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Show The Red Lock kT I By DAVID ANDERSON 17 f , I Author of "The Clue Moon" ' L ICltWOO&S jji Copyright bj Th Eobbs-Merrill Co. g and buck to his face. Half covertly searching Ills eyes, she seemed to gather reassurance from the level frankness of them. "I 'lowed y'u must be " She glanced back at the bushes; drew a step away from them, as If she feared that hands might come out of them and clutch her. "I'm Jennie Belden an' t wus on the way t' find you " Quite evidently much disturbed, she missed the quick lift of the man's shoulders. She glanced again at the bushes, listened a moment, drew a step nearer and lowered her voice. "You're in dreadful danger, an' I wus comin' t' warn y'u. I don't know what y'u've done, but y'u ain't safe a minute. Of course I know y'u hurt brother Loge's hand, but it ain't that, an' there's another man more dangerous danger-ous than him, an' a third man more dangerous than both. There wus eyes on y'u yisterd'y. Ther' ain't none on y'u this mornin' n'r on me, an' that's why I could slip away but ther' will be. Stay out o' the woods, an' don't show a light at night, an' don't come out If anybody calls y'u" she involuntarily invol-untarily glanced up the hollow, shivered, shiv-ered, wrung her hands "an' please, Am !"M less creature that had barely escape! the dragon's Jaws; then frowned toward to-ward the narrow valley's head where the weather-blackened roof of a squalid cabin could barely be seen through the trees. A slow sternness crawled into bis eyes; he dropped the butt of the shotgun to the leaves; leaned upon It and stood staring down at the road. Gradually, as he stared, there grew upon him the consciousness of an outline out-line of a single footprint at the other side of the road detached, alone, apparently ap-parently with no mark of any kind leading either to !t or from It The singular fact of its seemingly perfect isolation slowly reached him, and won a place among the troop of thoughts that gripped him. He studied It closely a moment, grunted and then grinned. "Uncle Nick," he muttered. "Heel deepest he's jumped where from?" He glanced at the other side of the road where the take-off must have been to land a leap just there and after a short search found where the old man's boot had scraped the moss a little in making the spring. "Almin' f'r that slab of sandstone," he chuckled, his eyes losing a mite of their hardness, "fell a bit shy and landed In the soft dirt mighty good jump, at that, f'r. a man with eighty-odd eighty-odd years on 'is back." Stooping again over the Isolated footprint, he examined It with closest attention, trying at the same time to call up all the lore of the trail that the old ranger had taken such pride In teaching him the wise and wonderful won-derful ways of woodcraft that be had taken an equal pride in learning, until, next to Uncle Nick himself, he was known to be the most skillful woodsman along the Wabash. As he looked, a grass stem that had been bent down and slightly hung In the soil suddenly loosed and straightened. straight-ened. "Hot trail, ol' scoutmaster," he muttered, mut-tered, In the half spoken soliloquy that nature sometimes teaches her favorites. favor-ites. "And there y'u go, plckln' y'ur steps so's t' hit the hard spots and miss the soft ones." , A sudden thoughtfulness crossed his face. "I wonder why y'u're so p'tic'-lar p'tic'-lar t' hide y'ur trail, though there ain't no Pottawattomles t' find It no more. Mebbe the woods jlst filled y'u s' full this wonderful morning, like they, have me, that y'u can't help playln' a while at the ol' war game of the trail. Well, I'll play with y'u and I'll run y'u down b'fore the shadow of the bluffs climbs out of the crick." After a searching glance in every direction, so keen and critical that It appeared to handle with minuteness every bush and tree within range of his eye, and a further moment spent in sounding the woods for any false note they might carry, he threw the shotgun into the hollow of his well arm and took up the trail. It led across the two or three rods of broken ground between the road and the little stream, which, at that point, sparkled along over a shallow riffle. Once, as his old friend had sprung from stope to stone In grossing, gross-ing, his boot had slipped and gone into the water. After that every alternate al-ternate stone on which he had stepped, was still damp from the wet boot. Jack had followed to a point well within sight of Loge Belden's cabin when, barely a hundred yards ahead, he caught a glimpse of a man stealing from cover to cover just a flash as he f.itted from one hazel thicket to nnother, but that was enough. That tall form, erect as an Indian, those iron-gray locks, falling loosely from under the quaint old . cap of hand-dressed hand-dressed coonskin, could belong to vut one man in the world Uncle Nick. Jack instantly darted to cover and began stalking the old ranger. Barely fifty yards separated them when, as he peeped from behind an oak, he saw the old man steal out from a dense thicket of wild grape-vines, dart across an open space and throw himself flat behind a decaying log. Crawling up behind a huge sugar maple that stood barely more than a rod from the log, Jack rose to his feet, a grin spreading over his face as he thought of the surprise he was about to spring upon his old friend. lie was just bracing himself for the rush when a band fell upon I1I3 shoulder, shoul-der, and, whirling with sudden startle-mcnt, startle-mcnt, he found himself looking with foolish vacancy into the quizzically twinkling eyes of Uncle Nick. At sight of his young friend's bewildered be-wildered face the shoulders of the old hunter shook with merriment, though not a sound passed his lips the silent laughter that long years In the woods, when they were dangerous, had taught him. (TO BE CONTINUED.) Cl-IAPTER XI Continued. 13 A flash of rod flamed through the trees and stopped almost directly nbove his head In the top twigs of n hickory sapling and there swelled out n wild burst of reckless melody that clothed the hickory with music H.i the opening buds clulhed the crab-upple crab-upple tree with beauty. "I thought so, ol' warcoat," the man muttered, glancing up. "You know where she Is, don't y'u?" He stepped softly toward the crab-upple crab-upple tree the wild song-burst In the Jilckory ceasing the Instant he moved and peered in through the gnarled limbs and tangled twigs. Snugged down nniong some drifted dead leaves he found It, the treasure that Inspired the cardinal's song a roughly built, deep little nest, and, uhlning above lis edge, a dark glossy crest, some long tall feathers, a short, heavy, reddish bill and a round glittering glit-tering eye, black as n dewberry. He let the ilmb he had bent aside Bwing slowly back Into place and Htole away. "Alw'ys two," ran bis thought "a pair; males It's nature's way. Pheasants and cardinals' and folks they're all the same though birds und beasts alw'ys run true, while folks sometimes oh, well " He walked away toward the west, coming at length to where the uplands up-lands ended abruptly In the line of wooded bluffs that fell steeply to the deep nnd winding scar of Ragle hollow, and the exact point where the double trail had run plainest the day before a fact that had doubtless brought him Just there. He bent a critical look upon the loutish lout-ish trail; carefully crossed It; stepped out under a clump of haw trees at the very brink of the bluff and stood keenly keen-ly searching the woods in every direction. direc-tion. Eelow him and a short distance farther down the hollow au old deserted desert-ed cabin of mud-daubed logs squatted against the bluff a few yards back from the Eagle Hollow road. The place had a reputation In the Flat-woods. Flat-woods. It was the uncanny hovel of dead Henry Spencer, a woodchopper, who, on a winter night years before, while in a drunken frenzy, had murdered mur-dered his wife and Infant daughter with an ax, then had wandered out half naked nnd frozen to' death In the snow. What bad once been yard and tiny garden was now overrun with weeds so rank that storms and snow could 110 longer break them down. A fallen oak bad but just missed the cabin, nnd lay so close to one corner that some wild cucumber vines of the Beason before had crossed to the ruined roof nnd still hung In brown nnd dead festoons stretched from the fast decaying clapboards to the fungous waited branches. A pair of chimney swallows, true prophets of summer, darted in and out of the crumbling chimney. A yellow-hammer loped down out of the woods, lighted upon the dry and sounding comb-board and drummed a challenge to all and sundry other yellow-hammers or was It a love call to his mate in the dead limb of a sycamore syca-more down at the creek across the road? The sound . drew the eyes of the man. At the moment one of the swallows swal-lows rose above the roof. As he followed fol-lowed Its flight, the chimneys and gables of the red-roofed cottage, nearly near-ly a mile away down the hollow, came unexpectedly within li is range of vision. vi-sion. His brows drew together; he gripped the shotgun; turned and strode through the fringing brambles back among the trees. Half a mile farther up the hollow, fit the point where he had left off following fol-lowing the double trail the day before, be-fore, he picked his way down the rough and stony side of the wooded Muff to the road. He was Just in the net of stepping out from the fringing trees to cross It when the soft swish of r. bush a short distance above ct.ight bis quick ear. Kememberiug that sinister face behind be-hind the log. he threw the heavy shotgun shot-gun to Instant readiness and stood dead still, his eyes searching every leaf and twig aloug the hillside. There came a soft footfall, the tushes swayed, parted, and a young woman stepped out into the comparatively compara-tively open glade where he stood a girl that he had never seen, Hushed nnd breathing hard. Sh saw him 011 the instant, and her face went white. She darted in among the bushes again, stopped, came slowly slow-ly (lack, stood studying him. He was ns closely studying her plainly, even Shabbily dressed; her faded sunbon-net sunbon-net awry ; her hair disheveled by the brambles; but, In spite of all, comely, nnd ruddy with health. She made a quick elTort to adjust the sunbonnet ; spared a hasty touch to the disheveled hair and raised her eyes. He noticed they were blue. "Vou don't chance t' be Mr. Big J"!; ?" The woodsman studied her from under un-der half closed lids. "They call 1111 Mint---" He raised his eyes a irllle. "And you?" She ' '.inejisily Ul the linlhn. "You Don't Chance t' Be Mr. Big Jack?" please, don't breathe a word about seein' me ! They'd kill me If they knowed not even brother Loge could withstand 'em." She was talking fast, in low and hurried whispers. . Apparently she fancied that her words were not making mak-ing the full impression she wished, for she drew still nearer so close that Jack could hear the quick purr of her breath. "You ain't skeered ?" She stopped ; stood studying him : "But, of course, I don't reckon y'u would be a man like you. But please b'lieve me, nn' heed me. The woods has eyes ; the bides his time, an' when he strikes, he night has knives." She bent her head ; she seemed struggling with some inner thought. "That third man," she muttered, "he waits, an' kills." She whirled on the instant, like some startled creature of the woods, and was gone. He strode a surprised step after her, even called softly. There came back to him only the low swish of the bushes and the soft fall of receding steps. Like a shadow the girl a far wanderer wan-derer from the Kentucky mountains had come ; like a shadow gone. One moment the swaying bushes had flared forth her face, with its startled eyes, the next moment had swallowed it up. The woodsman came back to the edge of the road and stood pondering her message her warning; felt over in his careful way each hurried word ; tried to cast them up and arrive at the exact sum total of them. The thought crossed his mind that she might have been wrought up over an imaginary imagi-nary danger; but no, it was real enough that she had dared personal harm to warn him and her eyes were honest. That the man who had glowered at him over the log was in some way associated as-sociated with Loge Belden he hud already al-ready surmised from the fact that the man had taken up Belden's quarrel at the sehoolhouse besides, his trail had led that way. But the utmost of their combined grievance could hardly warrant such a threat as the mountain moun-tain girl had plainly hinted. There must be something back of It all something that cut deeper than gashed hands and sore Jaws. The girl's last muttered words "that third man" that "waits, an' hides his time, an' when he, strikes, he kills" suddenly assumed a deeper meaning. He darted a quick look down the hollow a deep scar wiud-ing wiud-ing like the trail of a dragon between the hills where, more than a mile iway. hidden from view by the dense ' .oods, the village lay like some Lap- |