ON THE OLD QUARRY ROAD
When Julius made this assertion, the other fellows looked at each other
in what might be said to be a queer way. In fact, they had all heard
certain absurd stories told in connection with the old quarry that had
not been worked for so many years that the road leading to it across
country had grown up in grass and weeds. Some adventurous boys who
went out there once declared it was a most gruesome place, with pools
of water covered with green scum lying around, and all sorts of holes
looking like the cave Robinson Crusoe found on his island home to be
seen where granite building rocks had been excavated from the
towering cliffs.
It was K.K. who laughed first, actually laughed scornfully, though
Julius took it all so seriously. Thad Stevens followed with a chuckle,
after his peculiar fashion.
"You give me a pain, Julius, you certainly do," ventured K.K.
"To think," added Thad, assuming a lofty air of superior knowledge,
"of a fellow attending Scranton High believing the ridiculous yarns
these uneducated tillers of the soil and their hired help pass around,
about there being some sort of a genuine _ghost_ haunting the old
quarry---why, it's positively silly of you, Julius, and I don't mind
telling you so to your face."
"Oh, hold on there, fellows!" expostulated the other boy; "I didn't
say that I really and truly believed any of those awful stories, did I?
But so many different persons have told me the same thing that, somehow,
I came to think there _might_ be some fire where there was so much
smoke. Of course, it can't be a ghost, but, nevertheless, there are
queer goings-on about that deserted quarry these nights---three
different people, and one of them a steady-going woman in the
bargain, assured me they had glimpsed moving lights there, a sort of
flare that did all sorts of zigzag stunts, like it was cutting signals
in the air."
"Hugh, do you think that could be what they call wild-fire, or some
folks give it the name of will-o'-the-wisp, others say jack-o'-lantern?"
demanded Horatio Juggins, who had been listening intently while all
this talk was going on.
"I'd hardly like to say," replied Hugh thoughtfully. "As a general
thing that odd, moving light is seen in low, damp places. Often it
is noticed in graveyards in the country, and is believed to be induced
by a condition of the atmosphere, causing something like
phosphorescence. You know what a firefly or lightning bug is like,
don't you, Horatio? Yes, and a glow-worm also? Well, they say that
there are black-looking pools of stagnant water lying around the old
quarry; and yes, I think the lights seen might come from just such
conditions."
"That sounds all very well, Hugh," continued Julius, "but what about
the terrifying cry that sometimes wells up from that same place?"
"A cry, Julius, do you say?" exclaimed Horatio, his eyes growing round
now with increasing wonder and thrilling interest, "do you really and
truly mean that, or are you only joshing?"
"Well," the narrator went on to say soberly, "two fellows told me
they'd heard that same shriek. One was hunting a stray heifer when
he found himself near the quarry, and then got a shock that sent him
on the run all the way home, regardless of trees he banged into, for
it was night-time, with only a quarter-moon up in the western sky.
The other had laughed at all such silly stories, and to prove his
bravery concluded to venture out there one night when the moon was
as round as a cartwheel. He got close to the deserted workings when
he too had a chill as he heard the most outlandish cry agoing, three
times repeated, and---well, he grinned when he confessed that it took
him just about one-fifth the time to get back home that he'd spent in
the going."
"Whee! perhaps there may be some sort of wild animal in one of the
caves they tell about up there?" ventured Horatio. "I'm not a believer
ghosts, and I don't consider myself a coward, either; but all the same
it'd have to be something pretty big to induce me to walk out there to
that same lonely quarry after nightfall. Now laugh if you want to, K.K."
"Well," interrupted Hugh, just then, "we're approaching the place right
now where that old quarry road I spoke of starts in. I'd like ever
so much to take a look at that same quarry, by daylight, mind you.
Is there any objection, fellows, to our testing out that road right
now? It used to be a pretty fair proposition I've been told, so far
as a road goes, and I think we could navigate the same in this car.
K.K. how do you stand on that proposition, for one?"
"Count me in on anything that promises an adventure, Hugh," came the
prompt reply. "There is plenty of gas in the tank, and if we do get
a puncture on the sharp stones we've got an extra tube along, with
lots and lots of muscle lying around loose for changing the same.
That's my answer, Hugh."
"Thad, how about you?" continued the shrewd Hugh, well knowing that
by making an individual appeal he would be more apt to receive a
favorable response, because it goes against the average boy's pride
to be accounted a weakling, or one addicted to believing old wives'
fairy stories of goblins, and all such trash.
"Oh, count me in, Hugh," responded the other, with an indifference that
may possibly have been partly assumed; but then Thad Stevens was
always ready to back his enterprising chum, no matter what the other
suggested.
"Horatio, it's up to you now!" Hugh went on remorselessly, as K.K.
stopped the car at a signal from the other, and faint signs of what
had once been a road were to be distinguished just on the left.
"Majority rules, you know," said the wise Juggins boy, "and already
three have given their assent; so it's no back-out for little Horatio."
"Course I'll agree, Hugh," quickly added Julius, when he saw that the
other had turned toward him. "I'm just as curious as the next fellow
to see that old haunted quarry---in the daytime, of course. Besides,
everybody knows there isn't any such thing as a ghost. All such stories,
when they're sifted down, turn out to be humbugs. Sometimes the moving
spectre is a white donkey browsing alongside the road. Then again I've
heard of how it was a swing that had a white pillow left in it by the
children, and the night wind caused it to advance and retreat in a
_terrible_ way. Hugh, let's investigate this silly old business while
we're on the spot."
And by these wonderfully brave words Julius hoped to dissipate any
notion concerning his alleged timidity that may have lodged in the
brains of his chums.
So K.K. started up again, and by another minute the old car had passed
in among the trees, with the overgrown brush "swiping" against the
sides every foot of the way. It was necessary that they proceed
slowly and cautiously, because none of them had ever been over that
long disused road before, and all sorts of obstacles might confront the
bold invaders of the wilds.
Hugh was using his eyes to good advantage, and at his advice the others
did the same. It was a good thing the car was old, and that it
mattered nothing how those stiff branches scraped against the sides
during their forward progress. K.K. knew how to manage, all right,
and, although the trail was quite rough in places where the heavy
rains had washed the earth away, and left huge stones projecting,
he was able to navigate around these obstacles successfully.
Twice they came to low places where water ran, and there was some
danger of the heavy car becoming mired. At such times several of the
boys would jump out, and after investigating the conditions perhaps
throw a mass of stones and pieces of wood in, to make what Hugh
called a sort of a "corduroy road" across the swampy section of ground.
It was all very interesting in the bargain, and, for the time being,
the boys even forgot the fact that they were exceedingly tired.
Then they seemed to be gradually ascending a grade, where the road
turned out to be somewhat better.
"I imagine we're getting close to the quarry now, fellows," Hugh
informed them; "if what I was told is true. It will lie over here
on the right, and only for the dense growth of trees with their
foliage still hanging on, we might see the cliff forming the background
of the quarry right now."
Julius and Horatio looked around them with increasing interest, and
perhaps a slight flutter of unusual vigor in the region of their hearts.
It was about as gloomy a scene as any of them had ever gazed upon.
Years had elapsed since work in the stone quarry had been abandoned,
and Nature, as usual, had done her best to hide the cruel gashes made
in her breast by man; the trees had grown and spread, while bushes
and weeds extended their sway so as to almost choke everything
around. The distant cawing of the crows sounded more gruesome than
ever amidst such surroundings; but there was no sign of bird-life to
be seen. It was as though the little feathered creatures found this
region too lonely even for their nest building. Not even a red or
gray squirrel frisked around a tree, or boldly defied the intruders
of his wilderness haunt.
"There, I just had a glimpse of the place through an opening!" suddenly
announced Hugh; "I calculate that we'll soon come in plain sight of
the whole business, for this road leads straight across the dumps, I
was told, and then on again in the direction of Hobson's Pond."
The sun was passing behind the first cloud of the whole day just then.
Somehow the added somber conditions had an effect on all the boys; for,
with the temporary vanishing of the king of day, the shadows around
them appeared to grow bolder, and issue forth from their secret
retreats.
"Ugh! this is certainly a fierce place for a fellow to visit, say
around midnight," K.K. was forced to admit, for he was the essence of
candor at all times.
"Wild horses couldn't drag me up here at such a time as that," said
Horatio, as he looked ahead, and shivered, either with the chill of
the air, or from some other reason, he hardly knew himself.
"Hugh, would you try it if someone dared you to?" demanded Julius
suddenly, taking the bull by the horns, so to speak.
"I don't think I would, on a dare," replied the other calmly, yet
deliberately, as he smiled at the speaker; "but if there was any
good and sufficient reason for my doing the same, I'd agree to come
alone, and spend a whole night in the deserted quarry. However, I'm
not particularly _hankering_ after the experience, so please don't
try to hatch up any wild scheme looking to that end. If you want to
come, Julius, you're welcome to the job."
Julius shuddered, and looked a bit pale at the very thought.
"Oh! I wasn't even dreaming of it, Hugh," he hastened to declare. "I'd
much prefer to being asleep in my own comfy bed at home when midnight
comes around, and the last thing on earth you'd catch me doing would be
out hunting spooks."
It was just as Julius finished saying this that they received a
sudden shock. A loud and thrilling sound, not unlike a human shriek,
came to their ears, filling each and every boy in the car with a
sense of unmitigated horror. It was so exceedingly dreadful that K.K.
involuntarily brought the auto to a full stop, and then turned a face
filled with mingled curiosity and awe upon his comrades.