A MYSTERY.
The traveling in the gorge was quite as difficult as the two friends
expected to find it. The bushes on each side were so thick that they
could not walk on the bank, and the bed of the stream was covered with
rocks and boulders, over which they slipped and stumbled at every step.
Now and then the way was obstructed by deep, dark pools which would
have gladdened the eye of an angler, for it is in such places that the
"sockdolagers" of the brook abide. But Tom and his companion looked
upon them as so many obstacles that were to be overcome with as little
delay as possible.
They floundered through them without stopping to see how deep they
were, and before they had left their camp half a mile behind, their
high rubber boots were full of water.
The gorge was beginning to grow dark when Tom, after taking a survey of
the bank over his head, announced that they were just about opposite
Silas Morgan's wood-pile, and that it was time for them to find a place
to climb out.
"I am overjoyed to hear it," said Bob, seating himself on the nearest
boulder. "But it's going to be hard work to get up there, the first
thing you know, because we've got several pounds more weight to carry
than we had when we started. This is worse than the windfall."
While Bob was resting, Tom walked slowly down the gorge, hoping to find
a spot where the bushes were not so thick, and the bank easy of ascent;
but before he had gone a dozen yards, his footsteps were arrested by an
occurrence that was as startling as it was unexpected.
The thicket in front of him was suddenly and violently agitated, and
an instant afterward there arose from it the most blood-curdling
sound the boys had ever heard. An Indian war-whoop could not compare
with it--they were certain of that. It was not a shriek, a laugh or a
groan, but it was a combination of all three; and it was so loud and
penetrating that the echoes caught it up and repeated it, until the
hideous sound seemed to fill the air all around them.
Tom came to a sudden standstill, and the face he turned toward his
companion was as white as a sheet.
Bob was frightened, too, but he retained his wits and his power of
action, and his first thought was to put a safe distance between
himself and the thing, whatever it was, that could make a noise like
that.
Without saying a word he arose from his seat, dived into the bushes and
began scrambling up the bank. How he got to the top he never knew (he
afterward affirmed that in some places the bank was as straight up and
down as the side of a house), but he reached it in an incredibly short
space of time, and turned about to find Tom close at his heels.
"What in the name of sense and Tom Walker was it?" panted Bob,
pulling out his handkerchief and mopping his forehead, on which the
perspiration stood in great beads.
"I give it up," gasped Tom. "It must be something awful, if one may
judge by the screeching it is able to do. I heard a couple of laughing
hyenas give a solo and chorus in a menagerie once, and I thought I
should never get the sound out of my ears; but that thing in the gulf
can beat them out of sight. I'm going home now, but I'll come up here
to-morrow with Bugle and Uncle Hallet's Winchester, and if I can make
the dog drive him out of the bushes so that I can get a fair sight at
him, I'll pump him so full of holes that he'll never make any more of
that noise."
Tom at once drew a bee line for his uncle's house, and Bob fell in
behind him. When they reached the wood-pile, he proposed that they
should sit down and rest and compare notes. He was still quite nervous
and uneasy, while Bob, who had had leisure to look at the matter in all
its bearings, was as serene and unruffled as usual.
"Well, what do you think of it by this time?" inquired the latter.
"I don't think anything about it," replied Tom; "it is quite beyond me.
But this much I know: That thing has got to be 'neutralized' before I
will consent to come up here and live as Uncle Hallet's game-warden."
"Aha!" exclaimed Bob, with a laugh, "didn't you assure me that we
wouldn't hear anything go b-r-r-r?"
"Yes, and I'll stick to it; but there's something in these mountains
that I don't want to hear screaming around our cabin this winter, now I
tell you. What kind of a beast do you think it was, anyway? You heard a
panther screech while you were hunting in Michigan last winter. Did he
make a noise like that?"
"No," answered Bob; "it wasn't a beast, either."
"What makes you say that?"
"I have two very good reasons. In the first place, if there are any
animals in these mountains that are more to be feared than the wolves,
they have found hiding-places so secure that the hunters have not been
able to discover them for ten years and better. In the next place, if
that thing in the gulf is a beast of prey, he would not have given us
notice of his presence. He would have waited till we came close to the
bushes so that he could jump out and grab one of us."
"That's so," said Tom. "Well, go on; what was it?"
"You placed our robbers' cave down there, didn't you?"
"Oh, get out!" exclaimed Tom; "I'm in no humor for nonsense. I was
badly frightened, and I haven't got over it yet."
"Neither have I. I am in dead earnest. There's somebody down there in
the gulf, and he took that way to let us know that he didn't want us to
come any nearer to him."
"It was Silas Morgan, for a million dollars!" exclaimed Tom, who needed
no more words to convince him that his friend's reasoning was correct.
"It's perfectly clear to me now. He didn't waste any time in going
after that money, did he?"
"Quite the contrary. He has been so very quick about it, that I'm
inclined to believe it wasn't Silas at all; but if it was he, why is he
camping there?"
"Camping?" repeated Tom.
"Yes. Just before that horrid shriek came out of the bushes, I thought
I could smell burning wood; but I didn't have time to call your
attention to it."
"Perhaps the mountain is on fire somewhere."
"Oh, I guess not. If that was the case, we'd smell the smoke now,
wouldn't we?"
"That's so," said Tom, again. "Well, who's down there?"
"I'm sure I don't know; but I am satisfied that it is some one who has
reasons for keeping himself hidden from the world. Now, what's to be
done about it?"
"I don't see that we are obliged to do anything, unless we want to make
ourselves a laughing stock for the whole country," replied Tom, who had
had time to form some ideas of his own. "I couldn't be hired to tell
Uncle Hallet of it, because he would ask, right away, 'Why didn't you
go ahead and find out what it was that frightened you? You are pretty
fellows to talk about living up there alone in the woods this winter,
are you not?' And he'd never leave off poking fun at us. No doubt there
is a party of guests from the hotel down there, and one of them yelled
at us just for the fun of seeing us scramble up the bank. I only wish
they might stay there long enough to play the same game on Silas Morgan
when he comes after the money that is hidden in the cave."
The two friends spent half an hour or more in comparing notes after
this fashion, but they did not succeed in wholly clearing up the
mystery. They both agreed that it was a man, and not a savage beast of
prey, that was hidden in the gulf; but who the man was, where he came
from, and what he was doing there, were other and deeper questions,
which probably never would be answered.
"I'll tell you what's a fact, Bob," said Tom, as he arose from the
ground and led the way down a well-beaten cow-path that ran toward his
uncle's barn, "We are not the only fellows in the world who like to
play tricks upon others, and I'll venture to say that there is some
one in the gorge at this minute who is laughing at us as heartily as
we laughed at Silas Morgan when he found the letter that we put in his
wood-pile. The guests at the hotel come up here to have fun, and they
don't care much how they get it."
"Perhaps you're right," replied Bob, who nevertheless still held to
the belief that there was some one in the gorge who was hiding there
because he dared not show himself among his fellow-men. "But if I were
sure of it, I should be very much ashamed of myself and you, too.
However, I don't see how we are to get at the bottom of the matter,
unless we go back and interview the party in the gulf; and I can't say
that I am anxious to do that."
There was still another point on which the boys fully agreed, and that
was that they would not say a word to Uncle Hallet about it; but the
latter heard of it, all the same, and it turned out that Tom was wide
of the mark when he insisted that some one had played a joke upon
himself and his companion.
The boys reached home just at supper-time, and found that Uncle Hallet
had returned from Bellville with good news for them. He had seen Bob's
father, and the latter, after declaring that it was one of the wildest
things he had ever heard of, and wondering what foolish notion those
two boys would get into their heads next, finally decided that since
Tom had made up his mind to live in the woods during the winter, Bob
might stay and keep him company.
"He desired me to tell you that he shall expect to hear a good account
of you, both as student and game-warden," said Uncle Hallet, shaking
his finger at Bob. "If you don't keep up with your class, or if you
neglect your business and allow some pot-hunter to kill off all my
English birds, so that there won't be any left for your father to shoot
when I invite him up here, he will be sorry that he didn't keep you
in school. What's the matter with you two anyway?" suddenly demanded
Uncle Hallet, who had a faint suspicion that the boys were not as
highly elated as they ought to have been. "This morning you were fairly
carried away with this new idea of yours, and now you don't seem to
say anything. Have you thought better of it already?"
The boys hastened to assure Uncle Hallet that they had not--that they
were just as eager to assume the duties of game-wardens as they had
ever been, and that that was the last night they expected to pass under
his roof for eight long months.
It was all true, too; but each of them made a mental reservation. If
the man in the gulf was a fugitive from justice, as Bob thought he was,
he might prove to be a very unpleasant fellow to have around, and until
he had been "neutralized," as Tom expressed it, they could not hope to
enjoy themselves.
They did not want to enter upon their duties feeling that there was a
portion of Mr. Hallet's preserves from which they were shut off by the
presence of one who had no business there.
"He suspects something," whispered Tom, as he and his friend arose from
the supper-table and made their way to their rooms. "Now I'll just tell
you what's a fact. I am going wherever I please in my uncle's woods,
and any one who tries to turn me back will get himself into trouble."
"I am with you," was Bob's reply. "If that howling dervish has settled
down there for the winter, how shall we get rid of him?"
Tom couldn't answer that question, so he said that perhaps they had
better sleep on it, and that was what they decided to do.