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

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.

CHAPTER XIV

Within the cabin, so zealously watched by the detective prior to the journey of Thorpe and Sam across the island, were the occupants – Jack Shore and his little captive, Dorothy Thorpe. The child was carefully and secretly guarded, and at the same time made as comfortable as the limited quarters of her captor would permit.

Jack Shore was kind to the child, and though fully conscious of the severe penalty of his desperate undertaking should he be discovered, he nevertheless allowed her a certain freedom of the abode in which he had placed her, of course always providing for securely bolted outer doors.

During the preceding night she had been secretly and quietly removed from her first hiding place to the cabin. Her silence was obtained by the promise of being taken home should she be a good little girl, and not make a disturbance. But as a precaution she had been wrapped up in a manner so as completely to blindfold her, and in her childish confidence was conveyed without any trouble, in the dead hour of night, to the cabin.

The interior of the cabin was divided into two rooms. The small one was used as a sleeping apartment, having two roughly-constructed bunks, one above the other. On one wall was a small four-paned window that gave light to the room. A small mirror, and a man’s clothing hung on the wall, and a short, well-worn strip of carpet covered the floor. The large room served the purpose of a kitchen, dining room, pantry, laundry and general utility combined. There was a small cook stove in the corner near the dividing partition. One dishcloth and a couple of towels hung on a line across the corner of the room over the stove. A shallow box about three feet square, and nailed to the wall beside the window, served as a cupboard for provisions. A table, an old chair, a three-legged stool and a box constituted the remaining furniture.

At night a lighted lamp rested on a bracket above the table, and on this particular night Jack’s coat hung beside the lamp.

The main entrance door of the cabin was at the kitchen end, and opened inward. There was also a door at the bedroom end of the cabin, securely locked and bolted. The door in the partition between the two rooms was in line with the other doors, and had a small pane of glass, six by six inches, in the upper panel.

On this eventful night Dorothy was seated on the chair, her head resting on her arms on the end of the table, indifferently watching Jack. He, with a cigar in his mouth and in his gray shirtsleeves, was standing in front of the table wiping a dishpan, the last of the evening cleanup. Putting the pan away under the shelf, he hung the dishcloth beside its mate on the line, and carefully stretched it out to dry. Then, as he sat down on the stool at the end of the table opposite Dorothy, a smile of satisfaction stole over his dark, swarthy face when he surveyed the result of his work – a clean and tidy appearing room.

“Eesa be so nice-a da clean. So bute-a da corner. Eesa like-a da fine-a house. Tar-rah-rah! Tink-a eesa get-a da fote-da-graph of eet a made. Put eem in-a Sunny da paper. Eh-a da Daize! What a use-a da tink? Eh!”

Dorothy raised her head and looked at him in offended, childish dignity.

“My name is not A da Daize; it is Dorothy!”

“Eesa like-a da Daize a bet! What youse-a tink? Eesa nicey da room, eh Daize?”

Then the child indifferently looked at the corner with its stove and adjuncts. She had been detained in his company now – for four days, and, childlike, was intuitively quick in interpreting the broken, stumbling Dago utterances of Jack.

“It is not so nice as our kitchen,” she naively replied. “But maybe the photo will make people think you are a good cook!”

“A da cook-a! – naw, eesa be damn! Turnoppsis! Carrotsis! Cababbages! Black-a da boots” —

“Well, then,” interrupted the child, pouting, “a rich man if you like; I don’t care.”

“Eesa mores-a da bet,” and he smiled approvingly. “And a Sunny-a da paper print under da fote-da-graph some-a ting like-a deeze – A da corner ova-a da dining room – maybees-a da den wud look-a da bet,” he muttered reflectively. “In deeze-a home ova-a a Signor George-a da Golda – house-a dat, eh, a Daize?”

“Is that your name?” she inquired.

“Eesa good-a da name? A Daize.”

“May I stay in here when the photo man comes?”

“Sure-a Daize!”

“Oh, good!” and the child clapped her little hands and laughed gleefully.

Jack looked at her quizzically, and then, seating himself on the stool, took the child between his knees.

“Tell-a me, da Daize, what-a da for youse-a like-a da picture take-a here, eh?”

“Cause!” she answered shyly.

“Cause-a da what? Speak-a Daize.”

“I don’t like to.”

“A Daize! Youse a know I bees-a da friend, speak-a.”

“Well, then my papa would know where to find me.”

“I deez-a thought so. Daize, youse-a tink I beez a da bad-a man. Eh, why?”

“’Cause you promised to take me home and you have not.”

“Well-a Daize, your-a good-a da girl, and – eef-a da papa donn-a da come bees-a da morn, we’ll-a go for-a da fine him, eh! Now youse-a da like-a me now? Eh, a Daize?”

“Oh, I like you ever so much for that, and we’ll go home tomorrow?

“Sure-a Daize! Now tell-a me some-a ting about a da Virginia.”

“If I do you’ll sure take me home tomorrow?”

“Sure-a Daize! Eesa beez a da good a da woman, eh? Much a da like a you. Eh, a da Daize?”

“Oh, yes; she would do anything for me, and I love my aunt, too.”

“Eesa look a da nicey. Mose a beez a da rich, eh-a Daize?”

“My aunt does oil paintings, too.”

“Eesa got a much a da mon, eh a Daize?”

“Oh, yes; a pocket full,” replied the unsuspecting child.

“Everybody says that she is rich, and I guess that it must be true,” muttered Jack, and he could not suppress a smile of satisfaction the child’s information gave him.

“Eesa time to go a da bed, a Daize. Kiss a me good a da night.”

“If I do, you won’t forget your promise?”

“What a da promise?”

“To take me home tomorrow.”

“Sure a Daize. I donna forget.”

Then the child kissed him, and at the contact of her soft, warm lips with his – like a stream of sunshine, the child innocence of purest lips, pierced his heart with a shaft of kindly sympathy.

“Good a da night, a Daize,” he said in a voice soft and gentle. Then he released the child and arose to his feet. It drew from her a look of steady admiration, and then she replied:

“Good night!” On the threshold of the sleeping apartment she turned and said:

“I shall pray for you tonight, Mister Golda. I shall pray for you not to forget tomorrow.” And she softly closed the door.

As Jack mildly stared at the child, the light in his eyes changed to a look far off, and there gradually stole over his face an aspect of infinite sadness, reminiscent of the days of his childhood.

On resuming his presence of mind, he went to the cupboard and took from there a bottle. After removing the stopper he took a straight draught of liquor, turned low the light and tip-toed to the bedroom door, listened, and heard Dorothy say:

“Oh, dear Jesus, make George Golda good; help him remember his promise to take me home tomorrow.”

Jack was deeply moved by the child’s sweet disposition, and he turned away disgusted at the despicable role he was enacting, and muttered reflectively: “Good God, that I should come to this! From secretary-treasurer of the Securities Investment Association to be a kidnapper of babes!

“Jack Shore, the kidnapper! What a fall is here! Yes, I have sunk so low as to abduct from a fond, suffering mother one of the purest gems of flesh and blood that ever blest a home. And for what? The almighty dollar! Only that, and nothing more! Curse the damned dollar that drives men to crime!

“Curse it for cramming hell with lost souls. I’ll wash my hands of this whole business; I’ll have no more of it; I’ll take the child home!”

The resolution was so cheering, so fruitful of kindly intent, and urged on by the “still, small voice” within him to do right, that he decided to fortify himself with a second drink of liquor. Then a contra train of reflection seized him, and he whispered, as one suddenly confronted with an appalling calamity:

“Ah, ah! What am I saying? And I have scarcely a dollar in the world! Have gone hungry for the want of it – and here is twenty thousand of the beautiful golden things actually in sight – almost at my finger tips!” and with the thought blank concern spread over his face, and the kindly purpose, the human compassion for his fellow being in its transient passage to his heart, again took flight and the “still, small voice” within him shrank abashed to silence.

“Out with this sentimental nonsense! The Thorpes can stand the loss of a few thousand without a twitch of an eyelash.”

The sound of a couple of gentle taps on the starboard side of the cabin broke his train of audible thoughts and claimed his quick attention.

The taps were repeated distinctly. He answered them with three light taps on the wall, given by the joint of his finger. Then he quietly opened the door, and Philip Rutley, with the collar of his coat turned up closely about his face, stood in the opening.

“All skookum, Jack?” he questioned, in low tones, on entering.

“All skookum, Phil,” answered Jack, as he locked and bolted the door.

“Good! I love to look at the little darling. Jack, she is a gold mine.” And, so saying, Rutley took the lamp from over the shelf and cautiously opening the door, peered within.

“Isn’t she pretty?” Then he quietly closed the door, replaced the lamp on the shelf, turned down his coat collar and said in a low, pleased voice: “Well, old boy, our troubles are nearly over. Virginia will come tonight.”

“Alone?” queried Jack, in low tones, and he looked significantly at his colleague.

“Yes, and with the ducats! I caused her to be secretly informed that she must meet you here by twelve o’clock this night, and prepared to pay the ransom. Any liquor handy, Jack? I’m feeling a bit nervous after that pull. The boat sogged along as heavy as though a bunch of weeds trailed across her prow.”

Jack smiled, but proceeded to the cupboard and produced a bottle, together with a glass. Removing the cork, he offered both bottle and glass to Rutley with the remark: “Old Kaintuck – dead shot! The best ever. Help yourself!”

“That’s an affectionate beauty spot about your right eye, Jack,” remarked Rutley, taking the bottle and tumbler from him.

“You haven’t told me how it happened.”

“I was out on Corbett street when that damned Irish coachman of Thorpe’s sauntered along as though he had a chip on his shoulder, and he had the nerve to ask me if I had seen the child.”

“Do you think he suspected you?” queried Rutley, pausing with the glass and bottle in his hands.

“No; it was a random shot. But it made me hot, and – well, the long and the short of it was the doctor worked over me an hour before I was able to walk.”

“I see,” commented Rutley, pouring some liquor into the glass and setting the bottle on the table. “A sudden and unexpected attack, eh! May the fickle jade smile on us tonight,” and so saying, he drank the liquor with evident relish, and handed the glass to Jack.

Jack, misunderstanding his quotation of the “fickle jade,” interpreting it as meant for Virginia, at once replied:

“The jade may smile and smile, and be a villain, but she must ‘pungle’ up the ‘dough.’” And pouring some liquor in the glass he drained it.

Jack’s misapplication of the popular quotation caused Phil to smile, then to chuckle. “Ha, ha, ha, ha, the jade!”

Then he produced a couple of cigars from his vest pocket, and offering one to Jack, continued: “She deserves no mercy.”

“None whatever,” replied Jack, as he took the cigar.

“If she had not weakened, we should never have selected her to pay the ransom,” resumed Rutley.