CHAPTER XXXI

THE CREEPING SPOT

In the shack on Grand Avenue, Drew Lane stirred uneasily in his sleep. He awoke at last. With that feeling which so often comes to us in the middle of the night, that something is not right, he sat up in bed.

He stared about him. Johnny's cot was empty. He could not understand. He threw on a light. Johnny was not in the room. He went to the door and looked out. He was nowhere to be seen.

The creaking of the door awakened the veteran detective.

"What's wrong?" he asked sleepily.

"Johnny's gone."

"Gone?"

"Nowhere to be seen."

"Gone!" Newton Mills sprang out of bed. He began to walk the floor.

"Gone! I should have warned him. That's the trouble with a boy. There are so many things he must be told. Judgment; that's what a boy lacks. Judgment comes only with years of experience. Gone; and the bullets gone with him! They have him. They have the bullets. The case is lost!"

"I wouldn't say that exactly." Drew Lane spoke in a quiet, even voice. "He must have left the shack for something. They must have got him. That is unfortunate. Will they get the bullets? I doubt it. Johnny is an unusual boy. I haven't lived with him all this time without knowing that.

"And if the bullets are gone, we have a witness, Rosy."

"If she lives."

"She must live. Life is too beautiful for such a girl to part with it so soon."

"And yet it has ended for many at her age."

The two men fell into silence.

"I'll call up headquarters," said Drew at last. "The night chief will send some men over to question old Mask Face, who says his name is Jimmie McGowan. They'll make him tell where the gang hangs out. We'll get Johnny back yet."

Jimmie McGowan was one person who talked only when he chose to talk. The men from the Detective Bureau learned nothing of any importance from him.

* * * * * * * *

In the meantime Joyce Mills, in her bus boy costume, was creeping through the weeds down a one-time cattle lane that led away from the barn toward the wheatfield.

Once she reached the field, she rose on hands and knees to crawl toward a wheat shock. She was nearing the dark shadow cast by one of these shocks when a shot rang out.

Dropping flat in the shadows, she waited and listened, breathless. She heard the blood beating in her temples. It was like the ticking of a watch in the dark.

Creeping around the shock, she started toward another. She had just reached the second shadow when she heard a gruff voice say:

"What you shoot at?"

"Something dark moving out there. Dog, maybe."

"Wolf, maybe."

"Might be."

Again the girl's blood raced. Would they come to search for her?

An idea occurred to her. These shocks were like miniature tents. The bundles were long. They were set two and two, one against the other. The shocks were long. There was room for a slim person like herself to creep in there without disturbing a single bundle.

No sooner thought than done. Wriggling like a snake, she worked her way into the center of the shock. She lay there, head upon one arm, quite still.

The day had been warm. The night air was chill. The earth beneath the shock and the shock itself were still warm. How cosy it was! What a sweet place for a few pleasant dreams. The night was well on. She felt the need of sleep.

"But I must not sleep!" she whispered fiercely. "I must get away. Somehow I must get to the city."

For half an hour she lay there wide-awake. No further sound came to her. Without doubt the dark spot had been forgotten.

She crept from beneath the shock. She crawled from the shadow to another shadow, and another, until the barn was far away. At last she sprang to her feet and ran for a cornfield.

Once in the cornfield she was safe. The corn was above her head. Ten men on horseback could not have found her there.

By following a row of corn she came at last to a fence and a road.

She tramped the road for an hour. Then a truck driver gave her a lift. He stared at her strange costume, but thought of course that she was a boy.

He was on his way to the city. Did his truck carry flour, melons, green corn, or moonshine? The girl will never know because she did not ask. She curled back in one corner of the seat and went fast asleep.