THE TRAIL GROWS WARMER.
"Say, just look up there, fellows!"
Chatz pointed a quivering finger upward as he gave utterance to these
words.
Of course both Elmer and the lengthy scout followed his directions, and
turned an inquiring gaze toward the dimly seen rafters of the old
deserted mill.
"Gee whittaker! what in the dickens are they?" exclaimed Lil Artha, as
his startled eyes rested on what seemed to be countless numbers of queer
little bunches of dusky gray or brown hair.
They looked for all the world like some farmer's wife's winter
collection of herbs, tied up in small packages, and fastened in regular
order along the different beams.
"Well, I declare," laughed Elmer.
"You know what they are, Elmer; let us in on it, won't you?" demanded
Chatz.
"Nothing whatever to do with the ghost, but all the same often found in
haunted houses, church belfries, and old towers. See here."
He stooped and picked up quite a good-sized stone that happened to be
lying on the floor.
Elmer was a pitcher on the Hickory Ridge baseball nine, and could hurl a
pretty swift ball.
When he shot that stone upward it went like a young cyclone, struck the
rafters with a loud bang, clattered around from one beam to another, and
finally fell back to the floor with a thud.
This latter sound was certainly not heard by any one of the three
scouts, for it was utterly drowned in a tremendous rush as of sturdy
wings, and several openings above were filled with some rapidly flying
objects.
"Wow, did you ever see the like of that now!" cried Lil Artha.
"What were they, Elmer?" asked Chatz, who had really been too startled
to think fairly.
"Bats!" replied the scout leader, promptly.
"I supposed as much," declared Chatz, "and as you remarked just now,
they always seem to like a building said to be haunted."
"Well," remarked the tall boy, "sometimes I've had the fellows hint to
me that I had bats in _my_ belfry; but sure not that many. Why, I reckon
there must have been well-nigh a thousand in that gay bunch, Elmer."
"I guess there were, more or less," replied the other.
"And now what?" asked Chatz.
"Let's look further here before we go into the house itself," the scout
master made reply.
So they went from one end of the deserted mill to the other, peering
into every place where it seemed there might be the slightest hope of
discovering their missing comrade.
Elmer even entered a small room off the main floor, and which had
possibly been used as an office when the grist-mill was in business.
"Nothing doing, Elmer?" announced Lil Artha, as the other came out
again.
Elmer shook his head in the negative.
"Don't seem to be around here at all," he said.
"Well, let's try the house," suggested Chatz; and it was easily seen
from his manner that he was eager to make the change.
After one more careful glance around, as if to make absolutely positive
that nothing had been neglected, the scout leader nodded his head.
"Come on, then, fellows," he said.
So the others once more fell in his wake, like true scouts who knew
their little lesson full well, and were ready to follow their leader
wherever he might choose to go.
Elmer had previously noticed a door leading, as he believed, from the
main mill into the cottage that had once been the miller's home.
Toward this he now pushed. He wondered if he would find the door
fastened in any way. One touch told him it was not.
And so, without hesitation, Elmer strode across the threshold into what
had once been the happy home of a contented miller, until trouble came,
and tragedy ended it all.
Like the mill itself the house was fast falling into a state of decay.
It was only a cottage of some four rooms, all on the one floor. The boys
passed from one apartment to another until presently they had been over
all the territory comprised within those four walls, so far as they
could see.
Both Chatz and Lil Artha uttered exclamations that breathed their
disappointment.
Because each of them had failed to discover that upon which he had set
his mind he failed to see anything else.
Not so Elmer, who carried out the principle which he was forever holding
up before the others as a cardinal virtue which should govern a true
scout always.
He noted a number of things that the other two might have passed by,
simply because they refused to let their minds work outside of a certain
groove.
A frown came upon Elmer's face also, as though he did not wholly like
the looks of things.
"Well, he ain't here, that's sure," remarked Lil Artha, shrugging his
shoulders in disgust.
"He certainly isn't," muttered Chatz, who, however, was thinking of an
entirely different object than the one the tall boy referred to.
"Suppose we give him a shout, and see if there's any result?" suggested
Lil Artha.
"Do so, if you like," replied Elmer, in a tone that did not seem to
promise much faith in the outcome of this plan.
So the tall boy raised his voice and shouted in his loudest key. A few
stray bats that had taken up lodgings in various dark corners of the
four rooms went flapping through a broken sash. But beyond that nothing
came to pass.
"This sure beats the Dutch," remarked Lil Artha, using his bandana again
to wipe off the perspiration that had gathered in beads upon his
forehead.
Elmer was looking around again.
"Wonder if there can be a cellar under here?" he remarked, presently.
"I should say yes," replied the tall boy.
"Then there ought to be a trapdoor in the floor somewhere about. Look
around and see if you can find it, boys," Elmer continued, himself
stepping into the kitchen.
Chatz and the tall boy had hardly gotten well started in their search
than they heard Elmer calling.
"He's found it, sure!" observed the Southern lad.
"The luckiest chap ever, take that from me," declared Lil Artha, and
then adding hastily: "but then, he always deserves his luck, because he
works for it."
Although he did not exactly mean to do so, the one who said that
expressed one of the greatest truths known. Deserve good luck, and it
will many times knock at your door. Do things worth while, and obtain
pleasing results.
Of course they hastened into the kitchen. Here they found Elmer bending
over and examining the floor.
"It's a trapdoor, all right," declared Lil Artha, as he noted the
dimensions of the cracks that formed an almost perfect square.
"But how to get it up's the question," said Elmer; "for there seems to
be no ring in sight. All the same, boys, I reckon this same trap has
been used more than a few times lately, from the looks of things."
"Whew! do you really mean it, Elmer?" remarked Chatz, deeply interested.
"Why, you can see for yourself right here that some sort of tool has
been used to pry up the thing," Elmer went on.
"Say, I had a glimpse of an old broken kitchen knife lying over there by
the sink. Wonder if that would do the trick? Shall I get it?" remarked
Lil Artha.
"If you will," replied Elmer.
The article in question was speedily placed in the hands of the scout
master.
"Just the very thing to lift this trap with," he declared, as he started
to insert the stout remnant of the blade in the crack.
"Reckon it's been used to do the trick many a time," advanced Chatz.
"I wouldn't wonder," Elmer added.
Using the broken blade as a lever he soon pried the trap up far enough
to allow the others a chance to insert their ready fingers. After that
it was easily completed, and the square of wooden flooring removed.
"Dark as Egypt," remarked Lil Artha, as he tried to pierce the gloom
with his gaze.
Elmer made a move, and Chatz, thinking he intended descending the ladder
that led down into the unknown depths, caught his arm.
"I wouldn't do it, Elmer," he said.
"Do what?" asked the other.
"Go down there," continued Chatz. "No telling how deep it may be or what
lies there, either. If anybody must go, send me."
"Well," laughed Elmer, "I like your nerve, Chatz. You think something
might hurt _me_, but you don't care so much for yourself. That's like
you Southern fellows, though. But make your mind easy, my boy, because
just at present I don't think any of us need drop into this hole."
"I'm glad of that," declared the other; "but when you made a move I
thought you were going."
"Oh, I only meant to get out my newspaper again, and make another little
candle," said Elmer, with a chuckle.
"Well, say what you will, boys," remarked Lil Artha, who had been
thrusting his head below the level of the floor and sniffing at a great
rate; "I'm glad, too, that we don't just have to drop down this ladder.
It's cold and damp down there, and I tell you I don't like the smell."
"There is a queer odor comes up, now that you mention it," admitted
Elmer.
At that the eyes of Chatz grew round with wonder and suspense.
"Oh, I hope you don't think--" he began, when Elmer interrupted him.
"Kind of fishy smell, don't you think?" he said.
"Well, since you speak of it I rather guess it is something like that,"
Lil Artha admitted.
Then Chatz breathed easy again.
"But how could fish ever get in here from the mill pond?" he demanded.
"Give it up; I pass. Ask me something easy," the tall scout hastened to
say.
Meanwhile Elmer had, as before, taken a section of the newspaper,
crumpled it into a ball, and after that drew out his match box.
"Guess it's safe to drop this down," he remarked. "It seems so damp
there can really be no danger of anything taking fire."
"Sure there couldn't," asserted Lil Artha, sturdily. "Let her go, Elmer;
and everybody look."
The match crackled, and the resulting flame was instantly applied to the
paper ball.
Then Elmer let this drop, after he had made sure it would burn.
Three pairs of very good eyes immediately started in to take a complete
inventory of the contents of the little damp cellar under the deserted
mill cottage.
For perhaps a full minute the paper ball continued to burn, lighting up
the cellar well enough for them to see from wall to wall.
Then the flame dwindled, flickered, and finally went out altogether.
Chatz gave a big sigh.
"Well, I declare!" he exclaimed.
"What did you see, Chatz?" asked Elmer.
"Who, me?" exclaimed the Southern boy. "Nothing at all, Elmer," and his
manner told plainly that he was both disappointed and disgusted.
"How about you, Arthur?" continued the acting scout master.
"What did I see?" Lil Artha replied, promptly; "four damp-looking stone
walls, a hard earth floor, and a few old boxes lying around, but not
another blessed thing."
Something about Elmer's manner caught his attention and aroused his
suspicions.
"See here, did _you_ discover anything?" he demanded.
"Well," replied Elmer, "I can't say that the evidence is so plain a
fellow who runs may read; but from a number of things I've seen since
coming here to the Munsey mill pond I've about made up my mind this
place isn't quite as deserted as people seem to believe."
"Do you mean, Elmer," cried Lil Artha, excitedly, "that tramps or some
more yeggmen, like those fellows we met with up at McGraw's lumber camp,
have squatted here in this haunted house?"
"Something like that," replied the other, steadily, "though I don't
believe they dare spend a night under this roof. There's no sign of
that."
"But what would they kidnap our chum for?" demanded the excited tall
scout.
"I don't know for certain, but we're going to find out pretty soon,"
said Elmer, with a determined look.