Next morning Mr. Ames got us out of bed before a rooster had time to
crow. He had the wagon all loaded and the horses hitched when we got
down-stairs, and all there was for us to do was to pile on.
Ten miles is quite a drive with a heavy load, but it was still early
when we pulled up alongside the porch of the big hotel. It made me sort
of gasp when I looked at it. It was so big, and we were going to live in
it all alone. Mr. Ames said there were thirty-nine bedrooms, and I
expect there were about that many more rooms of other kinds. It was a
funny-looking place, all bulges and bay-windows. It looked as if it had
been built in a dozen pieces by folks whose ideas were a heap different.
There were three stories to it, and almost every bedroom opened out on
to a gallery or a porch or a balcony.
The whole of it stood on a point going out into the lake. Just off the
end of the point was a tiny island with a little bridge across to it,
and on that was another big building, where, Mr. Ames told us, there
used to be a room for dancing, with bedrooms for the help up-stairs.
And that was all there was to it. As far as you could see there wasn’t
another building. Mr. Ames said there wasn’t a cottage on the lake and
that the nearest farm-house was four miles away. The woods came almost
down to the shore of the lake, and all around it the hills bulged up a
dozen times as high as any hill I ever saw in Michigan.
“Well,” says Mr. Ames, “how does she look to you?”
“F-fine,” says Mark; and we all agreed with him.
“Boats in the boat-house yonder,” says Mr. Ames. “Need paintin’ and
calkin’, I expect. I put the fixin’s in the wagon, so if you want a boat
you’ll have to tinker one up.”
“It’ll give us somethin’ to do,” says I, for I like to carpenter or
meddle with machinery or mend up things. “That’ll be my job.”
“I’ll see you settled,” says Mr. Ames, “and then git back to town.”
He helped us carry our things inside. Some of the stuff we piled in the
big, dusty, cobwebby office to be taken care of later. The bedding we
took up-stairs after we had selected our rooms. We took two bedrooms.
Plunk Smalley and I were in one and Mark was in the other with Binney,
because Binney was smallest and would leave enough room in bed for all
of Mark. The rooms were right over the office and were connected by a
door. There was a door out of Mark’s room on to a big round porch right
on top of the main porch of the hotel. They were dandy, pleasant rooms.
We put in most of the day cleaning up the rooms we wanted to use and
fixing up the big range in the kitchen. We expected to cook most of our
meals outdoors, but there would be some days when we couldn’t and that
range would come in handy. It was quite a job, but when we were through
our bedrooms and the office and the dining-room and the halls and
kitchen were as clean as they ever had been. By eight o’clock we were
plenty tired and ready for bed. Then we made a discovery that was going
to be important before we got out of that country—mighty important. We
didn’t have a candle or a lamp or a lantern!
“Better hustle into bed before it gets d-d-dark,” says Mark; and
up-stairs we scurried.
In about two jerks we were undressed and between the sheets. For a
minute everybody was still, and right there I began to feel spooky. I
got to thinking of the long halls and empty bedrooms—and the ten miles
between us and town. It wasn’t comfortable. It seemed like it got
pitch-dark in a minute, and then the wind, which we’d been too busy to
notice, started to blow around the hotel and make noises.
I reached over and felt of Plunk to be sure he was there, and I caught
him in the act of feeling for me. He felt the same way I did.
“Kinda still, ain’t it?” says I.
“I wouldn’t mind if a brass band was to start up under the window,” says
he.
In the other room we heard Mark and Binney begin to talk.
“Git over,” says Binney; “two-thirds of the bed is yours fair and
square, but I ain’t goin’ to sleep danglin’ over the edge.”
We heard Mark wallow over.
“Seems to me there’s l-lots of things rattlin’ and b-bangin’ around,”
says Mark.
“Is the door locked?” says Binney.
“Wasn’t any key,” says Mark.
“Maybe,” says Binney, “if we was to move a chair or somethin’ against it
it wouldn’t rattle so.”
I knew Binney wasn’t worrying about the rattling, but was doing a lot of
thinking about keeping out anything that might be prowling around, and I
nudged Plunk. We sort of giggled at Binney, but I guess both of us felt
the same way he did.
“Go on to sleep,” says Mark.
We were all quiet for a spell, and then Mark began to snore. He wasn’t
the nervous kind, and even if he had been a mite timid he’d have slept
just the same. I never saw such a fellow to eat and sleep.
Well, we laid there in the dark, listening, and after a while I dozed
off. All of a sudden I waked up with Plunk clutching the side of my
face.
“Hush!” says he.
I hushed all right and listened. At first I couldn’t hear anything, but
then I did hear a sound. Thump! Thump! Thump! it went. Then it stopped
and started over. Thump! Thump! Thump!
“Hear it?” whispered Plunk.
“Sure,” says I. “Be still and listen.”
Pretty soon I was sure I heard something soft-footed come sneaking along
the hall. I held my breath and listened with all my might. Whatever it
was, it came along, breathing so you could hear, and stopped by our door
and sniffed. Then it sounded just as if somebody said, “’Shhh!”
“I’m goin’ to see,” says I. “Layin’ here waitin’ to be bit is worse ’n
bein’ up and gettin’ bit.”
I jumped out of bed, with Plunk right after me, and rushed across the
room. Right in the middle of it I ran into somebody coming from the
other way, and down we went in a kicking, punching heap. Scared? Say, I
thought I’d just naturally scream. I guess maybe I did let out some kind
of a yell. Whatever I’d run into was pretty lively and thrashed around
considerable. All of a sudden I realized it was fat—mighty fat.
“Mark Tidd,” says I, “is that you?”
“Wough!” says he. “What you wanderin’ around at night like this for?”
“Same to you. This is our room, ain’t it? Was that you sniffin’ outside
our door?”
“No,” says he. “I heard it and g-g-got up to see.”
“Come on, then,” says I.
We untangled and made for the door. I grabbed it open and looked out.
The hall was as dark as a pocket. The only light was a window at the far
end that seemed about half a mile away. If anything had been between us
and that window we could have seen it, but nothing was there. We
listened. There wasn’t a sound.
“Huh!” says Mark. “Guess it was imagination.”
“Imagination nothin’,” says I. “We wouldn’t both imagine at once, would
we?”
“P-p-probably the wind, then.”
“Wind don’t thump,” says I.
We stood there and argued about it. Of a sudden Mark turned toward the
stairs that led down to the office. “Feels like a d-draught,” says he.
“I shut the outside door.”
“Maybe it blew open.”
“It c-couldn’t. I fixed it.”
“Let’s see, then,” says I; and all four of us in our nightgowns and bare
feet went traipsing down. The door was wide open.
Mark just stood looking at it without a word; then he took hold of his
ear and began to jerk at it like he always does when something happens
that puzzles him more than ordinary. He went close to the door and
looked at the catch as well as he could in the dark. It was all right.
“I shut the d-door and p-pushed the bolt,” says he.
“Then nobody could have got in from outside,” says I.
“Not through the door,” says he. “B-but it looks like somebody went out
of it.”
“What I heard was an animal,” says I, “and animals can’t push bolts—at
least not outside of a circus.”
“S-s-somebody pushed that bolt,” Mark says, stubbornly.
“All right,” says I. “Who was it?”
“I’d give a dollar to know,” says he.
“Sure you locked it?” Plunk asked.
Mark looked at him like he does when somebody’s said something
ridiculous.
“That b-b-bolt was pushed,” he stuttered.
“Well,” says I, “we’ll lock it now, anyhow,” and I slammed the door
shut and pushed the bolt. “Now let’s git back to bed.”
“I don’t like the idee of somebody sneakin’ around this place while
we’re asleep,” says Binney.
“Nor me,” says Plunk.
I didn’t exactly grin with joy at the thought of it myself, but what
could we do about it?
“Let’s set a watch,” says Binney. “Take turns.”
“Shucks!” says Mark.
But Binney stuck to it, and Plunk sided with him. So did I. We drew
matches to see who would watch first and I got the short one. The other
fellows piled into bed and I wrapped myself up in a quilt and sat in a
chair, shivering and pretty lonesome, I can tell you, especially after
the others went to sleep.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d had a light of some sort, but there
wasn’t any light—not even moonlight. So I just sat and wished it was
time for Mark to get up and take my place. I almost dozed off when, way
back in the woods, I heard a whistle. At first I didn’t really know
whether I heard it or not, but in a second it came again, and there was
no mistaking it. Somebody was out there among the trees and he was
whistling to somebody else. What did he whistle for, I wondered, and who
was he whistling to?
I shoved up the window and stepped out on the balcony. The wind almost
whipped my blanket off of me, but I hung on to it and looked all around.
Right in front of me was the lake as black as a great big ink-blot; at
the right was a bay; at the left was the shore and the road with the
woods stretching back. I couldn’t see a thing alive; in fact, I couldn’t
see very much of anything. Then I heard the whistle again, a little
plainer than before.
I strained my eyes in the direction it came from and waited. I kept on
waiting, and then almost before I realized it some kind of an animal
rushed out of the woods and ran up on the porch and jumped against the
door. Twice it jumped. Then it ran down on the grass and tore around to
the back of the hotel where I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t tell what kind
of an animal it was because I could scarcely see it at all, but it was
big. It looked almost as big as a calf.
I got back into the room and shut down the window, because it felt safer
to be inside when animals as big as calves were rampaging around
outside. Just as I got in there was a whopping-big slam down-stairs and
at the far end of the hotel. Just one slam, and then everything was
quiet.
I wrapped up tighter in my blanket and sat out the rest of my watch.
Then I called Mark and told him what I’d seen. I was tired and sleepy
and cold, so, in spite of being pretty nervous, I fell asleep in a
couple of minutes.