Jane Carter Investigates: Episode Thirty-Five
“By George, if you ain’t right!” said Mud Cat Joe. “He’s about
done up too!”
With a hard pull at the right oar, Joe sent the boat toward the
struggling man. The man’s face had submerged; only a white hand fluttered
weakly above the surface.
I tore off my shoes and stood up in the boat, ready to dive
overboard.
“Hold on,” said Mud Cat. “I’ll git him. Long as a man’s
strugglin’, he ain’t drownin’.”
Joe was now close enough to thrust an oar toward the victim, but
the drowning man was too spent to take hold of it. We pulled alongside, and Mud
Cat managed to grasp the man by the arm.
“I got him,” he said grimly. “Steady now, or we’ll upset the
boat.”
Mud Cat Joe was a heavy man, and the added weight of the limp
figure very nearly capsized the craft, but Flo and I kept to the opposite side,
trying to maintain balance. The boat wobbled and jerked convulsively. Finally,
Mud Cat succeeded in pulling the man—who had ceased all movement—over the
gunwale.
Joe stretched the man on the bottom of the boat, turning him so
that his face was visible in the dim starlight.
“Jack!” I heard myself scream.
It felt like nothing short of a miracle that we’d found Jack, but
he was in very poor shape. There was a deep gash across his forehead, and his
breathing was light and fluttery.
“Your coat, Joe,” I said. “We must keep him as warm as we can.”
The riverman stripped off his coat, and I wrapped it about Jack’s
own wet clothing.
“We must get him to a doctor,” I said to Mud Cat Joe, but the
riverman was already rowing hard.
We were overloaded, and the boat rode very low in the water. I
held Jack’s hand and constantly checked his breathing. After a few minutes, he
stirred. At first, I couldn’t tell what he was trying to say, as he was not yet
fully conscious, but gradually his words became clearer.
“Eyes—” he murmured, “Flaming eyes—looking at me—looking at me—”
“He’s out of his head,” Florence said.
“Yes, I’m afraid he’s in bad condition. That gash in his head
looks deep. I hope it won’t become infected from the dirty river water.”
There were no cabins or houses along this stretch of the Grassy. I
scanned the shore for a sign of a light, and seeing none, decided that Jack
must be taken either to Old Mansion or to Joe’s cottage. Facilities were much
better at Old Mansion, but I thought it would be wiser to keep news of Jack’s
reappearance from Mr. and Mrs. Conrad for as long as possible.
What had occurred in room seven on that eventful night of the
party? Jack alone knew the answer. Whether or not the secret would remain
forever locked in his brain, I could not guess. Jack had suffered some great
shock, in addition to nearly drowning—I was no medical man, but I didn’t need
to be to know Jack was in a bad way.
Jack was trying again to say something, and I bent closer to hear.
“Boat—Boat.”
“Yes, you’re in a boat,” I said as if speaking to a child. I
rubbed his icy hands to restore circulation. “You’re with friends, Jack.”
Jack opened his eyes, then looked up at me without a trace of
recognition.
“Boat,” he muttered again. “Houseboat.”
Jack’s eyelids closed again. His head rolled restlessly back and
forth on the floor of the boat, but he spoke no more.
“Why you figger he said that?” asked Joe.
“I don’t know,” I said.
I thought about the houseboat which Florence and I had seen in
that cove on the Mulberry River only an hour earlier. The boat had mysteriously
vanished. It must have taken to the main river once more. Was it possible that
Jack had been held a prisoner aboard and somehow had managed to escape? Yet,
there had been no evidence of captives in the houseboat.
“The boat had two rooms, and Florence and I could not see into the
one which was dark,” I said. “Jack could have been imprisoned there, but it
doesn’t seem likely. Ralph appeared to be taking food to his friends.”
The possibility occurred to me that Jack, while struggling in the
water, battling to reach shore, might have seen the houseboat leave the mouth
of the Mulberry River. Perhaps he had attempted to signal the boat, and
failing, had believed that his only hope of rescue was gone. Such an experience
would be likely to leave the houseboat imprinted indelibly upon his mind, and
thus his strange mutterings could be explained. But with this theory, there
remained the disturbing question, why had Jack been in the water at all? Where
had he been held a prisoner? And by whom?
“If Ralph did have anything to do with this, Clarence Emerson
might not wish him to learn that Jack has been found,” I said. “Until I’ve
talked with Dad, the best thing to do is to keep him under cover.”
I asked Mud Cat Joe if the reporter could be taken to the cottage,
and he agreed to the plan.
I watched Jack anxiously as the boat made its slow progress up the
river. I hoped that I hadn’t made the wrong decision. When we reached the
cottage, I decided, I would summon a doctor at once, and if necessary, Jack
could be taken away to a hospital.
“That feller looks purty well done in to me,” Mud Cat said as he
pulled steadily at the oars. “I’ve fished plenty of ’em out of the river, but I
never seen one act like him before.”
The boat, at last, scraped on the sandy beach beside Mud Cat Joe’s
cottage.
“Bring a light, Jennie!” shouted the riverman.
As Mrs. Gains appeared in the doorway with a kerosene lamp, Mud
Cat Joe hauled Jack from the boat, and we carried him into the cottage.
“Jennie, don’t stand there a-gapin’,” Mud Cat said to his wife.
“Git some blankets and heat stones fer the bed.”
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