The expected difficulty of getting Blythe down from his strange refuge was much simplified by his own demeanor. When his agitation subsided he became as docile as a lamb, seeming quite willing to place himself in the scouts' hands. He seemed utterly exhausted and bewildered. With this exception he showed no trace of what he had been through, and appeared not to remember it.

When they asked him to get up, he stared at Roy's flashlight for a moment as if puzzled, then rose saying not a word. In the glare of the light one of the scouts lifted a small locket that dangled on a cord around Blythe's neck, and several of the boys looked at it. Blythe either did not know what they did, or he did not care. At all events he did not object. This seemed odd to them considering how he had clutched the thing before.

They saw that it was quite useless to question him about the matches and the wisps of straw or about why the sounds had meant anything to him.

They wondered whether indeed that ghostly calling had aroused anything in his crippled memory or whether its significance was only in his disordered mind.

They got him down the ladder and he accompanied them meekly to their little camp, hanging his head, and never speaking. Westy Martin, who clasped his arm, noticed that it still trembled, but otherwise he gave no sign of his hallucination and insane agitation. They pitied him, of course, but they could not repress a certain repugnance to him. Rational or not, a murderer is not a pleasant thing.... Their hearty liking for him, which had grown into a kind of affection, pa.s.sed now to a feeling of pity.

Before they reached the camp he made the one remark which broke his otherwise meek silence. On pa.s.sing the shack on which they had last been working, he said, "That's where I found the robin, under that floor.

Hollender thought I would kill it. He thinks I'm that kind." Then he laughed. Warde said nothing.

They got him back to his couch, where he almost immediately fell sound asleep. After ten minutes or so, when Roy entered to look at his bare heel in the brightness of his flashlight, he was breathing heavily, wrapped in the sleep of utter exhaustion and oblivion. The diagonal mark seen in his foot imprint was plainly noticeable as a scar on his heel.

Doc Carson felt his pulse and it was almost normal.

There seemed no likelihood of his trying to escape that night. His composure, they thought, might have been intended to throw them off their guard; but his deep, sonorous sleep rang true; it was as good as a cordon of sentinels. But for the scouts there was yet no sleep and they raked together a few chips from the scene of their former happiness and sat about the poor disconsolate little blaze talking in undertones, trying to decide what they had better do. Of one thing they were resolved, and that was that the county authorities in Bridgeboro should be informed that this Blythe was none other than Claude Darrell....

CHAPTER XXIV

THE WARNING

They talked late and their decision before turning in was that the three patrol leaders, Roy, Connie Bennett and Arthur Van Arlen should go to Bridgeboro late in the afternoon and tell their scoutmaster, Mr.

Ellsworth, of their discovery. They chose the emissaries with the intention of putting the responsibility upon their leaders where it belonged, and also with the thought of having the three patrols partic.i.p.ate equally in what seemed an odious thing, view it as they would.

Pee-wee voiced the general sentiment when he said, "Gee, something is all the time happening to prove he's the one they're after, and then all of a sudden something happens so as to kind of make us like him and trust him more. Anyway, I think he didn't know what he was doing, and I like him and I'm not afraid to say so." And he added, "The Silver Foxes are crazy if it comes to that."

"They're crazy about you, Kid," Roy said in forced good humor and ruffling his hair for him.

In the morning, to their utter astonishment, Blythe arose as usual, gathered chips for the breakfast fire, and sat among them, drinking his coffee, and eating the bacon which Roy had cooked, as if nothing had happened.

He seemed to expect the usual entertainment of wit and wisdom from Roy and Pee-wee, and he smiled in his old way when Roy said with a poor attempt at mirth, "Let's finish up the egg powder, we'll all scramble for scrambled eggs." Blythe heard only the pleasantry, but to the others the reminder that it was their last breakfast there was cheering.

Altogether they were not at all satisfied with themselves though they knew that what they were going to do was nothing less than their plain duty. Their new friendship, their fine plans of a helpful turn, bringing pleasure and profit, had ended in a sordid mess. Duties are funny things....

They had no heart for work that morning, but it was easier to work than to do nothing. The three messengers wished not to go to Bridgeboro until afternoon because their scoutmaster would be there then. They would feel easier and less contemptible telling this thing to him than to the authorities.

After breakfast Blythe was the first at work. His energy was never equal to his willingness, but on this morning, perhaps because the others seemed half-hearted, he was up on the roof of the third shack ripping off boards before they were well started. Others followed him up working at the edge of the roof. Roy began lifting and hauling away the loosened floorboards below. Most of the troop busied themselves clearing up the site of the second shack. The work proceeded silently, almost gloomily.

The work had been going on in this way for about an hour when one of the scouts working down at the edge of the roof called to Blythe who was up at the peak that the roof beneath him was sagging.

The fact was that the uprights within the shack had been too soon removed, which put a strain upon the all too slender horizontal timber which they had supported. This had been pieced mid-way, an instance of hasty and flimsy construction, and the weight of Blythe at this point caused the strip to sag.

The slanting timbers which formed the framework of the roof, running from the peak down to the sides, were being dislodged at their lower ends by the scouts, which operation, of course, withdrew their support from the horizontal beam on which Blythe was working. He acknowledged the warning by springing the beam with his weight, at which an ominous sound of straining and splitting was heard.

"Look out up there," Roy called from below.

"Get off there Blythey they--_quick!_" another shouted.

"Climb down here," another suggested.

Perhaps Blythe did not think as quickly as others think. Perhaps he did not value his poor life as others value their lives. Who shall say? In any case he did not descend by one of the slanting strips. In another moment the timber under him was splitting and giving way at the cleated join, and sagging threateningly. Then came the loud sound of final splitting and breaking away, and a deep sagging preceding the complete break.

A few brief seconds remained for Blythe to decide what he should do. He might still descend to safety as his companions had suggested. The increasing sound of splitting, and the sagging, warned him to quick decision. Instead of moving he looked directly beneath him where Roy was.

"What's the matter?" he called down.

"My foot is caught under the flooring," Roy said.

A ripping and rending, and then the buckling of the broken pieces of timber followed. The whole flimsy structure on which Blythe clung trembling in air....

CHAPTER XXV

THE GOOD TURN

What happened then, happened like a flash of lightning. For a brief second they saw Blythe hanging from the collapsing structure. Then they saw him let go. Perhaps they did not know the full significance of Roy's predicament. They thought Blythe stark mad.

He struck the flooring with a thud, drew his breath and grabbed his ankle in a sudden twinge of pain, stood, fell again with an exclamation of agony, then dragged himself to his hands and knees, and pulled Roy to the ground. Bracing his own back above the prostrate form he waited, the cords standing out on his arms like ropes. He gulped and jerked his head as if to shake away the agony that seemed killing him. His body was well clear of the small form beneath him. And thus he waited, one second, two seconds,--

And then with an appalling sound of splitting timbers the whole structure collapsed and fell upon him.

So suddenly did this happen that Blythe had scarcely braced himself over Roy's body when both were buried under the fallen debris. Nor had the scouts at the edge of the roof wholly escaped; several who had not jumped quickly enough and far enough received slight cuts and bruises from the falling timbers.

Scrambling to their feet they called to the victims who were pinned unseen beneath the wreckage, starting at the same time to haul away the debris. There was no answer from beneath.

"What did he do? What did he do it for?" one asked.

"Why didn't Roy get from under?"

"Search me; hurry up, pull the stuff off them."

"Blythe is crazy."

"Sure he is."

"He didn't think fast enough; he's not to blame. Hurry up."

"Roy was crazy, you mean."

They worked frantically pulling away the fallen boards and beams, Grove Bronson with a handkerchief wound around his bleeding hand, Wig Weigand with a great bruise on his forehead. Pee-wee strove like a giant. Soon the form of Blythe was revealed, braced by his hands and knees, and Roy lying prostrate beneath him.

"How are you?" one of the scouts called.