THE HINDU
“That” was the sound of sobbing in the woods. It was the soft,
heartbroken crying of a child and seemed to come from somewhere quite
close to Bab Winters and Gordon Seymour.
The boy and the girl exchanged glances, then joined hands and pressed
through the underbrush. As Gordon held back branches that threatened to
sweep Bab’s pretty head from her shoulders, the sound of weeping was
broken by a man’s harsh voice.
“You cry, eh? You cry all the time! You not know how to do anything
else!”
“I want my mother!” came the child’s voice, strangled with sobs. “Oh,
take me back to my mother. Please! Please take me back!”
Bab and Gordon had pressed through until they now stood upon the edge
of a small cleared space with only a fringe of trees between them and
the chief actors in as pathetic a scene as they had ever witnessed.
On the ground crouched a child whose tattered clothing gave him the
appearance of a bundle of old rags. His face was stained with tears and
dirt and his hands were raised in frantic entreaty toward a man who
stood above him, a man whose dark-skinned, lowering face turned Bab
sick with fear and loathing--a man who wore a turban on his head. The
Hindu!
With a whispered “Stay here!” to Bab, Gordon plunged through the
bushes, disregarding her restraining hand on his arm.
“Gordon, Gordon, wait! He has a dreadful face!”
At Bab’s cry and the sound of cracking twigs as Gordon broke through
the undergrowth, the Hindu turned, shot a scowling look at the
intruders, caught the shrinking child up in his arms, and darted away
into the woods.
Gordon followed almost at his heels. But his toe caught in an upflung
root and he stumbled, nearly stretching his length upon the ground.
Recovering himself, he found Bab at his elbow.
“Get back!” he cried. “I don’t like the look of that beggar!”
But Bab would not get back. All she could think of was that poor
desperate child’s upturned, pleading face. She picked up a stick from
the ground and followed close beside Gordon as he crashed through the
brushwood.
But in some mysterious way they had lost the Hindu. He had disappeared
in that brief moment when Gordon had stumbled over the root of the tree
as completely, as utterly, as though the earth had opened and swallowed
him up.
Gordon’s mouth was grim, his fists were clenched as he turned
uncertainly to Bab.
“The beggar’s gone!” he cried. “How did he disappear like that?”
Bab clung to his arm. She was trembling.
“Gordon, that awful man! Who was he, do you suppose?”
“Rosa Lee’s brack man wiv de handkerchief round his haid,” retorted
Gordon, looking about him all the time, as though he could not believe
the fellow was actually gone. “The Hindu we met on the road, with the
kid, that first day, Bab.”
“The boy doesn’t belong to him, Don! Did you hear what he said?”
Gordon nodded.
“Sounds as though the fellow had stolen him from his family!”
“Kidnaped!” Bab murmured, as she followed Gordon in his vain, impatient
search of the surrounding woods. “The poor, terrified child! Don, we
must rescue him! We must find him some way!”
“Find him!” repeated Gordon and threw out his arms as though to call
the trees to witness his mystification. “I wish you’d tell me how!
Probably the fellow practices black magic, took himself off in a puff
of smoke, or something of that sort. Those Eastern beggars know how, so
they say.”
“Well, then, the poor child must have gone up in a puff of smoke too,”
said Bab, with a puzzled shake of her pretty head. “It’s all very
terrible and mystifying and I think we ought to tell somebody about
it--somebody who could help punish that awful Hindu and rescue the poor
boy!”
Gordon agreed with her, and after one more vain search of the woods
they turned back again in the direction of the lake which had been
their objective. They had not gone far when they found Gerry and
Charlie returning to see what had become of them.
There was excitement aplenty when Bab and Gordon related their
adventure and many were the conjectures concerning the mysterious Hindu
and the child who, they felt sure, did not belong to him.
During the remainder of the day they talked of little else and even the
enjoyment of Rosa Lee’s excellent lunch and a subsequent dip in the
mild water of the lake did not suffice to turn their attention from
this new development.
On the way to the house in the glen they fell in with the personage
whom they had most wanted to see. This was the sheriff of Clayton,
an old man with grizzled gray hair and shrewd gray eyes. The eyes
were twinkling now, imparting a pleasant expression to a countenance
habitually grim.
“You’re the young folks up to the old Dare house, aren’t you?” he
demanded without preface.
They admitted that they were and Gordon added eagerly after noting the
man’s badge:
“If you’re the sheriff, you’re just the man we want to meet!”
The old man chuckled, or so it seemed to Bab.
“Thought you’d be wantin’ to come to the sheriff before long,” he said.
“Which statement means more than it says,” remarked Gerry, while the
others regarded the officer with a sudden, keen interest.
However, when questioned further, the sheriff refused to be more
explicit.
“It’s my business to ask questions, not answer them,” he said gruffly.
“When you said,” turning to Gordon, “that I was the man you wanted to
see, what did you mean by that?”
Gordon explained as quickly as he could, turning to Bab now and then
for confirmation.
The twinkle faded from the sheriff’s eyes as he listened. His mouth set
grimly and the girls saw something inflexible in his half-closed eyes.
“I’ve been watchin’ that dark-skinned beggar for some time back,” he
said, and added with a more pleasant look: “Seems like I’d about got
the goods on him. What you tell me to-day,” he added to Bab and Gordon,
“ought to help some.”
“He is a Hindu, isn’t he?” Bab asked.
She thought the sheriff gave her an odd look.
“He’s one o’ them foreign critters, sure enough, and the sooner we
git rid of him the better,” he answered grimly. Then he added, with a
curious look at them: “You mean to say you don’t know who that feller
is?”
“Should we?” asked Bab eagerly.
But the sheriff, assuming that his query was answered, would say
nothing further on the subject, although the young folks pressed him
hard with questions.
However, he walked with them until they came within sight of the glen
in which the old house stood. Then he paused and regarded the young
people seriously, stroking the grizzled whiskers on his chin.
“There’s something mighty queer about that old house,” he told them.
“I don’t mean that I feel like it’s haunted, the way folks says around
here. That’s silly----”
“Not so silly,” retorted Gerry, with a shake of her head. “You should
hear what we hear some nights!”
“What you hear, if you hear anything--and I’m not sayin’ you don’t--is
caused by something with flesh and blood in it, and no ghost--you can
be sure o’ that,” returned the sheriff. “But the house ain’t any less
dangerous on that account, let me tell you.”
“You’re trying to frighten us, Mr. Sheriff!” said Bab, and was very
glad when Gordon slipped his arm reassuringly within hers.
“Not frighten--I’m jest tryin’ to warn you,” said the officer, less
grimly. “I’m not keeping the fact from you that it would take a load
off my mind and make my job a sight easier if you were all to pack up
and go home.”
“Oh, but we can’t--not till we’ve found the money!” cried Bab.
The sheriff glanced at her sharply and Gordon pressed her arm in a
gesture of warning.
“Just what is your job, Mr. Sheriff?” Gordon asked in an effort to
cover the slip.
“My job is to find that Hindu furriner and run him out of town,”
said the sheriff, grim-lipped once more. With a wave of his hand,
he indicated the grim, weather-beaten old house, now visible, Bab’s
legacy. “There you are. Good-by,” said he, and walked away.
They watched him go; then turned, thoughtful, silent, toward the house.
“The plot thickens,” sighed Gerry.
“Like pea soup when it’s cold,” agreed Gordon.
“Speaking of pea soup,” said Charlie prosaically, “I hope Rosa Lee has
some for supper--though I prefer mine hot.”
As Gerry and Charlie went on, lured by thoughts of Rosa Lee and supper,
Bab and Gordon lingered in the sweet-scented dusk of the woods. A bird
called sleepily to its mate. In the distance an owl hooted mournfully.
Bab sighed and the boy tried to look into her averted face.
“You aren’t letting that grim-faced old codger frighten you, are you,
Bab?” he asked anxiously. “Probably doesn’t know what he’s talking
about, anyway.”
“I’m not frightened,” declared Bab. “Only a little sad to-night, Don.
And the mystery over all this old house worries me. I wish--oh, I wish
I had not lost the lucky ring!”