The train was gathering speed now; the wheels began to croon their melody of distance; one last curve, and the star of the Hill had been blotted out.

"It's like a flower in an inaccessible place on a hillside," said Raridan; and he repeated half aloud some lines of a poem that had lately haunted him:

"'Though I be mad, I shall not wake; I shall not fall to common sight; Only the G.o.d himself may take This music out of my blood, this glory out of my breath, This lift, this rapture, this singing might, And love that outlasts death.'"

When they went in, Wheaton was alone in the smoking compartment and they joined him to discuss their plans for the drive to Poindexter's place.

"We'd better push right on to the ranch house as soon as we get to Great River," said Saxton. "We're due there at three o'clock. We ought to get back to take the nine o'clock train home in any event."

"And what's going to happen if we find the man there?" asked Raridan.

"We want the boy and him, too, don't we?"

Wheaton sat with his eyes turned toward the window, which the darkness made opaque.

"If he's cornered he'll be glad to drop the boy and clear out. But we want to take him home with us too, don't we, Wheaton?" asked Saxton.

"I should think we'd better make sure of the boy first," Wheaton answered. "That would be a good night's work."

The porter came to tell them that their berths were ready.

"It's hardly worth while to turn in," said Warry, yawning. "I shudder at the thought of getting up at three o'clock." "But," he added, "if we're on the right track, this time to-morrow night they'll probably be welcoming us home with bra.s.s bands and the freedom of the city. Perhaps they'll have a public meeting at the Board of Trade. Cheer up, Jim; those detectives will go out of business if we really take the boy home."

Wheaton smiled wearily; he did not relish Raridan's jesting.

"Will your imagination never rest?" growled Saxton, knocking the ashes from his pipe.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

SHOTS IN THE DARK

The night wind of the plain blew cold in their faces as they stepped out upon the Great River platform. There was a hint of storm in the air and clouds rode swiftly overhead. The voices of the trainmen and the throb of the locomotive, resting for its long climb mountainward, broke strangely upon the silence. A great figure m.u.f.fled in a long ulster came down the platform toward the vestibule from which the trio had descended.

"h.e.l.lo," called Raridan cheerily, "there's only one like that! Good morning, Bishop!"

"Good morning, gentlemen," said Bishop Delafield, peering into their faces. The waiting porter took his bags from him. "Has the boy been found yet?"

"No."

"I should have gone on home to-night if I had known that. But what are you doing here?"

Raridan told him in a few words. They were following a slight clue, and were going over to the old Poindexter place, in the hope of finding Grant Porter there. Saxton was holding a colloquy with the driver of the station hack who had come in quest of pa.s.sengers, and he hurried off with the man to get a buckboard.

The conductor signaled with his lantern to go ahead, and the engine answered with a doleful peal of the bell. The porter had gathered up the bishop's things and waited for him to step aboard.

"Never mind," the bishop said to him; "I won't go to-night." The train was already moving and the bishop turned to Raridan and Wheaton. "I'll wait and see what comes of this."

"Very well," said Raridan. "We won't need our bags. We can leave them with the station agent." Wheaton stepped forward eagerly, glad to have something to do; he had not slept and was grateful for the cover of darkness which shut him out from the others.

"Gentlemen with flasks had better take them," said Warry, opening his bag. "It's a cold morning!"

"Wretchedly intemperate man," said the bishop. "Where's yours, Mr.

Wheaton?"

"I haven't any," Wheaton answered.

When he went into the station, the agent eyed him curiously as he looked up from his telegraphing and nodded his promise to care for the bags. He remembered Saxton and Wheaton and supposed that they were going to Poindexter's on ranch business.

Saxton drove up to the platform with the buckboard.

"All ready," he said, and the three men climbed in, the bishop and Wheaton in the back seat and Raridan by Saxton, who drove.

"The roads out here are the worst. It's a good thing the ground's frozen."

"It's a better thing that you know the way," said Raridan. "I'm a lost child in the wilderness."

"If you lose me, Wheaton can find the way," said Saxton.

They could hear the train puffing far in the distance. Its pa.s.sage had not disturbed the sleep of the little village. The lantern of the station-master flashed in the main street as he picked his way homeward.

Stars could be seen beyond the flying clouds. The road lay between wire-fenced ranches, and the scattered homes of their owners were indistinguishable in the darkness of the night. A pair of ponies drew the buckboard briskly over the hard, rough road.

"How far is it?" asked the bishop.

"Five miles. We can do it in an hour," said Saxton over his shoulder.

"We'll be in Clarkson laughing at the police to-morrow afternoon if we have good luck," said Raridan. "If we've made a bad guess we'll sneak home and not tell where we've been."

The road proved to be in better condition than Saxton had expected, and he kept the ponies at their work with his whip. The rumble of the wagon rose above the men's voices and they ceased trying to talk. Raridan and Saxton smoked in silence, lighting one cigar from another. The bishop rode with his head bowed on his breast, asleep; he had learned the trick of taking sleep when and where he could.

Wheaton felt the numbing of his hands and feet in the cold night air and welcomed the discomfort, as a man long used to a particular sensation of pain welcomes a new one that proves a counter-irritant. He reviewed again the grounds on which he might have excused himself from taking this trip. Nothing, he argued, could be more absurd than this adventure on an errand which might much better have been left to professional detectives. But it seemed a far cry back to his desk at the bank, and to the tasks there which he really enjoyed. In a few hours the daily routine would be in progress. The familiar scenes of the opening pa.s.sed before him--the clerks taking their places; the slamming of the big books upon the desks as they were brought from the vault; the jingle of coin in the cages as the tellers a.s.sorted it and made ready for the day's business. He saw himself at his desk, the executive officer of the most substantial inst.i.tution in Clarkson, his signature carrying the bank's pledge, his position one of dignity and authority.

But he was on William Porter's service; he pictured himself walking into the bank from a fruitless quest, but one which would attract attention to himself. If they found the boy and released him safely, he would share the thanks and praise which would be the reward of the rescuing party. He had no idea that Snyder would be captured; and he even planned to help him escape if he could do so.

They had turned off from the main highway and were well up in the branch road that ran to the Poindexter place.

"This is right, Wheaton, isn't it?" asked Saxton, drawing up the ponies.

"Yes, this is the ranch road."

They went forward slowly. The clouds were more compactly marshaled now and the stars were fewer. Suddenly Saxton brought the ponies to a stand and pointed to a dark pile that loomed ahead of them. The Poindexter house stood forth somber in the thin starlight.

"Is that the place?" asked the bishop, now wide awake.

"That's it," said Wheaton. "This road ends there. The river's just beyond the cottonwoods. That first building was Poindexter's barn. It cost more than the court house of this county."