An Oregon Girl: A Tale of American Life in the New West

But, how to deny the vile lie that Constance was a party to the kidnapping? It was a question that baffled completely all the ingenuity that had aided her in other situations.

While she was racking her brains for some guiding thought, to silence slanderous tongues, she heard John Thorpe very gravely say: “My lord must be mistaken.”

It was such sweet relief to know that he did not believe Constance was guilty of the crime that Virginia unconsciously exclaimed: “Thank Heaven!”

After John Thorpe had expressed his disbelief in his wife’s guilt, he slowly turned on his heel, intending to leave the room, for the conversation was painful to him and the company too closely associated with his unhappiness, for the quiet rest he so much needed. He had scarcely turned toward the door when he was halted by Mr. Harris, who had just entered from the hall, and announced a restful room in readiness for his immediate use.

To his surprise, John Thorpe turned and wearisomely said: “I thank you, Mr. Harris, but an important matter that I have neglected has just come to my mind. I beg to apologize for the needless trouble I have caused you.” And he turned slowly and went toward the door.

Virginia perceived that unless immediate steps were taken, her opportunity to arrange a meeting with John would be lost. It was, therefore, with a startled cry of disappointment that she addressed him: “John! I have something” – she hesitated.

Thorpe halted on the threshold and half turned around. Aghast, Virginia arose from her seat, when Rutley drawled out in his most suave accents:

“Miss Thorpe is manifestly fatigued from over-exertion,” and instantly taking her by the arm, led her reluctantly, and in timidity, to a seat on a divan, the end of which he wheeled forward, ostensibly to give her a better view of the lawn, then inundated with sunshine, but in reality to avert her eyes from the face of her brother.

John Thorpe gazed inquiringly for a second and then, with head bent, slowly and gravely left the house.

Mr. Harris started to accompany Thorpe, to press him to rest awhile, but on recalling his obligation to Virginia, checked himself and turned into the library.

Sam’s indignation at the vile, unkind thrust made on the character of a bereaved woman, spoke eloquently in his blazing eyes, nevertheless out of regard for his aunt’s wishes he closed his teeth tightly in silence, but on seeing the pseudo lord’s insistent familiarity with Virginia, and noting her strange hesitant submission as he rather more than familiarly escorted her to the divan, Sam’s rage burst through his discretion and his manly, straight-forwardness asserted itself, in utter disregard of his aunt’s warnings.

Rutley had evidently thrown out the base insinuation as a feeler, but the manner in which Sam met it – met it squarely in the “Wild West way,” quickly disabused his mind of any idea he may have had that Constance was friendless.

“Sir!” Sam said; “I know but one little word that fitly characterizes your insinuation concerning Mrs. Thorpe,” and unwilling to resist the natural gravity of his feet toward Rutley, sidled up close to him, and, with a quiver of contempt in his voice, finished: “And down in Texas they taught me to brand it ‘a damned lie’!”

Sam was rewarded in a manner he little anticipated, and by the woman who had heretofore despised him, for with eyes that sparkled with admiration and lips that parted in a smile of glad surprise, she involuntarily murmured: “Splendid, Sam!” His silly, boyish side had vanished, and in its place his true, strong, sterling character stood revealed. In that one moment he knew that he had won from her a tribute of esteem, but he did not at that time realize that it was a long step toward the consummation of his devout desire – to win her heart.

If an electric bolt had at that moment descended from the clear, ethereal blue, and wrecked the house, Mrs. Harris’ consternation could not have been greater.

“Oh!” she faintly gasped. “Dear me! Oh, Sam, how could you!” and then she staggered almost to collapse in his arms.

For a moment Rutley was astounded, then drawing himself up in a pose of statuesque haughtiness, again most studiously adjusted his monocle to his eye and directed at alert Sam a stony stare of ineffable disdain. Then he languidly drawled, without a muscle of his white, bloodless face moving:

“Aw, it’s deuced draughty, don’t-che know!”

A few minutes later Mr. Harris beckoned Virginia into the library. After delivering her the check he had promised, they together went out in search for John Thorpe, but he had disappeared.

Had they looked more closely and further up the hillside, they might have seen a haggard man sitting in the shadow of a fir, apparently weary of the world, and pondering on the vicissitudes of life.

CHAPTER XII

In the meantime Virginia had been doing her utmost, in a quiet way, to obtain the necessary amount of Dorothy’s ransom.

Conscious of an imperative demand likely to be made upon her at any moment, she had partially prepared for it by secretly borrowing some five thousand dollars upon her jewelry and income, and she had obtained five thousand more from Mr. Harris, who was eager to favor her, because of the obligations it would place her under to his family, particularly Sam.

It was useless to approach Hazel for assistance, as John Thorpe was administrator of her estate. However, she was in a fair way to get more on a trust deed for some real estate that was in her name – when the summons came, peremptory and threatening.

She pondered over the situation long and profoundly, and having at length thoroughly made up her mind on a line of procedure, she prepared for the meeting.

Of delicate mould, carefully educated, and accustomed to vivacious and accomplished companions, Virginia was little intended for the desperate enterprise she had determined to undertake, in the dead hour of the coming night. More than once she shuddered at the thought, but that vision of Constance in the shadow of the “grim sickle,” nerved her on to the rescue, and it also afforded her a sense of relief from the distress her mind endured. Overwhelmed at the magnitude of the misfortune so suddenly overtaken Constance, she hesitated not for an instant to risk her life in its undoing.

Personality, social position, beauty, youth, refinement – all were cast aside, unconsidered and unthought of in the execution of the one perilous act that confronted her.

The intention to rescue Dorothy may be construed under the conditions surrounding her as commendable, but in one so young and fair, it would appear hair-brained, impracticable and, worst of all, dangerously indiscreet. Virginia had not been in any manner contributory to the disappearance of Dorothy, and yet be it remembered, only a heroine pure and simple would dare brave the act. Moreover, she had permitted Constance to accompany her, thus immensely increasing her hazard and responsibility.

That afternoon, thinking to cheer the mother, who was plunged in silent grief, Virginia had intimated a suspicion that Dorothy was a captive. Instantly an unnatural calm possessed Constance, and changed her sweet and tractable nature into a determined and obstinate resolution to accompany Virginia. It was useless for the girl to plead additional peril. No excuse, no matter how artfully conceived or ingeniously framed, could turn Constance from her purpose, to share in the danger. And what danger would not the mother brave to rescue her darling?

So insistent, yet so strangely calm, as to cause a fear that the fevered excitement that burned so fiercely beneath the forced tranquility, would in a measure break out and jeopardize all – that Virginia only at last reluctantly consented. But not before she had exacted a promise from Constance to maintain the strictest silence.

On their arrival at the foot of Ellsworth street, they made their way cautiously along to a little cove above Bundy’s boathouse, where they discovered a small skiff with oars in row-locks. Virginia had been informed that a boat would be provided for her at a certain spot, and therefore did not hesitate to avail herself of its use. Whether anybody was watching her mattered little in her suppressed, excited state of mind. Quietly she slipped the line and was in the act of drawing the skiff in position for Constance to get in, when from afar, across the water, seemingly from the depth of the island woods, the cry of a crow penetrated the silent air.

They stood still and listened – listened intently – with a vague, terrified notion that it was meant as a signal of danger.

Again she heard the cry, as distinct as before. Constance gripped Virginia’s arm for support.

“What does it portend?” Virginia asked herself. “Why should it come from the woods if it was a signal of her starting to cross the water. It may have been an answer to a flash from some one concealed nearby.” She looked above, about, but the same darkness, the same quietness prevailed. Not a leaf stirred to disturb the deep repose of night. Afar off, down the river, a steamer whistled for the steel bridge draw.

It startled her out of her reverie, and finally she concluded the “caw,” which seemingly sounded from the opposite woods, was really at the shore, and resulted from the peculiar condition of the atmosphere. Without further pause, and quietly as possible, they stepped into the boat, and at once commenced the passage.

The water was calm and mirror-like, and Virginia, having had some experience in handling a skiff, dipped the muffled blades with scarcely a sound. Silently, slowly, cautiously, she propelled the boat along, ever and again turning her head to peer into the deep darkness shrouding the island.

She headed the boat diagonally across the water, so as to strike near the middle of the island. She adopted that course in order that the cabin, which was quite invisible under the deeper shadow of the woods, would come in line between her and the harbor lights. Her reckoning was correct. She had passed the object of her venture without discovering it, but as the island loomed denser and darker on drawing near, it enabled her to locate the craft with precision. She turned the boat, and keeping within the deep shadow that fringed the rim of the island, made straight for the cabin.

As they approached it, the strain on Constance became tense. Virginia watched her narrowly, fearful for the consequences of a disappointment, and she realized, too, that in her own calmness and self-possession, lay the surest support to her companion’s strength. The consciousness of that power nerved, steadied and aided her wonderfully.

CHAPTER XIII

“Caw! Caw!” sounded with startling distinctness in the still, dark wooded depths of Ross island. For a moment the silence was intense; then it was broken again by the familiar, long-drawn out, guttural cry, “Caw! caw!” of the black scavenger bird. And silence once more settled down upon the scene, and seemed deeper, thicker and more profound than before.

It may have been a half a minute after the second cry when an answer, faint, though clearly audible, was echoed from a neighboring part of the woods.

“Come on!” quietly exclaimed Sam Harris, who, with John Thorpe, stood beside the trunk of a fir that grew midway on the island near its north end.

“An uncanny signal!” remarked Mr. Thorpe, in the same low tones.

“Yes, somehow I feel as though it betokens serious business,” softly replied Sam. “Be careful. A thick vine here. Step clear,” he whispered, as they moved cautiously along.

They had proceeded in silence some distance, part of the time groping their way by the aid of a match, lighted now and again, but artfully concealed, for the darkness was very deep, when through a rift in the wild growth of underbrush a man’s form was seen to move.

“Wait!” suddenly whispered Sam, in a warning tone. “There is a man ahead of us.”

There was no mistaking it, for as they stood stock-still in their tracks, they saw a man’s form occasionally obtruding between them and an electric light that shed its rays from afar off, across the water.

“Do you think he is the detective?” asked Thorpe, in a low voice.

“Wait!” and Sam placed his two hands over his mouth so as to form a hollow, and called out in moderate tones: “Caw! caw!”

It was answered by a single “caw,” low, but seemingly so near that they were startled, and for a moment felt that they were being deceived.

They remained motionless and silent – Sam with his hand grasping the butt of a revolver.

The “caw” was repeated low, but with reassuring effect, for they now discovered that while the sound was apparently near, due to atmospheric conditions, it was in reality fully two hundred feet away.

“Detective Simms,” whispered Sam. “He is waiting for us.”

“Then let’s hurry,” urged his companion.

The words had scarcely left his lips when Thorpe’s boot caught in a vine and down he went, making considerable noise as he stumbled and fell on his hip.

“You must be more careful,” enjoined Sam, in a low tone, as he helped Thorpe to his feet.

“Much haste, less speed, and then a little noise may endanger our success, I fear. Are you hurt?”

“No, thanks. Let’s go on,” impatiently replied Thorpe.

As they drew near the detective, in order to make doubly sure of avoiding a trap, Sam uttered in a low voice the word “Hope!” It was a watchword previously arranged and provided as an additional precaution against a possible contingency of deep darkness rendering prompt recognition difficult.

It was answered by the word “Good,” uttered in equally low and cautious tones, and which at once put them at their ease.

Almost immediately they met the detective at the edge of the clearing. Before them, a little to the left, dimly but clearly outlined against the harbor lights, was a typical Willamette River cabin, commonly known on the waterfront as a “scow dwelling,” moored about fifty feet from the shore, broadside on. It was the object of their venture.

So intent were they on sizing it up, and the problem of boarding it, that they were quite insensible to the magnificent panorama spread out beyond, and further to the left of Portland by night. At their feet the dark, shimmering Willamette silently glided along its course to the mighty Columbia; the great bridges on which the street cars, in a blaze of light, swiftly crossed and recrossed the gloomy river; the darkly-outlined towering masts of the ocean shipping in the lower harbor, the great industrial landmarks that reared their lofty shadows in different parts of the city. The myriad of bluish electric lights, that shone out like diamonds in the clear, balmy night, spread out over the city and up and up, in terraces and by gradual stages, to the hills, and along the heights that stretched away north-westerly. For miles on either side of the river the lights spread out, till at length, in diminishing brilliancy, they were lost in the shadow of the distant rugged hills, whose irregular dark-wooded crests were sharply defined against the rare splendor of the firmament, then aglow with glittering stars.

In fact, all the grandeur of the far-stretching panorama was neglected and lost to them in the intensity of their gaze upon the humble dwelling before them, built on a raft of logs.

(Booms of saw-logs are now moored abreast the cabin anchorage.)

Sam left Thorpe and the detective and wormed his way nearer the shore, to a position where he could obtain a better view of the cabin. Lying flat on his stomach, and concealed as much as possible, behind some driftwood and low, dead brush, he listened intently, and studied the situation with the practical eye of the frontiersman. He made out the cabin to be about twenty-four feet long, seven or eight feet high, with two small windows on the side which was nearest him. There being a light in one of the windows, he concluded the cabin was divided into at least two parts. The logs upon which the cabin was built projected some four feet at either end, on which was a platform, but no protecting railing. Proof that the occupant was not a family man, as “scow-dwellers” with children are careful to have railings about their craft.

He judged that the logs were large and water-soaked, and securely fastened together, and by their combined weight effected a certain stability and steadiness to the cabin resting thereon, during bad weather.

There appeared no means of reaching the cabin except by boat or swimming, and the mud of the river bottom at that point was evidently deep. Now and again he heard voices in the cabin, seemingly in altercation. But the distance was too great for him to distinguish the words. The quietness was profound except for the gentle lapping of the water, and disturbed occasionally by ripping sounds from a sawmill some distance down the river, which, if anything, added to the stillness instead of diminishing it.

Once he started at what sounded like a moan very near him, but it was so indistinct, so much like a faint whispering whistle, and it was immediately succeeded by the buzzing whirr of a bat as it darted about, and deep silence again environing him, that he dismissed the sound as a fantasy.

He was mentally calculating upon the chances of a surprise and rescue, and in an attempt to drag himself a few feet nearer the water-line to catch, if possible, some words of the conversation going on in the cabin. He stretched out his right hand to grasp what appeared to be a piece of driftwood, to aid in pulling himself along. His hand fell upon the dry, warm body of some animal.

He almost yelled aloud, so great was his fright. For a moment his heart beat madly. But the same strength of will that rushed to his aid in smothering the yell also quieted his agitation and restored his confidence.

The incident had almost jeopardized the favorable prospect of their enterprise. But nothing untoward happening, he again put out his hand and touched the body. It was warm and did not stir. The animal was lying on its side, and he plainly felt a faint throbbing of its heart. He ran his hand down its legs, then along its spine to a large limb of a tree that lay across its neck. He concluded that it was a little dog when his hand felt a small rope wound tightly about the limb.

His curiosity being fully aroused, he determined upon further investigation. Not daring to light a match he did the next best thing that occurred to him. Still retaining his prone position, Sam passed his hand along the dog’s spine to the fore shoulder, and under the piece of wood, to its neck. Then he discovered the poor thing was in the last throes of strangulation. Its breathing was scarcely perceptible. Its tongue, swollen thick, protruded from its mouth.

Instantly his sympathy for the little sufferer became acute, and, without thinking of possible results should the dog recover quickly, whipped out his knife and severed the coils of rope about the limb. Using his left hand as a lever, his elbow being a pivot, he pried up the weighty limb and with his right hand drew the dog from under it and to him. He quickly unwound the few remaining coils from around its neck, and as he did so, smiled with pleasurable emotion – for he was sure that he felt a feeble lick of the dog’s tongue on his hand.

A dog’s life is an inconsequential thing, according to some people’s way of thinking, but here was proof that under Sam’s rough and unpolished exterior there throbbed a heart full of gentleness and sympathy for suffering animals. He took the dog, which he then recognized as a small, shaggy Scotch terrier, under his arm and stole back to the detective and Mr. Thorpe.

In discussing the affair afterward, it was deemed probable that the detective, finding his long vigil at the edge of the woods tiresome, had unconsciously fallen asleep; though he indignantly denied it, and during that time the dog had been taken on shore and tied to a heavy piece of driftwood to give warning of the approach of strangers by night, but the poor thing had become tangled in the brush, and in its efforts to extricate itself had tightly twisted the rope about its neck, and the heavy limb had rolled over and pinioned it to the ground.

In the meantime Mr. Thorpe and the detective were engaged in low, earnest conversation.

“Are you satisfied the child is my little Dorothy?” asked Mr. Thorpe.

“I am not positive, but I believe so. I have watched all the afternoon in hopes of catching a glimpse of her. Once I heard a child cry.”

“Yet the child may not be Dorothy!”

“True!” replied the detective, “but whether the child be yours or not, I am satisfied the little thing in that cabin is there against its will.”

“Did you note any visitors to the cabin this evening?”

“Yes; a man rowed over from the direction of ‘Bundy’s’ about half an hour ago. He is in there now.”

“Do you think the Italian, his visitor and the child are the only ones there?”

“I am positive they are the only ones in that cabin at this moment.”

“Then let’s wade out there,” urged Mr. Thorpe.

“Careful!” cautioned Sam, who had just come up. “I know the Dago to be a cunning and dangerous man. We could not wade out that far any way, in the soft mud and tangled roots of that bottom. We must have the small boat.”

“What have you there?” It was the detective who spoke.

“Our first rescue. A mascot!” and then Sam related the incident.

“Good!” exclaimed Mr. Thorpe. “Its bark would have betrayed us.”

The three then held a brief consultation. Shortly afterward Sam retraced his steps along the trail, back to the steam launch, with the “mascot” steadily recovering, but still under his arm.