The Pirate Story Megapack. R.M. Ballantyne

from a man who invariably motored any distance further than a block. Walking briskly, it took him ten minutes to reach the bridge. The side road opened up like a tunnel, elms and maples shading it thickly. Already he seemed to have reached the open country, so abruptly did the character of the buildings change to the south of town. He had passed only scattered residences of the rich, if not of aristocracy, of Foxfield. Now and then motorcars passed him on the smooth state road, but once in this tunnel of leafage, he seemed to walk in a world remote. He rounded a bend and saw, midway in the curve, the rays of an automobile headlight spraying the trees and hedgerow on the far side. A few strides more and he was in the direct glow. The machine was stationary, well to one side, seemingly out on the road proper if not in the ditch itself.

      A voice called to him out of the blackness of the ray, a voice that was eager, hoarse with emotion.

      “Give us a hand here, will you? The machine’s ditched and my pal’s hurt.”

      Jim ran toward the car. Back of the blinding rays it was hard to distinguish anything but a vague figure. The car seemed to have slewed violently so that the rear end was down in the ditch with one wheel apparently smashed. The man who had called to him was poking about with a dim pocket flash, while the headlights were pouring out a waste of illumination.

      “Here,” said the man. “At the back. The jack gave way somehow. He’s pinned under there. I’ve got a pole. Maybe one of us can lift it and drag him out. Can you handle that rock? Make a lever out of it?”

      His flashlight showed a big stone in the ditch of the type from which stone walls are made.

      Jim bent to lift it. Something struck him at the back of his head where the skull meets vertebrae. Golden lights flashed out like an exploding firework and gave way to blackness and oblivion as he pitched forward.

      IV

      Action

      The first conscious sensation Jim recovered was that he was being slowly smothered; the second that he was riding fast, being jolted over rough side roads, presumably in an automobile. He reacted slowly, retarded by a dull headache that seemed to sap the vitality out of him. He was bound ankle and wrist, his arms strapped to his sides and a strap about his knees. They had made a good job of securing him, and not content with rope and leather, they had set him into a canvas sack, a sort of duffle bag into which he had been thrust feet first with the throat of the bad tight about his hips with draw strings. A second bag had been brought down over head and shoulders until it overlapped the first. He could breathe, but the air he got to his lungs was hot and smelly and none too pure. The necessary first aid supply of oxygen was deteriorated; he was like an engine trying to make power on bad gasoline.

      It was hard to think consecutively but the searchlight of his objective reasoning played persistently upon the fact—it seemed to be a fact—that he had been deliberately waylaid on the road to Foster’s. No one except the clerk at the hotel knew where he was going, outside of Stephen Foster, his son, and perhaps his household. If highway robbery had been their purpose his unknown assailants showed poor judgment in selecting him. They had had excellent chance to gauge him as he advanced in the full beams of the automobile headlights and Lyman was conscious that he looked like anything but a wealth carrier. On the other hand, if they had been deliberately waiting for him to come along, meaning to make sure of their man against any other person who might travel that lonely way at that time of night, the plan adopted was an excellent one. The wrong and curious passerby could have been dismissed with an assurance that the car was all right—as it undoubtedly was. It was more than likely he was now traveling in the same machine. The only slip up, a remote chance, would have been that Jim should arrive on the scene in company with someone else, and doubtless they had provided for that.

      What was their purpose? He suspected Stephen Foster. Would Foster go to the length of having him knocked on the head and kidnapped in order to prevent his niece getting the figures and starting off on the expedition? That Foster was quite capable of such high-handed and unscrupulous procedure, he believed, remembering his impressions of the man, his cold eyes and letterbox mouth. Or was it with reason more sinister? Here Lyman abandoned all attempts at working things out under the circumstances. His head ached intolerably and he was suffering from thirst. But anger accumulated in him, awaiting the chance for action.

      Hour after hour, it seemed, they jolted over the roads. There were plenty of good state roads in the region, he knew. They must be purposely choosing unfrequented ways, running like bootleggers to escape observation. Jim prayed that some prowling federal officer or state policeman might halt and search the car. He seemed to be on the floor of the tonneau, otherwise unoccupied.

      Torture increased in his cramped limbs as circulation grew sluggish; he lost feeling in them. Still the car sped on through the night.

      It stopped at last after climbing a steep hillside; the engine was shut off; the door of the tonneau opened and Jim was lifted, an inert bundle, and deposited on the ground. He could not even draw up his knees. He could see nothing. He was not gagged, but efficiently muffled by the sacking. Through it he could not distinguish what the men who had brought him were saying.

      They picked him up again and carried him a little distance. Then the top sack was withdrawn. Jim’s eyes, slow to accept the quick change of light, made out ancient and cobwebby rafters high above his head with wisps of hay showing here and there, festoons of old rope, hooks, a pulley. He was on the floor of a barn. There was the reek of old manure. The dawn had broken and the upland air was cold. Twisting his neck, he saw his captors. One wore the leather hood of aviator and motorcyclist; the other had the wide peak of a cap well drawn down. Both wore big goggles with leather nose-pieces. One was unshaven, bristly; the other wore a square beard. A flask passed, Jim caught the smell of whisky. The chill air had cleared his head and he formulated a course of action. Good nature could lose him nothing if he could simulate it and cover the smouldering wrath that possessed him. And a sup of liquor with its quick stimulus might aid him. He was willing to take a chance on its quality.

      “You might give me a swig of that,” he said. “And loosen up a hole or two. My arms and legs are numb.” The man with the hood looked down at him with eyes gleaming sardonically back of the colored lenses. Then he laughed.

      “You’re a cool customer,” he said.

      “Too cool in this air, with my blood stopped. You’re not aiming to murder me, I figure, or you wouldn’t have spent so much gas on me. If you aim to keep me alive, let me have a drink.”

      “Costs too much and there ain’t more’n enough for two,” demurred the bearded man.

      “He can have my whack,” answered the other. “You got him tied up too hard, Bill. No sense in that.”

      “He’s worth money delivered. I’m proposin’ to deliver him.”

      The man with the hood nevertheless loosened the straps a hole, slid off the lower sack, eased up Jim’s ankles and supporting him, set the flask to his lips. Jim gulped at the stuff. He needed it. Pain shot through every nerve and artery as his heart, reacting to the kick of the liquor, urged the blood through to proper circulation. He lay back, fighting it as the two moved off, holding a consultation of which he caught snatches. It seemed based upon the question whether one of them should remain with Jim or both go to town. He strained his ears in vain to catch sound of the name of it. The pain in his limbs grew less acute. And while the back of his head was sore, it no longer throbbed.

      He was miles from Foxfield. He figured they had averaged at least twenty-five miles an hour through the night for about six hours. And there would be no one to bother about him, save at the hotel where his few belongings were left. The clerk might well think he had left them rather than pay his bill. He had told Kitty Whiting that he was going away.

      He was to be delivered somewhere and was considered a valuable package; that was a certain amount of information. Delivered to whom?

      “Foster pay you well for this job?” he hazarded as the men came back.

      “Shut up,” said the one called Bill, now in ill humor. “I never heard of Foster, so quit ravin’. My partner’s goin’ down to send a wire