As she moved toward the car door to reconnoiter, the sense of an invisible presence suddenly possessed her. Instinctively she turned.
One glance behind her and every fiber of her body seemed to turn to stone. Fear she had known, but never terror such as this. She stood paralyzed, unable to close her eyes, unable to move. For there beside her, towering above her in horrible strength, with wildly grinning face and cruelly outreaching claws, stood the thing that gave explanation to the hunt outside and the shouting. Pauline was in the clutches of a gorilla. She fainted as she felt herself gripped in the hairy arms.
Wrentz was gloating as he stood on watch over Pauline"s hiding place.
In a little while the men, would be out of the railroad yard and he would go down and finish the work. But his rejoicings were turned into amazement by the sight which now presented itself at the door of the car.
With Pauline, carried over one arm as if she had been a wisp of straw, the gorilla was crawling down to the trackside. Wrentz saw it crawl along the ditch and heard the crunch of broken bushes as the huge creature clambered up the cliff.
Wondering, scarcely able to believe his eyes, Wrentz followed at a safe distance.
Young Policeman Blount, searching for the fugitive chauffeur of the wrecked automobile and the mysterious young woman who had escaped from it, paused at the sound of heavy foot-falls. A low, guttural, snarling sound--a sound hardly human--accompanied the footsteps. He had reached the bottom of the cliff a half mile from where Pauline had found her perilous shelter. Peering up through the bushes, his astonishment and horror were a match for the astonishment and joy of Wrentz. The gorilla, with Pauline still clutched in the mighty paw, had reached almost the top of the cliff at its steepest point.
Blount blew his whistle, blast after blast. He started up the cliff, but came back at the sound of hurrying footsteps and calls; the hunters from the railroad yards had heard the signal.
"h.e.l.lo! Have you seen anything of the gorilla?" yelled the first man to come up.
Blount pointed up the cliff side to where the hideous beast was just dragging Pauline over the topmost ledge.
The men stood spell-bound with pity.
"A girl!" gasped one of them. "She"s as good as dead, if she isn"t dead now. He just killed our foreman back in the yards."
"No, thank heaven!" cried Blount, "she"s not dead. Look!"
At the top of the cliff they saw Pauline"s form suddenly quicken into life. The gorilla had released its hold upon her to make sure of its footing on the perilous ledge. Now she stood, a frail, pitiful, hopeless thing, fighting--actually a.s.sailing the beast, more mighty than a dozen men.
Their hearts sick within them they watched the brief struggle. Wrentz, too, watched it, from his hiding place on the top of the cliff. But his heart was not sick. In a moment, he was sure, his work would be accomplished for him, and his employer would be rid of Pauline Marvin in a way that could reflect no blame on any one.
Blount started up the cliff. He took it for granted that the others would follow, but looking down after gaining half the distance, he saw the circus men still huddled together in fascinated awe.
"Look! Look!" they called to him. "He"s taking her up the tree."
Blount looked and saw the gorilla climbing ponderously the trunk of a large tree, the branches of which overhung the precipice. Blount climbed on frantically. He stopped again. The gorilla was crawling out upon one of the overhanging branches! The strange beast-brain had conceived a death for Pauline more terrible than any Raymond Owen bad ever plotted. Wrentz himself might have envied the gorilla.
Blount drew his revolver. He was not more than a hundred feet below them now. "It"s the chance of hitting her against the chance of saving her," he muttered. He fired. With a snarl of pain the gorilla turned and bit savagely at its shoulder. Blount rushed on. He stopped again and fired. He was at the verge of the cliff. He could blaze away now with no danger of hitting Pauline, for he was a sure marksman.
With a great throb of joy in his heart the gallant young fellow saw the beast turn, and, leaving Pauline with her arms around the limb, her eyes shut against the dizzy depths below, move back and scramble down.
Blount was on the cliff-top as the gorilla reached the ground. The beast charged. Blount fired again. Again the gorilla, snarling, bit at its wounded side, but it came an as if a dozen lives vitalized the gross body.
Blount backed away from the cliff, but the monster was upon him. It clutched him, hurled him to ground, dragged him back to the dizzy verge.
Slowly Blount was pressed over the precipice. The watchers below saw him in his last struggle writhe in the deathly grasp, twist his revolver and fire three shots into the heart of the gorilla.
Down the long fall to the jagged rocks went the beast.
Pauline was bending over the bleeding, battered form of the young officer when the circus crew reached them.
"Oh, you are brave, brave!" she cried.
He opened his eyes and grinned merrily. "If I"m brave, I"d like to know what you are."
"Oh, I"m not brave, I"m nothing but a selfish little pig," cried Pauline. "I"ve treated the dearest fellow in the world shamefully.
He"s forgiven me over and over, but he won"t forgive me this time."
"He"ll forgive you anything, Mim," Blount a.s.sured her, "for the sake of getting you safe back. But I shouldn"t like to be the man who got you into this, when he hears of it."
"The man"s safe enough," said Burgess, who had just up in time to hear Blount"s last words.
"No, he didn"t escape that way," as Blount uttered an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of disgust. "He ran full tilt into me and when I tried to arrest him he drew his revolver on me. By good luck I got him first--yes, Jo, he"s dead."
"Dead," repeated Pauline in a low tone. "How horrible to go out of life a moment after you had tried to commit murder."
"It"s not his first," Burgess said coolly. "We"ve been after him and his gang these six months. It was Wrentz, Jo, and I made a haul of papers that"ll get somebody into trouble."
"Oh, don"t hurt the young one," cried Pauline. "He tried to help me."
"Rocco? He was dead when they picked him up. And, now, Miss Marvin, hadn"t I better get you a taxi?"
"Yes, thank you, but," with irrepressible curiosity, "how did you know me?"
Burgess smiled. "How did I know you? I beg your pardon, Miss, but for nearly a year your picture"s been in every paper, more or less, in the United States. You"re a big head-liner--it"s an honor to meet you, face to face. But it"s Blount has all the luck. He"s saved you--he"ll be a head-liner himself tomorrow."
The hot color rushed over Pauline"s face. "A head-liner"--so that was what she meant to the public, to the man on the street.
"Please, Please, don"t let this get into the Papers," she begged.
"I"ll do anything in the world for you if you"ll just keep it out of the papers."
"Will you tell us about those other adventures?"
Burgess asked eagerly. "It"s a sure thing that somebody"s been pulling the wires, making you walk the tight rope, and somebody that knows everything you do. Any man on the force who could spot him would be made."
"No, no," Pauline insisted, an uneasy remembrance of Harry"s suspicions lending emphasis to her denial. "Some of those things were done before anybody out of the house could know."
"Just as I said," Burgess agreed triumphantly.
"It"s somebody in the house. Why he knew about your bull terrier, and the papers had it had just been given you the day before--darned clever little dog to give your folks the clue."
"Cyrus?" Pauline"s face broke into smiles and dimples. "He"s the cleverest, dearest, most beautiful dog in the world."
"Fine dog, yes Miss, if he"s like the picture the reporters got."
Pauline"s face clouded--for the moment she had forgotten the horrors of publicity.
"You won"t put this in the papers?" she pleaded.
"He shan"t," Blount raised himself weakly on his elbow. "If the reporters haven"t got it already, we"ll keep you out of it anyhow, Miss."