CHAPTER XXXIII

THE SHADOW FALLS

As long as he lives, Johnny will not forget that ride across the bay. There was no moon. The water was black as ink. They were all crowded into one flat-bottomed boat. A wave would have thrown them all into the lake. But there were no waves. The water was still as the grave. He was crowded in close to Joyce Mills. He could feel her very heart beat. She said nothing but for all that, he knew what she thought. She was thinking of her father; of how he would love to be here, and wondering a bit sadly where he was and if he were living at all.

Had she but known!

The boat grounded at last quite noiselessly on a sandy shore. A few whispered instructions and they were away single file over a winding moss-padded trail.

At last the lights of the lodge began to shine through the trees. They scattered, circling the place. Weapons in hand, they waited. Came the sharp command of the Federal officer. He called upon those in the lodge to surrender.

All that followed will remain forever blurred in Johnny’s memory. A figure rose from the bush to leap at Joyce Mills. Instinctively he sprang at the figure. They went down together. They rolled over and over, fighting hard. For one brief second he was under, pinned down. Cold steel pressed against his temple.

“This is the end!” he thought.

Then something, a gray shape, came hurtling over him. A shot rang out, something crashed into him. His light went out.

He could not have been unconscious more than ten minutes. When he came to, the forest was silent once more. A figure lay beside him, a man with a gray beard, his figure enshrouded in a long gray coat.

“The Gray Shadow!” he thought with a start. “At last he is still.”

Joyce Mills was hovering over him. When he sat up dizzily, she gave a sharp cry of joy.

Heavy footsteps came crashing through the brush. Drew Lane, Tom Howe and “The Ferret” were there.

“What happened?” Drew demanded. “They surrendered tamely enough, old Greasy Thumb and Three Fingers. The Chief was with them and—”

“The Chief!” Johnny could not conceal his surprise.

“Yes, and his whispering reporter. But what is this? And who are these?”

He pointed first to the Gray Shadow; then to a dark form huddled in the weeds.

“The Ferret” played the light of his electric torch on the dark huddled form.

“That,” he said impressively, “is the Spy—the worst man that ever lived. And he’s done for. Thank God! A bullet in his head.”

“And this,” said Johnny, tearing away a fake beard, “is Newton Mills.”

As he said this, Joyce Mills threw up her hands to utter a low cry.

“Let’s see!” “The Ferret” crowded in. He played the light on the pale, blood-stained face. He bent over it for an instant.

“Some one bring water,” he said in a business-like voice. “It’s only a scalp wound. He’ll be around directly.”

Johnny, watching Joyce Mills, admired her more than ever. For, after all, it was her father, the man she loved more than life, who lay there before her. She swayed back and forth once or twice; then turning to Johnny, she said a bit unsteadily, “I hope that we are going to have chicken dinner together in the shack to-morrow, father and Drew, Tom and I.”

“Why not in the cabin that has seen love and hate, life and death?” asked Johnny, finding it hard to control his emotions.

The hunting lodge was large. When Newton Mills came to, he was comfortably stowed away in one of its many beds. Joyce Mills was left there with him.

The others gathered about a great fireplace. The prisoners, Greasy Thumb and his pal, were not handcuffed. The windows were heavily shuttered from without, and a Federal officer sat on guard at the door.

“Nice night,” said Johnny, seating himself beside Drew Lane.

Across the fire the Chief scowled at him.

A radio was at Johnny’s elbow. He turned the dial.

“Just in time to hear the Voice.”

“The Ferret” started. The Chief’s scowl deepened. The whispering reporter moved uneasily in his place.

* * * * * * * *

Meanwhile, Grace Palmer, the college girl, had received a second mysterious letter. It came this time by messenger. It read:

“The package you seek is hidden among the rocks of the breakwater on the island, just at the point where it turns from east to north.”

She read this with no little astonishment.

“The Crown Jewels!” she murmured.

She looked at her watch. It was nearly ten o’clock, a moonless night.

For a moment she hesitated, a moment only. Then she went to the telephone.

She got Curlie on the wire. He was back from his trip. She read the note.

“But would you go there to-night?” he asked.

“With you, yes. To-morrow may be too late.”

“O.K. Meet me at the west entrance of the 12th Street Station.”

“I’ll be there.”

She hung up. Five minutes later her car slid out of the driveway and went gliding down the boulevard.