Chapter 2

"Human beings are as we find them," observed Hood judicially, "but you're entirely too tragic about this whole business. If it isn't comedy, it's nothing. I'll wager the girl who skipped with your stolen boodle has a sense of humor. The key-note to her character is in this novel she grabbed as she hastily packed her bag--'The Madness of May.' That's one of the drollest books ever written. A story like that is a boon to mankind; it kept me chuckling all night. Haven't read it? Well, the heroine excused herself from a dinner-table that was boring her to death, ran to her room and packed a suitcase, and that was the last her friends saw of her for some time. Along about this season it's in the blood of healthy human beings to pine for clean air and the open road. It's the wanderlust that's in all of us, old and young alike. It's possible that the young lady who ran off with your bonds felt the spring madness and determined to hit the trail as the girl did in that yarn. Finding herself possessed of a lot of bonds belonging to a stranger, I dare say she is badly frightened. Put yourself in that girl's place, Deering--imagine her feelings, landing somewhere after a hurried journey, opening her suitcase to chalk her nose, and finding herself a thief!"

"Rot!" sniffed Deering angrily.

One moment he distrusted Hood; the next his heart warmed to him. At the table the light-hearted adventurer had kept him entertained and amused with his running comment on books, public characters, the world's gold supply, and scrapes he had been in, without dropping any clew to his identity. He seemed to be a veritable encyclopædia of places; apparently there was not a town in the United States that he hadn't visited, and he spoke of exclusive clubs and thieves' dens in the same breath. But Deering's hopes of gaining practical aid in the search for the lost bonds was rapidly waning.

"There's no use being silly about this; I'm going to telephone to a detective agency and tell them to send out a good man, right away--to-night----"

"As you please," Hood assented, "but if you do, you'll regret it to your last hour. I know the whole breed, and you may count on their making a mess of it. And consider for a moment that what you propose means putting a hired bloodhound on the trail of a girl who probably never harmed a kitten in her life. It would be rotten caddishness to send a policeman after her. It isn't done, Deering; it isn't done! Of course, there's not much chance that the sleuths would ever come within a hundred miles of her, but what if they found her! You are a gentleman, Deering, and that's not the game for you to play."

"Then tell me a better one! In ten days at the farthest father will be back and what am I going to say to him--how am I going to explain breaking into his safety box and stealing those bonds?"

"You can't explain it, of course, and it's rather up to you, son, to put 'em back. Every hour you spend talking about it is wasted time. That girl's had your suitcase two days, and it's your duty to find her. Something must have happened or she'd have turned it back to the railroad company. Perhaps she's been arrested as a thief and thrown into jail! Again, her few effects point to a degree of prosperity--she's not a girl who would steal for profit; I'll swear to that. We must find that girl! We'll toss a slipper and start off the way the toe points."

Indifferent to Deering's snort of disgust, Hood was already whirling the slipper in the air.

"Slightly northeast! There you are, Deering--the clear pointing of Fate! The girl wasn't going far or she wouldn't have been in the local ticket line, and even a lady in haste packs more stuff for a long journey. We'll run up to the Barton Arms--an excellent inn, and establish headquarters. The girl who danced off with your two hundred thousand is probably around there somewhere, bringing up her tennis for the first tournaments of the season. Let's be moving; a breath of air will do you good."

"That's all you can do about it, is it?" demanded Deering. "Let me tell my whole story--put myself in your power, and now the best you can do is to flip a slipper to see which way to start!"

"Just as good a way as any," remarked Hood amiably.

He pressed the button, ordered his car, and then led the way back to Deering's room.

"Throw some things into a bag. You'll soon forget your sordid money affairs and begin to live, and you'd better be prepared for anything that turns up. I'll fold the coats; some old fishing-togs for rough work and jails, and even your dress suit may come in handy."

He fell to work, folding the suits neatly, while Deering moved about like a man in a trance, assembling linen and toilet articles.

"Something tells me we're going to have a pretty good time," continued Hood musingly. "I'll show you untold kingdoms, things that never were on sea or land. We shall meet people worn with the world-old struggle for things they don't need, and who are out in the tender May air looking for happiness--the only business, my dear boy, that's really worth while. And you'll be surprised, son, to find how many such people there are."

"Ah, you're ready, Cassowary!" remarked Hood as they stepped out of the side door where a big touring-car was drawn up in the driveway. "Just a moment till I get my stick."

Briggs had placed their bags in the car, and Deering had a moment in which to observe the chauffeur, who stood erect and touched his cap. Hood's protégé proved to be a tall, dark, well-knit young fellow dressed in a well-fitting chauffeur's costume.

"It's a good night for a run," Deering suggested, eying the man in the light from the door.

"Fine, sir."

"I hope the people in the house took good care of you."

"Very good, sir."

There was nothing in Cassowary's voice or manner to indicate that he was the possessor of the fortune to which Hood had referred so lightly. Deering's hastily formed impressions of Hood's chauffeur were wholly agreeable and satisfying.

Hood, lingering in the hall, could be heard warning Briggs against the further accumulation of fat. He recommended a new system of reducing, and gave the flushed and stuttering butler the name of a New York specialist in dietetics whom he advised him to consult without delay.

The chauffeur's lips twitched and, catching Deering's eye, he winked. Deering tapped his forehead. Cassowary shook his head.

"Don't you believe it!" he ejaculated with spirit.

At this moment Hood appeared on the steps, banging his recovered stick noisily as he descended.

"The Barton Arms, Cassowary," he ordered, and they set off at a lively clip.

III

On the steps of the Barton Arms an hour later Hood and Deering ran into two men who were just leaving the inn. Hood greeted them heartily as old acquaintances and remained talking to them while Deering went to ask for rooms.

"The suspicions of those fellows always tickle me," he remarked as he joined Deering at the desk, where he scrawled "R. Hood, Sherwoodville," on the register. "Detectives--rather good as the breed goes, but not men of true vision. Now and then I've been able to give them a useful hint--the slightest, mind you, and only where I could divert suspicion from some of my friends in the underworld. I always try to be of assistance to predatory genius; there are clever crooks and stupid ones; the kind who stoop to vulgar gun-work when their own stupidity gets them into a tight pinch don't appeal to me. My artistic sensibilities are affronted by clumsy work."

"Perhaps--" Deering suggested with a hasty glance at the door--"maybe they're looking for me!"

"Bless you, no," Hood replied as they followed a boy with their bags; "nothing so intelligent as that. On the contrary"--he paused at the landing and laid his hand impressively on Deering's arm--"on the contrary, they're looking for _me_!"

He went on with a chuckle and a shake of the head, as though the thought of being pursued by detectives gave him the keenest pleasure. When he reached their rooms he sat down and struck his knee sharply and chuckled again. Deering turned frowningly for an explanation of his mirth.

"Oh, don't bother about those chaps! I repeat, that they are looking for me, but"--he knit his fingers behind his head and grinned--"they don't _know_ it!"

"Don't know you are you!" exclaimed Deering.

"You never said a truer word! More than that, they're not likely to! There are things, son, I--Hood, the frankest of mortals--can't tell even you! I, Hood, the inexplicable; Hood, the prince of tramps, the connoisseur in all the arts--even I must have my secrets; but in time, my dear boy, in time you shall know everything! But there's work before us! The long arm of coincidence beckons us. We shall test for ourselves all the claptrap of the highest-priced novelists."

Deering walked to the window and stared out at the landscape, then strode toward Hood angrily.

"I don't like this!" he wailed despairingly. "You promised to help me find those stolen bonds, and now you're talking like a lunatic again. If I can't find the bonds, I've got to find Ranscomb, and get back that first two hundred thousand I gave him. I can't stand this--detectives waiting for us wherever we stop, and you babbling rot--rot--" Words failed him; he clinched his hands and glared.

"Don't bluster, son, or I shall grow peevish," Hood replied tolerantly. "At the present moment I feel like taking a walk under the mystical May stars. The night invites the soul to meditation; the stars may have the answer to all our perplexities. Stop fretting about your bonds and your friend Ranscomb; very likely he's busted, clean broke; that's what usually happens to fellows who take money from their friends and put it into the metals. Possibly he swallowed poison, and went to sleep forever just to escape your wrath. Let us take counsel of the heavens and try to forget your sins. We must still move the way the slipper pointed--northeast. The road bends away from the inn just right for a fresh start. We depart, we skip, we are on our way, my dear boy!"

They had walked nearly a mile when Deering announced that he was tired, and refused to go farther. He clambered upon a stone wall at the roadside. On a high ridge some distance away and etched against the stars was a long, low house.

"Splendid type of bungalow," Hood commented, throwing his legs over the wall. "I'm glad you have an eye for nice effects--the roof makes a pretty line against the stars, and those pines beyond add a touch--a distinct touch. Bungalows should always be planned with a view to night effects; too bad architects don't always consider little points like that."

Deering growled angrily. Suddenly as his eyes gazed over the long, sloping meadow that rose to the house he started and laid his hand on Hood's knee.

"Steady, steady! Always give a ghost a chance," murmured Hood.

If the figure that danced across the meadow was a ghost, it was an agile one, and its costume represented a radical departure from the traditional garb of spirits doomed to walk the night.

"A boy, kicking up before he goes to bed," suggested Deering, forgetting his sorrows for the moment as he contemplated the dancing apparition.

"In a clown's suit, if I'm any judge," said Hood, jumping down from the wall and moving cautiously up the slope. The dancing figure suddenly darted away through a clump of trees.

"Of course," remarked Hood when they had reached the level where the figure had executed its fantastic gyrations, "of course, it's none of our affair; but, in that story I was telling you about, the heroine danced around at night in strange costumes scaring people to death. I'm not saying this ghost has read that book--I'm merely stating a fact."

They found a path that zigzagged across the meadow and followed it to the edge of a ravine. Below they heard the ripple of running water; and as an agreeable accompaniment some one was whistling softly.

In a moment the rattle of loosened gravel caused them to drop down by the path. The pantalooned figure came up, still whistling, and paused for a moment to take breath. Deering, throwing himself back from the path, grasped a bush. The twigs rattled noisily, and with a frightened "Oh!" the clown darted away, nimbly and fleetly. They followed a white blur in the starlight for an instant and heard the patter of light feet.

"A girl," whispered Deering.

"I believe you are right," remarked Hood, feeling about in the grass, "and here's a part of her costume." He picked up something white and held it to his face. "She dropped her clown's cap when you began shaking the scenery. I seem to remember that a girl's hair is sweet like that! In old times the clown's cap was supposed to possess magic. Son, we have begun well! A girl masquerading, happy victim of the May madness--this is the jolliest thing I've struck in years--a girl, out dancing all by her lonesome under the stars--Columbine playing Harlequin!"

"We might as well be off," he added, relighting his pipe. "We frightened her ladyship, and she will dance no more to-night. However, we have her cap, which points the way for to-morrow's work."

"You're going to hang around here watching a girl cut monkey-shines!" moaned Deering. "You haven't forgotten what we're looking for, have you!" he demanded, shaking his fist in Hood's face.

"Once more, be calm! Don't you see that you're on the verge of a new 'Midsummer Night's Dream'; that the world's tired of work and gone back to play! Don't talk like a tired business man whose wife has dragged him to see one of Ibsen's frolics--'Rosmersholm,' for example--where they talk for three hours and then jump in the well! The fact that there's one girl left in the world to dance under stars ought to hearten you for anything. We don't find in this world the things we're looking for, Deering; we've got to be ready for surprises. I won't say that that's the girl who ran off with your bonds; all I can say is that she's as likely to be the one as any girl I can think of. Tut! Don't imagine I don't sympathize with you in your troubles; but forget them, that's the ticket. This will do for to-night. We'd better go back to the Barton and to bed."

He yawned sleepily and started toward the road. Deering caught him by the arm.

"I was just thinking--" he began.

"Thinking is a bad habit, my boy. Thought is the curse of the world. The less thinking we do the better off we are. Down at Pass Christian last winter I sat under a tree for a solid month and never thought a think. Most profitable time I ever spent in my life. Camped with a sneak-thief who was making a tour of the Southern resorts--nice chap; must tell you about him sometime."

He chuckled as though the recollection of his larcenous companion pleased him tremendously.

"I don't believe I'll go back to the Barton just yet," Deering suggested timidly. "It's possible, you know, that that girl _might_----"

"You've got it!" exclaimed Hood eagerly, clapping his hands upon Deering's shoulders. "The spell is taking hold! Wait here a thousand years if you like for that kid to come back, and don't bother about me. But cut out your vulgar bond twaddle, and don't ask her if she stole your suitcase! As like as not she'll lead you to the end of the rainbow, and show you a meal sack bulging with red, red gold. Here's her cap--better keep it for good luck."

Deering stood, with the clown's cap in his hand, staring after Hood's retreating figure. It was not wholly an illusion that he had experienced a change of some sort, and he wondered whether there might not be something in Hood's patter about the May madness. At any rate, his troubles had slipped from him, and he was conscious of a new and delightful sense of freedom. Moreover, he had been kidnapped by the oddest man he had ever met, and he didn't care!

IV

Beyond the bungalow rose a dark strip of woodland, and suddenly, as Deering's eyes caught sight of it, he became aware that the moon, which had not appeared before that night, seemed to be lingering cosily among the trees. Even a victim of May madness hardly sees moons where they do not exist, but to all intents and purpose this _was_ a moon, a large round moon, on its way down the horizon in the orderly fashion of elderly moons. He turned toward the road, then glanced back quickly to make sure his eyes were not playing tricks upon him. The moon was still there, blandly staring. His powers of orientation had often been tested; on hunting and fishing trips he had ranged the wilderness without a compass, and never come to grief. He was sure that this huge orb was in the north, where no moon of decent habits has any right to be.

With his eyes glued to this phenomenon, he advanced up the slope. When he reached the crest of the meadow the moon still hung where he had first seen it--a most unaccountable moon that apparently lingered to encourage his investigations.

He jumped a wall that separated the meadow from the woodland, and advanced resolutely toward the lunar mystery. He found Stygian darkness in among the pines: the moon, considering its size, shed amazingly little light. He crept toward it warily, and in a moment stood beneath the outward and visible form of a moon cleverly contrived of barrel staves and tissue-paper with a lighted lantern inside, and thrust into the crotch of a tree.

As he contemplated it something struck him--something, he surmised, that had been flung by mortal hand, and a pine-cone caught in his waistcoat collar.

"Please don't spoil my moon," piped a voice out of the darkness. "It's a lot of trouble to make a moon!"

Walking cautiously toward the wall, he saw, against the star dusk of the open, the girl in clown costume who had danced in the meadow. She sat the long way of the wall, her knees clasped comfortably, and seemed in nowise disturbed by his appearance.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "but I didn't know it was _your_ moon. I thought it was just the regular old moon that had got lost on the way home."

"Oh, don't apologize. I rather hoped somebody would come up to have a look at it; but you'd better run along now. This is private property, you know."

"Thanks for the hint," he remarked. "But on a night when moons hang in trees you can't expect me to be scared away so easily. And besides, I'm an outlaw," he ended in a tone meant to be terrifying.

She betrayed neither surprise nor fear, but laughed and uttered a "Really!" that was just such a "really" as any well-bred girl might use at a tea, or anywhere else that reputable folk congregate, to express faint surprise. Her way of laughing was altogether charming. A girl who donned a clown's garb for night prowling and manufactured moons for her own amusement could not have laughed otherwise, he reflected.

"A burglar?" she suggested with mild curiosity.

"Not professionally; but I'm seriously thinking of going in for it. What do you think of burgling as a career?"

"Interesting--rather--I should think," she replied after a moment's hesitation, as though she were weighing his suggestion carefully.

"And highway robbery appeals to me--rather. It's more picturesque, and you wouldn't have to break into houses. I think I'd rather work in the open."

"The chances of escape might be better," she admitted; "but you needn't try the bungalow down there, for there's nothing in it worth stealing. I give you my word for that!"

"Oh, I hadn't thought of the bungalow. I had it in mind to begin by holding up a motor. Nobody's doing that sort of thing just now."

"Capital!" she murmured pleasantly, as though she found nothing extraordinary in the idea. "So you're really new at the game."

"Well, I've _stolen_ before, if that's what you mean, but I didn't get much fun out of it. I suppose after the first fatal plunge the rest will come easier."

"I dare say that's true," she assented. There was real witchery in the girl's light, murmurous laugh.

It seemed impossible to surprise her; she was taking him as a matter of course--as though sitting on a wall at night, and talking to a strange young man about stealing was a familiar experience.

"I've joined Robin Hood's band," he continued. "At least I've been adopted by a new sort of Robin Hood who's travelling round robbing the rich to pay the poor, and otherwise meddling in people's affairs--the old original Robin Hood brought up to date. If it hadn't been for him I might be cooling my heels in jail right now. He's an expert on jails--been in nearly every calaboose in America. He's tucked me under his wing--persuaded me to take the highway, and not care a hang for anything."

"How delightful!" she replied, but so slowly that he began to fear that his confidences had alarmed her. "That's too good to be true; you're fooling, aren't you--really?"

His eyes had grown accustomed to the light, and her profile was now faintly limned in the dusk. Hers was the slender face of youth. The silhouette revealed the straightest of noses and the firmest of little chins. She was young, so young that he felt himself struggling in an immeasurable gulf of years as he watched her. Apparently such sophistication as she possessed was in the things of the world of wonder, the happy land of make-believe.

"Keats would have liked a night like this," she said gently.

Deering was silent. Keats was a person whom he knew only as the subject of a tiresome lecture in his English course at college.

"Bill Blake would have adored it, but he would have had lambs in the pasture," she added.

"Bill Blake?" he questioned. "Do you mean Billy Blake who was half-back on the Harvard eleven last year?"

She tossed her head and laughed merrily.

"I love that!" she replied lingeringly, as though to prolong her joy in his ignorance. "I was thinking of a poet of that name who wrote a nice verse something like this:

'I give you the end of a golden string; Only wind it into a ball, It will lead you in at Heaven's gate, Built in Jerusalem's wall.'"

No girl had ever quoted poetry to him before, and he was thinking more of her pretty way of repeating the stanza--keeping time with her hands--than of the verse itself.

"Well," he said, "what's the rest of it?"

"Oh, there isn't any rest of it! Don't you see that there couldn't be anything more--that it's finished--a perfect little poem all by itself!"

He played with a loosened bit of stone, meekly conscious of his stupidity. And he did not like to appear stupid before a girl who danced alone in the starlight and hung moons in trees.

"I'm afraid I don't get it. I'd a lot rather stay by this wall talking to you than go to Jerusalem."

"You'd be foolish to do that if you really had the end of the golden string, and could follow it to Paradise. I think it means any nice place--just any place where happiness is."

He was not getting on, and to gain time he bade her repeat the stanza.

"I think I understand now; I've never gone in much for poetry, you know," he explained humbly.

"Burglars are natural poets, I suppose," she continued. "A burglar just has to have imagination or he can't climb through the window of a house he has never seen before. He must imagine everything perfectly--the silver on the sideboard, the watch under the pillow, and the butler stealing down the back stairs with a large, shiny pistol in his hand."

"Certainly," Deering agreed readily. "And if he runs into a policeman on the way out he's got to imagine that it's an old college friend and embrace him."

"You mustn't spoil a pretty idea that way!" she admonished in a tone that greatly softened the rebuke. "Come to think of it, you haven't told me your name yet; of course, if you become a burglar, you will have a great number of names, but I'd like awfully to know your true one."

"Why?" he demanded.