Chapter 19

HELEN IN THE MOUNTAINS.

It was snowing. The flakes that fell were not large fluffy ones; they were small and compact, so that as the northwest wind drove them into Helen's face, she realized that she was being pelted with something more substantial than eiderdown.

The severity of the storm startled the girl. It spurred her to a fuller consciousness of her obligation to her friends, that she remove from their minds all occasion for worry as to her whereabouts as soon as possible.

Putting her muff up to shield her face from the cutting blast, Helen set out bravely up the street. She was not a timid or timorous girl. In fact, the words of warning uttered by her sister-in-law had made no lasting impression on her mind, so far as her own personal safety was concerned. She scarcely thought of looking out for danger from any human agency as she left the house.

As the storm was beating into her face, she did not attempt to look ahead much farther than each step as it was taken. It was necessary for her to lean forward slightly and push her head, as it were, right into the storm, and before she had reached the nearest corner it became evident that she must undergo no little inconvenience, if not actual suffering, before her evening's mission were completed.

"Well, maybe this exercise will give me just the life I need to talk real business to Dave when he comes," she mused, punctuating her conjecture with a gasp or two as she fought against a gust of wind that forced her almost to a standstill. Winning this skirmish with the storm, she pressed forward again, when suddenly another gasp was forced from her by an entirely different cause. She almost stumbled over an object directly in her way, and as she recovered her equilibrium she recognized before her the form of a small girl scantily clad in a short-sleeved coat much too small for her and a hood that came down scarcely far enough to cover her ears. Her hands were bare and she held them up pitifully before the comfortably--to her richly--clad maiden so out of her element in this poverty-stricken district.

"Please, Miss," the girl pleaded; "won't you come and help me? Ma's sick--she fainted--and pa's gone away. I'm all alone with her. Ma's down on the floor an' don't move--I'm afraid she's dead. Oh, please do come, Miss, just a minute, and--"

"Where do you live?" Helen interrupted, indicating by her tone of sympathy that she would do as requested.

"Right there," the little girl replied, pointing with her hand toward one of the houses a short distance ahead. "Come on, please. Just a minute--help me get ma on the bed. I'll find one of the neighbors to help after that."

"All right, go ahead," Helen directed.

"It seems that I am fated to do at least a little of the work that we set out to do, but were prevented from doing by some unfriendly interests. It's a pity some of these people are so prejudiced, for we could really do a lot for them."

Helen's small conductress led the way to the entrance of a miner's cottage that, to all outward appearance from the front, was dark within.

"Haven't you any light?" she asked a little apprehensively, drawing back as if hesitating to enter.

"Oh, yes," the other replied almost eagerly, it seemed. "There's a lamp burning in the kitchen, and I'll light the gas in the front room. Come on, please."

"Where is your mother?"

"She's layin' down on the floor in the kitchen. Come on, I've got a match. I'll light the gas in the front room."

If Helen had obeyed a strong impulse that was tugging within her to hold her back, she would have refused to enter. Perhaps the reason she did not obey that impulse was the fact that a desperate effort to think of another reasonable method of procedure was fruitless and she must either go ahead as she had started or turn away in confusion and leave the little girl in her distress and without an explanation. The latter opened the door and Helen followed her inside.

It was difficult for the visiting Camp Fire girl to figure out any reason why she should be fearful of anything this slip of a child might do, and yet the first act of the latter after they were inside sent through her a chill of terror. Slipping around her like an eel, the little emissary of trouble pushed the door to and turned the key in the lock. Helen was certain also that she heard the key withdrawn from the lock.

Still her conductress, clever little confidence girl that she was, spoke words of reassurance that dispelled some of her victim's fears.

"Wait," she said; "I dropped my match. I'll have to go in the kitchen for another."

Helen's eyes followed the dim form of the child, as the latter moved across the room, and observed for the first time a line of light under what appeared to be a door between the front room and the kitchen. A moment later the door swung open, and she was considerably relieved when she saw lying on the floor the apparently limp and unconscious form of a woman.

Instantly the rescuer's Camp Fire training in the reviving of a person from a faint stimulated in her a sort of professional interest in the task before her, and she started forward to begin work at once. First she must loosen her patient's clothing to make it as easy as possible for her to breathe. Then she must get her in a supine position with her head slightly lower than any other part of her body in order that the brain might get a plentiful supply of blood. The air in the house was heavy and stuffy--the front and rear doors must be thrown open. She must dash cold water upon the face and chest of the patient and rub her limbs toward her body. She ought to have some smelling salts or ammonia, but as these were lacking she must get along without them, unless the daughter of the unconscious woman were able to supply something of the sort.

These things flashed through Helen's well-trained mind as she moved rapidly toward the kitchen. All apprehension of treachery left her as she beheld the evidence corroborating the story of distress that had brought her into the house. Then suddenly the whole apparent situation was transformed into one of the most terrifying character.

A slight noise to her right caused her to turn. Then a piercing scream escaped her lips as she saw a door open and beheld the dim outlines of two burly men approaching her. At the sound of her cry of alarm, they dashed forward like two wild beasts.

The first one seized her around the neck to shut off further alarm. As those muscular fingers closed in upon her throat, it seemed suddenly as if her head were about to burst. Then as the thumping in her ears almost completed the deadening of her auditory nerves, she indistinctly heard these words uttered in a hoarse voice:

"Look out, Bill; don't kill her."

As if surprised back into his senses, "Bill" loosened his hold on Helen's throat. She did not struggle or attempt to cry out again. Evidently the purpose of the ruffians did not contemplate murder, and she realized that there was no wisdom in anything but submission on her part now.

But she was not given time to recover completely before the next move of her captors was made. While one of them held her in a vise-like grip, the other shoved a gag into her mouth and tied the attached strings tightly around the base of her head. Then he bound her hands together in front of her with a strip of cloth.

"There," said the man whom the other had addressed as Bill, "you set down in that chair and keep still and you won't get hurt. But the instant you go to makin' any racket you're liable to breathe your last. All right, Jake, go and get the machine."

"Jake!" The exclamation, though not uttered, was real enough in her mind. Even with the deafening pulse of choking confusion in her head, it had seemed that there was something familiar in the man's voice when he warned "Bill" not to kill her. Was it possible that this was Mr. Stanlock's former automobile driver?

Jake went out the back way, closing the door between the front room and the kitchen as he went. Helen was now left alone in darkness with Bill, who, she thankfully observed, seemed disposed to pay no attention to her so long as she remained quietly in the old loose-jointed rockingchair in which she was seated.

Ten minutes later an automobile drove up in front of the house and Jake reappeared.

"It's almost stopped snowing, luckily," he remarked, "or we'd have our troubles makin' this trip tonight. A little more snow and a little more drifting and we'd be in a pretty pickle."

Helen was certain she recognized Jake's voice now. How she wished she could get a glimpse of his face in even the poorest candle light.

Bill now threw a large shawl over her head and brought it around so that it concealed both the gag over her mouth and the rag manacle on her wrists. Then he pinned it carefully so that it might not slip awry, and ordered her to go with him quietly out to the automobile. Jake had just made an inspection up and down the street and reported the coast clear.

"Now, mind you, young lady," Bill warned significantly; "not a word or a wiggle out o' the ordinary or you'll get your final choke, and you know what that means."

Yes, Helen knew, and she had no intention of futilely provoking a repetition of such punishment. She accompanied her captors submissively and was assisted into the machine. Then something happened which might almost be said to have delighted her if it were not for the strain of benumbing fear that was gripping her.

Jake went around in front of the machine to crank it. For one moment the strong acetylene light from one of the lamps fell full upon his face. Helen recognized it. Her surmise as to his identity was not a mistake.

A minute later the automobile was traveling at a high rate of speed over the streets. Ten minutes later it passed the city limits and was kicking the three inches of snow up along a country highway. On, on it sped, one mile, two miles, on, on, until the probable distance Helen was unable to conjecture, on, on, over smooth roads and rough roads, up hill and down hill, into the mountains. Then suddenly "Bill," who sat in the seat beside her, pulled a light-weight muffler from his pocket and tied it over Helen's eyes, saying coarsely:

"Not that I'm afraid you'll do any mischief with those pretty eyes of yours, but we may as well guard against accidents. You couldn't trace this route again, anyway, could you?"

Helen did not attempt to answer with either a shake or a nod of her head. She was disappointed at the act of her captor in blindfolding her, for she had been watching their course as closely as possible in order to photograph it upon her mind for future reference.

Jake was a good driver--that much must be said for him; and yet, after they struck the mountain road the progress was much slower. From the time when her eyes were bandaged, Helen's only means of determining the character of the road over which they were traveling was the speed or slowness of the automobile. Nor could she compute satisfactorily the time that passed during the rest of the trip.

But it ended at last. The machine stopped, Helen knew not where, and she was assisted out by the two men, who led her, still blindfolded, along a fairly smooth trail, up the side of a mountain or steep hill, then along a fairly level stretch, until at last the prisoner knew that she was passing under a canopy or roof of some sort, for there was no snow under foot. Moreover their footfalls produced a sound, somewhat of the nature of a soft resonant reverberation of a million tiny echoes.

But presently they were out in the open again, as evidenced by the snow and the brisker atmosphere, and Helen shrewdly observed to herself:

"That was a tunnel, I bet anything."

Two hundred feet farther up another gentle incline they reached a place of habitation and entered. Helen had no idea as to the appearance of the exterior, but when the bandage was removed from her eyes, and she was able to look about her, she made a clever surmise, not very far from the truth, that she was in a log cabin.

Every inch of the walls and ceiling, except the windows and doors, was plastered. The doors and windows were fitted in the crudest kind of casing. A few unframed, colored pictures were pasted on the walls. The furniture of the room consisted of a few chairs, a table and an old trunk. A kerosene lamp on the table lighted the room.

"Here's one of them, Mag," said Bill, addressing a large, coarse featured, but remarkably shrewd-eyed woman who opened the door and received them. "Can you keep her safe?"

"You bet your bottom dollar I can keep her safe as long as there is any dough in it for me," was the reply in almost a man's voice.

"Well, get into good practice on this one a-keepin' prisoners," the first speaker advised. "We're goin' to have a dozen more here before long, and then you will have some job."

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