_ CHAPTER X. A PROBLEM IN FOOTPRINTS
Monday morning dawned bright and clear.
Yet, at 7.40, the fire alarm whistle blew "twenty-two," the signal for "no school."
Some boys heard the whistle and wondered. Dick & Co., minus Greg, who were gathered on Main Street at the time, did not wonder.
Two minutes later a series of long, loud blasts rang out, the signal to call the populace to fire headquarters.
"Just what we thought," guessed Dick, as he, Dave, Dan, Tom and Harry started on a run. "There's no school because there's to be a general hunt for Greg."
The volunteer firemen of Gridley were among the first to reach fire headquarters. The few regulars of the fire department could not leave their posts. They must be on hand in case of fires starting.
But the police, the local militia officers and a few fire-department officials were quickly gathered and ready to lead searching parties. As swiftly as could be, the fire chief detailed the leaders for the parties that were to go in the various directions.
The boys of Gridley were left to join which ever searching parties they chose.
"Which crowd shall we go with?" asked Tom Reade.
"I think we'd better go with the crowd that's going up the river road," hinted Dick. "Have the rest of you any better plan?"
No member of Dick & Co. had a better suggestion to make, so Dick's plan prevailed.
There were some twenty men in the party that went up along the river road, and more than a dozen boys. Captain Hall, of the Gridley militia company, commanded this expedition.
"Now, just as soon as we get out into the country," explained Captain Hall, as they started, "we shall do well to spread out. We can cover a wide range of ground, and yet keep within hearing of each other, so that we can signal."
The first part of the road was covered rapidly. Out in the rural part Captain Hall halted his searching party and disposed of the men and boys under his command.
The line, when it moved forward again, extended into the fields for a considerable distance on each side of the road. Everyone had a complete description of Greg's clothing and hat when he had last left home. All were instructed, also, to look for a gunny sack, or any fragments thereof, for Greg had carried such a sack with him on his expedition up the river, and this sack had not yet been found.
"Even a shred of that sack, if found, may form a most important clue," added Captain Hall impressively. "I'll keep to the road. If a searcher finds anything that he regards as a clue, let him pass the word along to me as rapidly as possible. Then we'll halt the whole line, on each side, until that clue has been investigated. Don't any of you boys--or men, either, for that matter--get any idea that he's just tramping for pleasure. There is no telling who may have the luck to find a clue that will soon lead to the end of the search. Now, forward!"
It was with a sincere good will and much straining of eyes that the hunt started. It proved to be slow work. Every now and then some seeker came across what he thought might prove a clue, and then the line halted.
Many times footprints were the cause of halting the line. One set of footprints that a man found, and on which he passed the signal, proved, when measured by Captain Hall's tape measure, to be the prints of a pair of number-ten boots.
"Greg Holmes, a thirteen-year-old boy, hadn't feet of that size," remarked the militia officer almost sharply. "We know that young Holmes wears a number four boot."
Still the line dragged on. Noon came, finding the searching party about a mile above Payson's and in wilder country. Some of the men were decidedly hungry, as were also all of the boys.
Captain Hall's whistle blew sharply, bringing in his forces.
"We never thought, of course, of provisioning this expedition," said the officer, with a smile. "Do you see that farmhouse ahead? Spread out your line again, and look for me to signal when we come up with that farmhouse. If the folks living there have any food that they will sell, I'll pay for it, and we'll halt a few minutes to stoke up for more steam."
There was a cheer at this announcement, after which the line spread out again. Ten minutes later a halt was made at the farmhouse, and the flanks of the searching party came in. The farmer's wife, it turned out, had an assortment of food that she was willing to sell at a rather good price. On this assorted stuff the searchers fed, washing it all down with glasses of milk. Then the search was taken up once more.
"We're moving about a mile an hour now," Dave called across to Dick, as the Grammar School boys, away out on the right flank, tramped through a stretch of woods. "Greg may be a hundred miles from here at this minute. Question--what day in the week shall we have the luck to come up with him?"
"We're doing the best we can," Dick called back.
"Don't pass along that old chestnut that 'angels can do no better,'" grimaced Dave.
"Well, could they?"
"I don't know. But do you expect that we'll ever find Greg, moving along in this fashion?"
"Honestly, I don't," Dick called across. "But we're following the scheme laid down by wiser and older heads than ours, and I haven't any better plan to suggest. Have you?"
"I----" began Dave, but finished with: "Hang that branch! It flew back and hit me!"
"Look where you're going," called Prescott, as he climbed over a wall. "For your information, Dave, I'll say that we're coming to a road now."
Tom Reade, on Dick's right hand, and Harry Hazelton, on Dave's left, were also jumping into the road, which they started to cross hurriedly.
"Halt!" cried Prescott, and stood like one transfixed, staring down at the ground.
"What have you found?" jeered Tom. "A gold mine?"
"Better--I believe!" cried Dick joyously. "Hustle here, fellows! No--don't crowd too close or you'll trample it out."
"What do you see?" demanded Hazelton.
"This," answered Prescott, pointing down to the ground. His chums peered, too, and made out a very distinct footprint in the soft soil of this wild, little-used road through the woods.
"There's been a horse and wagon along here, too," Dick went on excitedly. "See the fresh wheeltracks, and the marks of the horse's hoofs?"
"But only that one bootprint," objected Tom. "It doesn't seem to me that it means much."
Dick gazed reproachfully at his grouped chums, his eyes blazing with excitement in the meantime.
"Say, don't you fellows remember how Greg ripped off the lower part of his left bootheel at football practice Friday afternoon?"
"Yes," admitted Dan Dalzell. "But how does this print prove----"
"I see!" broke in Dave Darrin tremulously. "This print, at the rear end, is from the same sort of heel."
"It surely is," nodded Dick. "Dan, you wear a number-four shoe like Greg's. Come here and let me measure the length of your left shoe with this string. Sit down first."
Young Prescott took the measure with his string, then applied it to the print in the ground.
"Same length, you see," flashed Dick triumphantly. "Fellows, that's Greg Holmes's footprint! You see, the print looks old, as though it had been made a couple of days ago. Yet there's been no rain and it isn't washed away. The footprint looks just about as old as the horse's hoof mark."
"Then you think that Greg took a carriage as far as here?" demanded Tom Reade dubiously.
"He was brought here in some sort of wagon!"
"Go on and read the rest of the page to us," begged Dan Dalzell, still skeptical.
"This was as far as Dexter, or whoever had Greg, wanted to bring him in the wagon," Dick continued, still scanning the ground, while employing his hands to wave away whichever of his chums attempted to come too close. "Probably Greg was taken somewhere not far from here. He may be mighty close to us now, fellows. Let's see. The footprint points straight ahead of us."
"Why isn't there more than one print?" insisted Harry Hazelton.
"Because Greg was probably lifted, so that he wouldn't leave too much of a trail."
"Then why aren't there more prints, especially of the man or men who lifted Greg?" questioned Dave.
"The men didn't intend to leave any trail at all," replied Dick, thinking hard. "Probably the first man down from the wagon landed on that hummock of grass there." Dick moved forward. "Yes, siree! Just look here, fellows--don't crowd too close to it and blot it out. See, there isn't a sharply lined footprint here, but there's a pressing down of the grass, as if some considerable weight had been pressed upon it."
Dick now moved slowly forward, the others on his flanks.
"Here's another footprint--the right foot, but Greg's size," he soon called.
Not one of the Grammar School boys but felt the full force of the excitement now.
"Say!" exploded Tom Reade suddenly. "We've plumb forgotten to pass the signal along to the others in the line."
"It's too late now. They're too far ahead of us," Dick announced. "Besides, if Greg isn't far from here, and if his captors are with him, we don't want to raise too much of a racket and scare the captors away."
"I wish they'd go away, the captors, if they're around here," grinned Dalzell. "Maybe they have guns, and would be cranky enough to use 'em on us, sooner'n give Greg up."
"If you're afraid, Dan, turn around and go back," advised Dick quietly, as he moved slowly forward. "The rest of you keep a sharp lookout for more prints around here."
"Who's afraid?" snapped Dan, his grin fading.
"Here's another footprint!" called Reade, who had ranged slightly ahead of the others.
Dick was quickly at the spot.
"That was made by Greg's left shoe," Prescott swiftly declared.
"Correct," nodded Tom Reade. "Say, fellows, we are on Greg's trail!"
The enthusiasm was "catching" by this time. The little line narrowed and the Grammar School boys pressed forward, tingling with the mystery and excitement of this problem written on the face of old Mother Earth! _