[Frontispiece: "Oh, aren't they lovely!" cried Erie.]
A Son _of_ Courage
By
Archie P. McKishnie
_Author of Love of the Wild,
Willow, the Wisp, etc._
The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago
Copyright, 1920
By
The Reilly & Lee Co.
All Rights Reserved
Made in U. S. A.
A Son of Courage
To my sister,
Jean Blewitt, who knew and
loved its characters this book
is lovingly dedicated.
The Author.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
1 Billy Wilson's Strategy
2 A Shower of Fish
3 Appraising the New Teacher
4 The Message Croaker Brought
5 A Wilderness Merchant
6 The Ruse That Failed
7 The Rabbit Foot Charm
8 Luck Rides the Storm
9 Moving the Menagerie
10 In Lost Man's Swamp
11 Educating the New Boy
12 Old Harry Makes a Find
13 Erie of the Light-House
14 Old Harry Turns a Trick
15 Billy's Problems Multiply
16 Billy Meets a Divinity
17 The Dread Day Dawns
18 The Mettle of the Breed
19 Croaker Brings a Gift
20 Billy Meets a Lovely Ghost
21 A Day with the Ducks
22 Teacher Johnston Resigns
23 Mr. Hinter Proves a Puzzle
24 Billy to the Rescue
25 Mr. Hinter Makes a Confession
26 A Golden Wedding Gift
A SON OF COURAGE
CHAPTER I
BILLY WILSON'S STRATEGY
Mrs. Wilson lit the coal-oil lamp and placed it in the center of the
kitchen table; then she turned toward the door, her head half bent in
a listening attitude.
A brown water-spaniel waddled from the woodshed into the room, four
bright-eyed puppies at her heels, and stood half in the glow, half in
the shadow, short tail ingratiatingly awag.
"Scoot you!" commanded the woman, and with a wild scurry mother dog
and puppies turned and fled to the friendly darkness of their retreat.
Mrs. Wilson stood with frowning gaze fastened on the door. She was a
tall, angular woman of some forty years, heavy of features, as she
was when occasion demanded it, heavy of hand. Tiny fret-lines marred
a face which under less trying conditions of life might have been
winsome, but tonight the lips of the generous mouth were tightly
compressed and the rise and fall of the bosom beneath the low cut
flannel gown hinted of a volcano that would ere long erupt to the
confusion of somebody.
As a quick step sounded outside, she lowered herself slowly to a
high-backed chair and waited, hands locked closely upon her lap.
The door opened and her husband entered. He cast a quick,
apprehensive glance at his wife, and the low whistle died on his lips
as he passed over to the long roller towel hanging above the
wash-bench and proceeded to dry his hands.
He was a medium sized man, with brown wavy hair and a beard which
failed to conceal the glad boyishness of a face that would never
quite be old. The eyes he turned upon the woman when she sharply
spoke his name were blue and tranquil.
"Yes, Mary?" he responded gently.
"I want'a tell you that I'm tired of bein' the slave of you an' your
son," she burst out. "One of these days I'll be packin' up and goin'
to my home folks in Nova Scotia."
Wilson averted his face and proceeded to straighten the towel on the
roller. His action seemed to infuriate the woman.
Her lips tightened. Her hands unclenched and gripped the table as
she slowly arose.
"You--" she commenced, her voice tense with passion, "you--" she
checked herself. Unconsciously one of the groping hands had come in
contact with the soft leather cover of a book which lay on the table.
It was the family Bible. She had placed it there after reading her
son Anson his evening chapter. Slowly she mastered herself and sank
back into her chair.
Wilson came over and laid a work-hardened hand gently on her heaving
shoulder.
"Mary," he said, "what is it? What have I done?"
"Oh," she cried miserably, "what haven't you done, Tom Wilson?
Didn't you bring me here to this lonesome spot when I was happy with
my son, happy an' contented?"
"But I told you you'd like find it some lonesome, Mary, you remember?"
"Yes, but did you so much as hint at what awful things I'd have to
live through here? Not you! Did you tell me that an old miser 'ud
die and his ghost ha'nt this neighborhood? Did you tell me that
blindness 'ud strike one of the best and most useful young men low?
Did you tell me," she ran wildly on, "that the sweetest girl in the
world 'ud be dyin' of a heartbreak? Did you tell me anythin', Tom
Wilson, that a woman who was leavin' her own home folks, to work for
you and your son, should a' been told?"
Wilson sighed. "How was I to know these things would happen, Mary?
It's been hard haulin', I know, but someday it won't be so hard.
Maybe now, you'd find it easier if you didn't shoulder everybody
else's trouble, like you do--"
"Shut right up!" she flared, "I'm a Christian woman, Tom Wilson. Do
you think I could face God on my knees if I failed in my duty to the
sick as calls fer me? Why, I couldn't sleep if I didn't do what
little I'm able to do fer them in trial; I'd hear weak voices
acallin' me, I'd see pain-wild eyes watchin' fer me to come an' help
their first-born into the world."
"But, Mary, there's a doctor at Bridgetown now and--"
"Doctors!" she cried scornfully. "Little enough they know the needs
of a woman at such a time. A doctor may be all right in his place,
but his place ain't here among us woods folk. I tell you now I know
my duty an' I'll do it because they need me."
"We all need you, Mary," spoke her husband quickly. "Didn't I tell
you that when I persuaded you to come? I need you; Billy needs you."
She looked up at him, tears filming the fire of anger in her eyes.
"No," she said in low tense tones, "your son don't need me. I'm
nuthin' to him. Sometimes I think--I think he cares--'cause I'm
longin' fer it, I guess. But somehow he seems to be lookin' beyond
me to someone else."
Wilson sighed and sank into a chair.
"I guess maybe it's your fancy playin' pranks on you, Mary," he
suggested hesitatingly. "Two years of livin' in this lonesome spot
has kinder got on your nerves."
"Nerves!" she cried indignantly, sitting bolt upright. "Don't you
'er anybody else dare accuse me of havin' nerves, Tom Wilson. If I
wasn't the most sensible-minded person alive I'd be throwin' fits er
goin' off into gallopin' hysterics every hour, with the things that
Willium does to scare the life out of a body."
"What's Billy been doin' now?" asked Wilson anxiously.
She shivered. "Nothin' out'a the ordinary. What's that limb allars
doin' to scare the daylights clean outa me an' the neighbors? If
you'd spend a little more of your spare time in the house with your
wife an' less in the barn with your precious stock you wouldn't need
to be askin' what he's been adoin'. But I'll tell you what he did
only this evenin' afore you come home from changin' words with Cobin
Keeler.
"Missus Scraff--you know what a fidgety fly-off-the-handle she is,
an' how she suffers from the asthma--well, she'd come over an' was
stayin' to supper. I sent that Willium out on the back ridge to
gather some wild thimble-berries fer dessert. He comes in just as I
had the table all set, that wicked old coon he's made a pet of at his
heels an' that devil-eyed crow, Croaker, on his shoulder. Afore I
could get hold of the broom, he put the covered pail on the table an'
went out ag'in. The coon follered him, but that crow jumped right
onto the table an' grabbed a piece of cake. I made a dash at him an'
he flopped to Missus Scraff's shoulder. She was chewin' a piece of
slippery-ellum bark fer her asthma, an' when his claws gripped her
shoulder she shrieked an' like to 'a' choked to death on it.
"It took me all of half an hour to get her quieted, an' then I made
to show her what nice berries we got from our back ridge. 'Jest hold
your apron, Mrs. Scraff, an' I'll give you a glimpse of what we're
goin' to top our supper off with,' I says, strivin' to get the poor
soul's mind off herself.
"She held out her apron, an' I lefted the lid off the pail and pours
what's in it into her lap.
"An' what d'ye 'spose was in that pail, Tom Wilson? Four garter
snakes and a lizard; that's what your precious son had gone out and
gathered fer our dessert. I spilled the whole caboodle of 'em into
her apron afore I noticed, an' she give one screech an' fainted dead
away. While I was busy bringin' her around, that Willium sneaked in
an' gathered them squirmin' reptiles off the floor. I couldn' do
more jest then than look him a promise to settle with him later,
'cause I had my hands full as it was. I found a pail of berries on
the table when I got a chance to look about me, an' I ain't sayin'
but that boy got them pails mixed, but that don't excuse him none."
Wilson, striving to keep his face grave, nodded. "That's how it's
been, I guess, Mary. He kin no more help pickin' up every snake and
animal he comes across then he kin help breathin'. But he don't mean
any harm, Billy don't."
"That's neither here ner there," she snapped. "He doesn't seem to
care what harm he does. An' the hard part of it is," she burst out,
"I can't take no pleasure in whalin' him same as I might if I was his
real mother; I jest can't, that's all. He has a way of lookin' at me
out'a them big, grey eyes of his'n--"
The voice choked up and a tear splashed down on the hand clenched on
her lap.
Comfortingly her husband's hand covered it from sight, as though he
sought to achieve by this small token of understanding that which he
could not hope to achieve by mere words.
She caught her breath quickly and a flush stole up beneath the sun
and wind stain on her cheeks. There was that in the pressure of the
hand on hers, strong yet tender, which swept the feeling of
loneliness from her heart.
"Mary," said the man, "I guess neither of us understand Billy and
maybe we never will, quite. I've often tried to tell you how much
your willin'ness to face this life here meant to him and me but I'm
no good at that sort'a thing. I just hoped you'd understan', that's
all."
"Well, I'm goin' to do my duty by you both, allars," Mrs. Wilson
spoke in matter-of-fact tones, as she reached for her sewing-basket.
"When I feel you need checkin' up, Tom Wilson, checked you're goin'
to be, an' when Willium needs a hidin' he's goin' to get a hidin'.
An'," she added, as her husband got up from his chair, saying
something about having to turn the horses out to pasture, "you
needn't try to side-track me from my duty neither."
"All right, Mary," he agreed, his hand on the door-latch.
"An' if you're agoin' out to the barn do try'nd not carry any more of
the barn-yard in on your big feet than you kin help. I jest finished
moppin' the floors."
Wilson stepped out into the spicy summer darkness and went slowly
down the path to the barn. As far as eye could reach, through the
partially cleared forest, tiny clearing fires glowed up through the
darkness, seeming to vie with big low hanging stars. The pungent
smoke of burning log and sward mingled pleasantly with the scent of
fern and wild blossoms.
Wilson lit his pipe and with arms folded on the top rail of the
barnyard fence gazed down across the partially-cleared, fire-dotted
sweep to where, a mile distant, a long, densely timbered point of
land stood darkly silhouetted against the sheen of a rising moon.
From the bay-waters came the lonely cry of a loon, from the marshes
the booming of night-basking bullfrogs. The hoot of the owl sounded
faintly from the forest beyond; the yap of a foraging fox drifted
through the night's stillness from the uplands.
A long time Wilson stood pondering. When at length he bestirred
himself a full moon swam above a transfigured world. A silvery sheen
swept softly the open spaces; through the trees the white bay-waters
shimmered; the clearing fires had receded to mere sparks with silvery
smoke trails stretching straight up towards a starred infinity.
He sighed and turned to glance back at the cottage resting in the
hardwood grove. It looked very homey, very restful to him, beneath
its vines of clustering wild-grape and honeysuckle. It was
home--home it must be always. And Mary loved it just as he loved it;
this he knew. She was a fine woman, a great helpmate, a wonderful
wife and mother. She was fair minded too. She loved Billy quite as
much as she loved her own son, Anson. Billy must be more careful,
more thoughtful of her comfort. He would have a heart to heart talk
with his son, he told himself as he went on to the barn.
He completed his chores and went thoughtfully back up the
flower-edged path to the house. "There's one good thing about Mary's
crossness," he reflected, "it don't last long. She'll be her old
cheerful self ag'in by now."
But Mrs. Wilson was not her old cheerful self; far from it. Wilson
realized this fact as soon as he opened the door. She raised stern
eyes to her husband as he entered.
"You see them?" she asked with sinister calmness, pointing to a
patched and clay-stained pair of trousers on the floor beside her
chair. "Them's Willium's. He's jest gone to bed an' I ordered him
to throw 'em down to be patched."
Wilson nodded, "Yes, Mary?"
"And do you see this here object that I'm holdin' up afore your
dotin' father's eyes?"
He came forward and took the object from her hand.
"It also belongs to your dear, gentle son," she grated, "leastwise I
found it in one of his pants pockets."
Wilson whistled softly. "You don't say!" he managed to articulate.
"Why, Mary, it's a pipe!"
"Is it?"
"Yes, a corn-cob pipe," he repeated weakly.
"Is it re'lly?" she returned with sarcasm. "I wasn't sure. I thort
maybe it was a fish-line, or a jack-knife. Now what do you think of
your precious son?" she demanded.
Wilson shook his head. "It's a new pipe," he ventured to say, "and,"
sniffing the bowl, "it ain't had nuthin' more deadly than dried
mullen leaves in it so far. Ain't a great deal of harm in a boy
smokin' mullen leaves, shorely, Mary."
"Oh, is that so? Haven't I heered you an' Cobin Keeler say, time and
ag'in, that that's how you both got the smoke-habit? And look at you
old chimbneys now; the pipe's never out'a your mouths."
"I'll talk things over with Billy in the mornin'," promised Wilson as
he took the boot-jack from its peg.
"A pile of good your talkin''ll do," she cried. "I'm goin' to talk
things over with that boy with a hickory ram-rod, jest as soon as I
feel he's proper asleep; that's what I'm goin' to do! Who's trainin'
that boy, you er me?" she demanded.
"You, of course, Mary."
"Well then, you best let me be. What I feel he should get, he's
goin' to get, and get right. You keep out'a this, Tom Wilson, if you
want me to keep on; that's all."
"It don't seem right to wake boys up just to give 'em a whalin',
Mary," he protested. "My Ma used to wake me up sometimes, but never
to whale me. I'd rather remember--"
"Shut up! I tell yun, I'm goin' to give him the hickory this night
or I'm goin' to know the reason why. I'll break that boy of his bad
habits er I'll break my arm tryin'. You let me be!"
"I'm not findin' fault with your methods of trainin' boys, Mary," her
husband hastened to say. "You're doin' your best by Billy, I know
that right well. And Billy is rather a tough stick of first-growth
timber to whittle smooth and straight, I know that, too. But the
gnarliest hickory makes the best axe-handle, so maybe he'll make a
good man some day, with your help."
"Humph! well that bein' so, I'm goin' to help him see the error of
his ways this night if ever I did," she promised grimly.
Something like a muffled chuckle came from behind the stairway door,
but the good woman, intent on her grievance, did not hear it. Wilson
heard, however, and let the boot-jack fall to the floor with a
clatter. He picked it up and carried it over to its accustomed peg
on the wall, whistling softly the tune which he had whistled to Billy
in the old romping, astride-neck days:
Oh, you'd better be up, and away, lad.
You better be up and away!
There is danger here in the glade, lad,
It's a heap of trouble you've made, lad--
So you'd better be up and away!
Over beside the table, Mrs. Wilson watched him from somber eyes.
"That's right!" she sighed. "Whistle! It shows all you care. That
boy could do anythin' he wanted to do an' you wouldn't say a word;
no, not a word!"
Wilson did not answer. He was listening for the stairs to creak,
telling him that Billy had left his eaves-dropping for the security
of the loft.
Billy had heard and understood. When his dad sent him one of those
"up and away" signals he never questioned its significance. He
didn't like listening in secret, but surely he reasoned, a boy had a
right to know just what was coming to him. And he knew what was
coming to him, all right--a caning from the supple hickory
ramrod--maybe!
Up in the roomy loft which he and his step-brother, Anson, shared
together, he lit the lamp. Anson was sleeping and Billy wondered
just what he would say when he woke up in the morning and found his
pants gone. Their mother had demanded that a pair of pants be thrown
down to her. Billy needed his own so he had thrown down Anson's.
But how in the world was he ever going to get out of that window with
Anson's bed right up against it, and Anson sleeping in the bed?
Anson would be sure to hear the ladder when Walter Watland and
Maurice Keeler raised it against the wall. He must get Anson up and
out of that bed!
Billy placed the lamp on a chair and reaching over shook Anson's
long, regular snore into fragments of little gasps. He shook harder
and Anson sat up, sandy hair rumpled and pale blue eyes blinking in
the light.
"What's'amatter?" he asked sleepily.
"Hush," cautioned Billy. "Ma's downstairs wide awake and she's awful
cross. What you been doin' to rile her, Anse?"
Anson frowned and scratched his head. "Did you tell her 'bout my
lettin' the pigs get in the garden when I was tendin' gap this
afternoon?" he asked suspiciously.
"No, it ain't that. I guess maybe she's worried more'n cross, an'
she's scared too--scared stiff. Well, who wouldn't be with that
awful thing prowlin' around ready to claw the insides out'a people in
their sleep?"
Anson sat up suddenly.
"What you talkin' 'bout, Bill? What thing? Who's it been clawin'?
Hurry up, tell me."
Billy glanced at the window, poorly protected by a cotton mosquito
screen, and shivered.
"Nobody knows what it is," he whispered. "Some say it's a gorilla
and others say it's a big lynx. Ol' Harry's the only one who saw it,
an' he's so clawed and bit he can't describe it to nobody."
"Great Scott! Bill, you mean to say it got ol' Harry?"
Billy nodded. "Yep, last night. He was asleep when that thing
climbed in his winder an' tried to suck his blood away."
"Ugh!" Anson shuddered and pulled the bed clothes up about his ears.
"How did it get it, Bill! Does anybody know?"
"Well, there was a tree standin' jest outside his winder same as that
tree stands outside this one. It climbed that tree and jumped
through the mosquito nettin' plumb onto ol' Harry. He was able to
tell the doctor that much afore he caved under."
Anson's blue eyes were staring at the wide unprotected window.
Outside, the moon swam hazily above the forest; shadows like huge,
misshapen monsters prowled on the sward; weird sounds floated up and
died on the still air.
"Bill," Anson's voice was shaking, "I don't feel like sleepin'
longside this winder. That awful thing might come shinnin' up that
tree an' gulp me up. I'm goin' down and ask Ma if I can't sleep out
in the shed with Moll an' the pups."
Billy promptly scented a new danger to his plans. "If I was you I
wouldn't do that, Anse," he advised.
"Well, I'm goin' to do it." Anson sat up in bed and peered onto the
floor.
"Where the dickens are my pants?" he whispered. "See anythin' of
'em, Bill?"
"Anse," Billy's voice was sympathetic. "I see I have to tell you
everythin'. Ma, she's goin' fo give you the canin' of your young
life, jest as soon as she thinks we're proper asleep."
"Canin'? Me? Whatfer?"
"Why, seems she was up here lookin' fer somethin' a little while ago.
She saw your pants layin' there an' she thought maybe they needed
patchin', so she took 'em down with her."
"Well, what of it?"
"Oh, nuthin', only she happened to find a pipe in one of the pockets,
that's all."
"Jerusalem!" Anson's teeth chattered. "Well, I'm goin' down anyway.
I don't mind a hidin', but I'm derned if I'm goin' to lay here and
get clawed up by no gorilla."
"Anse, listen," Billy put a detaining hand on his brother's shoulder.
"You don't need to do that, an' you needn't sleep in this bed
neither. I'll sleep in it, an' you kin sleep in mine. That gorilla,
er whatever it is, can't hurt me, cause I've got that rabbit-foot
charm that Tom Dodge give me. I'll tie it round my neck."
Anson reflected, shuddering as a long low wail came from the forest.
"That's the boys," Billy told himself. "I've gotta move fast."
Aloud he urged: "Come on, Anse. Get Out an' pile into my bed. I
ain't scared to sleep in yours, not a bit. Besides," he added,
"it'll save you a canin' from Ma."
"How will it, I'd like to know?"
"Why this way. Ma'll come creepin' up here in the dark, when she
thinks we're asleep an' she'll come straight to this--your bed.
She'll turn down the clothes an' give me a slash or two, thinkin'
it's you. I'll let her baste me some--then I'll speak to her.
She'll be so surprised she'll ferget all about whalin' you. She's
that way, you know. Like as not she'll laugh to think she basted
me--an' she'll be good-natured. You needn't worry any about a
lickin', Anse."
"Well, I'll take a chance, Bill."
Anson got out of bed, his white legs gleaming in the yellow
lamp-light as he tiptoed softly across to Billy's cot and lay down.
Billy blew out the lamp and went through the motions of undressing.
He removed one shoe, let it fall on the floor, waited an interval and
let the same shoe fall again. Then he put it back on. By and by he
lay down and gave a long, weary sigh. Then he held his breath and
listened.
Below his window sounded a whippoorwill's call. From the opposite
side of the room came the long, regular snores of Anson. Billy sat
up in bed and started to remove the tacks from the window screen.
Something fell with a thud against the wall outside, and brushed
against the boards. A cat mewed directly beneath the window. Gently
Billy rolled the bed quilts into an oblong shape resembling a human
form, then silently made his way out of the window.
His feet struck the top round of a ladder. A moment more and he was
crouching in the shadow of the wall, two shadowy forms squatting
beside him.
"All hunky?" a voice whispered in his ear.
"All hunky," Billy whispered back.
"Then come on."
But Billy plucked at the speaker's sleeve. "Wait a minute, Fatty,"
he urged. "Anson's up there asleep, an' he's goin' to have a wakin'
nightmare in about four seconds. I jest heard Ma goin' up."
Silence, deep and brooding, fell. Then suddenly from the loft came a
long wail, followed by a succession of shorter gasps and gulps, and
above the swish of a hickory ram-rod a woman's voice exclaiming
angrily.
"I'll teach you to smoke on the sly, you young outlaw, you!"
"Now let's get while the gettin's good," whispered Billy; and the
three crept off into the shadows.
Down through the night-enshrouded woods the boys made their way
noiselessly, Billy leading, Walter Watland, nicknamed Fatty on
account of his size, close behind him and Maurice Keeler, Billy's
sworn chum and confidant, bringing up the rear. Occasionally a
soft-winged owl fluttered up from its kill, with a muffled "who-who."
Once a heavy object plunged from the trail with a snort, and the boys
felt the flesh along their spines creeping. They kept on without so
much as a word, crossing a swift creek on a fallen tree, holding to
its bank and making a detour into the woods to avoid passing close to
a dilapidated log cabin which in the moonlight bore evidence of
having fallen into disuse. As they skirted the heavy thicket of
pines, which even in the summer night's stillness sighed low and
mournfully, the leader halted suddenly and a low exclamation fell
from his lips.
"Look!" he whispered. "Look! There's a light in the ha'nted house."
His companions crept forward and peered through the trees. Sure
enough from the one unglazed window of the old building came the
twinkle of a light, which bobbed about in weird, uncertain fashion.
"Old Scroggie's ghost huntin' fer the lost money," whispered Walter,
"Oh, gosh! let's leg it!'
"Leg nuthin'!" Billy removed his hand from his trousers-pocket and
waved something before two pairs of fear-widened eyes.
"'No ghost kin harm where lies this charm,'" he recited solemnly.
"Now if you fellers feel like beatin' it, why beat it; but so long as
I'm grabbin' onto this left hind foot of a graveyard rabbit I don't
run away from no ghost--not even old man Scroggie's."
"That's all right fer you, Bill," returned Walter, "but what's goin'
t' happen t' Maurice an' me, supposin' that ghost takes a notion to
gallop this way? That's what I want'a know!"
Billy turned upon him. "Say, Fatty, haven't I told you that this
here charm protects everybody with me?" he asked cuttingly.
"There's never been a ghost that ever roamed nights been able to get
near it. You kin ask Tom Dodge er any of the other Injuns if there
has."
"Oh it might lay an Injun ghost," said the unreasonable Fatty, "but
how about a white man's? How about old man Scroggie's, fer instance?
You know yourself, Bill, old man Scroggie was a tartar. Nobody ever
fooled him while he was alive an' nobody need try now he's dead. If
he wants to come back here an' snoop round lookin' fer the money he
buried an' forgot where, it's his own funeral. I'm fer not mixin' up
in this thing any--"
"Keep still!" cautioned Billy, "an' look yonder! See it?"
He pointed through the trees to an open glade in the grove. The full
moon, riding high in the sky, threw her light fair upon the fern-sown
sod; across the glade a white object was moving--drifting straight
toward the watchers. Billy, tightly gripping his rabbit's foot charm
in one sweaty hand and a rough-barked sapling in the other, felt
Walter's hands clutching his shoulders.
"Oh Jerusalem!" groaned the terrified Fatty, "It's the ghost! Look,
it's sheddin' blue grave-mist! Fer the love of Mike let's git out'a
this!"
"Wait," gulped Billy, but it was plain to be seen he was wavering.
His feet were getting uneasy, his toes fairly biting holes through
his socks in their eagerness to tear up the sward. But as leader it
would never do for him to show the white feather.
The approaching terror had drifted into the shadow again. Suddenly,
so near that it fairly seemed to scorch the frowsy top of the sapling
to which he was hanging, a weird blue light twisted upward almost in
Billy's eyes. At the same moment a tiny hoot-owl, sleeping off its
early evening's feed in the cedar close beside the boys, woke up and
gave a ghostly cry. It was too much for overstrained nerves to
stand. Billy felt Fatty's form quiver and leap even before his
agonized howl fell on his ears--a cry which he and Maurice may have
echoed, for all he knew.
They were fully a mile away from the place of terror before sheer
exhaustion forced them to abate their wild speed and tumble in a heap
beneath a big elm tree, along the trail of the forest.
For a time they lay gasping and quivering. Maurice Keeler was the
first to speak. "Say, Bill," he shivered, "is it light enough fer
you to see if the hair is scorched off one side o' my head?
That--that ghost's breath shot blue flame square in my face."
"It grabbed me in its bony fingers," whispered Fatty. "Gosh, it tore
the sleeve fair out'a my shirt. Look!" And to prove the truth of
his statement he lifted a fat arm to which adhered a tattered sleeve.
Billy sat up and surveyed his companions with disgust.
"A nice pair of scare-babies you two are," he said, scathingly. "A
great pair you are to help me find old Scroggie's will an' money.
Why, say, if you'd only kept your nerve a little, that ghost would'a
led us right to the spot, most likely; but 'stead o' that you take to
your heels at first sight of it. Say! I thought you both had more
sand."
Maurice squirmed uncomfortably. "Now look here, Bill," he protested,
"Fatty an' me wasn't any scarter than you was, yourself. Who made
the first jump, I want'a know; who?"
"Well, who _did_?" snapped Billy, glowering at his two bosom friends.
"You did," Maurice affirmed. "An' you grabbed Fatty by the arm an'
pulled his shirt sleeve out. I saw you. And you can't say you
didn't run neither, else how did you get here same time as Fatty an'
me?"
"Well, I didn't run, but I own I _follered_ you," compromised Billy.
"There wasn't anythin' else I could do, was there? How did I know
what you two scared rabbits ud do? You might'a run plumb into Lake
Erie an' got drownded, you was so scared. Somebody's had to keep his
head," he said airily.
"Well I kept mine by havin' a good pair of legs," groaned Fatty.
"I'm not denyin' that. And by gravy, if they had been good enough
fer a thousand miles I'd've let 'em go the limit. Scared! Oh
yowlin' wildcats! I'll see ghosts an' smell brimstone the rest o' my
life."
"Boys," cried Billy in awed tones. "It's gone!"
"What's gone?" asked his companions in a breath.
Billy was feeling frantically in his pockets. "My rabbit foot
charm," he groaned. "I fell over a log an' it must'a slipped out'a
my pocket."
"You had it in your hand when th' ghost poked its blue tongue in our
faces," affirmed Maurice. "I saw it."
"You throwed somethin' at the ghost afore you howled an' run," Fatty
stated. "Maybe it was the rabbit foot?"
"'No ghost kin harm where lies this charm,'" chuckled Maurice.
Billy turned on him. "If you want'a make fun of a charm, why all
right, go ahead," he said coldly. "Only I know I wouldn't do it, not
if I wanted it to save me from a ghost, anyway."
Maurice looked frightened. "I wasn't pokin' fun at the charm, Bill,
cross my heart, I wasn't," he said earnestly.
"All right then, see that you don't. Now, see here, I'll tell you
somethin'. I did throw my rabbit's foot charm but that was to keep
that ghost from follerin'. Maybe you two didn't hear it snort when
it got to that charm an' tried to pass it, so's to catch up to us;
but I heard it. Oh say, but wouldn't it be mad though?"
"An' that's why you throwed it," exclaimed the admiring Maurice.
"Gosh, nobody else would'a thought of that."
"Nobody," echoed Fatty, "nobody but Bill."
"Well, somebody has to think in a case o' that kind," admitted Billy,
"an' think quick. It was up to me to save you, an' I did the only
thing I could think of right then."
Just here the whistle of bob-white sounded from a little distance
along the trail.
"That's Elgin Scraff and Tom Holt comin' to look fer us," cried
Maurice.
"Answer 'em," said Billy.
Maurice puckered up his lips and gave an answering call. It was
returned almost immediately. A moment later two more boys came into
the moonlight.
"We wondered what kept you fellers, so came lookin' fer you," spoke
Tom Holt as they came up. "Thought you'd be comin' by the tamarack
swamp trail, an' we stuck around there fer quite a while, waitin'.
Then Elgin said maybe you had come the ha'nted house way, so we
struck through the bush an' tried to pick up your trail. Once we
thought we saw the ghost, but it turned out to be old Ringold's white
yearlin' steer. It had rubbed up ag'inst some will-o-the-wisp fungus
an' it fair showered sparks of blue fire. If we hadn't heered it
bawlin' we'd have run sure."
Somewhere behind him Billy heard a giggle, which was immediately
suppressed as he turned and looked over his shoulder.
"Yep," he replied, "we saw that steer, too. We've been waitin' here,
hopin' we'd hear your whistle. I wonder what time it's gettin' to
be?"
Tom Holt, the proud possessor of a watch, consulted it. "Ten twelve
an' a half," he answered, holding the dial to the moon-light.
"Sandtown'll be sound asleep. Come on, let's go down to the lake an'
make a haul."
"I s'pose we might be goin'," said Billy. "All right, fellers, come
along."
Arriving at the lake the boys learned after careful reconnoitering
that everything was clear for immediate action. Not a light
glimmered from the homes of the fishermen, to show that they were
awake and vigilant.
The white-fish run was on and when the boys, launching the big
flat-bottomed fish boat, carefully cast and drew in the long seine it
held more great gleaming fish than they knew how to dispose of.
"Only one thing to do," reasoned Billy, "take what we want an' let
the rest go."
And this they did. When they left the beach the moon was low above
the Point pines, the draw-seine was back in its place on the big reel
and there was nothing to show the lake fishermen that the Scotia Fish
Supply Company had been operating on their grounds.