Out of a Labyrinth. Lynch Lawrence L.

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СКАЧАТЬ my wounded arm, expressed himself more than ready to take any risk, promised to keep within the bounds of safety after nightfall, and panted to be in the field.

      Just one day before our departure for Trafton I received a letter from Mrs. Ballou. Enclosed with it was my lost note of warning. Its contents puzzled me not a little. It ran thus:

      Dear Sir – I return you the letter I took from your pocket the morning you left us. You did not suspect me of burglary, did you? Of course you guessed the truth when you came to miss it. I thought it might help me to a clue, but was wrong. I can not use it.

      If anything new or strange occurs, it may be to your interest to inform me first of all.

      The time may come when you can doubly repay the service I rendered you not long since. If so, remember me. I think I shall come to the city soon.

Respectfully, etc., M. A. Ballou

      P. S. —Please destroy.

      From some women such a letter might have meant simply nothing. From Mrs. Ballou it was fraught with meaning.

      How coolly she waived the ceremony of apology! She wanted the letter – she took it; a mere matter of course.

      And as a matter of course, she returned it.

      Thus much of the letter was straight-forward, and suited me well enough; but —

      "I thought it might help me to a clue, but was wrong. I can not use it."

      Over these words I pondered, and then I connected them with the remainder of the letter. Mrs. Ballou was clever, but she was no diplomatist. She had put a thread in my hands.

      I made some marks in a little memorandum book, that would have been called anything but intelligible to the average mortal, but that were very plain language to my eye, and to none other. Next I put a certain bit of information in the hands of my Chief; then I turned my face toward Trafton.

      To my readers the connection between the fate of the two missing girls, and the mysterious doings at Trafton, may seem slight.

      To my mind, as we set out that day for the scene of a new operation, there seemed nothing to connect the two; I was simply, as I thought, for the time being, laying down one thread to take up another.

      A detective has not the gift of second sight, and without this gift how was I to know that at Trafton I was to find my clue to the Groveland mystery, and that that mystery was in its turn to shed a light upon the dark doings of Trafton, and aid justice in her work of requital?

      So it is. Out of threads, divers and far-fetched, Fate loves to weave her wonderful webs.

      And now, for a time, we leave Groveland with the shadow upon it. We leave the shadow now; later it comes to us.

      For the present we are en route for Trafton.

      CHAPTER VI.

      JIM LONG

      "Trafton?" said Jim Long, more familiarly known as Long Jim, scratching his head reflectively, "can't remember just how long I did live in Trafton; good sight longer'n I'll live in it any more, I calklate; green, oh, dretful green, when I come here; in fact mem'ry hadn't de-welluped; wasn't peart then like I am now. But I ain't got nothin' to say agin' Trafton, I ain't, tho' there be some folks as has. Thar's Kurnel Brookhouse, now, he's bin scalped severial times; then thar's – hello!"

      Jim brought his rhetoric up standing, and lowered one leg hastily off the fence, where he had been balancing like a Chinese juggler.

      At the same moment a fine chestnut horse dashed around a curve of the road, bearing a woman, who rode with a free rein, and sat as if born to the saddle. She favored Jim with a friendly nod as she flew past, and that worthy responded with a delighted grin and no other sign of recognition.

      When she had disappeared among the trees, and the horse's hoofs could scarcely be heard on the hard dry road, Jim drew up his leg, resumed his former balance, and went on as if nothing had happened.

      "There was Kurnel Brookhouse and – "

      "The mischief fly away wid old Brookhouse," broke in Carnes, giving the fence a shake that nearly unseated our juggler. "Who's the purty girl as bowed till yee's? That's the question on board now."

      "Look here, Mr. Ireland," expostulated Jim, getting slowly off the fence backward, and affecting great timidity in so doing, "ye shouldn't shake a chap that way when he's practisin' jimnasti – what's its name? It's awful unsafe."

      And he assured himself that his two feet were actually on terra firma before he relinquished his hold upon the top rail of the fence. Then turning toward Carnes he asked, with a most insinuating smile:

      "Wasn't you askin' something?"

      "That's jist what I was, by the powers," cried Carnes, as if his fate hung upon the answer. "Who is the leddy? be dacent, now."

      We had been some two weeks in Trafton when this dialogue occurred, and Jim Long was one of our first acquaintances. Carnes had picked him up somewhere about town; and the two had grown quite friendly and intimate.

      Long was a character in the eyes of Carnes, and was gradually developing into a genius in mine. Jim was, to all outward appearances, the personification of laziness, candor, good nature, and a species of blundering waggishness; but as I grew to know him better, I learned to respect the irony under his innocent looks and boorish speeches, and I soon found that he possessed a faculty, and a fondness, for baffling and annoying Carnes, that delighted me; for Carnes was, like most indefatigible jokers, rather nonplussed at having the tables turned.

      Jim never did anything for a livelihood that could be discovered, but he called himself a "Hoss Fysician," and indeed it was said that he could always be trusted with a horse, if he could be induced to look at one. But he had his likes and dislikes, so he said, and he would obstinately refuse to treat a horse toward which he had what he called "onfriendly feelin's."

      Jim could tell us all there was to tell concerning the town of Trafton. It was only necessary to set him going; and no story lost anything of spirit through being told by him.

      He was an oracle on the subjects of fishing and hunting; indeed, he was usually to be found in the companionship of gun or fishing rod.

      Fortunately for us, Trafton had rare facilities for sports of the aforementioned sort, and we gathered up many small items while, in the society of Long Jim, we scrambled through copses, gun in hand, or whipped the streams, and listened to the heterogenous mass of information that flowed from his ready tongue.

      But the spirit of gossip was not always present with Jim. Sometimes he was in an argumentative mood, and then would ensue the most astounding discussions between himself and Carnes. Sometimes he was full of theology, and then his discourse would have enraptured Swing, and out-Heroded Ingersoll, for his theology varied with his moods. Sometimes he was given to moralizing, and then Carnes was in despair.

      Jim lived alone in a little house, or more properly, "cabin," something more than a mile from town. He had a small piece of ground which he called his "farm," and all his slight amount of industry was expended on this.

      "Who is the leddy, I tell yee's?" roared Carnes, who, I may as well state here, had introduced himself to the Traftonites as Barney Cooley. "Bedad, a body would think she was your first shwateheart by the dumbness СКАЧАТЬ