Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 98, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1912 — Page 3

The Mystery of -the Calls

Mr. Duncan! Mr. DunV| jiff |Wj A voice I did not know |H 1} ■: was calling me from the IJM j| HR street crowd. I was just lililMif rmll leavin e tlie buying in which Lawrence Rand and I had our offices, Wwt and naturally turned Ss2?rl back to the entrance,. Again the call came, and this time almost at my elbow. The voice belonged to a clean-cut young chap in an ulster, who was just alighting from a big automobile drawing in sharply to the curb. “Pardon me, Mr. Duncan, I know you from seeing you in court. My name is Michaels, and I am secretary to ex-Senator Hillis. Some nasty things have been going on at his place up in Orange county, and he telephoned me half an hour ago to get hold of this Mr. Lawrence Rand, who seems to figure in every big case these days, and bring him up with me. The senator is at home almost prostrated with worry, and also his wife would not hear of his leaving the house, so I came down to the office at 62 Wall street to keep the machine going. Where is Mr. Rand?” “I hope you will not misunderstand me, Mr. Michaels, when I say that unless this is a matter of some gravity—« . -—-t—- --" Gravity! It is life and death ter the senator, and Blyndvelt, bis head gamekeeper, is near the point of death at either his own hands or those of the dastards who are trying to assassinate the senator.”. “Very well. We have no time to lose. Wait until I get our emergency case, in which we carry arms, instruments, chemicals, etc., and we will pick Mr. Rand up at the club at which we were to-dine together.” I Ip twenty minutes we four—aels, Rand, the big, silent, college-bred Sioux, and myßelf—were crowded in the tonneau, for we had topped the hill beyond the Weehawken Ferry, and were driving into the face of a northwest wind on our way to Paterson*, where we would turn toward Suffem. As we "tore along, a swirl of dead leaves caught up with the dust,of the wood trailing away behind us, Michaels told us of the strange happenings at Wanaque Glen, as the Hillis estate was called.: As early as the preceding May, servants on the estate had heard at night, or averred that they heard, silvery .bugle-calls faint and eerie high up among the rocks of Browers, as the particular peak of the Sterling mountains immediately .to the west of Wanaque Glen was called. Senator Hillis, his wife and daughter were in California at the time, and did not come to their house until July, and found that the only thing that had prevented wild panic among the servants was the skepticism of Dennis, the veteran butler, who was slightly deaf. Hillis had bought deserted lands for < the last ten years till hia acreage waß almost one-third-of that part of the country. Human beings in those bills were only trespassing hunters from Greenwood, or perhaps a vagrant botanist or artist. Bugle calls at midnight, heard a score of times in two or three months, were likely to be awarded a supernatural explanation, especially since the Colonial troops had battled on these hills more than once: On the other side of the mountain was the old mine whence the iron had been taken that was ferried over Greenwood at night to a furnace concealed in a glen, and there many of Washington’s cannon were cast inside the lines of territory held by the British. : .. One night Miss Gertrude Hillis was driving with a Mr. Bainbridge Moody, the son of a millionaire who had a country place near the many homes of the wealthy in Tuxedo Park; and they had climbed far up the narrow old road that cut through the'hills to Mount Peter and on to Warwick.,Suddenly, through the stillness of this night came the peal of a military call up among the rocks over their heads. It was followed by another, and in a little while a third. They were so distinct as to be unmistakable, even mingled with the sound of the wheels of the runabout and the horse’s hurrying hoofs on the stones. Miss Hillis was so terrified that she collapsed when she reached home. Her father had been so incensed that be telephoned in ajl directions to guides, deputy sheriffs, road house keepers and woodsmen, ordering all

the roads watched by his authority as a game warden; and then his men scoured the enclosed territory for three days, and lay. In wait during the two intervening nights, without discovering anything significant except the body of a man which had been in the open for several years at least. By the clothing and the trout rod lying beside the remains, two guides from Glenwood identified the dead man as a sportsman from Philadelphia who had mysteriously disappeared some years before. It was conjectured that he had fallen dead from natural causes, and In that lonely region his corpse had remained unseen by human eyes. On the word of various country worthies, the bugle was heard -many times during the summer, but only two persons whose word and senses Were dependable declared that the calls had reoccurred. The matter had been very nearly forgotten until a fortnight before—one night as Hillis, his gamekeeper, and two guests who had been duck shooting at Mt. Bashan pond were riding home in a carryall and were within half-mile of home, one of the guests had called attention to a light on the mountain. It had been, a small, white flash, and had instantly vanished. Hillis said some poachers from Greenwood were up there, doubtless, and the party was watching the hillßide, when once again the light showed; a pure, white, strong ray, such as no lantern of firelight could throw. It was not large, but was easily seen in the clear air. It glowed for only a second. One morning, about a week later, Senator Hillis was sitting on his horse at the stepping block, when there came a startling crash. A stained glass window es the library was shattered, and the report of a shot from up on the mountain came echoing down threugh the woods. A few days later, In the dust of the road leading into the park district, a servant found a letter which the secretary had in his pocket. It was written on cheap ruled foolscap, and was uninclosed. The writing was in a perfect copper-plate style; a beautiful old-fashioned script, and the wording as as follows: “Most Dishonorable Sir: Pray accept the timely warning of a humble instrument oi‘ heaven who has been chosen to punish you for your atrocious crimes against mankind, You have robbed the poor to enrich yourself. My own flesh and blood you have ground in the mill and unjustly appropriated the grist. The sword hangs over your head unseen. An unsuspected hand will touch the hair.” There was nothing to show that the threat was meant for Senator Hillis; hut It was not the first he had re* ceived In his lifetime, and coupled with the bullet fired into the library window, it was probable his life was sought. Just the afternoon before be had gone upon the mountainside, against his wife’s wishes, accompanied by i Blyndvelt, the old gamekeeper, and they- had bagged four partridges. Coming home in the dusk, Hillis had been walking in front, and when a halfmile from the house had addressed some remark to the man. Receiving no answer, he turned and found himself alone. Shouting ont the man’s name repeatedly, there was still no answer. Then he retraced his steps, and about three hundred yards back, hearing groans, had discovered Blyndvelt In a dying condition at the bottom of & little ravine. On his head were two bad wounds. If is skull was fractured, and on his face was a burn the size of a. silver dollar, which could in no why be accounted for. Looking up the mountain, Hillis saw the white, mysterious light flash twice at no great distance above him. By blowing' his field whistle he called help from the house. Blyndvelt was carried home, and now hung between life and death. Such was the status of the case when we were-called in. If one were to take the letter M and rest the left lower point on Hulls’ home, then let the left upper point rest on the millionaire Moody's residence a mile due east, the right lower point would mark the two-room cabin of a surly old native named Coombs, who had three lazy, loutish, sulky sons. The lower tip of the Y would locate the handsome house of another millionaire, Gerald Scott, a hard rival and bitter enemy of Hillis; while the upper, right-hand point of the M would full only a trifle short of the beginning of the park; with its many residences. * : With a flask of brandy, a pocket full

The Special Agent.

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of cigars, a heavy coat, a camp stool and the range finder and tripod, I left the house, guided by the second gamekeeper; and, after a twenty minutes’ walk along a rough trail, we turned into the burned area, wound our way among stumps dimly seen by the light of the moon behind clouds, and then I sat down behind the Instrument, while the man returned to the house. As his footsteps died away down the trail, it seemed as if the very stillness and loneliness rose up and smote me with crushing force. I was alone on this desolate mountainside, with a mysterious terror lurking: htt the rocks above me. Gradually the tension grew till my senses were so alert that the honking of some belated triangle of geese bound southward above the cloud-field, and not yet settled for the night, came plainly to my ears. When I struck a match In the shelter of my coat to light a cigar, „ + the little explosion seemed so loud and so out of place that I started involuntarily. It took a certain amount of logic for me to remain at my post, but gradually the tension relaxed, and I became possessed of the patient apathy that keeps the hunters of big game beside pools. I sprang to my feet, tingling in every nerve. The sound could not have proceeding from a locality farther than four hundred yards higher up. Again came the ringing call, different thiß time, and a trifle neater, and it was followed by a high, thin voice calling out military commands; only these sounds were so faint 1 could not be sure. It may have been echoes combined with a gust that blew Just then, all framed into a significant form by my quivering Imagination. I waited with my hand on my Luger and my teeth set In my cigar. One, three minutes, five minutes, and then far and faint, almost lost among the rocks, came another strain from the bugle. After that nothing more till daylight. _ When 1 got back to the house I found Rand and Tom Rahway gone. Rand had asked Hillis to allow the Indian to select moccasins and a habit from his gun-room, and then the Indian, armed only with a long knife,

had taken to. the woods after a few hours’ sleep. He had not been gone ten minutes before I came In. Rand had left on the midnight train, leaving no word as to where he was going. I slept long and deeply, and was only wakened In mid-afternoon by Michaels, wtyo came to tell me that Blyndvelt was partly conscious, and trying tc talk. I hurried to him as soon as I could dress. He was sitting up In bed, his white face, red beard and the mass of white bandages making a shocking picture. With wild gesticulations he tried to talk, but all I could make out was “He was sneaking behind the old man.” "Yes, yes. I'll get him.” "Look oat, senator; look ont!", These phrases repeated over and over. About dark he lapsed Into coma; sad, after a good dinner, I went out to my station again without having mentioned the experience of the night

HE WAS ADDRESSING HIS TROOPS IN AN INCOHERENT, VIOLENT STRAIN.

By ROBERT NAUGHTON

before. There had been no message from Rand. A strong north wind was blowing, and I built njyself a wind-break of some brush tops piled up against a burned stump. If there were any unusual sounds they were carried away by the blast It was about eleven o'clock that my eye caught a quick gleam on a southerly spur of Browers, and then a good showing of that small white light I swung the rangefinder over, but it was gone before I had a sight Shortly after midnight however, it showed again for fully three seconds, and then I got my sight, tightened the screws, and set out for the houseT Rand had arrived and was In his room asleep. Pursuant to his instructions, I wakened him, and told him what had occurred. . "That Is very good,” said he, and turned over and went to sleep again. It was nine o’clock the next day when my breakfast was brought up with a note from Rand. *He had left the house half an hour before. The message read: “There has been no sign or message from Tom Rahway. It may be that he has met his match for once. I hare been out to the range-finder and fixed the spot on the mountainside. The .rocks are so nearly bare that a good pair of field-glasseß should pick up any movement on this side in today’s bright sunlight Get a pair from Hillis or some of the neighbors ard take your station on the burned plateau again. . . “L. R." Just as I was ready to go ont Senator Hillis called me into his library, carefully dosed the door, and said? "Mr. Duncan, I have been reluctant to Bay so, but numerous friends of mine have told me that owing to my winning an Important suit in the Illinois supreme court last week, and taking away from my friend Scott across the way terminal properties, with several million dollars, he has grown so hitter against me that he threatens tio shoot me on sight He Is a dangerous enemy, and I know where his agents have been instructed to do murder, if necessary, on more* than one occasion. I should not be surprised If all of this unexplainable

affair were not intended to harass and worry me; and perhaps one of his hirelings Is merely waiting his chance to put a bullet into me from a safe distance.” I took half an hour to go over this phase of - the case, and after I had heard all he had to tell, It was a wonder to me that some one, especially among the people es the regjon whom he bad robbed, cheated, oppressed and bitterly prosecuted for small offenses, had not waylaid Gerald Scott long ere this. •'-•‘C" Returning to the burned’ plateau with a pair of powerful glasses loaned me by the senator, I took up a station on the suncy ride of a hummock of rock, and waited, scanning every shoulder, ravine and thicket of the mountainside About two o’clock that afternoon the unexpected happened. Far off to the south I saw a gray figure moving; and even with the

glasses could make out nothing more than that it was some countryman ascending the hill from back of the Coombs place. He was soon lost to view, and seemed to me to turn southward, as if going toward Sterling, pond. In a very few minutes more a rock suddenly began to move on top of a clump on the very summit of a ridge of Browers. It was -so sharp against the sky-Hne that it had often caught my eye. Getting the glasses focused, I was astonished to see that what I had thought was a brown boulder was Tom Rahway, now rising to his knee and taking careful aim with a gun at something farther along the ridge to the north and somewhat below him. I knew he had taken only a knife, and wondered where he had secured an additional weapon. From its extraordinary length it must be an old flint-lock rifle. Quickly swftiging the glasses along in the line, of his aim, I was horrified to see that his bead was drawn on Lawrence Rand, standing on a point of rock, smoking fiercely with arms folded, and evidently in a brown study.

Several times the big Sioux raised and lowered the rifle without firing; and then I perceived that he was aiming at some object other than Rand. I scrutinized the Intervening ground closely, and at last - detected a bush in movement not forty feet from Rand, and from it protruded another barrel, that was to a certainty pointed at him. It seemed hoars that the situation remained unchanged; then Rand moved on down on the other side, and the death that hovered over him followed, for in a few minutes Tom Rahway left his post and stole down out of sight on the other side, his rifle still poised. It was evidently a case of the hunter hunted ;and I was sure that Rand knew of the presence of neither the unknown nor Tom Rahway, and that the Indian was afraid to make his presence known, trusting to his ability to fire just in time to save Rand’s life. I watched till dusk, consumed with anxiety, but saw no more; then I hurried back, to the house, and when I had told Hillis, Michaels and the doctor of what I had seen, the excitement was Intense. I had restrained my own impulse to go up on the mountain that afternoon because I knew, by experience, the benefit of sticking to Rand’s orders; but these men Insisted on sallying forth Immediately. 1 entreated. argued, threatened,.but Hillis summoned two gamekeepers, the second one and a lad named Carrol; then, armed with rifles and shotguns loaded with buckshot cartridges, we set out in the second hour of dark. The second gamekeeper knew from my description, the clump of rocks where the Sioux bad been hidden and for an hour we climbed slowly up, first on the road, then on an old trail, and at last turned squarely into the untracked forest.

At night we gained the summit where Tom Rahway had ben crouching. Below in the valley we could see the lights of Tuxedo Park; and a night trair of the Erie went rushing on toward the greet city. When we had arrived, the others realized the truth of what I had said at the house. It was a senseless quest. Perhaps somewhere down the western slope lay a man dead whom I had seen alive. Perhaps the dead were more than one. Thre was certainly no one on the summit „ We sat smoking and resting, and discussed the absorbing mystery in pushed voices. J learned then for the first time that though the tale of the bugle-calls was common property in the region, no one but the person Immediately concerned had been Informed by Hillis or his trusted employes of the further ramification of the case. In v, e w of the denouement I have always been glad that this was so. Just as we were rising to return, there came echoing up the western slope a scund so horrible that’ we stood as if frozen in our tracks. A high, crackling, demoniacal laugh! There was a fall mihnte of silence, then something closely akin to a mouthed military command reached our ears, and the mysterious bugle broke out In dainty fanfare. Its echoes died away in the upper valley, I realized that it might play there all night, and be unheard on the Tuxedo side of the Browers. Another abrupt command, and s flare of red light in the tree-tops not far ahead! Then the steady tramp of marching feet, mingled with the rattle at arms, and in a moment the sounds died away, aa If the strange company bad marched out of hearing. After a little space, before we could concoct a plan es action, they were heard on the other aider of the ridge. A sharp command to countermarch was followed by another ringing call that must have been audible far down there by the Hillis bom With every weapon ready for in-' slant use, We crept north along the ridge, picking our perilous way over the bare rocks till we came unexpectedly to a daft forty feet wide in the hog-back. The w;U on our side

overhung; and in the dark below the uncanny military command was marching west with measured tread. We followed slowly along the brink, unable to keep up with "their pace. Following the sounds, K was apparent that after they had inarched through the earth-floored cleft they turned sharply to the sooth, so that their course formed an L. We came to another brisk, and looked down perhaps fifty feet. The rocks formed a perfect oval pit, with a passageway leading north to the cleft. In a tall iron pot burned a small fire, newly lit. Behind it was the opening of a small with the vise curtain drawn aside, and held back by three old rifles of varied sorts. Underneath us, hidden from our sight by the overhanging precipice, was the little, army; but in the center of the pit, in the light of the fire, pacing back and forth before his men, was the strange commander. An old man he was, with unkempt, gray hair and beard, and a wretched outfit of clothes. Around him was an old belt with a swordless scabbard. On his bead was a moth-eaten Continental cocked hat, and over bis shoulder hung a brass bugle, green with age and misuse. He was addressing his troops in an Incoherent, violent strain, In which he was threatening some ong. Once or twice he mentioned: the name of Gerald Scott. One look Into Ids face showed the wild eye and. contorted features of the insane. s A rock slipped under Hillis* elbow; and went clattering down. The old) man raised his glaring eyes, snatched up one of the old guns, and was tiveling it at ns, when the troops aider the rock ran out—merely Rand- and Tom Rahway! The gamekeeper blazed sway, nevertheless, with a shotgun hi his excitement, and blew the cocked hat from the old lunatic's head. He dropped the rifle, bounded like a deer for the opening of the pit, and was gone in the darkness before any could: stay him. “Of all the blundering fools that) ever drew breath!” shouted Rand,! shaking his fist up at the ghmekeeper.l “Hold on, Larry, explanations are hit order,” I called. • *V.S. "Are you there, too, Dtmk," he answered, in fine scorn. “Explanations? Yes, I should think there were. Come on down." We made our way around, mid descended with some difficulty into the little amphitheater, Tom bad thrown* some more twigs on the fire. "Mr. Rand, how about chasing Hurt. old fellow?” panted the senator. “Oh, let him go,” said Rand. "We will get him later., There is not one' chance in a thousand of overtaking him tonight.” I Immediately related all that I have set down In the foregoing pages since I noted my last report to Rand. Senator Hillis quickly shouldered the re* sponslbility for this night excursion, which seemed to have so thoroughly upset Rand’s plans. “Well, gentlemen,” said Baud, "we may as well make the kedt of things. To begin with, we will try to simplify this case as much as possible. Let up take It up point by point. 1 Blyndvelt’s Injuries were .paused certainly by an accidental fall into the ravine* and I am glad to hear that he is going to recover. I examined the burn on bis face, and found every indication that it had been made by a tiny bit of flame. In the ravine I found an unlit cigar and a burned match. His face had rested on the burning match where he lay. Without doubt he saw this poor creature, just had in hand, stealing along behind the senator here, and the nest instant made a misstep and slipped down the ravine. The shot through the window was to a certainty the act of this same old man, for the ring I dug out of the library wall could have come only from one of these old guns. “The letter found In the road struck, me instantly as having been written by some well-educated person of years. The script showed that. - Itwas an old schoolmaster’s band. The diction was good proof of insanity on the part of the writer. The class feeling expressed showed poverty; made immediate inquiries around tbia> valley, but there was no one who. filled the bill In these paints—lnsane, poor and educated. r y “On the other side of the mountains there might be some one, so I took a train to New York, came up on the other line to Greenwood; and in the first minute of inquiry learned that old James McDonald had been, a teacher in the schools of the vsfiey for thirty years; had lost his place on accoual| of some offense he had given one of Gerald Scott’s overseers, and he had long been living |n a hut up the hill from the Black Rocks on the eastern shore of Greenwood. *7? V “That hut, gentlemen, Hi less Umm three miles from where we now maud. In \be last year he had pursued Ms fad of collecting Revolutionary relics tot! the point where he was believed In-! sane by the people of that part of the lake. I found the hut deserted, no relics in sight, and, returning to the