the girl was running one hand gingerly over her head and face, so that
her next question did not surprise him.
“Am I badly wounded?” she asked. “Do you think that I am going to die?”
The tremor in her voice was pathetic--it was the voice of a frightened
and wondering child. Bridge heard the boy behind him move impulsively
forward and saw him kneel on the bed beside the girl.
“You are not badly hurt,” volunteered The Oskaloosa Kid. “Bridge
couldn't find a mark on you--the bullet must have missed you.”
“He was holding me over the edge of the car when he fired.” The girl's
voice reflected the physical shudder which ran through her frame at the
recollection. “Then he threw me out almost simultaneously. I suppose he
thought that he could not miss at such close range.” For a time she was
silent again, sitting stiffly erect. Bridge could feel rather than see
wide, tense eyes staring out through the darkness upon scenes, horrible
perhaps, that were invisible to him and the Kid.
Suddenly the girl turned and threw herself face downward upon the bed.
“O, God!” she moaned. “Father! Father! It will kill you--no one will
believe me--they will think that I am bad. I didn't do it! I didn't
do it! I've been a silly little fool; but I have never been a bad
girl--and---and--I had nothing to do with that awful thing that happened
to-night.”
Bridge and the boy realized that she was not talking to them--that for
the moment she had lost sight of their presence--she was talking to that
father whose heart would be breaking with the breaking of the new day,
trying to convince him that his little girl had done no wrong.
Again she sat up, and when she spoke there was no tremor in her voice.
“I may die,” she said. “I want to die. I do not see how I can go on
living after last night; but if I do die I want my father to know that
I had nothing to do with it and that they tried to kill me because
I wouldn't promise to keep still. It was the little one who murdered
him--the one they called 'Jimmie' and 'The Oskaloosa Kid.' The big one
drove the car--his name was 'Terry.' After they killed him I tried to
jump out--I had been sitting in front with Terry--and then they dragged
me over into the tonneau and later--the Oskaloosa Kid tried to kill me
too, and threw me out.”
Bridge heard the boy at his side gulp. The girl went on.
“To-morrow you will know about the murder--everyone will know about it;
and I will be missed; and there will be people who saw me in the car
with them, for someone must have seen me. Oh, I can't face it! I want to
die. I will die! I come of a good family. My father is a prominent man.
I can't go back and stand the disgrace and see him suffer, as he will
suffer, for I was all he had--his only child. I can't bear to tell you
my name--you will know it soon enough--but please find some way to
let my father know all that I have told you--I swear that it is the
truth--by the memory of my dead mother, I swear it!”
Bridge laid a hand upon the girl's shoulder. “If you are telling us the
truth,” he said, “you have only a silly escapade with strange men upon
your conscience. You must not talk of dying now--your duty is to your
father. If you take your own life it will be a tacit admission of guilt
and will only serve to double the burden of sorrow and ignominy which
your father is bound to feel when this thing becomes public, as it
certainly must if a murder has been done. The only way in which you
can atone for your error is to go back and face the consequences with
him--do not throw it all upon him; that would be cowardly.”
The girl did not reply; but that the man's words had impressed her
seemed evident. For a while each was occupied with his own thoughts;
which were presently disturbed by the sound of footsteps upon the floor
below--the muffled scraping of many feet followed a moment later by an
exclamation and an oath, the words coming distinctly through the loose
and splintered flooring.
“Pipe the stiff,” exclaimed a voice which The Oskaloosa Kid recognized
immediately as that of Soup Face.
“The Kid musta croaked him,” said another.
A laugh followed this evidently witty sally.
“The guy probably lamped the swag an' died of heart failure,” suggested
another.
The men were still laughing when the sound of a clanking chain echoed
dismally from the cellar. Instantly silence fell upon the newcomers upon
the first floor, followed by a--“Wotinel's that?” Two of the men had
approached the staircase and started to ascend it. Slowly the uncanny
clanking drew closer to the first floor. The girl on the bed turned
toward Bridge.
“What is it?” she gasped.
“We don't know,” replied the man. “It followed us up here, or rather
it chased us up; and then went down again just before you regained
consciousness. I imagine we shall hear some interesting developments
from below.”
“It's The Sky Pilot and his gang,” whispered The Oskaloosa Kid.
“It's The Oskaloosa Kid,” came a voice from below.
“But wot was that light upstairs then?” queried another.
“An' wot croaked this guy here?” asked a third. “It wasn't nothin'
nice--did you get the expression on his mug an' the red foam on his
lips? I tell youse there's something in this house beside human bein's.
I know the joint--it's hanted--they's spooks in it. Gawd! there it is
now,” as the clanking rose to the head of the cellar stairs; and those
above heard a sudden rush of footsteps as the men broke for the open
air--all but the two upon the stairway. They had remained too long and
now, their retreat cut off, they scrambled, cursing and screaming, to
the second floor.
Along the hallway they rushed to the closed door at the end--the door
of the room in which the three listened breathlessly--hurling themselves
against it in violent effort to gain admission.
“Who are you and what do you want?” cried Bridge.
“Let us in! Let us in!” screamed two voices. “Fer God's sake let us in.
Can't you hear IT? It'll be comin' up here in a minute.”
The sound of the dragging chain could be heard at intervals upon the
floor below. It seemed to the tense listeners above to pause beside the
dead man as though hovering in gloating exultation above its gruesome
prey and then it moved again, this time toward the stairway where
they all heard it ascending with a creepy slowness which wrought more
terribly upon tense nerves than would a sudden rush.
“The mills of the Gods grind slowly,” quoted Bridge.
“Oh, don't!” pleaded The Oskaloosa Kid.
“Let us in,” screamed the men without. “Fer the luv o' Mike have a
heart! Don't leave us out here! IT's comin'! IT's comin'!”
“Oh, let the poor things in,” pleaded the girl on the bed. She was,
herself, trembling with terror.
“No funny business, now, if I let you in,” commanded Bridge.
“On the square,” came the quick and earnest reply.
The THING had reached the head of the stairs when Bridge dragged the bed
aside and drew the bolt. Instantly two figures hurled themselves into
the room but turned immediately to help Bridge resecure the doorway.
Just as it had done before, when Bridge and The Oskaloosa Kid had taken
refuge there with the girl, the THING moved down the hallway to the
closed door. The dragging chain marked each foot of its advance. If it
made other sounds they were drowned by the clanking of the links over
the time roughened flooring.
Within the room the five were frozen into utter silence, and beyond the
door an equal quiet prevailed for a long minute; then a great force
made the door creak and a weird scratching sounded high up upon the old
fashioned panelling. Bridge heard a smothered gasp from the boy beside
him, followed instantly by a flash of flame and the crack of a small
caliber automatic; The Oskaloosa Kid had fired through the door.
Bridge seized the boy's arm and wrenched the weapon from him. “Be
careful!” he cried. “You'll hurt someone. You didn't miss the girl much
that time--she's on the bed right in front of the door.”
The Oskaloosa Kid pressed closer to the man as though he sought
protection from the unknown menace without. The girl sprang from the
bed and crossed to the opposite side of the room. A flash of lightning
illuminated the chamber for an instant and the roof of the verandah
without. The girl noted the latter and the open window.
“Look!” she cried. “Suppose it went out of another window upon this
porch. It could get us so easily that way!”
“Shut up, you fool!” whispered one of the two newcomers. “It might hear
you.” The girl subsided into silence.
There was no sound from the hallway.
“I reckon you croaked IT,” suggested the second newcomer, hopefully;
but, as though the THING without had heard and understood, the clanking
of the chain recommenced at once; but now it was retreating along the
hallway, and soon they heard it descending the stairs.
Sighs of relief escaped more than a single pair of lips. “IT didn't hear
me,” whispered the girl.
Bridge laughed. “We're a nice lot of babies seeing things at night,” he
scoffed.
“If you're so nervy why don't you go down an' see wot it is?” asked one
of the late arrivals.
“I believe I shall,” replied Bridge and pulled the bed away from the
door.
Instantly a chorus of protests arose, the girl and The Oskaloosa Kid
being most insistent. What was the use? What good could he accomplish?
It might be nothing; yet on the other hand what had brought death
so horribly to the cold clay on the floor below? At last their pleas
prevailed and Bridge replaced the bed before the door.
For two hours the five sat about the room waiting for daylight. There
could be no sleep for any of them. Occasionally they spoke, usually
advancing and refuting suggestions as to the identity of the nocturnal
prowler below-stairs. The THING seemed to have retreated again to the
cellar, leaving the upper floor to the five strangely assorted prisoners
and the first floor to the dead man.
During the brief intervals of conversation the girl repeated snatches
of her story and once she mentioned The Oskaloosa Kid as the murderer of
the unnamed victim. The two men who had come last pricked up their ears
at this and Bridge felt the boy's hand just touch his arm as though in
mute appeal for belief and protection. The man half smiled.
“We seen The Oskaloosa Kid this evenin',” volunteered one of the
newcomers.
“You did?” exclaimed the girl. “Where?”
“He'd just pulled off a job in Oakdale an' had his pockets bulgin' wid
sparklers an' kale. We was follerin' him an' when we seen your light up
here we t'ought it was him.”
The Oskaloosa Kid shrank closer to Bridge. At last he recognized the
voice of the speaker. While he had known that the two were of The Sky
Pilot's band he had not been sure of the identity of either; but now it
was borne in upon him that at least one of them was the last person on
earth he cared to be cooped up in a small, unlighted room with, and a
moment later when one of the two rolled a 'smoke' and lighted it he saw
in the flare of the flame the features of both Dopey Charlie and The
General. The Oskaloosa Kid gasped once more for the thousandth time that
night.
It had been Dopey Charlie who lighted the cigaret and in the brief
illumination his friend The General had grasped the opportunity to scan
the features of the other members of the party. Schooled by long years
of repression he betrayed none of the surprise or elation he felt when
he recognized the features of The Oskaloosa Kid.
If The General was elated The Oskaloosa Kid was at once relieved and
terrified. Relieved by ocular proof that he was not a murderer and
terrified by the immediate presence of the two who had sought his life.
His cigaret drawing well Dopey Charlie resumed: “This Oskaloosa Kid's a
bad actor,” he volunteered. “The little shrimp tried to croak me; but
he only creased my ribs. I'd like to lay my mits on him. I'll bet there
won't be no more Oskaloosa Kid when I get done wit him.”
The boy drew Bridge's ear down toward his own lips. “Let's go,” he said.
“I don't hear anything more downstairs, or maybe we could get out on
this roof and slide down the porch pillars.”
Bridge laid a strong, warm hand on the small, cold one of his new
friend.
“Don't worry, Kid,” he said. “I'm for you.”
The two other men turned quickly in the direction of the speaker.
“Is de Kid here?” asked Dopey Charlie.
“He is, my degenerate friend,” replied Bridge; “and furthermore he's
going to stay here and be perfectly safe. Do you grasp me?”
“Who are you?” asked The General.
“That is a long story,” replied Bridge; “but if you chance to recall
Dink and Crumb you may also be able to visualize one Billy Burke and
Billy Byrne and his side partner, Bridge. Yes? Well, I am the side
partner.”
Before the yeggman could make reply the girl spoke up quickly. “This man
cannot be The Oskaloosa Kid,” she said. “It was The Oskaloosa Kid who
threw me from the car.”
“How do you know he ain't?” queried The General. “Youse was knocked
out when these guys picks you up. It's so dark in here you couldn't
reco'nize no one. How do you know this here bird ain't The Oskaloosa
Kid, eh?”
“I have heard both these men speak,” replied the girl; “their voices
were not those of any men I have known. If one of them is The Oskaloosa
Kid then there must be two men called that. Strike a match and you will
see that you are mistaken.”
The General fumbled in an inside pocket for a package of matches
carefully wrapped against possible damage by rain. Presently he struck
one and held the light in the direction of The Kid's face while he and
the girl and Dopey Charlie leaned forward to scrutinize the youth's
features.
“It's him all right,” said Dopey Charlie.
“You bet it is,” seconded The General.
“Why he's only a boy,” ejaculated the girl. “The one who threw me from
the machine was a man.”
“Well, this one said he was The Oskaloosa Kid,” persisted The General.
“An' he shot me up,” growled Dopey Charlie.
“It's too bad he didn't kill you,” remarked Bridge pleasantly. “You're
a thief and probably a murderer into the bargain--you tried to kill this
boy just before he shot you.”
“Well wot's he?” demanded Dopey Charlie. “He's a thief--he said he
was--look in his pockets--they're crammed wid swag, an' he's a gun-man,
too, or he wouldn't be packin' a gat. I guess he ain't got nothin' on
me.”
The darkness hid the scarlet flush which mounted to the boy's cheeks--so
hot that he thought it must surely glow redly through the night. He
waited in dumb misery for Bridge to demand the proof of his guilt.
Earlier in the evening he had flaunted the evidence of his crime in the
faces of the six hobos; but now he suddenly felt a great shame that his
new found friend should believe him a house-breaker.
But Bridge did not ask for any substantiation of Charlie's charges,
he merely warned the two yeggmen that they would have to leave the boy
alone and in the morning, when the storm had passed and daylight had
lessened the unknown danger which lurked below-stairs, betake themselves
upon their way.
“And while we're here together in this room you two must sit over near
the window,” he concluded. “You've tried to kill the boy once to-night;
but you're not going to try it again--I'm taking care of him now.”
“You gotta crust, bo,” observed Dopey Charlie, belligerently. “I guess
me an' The General'll sit where we damn please, an' youse can take it
from me on the side that we're goin' to have ours out of The Kid's haul.
If you tink you're goin' to cop the whole cheese you got another tink
comin'.”
“You are banking,” replied Bridge, “on the well known fact that I never
carry a gun; but you fail to perceive, owing to the Stygian gloom which
surrounds us, that I have the Kid's automatic in my gun hand and that
the business end of it is carefully aiming in your direction.”
“Cheese it,” The General advised his companion; and the two removed
themselves to the opposite side of the apartment, where they whispered,
grumblingly, to one another.
The girl, the boy, and Bridge waited as patiently as they could for
the coming of the dawn, talking of the events of the night and planning
against the future. Bridge advised the girl to return at once to her
father; but this she resolutely refused to do, admitting with utmost
candor that she lacked the courage to face her friends even though her
father might still believe in her.
The youth begged that he might accompany Bridge upon the road, pleading
that his mother was dead and that he could not return home after his
escapade. And Bridge could not find it in his heart to refuse him, for
the man realized that the boyish waif possessed a subtile attraction, as
forceful as it was inexplicable. Not since he had followed the open road
in company with Billy Byrne had Bridge met one with whom he might care
to 'Pal' before The Kid crossed his path on the dark and storm swept
pike south of Oakdale.
In Byrne, mucker, pugilist, and MAN, Bridge had found a physical and
moral counterpart of himself, for the slender Bridge was muscled as
a Greek god, while the stocky Byrne, metamorphosed by the fire of a
woman's love, possessed all the chivalry of the care free tramp whose
vagabondage had never succeeded in submerging the evidences of his
cultural birthright.
In the youth Bridge found an intellectual equal with the added charm
of a physical dependent. The man did not attempt to fathom the evident
appeal of the other's tacitly acknowledged cowardice; he merely knew
that he would not have had the youth otherwise if he could have
changed him. Ordinarily he accepted male cowardice with the resignation
of surfeited disgust; but in the case of The Oskaloosa Kid he realized a
certain artless charm which but tended to strengthen his liking for the
youth, so brazen and unaffected was the boy's admission of his terror of
both the real and the unreal menaces of this night of horror.
That the girl also was well bred was quite evident to Bridge, while both
the girl and the youth realized the refinement of the strange companion
and protector which Fate had ordered for them, while they also saw
in one another social counterparts of themselves. Thus, as the night
dragged its slow course, the three came to trust each other more
entirely and to speculate upon the strange train of circumstances which
had brought them thus remarkably together--the thief, the murderer's
accomplice, and the vagabond.
It was during a period of thoughtful silence when the night was darkest
just before the dawn and the rain had settled to a dismal drizzle
unrelieved by lightning or by thunder that the five occupants of the
room were suddenly startled by a strange pattering sound from the
floor below. It was as the questioning fall of a child's feet upon the
uncarpeted boards in the room beneath them. Frozen to silent rigidity,
the five sat straining every faculty to catch the minutest sound from
the black void where the dead man lay, and as they listened there
came up to them, mingled with the inexplicable footsteps, the hollow
reverberation from the dank cellar--the hideous dragging of the
chain behind the nameless horror which had haunted them through the
interminable eons of the ghastly night.
Up, up, up it came toward the first floor. The pattering of the feet
ceased. The clanking rose until the five heard the scraping of the chain
against the door frame at the head of the cellar stairs. They heard it
pass across the floor toward the center of the room and then, loud
and piercing, there rang out against the silence of the awful night a
woman's shriek.
Instantly Bridge leaped to his feet. Without a word he tore the bed from
before the door.
“What are you doing?” cried the girl in a muffled scream.
“I am going down to that woman,” said Bridge, and he drew the bolt,
rusty and complaining, from its corroded seat.
“No!” screamed the girl, and seconding her the youth sprang to his feet
and threw his arms about Bridge.
“Please! Please!” he cried. “Oh, please don't leave me.”
The girl also ran to the man's side and clutched him by the sleeve.
“Don't go!” she begged. “Oh, for God's sake, don't leave us here alone!”
“You heard a woman scream, didn't you?” asked Bridge. “Do you suppose I
can stay in up here when a woman may be facing death a few feet below
me?”
For answer the girl but held more tightly to his arm while the youth
slipped to the floor and embraced the man's knees in a vice-like hold
which he could not break without hurting his detainer.
“Come! Come!” expostulated Bridge. “Let me go.”
“Wait!” begged the girl. “Wait until you know that it is a human voice
that screams through this horrible place.”
The youth only strained his hold tighter about the man's legs. Bridge
felt a soft cheek pressed to his knee; and, for some unaccountable
reason, the appeal was stronger than the pleading of the girl. Slowly
Bridge realized that he could not leave this defenseless youth alone
even though a dozen women might be menaced by the uncanny death below.
With a firm hand he shot the bolt. “Leave go of me,” he said; “I shan't
leave you unless she calls for help in articulate words.”
The boy rose and, trembling, pressed close to the man who,
involuntarily, threw a protecting arm about the slim figure. The girl,
too, drew nearer, while the two yeggmen rose and stood in rigid silence
by the window. From below came an occasional rattle of the chain,
followed after a few minutes by the now familiar clanking as the iron
links scraped across the flooring. Mingled with the sound of the chain
there rose to them what might have been the slow and ponderous footsteps
of a heavy man, dragging painfully across the floor. For a few moments
they heard it, and then all was silent.
For a dozen tense minutes the five listened; but there was no repetition
of any sound from below. Suddenly the girl breathed a deep sigh, and
the spell of terror was broken. Bridge felt rather than heard the youth
sobbing softly against his breast, while across the room The General
gave a quick, nervous laugh which he as immediately suppressed as though
fearful unnecessarily of calling attention to their presence. The other
vagabond fumbled with his hypodermic needle and the narcotic which would
quickly give his fluttering nerves the quiet they craved.
Bridge, the boy, and the girl shivered together in their soggy clothing
upon the edge of the bed, feeling now in the cold dawn the chill
discomfort of which the excitement of the earlier hours of the night had
rendered them unconscious. The youth coughed.
“You've caught cold,” said Bridge, his tone almost self-reproachful, as
though he were entirely responsible for the boy's condition. “We're a
nice aggregation of mollycoddles--five of us sitting half frozen up here
with a stove on the floor below, and just because we heard a noise which
we couldn't explain and hadn't the nerve to investigate.” He rose. “I'm
going down, rustle some wood and build a fire in that stove--you two
kids have got to dry those clothes of yours and get warmed up or we'll
have a couple of hospital cases on our hands.”
Once again rose a chorus of pleas and objections. Oh, wouldn't he wait
until daylight? See! the dawn was even then commencing to break. They
didn't dare go down and they begged him not to leave them up there
alone.
At this Dopey Charlie spoke up. The 'hop' had commenced to assert its
dominion over his shattered nervous system instilling within him a new
courage and a feeling of utter well-being. “Go on down,” said he to
Bridge. “The General an' I'll look after the kids--won't we bo?”
“Sure,” assented The General; “we'll take care of 'em.”
“I'll tell you what we'll do,” said Bridge; “we'll leave the kids up
here and we three'll go down. They won't go, and I wouldn't leave them
up here with you two morons on a bet.”
The General and Dopey Charlie didn't know what a moron was but they felt
quite certain from Bridge's tone of voice that a moron was not a nice
thing, and anyway no one could have bribed them to descend into the
darkness of the lower floor with the dead man and the grisly THING that
prowled through the haunted chambers; so they flatly refused to budge an
inch.
Bridge saw in the gradually lighting sky the near approach of full
daylight; so he contented himself with making the girl and the youth
walk briskly to and fro in the hope that stimulated circulation might at
least partially overcome the menace of the damp clothing and the chill
air, and thus they occupied the remaining hour of the night.