The Daughter of Anderson Crow Part 22

"Come on!" called back the intrepid leader, seeing that all save the marshal had halted. "You don't need the lantern. It's still daylight, old chap. We'll find out what it was you all saw in the window."

"That's the last of him," muttered Isaac Porter, as the broad back disappeared through the low aperture that was called a doorway. There were no window sashes or panes in the house, and the door had long since rotted from the hinges.

"He'll never come out. Let's go home," added Ed Higgins conclusively.

"Are you coming?" sang out Bonner from the interior of the house. His voice sounded prophetically sepulchral.

"Consarn it, cain't you wait a minute?" replied Anderson Crow, still bravely but consistently looking for the much-needed dark lantern.

"It's all right in here. There hasn't been a human being in the house for years. Come on in; it's fine!"

Anderson Crow finally ventured up to the doorway and peeped in. Bonner was standing near the tumbledown fireplace, placidly lighting a cigarette.

"This is a fine job you've put up on me," he growled. "I thought there would be something doing. There isn't a soul here, and there hasn't been, either."

"Thunderation, man, you cain't see ghosts when they don't want you to!"

said Anderson Crow. "It was a ghost, that's settled. I knowed it all the time. Nothin' human ever looked like it, and nothin' alive ever moaned like it did."

By this time the rest of the party had reached the cabin door. The less timorous ventured inside, while others contented themselves by looking through the small windows.

"Well, if you're sure you really saw something, we'd better make a thorough search of the house and the grounds," said Bonner, and forthwith began nosing about the two rooms.

The floors were shaky and the place had the odour of decayed wood. Mould clung to the half-plastered walls, cobwebs matted the ceilings, and rotted fungi covered the filth in the corners. Altogether it was a most uninviting hole, in which no self-respecting ghost would have made its home. When the time came to climb up to the little garret Bonner's followers rebelled. He was compelled to go alone, carrying the lantern, which one of the small boys had found. This part of the house was even more loathsome than below, and it would be impossible to describe its condition. He saw no sign of life, and retired in utter disgust. Then came the trip to the cellar. Again he had no followers, the Tinkletown men emphatically refusing to go down where old Mrs. Rank's body had been buried. Bonner laughed at them and went down alone. It was nauseous with age and the smell of damp earth, but it was cleaner there than above stairs. The cellar was smaller than either of the living rooms, and was to be reached only through the kitchen. There was no exit leading directly to the exterior of the house, but there was one small window at the south end. Bonner examined the room carefully and then rejoined the party. For some reason the posse had retired to the open air as soon as he left them to go below. No one knew exactly why, but when one started to go forth the others followed with more or less alacrity.

"Did you see anything?" demanded the marshal.

"What did old Mrs. Rank look like when she was alive?" asked Bonner with a beautifully mysterious air. No one answered; but there was a sudden shifting of feet backward, while an expression of alarmed inquiry came into every face. "Don't back into that open well," warned the amused young man in the doorway. Anderson Crow looked sharply behind, and flushed indignantly when he saw that the well was at least fifty feet away. "I saw something down there that looked like a woman's toe," went on Bonner very soberly.

"Good Lord! What did I tell you?" cried the marshal, turning to his friends. To the best of their ability they could not remember that Anderson had told them anything, but with one accord the whole party nodded approval.

"I fancy it was the ghost of a toe, however, for when I tried to pick it up it wriggled away, and I think it chuckled. It disappear--what's the matter? Where are you going?"

It is only necessary to state that the marshal and his posse retreated in good order to a distant spot where it was not quite so dark, there to await the approach of Wicker Bonner, who leisurely but laughingly inspected the exterior of the house and the grounds adjoining. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, except as to dilapidation, he rejoined the party with palpable displeasure in his face.

"Well, I think I'll go back to the ice," he said; "that place is as quiet as the grave. You are a fine lot of jokers, and I'll admit that the laugh is on me."

But Bonner was mystified, uncertain. He had searched the house thoroughly from top to bottom, and he had seen nothing unusual, but these men and boys were so positive that he could not believe the eyes of all had been deceived.

"This interests me," he said at last. "I'll tell you what we'll do, Mr.

Crow. You and I will come down here to-night, rig up a tent of some sort and divide watch until morning. If there is anything to be seen we'll find out what it is. I'll get a couple of straw mattresses from our boathouse and--"

"I've got rheumatiz, Mr. Bonner, an' it would be the death o' me to sleep in this swamp," objected Anderson hastily.

"Well, I'll come alone, then. I'm not afraid. I don't mean to say I'll sleep in that old shack, but I'll bunk out here in the woods. No human being could sleep in that place. Will any one volunteer to keep me company?"

Silence.

"I don't blame you. It does take nerve, I'll confess. My only stipulation is that you shall come down here from the village early to-morrow morning. I may have something of importance to tell you, Mr.

Crow."

"We'll find his dead body," groaned old Mr. Borton.

"Say, mister," piped up a shrill voice, "I'll stay with you." It was Bud who spoke, and all Tinkletown was afterward to resound with stories of his bravery. The boy had been silently admiring the bold sportsman from Boston town, and he was ready to cast his lot with him in this adventure. He thrilled with pleasure when the big hero slapped him on the back and called him the only man in the crowd.

At eight o'clock that night Bonner and the determined but trembling Bud came up the bank from the river and pitched a tent among the trees near the haunted house. From the sledge on the river below they trundled up their bedding and their stores. Bud had an old single-barrel shotgun, a knife and a pipe, which he was just learning to smoke; Bonner brought a Navajo blanket, a revolver and a heavy walking stick. He also had a large flask of whiskey and the pipe that had graduated from Harvard with him.

At nine o'clock he put to bed in one of the chilly nests a very sick boy, who hated to admit that the pipe was too strong for him, but who felt very much relieved when he found himself wrapped snugly in the blankets with his head tucked entirely out of sight. Bud had spent the hour in regaling Bonner with the story of Rosalie Gray's abduction and his own heroic conduct in connection with the case. He confessed that he had knocked one of the villains down, but they were too many for him.

Bonner listened politely and then--put the hero to bed.

Bonner dozed off at midnight. An hour or so later he suddenly sat bolt upright, wide awake and alert. He had the vague impression that he was deathly cold and that his hair was standing on end.

CHAPTER XVIII

The Men in the Sleigh

Let us go back to the night on which Rosalie was seized and carried away from Mrs. Luce's front gate, despite the valiant resistance of her youthful defenders.

Rosalie had drooned Thackeray to the old lady until both of them were dozing, and it was indeed a welcome relief that came with Roscoe's resounding thumps on the front door. Mrs. Luce was too old to be frightened out of a year's growth, but it is perfectly safe to agree with her that the noise cost her at least three months.

Desperately blue over the defection of Elsie Banks, Rosalie had found little to make her evening cheerful indoors, but the fresh, crisp air set her spirits bounding the instant she closed Mrs. Luce's door from the outside. We have only to refer to Roscoe's lively narrative for proof of what followed almost instantly. She was seized, her head tightly wrapped in a thick cloak or blanket; then she was thrown into a sleigh, and knew nothing more except a smothering sensation and the odour of chloroform.

When she regained consciousness she was lying on the ground in the open air, dark night about her. Three men were standing nearby, but there was no vehicle in sight. She tried to rise, but on account of her bonds was powerless to do so. Speech was prevented by the cloth which closed her lips tightly. After a time she began to grasp the meaning of the muttered words that pa.s.sed between the men.

"You got the rig in all right, Bill--you're sure that no one heard or saw you?" were the first questions she could make out, evidently arising from a previous report or explanation.

"Sure. Everybody in these parts goes to bed at sundown. They ain't got nothing to do but sleep up 'ere."

"n.o.body knows we had that feller's sleigh an' horses out--n.o.body ever will know," said the big man, evidently the leader. She noticed they called him Sam.

"Next thing is to git her across the river without leavin' any tracks.

We ain't on a travelled road now, pals; we got to be careful. I'll carry her down to the bank; but be sure to step squarely in my footprints--it'll look like they were made by one man. See?"

"The river's froze over an' we can't be tracked on the ice. It's too dark, too, for any one to see us. Go ahead, Sammy; it's d---- cold here."

The big man lifted her from the ground as if she were a feather, and she was conscious of being borne swiftly through a stretch of sloping woodland down to the river bank, a journey of two or three hundred yards, it seemed. Here the party paused for many minutes before venturing out upon the wide expanse of frozen river, evidently making sure that the way was clear. Rosalie, her senses quite fully restored by this time, began to a.n.a.lyse the situation with a clearness and calmness that afterward was the object of considerable surprise to her. Instead of being hysterical with fear, she was actually experiencing the thrill of a real emotion. She had no doubt but that her abductors were persons hired by those connected with her early history, and, strange as it may seem, she could not believe that bodily harm was to be her fate after all these years of secret attention on the part of those so deeply, though remotely, interested.

Somehow there raced through her brain the exhilarating conviction that at last the mystery of her origin was to be cleared away, and with it all that had been as a closed book. No thought of death entered her mind at that time. Afterward she was to feel that death would be most welcome, no matter how it came.

Her captors made the trip across the river in dead silence. There was no moon and the night was inky black. The exposed portions of her face tingled with cold, but she was so heavily wrapped in the blanket that her body did not feel the effects of the zero weather.

At length the icy stretch was pa.s.sed, and after resting a few minutes, Sam proceeded to ascend the steep bank with her in his arms. Why she was not permitted to walk she did not know then or afterward. It is possible, even likely, that the men thought their charge was unconscious. She did nothing to cause them to think otherwise. Again they pa.s.sed among trees, Sam's companions following in his footprints as before. Another halt and a brief command for Davy to go ahead and see that the coast was clear came after a long and tortuous struggle through the underbrush. Twice they seemed to have lost their bearings in the darkness, but eventually they came into the open.

"Here we are!" grunted Sam as they hurried across the clearing. "A hard night's work, pals, but I guess we're in Easy Street now. Go ahead, Davy, an' open the trap!"

Davy swore a mighty but sibilant oath and urged his thick, ugly figure ahead of the others.