SHULTZ SEES A LIGHT.
Amazed beyond expression, Osgood continued to gaze downward at the
haggard, woe-begone face of Shultz. Presently, recovering a bit, he
asked:
“What in the world are you doing here, Charley?”
“Hush! Keep still!” pleaded the boy beneath the bushes. “He’ll hear you!
There he is, calling again! Don’t answer! Don’t answer!”
“Why, it’s only Nelson,” said Ned, squatting beside the bushes. “We were
chasing you. We thought you might be Hooker.”
“Hooker—oh!”
There was inexpressible terror and anguish in those two words, which
seemed almost to choke the boy who uttered them.
Nelson was approaching, continuing to call Osgood’s name.
“Hide! hide!” urged Shultz. “Don’t leave me! Oh, don’t leave me now! Let
him go! Get into these bushes and he won’t see you!” Grasping Ned’s
coat, the pleading fellow sought to draw him into the shelter of the low
bushes.
“Why don’t you want him to see you?”
“I’ll tell you—I’ll tell you when he’s gone. Quick! get in here!”
Wondering at the agitation of the fellow who had always seemed utterly
incapable of such emotion, Osgood humored him by creeping into the thick
mass of shrubbery. Thus concealed, he saw the dark figure of Nelson
passing at a little distance, and all the while Shultz clung to him with
hands that quivered and shook and seemed silently to beg him not to
respond to the calls of the searching lad.
After a time Nelson could be heard no more. Then Ned crept forth,
followed by Charley, who remained sitting on the ground with one leg
outstretched.
“What’s the meaning of this tomfoolery?” demanded Osgood, a bit sharply.
“How in the name of the seven wonders did you come to be here, anyhow?
You weren’t with the bunch that started out to find Hooker.”
Again, at the sound of that name, Shultz shrank and cowered as if struck
a blow.
“Don’t speak of him—don’t!” he sobbed. “It’s an awful thing! Oh, if you
only knew what I’ve suffered to-night!”
“Why, you’re all to pieces, old man. You’re completely broken up.”
“I’m a wreck. I’m done for. It’s a wonder I’m not crazy. I have been
half-crazy. Why shouldn’t I be, chased and hunted like a wild beast?
It’s enough to drive any one insane.”
“Chased and hunted? What do you mean?”
“Oh, I know the whole town is after me. I barely got away from two of
them who caught me flinging pebbles at your windows to wake you up.”
Osgood stiffened a bit. “You—did—what?”
“When I found out what had happened, when I knew the worst, I cut across
lots to Mrs. Chester’s to wake you and tell you that I was going to run
away. I was so excited I threw the pebbles against the wrong window, and
when I went back to the street for more the men saw me and chased me. I
doubled on them and threw them off the track.”
“Those men must have been Turner and Crabtree. They thought they were
chasing Roy Hooker.”
“Hooker!” palpitated Shultz. “Hooker? He’s dead! His ghost came to my
window! It was perched on the ridgepole of the ell. I was just going to
bed when I saw it. I’ll never forget the terrible look in those eyes!”
Squatting on the ground beside the trembling fellow, Osgood grasped him
firmly by the arm.
“What is this stuff you’re telling me, Shultz?” he demanded. “You saw
Hooker looking in at your window?”
“I tell you it was his ghost. I’ve never believed in such things, but I
do now, for I’ve seen one. I saw it again, too, here in these very
woods. It spoke to me. I heard it speak. Then I ran and ran, until I
fell into a gully and thought I’d broken my leg. It was my ankle. It’s
sprained and swollen, but I’ve been hobbling on it just the same. Oh,
Osgood, isn’t there any way for me to escape? If I hadn’t hurt my ankle,
I’d be miles on the road to Barville before this. I didn’t mean to kill
him. You know I didn’t mean that, don’t you? If they bring me to trial,
you’ll tell them you know that much, won’t you, Ned?”
Osgood was moved almost to tears by this pathetic pleading.
“Now listen to me, Shultz,” he commanded. “You’ve deceived yourself.
Hooker isn’t dead, unless he’s died since he got out of bed to-night,
escaped observation and left his home. If you really saw something that
looked like Hooker on the roof of Caleb Carter’s ell, it was Roy
himself. If you met something in these woods that looked like Hooker, it
was Hooker. He’s wandering about somewhere in a deranged condition, and
he’s the one the people are searching for, not you.”
Overwrought by the terror of his experience, it was no simple matter for
Charley Shultz to comprehend the meaning of his companion’s words.
“Hooker—not dead?” he muttered wildly. “Why, I—I was sure of it. How do
you know, Ned? You may be mistaken.”
Compelling Shultz to listen, Osgood finally succeeded in convincing him.
“Let us hope with all our hearts,” he concluded, “that they find Roy and
get him safely home, and that he recovers. Let us hope, regardless of
what it may mean to us, that, restored to his right mind, he’ll soon be
able to tell everything.”
“Oh, I don’t care if he does now,” asserted Shultz. “If we’d only told
in the first place, it would have been better. Piper was right; I should
have owned up like a man. That was the thing for me to do. I refused to
see it then, but what I’ve been through since has opened my eyes.”
“It seems to me,” said Ned gently, “that we’ve both had our eyes opened.
Come, old fellow, let me help you to your feet. You’ve got to get back
to the village somehow, if I have to pack you on my back.”
“I can hobble. If you’ll give me an arm, I’ll manage to cripple along.
But I’m afraid to go back to Oakdale.”
“It’s the only thing you can do. There’s no other way, old man. We’ve
both of us got to face the worst, whatever it may be.”
Shultz, indeed very lame, hung heavily on Osgood’s arm, gritting his
teeth and groaning at times with the pain his injured ankle gave him. In
this manner they moved along slowly enough, keeping to the westward of
Turkey Hill and making for the Barville road, as this was now the
shortest and most direct course back to the village.
At intervals, as they went along, Shultz persisted in talking of the
terrible experiences he had passed through that night, repeating over
and over that he was intensely thankful because in all probability Roy
Hooker was still living.
“If he had died without telling a word, I’d never had a minute’s peace
in the world,” he asserted. “I’d always felt like a murderer. I hope
they find him all right. I don’t care if he does tell.”
“I didn’t urge you to confess, did I, Shultz?”
“No, no, but I should have done it. I was afraid, that was the trouble.
I was a coward. I didn’t think it was fear at the time, but it was, just
the same. I tried to make myself believe I was keeping still on your
account. Well, really, I did think about what it would mean to you, Ned.
You’re different from me. You’re a gentleman, and I’m just a plain
rotter, I guess.”
“Oh, I don’t know as there’s so much difference between us, after all.”
“Yes, there is. You’ve got some family behind you, and you’re naturally
proud of it. I’ve never had any particular reason to be proud of my
people. Why, my father is a saloonkeeper. I never told you that, did I?
I didn’t tell you, for I thought you might be disgusted and turn against
me if you knew. I’ve always growled about my old man, because he didn’t
give me a lot of spending money. The reason why he didn’t was because I
raised merry blazes when I had money. He used to let me have enough—too
much. When I blew it right and left, like an idiot, and kept getting
into scrapes, he cut my allowance down. You see the kind of a fellow
you’ve been friendly with, Osgood, old man. You can see he’s a
rotter—just a plain rotter. Oh, you’ll help me back to town. You’ll do
the right thing, because you’re the right sort. But, now that you know
what I am, we never could be friends any more, even if this Hooker
business hadn’t come up.”
Osgood had permitted him to talk on in this fashion, although again and
again Shultz’s words made Ned cringe inwardly. At this point the
listener interrupted.
“You’re wrong, old man, if you believe anything you’ve said will make me
think any the less of you. On the contrary, it will have precisely the
opposite effect. You’ve told me all this about yourself, but there are a
lot of things about myself that I’ve never told you. This is hardly the
time for it, but you shall know, and then you’ll understand that we’re
practically on a common level. I’m no better than you are.”
“You say that because you _are_ better—because you’re a natural
gentleman, with blood and breeding. I don’t think I ever before
understood what makes a true gentleman. Oh, I’ve got my eyes open to
heaps of things to-night.”
“It’s not impossible for a man to be a gentleman, even if he doesn’t
know who his own father and mother were,” returned Osgood. “Breeding is
all right, but there’s a lot of rot in this talk about blood and
ancestry.”
“You never seemed specially proud of the fact that you had such fine
ancestors behind you. I guess you’re true American in your ideas,
Osgood. For all of your family, you’ve always sort of pooh-poohed
ancestry; and you with a perfect right to use a crest!”
Shultz was startled by the short, contemptuous laugh that burst from his
companion’s lips.
“The world is full of faking and fraud,” said Ned. “It seems that half
the people in it, at least, are trying to make other people believe
they’re something which they are not. Does the ankle hurt bad, old
chap?”
“Like blazes,” answered Charley through his teeth.
“Let me see if I can’t get you on to my back and carry you.”
“Not on your life! I’m going to walk back to town on that pin if I never
step on it again. I’ll just take it as part of the punishment I
deserve.”
They came presently to the path which the boys had taken on their way to
the island in the swamp, and at last they issued from the woods and
reached the Barville road. Rounding the base at Turkey Hill, they saw
the village lying before them in the valley, and to the right, over the
tops of trees, they beheld the shimmering waters of Lake Woodrim. The
sweet and peaceful scene seemed to hold no hint of the exciting events
of that remarkable night.
Some distance down the road Shultz perceived a few dark, moving objects,
and suddenly he halted in alarm.
“Some one coming, Ned!” he palpitated. “Look! you can see them. It’s a
party of searchers after Hooker! I can’t face them! They’ll ask
questions. Come on, let’s cut across into the pines yonder.”
Not far away to the right was a growth of pine timber, which reached to
the very shore of Lake Woodrim. Releasing Osgood’s arm, Shultz made
suddenly for the side of the road, scrambled over a low stone wall and
started at a hobbling run toward the pines.
Osgood followed, quickly overtaking him. They were running side by side,
Shultz’s breath whistling through his teeth with a sound like hissing
steam, when up before them from a little hollow, as if rising out of the
very ground itself, came a human being, head bare, and all in white to
its waist. One look he gave them, and then like a frightened deer he
went bounding straight for the woods.
“Merciful wonders!” burst from Osgood. “It’s Roy Hooker!”