I want you to fix up those plans." "Hadn't I better git about it right now?" "Yes. I think you had. And I will remain here with you while you do it in order that you may explain things to me as you work upon them." "That's a good idee, too. I can make you know them mountings as well as I do, in a short time. I knows 'em so well——" "That reminds me. Do you happen to know by sight, or have an acquaintance with, any of the members of that gang?" The old man shifted uneasily in his chair, and at last he replied: "I know one of them—purty well. He calls himself Handsome." "Good! What does Handsome know about you, Bill?" "He don't know nothin' about me, 'cept that I'm a woodsman, and that I'm too old to do him any harm. I helped him once, and once he helped me a leetle, and we're sort of friends. But I ain't never seen him but twice in my life, and then both times I met him in the woods, so I ain't never mentioned nothin' about him to other folks." "That's splendid! It is just what I hoped. It couldn't be better! I want you now to tell me what[Pg 137] you talked about when you and Handsome met each other those two times in the woods." "That's easy. The first time, I was walking through the woods, up about where you are going—that is, it was in that region—when I heard somebody hollerin' fur help. At first I couldn't tell for the life of me where the hollerin' come from; but after a leetle I located it up on the side of one of them steep hills, and so I crawled up there. Well, when I got there, I found that a man had slid into a hole in the rocks, and that he couldn't git out nohow. If I hadn't happened along the chances are that he'd starved before he'd ha' been helped out." "And as it was—what?" "I helped him out. I didn't have no hatchet, but I had a good huntin' knife along with me, and I managed to whittle down a good-sized spruce, which I trimmed so's to make a sort of ladder of it. When that was done I lowered the butt end of it into the hole, and Handsome—that was who it was in the bottom of the hole—he climbed up so's I could get hold of him, and then I pulled him out. There wasn't much to that, was there?" "It saved his life." "Probably." "Wasn't he grateful?" "Suttingly." "What did you talk about after that?" [Pg 138]"We sot down there a spell and chinned, that's all. He axed me who I was, and I told him. He axed me if I was long in these parts, and I told him allers. He axed me where I lived, and I told him about this cottage. That's all—only he said he was a hobo, and that he was called Handsome. I allowed that the people who called him that lied mightily; but I didn't say so jest then." "What more was talked about?" "Nothin'." "When was the next time you saw him?" "That was in the middle of the summer, and it was farther south—not far from the railroad tracks." "Well, what happened then?" "That was the time he helped me." "How was that?" "I can't never tell you exactly how it was, but somehow I had got my foot wedged in the root of a tree, and I had been tryin' an hour to git it out, without success. The tree was hard, and I was just tacklin' that root with my knife—I'd have cut through it in about an hour, I reckon—when 'long comes that feller Handsome that I had saved from the hole in the rocks. He had an axe on his shoulder, and when he spied me he stopped, and laughed, and laughed until I got mad. "'Caught in yer own trap, ain't ye?' he axed me. "'I be,' says I. 'You've got a axe, and mebby you kin help me out o' it.' [Pg 139]"Well, he did. He chopped the root in a jiffy, and I was free; but, bless you, I could 'a' done it myself with my knife in a hour, anyhow. All the same, I was grateful to him, and we sot down on a log and chinned for a while." "What about?" "He asked me what I was doing around there, and I told him that I was thinking of looking over the swamp below the tracks a leetle, with some idea of settin' traps there late this fall and winter, and he said as how he wouldn't advise me to do it. He said as how I wouldn't be likely to ketch the sort of animals I was after, and that some of the animals might ketch me; and, as I ain't exactly a fule, I ketched onto what he meant, and I ain't been nigh that place since. And then it turned out afterward as I thought it would, them hoboes had a hidin' place in that very swamp." "Right you are, Bill!" said Nick, laughing. "Is that all the conversation you had with Handsome?" "Every bit of it." "And you have never seen him since?" "Never. Hold on; he axed me that time if I had ever mentioned the fact of our fust meetin', and I told him I had not. He seemed pleased at that, and he told me never to mention it. I allowed that I didn't see no reason why I should, and he laughed at that and seemed entirely satisfied." [Pg 140]"That is excellent, Bill. Now, we will get at those plans. I don't want to lose any time." "Would you mind telling me why you axed me all about them two meetings?" "Not at all. When I go out into the woods in the character of Bill Turner, I am likely at some time to run across Handsome himself. I want to be posted, so that he won't know but what I am you. I don't want him to catch me; see?" "Yes. But do you suppose you kin fix yourself to look enough like me so's he won't know the difference when he sees you?" "Certainly." The old man shook his head. "I don't believe it," he said, "but maybe you can. How about the voice? Your voice ain't no more like mine than a——" "I can do that, too," replied Nick, exactly simulating the voice in which the old man was speaking; and he looked around him in wonder, and then at the detective. "It does beat all!" he said at last. "I guess you're some too many for me, sir." "Shall we get at those plans now?" "Right away." Turner brought out paper and pencil, and, having cleared the top of his table, he began to work. [Pg 141]First he drew a large circle on the paper, and at one edge of it he made a cross. "That there cross is Calamont," he said. "Where we be now; and all that's inside of the ring I've made lies to the east of here, from nor'-nor'east to sou'-sou'east—and east. You understand?" "Perfectly." "Well, jest about in the middle o' that ring is the place where I think them fellers would hide. It's the best place for them." "Tell me about it before you draw anything; or, rather, talk while you are drawing." "That's jest what I'm going to do. Now, you follow my pencil and pay attention." "Go ahead," said Nick. "When you leave here—if you start from Calamont, which I suppose you will—you start right about here. You take a general direction nor'east from here at first. You'll find a path through the woods after you git about two miles from here, and that path will lead you several miles. But about here it'll disappear, and you won't have nothin' to guide you 'cept what I show you and tell you now." "Exactly," replied the detective. "Up here, at about the time you lose all trace o' the path, you'll come to a deep ravine. You want to follow up the middle of that, to the top. And when you git to the top of it you will think that you have run[Pg 142] up ag'inst a cliff, and there ain't no gettin' out of it without goin' back. "But that ain't so. There's a waterfall at the end of the ravine. It comes around a sort of a twist in the rocks, and if you ain't afraid of gettin' damp, you follow around there, and you will find as nice a piece of steps cut in them stones as you ever saw in your life. Indians cut 'em more'n a hundred years ago, so I'm told. "Well, they take you to the top of that cliff. When you're up there, you find you're in another ravine, not so deep as t'other. Right here that would be," he added, making a mark with the pencil. "All right," said Nick. "About a mile farther up that second ravine you want to leave it. You'll find a big dead oak that hangs out over it, and beside the dead oak there is a path up the side of the ravine. It is one of my own paths. You get up it by hangin' onto two things you find there for the purpose. I put 'em there more'n twenty years ago, mister." "Go ahead." "When you git to the top, you want to branch off this way—so. You'll find a clearin' about there, and off to the east you'll see some high hills. You want to make for them." "And those hills, I suppose, is my destination." "That's where the caves are. That's where you[Pg 143] will find the gang if they are hiding anywhere in that 'ere region." "Now, tell me about the caverns. Tell me how to find them." "They're easy enough to find—some of 'em is; others ain't. Wait a minute." He pushed that paper aside, and took a fresh one. "Now, when you come to the hills, you will approach 'em at what we call the Dog's Nose. So named because that's what it looks like. It's a rock that sticks out right about here, and you can't miss it. It looks exactly like a dog's nose, stickin' out and smelling things. "You want to go right up under that there dog's nose; and when you git there you'll see a hole in the rock that ain't no bigger than the lower half of that window. It's a leetle bit of a hole, and it's as dark as a pocket inside it, too. Nobody, even if they found the hole, would ever think of going in there. It ain't invitin' to look at." "How did you happen to go into it?" "I didn't. I came out of it. I got lost in that cave for three days once, when I was a boy, and when I found my way out I came out of that hole. Nobody knows about that entrance but me, though I suppose lots of folks knows it's there." "And it communicates with the cave?" "It does. It'll take you to any part of the cave;[Pg 144] and there is only one rule to follow in going through it. You'll want a light, though." "I've got the light. What is the rule?" "Always—no matter where you are in any of them caves, take the way to the right. Never take a gallery to the left, goin' in either or any direction. It's a rule that holds good in them caves. It's a sort of way that nature provided so's you could find your way through there; and I happened to discover what it was." "It all sounds very simple and easy." "And it is, if you've got the pluck and the sand. But it's a ticklish place. There is a good many places in there that I ain't never explored, and don't want to; and it's safe to bet that the hoboes ain't done it, neither. I reckon, mister, that that's about all I kin show you—hold on, though!" "What now?" "Well, there's one place up there which it might be handy for you to know about, and I don't think anybody but me knows about it, either." "What is that?" "Well, you might find occasion to want to hide yourself away while you are in there." "That is more than likely, Bill." "Well, just arter you pass through the hole that is under the Dog's Nose, and about twenty rods from[Pg 145] there, you'll find a place where there is a bowlder sort of set into the rocks. You won't notice it unless you look for it, but it is there. Under it you'll find a small stone wedged fast. If you pull out that small stone, and then push on the big rock, it'll swing around like it was on a pivot, and you kin step inside the hole it leaves, and close up the door after you. You'll find an interestin' place in there, too, if you ever have occasion to use it, mister; and nobody will find you there, either." [Pg 146] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.