Frank Merriwell's Reward Part 48

"Likely that--thing will begin to walk again pretty soon," said Frank, after they had remained another minute or so in a listening att.i.tude.

"You sit here and watch by this window, while I slip into the corridor."

Hodge obediently dropped into the chair, and Merriwell let himself into the corridor. He closed the door after him, so that if any one approached or entered the corridor that person could not see him, and began his vigil.

The silence was so great that he could hear his watch ticking away in his pocket. It seemed strange that it should run after its salt-water ducking, but he reasoned that probably the works were not touched by the salt water. His clothing had dried long ago, but he felt the need of a change. However, he had taken a bath since reaching the hotel, and so was in a measure comfortable.

There was a great deal to think of as he stood there in the gloom, but the minutes dragged along like weeks. This sort of vigil was rather nerve-trying. He was sure, now that he had time to think about it, that some very little thing might account for the mystery. He began to think that the footsteps had probably been made by some servant or by a somnambulist. Sounds are very deceptive as to direction, as he more than once had discovered. The footsteps might have been at some distance from the corridor.

"But that doesn't explain what I saw and what Bart saw!" he muttered. "I might have thought my eyes deceived me, but Bart saw it, too. That was either Barney Mulloy, or some one who looks marvelously like him. If it was really Barney, then the poor fellow is not dead! I sincerely hope we shall find out that he was not killed. Perhaps the entire newspaper report was based on a mistake. The papers are full of errors."

The sounds did not come again, and when it seemed almost useless to wait longer for them, he returned to the room, where he found Bart watching silently by the window.

"Seen anything?" he asked.

"No. Heard anything?"

"Not a thing."

"I didn't suppose you had, or I should have heard it, too."

"It will probably not reappear to-night."

"Well, I'm not in love with ghosts, but I have been wild to have the thing pa.s.s along that walk again. It wouldn't get away from me this time! I've planned just what to do."

"What?"

"I can reach that walk in three jumps from this window, and it would take a lively ghost to get away from me. I was going right out there the first glimpse I got of it."

"Then you're not afraid of ghosts?" laughed Frank, for there was something amusing in his companion's manner.

"I might be, Merry, if there were any. But I've been thinking as I sat here. I know I saw something, and that something was a man. He didn't look so strong but that I could tumble him over easy enough. That was my plan, and then we could see who it is. It couldn't have been Barney, for all it looked so much like him."

As he spoke, he saw the ghostly figure again, but much farther away. Its face was turned toward the window, and the moonlight revealed it plainly. Beyond all question, it was the face of Barney Mulloy!

Bart went through the open window at a bound.

"Barney!" he called. "Barney Mulloy!"

The mysterious figure drew quickly back into the shrubbery and disappeared. Merriwell sprang through the open window after Hodge, and together they raced to the point where the figure had been seen. When they got there they could discover nothing.

"That was Barney Mulloy!" Merriwell a.s.serted.

"Sure!"

"And he isn't dead!"

"Barney or his spirit!"

"It was Barney."

"Why didn't he stop when I called to him?"

"I don't know. There is a mystery here."

"Biggest one I ever struck, Merry! It knocks me silly."

CHAPTER XXVII.

MERRIWELL'S FRIENDS.

The time was well on toward morning before Merriwell and Hodge turned in to try to get some sleep. No more mysterious sounds or ghostly appearances had been heard or seen. The sun was scarcely up when they were aroused by a trampling of feet and the sounds of well-known voices in the corridor. A rap fell on Merry's door.

"Arise, ye sleepers, and wake--I mean, awake, ye sleepers, and rise!"

shouted Harry Rattleton.

"Come out here and let me pull you out of bed!" grunted Bruce Browning.

"He is sleeping like the sleeper in the sleeper which runs over the sleeper and does not awaken the sleeper in the sleeper which----"

"You give us that sleepy feeling yourself, Danny!" Bink Stubbs grumbled.

Merry tumbled out of bed, unlocked the door, and thrust his head into the corridor. Before him were Bruce and Diamond, Rattleton and Dismal Jones, Bink and Danny, and through the half-open door leading into the office he also caught a glimpse of Elsie Bellwood and Bernard Burrage.

"Glad to see you!" he cried. "Where did you tumble from?"

Bart had his door open now, and began to ask questions.

"I'll be out in a minute," Frank promised, and began to dress with the speed of a lightning-change artist. A little later Merriwell's entire party gathered in the hotel office, for Inza had been awakened and joined them.

Mutual explanations flew thick and fast. Merriwell's friends, after being taken to New York, had shortly fallen in with a party of Yale students, mostly seniors, who had come down from New Haven on the steamer _Richard Peck_, and were on their way to view the new government fortifications at Sandy Hook, by special permission of General Merritt, commander of the Department of the East. This permission had been obtained by Lieutenant Andrew Bell, of the First United States Artillery, who had recently been detailed by the secretary of war as professor of military science in Yale College.

Merriwell's friends had been invited to join this company of students, that they might the more quickly reach their friends, and had been brought to Sandy Hook by the government steamer _General Meigs_. From Sandy Hook the steamer's large steam-launch had hurried them on to Glen Springs.

"And now you are going right back with us to Sandy Hook!" Elsie enthusiastically exclaimed.

Suddenly a silence fell on the jolly party, occasioned by the shadow that came over the face of Frank Merriwell.

"I can't go until we have settled the mystery of Barney Mulloy," he declared; and then gave a hurried account of what he and Bart had seen and heard.

"I hoped you wouldn't say nothin' about that!" grumbled the landlord, who had been until then an interested listener.

Up to that moment he had seemed pleased, though nervous, for it gratified him to have guests who were of sufficient importance to be brought to Glen Springs by the launch of a government steamer.

"This must be all nonsense, you know!" he declared. "And I can't have any such reports go out about my house. If it gits the reputation of being ha'nted, then good-by business. I won't have a guest set foot in the doorway all summer. I know these people who claim not to be superst.i.tious. They ain't superst.i.tious so long as other people sees things, but they git confoundedly so soon's they begin to see things themselves."