Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 55, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1900 — The Swamp Secret [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Swamp Secret

CHAPTER Xll.—(Continued.) I On they went, through the gloom of 1 the night, the thick trees making such | a darkness about them that often Bill | lost sight of the man he was following. ' Then he would pause and listen, and the sound'of a breaking branch, or some bush snapping beneath the pressure of Dick’s hand, would set him on the track again, and he would hurry on till he caught a vague glimpse of the figure, which was hardly more palpable to the sight than a shadow among other shadows. "Wall. I sw’ar,” exclaimed Bill, under his breath, as they penetrated deeper and deeper into the forest, “this is gettin’ interestin’ an’ no mistake. I wish I bad dad’s ol’ niuskit along. It' ’u’d kin' o' seem like comp'ny.” Bill was fully prepared to do one thing, and that was. to run if he were to be discovered. Under the circumstances, he felt he could run well. At length Dick reached the cottonwood. He struck a match on his coat sleeve and held it up to the„trce. When Bill saw that light*hc felt sure that the moment of discovery had come. Close by where ho stood was a clump of hazel bushes. He obeyed the first impulse that came to him and dodged behind them-. ...... Peering through them he could see Dick standing by the tree, but not at all distinctly. He dared not attempt to get a position where he could see to better advantage for fear of making his presence known. In the light of the match which Dick held up to the tree he saw that the old writing had been erased and a new message, if that was what it might' be called, left in its place. Much as the other had puzzled him, this one puzzled him still more. It was like this:

“Well. I must own up I’m up a stump now,” exclaimed Dick, as he regarded the inscription < blankly. “Two, three, four and one. A cross, with a dot in one of its angles. This is a vast improvement on the other, so far as being mysterious goes.” He struck another match and examined it still more closely. But the scrutiny gave him no key to the strange riddle. “The pitch that I left in little patches has been well smeared over the bark,” he said, lowering the flickering match from the writing to the rough surface of the bark, immediately below it. “It is as 1, thought, Mr. Wayne; you rested the arm on which that coat sleeve was against the tree while you made your puzzle for me to rack my brains over.” He*turned away from the tree and began his homeward journey, passing within a foot of where Bill Green was hidden. Bill held his breath, fearful that his hiding place would be discovered, and ho waited for some time after Dick had -passed him before he dared stir. He wanted to feel perfectly sure that the man he had watched was a safe distance away before he made any investigations. If Dick were to -retrace his steps and come upon Bill suddenly, while he was examining the tree , where he had seen Dick at work, it would be awkward for him to explain matters. When he had waited for perhaps a ■quarter of an hour, he concluded that it was safe for him to venture out. He did so. cautiously. He made his way to the tree. When he reached it he stopped and listened. Nothing was to be heard save the moaning of the Vrind in the treetops and the rustling of the grass growing among the underbrush* With a hand that trembled like the traditional aspen leaf, he struck a match and took his turn at examining the cottonwood. What he saw there was as puzzling to him as it had been to Dick. "Wall, I snum,” exclaimed Bill, with wide-open mouth and eyes full of wonder. ‘’This beats me. I s’pose he knows what it meant, ’cause he made it, but I couldn’t make out head nor tail on’t es I was to go to thunder.” From which the reader will perceive that Bill believed that Dickjhad placed the mysterious and baffling marks there. From his hiding place he had not been able to see distinctly what was done, and it was quite natural for him to believe that Dick had written on the tree while he was standing by it, and that he had seen him do it. “I tell you,” exclaimed Bill, to some unseen companion, "that air Dick Brayton’s a deep one, an' no mistake. That thing there means more’n I hev any idee of! I'll bet a dollar. Figgers an’ spots an’ crosses. It means suthin’, but gol darn my pictar es I can tell what! I snum. I'd be willin’ tu give -the brindle steer to know jest what the plaguy thing Stan's fer, I would so. I know what I'm a-goin’ to du, fust thing in the mornin’. I'm a-goin’ to go an’ see the singht' teacher about it. I will, I vum. He’s sharp, an' mebbe he can seethru it. Dick Brayton, gol dnrn ye, you think yer mighty smairt, an’ too good to ’sociate with me, but I kin’ o’ reckon I’ll git even with ye, some way. Es I eter git a chance to pay ye off I'm a-goin’ to du it. You don’t dream that ye’ve got Bill Green on yer track, but he’s there, an’ he’ll foller ye like a houn*. He will so.” Bill Green, as I have-said, could remember nn old grudge like an Indian. He was not-the person to forgct or forgive. In reality Dick had never interfered with him in any way, but he took pleasure in making himself think that, Brayton had not come npon the scene, Nannie might have accepted his attentions. While the truth was, Nannie had always had a cordial dislike for him, but out of pure mischief she had encouraged him to think the time might come when she would feel more friendly toward him. But after Dick came she had not even a smile for poor Bill. He was forlorn and despondent' for a time, and then waxed wrathy and vindictive. He had long

been on the lookout for an opportunity to “get even” with his rival. ”1 hain’t much on the fight, I’ll allow,”. Bill admitted to himself. “He’d lick the socks off’n me in a jiffy, but 1 can git even with him some other way, I reckon.” At last, he began to think, the lookedfor opportunity was at hand. He slept but little that nights The events of the last few hours made him restless, and visions of horse thieves, strange hieroglyphics and Dick Brayton flitted before his mind’s eye, in the silence and darkness of his room in the loft of his father's little log house. CHAPTER XIII. As he had decided to do when he made his midnight discovery, Bill Green came to see Mr. Wayne next morning. The singing teacher listened to his story with an interest thatjgratified Bill greatly. Ho felt that he was acting in a role of greater importance, perhaps, than he was aware of. That would be decided by after events. The sense of the possible, if not probable, importance of what he had to tell induced him to assume a dignity as grotesque as it was unnatural. He put on a'patronizing air as he asked Wayne’s advice. It implied that it was not at all necessary for him to ask advice of any one, but, under the circumstances, he would be willing to listen to any suggestions the other might have to offer. Wayne looked at him with a singular expression on his face as he told about the mysterious inscription he had seen Dick make on the old cottonwood tree. “You say you saw him make it, do you?” asked Wayne. “I did so,” answered Bill. “And you are sure you saw him going past your place at one or two o’clock On the night Averill’s horses were stolen?” “I did so,” replied Bill, as solemnly as if he were answering questions on a witness stand. “Could you make me a copy of what you saw on the cottonwood tree?” asksd Wayne. —.—» x. “I reckon,” replied Bill. “I looked at it long enough an’ sharp enough to git it all by heart, I allow.” He took the singing book from the teacher’s hand, and proceeded to make an awkward but correct copy of the inscription on the old tree, on one of the fly-leaves. “There,” he said after a critical inspection of his work, as he handed the book back to Wayne, “that’s pre-cisely what I see him mark out on the tree, an’ I’m willin’ to make affidayy to it any time.” “It’s more of a puzzle to me than anything eTse,” said Wayne, turning the book in all ways, and evidently failing to get any key as to its meaning. “ ’Tis so,” responded Bill, who felt that he had enlisted a keener and cleverer brain than his own in an attempt to solve the mystery, and was content to let him puzzle his wits over it, while, while he looked on with an air of reticence that hinted at a deeper knowledge of the matter than he felt willing to divulge. “You say that you can’t find that he was at anybody’s house on the night in which the horses were stolen—the night when you saw him going past your house?” “I’ve took pains to ask ev’ry livin’ soul in the whole neighborhood, an’ he wa’n’t nowher’s,” replied Bill. “And he denied being away from home on the night' in question?” | “Wall, jest the same as denied it,” answered Bill. “He tried to make me b’leeve I was mistaken. I s’pose he dassen’t say right out that I lied, but he did just as nigh as he dared to. Now, I know 1 wa’nf mistaken, an’ he knows it.” “Well, what do you think about it?” asked Wayne, apparently at a loss to know what to think himself. “Gol durned es I know what to think,” answered Bill. “I never took any likin’ to Dick Brayton, but I snum,' I never would ha’ b’leeved he’d got mixed up in hoss stealin’, es I hadn’t seen what it ’pears to me means suthin’ like that, ’s near’s I can jedge. Don’t it look to you as es sarcumstanees kin’ o’ p’inted that way?” “To be frank with you, it does,” replied Wayne. "But I wouldn’t care to say as much to anybody but you, because it is well understood that Brayton and myself are not on the best of terms, and they might think I was trying to injure him, because of my dislike for him. You have taken the matter in hand, and 1 advise you to go on with it. Keep your eyes open and see what happens. If your suspicions are correct, something will turn up to prove them so before long.” “I’ll keep my eyes skinned,” said Bill. And Bill was as good as his word. He lost no chance of creating suspicion against Dick by sly insinuations, which, I in such cases, generally toll more effectively against a person than open assertions do. To some of bis particular cronies he told the details of what he had seen in a manner that made his story not only a plausible but somewhat convincing one. With the minds of the settlers greatly excited by the recent occurrence, they were ready and eager to accept any clue or what seemed likely to prove a clue to a solution of the mystery surrounding the theft, even when their better judgment told they were acting hastily and unwisely in forming an opinion on no more reliable evidence than that which Bill Green had to offer. At such times men do not stop to coolly and dispassionately weigh the testimony presented. If it bears the stamp of plausibility on the face of it, they seem to consider that enough to warrant them safe In accepting it in place of something better.' "Ah, my tine fellow, who’s likely to como out ahead?” chuckled Wayne, as Dick went by the house that afternoon. His face wore a look of intense satisfaction as his eyes followed the man whose mark his features still wore very plainly impressed on them. “The game is mine,” he laughed, as Dick passed out of sight. "I've got a whole handful of trumps, a full hand, so to apeak.” That afternoon a young man came from “down below” to visit Dick. He was a harmless, inoffensive sort of fellow, and has nothing whatever to do with this story, except in so far as his coming to Brownsville helped to increase the sus-

picion which Bill Green was creating against Dick Brayton. When Bill found out' about the visitor, he had no scruples about hinting that it was his firm belief that he belonged to a gang of horse thieves. “He hain’t come up here for nothin’,” said Bill, with a wise look and a shake of his head. Coupled with the various suspicious circumstances surrounding Dick, Bill succeeded in making the visit appear as a link in the evidence against him in the minds of many with whom he talked. Strange as it may seem, Dick had no knowledge or suspicion of what was going on. Had he known what Bill was doing it would doubtless have been quite unhealthy for that young man in the climate of Brownsville at that particular time. The young man from “down below,” ■who would as soon have entertained the idea of turning cannibal as becoming a horse.thief, went home on Friday, and Dick accompanied him. He would take a “lay-off” till Monday. This was his first one since he began work soy Mr. Boone, in the spring, and he felt as if he needgri and had earned a resting spell. “Keep your eyes open while I’m gone,” he told Samanthy. “I will so,” replied that worthy damsel. “I’d giv’ considerable to know what the singin’ teacher an’ Bill Green air figgerin’ on. Suthin’s up, I reckon. They’ve got their heads together nigh aboyt ev’ry day. Bill comes up here a-lookin’ as important as a turkey strutfin’, an’ev’ry time he sets his foot down he seems to be sayin—: ‘l’m Bill Green, I be, an’ Bill Green, he’s some punkins, he is!’ an’ it makes me laugh to see him swell up sometimes, when he says suthin’, jest like thd ol* turkey fer all the world, when he’s gittin’ ready to gobble. He an’ him air hatchin’ up suthin’, an’ 1 know it, but I can't make out what 'tis yit.” “I don’t know what their consultations are about,” responded Dick, “and»what’s more, I don’t care. I’ve about as much contempt for one as the other. If it's about me, I’m not' afraid of the result. Neither of them is man enough to come to me to settle his grudge. Probably they are fixing up some sort of a scrape which -they hope to get me into. If I don’t miss my guess, Wayne has got himself into a scrape that some day he’ll wish he’d kept' out of.” “Hev ye found out anything more sence what you was a-hintin’ to me t’other day ?” asked Samanthy. “Yes, a little,” answered Dick, “d’ve satisfied myself that the pitch on his coat sleeve came from the place I had in mind. That’s all I’ve found out or all 1 can explain about' just now.” _ “I’ve found out suthin’,” said Samanthy, with a broad grin. “There’s goin’ to be a fallin’-out ’twixt some folks I know of.” “Do you mean Nannie and Wayne?” queried Dick. “I do so,” answered Samanthy. “Nannie, she's be’n a kinder gittin’ sick of him for quite a spell back, an’ ’twon’t be long afore there’s a big flare-up.” “Well, let it come,” said Dick, in no way displeased by the information. “I didn’t' think she was foolish enough to be deceived by him as long as she has. But, having begun her flirtation, or whatever she calls it, I suppose she felt bound to keep it up as long as possible. I thought she’d get sick of him in time.” “Gals can be awful fools when they set about it, an* sometimes they don’t have to half try,” said Samanthy. U 1 us’t to give Nance credit for more sense, but they say ev’rybody’s got a soft spot in their head, an’ I guess it’s so.” “If he falls out with Nannie, I suppose he’ll concentrate all his attentions on Rhoda,” said Dick. “That puts me in mind o’ suthin’,” responded Samanthy. “Rhody’s sent fer me to come over. Her brother’s sick, an’ she’s a feared he’s a-goin’ to hev a run o’ billyus fever, an’ she wants me to come an’ help give him a hemlock sweat. I mus’ go right off, for Rhody don’t know no more ’bout takin’ keer o’ sick folks than that cat does.”

CHAPTER XIV. Sunday morning came and brought new fuel for the excitement which Bill, takadvantage of Dick’s absence, had wrought up to fever heat by artful insinuations and hints. Deacon Snyder’s horses were missing. The excitement, great as it had been before, was now intensified tenfold. When Averill’s horses had been taken, the fact that he lived so far away from Brownsville had seemed to take the matter out of the hands of Brownsville people, to a certain extent. Now the trouble had come home to them. This last theft was a Brownsville theft, pure and simple, and not one belonging to some outlying neighborhood. We.are always much more deeply interested in what happens in our immediate vicinity than we are in what happens, to our remote neighbors, and the tidings of the theft spread like wildfire and stirred everyone up as much as a declaration of immediate war with some foreign country would have done, if not a great deal more. Two hours after the horses were missed a crowd had gathered at the deacon's. It was a crowd with an intense purpose in it.. That purpose was to bring the thief or thieves to justice—if he or they could be found! And that justice was —the rope! But the difficulty in the way was to find the thief or thieves on whom to administer justice, t ' , Wayne was among the crowd, listening to what was said, and watching the progress of events. Presently he called Bill aside: “What do you think of your discovery on the tree now?” he asked. “Hain’t had time to think much about it to-day, the news took mo so all of a sudden,” answered Bill. “Why? What makes ye ask the question?” “Make another copy of what you say you saw Brayton put on the tree,” said Wayne, handing Bill a piece of birchbark that he picked up from the deacon’s chip pile, and a pencil. Bill made a rough diagram on the bark and handed it back to Wayne. “I think I have solved the puzzle,” said the singing teacher. • “See here. We will lay this bark down with this side to the north. Here we have a cross, and in the northwest corner a dot, which stands for something. Can' you study out what that Something is and what the cross means, Mr. Green?” Bill bent all his energies to the task in hand. He stared hard at the bark for some minutes. At last — "By the jumpin' Jehosaphat. 1 du b’leeve I see what the gol darned thing means! That .cross stan's fer these here

cross-roads, an’ that air spot means the deacon’s place, where we air now, an’ the whole thing is a kind o' guide for sotnCbody to go by. It told ’em where tn steal hosses nex’ time. Yes, sirree, that's it. It’s a kind o’ map. so to speak, showin’ how the land lays, an’ them as it was meant fer understood it, you bet your bottom dollar. Here’s the very identical roads a-crOssin’ each other, an’ here’s the deacon’s place in the northwest corner; but the figgerin’ I don't jest' see thru’. Du you?’’ “Not unless the figures stand in some way for members of the gang who are up to this kind of business,”' replied Wayne. “You say that you saw Bray* ton make the diagram on the tree. From that, one would naturally infer that he must be the ringleader. In that case the figure one, in this corner, may mean him. It may be a kind of signature, to his instructions to the others. ■ The leader would most likely be Number One.” (To be’continued.) Copyright,.,lSo4, by Itobert Bonner’s Sons.