CHAPTER XXXV

GOOD NEWS

At midnight Johnny received a long distance call from the city. Curlie was on the wire. He and Grace Palmer, following the tip from the mysterious note, had gone to the breakwater and there retrieved the registered package with its seal unbroken.

“And they are all there, the jewels,” Grace Palmer broke in over his shoulder. “The little diamond and platinum train and all the rest. And there will be a reward, such a reward! Oh, how big! And we’ll share it, we four, Curlie, Joyce and you and I.”

* * * * * * * *

“So it was you, Greasy Thumb, and your gang!” “The Ferret” said, after receiving the good news. “It was you, and not the radicals, who robbed the Air Mail! And I haven’t the least doubt that it was your money the dead Spy gripped in his hand! Blood money for betraying my boy!

“Oh, you’ll get your due now! We’ll have you before an honest judge. And the world will not see you again until your hair is white.”

Once more he lapsed into silence.

And so, before a great fire, they spent the night, until dawn and a strong power boat came together to light the waters and to bear guards and prisoners back to the city.

* * * * * * * *

Evening of that day found three people standing before the cabin that had known love and hate, life and death. There was a gray haired man and a boy. And between them a slim, dark-eyed girl. Johnny, Joyce and Newton Mills.

Having recovered from his injuries, save for a scalp wound that would soon heal, the veteran detective had told, amid laughter and tears, how he had concealed his identity under a gray coat and whiskers so that he might better play the part of protector to his young friend, Johnny.

The affair in the tunnel had been a high spot. He it had been who had warned Johnny and saved him from drowning.

The affair of the glider among the clouds was merely the result of a freak of fancy.

He had come alone to the north woods and had arrived just in time to save the boy from the murderous assault of the Spy.

“Who,” asked Joyce as the three stood watching the sun go down over the bay, “wrote those notes to Grace Palmer?”

“No one knows,” was Johnny’s reply. “Perhaps none of us ever will know. Some enemy of Greasy Thumb, perhaps. Every bad man has his enemies. And they are, more often than not, his undoing.”

For a time after that there was silence. Then, as she laid a hand gently on a shoulder of each of her companions, the girl spoke again:

“When do we go back?”

“We don’t go back.” Johnny’s voice was husky. “We go on into the silent north, perhaps. It may be that we shall find a land where men are just and merciful and kind.”

“Is there such a land?” she whispered.

“Who knows, unless he goes to see?”

Did they go on? Or did they go back? If you wish to know, you will find the answer in our next book entitled: _Riddle of the Storm_.

Transcriber’s Notes

--Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.

--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard (or amusing) spellings and dialect unchanged.

--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)