CHAPTER XXXII

SKY HIGH

In the granary room of the abandoned farmstead, Johnny was being questioned by some very angry men.

"You had the slugs. You can't deny that!" Volpi exclaimed with an oath. "What have you done with them? Did you drop them in the car? Where are they?"

Johnny was puzzled. What should he say? He might tell them the whole truth, that he had dropped them with his letter into the mail box back there in the city. As far as the bullets went, this would do no harm. They could not possibly return to the mail box and rifle it before the collector arrived and carried the package away. But would not this hasten his own death? Once in possession of the whole truth, they would not hesitate to kill him.

His reply was: "I do not know where the bullets are."

In this he told the exact truth. For who can tell at what hour mail is collected from street boxes at night? Or is it collected at all between midnight and 6:00 A.M.? Johnny did not know. Perhaps the package still lay in the box. Perhaps by this time it was in a branch post office.

"You don't know!" The gunman sprang at his throat. A companion pulled him back.

"Not so fast, Mike," he grumbled. "Plenty of time. He will tell."

He whispered a few words in Volpi's ear. Volpi nodded.

The man left the room. Johnny thought he heard him jimmying a window to the house.

No doubt he interpreted the sounds correctly. The man returned presently. Then they all marched to the house, pushing Johnny before them.

Arrived at the house, they thrust Johnny unceremoniously into a dark cellar and barred the doors behind him.

The place was cold and damp; full of evil smells. There were rats. He could hear them scurrying about as he made his way over the uneven floor.

There were two windows. These were high up and very narrow. If he pried one of them open could he escape? The thing seemed dubious. Soon enough he discovered that his captors had left nothing to the imagination. The windows were heavily barred on the outside.

"Been used as a prison before!" His blood went cold at the thought of the dark deeds that might have taken place in this evil smelling and gloomy hole.

Feeling his way back to the stairs, he crawled part way up, then sat down. He would not dare sleep because of the rats. On the stairs he was safest from them.

He heard the gangsters rattling the lids of a stove.

"Going to cook a meal," he told himself.

He did not expect to be fed. He was not.

Very soon he began to realize that there was something besides food in the house. There was intoxicating drink. The party became noisy. Moment by moment the hubbub increased in volume until it was a revel.

After that, by degrees, it subsided. "All drunk and gone to sleep," he told himself. "What a time to escape!"

Search as he might, he could find no means of breaking the bars of the windows. The plank door was impregnable. At last he gave up and seated himself once more on the stairs to await the dawn.

What occupied his thoughts during these long hours? One might well be surprised. He was thinking of dark, shadowy forests, where the ferns grow rank and the pheasant rears her young. He was seeing a deep, blue-green fishing hole where black bass lurk and great muskies fan the water as an eagle fans the air. Who can say what relief one may find, from surroundings that are terrible, by contemplating that which is beautiful, though very far away?

* * * * * * * *

Drew Lane had just returned to the shack from a disheartening search for some clue that would lead to a knowledge of Johnny's whereabouts, when an apparition burst in upon him; a person he had known for a girl, but who wore torn and soiled boy's clothes, and whose complexion had turned a very dark brown.

"You are Joyce Mills!" He stared at her in amazement.

"Yes," she admitted, dropping into a chair. "And I know where Johnny Thompson is."

"You know--"

"Listen!" She held up a hand.

In just three minutes by the clock, she had sketched the whole story.

"But do you know the exact way to this farm?" Drew demanded.

"I--I'm sorry, I do not. I--I fell asleep. I--"

"Would you know the barn if you saw it?"

"Oh, yes. Surely. It is a large red barn. The paint is old. There are three cupolas. Five slats from one cupola are gone. I took them out myself."

"Good! Here's where the police use an airplane. You're not afraid to fly?"

The girl sprang to her feet.

"Sit down. Drink this." He poured a steaming cup of coffee. "Eat these." He slammed a plate of doughnuts on the table.

He dashed to the phone. One call, then another, and another.

Joyce had just swallowed her third doughnut when Drew seized her and whirled her, dirty rags and all, into a squad car.

"CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!" went the gong. They were away.

Half an hour later, in an aviation suit three sizes too large for her, the girl saw the earth drifting away from her as she rose toward the fleecy clouds that floated lazily in an azure sky.

* * * * * * * *

That morning the mail collector on Grand Avenue was not a little puzzled over a package which was quite properly addressed to a Johnny Thompson of a certain address on Grand Avenue. All the package lacked was postage. The place addressed was but two blocks away. Since he would be passing it in a very short time, he might easily have dropped it there. This, however, would have been contrary to postal regulations. He carried the package to a branch office. There a clerk made a record of the affair. After putting in the mail a card notifying Johnny Thompson that a package mailed to him without sufficient postage lay in that office, subject to his order, he threw the package in a pigeonhole and promptly forgot about it. And that, as you will know, was the package of incriminating bullets which had caused great commotion in more than one quarter.