CHAPTER XXXII

THE PLACE OF RENDEZVOUS

At an hour after darkness had fallen, had you happened upon a certain rather large cabin on a point of land where many islands and this point form a bay on the shore of Lake Huron, and had you chanced to look through a crack in the rough board shutters, you might have witnessed an impressive sight.

The room was large, twice as large as the average living room. It was not ceiled. The single fluttering candle formed grotesque shadows among its rafters of round cedar logs.

The place was devoid of furniture. In lieu of a chair, the present occupants had brought in from out of doors blocks of wood, an orange crate and some nail kegs found on the beach.

Seated as they were in a half circle about the candle, with revolvers strapped about waists and rifles across knees, they looked grim and determined.

There was Drew Lane with stiff hat still on one side, and Tom Howe, silent as ever. There was “The Ferret,” shrinking into the darkest corner. There were the two over-stout Federal men. There, too, was Johnny, eager and expectant; and close beside him, as if trusting him most of all, as in truth she did, was Joyce Mills. So, for a time, they sat in silence awaiting the zero hour. For directly across the bay about half an hour’s row, was a hunting lodge which was to be the center of their attack.

“Do you see this cabin?” The voice of “The Ferret” sounded strange, coming as it did from his dark corner. There was no answer. None was expected. “It has seen much of life, this cabin has. It has known life and death, love and hate, fear and defiance. And now comes the law to claim its humble protection.

“It’s a ragged old cabin; yet how many homes have witnessed more of life than it has?

“Do you see those papers pasted close to the peak? They are old. If you climbed up there as I did when I was sort of looking round up here a few weeks ago (I’ve always suspected that lodge over yonder), you’d find that they were printed thirty-five years ago.

“It was a homestead cabin, this. Old Heintz Webber, a German, a stolid fellow, took up land and brought a bright young bride here to pine away with loneliness. She died when the child came. He found a hard woman to take her place. The two hard ones reared the child in their hard way. And she came to hate them both. So the cabin which had witnessed death came to witness hate. When she was seventeen she ran away with a man twice her age; not because she loved him, but to get away.

“The two hard ones sold out for a hard price. Then the cabin was alone for a long time. A very lonesome place it was, too. The moon looked down over the fir trees as it might over a graveyard. The wild deer—”

He broke off short. “What was that?”

A curious sound reached their ears. “Covey—covey—covey.”

“Only a porcupine talking to his mate,” Johnny chuckled, “Go on.”

“Well, one day a young soldier back from the war saw this place and came to love it as he did the girl he meant to make his wife. He built a rustic porch and covered it with balsam boughs. He made a bed of cedar poles and a table of white birch. And here for one short month they lived, those two, the soldier and his bride. The song-sparrow built his nest in the balsam boughs over the porch and sang them to sleep at night. The sound of waves rushing on the shore mingled with their dreams. The sun over the cedars awakened them. And so this old cabin at last came to witness true love.

“But now!” His tone changed. “Now the hour has come. The law must have its turn. And may justice triumph. Come, gentlemen, and you, Miss Joyce, we must be on our way.”

This was the most dramatic moment in Joyce Mills’ life. She had promised Johnny that she would find the man who had snatched the package from Curlie Carson on the dim-lit streets of the city. She had made good. Coming upon him in the very store in which she worked, she had “planted” a bottle of costly perfume on his person by slipping it in his pocket. When she had caused his arrest she had forced him, by telling him she was Newton Mills’ daughter, to confess his part in the affair that had thrown a shadow over Curlie Carson’s life and had placed Drew Lane and Tom Howe practically in retirement.

The affair, he had confessed, had been pulled off by Greasy Thumb, Three Fingers and their gang. That gang was now hiding in the far north woods. The priceless package was hidden, he knew not where.

So now they were here at the dead of night, prepared to march against an enemy whose numbers they did not know.

“Let’s go!” Johnny whispered in her ear. “We’ll get ’em! All bad men are cowards at heart. We’ll get ’em, you’ll see!”