Danny Orlis Goes to School (5 page)

"Tell him that I've gone!" Larry stammered. "Please, Danny!"

Danny shook his head.

"But they'll put me in reform school if they get me!"

At that moment the basement door opened, and Clarence Gray was standing at the head of the stairs, his big frame almost filling the doorway.

"Hello, Danny," he said in surprise. "I didn't expect to see you."

"I...I live here," the young woodsman managed.

"That's something," Clarence replied. "Here you are helping me, and the guys we're after live right in the same house with you." He turned to Larry. "Are you the one who owns the sending set?"

Larry shook his head, his lips quivering.

Clarence Gray walked over to one of the chairs in the corner and sat down.

"Now listen, son." he said gently, "it isn't going to do any good for you to act like that. We've got all the evidence we need."

Larry's cheeks flushed angrily. "Yes, and I know where you got it too!" he snapped. "Danny squealed on me!"

"No," Clarence replied evenly. "Danny didn't squeal on you."

"I was going to keep my promise, Clarence," Danny said earnestly. "Less than ten minutes ago I told Larry that I was going to get in touch with you."

"I'm glad to know that." Clarence had taken his little notebook and pencil from his pocket and turned to Larry.

"Ordinarily," he said, "we have a little difficulty in locating illegal broadcasters, Larry. But this time our Adcocks—that's the apparatus we use to locate broadcasting stations—hit the spot right on the button."

Larry was staring at the floor.

"Nobody gets away with this sort of thing very long," the government agent went on. "You hadn't been on the air thirty minutes last night until we knew within a mile of the spot where you were doing your broadcasting."

"But the guys didn't mean any harm, Clarence," Danny put in.

"The people in the plane that crashed in the mountains last night because Larry and his friends interfered with the radio beam didn't mean any harm either," Clarence said coldly.

A look of horror flashed across Larry's face.

"We can thank God that nobody was seriously injured," Clarence went on, "but $150,000 worth of airplane was destroyed."

He asked the questions rapidly, jotting down the answers in his notebook. He got Larry's license number, the names and addresses of all the guys who had taken part in the broadcast, and a list of those who had stations of their own.

"W-what are you going to do now?" Larry managed at last.

"We'll see about that later," Clarence told him.

He got to his feet and picked up his hat. "I'll be wanting to talk to you, Danny."

When he had finally gone, Larry turned anxiously to the young woodsman. "What can I do?" he asked tensely.

Danny walked slowly over to the door and closed it. His throat was hot and dry, and his heart was a lump of ice.

"I don't know," he answered.

"I should have listened to you," Larry went on.

Danny said nothing.

"If we had quit broadcasting when you asked us to, that plane might not have crashed, and we wouldn't be in so much trouble."

"It's too late to think about that now," Danny told him. "I don't know what you can do to get things straightened out, but I do know how you can get the courage to face whatever happens." Larry looked at him in disbelief.

"You know, you're in real trouble now," Danny said, "but God knows all about it. He's anxious to help."

"What do you mean?" Larry asked quickly.

"I don't mean that God will straighten out all this mess," the young woodsman replied. "He doesn't usually work that way. If we do something wrong, we have to pay the penalty for it here on earth, even though it is wiped off the record in Heaven. But He will stand by you and help and guide and strengthen you if you give your heart to Him."

"I...I'd always thought a Christian was pretty much of a sissy," his cousin answered, more to himself than to Danny.

"You'll find out differently after you give your heart to Him," Danny said.

Just then Aunt Lydia called them up to breakfast.

Larry got to his feet hurriedly. "I...I'll talk to you again tonight, Danny."

The young woodsman had intended to walk to school with Larry, but while he was down in his room getting his books, his cousin hiked off alone.

Danny tried to study that morning, but for some reason he couldn't. All he could think of was Larry and Clarence. He tried to see Larry a couple of times between classes, but couldn't find him. And at noon he waited for him on the school steps.

"Have you seen Larry?" he asked Glen as his Christian friend came up.

"He wasn't in school this morning."

"Are you sure?"

"Come to think of it," Glen said after a moment, "I saw Larry and Joe Peterson walking up the Iron Mountain road as I came to school."

For an instant Danny could not speak. Joe and Larry had been walking toward the mountains on an obscure little trail that went up Iron Mountain. That meant only one thing! They were running away!

“
People were in that plane that crashed last night because of you!”

THE CABIN ON THE MOUNTAIN

"
W
HAT'S
the matter?" Glen demanded.

"It's Joe and Larry," Danny said, his lips scarcely forming the words. "They...they ran away!"

"But why?"

Hurriedly the young woodsman told him how the F.C.C. agents had been able to locate the sending set by means of the Adcock devices. He told him how Clarence had taken the story from Larry and hinted that the whole gang might be arrested.

"We've got to find them!" Danny went on excitedly. "Larry wasn't dressed warm enough to go up into the mountains. He...he'll freeze if he gets up where it's cold!"

"W-w-what are we going to do?" Glen asked.

"We've got to get home and tell Aunt Lydia and Uncle Claude," the young woodsman answered.

"We've got to get somebody to hunt for them!"

Together the two boys dashed down the wide street to the place where Danny's aunt and uncle lived.

"Aunt Lydia!" Danny called as they threw open the front door and burst into the living room. There was no answer.

"I...I don't think there's anyone at home," Glen panted.

And then Danny spied the note on the kitchen table.

"Dear boys," he read. "I've gone to Denver with Dad. We'll be back late tonight or early tomorrow."

"What are we going to do now?" Glen asked, his round face white and serious.

"I don't know," Danny answered hesitantly. "Do you have any idea where the guys might have gone?"

"There's an old scout cabin up on Iron Mountain," Glen replied after a moment or two. "It isn't used very much, but I know Larry used to hike up there once in a while."

"That could be just the place!" Danny exclaimed. "We've got to go up there and see!"

"You...you mean right now?" Glen echoed. "Without even going to school this afternoon?"

"We couldn't wait until after school!" Danny retorted. "Larry's desperate! There's no telling what might happen if we wait! I'll go and call the principal while you call your mother."

Quickly Danny and Glen wolfed down their lunch, got into heavy coats, and hurried up the old Iron Mountain road on their bikes.

"We can ride out to where the road ends," Glen explained. "Then we'll have to take the trail up the mountain on foot."

Danny nodded. "O God," he prayed, "be with Larry and Joe. Guide them and keep them from harm. O Lord, just...just help them to use their heads and...and decide to come back. In Jesus' name. Amen."

They rode for five or six miles on their bikes until the road got steeper and steeper and finally ended altogether at the base of the rocky, forbidding mountain.

"We must have gained an hour or so on them," Glen said as they hid their bikes behind a big clump of brush and stood for a moment catching their breath.

"Yes," the young woodsman replied, "but they've still got a good three or four hours' head start on us."

Glen took a few steps up the trail. "But we'll find them," he said. "We've just got to!"

"If Larry had only taken Jesus as his Saviour this morning," Danny continued. "He was so close to it that he couldn't have gotten any closer without giving his heart to Christ. If he had, this wouldn't have happened."

His companion nodded in agreement. "Look!" he exclaimed an instant later, pointing to a pair of footprints in the soft dirt at the edge of the trail. "They've gone this way, all right!"

Quickly Danny ran forward and dropped to his knees to examine the footprints. "It's theirs, all right," he said a moment later. "And from the looks of these footprints it hasn't been too long since they went by here."

"Maybe we're not so far behind them after all!" Glen said hopefully.

Danny wasn't used to mountain climbing, but he was able to keep up with Glen as they made their way upward. They didn't talk much. It took breath to talk—breath they needed in the long, steep climb.

Nevertheless, Danny was praying with every step.

Every now and then they stopped to rest, throwing themselves on the ground and breathing in long, rasping gasps.

It was cold outside and getting colder, but they were sweating beneath their coats. The clouds that had been lurking about the mountaintop when they first started out had inched past them now and almost covered the sky. Now and then a few flakes of snow fell, and the wind was rising steadily. Up in the Angle those signs would mean a storm.

"H-how much farther is it?"

"Oh, we're halfway or a little better," Glen said. "But the going gets harder when we work over on the north face of the mountain."

It was going to storm. The clouds had closed in about them, completely blotting out the sun, and on the slopes above they could see that snow was already falling.

"Maybe we'd better go back!" Glen said almost fearfully.

"But we can't!" Danny exclaimed. "Larry and Joe are up there somewhere!"

"We'd better hurry, then!"

They climbed even faster than they had, pushing themselves until their arms and legs ached desperately.

It had looked as though it would start snowing any minute, but strangely enough it held off although it kept growing darker continually.

It was Glen who spotted the wreckage of the plane below them, a mile or so around the mountain to the east.

"Look," he said, pointing at the wreckage. "There's the plane that crashed last night."

Danny shuddered.

"You don't suppose they'd go over there and take a look at it, do you?" Glen asked.

"I don't think they'd ever want to see it," Danny replied.

After five or ten minutes of climbing, Glen stopped once more.

"Take it easy for the next hundred yards or so," he said. "We've got to cross the face of this cliff, and it's two or three hundred feet straight down."

Danny gulped hard.

Slowly, cautiously he edged his way along the narrow, crumbling ledge, his fingers digging into holes in the rough granite, and his feet feeling for good, solid footing. He dared not look down. After what seemed to be an hour or two he finally got across the cliff to the safety of the boulders and scrub pine.

"Whew!" he exclaimed. "Hope I don't have to do that again, ever."

It wasn't far to the cabin, and they hurried now, clambering up the steep slope and around the boulders until at last they reached it.

"There!" Glen exclaimed when at last they saw it through the trees.

There was no sign of anyone around the little log cabin. There was no sign that anyone had been there recently.

"O God, help us to find them!" Danny prayed as they threw open the door.

But the little room was empty!

T
HE CALL FOR HELP

D
ANNY
Orlis pushed past Glen and stepped slowly into the dark, cold, musty cabin. His heart was hammering in his throat, and his mouth went hot and dry.

"They aren't here!" he gasped.

Glen Davis's face was white, and his lower lip was quivering. "Maybe they went on," he said at last.

But Danny shook his head. He was looking past his companion toward the snow-filled sky and the dark shadows that were rapidly covering the mountains. "No," he said dully. "Look at the cobwebs and the dust on the floor. There hasn't been anyone in this cabin for weeks!"

"What do you suppose happened to them?" Glen asked, his voice taut with fear.

Danny stepped outside, shuddering as he felt the snow, wet and cold against his cheek.

For a split second his heart faltered. Back along the trail a few hundred yards was the cliff that seemed to drop off into nothingness. If one of them had slipped there—Danny bit his lips and grimly forced the thought from his mind.

"They just couldn't disappear," he said. "They have got to be somewhere."

Glen turned, his eyes widening with excitement. "I just thought of something!" he exclaimed. "Larry never used to follow the regular trail all the way up. He always took a short cut!"