Bart Keene's Hunting Days: or, The Darewell Chums in a Winter Camp

CHAPTER XXIX
BART’S BEST SHOT

Bart turned to Fenn. He was just about to whisper to his chum to take up the pursuit of the mysterious man, leaving him to attempt a difficult shot to save the life of the lineman, but at that instant there was a swaying in the crowd, and a boy stumbled up against Fenn’s sore arm. The injured lad uttered a cry of pain. His face turned white, and he was struggling to stay on his feet.

“Catch him! He’s going to faint!” cried some one, and faint poor Fenn did, being caught in the arms of two men.

Bart felt his brain reeling, but, by a strong effort he held himself together.

There was now no chance of continuing the pursuit of the mysterious man. Fenn was being carried to a place where he could be cared for. It was impossible to communicate with Ned and Frank, who were on the other side of the street, and Bart could not go away and leave the man on the pole to die. There was no help for it. He must stay and try, by a most difficult shot, to sever the dangerous wire.

“Will you do it? Can you do it?” asked the lineman who had proposed the extreme measure to the lad. “It’s the only chance. Can you cut that wire?”

“I think so,” was the quiet answer. No one in that crowd knew under what a strain Bart Keene was at that moment. No one associated the now unconscious Fenn with him, and no one dreamed that Bart was anxious to continue after a man who he believed to be a criminal, and who was fast making his escape.

“Can you hold on a minute longer, George?” called a workman on the ground, up to the lineman on the pole.

“Yes,” came back the faint answer, “but it’s hard work. Can’t you shut off the current? If I make a move I’m a goner. Can’t you turn off the current?”

“We’re going to try to cut the wire,” went on the man who had thought of the plan. “We can’t get the current shut off right away. Listen carefully, George. Hold as still as you can. There’s a lad here with a rifle. He’s a good shot, he says, and he’s going to fire at the live wire until he cuts it. It’s going to be a close shave for you, as the wire is pretty near to your head. Have you nerve enough to stand it?”

“I – I guess so,” came the hesitating answer. “Go ahead!”

The crowd below was scarcely breathing. The man on the pole could be seen straining himself to maintain his perilous position. He looked down. Death was below him, and on every side, and none dare climb the pole to help him. The rifle seemed the only chance, unless some one could go five miles to the power house, and have the current turned off, or unless the electrician returned, and this would take so long that the man’s hold would loosen, and he would either fall, or be shocked to death. It all depended on Bart, and the lad knew that he must now shoot true, if he never shot straight again. It was to be his best shot – a well-nigh tragic shot.

“Clear a space for the lad!” ordered the lineman, as he and his fellows began making a circle about Bart. “Give him room. Have you got plenty of cartridges, young man?”

Bart nodded. He felt that he could not speak, and he knew that the chamber of his rifle was filled. Yet he hoped to do the trick with only one bullet.

The shot was a hard one. He must cut a wire within four inches of the shoulder of the man whose life he was trying to save, and he had to fire upward, and at a slightly swaying target – a target small enough at best, hardly more than half an inch wide. Yet Bart did not hesitate.

He took his position under the wires, and close to the pole. The crowd was looking eagerly on, and the man on the pole was like a statue. Well he knew how much depended on his remaining motionless.

Bart raised his rifle. A mist seemed to come before his eyes, but with a gritting of his teeth he got more control of himself, and then he saw clear. He took careful aim, and then he saw that he could shoot to more advantage from the other side of the pole. He would have to fire closer to the man, but the bullet would take an outward slant in cutting the wire, and there was less danger of it glancing off and wounding the lineman.

The lad changed his position, and once more took careful aim. He took a long breath, and his finger began to tighten on the trigger. At that instant there came a puff of wind, and the wire at which he was aiming swayed toward the unfortunate man. There was a cry of horror, and several persons in the crowd started toward Bart, as if to stop the firing of the gun. But the lad was on the alert, and waited until the wire was still again.

One, two, three seconds passed. Would he never fire? Suddenly those watching him saw his figure stiffen. He braced the rifle more firmly against his shoulder. There was a further tightening of the tension of his trigger finger, and a report that seemed to the nervous crowd to be as loud as a cannon vibrated on the wintry air.

An instant later there came tumbling from aloft a long wire, that writhed about like some snake, spitting blue flames and sparks. It wiggled about on the ground as a thing alive.

“Keep back! Keep back from that wire!” shouted a lineman. “Good shot, my lad! Great! You cut the wire with one bullet!”

Bart lowered his gun. Once more the mist seemed to come before his eyes, but it did not matter now, for he had saved the man. Yet no one ever knew how narrow was the margin, for, as Bart was pulling the trigger, the wire was once more swayed by the wind, and the bullet from the rifle had sped past the man’s head less than two inches away. So close had he been to death! But Bart had shot true, and, ever, in after years, he called that his best shot.

A cheer went up from the crowd at the plucky act of the lad, but it was quickly hushed as one of the linemen began to climb the pole, to assist down his comrade who had had such a narrow escape. He was too unnerved to descend alone, but there was no more danger, for the live wire was out of the way, and other linemen, with insulated gloves, soon had it in its proper place.

CHAPTER XXX
THE DIAMOND BRACELET – CONCLUSION

Bart turned to make his way out of the crowd, for he was anxious about Fenn. He had given up all hope of capturing the mysterious man, who had started to hasten away before the accident to the lineman on the pole, and who, doubtless, was far enough off by this time. But Bart’s progress was arrested by a voice.

“Hold on, young fellow!” exclaimed the workman whose life Bart had saved. “I want to shake hands with you. That was a corking good shot. I heard the bullet whistle past me, and then I knew I was safe. Shake!” and he extended his hand that did not tremble as much as did Bart’s, such nerve did the electrician have. He had fully recovered from his thrilling experience.

Bart received modestly the almost extravagant praise accorded him, and once more began to make his way toward where Fenn had been carried.

“Where is my chum?” he asked. “The lad who fainted.”

“Oh, he’s coming around all right,” answered a man. At that moment Fenn himself came through the press of people around Bart. He had recovered from the shock caused by the sudden pressure on his sore arm.

“Are you all right?” asked Bart, anxiously.

“Sure. How about you?” inquired Stumpy. “I hear you made a great shot.”

“Don’t talk about it,” pleaded Bart, who was now almost as nervous as a girl. “Where are Ned and Frank?”

“Following that man, I suppose,” began Fenn, and then he stopped suddenly, for people looked curiously at him.

“Yes, we must look them up,” went on Bart, but he felt that a further chase would be useless.

“Say, you fellows aren’t going to disappear until you do me a favor,” began the rescued lineman, good naturedly. “I want you to come to my house, and meet my wife. She’ll want to know the boy who saved me from a horrible death. It isn’t far,” he added, as he saw Bart was about to decline. “Please come. I’m not going to work any more to-day. I’m too shaky.”

They saw that it would not be kind to refuse, and the electrician led the way for Bart and Fenn through the crowd, who parted with murmurs of admiration for the lad who had made such a plucky shot. There was no sign of Ned or Frank.

“Well, I don’t know how to begin to thank you,” said the man, feelingly, when they were in a somewhat secluded place on the main street. The work of preparing for the ushering in of the New Year was almost completed. “I never can properly thank you,” he went on. “My name’s George Lang, and if ever you boys want a friend, or if you want anything done in the line business, you call for George,” and he meant what he said.

“I’m glad I was able to fire, and sever the wire,” said Bart, as he walked along with Mr. Lang, “but I wish it had happened a few minutes earlier – or later,” he added.

“I’m sorry it happened at all,” declared Mr. Lang. “I never had an accident like that, and I don’t want another. But what difference did the time make?”

“Because we were on the trail of a thief,” explained Bart, “and he skipped out just before you got caught on top of the pole. He was a chap who had stolen a diamond bracelet, and we boys are accused of the crime. We wanted to capture him to prove our innocence. My two chums are after him, but I don’t believe they’ll catch him. He saw us and skipped out. By the way,” the lad added, as he recollected the incident, “he waved his hand to you, and you waved back to him from the top of the pole, just before the wire broke loose.”

“Me?” exclaimed Mr. Lang in great astonishment. “I waved to a diamond-bracelet thief?”

“I don’t say you knew him,” declared Bart, fearing he had been misunderstood, “but you certainly greeted him. He had on a light cap, and he stood at the foot of the pole, and – ”

“Him? Oh, you mean him – that – why – ” the lineman seemed to be choking – “a thief – stole a diamond bracelet – ” He had to stop to catch his breath, but whether it was from laughter, or because he choked, the lads could not decide. “Him a thief?” asked Mr. Lang.

“Or, if he didn’t take the bracelet, he took the professor’s mud turtle,” put in Fenn, who had by this time recovered from his indisposition.

“Mud turtle! Oh, dear! Mud turtles, you say? Oh, I – excuse me,” and again the lineman choked up. “I understand,” he said at length. “I know who you mean. Would you like to meet him?”

“Would we?” gasped Bart and Fenn, together.

“That’s enough. I’ll guarantee to introduce you to him, if he’s at home,” went on Mr. Lang. “He lives next door to me. I know him well. A diamond thief! Oh, dear! Mud turtles!” and again the lineman seemed overcome. “Don’t say another word, but come on.”

Much mystified, Bart and Fenn followed their friend. He led them up a quiet street, and into a neat cottage.

“Mary,” he said to his wife, when he had introduced the lads, “one of these boys saved my life this afternoon, but I’ll tell you more about that later. Just now I’ve something else on hand. Do you know if William is home?” and he nodded at the house next door.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Lang, wonderingly, “he just came in. I think he brought home another turtle.”

The hearts of Fenn and Bart gave jumps! At last they were on the trail!

Without a word the lineman led the way to the adjoining house. He seemed to be laboring under some emotion, as if he was trying hard not to laugh. He knocked at the door, and a man answered the summons. Bart and Fenn started back. There stood the mysterious person who had eluded them so often – the man they believed had taken the diamond bracelet belonging to the professor’s wife! On his part the mysterious individual seemed anxious to run away at the sight of Bart and Fenn.

“William,” began the lineman, “one of these lads saved my life a while ago. Now don’t get excited – take things calmly. No one is going to hurt you, or your turtles,” and he spoke almost as he might to a child, or to a sick person. “I just want to introduce you to these boys. They are looking for a diamond bracelet, and they think maybe you could help them find it. Boys, this is my cousin, William Lang,” and Bart thought the lineman winked significantly at him. Was there more to the mystery?

“Your cousin?” echoed Fenn.

“Yes,” answered the man whose life Bart had saved. “He is one of the greatest collectors of turtles in the world,” and again he winked.

“That’s what I am!” exclaimed William Lang, proudly, and he seemed to lose some of his fear. Still Bart could not help thinking that his manner was very strange. “But I haven’t any diamond bracelet,” went on the odd individual. “I know you boys think I have it, and you’ve been chasing me for it, and trying to have me arrested, but I haven’t got it. I tried to keep out of your way, but I couldn’t seem to. You were always after me, even when I was only collecting turtles. I know about the bracelet, though.”

“What do you know about it?” asked Bart, eagerly.

“Why, I read in the papers that it was stolen,” said William Lang, simply. “It was taken the same night I went to the school to look at Professor Long’s turtles. He didn’t want me to see ’em, but I did all right. I got in when he wasn’t there, and fooled him. He was so mysterious about ’em, that I thought he had a rare kind. But he didn’t have at all. Anyway I saw ’em, and he doesn’t know it, even to this day. I got in at the dead of night,” and the man’s voice sunk to a whisper, and his face took on a cunning look.

“Then you were the man we saw enter the school that night!” exclaimed Bart.

“Did you see me? Did you see me?” gasped the lineman’s cousin, in great alarm. “Oh, yes, I remember now, I ran!”

“Sure we saw you,” answered Fenn. “We were – ”

Bart gave his chum a warning look.

“I didn’t mean any harm,” cried William Lang. “I only went in to see the turtles. I’m a great collector of them,” he added. “I heard about Professor Long’s collection, and once I called on him at the school. I wanted to see his reptiles, but for some reason he wouldn’t let me. But I made up my mind I would see ’em. I knew he was trying to deceive me – Professor Long was – so one night I took a false key I had, and I got in the school. I had a dark lantern and I saw the turtles. I got ahead of Professor Long that time,” and the man laughed excitedly. “But come in, and I’ll show you my collection,” he added.

He turned into the house, and the two boys, after a moment of hesitation, followed. They did not yet quite understand. The lineman whispered to them, when out of earshot of his cousin.

“You must humor poor William,” he said. “He is all right except on the subject of mud turtles. He thinks he has the greatest collection of them in the world. I don’t in the least doubt that he went in the school by stealth to look at some. In fact, I heard from Professor Long about a visit he paid to him one day, when he wanted to see the school collection. Professor Long had heard of my cousin, and knew him to be harmless, but William got so excited on the subject of turtles that the professor concluded it would not be best to exhibit the school collection, so he refused. This made William suspicious, and very likely he made up his mind to sneak in, and get a night-view of the reptiles. I have no doubt but that he did so.”

“He certainly did,” answered Bart. “We saw him come out. Then, when the diamond bracelet was missed, we naturally concluded that he was the person who had taken it.”

The lineman shook his head.

“William would not do such a thing,” he said. “There must be some other explanation. But humor him now by looking at his turtles. You may get a clew.”

The boys did so. The eccentric man, who was somewhat insane on the subject of turtles, had quite a collection of the queer reptiles – larger even than Fenn’s, or the one in the High School. He talked of them interestedly. By degrees Bart led to the subject of his visit to the school, and touched on the diamond bracelet, but the man’s replies showed that he knew nothing of it.

“I remember you boys,” William Lang went on. “I recollect now that I saw you as I hurried away from the school, and I thought you would chase me, but you didn’t. Then I saw you in the shooting gallery, but I didn’t know you at first. I’m a fine shot, you know, but I couldn’t shoot well that night, after I recognized you,” and he nodded at Bart. “By this time I had learned of the missing bracelet, and I was afraid you might have me arrested for taking it, so I hurried away. But I never saw it.”

He paused to replace in the cage a turtle that was crawling out, and the lineman took occasion to say in a whisper:

“That’s another of William’s odd notions. He thinks he is a crack rifle shot.”

“Well, he did shoot pretty well,” said Bart. “But I am wondering where on earth the bracelet can be. We are all at sea again, over it.”

“I would have more turtles if a certain Fenn Masterson had sold me his collection,” went on the queer man. “I got his name from a naturalist’s magazine, for he collects turtles, it seems. I wrote to Mr. Masterson, asking him if he’d sell me his turtles. But I had to proceed very cautiously, for he lived in the same town where the bracelet was stolen, and I didn’t want to show myself there. So I told him to leave his answer in an old sycamore tree. Then, after I did that I became alarmed, and I didn’t dare go back to see if he had replied. Oh, you can’t be too careful in this business,” concluded the man, with a cunning look.

“Why, I’m that Fenn Masterson!” exclaimed the owner of the name.

“Are you?” demanded William Lang. “Will you sell me your turtles?”

“Of course,” replied Fenn, who had rather lost interest in his collection, of late. “You can have them. We hid and waited to see if you would call for an answer to your letter.”

“I guess that’s some more of poor William’s imagination,” remarked the lineman in a low voice. “Leaving a letter in a sycamore tree, and all that sort of thing.”

“No, that part’s true enough,” declared Bart. “We waited for some time in a storm for him to show up, but he never did. Oh, it’s true enough. I am beginning to understand some things now. The reason why your cousin ran away from us so often was because of the notion he had that we wanted to arrest him. We would never have harmed him had we known.”

“Of course not,” agreed the lineman, he and Bart having talked in whispers while the turtle collector was exhibiting some odd specimens to Fenn. William Lang told of his visit to Oak Swamp, and how he had fled at the sight of the boys, fearing they wanted to cause his arrest, and he also mentioned his trips to the mud volcano, and how he had run away at the sound of some one stirring in the campers’ tent, likewise how he had led the boys a chase about the town, just prior to the accident on the pole.

“But about the bracelet, I don’t know a thing,” concluded William Lang.

“No, and I think he tells the truth,” added the lineman, in a low voice. “I’m sorry, but you boys will have to keep on with your search.”

It needed but a glance at the simple face of the turtle collector to show that he was not a thief, even if he was a decidedly peculiar individual.

“Well,” remarked Bart, after a pause, “I guess all Fenn and I can do is to go back to the hotel, and wait for Ned and Frank to show up.” The two turned to leave the turtle collector’s house. William Lang was busy inspecting his queer pets, and seemed to pay no further attention to his visitors.

“William was always a little queer,” remarked the lineman, as he accompanied the boys outside. “Harmless, but odd. Just daffy on the mud turtle question. I don’t wonder he gave you lots to think about, or that you didn’t quite know how to take him. He is all right except on turtles. He’d walk fifty miles to get a new one. But he’s well off, and can afford to indulge in his fancy.”

As Bart and Fenn turned into the street they saw, coming toward them, Ned and Frank. Ned was frantically waving a paper in the air.

“How’d you find your way here?” called Bart.

“People in the crowd told us you’d come here,” replied Frank. “But have you heard the good news?”

“What good news?”

“The diamond bracelet wasn’t stolen at all!” burst out Ned. “We just got telegrams from home. They were at the hotel waiting for us. We went there after missing you in the crowd, when something happened on the top of the pole. We tried to follow that mysterious man, but we missed him. There are also telegrams for you two fellows. I thought you had them, or – ”

“For gracious sake tell us the good news! What about the diamond bracelet?” yelled Bart.

“It’s been found!” exploded Ned. “It wasn’t stolen at all. It had fallen down a crack in the cabinet, in Professor Long’s room, and a snake was taking his winter sleep over the crack. Yesterday the snake died, Mr. Long took it out – and found the bracelet.”

“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” exclaimed Bart.

“I should say it was good news,” declared Fenn. “This takes suspicion from the Darewell Chums.”

Two days later the boys returned to their winter camp, and, after nearly a month spent in the forest, they packed up, walked in to Cannistota, sent a teamster back for their goods, and took a train for home.

The lads arrived at their home-town at dusk. Jed Sneed was at the station to meet them.

A little later the four chums were in their respective houses, telling of their adventures to their eager parents – there was considerable to tell.

THE END