CHAPTER XX
DELIA was captain, Urleigh was the crew. They were bound down Old Mississip' trying to find Murdong, who was carrying a treasure perhaps without knowing it, and who was being pursued by one of the deadliest of river menaces—a strong-arm diamond specialist of a thief.
There was nothing else they could do—humanity demanded it. They swung down reaches and bends, their glasses turned incessantly toward the banks. Many little white shantyboats fooled them, and they ran in to inquire, only to be disappointed.
They happened upon no one who recalled seeing such a boat as they described, nor such a man as they had in mind. When night fell, Delia steered into an eddy at the foot of a sandbar, and Urleigh threw over the anchor on a long line, giving the boat plenty of swing room.
Then they cooked supper over the gasolene stove in the galley—a supper of quail, toast, fruit, and other light food things. Following supper, they sat in the cabin, which was lighted by storage batteries, Delia quite composed, Urleigh telling about himself and his adventures.
"You took a chance on solving the diamond mystery by running down to Hickman, and dropping down the river with that beast!" she commented.
"I had to trust him." Urleigh shook his head. "He told me a good deal; but waking or sleeping, he never said a word about the double robbery. He boasted all the while that he got his ready money slick, though. I wondered if that wasn't selling the diamonds to Judge Wrest?"
"It sounds that way," she admitted. "Now, he'll follow Murdong down and perhaps kill him. He'd do murder, that man Gost."
She told him what she had done—how she had discovered the diamonds in their case, and how she had wondered what to do with them, until Murdong drifted into Yankee Bar eddy and Mrs. Mahna sold her cabin-boat for her, because she didn't need both boats.
"I'd hid the diamonds in one of the pump-wells," she said, "and when I carried my things on to the gasolene boat, I just left them where they were—hundreds and hundreds of them. I didn't know what else to do with them. I might have sent them to Ofsten & Groner, but I didn't know how to do it. They would have traced back, you see, and when they learned—when the express agent told them that I—a woman—had shipped them, they might have kept on following. The National Agency never lets up"
"That's so," Urleigh nodded. "Manager Grost of the Cincinnati branch has told me a good many stories about his agency's work. He was the one who got me interested in this case. I ought to tell him what I've learned, but now—now it seems to be your say. Whatever you say"
"Thank you!" she exclaimed. "Of course, I knew you were that kind. I know you quite well, you know"
"Well, thank you for your compliment to my knowledge," he grimaced.
"Oh, that's all right," she laughed at him. "And you a newspaperman."
"No," he shook his head. "I'm a river rat; the things I don't know about my job that used to be—I heard a river lady mention her husband-that-used-to-be—those things would equip a wonder in the profession."
"You have the spirit—the ambition," she praised him. "Any one who would go hundreds of miles, and who would travel with that horrible Gost, just to try and solve a mystery, risking his—everything! Oh, I think it's wonderful."
"Thank you," he bowed. "I wish I knew as much about you."
"Don't you?" she asked, rolling her eyes up and gazing at him, reproachfully.
"Well—you see—of course, I know what a fine"
"That'll do!" she shook her head. "You needn't say it; when you know that much about a woman, you know all there is worth knowing—I mean under existing social conditions. But why shouldn't I be like you? Why shouldn't a woman be known by her business, her affairs, her profession, as well as a man? When you know a woman's good looking—that's all there is to her!"
"You're a new woman?" he asked.
"Now you're asking questions," she turned his query.
Nevertheless, her statements had awakened a new line of inquiry in his mind. He looked at the books in the two sets of shelves.
"I never had a chance to think," she shook her head. "I never had a chance to be alone—so I started down the river. I wanted to be where I could find a perspective—where it would be quiet."
"So you dropped down the Mississippi?"
"Yes," she admitted, with a laugh.
At the laugh, Urleigh started; the laugh reminded him of something, and it suggested the voice, too, so that when she spoke again he listened attentively, wondering. Somewhere—sometime—he could not just remember.
Thus they talked, good friends, now, and with perfect understanding.
"We'll want to start out at dawn," he suggested, and she admitted that, with the remark:
"Yes—and it's late now—I think you'll find your room ready."
"Which one?" he asked.
"The port side. You find the light at the head of the bunk."
In the morning, as soon as they could see clearly, they went on down the river.
"He couldn't go more than forty or fifty miles a day," she declared. "But that might mean two hundred miles—or if he floated nights, four hundred miles—I told him—why! I told him I'd meet him down in Spanish Moss Bend. Or at Salem Landing—I just happened to remember."
"Is that the way you remember your dates?" Urleigh ventured, and she laughed but made no answer.
Murdong had hidden his trail from their inexperienced eyes. They asked shantyboaters blunt questions, and the river people, suspecting that Murdong was a fugitive, and needed a good lie in his favour, sent them up and down, so that they ran down to Spanish Moss Bend, and stopped over night at Salem Landing, and then beat their way back up stream again, not once finding trace of the man.
More and more they grew worried as to his fate. They set forth in a dry gale, and passed within a thousand yards of him perhaps three or four times, not once catching a glimpse of the boat.
"We must find him. We must save him," Delia whispered, her voice tense with anxiety.
It seemed as though they must find such a big boat—but they saw other boats almost lost to view on the miles' wide surface; they saw other boats which were almost invisible against caving bank and among the tops of trees that had fallen into the river.
By chance they ran into the eddy at Poole, and found there a boat which they recognized. A number of people were sitting up the bank when they ran in, and at sight of the gasolene boat Urleigh and the girl masked their faces after a glance at each other.
Sure enough, the gasolene boat and the rag shack on a scow had figured in a river mystery. Something had happened on it. The sheriff, learning that Urleigh was a newspaperman, told him all that he knew, and told the guesses that he had made.
"You see, somebody got killed up on that gasolene boat, and we got a suspicion hit were a feller that rolled out on the bar ten miles below here—stripped an' daid, an' his head busted in so's you wouldn't know him, not in a thousand years. Only thing we could find on that body was three little red diamonds tattooed on his arm. Now if somebody only knowed who that was"
"I think it would be a good idea to telegraph that description to Manager Grost of the National Agency at Cincinnati," Urleigh suggested, blandly.
"Sho!" the sheriff grinned. "You know I jes' 'lowed you all's story about bein' a newspaperman was a stall! I spotted you, right off, for one of those agency fellers. Yes, suh! I'll telegraph to Cincinnati. You expect theh's a reward on that feller?"
"No, I don't know—Grost is a friend of mine; I'm a reporter—he'll tell you the same if you ask him. Here's my card"
"Of course he'll tell me the same," the sheriff chuckled. "Oh, you boys are a sharp lot. Who do you expect that three-diamond man was?"
"White Collar Dan—Rubert Gost; he has a dozen names, I think."
"Sho! Now you speak of it—course hit is. And say, Mr. Man, I'm sure a blunderhead. That same day we found these boats nosing into the bank, the engine going and never stopped. That same day there was a river rat here that could have told me all about it. I let him slip right through my fingers—I 'lowed he was harmless. His name was Storit, and White Collar Dan got his start stealing Storit's diamonds. Ain't it funny the way things comes around—you was after Dan?"
"No, but I feel safer about a friend of mine, now that Dan's dead and buried. Did you notice a bullet wound, an old one"
"Why, that's so! Right side, plumb through. Well, I declare!" The countenance of the sheriff showed his self -disgust. "Theh, I knowed Dan was shot by a lady up around Hickman, and I knowed he'd got out the hospital, and I never placed him. Ain't a man stupid sometimes?"
Urleigh joined Delia at the levee, she having been uptown to purchase some supplies. He told her what the sheriff had declared. They examined the two boats with interest. They looked as though murder might have been done on them—the stains were plainly to be seen.
"It sounds like the Old River," Urleigh commented, as they turned down the river once more.
The dry gale had passed; there had been a hard rain, and once more fair, warm, beautiful sunshine was at hand. The shantyboats were tripping down in midstream; a boat or two in every bend as the river people continued their migration down—ever down!
Urleigh and Delia were good friends now. They had set forth to save a man's life, and now that they knew White Collar Dan was dead, they felt a measure of relief—only they hoped that the murder had been done before the diamond specialist found Murdong, of whose fate they could not be certain.
"That poor boy! Never dreaming what he was up against," Delia shook her head.
Thus they swung down the river, scrutinizing the banks and steering to pass near by the trippers who were taking advantage of the fair weather.
"He'd float a day like this," Delia surmised, "but he'll take his time, dropping down, if he really meant to wait for me at Salem or in Spanish Moss Bend."
They made twelve or fifteen miles an hour down stream. Sixty miles below they rounded a sandbar into a long reach, and ahead of them something fretted the glassy surface in midstream. It was miles distant, but they knew it was a shantyboat, for they had passed a dozen that day.
They ran down straight toward it, scrutinizing both shores, and once turning in to look at a craft moored against the west bank. They turned out, and as the boat ahead swung in a swirl, Urleigh remarked:
"That's a white boat. Another one."
"We'll look at it close by," she said. "I'm growing discouraged."
"Never say die," he laughed, "that man's taking it plumb comfortable. See him? He's sitting on his chair, leaning back against his cabin, and letting the river do the work."
"And do the worrying, too." She shook her head. "You have to do that down here—if you want to find the full benefit of Old Mississip'."
"That's so," he admitted, "but when you do hat"
"Nothing matters—you don't care!" she exclaimed with sudden emphasis and feeling. "You know—I used to wonder if people could get so they didn't care for appearances? If there was a place in all the world where you could live and be decent and do what you want to do, and not care, and not feel—not feel hounded."
"You can on Old Mississip'," Urleigh said. "It's wonderful."
"Look at that boat!" she started up.
He took the binoculars and looked.
"Well?"
"I—I almost know that boat," she whispered.
"You—you don't suppose"
"We'll soon know!"
They soon did know. The man sitting on the bow deck of the houseboat was reading, but most of the time he was just viewing the wonderful scene presented to him by the river and its banks. As they approached, they observed that there was a rifle leaning against the cabin at his right elbow.
When he saw them approaching, he turned on his chair and set all four of its legs on the deck. His hand fell to the breech of the rifle.
"Well, he's all ready, anyhow!" Urleigh commented.
"The good, brave boy!" she whispered aloud.
She ran the boat down within hail and threw over the reverse, steering by under losing headway.
"Hello!" she hailed.
"Why—why—that you, Delia!" he cried.
"None else," she laughed, choking. "You are all right?"
"Sure thing. Say, what in"
"Throw him the line," she ordered Urleigh, and in two minutes the boats were lashed side by side as of old.
"I've worried so about you," she cried. "I thought about it afterward—what you might meet—what might happen to you."
"Well, it didn't happen!" he shook his head. "I found"
"You found the diamonds?"
"Yes," glancing at Urleigh.
"You have them?" Urleigh exclaimed.
"About a cup full." Murdong laughed. "I was some surprised"
"And nothing happened?"
"Well—one night I was tied in a bayou up the river. I opened the door, and I heard a 'whack' up the bank. A gun went off, and then there was a lot of 'whacking.' I jumped back in and shut the door. Next day, I looked around. I couldn't tell what had happened. I'd seen the rifle flash up the bank. Something had been dragged on the ground over to the river bank; I don't know what it was. There was a rifle right there by a tree. I have it inside. This is mine."
"I see now," Urleigh exclaimed. "Look! Storit bushwhacked White Collar Dan just as he was going to"
"Don't!" Delia gasped. "Oh, it's—it's awful."
"Come in, won't you?" Murdong asked. "Here are the diamonds."
He brought out the case with its sparkling contents.
"There they are!" Urleigh shook his head, hardly able to believe his eyes.
"You'll take them to Ofsten & Groner, won't you?" Delia asked him.
"You want me to take them?" Urleigh asked, surprised.
"Yes," she declared, adding: "then there's a pack of bills—I—I found them with the diamonds."
"A pack of bills?" Urleigh asked, eagerly.
"Yes—about five thousand dollars!"
"Ah-h-h!" Urleigh gasped with delight. "That shows—that shows that part of it! Dan went down and sold them to old Judge Wrest! Lord, but he was a nervy crook!"
"And Old Mississip' got him at last!" Delia suggested.
"That's right!" Urleigh repHed. "It gets us all."
"We'll wrap them all up in envelopes; I'm afraid they'll be all scratched, carrying them loose that way!" Delia suggested.
The three sat down at the table and began to fold the gems into little envelopes. A stranger occupation was never seen on Old Mississip'—but a thousand groups as strange have been down that way!
"You'll take them, won't you?" Delia asked again, "you'll take them to—the firm?"
"On one condition," Urleigh said.
"And that?" she let her eyes fall under his meaning look.
"Who are you?"
"No one—in particular," she shook her head.
"But I know you," he protested. "I've seen—heard you somewhere?"
"No doubt," she smiled. "I was Central, there in Cincinnati, for a while—three or four years. I used to connect you with—Pittsburgh, Chicago"
"Why—then you're Delia!" he gasped.
"Delia!" she laughed. "I resigned—I wanted to—to think, as I told you. Oh, if you'd ever been at the beck and call of a little click! Well, down here—I can think. I'm"
"Delia!" he filled in, "I'll land in at"
"Vicksburg," she suggested, "I'm just going to trip on down."
"That's what I'm going to do," Murdong declared, "Old Mississip's great!"
"Lots of dandy stories to it!" Urleigh declared. "You won't mind if I—if I tell about"
"About Delia?" she smiled. "Oh, if it's any satisfaction to you—go ahead! Down here nobody cares, you know, what anybody says."
"I'm glad to be rid of those things," Murdong shook his head. "Rocks like that are some burden and responsibility—I thought—I didn't know what to make of them"
"You saw to whom they belonged?" she asked. "I see you've been reading the newspaper."
"Oh, yes—I knew—only"
"Only what?"
"Well, you turned them over to me—I wondered if you'd forgotten them in that pump-well. I didn't care," Murdong declared, with a touch of defiance in his tone, "I thought I'd keep them for you."
"You're a dear," Delia laughed. "I thought—I knew you would. When I remembered it all—I knew."
They drifted on down the river to Vicksburg, where they landed in. By that time some other matters had been decided.
"It's no place for a lady to be alone—I mean in one way it isn't," Murdong had declared, and Delia had admitted it.
"But if she's married," Murdong said—"now if you'd marry me?"
Urleigh saw them married, and they saw him off on the train. Then they returned to their boats, and drifted down the Yazoo into the big river again, and around the bend toward Palmyra cut-off.
When Urleigh arrived in Cincinnati he called on Manager Grost.
"Hello, boy!" Grost cried. "Say, we've solved that diamond mystery!"
"So?" Urleigh exclaimed. "Am I in time to write it?"
"Just in time. You know Goles, the agent? Well, we found him. It was just luck. He wanders into a hospital here, and says his head hurts. Well, I should say it ought to have. Had a slung-shot hole in it an inch deep. They operated on him—lifted out the skull. He's come to and he's all right. Sent for me, and he remembers a lot he did. He's the lad who held old Wrest up and got his diamonds. Said so! He was daffy, you see, 'count of that diamond thief rapping him on his head and getting his case. Now we got to get the diamond thief—I suspect"
"Oh, don't bother about him," Urleigh laughed, putting down the diamond case. "He's dead—White Collar Dan, you know. I thought I'd bring you the diamonds. You've given me a lot of good stories, you know."
THE END
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
GARDEN CITY, N. Y.