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Updated: June 21, 2025
There was a high colour in her face and she was laughing a little nervously as she looked at the astonished face of the sick man who had been her rescuer and was now her patient. "Miss Yardely," cried Stane, "do you really mean what you say?" "Of course I do," replied the girl lightly. "And Gerald Ainley with another man camped within two miles of here two nights ago?"
The policeman whistled as he studied it. "Where did you get this, Stane?" "I found it in a copy of Plato which Ainley had borrowed from me. It was returned before the forgery turned up, and that paper slipped out when I was going through my possessions after my release from Dartmoor. What do you make of it?" "It is perfectly plain what the meaning of it is," answered Anderton with conviction.
"But why should she do that? She can hardly know of your previous acquaintance with him." "You forget she saw him speak to me yesterday!" "Ah yes," was the girl's reply. "I had forgotten that." The notes of a bugle, clear and silvery in the still air, floated across the meadow at that moment, and Gerald Ainley laughed. "The breakfast bell! We must hurry, Miss Yardely.
We talked the matter over carefully, and knowing you as we both did, we reached the conclusion that you were innocent and that Ainley was the guilty man." "Any evidence?" "No, nothing beyond that matter of the bill. We judged by general principles. Ainley always was something of a rotter, you know." Stane laughed a trifle bitterly. "He's by way of becoming a personage of importance today.
Then a stealthy movement of the half-breed's arrested his attention. The man had thrust his hand into his furs, and as it was withdrawn Stane caught sight of something that gleamed in the firelight. In a flash he saw what was about to happen, and shouted a hurried warning. "Look out, Ainley!"
He turned away and disappeared into the forest on the backward trail with Jean Bènard, and half an hour afterwards Helen emerged from her tent to find him bent over Ainley's pocket-book with a troubled look in his eyes. "What is it?" she asked looking round. "Where is Mr. Ainley and where are " "Ainley went away in the night. The others have gone after him.
He said nothing however, though to any one observing him closely it must have been abundantly clear that he had no expectation of finding the missing girl at the place which the Indian indicated. As a matter of fact they did not. Turning into the creek they presently caught sounds that were new to Ainley, and he asked a question. "It is the beavers. They smite the water with their tails!"
"No good there," he said. "We land here, and make grub; walk down and see what water like." It seemed to Ainley the only sensible thing to do, and he did not demur. Accordingly, the Indian, seeing a favourable beach, turned the canoe inshore, and whilst his companion was preparing breakfast, the white man walked downstream towards the ramparts of rocks through which the river ran.
Anderton rose from his seat. "I expect that will be Jean Bènard," he said quietly. "Jean Bènard? Who is Jean Bènard?" cried Ainley. "He is the man who Stane and I left to bring Chigmok along." "Chigmok!" "Yes, you see, Ainley, Chigmok was not dead as you meant him to be.
"One thing, Stane, we need not worry over now, and that is Miss Yardely's welfare. Assuming that Ainley has taken possession of her, no harm is likely to come to her at his hands. Whatever may be behind his pretty scheme, it will not involve bodily harm to her. We have that assurance in the position he occupies and the plan he made for her to be brought here alive.
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