Hastily backing toward the door, the boy caught one glimpse of a look on her face which he never forgot. It seemed almost as if a ray of pure sunshine shot suddenly out of the gray clouds to stream athwart her countenance. In that instant the haggard lines vanished, the mouth softened, the eyes glowed with a wonderful light. Then the door closed behind the two and they were out in the dull November grayness again.
In silence they reached the street and headed mechanically toward home. Micky’s eyes were fixed straight ahead with a faraway look in them and an unconscious smile on his lips. He was picturing to himself Jim’s surprise and delight when he received the “present” they were sending him. Ritter’s face was downcast. He walked rather slouchingly, both hands in his trousers pockets. Now and then he kicked at a stray pebble. At the corner where their ways parted, he stopped abruptly and raised his head, an embarrassed flush on his round face.
“I—I’m glad she’s going,” he said awkwardly. “I—guess it won’t take us so long after all to—to raise that fund over again.”
“Of course it won’t.” Micky grinned and slapped him on the back. “We’ll have it in a jiffy, what with snow coming and sidewalks to clean and all that. Well, see you later, old kid. We’ve only got ten minutes left before school, but I’m going home to snatch some grub. I’m starved.”
Nearly the whole troop assembled to see Mrs. Wright off that afternoon, and the sight of the quaint little old lady in the old fashioned bonnet surrounded by such a throng of boys raised a good deal of comment and speculation amongst the people around the station. Of course she was flustered and bewildered and almost speechless. When she shook hands with each one of the scouts her small, gloved hand trembled and her murmured words of gratitude were scarcely audible. But the look of sublime happiness in her face was more eloquent than any words could be. It brought a curious, tingling thrill to more than one young heart and stirred up a sense of pride and satisfaction at having had a share in something more truly tangible and lasting than the most solid furniture ever made.
That feeling of content lingered even after the train had gone and only the memory remained of a thin, lined face with tremulous lips and shining eyes peering through a dingy window, and a neat, gloved hand waving a scrap of handkerchief with a vehemence they felt instinctively would continue long after the station and the town had disappeared from view.
The eyes of the majority were still fixed upon the train, growing smaller in the distance, when a jovial, booming voice suddenly broke the spell and brought them back to earth.
“Well, boys, seeing somebody off?”
McBride glanced quickly around to meet the smiling gaze of Mr. Baker, one of their troop committee.
“Yes, sir,” he answered. “It’s Mrs. Wright. Jim’s regiment’s ordered to France and he couldn’t get leave. She’s going to—spend Thanksgiving with him.”
“Jim going to France! Well! well! That’s pretty sudden, isn’t it? Still, they’re sending ’em over all the time. I’m glad his mother could make the trip. She’ll feel a lot more comfortable after he’s gone. By the way, how’s the cabin coming on? Got it furnished yet?”
Micky flushed faintly and more than one boy exchanged glances with a neighbor.
“Not yet, sir,” returned McBride. “We—we had to use some of our furnishing fund for—something else.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” pursued Mr. Baker with bluff heartiness. “I don’t see why you boys shouldn’t have the stuff we used in the Business Men’s Club. Ever since we gave up the room a couple of months ago, it’s all been stored in my barn doing no good to anybody. There’s some big leather chairs and a long table, and a couple of fur rugs, and— Oh, yes, that big moosehead, you know, and some other horns. Those ought to fit your place first rate.”
A ripple of excitement ran through the group. Micky’s eyes shone.
“Gee-whiz!” he gasped. “Why, they’d be—they’d be— We never dreamed of anything so corking!”
“Fine!” boomed Mr. Baker, buttoning his overcoat around his portly form. “We’ll call it settled, then. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. The things are just gathering dust and moths where they are. You boys come over any time and pick out what you want and I’ll have it carted up to the cabin.” With a wave of his hand he started briskly down the station platform. Then he looked back. “Come over this afternoon, if you want to,” he called. “I’ll be home after five.”
Thrilled, dazed, with eyes shining, they stared after his retreating figure in silence. If at that moment their English teacher, Miss Brown, had requested the definition of an angel, there would undoubtedly have flashed into the brains of nine-tenths of the group the picture of a stout, broad individual snugly buttoned into a brown overcoat and wearing a black derby hat. Then he turned the corner of the building and the tension laxed.
“Well,” drawled Champ Ferris smilingly, “they say that good deeds like chickens come home to roost. Looks as if good turns did, too.”
“Oh, let’s go back,” grumbled Harry Ritter, petulantly swishing at the brittle stalk of a leafless brier. “There’s no black walnut trees around here, and it’ll be dark in half an hour. We have supper early to-night, too.”
“Thinking of his bread-basket as usual,” grinned McBride. “It would do you good, Rit, to go without supper for once. You need thinning down.”
“I’m thin enough to suit me,” sniffed the fat chap. He cocked a troubled eye at the cold, gray clouds which hung low above the narrow country road. “Besides, it’s going to rain or snow before long,” he added with a shiver.
McBride laughed carelessly. “We should worry and get a wrinkle! A little wet won’t hurt any of us. I move we keep going for a while longer, anyhow. We’ve had rotten luck this afternoon. If we don’t look out Marshall’s bunch will get ahead.”
In this final clean-up for locating trees not previously reported for the census of black walnuts requested by the Government, Mr. Wendell had hit upon the expedient of dividing the troop into miscellaneous groups of four and offering a prize to the group reporting the greatest number. The emulation and friendly rivalry aroused had produced fine results. So far Jim Cavanaugh’s group was ahead, but the scouts under Clay Marshall’s leadership had lately been creeping up. At McBride’s remark, Ritter sniffed scornfully.
“What can you expect?” he complained in an aggrieved tone. “Walnuts don’t grow in a wild country like this. They’re always around farms or on main roads. It was a dirty trick of Mr. Wendell to make us come way over here. Where’d Marshall’s bunch go?”
“Over around Benson’s Hill,” answered Cavanaugh, his gaze wandering keenly over the gaunt, bare tree tops of the surrounding woods.
“Right near the cabin!” exclaimed Ritter enviously. “I’ll bet they’ve gone in there and built a fire and are having a dandy time.”
“Well, then they can’t be finding walnuts and beating our record,” retorted Micky. “There’s one thing anyhow, fellows. When this last clean-up is over, I’ll bet nobody’ll be able to find a black walnut tree with a fine tooth comb around this country. We’ve located a raft of ’em since we started last summer.” He sighed, and his mind reverted to another subject. “Gee! The cabin certainly looks swell with all that new stuff in it. When are we going to have that house-warming Cavvy?”
Cavanaugh turned abruptly and stared blankly at his friend. “Say! I clean forgot to tell you something. Did you hear about Jack Farren?”
“No! What?”
“He’s down in the camp hospital with scarlet fever. I met Dick Harley in town this morning and he told me.”
“Gee! That’s tough luck, isn’t it?”
“And it’s not the worst,” continued Cavvy. “Dick says they’re likely to get marching orders any day, and of course if they sail for France before Jack gets well, he’ll be left behind.”
McBride gave a long, expressive whistle. “That would be the extreme limit, wouldn’t it? It’s a shame. Jack’s one of the dandiest chaps I ever met. He’d be all broken up to have them go and—What’s the matter? See one?”
Cavanaugh shrugged. “I’m not sure,” he returned, his eyes fixed on the naked branches of some tall trees towering up above the smaller growth quite a distance from the road. “They look pretty good to me, though.”
“They don’t look bad,” agreed Micky, swinging the stout hickory stick he had cut and trimmed earlier in the afternoon. “Of course you can’t tell for sure at this distance, but they’re worth looking up. Wonder how you get in there?”
Cavanaugh was already pushing into the undergrowth that edged the road. “This is the only way, I guess,” he answered. “They can’t be so very far back.”
“I’ll bet they’re hickory or butternut,” grumbled Ritter pessimistically.
Nevertheless, he followed the others into the tangled wilderness of briers, bushes and young trees which seemed to extend indefinitely over this remote and unfamiliar section of Fairview County.
As he plodded along over marshy ground to which belated winter had brought only a thin crusting of frost, the stout chap wished fervently that he had found some excuse for evading the excursion this afternoon. It wouldn’t have been easy, for Cavvy had a way of keeping the fellows up to the mark, but he might have managed if he had only had the sense, and then all this unpleasantness would have been avoided.
At length his growing petulance and inward stewing broke forth into audible grumbling. Nothing pleased him, even the discovery of a narrow path winding through the overgrown swamp, which, since it led in the general direction they were going, Cavvy promptly followed.
“An old cow path, I’ll bet,” growled Ritter, tenderly caressing a long scratch across one check. “It won’t take us anywhere. Whoever heard of walnut trees growing in this kind of a beastly hole. We’re just wasting—”
He broke off, jaw sagging, and stared over the shoulder of Champ Ferris, who walked ahead of him. The woods had ended abruptly in a cluttered, overgrown clearing. Across this the path wavered diagonally through dead, rustling grass and weeds nearly waist high to a house surrounded by eight or ten magnificent black walnut trees.
At the sight of them Cavvy’s eyes gleamed triumphantly. “By jingo!” he exclaimed. “Whatbeauties!”
McBride and Ferris echoed his enthusiasm, and there was a hurried forward movement. Then, inexplicably, they paused. In that first moment there had been eyes for nothing save the objects of their search. But now, as their glances wandered from the great trees and took in the other details of the clearing, there came suddenly over each one of them an impression of loneliness and desolation and decay which was almost chilling.
The house was large and rambling, but bore a hundred signs of neglect and disuse. The paint had scaled from its surface leaving it a dark, streaked gray. In the moss-covered, sagging roof were rotting holes. Shutters covered the windows or hung crazily by a single rusted hinge. A pillar of the porch in front had fallen and lay buried in the tall grass.
At one side of the house lay a stagnant pool covered with a thin film of ice, and a quantity of green slime. Beyond it loomed the gaunt outlines of a great barn. The roof had been almost stripped of shingles, and the beams and rafters stood out against the cold gray sky like the bleached ribs of some long-wrecked ship. Farther still they could glimpse stretches of what had once been pasture land, but which now was smothered in a thick tangle of brier and bay and juniper. The view was limited on every side by thick, encompassing woods.
“Whew!” breathed Champ Ferris. “What a hole! It gives you a regular chill.”
“We’re going to have a job finding the owner,” said McBride disconsolately. “Don’t look as if anybody’d lived here in a thousand years.”
Cavvy’s face was puzzled. “But the path,” he reminded them. “Why hasn’t that grown up like the rest if it isn’t used?”
“That is queer,” agreed McBride. “Of course it might be some short cut, but— What the deuce is the matter with you, Rit?”
A sharp, half smothered exclamation from the stout chap made them all turn quickly, but for a moment Ritter did not answer. With jaw sagging and eyes wide and startled, he was staring at one of the grimy windows on the upper floor of the gray house from which, a second before, he had glimpsed a face peering down at them.
A heavy, pendulous face it was, of a curious and pronounced pallor. It hovered there for an instant and disappeared so swiftly that Cavanaugh, following the direction of Ritter’s frightened gaze, was in time to catch only the white flash of its vanishing.
“There is someone there, after all, then!” exclaimed Cavvy quickly. “What did he look like, Rit?”
Ritter’s gaze, still wide and nervous, swept along the row of broken or shuttered windows, returning quickly to the one near the corner. “I—I don’t know, exactly,” he answered. “White and fat and—and sort of queer looking. Let’s get out of here, fellows. This beastly place gives me the creeps.”
“But we can’t go without finding out about the trees,” protested McBride. “It would be a shame to let them go.”
“Of course it would,” agreed Cavvy impatiently. “We’ve got to— Well, now what’s the matter?”
Ritter started slightly and withdrew his wandering gaze from the gaunt outlines of the great barn. “N—nothing,” he stammered. “I thought I—saw something—moving down there, but I guess I didn’t. What are you going to do now?”
“Knock at the door and ask him if he’s willing to sell his trees for Government use,” returned Cavanaugh tersely. “Nobody can eat us for doing that.”
The stout chap sighed deeply, but made no actual reply. It was with very evident distaste, however, that he followed the others past the pool and on through the tall grass to the front porch.
The wooden steps were rotted into fragments, and as the boys scrambled up without their aid, they felt the old flooring give dangerously under their feet. The door itself seemed strong enough, however. Though streaked and weathered and bare of paint, it sounded hard and firm under the vigorous rapping of Cavanaugh’s knuckles.
The knock echoed curiously, with hollow, prolonged reverberations.
“Sounds empty,” remarked Cavvy, intently listening.
“Like Rit’s stomach,” grinned Micky, giving Ritter a sudden poke in that region which made him jump nervously.
“Haven’t you any sense?” he snapped irritably.
“Itisempty,” spoke up Champ Ferris suddenly. He had been peering curiously through a broken pane in the narrow window beside the door. “There’s not a darn thing in the hall that I can see but a couple of boxes and a mess of dirt and rubbish.”
Cavanaugh waited a few moments and then knocked again. By this time the silence and desolation of the place was beginning to wear upon the spirits of others than Ritter. A frankly deserted house often has interesting possibilities. But this gloomy ruin, so far from the unfrequented road, that appeared to be the hiding place of a mysterious unknown, was something quite different.
“Funny,” commented Cavvy presently, in an unconsciously lowered tone. “He must have heard that. I wonder why he doesn’t answer.... Well, suppose we try the back door.”
They left the sagging porch and circled the house in silence. The path ran along this side and was the only thing which showed the slightest trace of use. Everything else was overgrown with grass and weeds.
The path ended at the rear door, and here, too were more black walnuts. There was also a great pine, one of the largest they had ever seen, which towered up not a dozen feet from the house. Its huge trunk actually touched the wall of a decrepit woodshed, while the lower branches swept across the roof of the main building.
“That’s a corking tree,” said Cavvy admiringly. “But what a crazy place to plant it. It’s a wonder to me there’s any roof left at all, with the needles and all to rot it. The fellow who did it must have been some nut.”
“Regular wal-nut,” murmured Micky from force of habit.
“Help!” groaned Cavanaugh. “Can’t you pull off anything better than that? Besides, it’s the pine I’m talking about. Here; give us that club of yours,” he went on, taking Micky’s hickory staff. “Maybe I can raise him with that.”
The clatter he made would certainly have roused anyone but a deaf person, but apparently it had no effect whatever on the eccentric occupant of the old house. When the hollow echoes died away, all four boys stood motionless, fairly holding their breath as they listened for the sound of footsteps inside. But none came, and presently Cavvy, backing away a little, stared curiously up at the dingy, slatternly windows.
“It’s got me,” he said with a touch of petulance. “I don’t see why the dickens a man wouldn’t answer a knock at his own door, unless— Jingo! I wonder if he would be hiding from something?”
“That’s just it!” put in Ritter in a shrill, nervous whisper. “How do we know he isn’t a criminal, or—or an escaped lunatic, who’s broken in here perhaps? Maybe he’s not the owner of the house at all. Let’s beat it, Cavvy. We’re just wasting time, and it’ll be pouring in a little while. I felt a drop on my face just now.” Cavanaugh did not answer. His own face, still upturned, had taken on an oddly intent, curiously puzzled stare. His gaze, no longer focussed on the windows, had shifted to a point just under the sagging eaves where a long branch of the pine tree stretched across the roof, seeming almost to touch the rotting shingles.
Suddenly his face flushed, his lips half parted, a look at once eager and incredulous flashed into his widening eyes. Swiftly those eager eyes followed the limb to where it joined the massive trunk, then darted upward to the point at which that trunk disappeared in a baffling mask of dark green foliage. Then, of a sudden, there came the grating of a key and the door beside them was flung abruptly open.
“Well?” snarled a voice. “What’s the matter with you? What do you mean trying to pound a man’s door down like this?”
Ritter gasped and stepped swiftly backward, treading on Ferris’s toes. Cavanaugh whirled about, unconsciously tightening his grip on the stick he held. Even Micky felt an unpleasant tingling on his spine as he met the shifting glance of the individual in the doorway.
There was something oddly repellant about the man—something to be felt, in that first moment, rather than defined. He was big beyond the ordinary, but with a flabby, unwholesome bulk that reminded one of a jellyfish. His hands were soft and pudgy; his clothes hung about him like shapeless bags.
All this and more they swiftly noted without hitting on the feature which roused that curious repulsion. Then suddenly they saw. The creature had no hair! His shiny scalp was bare of any vestige; he had no eyebrows or eyelashes. The flesh which hung about his pendulous jowls in pasty, yellow rolls was as innocent of a beard as any baby’s. Moreover, his eyes—gray they were and very small and pale—stared unwinking, the hairless lids so narrowed that an alien roll of flesh showed there, making those lids look double.
“What’s the matter,” repeated the fat man, as the four stared at him without speaking. “Ain’t you got voices?”
“There’s nothing the matter,” returned Stafford, recovering his self-possession. “We came to find out if you’d be willing to sell your trees.”
The fishy eyes widened abruptly. “Trees?” shrilled the man. “Trees?” For an instant his gaze flashed upward. “What do you mean? Who are you?”
“We’re boy scouts from Wharton,” Stafford explained quietly, keeping his eyes fixed intently on the pasty, pudgy face. “We’ve been ordered by the Government to make a census of all the black walnut trees whose owners are willing to sell. The wood is needed for gun stocks and airplane propellers. You’ll get a good price, and be doing a service to your country at the same time.”
“Oh, walnut trees! That’s all you want? Gunstocks? You’re sure? Well, I won’t sell. The—nuts are too valuable.”
“But—”
“Never mind any buts,” cut in the fat man harshly. “I’ve told you, and that’s enough. I’ll remind you, also, that this is private property and you’re trespassing. The sooner you get off it the better I’ll be pleased.”
Without further comment he closed the door with a slam, leaving the boys to stare at one another with wry faces.
“Sweet temper,” commented McBride. “Regular merry little sunshine, isn’t he?”
“He ought to bemadeto turn over those trees for Government use,” exclaimed Champ Ferris hotly. “I’ll bet he’s a regular pro—”
“Come ahead and let’s get out of here,” interrupted Cavanaugh hastily. “He won’t sell, and that’s the end of it. No use wasting any more time.”
He turned quickly from the door and led the way toward the path. At the corner of the house he paused for a second to send back a sharp, searching glance at the great pine tree beside the woodshed. Then he passed on, striding briskly along the path without so much as a backward look at the dreary gray house standing out against a background of equally dreary sky.
He entered the fringe of undergrowth that edged the clearing, passed thence into the stretch of woods and kept steadily on for several hundred yards. Then he stopped suddenly and faced the others, his expression alert and eager.
“Listen, fellows,” he said abruptly, in low swift tones. “There’s something wrong back there. Did you notice that pine tree by the shed?”
“Sure. It’s the biggest one I ever saw,” answered Micky.
“I wasn’t thinking about its size,” went on Cavanaugh hastily. “You remember the long limb that runs over the roof? Close by the house there’s a branch that’s lately been broken off and hangs down—probably in the storm yesterday. Well, just under the eaves at a point where that branch must have covered them—two wires come out and run over to the big limb!”
“Wires!” exclaimed McBride and Ferris together.
“Yes, wires. They come out of a little hole that’s been bored through the clapboards. Unless I miss my guess they run along that big limb and on up the tree trunk. Does that mean anything to you?”
“Great guns!” exclaimed Micky excitedly. “You don’t think it’s a—wireless!”
“That’s exactly what I do mean. You know as well as I do that ever since the U-boats showed up along the coast last summer, they’ve suspected that a hidden wireless was giving them information about ships and things. Don’t you remember the talk Mr. Wendell gave at the meeting a few weeks ago when he said that secret service men were busy hunting for it, but it was like looking for a needle in a haystack? He told us we must report the least thing that seemed suspicious. Jove! If this should be it, and we should the ones to find it!”
“I hated that fat man from the first,” said Ritter viciously. “I was sure there was something queer about him.”
“There is, all right,” agreed Cavvy with conviction. “If he isn’t running a secret wireless, he’s doing something else underhand. Otherwise why is he living in this tumbledown ruin away from everything? Why didn’t he answer our knocking until we pretty near broke the door down? There’s something crooked about him, you can bank on that.”
“Gee-whiz! I’ll bet you’re right, Cavvy!” exclaimed McBride. “What are you going to do? Tell Mr. Wendell, or the police?”
Cavanaugh’s face took on a faintly troubled expression. “I don’t see how we can do either just yet,” he answered. “You see, we really don’tknowanything. There’s nothing but those wires to go on. If I could only get up that tree I’d be sure one way or another.”
“But you can’t do that,” said Ferris quickly. “He’d be sure to see you.”
“Not after dark,” returned Cavvy pointedly.
“What!” protested Ritter, his face falling. “Wait all that time! Why, it’d be ages. And we’d probably get wet to the skin. The rain can’t hold off much longer.”
“You give me a pain, Rit,” said Micky scathingly. “What the dickens does a little rain matter when we’ve got a chance like this? You oughtn’t to howl. You’re so well padded you wouldn’t feel it. Besides, it won’t be long at all. It’ll be good and dark by half past five on a night like this. I’m game to stay, Cavvy. So’s Champ, aren’t you, old kid?”
Ferris acquiesced, though not quite with McBride’s eager impulsiveness. The woods were cold and dreary and the possibilities ahead of them did not fill him with delight. But he was too keen an admirer of Jimmy Cavanaugh to risk losing the other’s good opinion. Finally, with the other three against him, Ritter gave in, though with much grumbling and complaint, and a good deal more secret apprehension, and leaving the path they found a more secluded spot back in the undergrowth in which to pass their vigil.
This did not prove so long or so tedious as some of them expected. They were wrought-up and excited, and there were plans to make and possibilities to discuss. Moreover, the early twilight, hastened by the lowering clouds, fell swiftly. Long before six it was quite dark. Twenty minutes later Cavvy decided that it was time to move.
Cautiously they crept out of the bushes and felt their way along the path. It was spooky business, this stealing through the darkness, and more than one heart beat faster at the thought of what might lie before them. At the edge of the clearing they paused, trying to make out the lines of the old house through the gloom. A cold sleety drizzle had begun to fall, and with a shiver Ritter turned up his mackinaw collar.
Cavanaugh, in advance, took a few more steps forward and then stopped again. Of a sudden, out of the blackness before them, came a faint, wavering glow of light. For a second or two they failed to place it. Then the vague outlines of a window sprang up in the darkness, only to fade again as the light flickered, died out, to reappear presently in another window on the upper floor.
“He’s moving around up there,” whispered Cavvy. “I guess it’s safe enough. Champ, you and Rit stay here. Better get off the path a little; he might come out. Mind you don’t run into the pond. Come ahead, Micky.”
Ritter and Ferris stumbled gropingly from the path, the former giving another shudder at the thought of blundering into that slimy pool. The other two disappeared instantly into the shadows.
They moved cautiously, and as they neared the house even their occasional stealthy whispers ceased. The light remained stationary in the window near the corner where they had first glimpsed the fat man’s face. This was no proof that he also was there, but some chance had to be taken, and Micky found no slight comfort in the heft of the stout stick in his hand.
At the rear of the building, under the shadow of the great pine, not a ray of light relieved the gloom. The boys felt their way past the closed door and on to the woodshed. Here McBride helped his friend to the low roof and then retired a little way to keep watch according to agreement.
Slowly and carefully Cavanaugh edged his way along the roof, thankful for the rubber soles which gave him some slight hold on the slippery surface. Without them he would certainly have slid off, for there was nothing to take hold of with his hands, and he had constantly to feel ahead for holes and weak spots in the rotten shingles.
Reaching the tree, he stood upright, steadying himself against the trunk. He had noted that afternoon the projecting stub of a broken limb which gave him his first foothold. Thence, with the aid of a similar butt and a curious, unexpected projection which felt like a wooden cleat nailed to the trunk, he gained the lowest crotch.
It was ticklish business, climbing through the dark with only his sense of feeling to guide him, and Cavvy breathed a sigh of relief as he threw one leg across the solid branch. A moment later his fingers touched the wires and his heart leaped exultingly. There they were exactly as he had imagined them—two heavy insulated wires snugly fastened to the limb with staples, and in such a position as to be quite invisible from the ground. His eager fingers traced them to the trunk where they turned upward just as he thought they might.
“Itisa wireless!” he muttered excitedly. “It can’t be anything else.”
Without delay he resumed climbing. There were other big limbs at frequent intervals which made this easier. Presently a heavy mass of fragrant pine brushed his face. A moment later his groping hand touched another wooden cleat nailed to the trunk, and a little exploration convinced him that this was the bottom rung of a rough ladder which led directly into the treetop.
And there, at last, he found what he was looking for. Far above the level of the house roof, and completely hidden by the thick foliage, was a small, wooden platform. That it was near the top of the tree Cavvy knew from the swaying of the limbs about him and the chill beat of sleet against his face. There were ropes here and a sort of rigging, the purpose of which puzzled him until his searching fingers encountered the shaft of a slim, tough pole which seemed to be held in place by a series of u-shaped iron bands driven into the trunk. At a point about on a level with his head as he stood on the platform, the wires left the trunk and continued upward along the pole with a good deal of looseness and play; and of a sudden an explanation of the whole ingenious apparatus came to him.
The pole must hold the wireless aerials. It could not be placed permanently in the treetop for the simple reason that it would project above the branches and in the daytime be visible for a long distance. Hence this device for lowering it except at night, the pole simply slipped down through the irons and held by them close to the trunk of the tree on the opposite side from the ladder. When darkness fell it could be hoisted without danger. And it was at night, of course, that those treacherous messages of information or warning were sent to the enemy U-boats, for Wharton was within easy reach of the coast, and it would be a poor wireless indeed which could not transmit many times that distance.
In spite of the cold sleet and drenching rain that beat upon him, Cavanaugh felt a glow of mingled triumph and anger at his discovery. It seemed as if he could not reach the ground swiftly enough so eager was he to start rolling the ball which would end in the capture of this traitor and perhaps his confederates. In vastly less time than it had taken him to make the slow ascent, he reached the bottom crotch and scrambled to the shed roof. Without waiting for McBride’s help, he hung by his hands and dropped. Then he tip-toed over to the house.
“Micky!” he whispered, a thrill of excitement quivering even in his carefully lowered voice. “Micky! I’ve found it.”
There was no answer. Surprised and puzzled, Cavvy took a step or two forward through the darkness and his outstretched hand suddenly touched the casing of the door.
“Micky!” he repeated, this time a little louder. “Where the dickens are you?”
Still no answer came, and the boy turned away with a muttered exclamation of irritation. “He must have gone back to the others,” he thought. “Funny thing for him to do, but of course that’s it.”
Hastily circling the house, he groped his way to the point as nearly as he could find it where Ritter and Ferris had left the path. A backward glance showed him the dim light still burning in the corner room, and he called the boys’ names in a guarded but penetrating whisper. The response was instant, and in a moment they stood beside him.
“Is Micky here?” asked Cavanaugh quickly. “Why, no,” returned Ferris. “Isn’t he with you? I thought—”
“You haven’t seen him, then?”
“Not since you two went off together.”
Cavvy stood silent for a moment, fighting back the vague, yet persistent feeling of alarm which was stealing over him. There must be some simple explanation for McBride’s disappearance, but what was it? At any rate this new development upset all his calculations. He had planned to hasten back at once to Wharton and report his discovery so that authorities might lose no time in coming out to capture the wireless spy. But that was impossible now. No matter what lay in the balance, he could not bring himself to leave this desolate place without finding out what had happened to his friend. He tried to think, but all the time that nagging sense of anxiety and misgiving grew stronger. Suddenly his jaw squared and his chin went up.
“Listen, fellows,” he said abruptly. “You two will have to go back to town and bring help. I don’t know what the dickens has happened to Micky. He just seems to have disappeared. I left him by the back door while I climbed the tree, and when I came down he was gone. He may have slipped off to take a snoop around the house, but we can’t all go and leave him, especially since there is a wireless up that tree, and you know what kind of men would be running a thing like that these days. So I’ll stay here and look around, and you hustle back as quick as you can and get hold of somebody to come out here. You needn’t go all the way to town if you can dig up two or three men at any of the farms along the road. But they’ve got to be men you can depend on. Get me?”
“Y-y-yes,” stammered Ritter, his teeth chattering audible. “B-b-but what about you?”
“Don’t worry about me; I’ll be all right. Now hustle; and for Pete’s sake don’t lose any time!”
Obediently they started off; then Ferris ran back. “I forgot,” he said hastily. “A little while ago we heard a car out on the road. It slowed down, but we couldn’t tell whether it stopped, or whether the trees muffled the sound.”
“A car?” repeated Cavvy thoughtfully. “Humph! Of course it might be just a farmer’s jitney passing; it’s not really very late. Better be careful when you get out on the road, though. This guy must have someone or other to bring him news.”
Ferris nodded, and without further comment turned and vanished into the shadows. Listening intently, Cavanaugh heard the faint rustle of their hurried passage through the bushes. Then silence fell—a silence utter and complete and different, somehow, in its quality from the silence of even a few moments before. He was alone now—yet not alone. Somewhere in that spooky ruin of a house mystery and danger lurked. He felt it in every breath he drew, and it needed a distinct effort of will to force himself into action.
But there was nothing else to do. He could not stop here; he must begin at once to search for his missing friend. Slowly he approached the house and circled it. At the back door he paused and whispered Micky’s name. There was no answer, nor did he, curiously, seem to expect one. He took a step or two forward, his eyes, by this time accustomed to the darkness, sweeping the shadowy outlines of the house and shed. Then his foot struck something on the ground and bending down he picked up a stout stick which lay there in the tall grass.
Micky’s stick! He knew the heft and feel of it, and a fresh wave of apprehension swept over him. Why should Micky have dropped it here after carrying it with him all afternoon?
And then, as he stood there motionless, his heart began to throb suffocatingly. A faint scraping sound had come to him, and in another moment he realized that the door beside him was slowly, silently opening.
Slowly, silently, inch by inch the portal widened. Beyond that first faint scraping sound, not the slightest creak accompanied the stealthy movement. Cavanaugh, flattened against the house wall, simply saw the black shadow of the door as it swung outward, growing imperceptibly wider against the almost equally dark background behind it. It was almost as if the thing were happening without human agency; and to the boy, already keyed up by the strange doings of the night, the suspense became well nigh intolerable.
He longed to shout, to dash forward, to run away—to do anything which would end that desperate tension. The thudding of his heart suffocated him; he felt sure the sound was audible for yards. It was only by digging teeth painfully into under lip that he was able to keep a precarious hold on himself.
Then all at once he saw a blurred white patch against the shadow of the door—a hand resting on the latch. His own fingers gripped the hickory staff with unconscious force; his muscles stiffened. A faint rustling beat on his taut nerves with a sense of actual physical shock. What was coming? Who was coming? Could it possibly be McBride? Or was it that beastly fat man with the pasty, yellow, hairless face?
The question pounded through his brain, and then suddenly was answered. Another blurred white patch showed in the darkness, larger than the other and higher up—much higher than Micky’s face would have appeared. And Cavvy staring with wide, straining eyes, seemed to glimpse the vague, shadowy outlines of a broad, bulky figure standing almost at his elbow. The head was thrust slightly forward, the face moved in a slow circle as if the man were making a stealthy survey of the yard.
It was too much for Cavanaugh. In that instant his self-control snapped like a taut rope when the strain becomes too great. The stick flashed up and fell, with every ounce of his young strength behind the blow. There was a grunt, a groan. He struck again, frenziedly, but already the tall figure was reeling. In another instant it thudded to the ground and, with a gasp of horror, Cavvy came to himself.
For a second he stood there shaking, the stick dangling from his laxed fingers. Then he drew a long, shuddering breath and one hand lifted mechanically to wipe the moisture, which was more than rain, from his face.
“I can’t have killed him,” he muttered in a frightened whisper. “It isn’t possible!” And then: “But suppose I have?”
Dropping swiftly on his knees beside the motionless body, he had another shock. He found one of the limp hands and was fumbling desperately for the pulse, when all at once he realized that the wrist he held wasn’t in the least fleshy. On the contrary it was lean and hard, and terminated in a big, muscular hand. The person he had struck down was not the fat man at all!
Cavvy gasped and dropped the hand. Then he reached for it again and deliberately forced himself to find the pulse. When he felt it fluttering beneath his fingers, he gave a sigh of relief and slowly his composure began to return.
At least the worst hadn’t happened. He was in a tight place, to be sure; the stranger might regain consciousness at any moment, and it behooved him to act quickly. But he could think and act now without the handicap of that numbing horror which had come so near to undoing him.
Crouching in the wet grass, he glanced swiftly over one shoulder through the open door. It was dark inside, though not so dark as out of doors. He made out dimly the shadowy proportions of a wide, empty hall which seemed to run straight through the house from front to rear. Part way down its length stairs ascended. He could just distinguish the upper portion of the banisters, as if a light from one of the rooms above was shining through an open door. And listening intently, he could hear the sound of someone stirring there, accompanied by a curious scraping clink of metal striking against metal.
Evidently the person above had failed to hear the fall, and, reassured, Cavanaugh felt in his pocket and drew forth a match box. There came with it some lengths of stout cord he always kept in his scout suit, but these fell to the ground unheeded. Cautiously striking a match, he cupped his hands around it until the wood was well alight. Then he bent forward, holding the flame close to the face of the man lying before him.
It was a square, powerful face with a heavy jaw and chin, and a hard curve to the wide, close-lipped mouth. Even with the eyes closed, there was a certain harsh ruthlessness about it which made Cavvy shiver apprehensively. What would happen when he came to his senses, as he was likely to do at any moment?