From the Valley of the Missing | Page 9

back, I say! If I

call Malcolm--"
Everett drew back through the box-hedge, and the boy and the girl at
the window saw the woman squeeze in after him. In another moment
the young heir to the Brimbecomb fortune bounded through the
doorway. His face was white; his eyes were filled with fear.
"Did you see that old woman?" he gasped. "She tried to kiss me, and I
punched her in the face, and her cat did this to my arm."
He pulled up his sleeve, and displayed a long scratch from wrist to
elbow.
"Are you sure it wasn't a ghost, Everett?" asked Ann, shivering.
"Of course, it wasn't," boasted Everett. "It was only a horrid woman
with a cat--that's all."
As he closed the door vehemently, there drifted to the children from the
marble monument and waving trees the faint wail of a night-owl.
CHAPTER FOUR
On a fashionable street in Syracuse, Floyd Vandecar, district attorney
of the city, lived in a new house, built to please the delicate fancies of
his pretty wife. His career had been comet-like. Graduated from
Cornell University and starting in law with his father, he had succeeded
to a large practice when but a very young man. Then came the call for
his force and strength to be used for the state, and, with a gratified
smile, he accepted the votes of his constituents to act as district
attorney. Then, as Lon Cronk had told, it came within the duty of the
young lawyer to convict the thief of grand larceny committed three
years before. After that Floyd married the lovely Fledra Martindale,
and a year later his twin children were born--a sturdy boy and a tiny
girl. The children were nearly a year old when Fledra Vandecar
whispered another secret to her husband, and Vandecar, lover-like, had
gathered his darling into his arms, as if to hold her against any harm
that might come to her. This happened on the morning following the

night when Silent Lon Cronk told the dark tale of suffering to his pals.
Just how Lon Cronk came to know the inner workings of the Vandecar
household he never confided; but, biding his time, waited for the hour
to come when the blow would be harder to bear. At last it fell, fell not
only upon the brilliant district attorney, but upon his lovely wife and
his hapless children.
* * * * *
One blustering night in March, Lem Crabbe's scow was tied at the
locks near Syracuse. The day for the fulfilment of Lon Cronk's revenge
had arrived. That afternoon Lon had come from Ithaca with his brother
Eli to meet Lem.
"Be ye goin' to steal the kids tonight, Lon?" asked Lem.
"Yep, tonight."
"Why don't ye take just one? It'd make 'em sit up and note a bit to crib,
say, the boy."
"We'll take 'em both," replied Lon decisively.
"And if we get caught?" stammered Crabbe.
"We don't get caught," assured Lon darkly, "'cause tonight's the time
for 'em all to be busy 'bout the Vandecar house. I know, I do--no matter
how!"
* * * * *
Wee Mildred Vandecar was ushered into the world during one of the
worst March storms ever known in the western part of New York. As
she lay snuggled in laces in her father's home, a tall man walked down
a lane, four miles from Ithaca, with her sleeping sister in his arms. The
dark baby head was covered by a ragged shawl; two tender, naked feet
protruded from under a coarse skirt. Lon Cronk struggled on against the
wind to a hut in the rocks, opened the door, and stepped inside.

A woman, not unlike him, in spite of added years, rose as he entered.
"So ye comed, Lon," she said.
"Course! Did Eli get here with the other brat?"
"Yep, there 'tis. And he's been squalling for the whole night and day.
He wanted the other little 'un, I'm a thinkin'."
"Yep," answered Lon somberly, "and he wants his mammy, too. But, as
I telled ye before, she's dead."
"Be ye reely goin' to live to hum, Lon?" queried the old woman
eagerly.
"Yep. And ye'll get all ye want to eat if ye'll take care of the kids. Be ye
glad to have me stay to hum?"
"Yep, I'm glad," replied the mother, with a pathetic droop to her
shriveled lips.
Just then the child on the cot turned over and sat up. The small,
tear-stained face was creased with dirt and molasses. Bits of bread
stuck between fingers that gouged into a pair of gray eyes flecked with
brown. Noting strangers, he opened his lips and emitted a forlorn wail.
The other baby, in the man's arms, lifted a bonny dark head with a