Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective Part 18

There was no hesitating after this.

The two men moved swiftly away in the gloom that surrounded the burning cabin.

A choking sensation caused the reclining man in the cabin to stir uneasily.

Presently he opened his eyes.

The room was full of smoke, and red tongues of flame were licking at the logs from every side.

Quickly d.y.k.e Darrel came to his feet. A smell of burning garments filled his nostrils. The bed on which Sibyl Osborne rested was on fire!

"My soul! this is unfortunate," cried the detective. He was equal to the emergency, however. Springing to the side of the still sleeping girl, d.y.k.e lifted her in his arms and strode to the door.

Quickly he slipped the rude bolt and grasped the latch. It refused to yield.

The door was firmly secured on the outside.

CHAPTER XIII.

A SAD FATE.

For one instant, d.y.k.e Darrel was paralyzed.

It was for a moment only, however. He shook the door furiously, blinded by smoke, and almost strangled by hot air.

The door would not yield.

At this moment, the girl awoke and began to scream. Bits of burning wood fell all about them.

Soon the roof would tumble in with a crash. When that moment came, every living thing must perish within the house.

d.y.k.e Darrel moved to the window, leading Sibyl. She staggered and seemed ready to fall.

"Courage!" he cried, "we will soon be out of this."

Reaching the narrow window, the detective dashed out sash and gla.s.s with a stool, and the air from outside seemed like a breath from fairy land.

"You must go first?"

d.y.k.e Darrel a.s.sisted his fair companion to the opening. An instant later she had pa.s.sed outside.

Then something occurred that quite startled the detective and filled him with intense alarm.

A burning log fell from the side of the cabin with a thud that was sickening. A horrible fear at once took possession of Darrel. With a quick bound he gained the opening, and leaped clear of the burning logs to the ground without.

Turning about he uttered a cry of horror.

Sibyl Osborne lay crushed beneath a black log that was yet smoking with heat. With a herculean effort the detective lifted and flung the log from the poor girl's breast, and then he lifted and carried her beyond the reach of flame and heat, and laid her on a little mound beneath a giant tree.

One glance into the mad girl's face satisfied him of the mournful truth. The falling log had done fatal work, and with his hand clasping hers, d.y.k.e Darrel watched the gasps that grew fainter each moment, until the silence and quietude of eternity rested on all.

"Dead!"

With that one word d.y.k.e Darrel started to his feet and gazed about him. There was a flinty gleam in his keen eyes and a fierce grating of white teeth.

It had been a long time since the railroad detective was moved as at that hour, with the work of human fiends before him.

From the burning cabin his gaze returned to the upturned white face of the dead girl. Pure and lovely as a lily looked the face of the wronged and dead.

"It is better so, perhaps," muttered the detective.

Had the girl lived she might never have enjoyed an hour of reason.

With that dethroned, what could death be but a welcome messenger. And yet the manner of the mad girl's taking off was shocking in the extreme.

Had d.y.k.e Darrel known the way out, he would have taken the corpse in his arms and hurried from the scene at once. As it was, the detective deemed it wise to remain in the vicinity until morning, when it was likely he would have little trouble in making his way out of the woods!

The remaining hours of the night pa.s.sed slowly. d.y.k.e Darrel dared not sleep, and so he kept his lonely vigil beside the dead, seated in the shadows, with revolver ready to use at a moment's notice.

No interruption came, however, and when the gray streaks of morning dawned the detective breathed easier. He at once went in search of a road that would lead out of the wood.

He met with better success than he had dared hope. He found a path that must have been used by the owner of the cabin, and which it was evident the mad girl had followed in her wanderings.

How long she had been in the cabin the detective had no means of knowing, but it seemed to him evident that she could have been there but a few hours when discovered by him.

The way out of the Black Hollow woods was long and tedious, but d.y.k.e Darrel proved equal to the task, and when he broke cover and entered upon the open ground above, he was glad to see a team approaching, driven by a farmer.

"h.e.l.lo! What hev' you got there?" cried the man, in open-eyed amazement, when he halted beside the detective and his burden.

"A lady. She was accidentally killed last night."

"It's awful!"

"I quite agree with you," returned d.y.k.e Darrel; "but if you will take the woman aboard and drive to the house of Mr. Bragg, I will pay you for it."

"Of course I will."

The farmer was garrulous on the way, and it required all the detective's ingenuity to answer his questions promptly, so as not to excite the fellow's suspicions.

The body of the beautiful dead girl was laid in one of Agent Bragg's rooms, and the latter telegraphed to the nearest town of importance for a casket, which arrived at Black Hollow shortly after noon.

"I will attend to s.h.i.+pping it," said Mr. Bragg. "This is a sad case.

It is a wonder to me that somebody did not see the girl yesterday."

"Possibly she got off at another station."