As it happened, Joe had been coming back along the shore when the two men had emerged from the woods at the left of the cabin. They had not, he was certain, seen him, for he had instinctively swerved behind a clump of brush. His instant suspicion had become certainty when, watching, he had seen the strangers peer cautiously about them before slinking hurriedly to the front door. When they had entered, Joe stood for a long minute, his thoughts racing. He visioned his friends robbed and beaten, perhaps murdered. His first, not unnatural, impulse, was toward flight, but it was brief, and after that he set himself to find a practical means of helping the others. Several more minutes went by and the twilight deepened. At last Joe approached the cabin, keeping to the shadows. The windows were warmly lighted by the flickering flames of the fire as he crept across the porch toward the nearer one, and he could hear the low murmur of voices; sometimes could distinguish a word. His first hurried glance over the sill brought a sigh of relief. The scene inside[140] was reassuringly different from what he had feared to find. Yet he was sure that the elements of tragedy were there, and he was striving desperately to think of some plan to circumvent the intruders when, looking again, he found Hal’s eyes on his. Then came Hal’s voice, suddenly raised, in the words: “I don’t know how good it’ll be, though, for, you see, the fellow that’s our regular cook has gone to North Pemberton, and I guess he won’t be back yet awhile.”
An instant later Joe was tottering cautiously over the frozen ground to the lake, his skates catching in hidden roots or colliding with snow-covered snags. Fortunately the distance was but a dozen rods, and he covered it without misadventure. Then he was skating along the deeper blackness of the margin, slowly that the sound of the steel blades on the ice might not be heard back at the cabin. And as he skated he thought hard. From the little he had seen and heard he had gathered a very correct idea of the situation back there. The robbers, who had doubtless been in hiding in the hills between North Pemberton and the lake since last night, had arrived at the cabin chilled and hungry. Doubtless they had demanded food and Hal had agreed to cook supper for them. Then he had happened to see the face at the window and had sent his message. “Hurry to North Pemberton and give the alarm,”[141] was the way Joe had construed it. “We’ll keep them here as long as we can.”
And now, past the curving point of the land, Joe set his thoughts on the far end of the lake and put every bit of effort into his swaying body. Just when the plan to follow Rat Brook on skates instead of seeking road or trail came to him he could not have told. It was there, suddenly, in his mind the moment he reached the turn of the shore. He no longer sought concealment nor smooth ice, but headed as straight as his sense of direction pointed. The farther shore leaped out at him from the darkness suddenly and he had to check his speed to duck under the little bridge. Then he was off again, the ice-roofed brook stretching ahead of him plainly discernible in the faint early radiance of the stars. His skates seemed to awake hollow echoes, but the ice was firm beneath its occasional crust or light blanket of snow. Rat Brook had little current, so little that it froze almost as soon as the lake, and while the water moved sluggishly beneath the ice it did not weaken it. There was a straight stretch, like a canal, for nearly a quarter of a mile, and then the brook turned to the right, following the base of Little Rat Mountain, and after that curved continuously. Often the forest closed in on both sides and Joe must perforce trust to luck rather than to vision, yet save once or twice he held his course.[142] Branches slashed at him, and now and then a protruding root or fallen tree strove to trip him. But somehow, in some instinctive fashion, he passed them all safely and without decreasing his speed. Had he stopped thinking of his errand long enough to consider that speed he would have been tremendously surprised, for he was skating just about twice as fast as he had ever skated in his life, and, moreover—which, if Hal was right, was possibly the reason for it—doing it without conscious thought!
The brook had been turning slowly to the right for some minutes when, reaching a clear stretch, Joe saw trouble ahead. The brook broadened where a second stream entered and a blacker path there told him that he was looking at open water. He might stop, with difficulty, and veer into the inhospitable arms of the trees and shrubs, or he might keep on, trusting to luck to find ice along the margin. He chose the latter. Then there was a gurgling and murmuring of water in his ears, a wide pool of moving water at his feet and the swift realization that for at least three yards the ice was gone from bank to bank!
He had frequently seen Bert leap over a fairly high obstruction set on the surface of the ice, such as a barrel or a low hurdle, and he had witnessed other fellows make broad-jumps on skates, but how these feats had been accomplished he had no very[143] clear notion. Nor had he time to consider the matter now, for almost as soon as he had sighted the crisis he was up to it. His heart did a little somersault about under his front collar button, as it seemed, and then he had brought his gliding skates together, had bent at the knees, had snapped his body straight again and was flying through air.
He landed in darkness, yet on a solid surface. His left foot, trailing, caught its skate point on the edge of the ice and brought him to his knees, but, by sweeping his arms wildly, he somehow kept his balance and somehow got both feet beneath him once more and again struck out. A moment later a sudden sharp bend found him unprepared and he had to spread his skates wide apart and throw his body hard to the right, and even so he almost came a cropper and only saved himself by a complete spin that must have looked more surprising than graceful. Yet that was the only time he really slowed down from lake to town, the town that scarcely a minute later shot its lights at him through the trees. Even the bridge failed to halt him, for there was headroom if one skated low, and after that the trees, and even the bushes, were gone and he was speeding through a flat meadow, with the church and houses of North Pemberton standing sharply against the winter sky ahead.
His journey by ice ended where a wagon bridge[144] crossed the brook near where the town&............