CHAPTER XXITHE HAND OF THE GHOST
Douglaspushed off his hat and ran a hand through his hair, puzzling over what to do now. Despite Marion’s prediction, he had not seriously considered the possibility of an inflexible rejection of his offer, and now he was somewhat at a loss.
Squatting beside Steve, he absently dug up his empty pipe and puffed at it, thinking. Steve looked wistful, but said nothing. Marion, sitting on a little leaf-cushioned projection of stone, watched both of them unobserved.
The contrast between the two male faces was striking. Douglas, blond, strong, clean of skin and clear-cut of feature, thoughtfully serious, working out the problem of helping another: Steve, swarthy, wan, black-bristled, unkempt, grim-jawed, determined to follow his own course despite reason and sense; truly, they seemed as opposite as light and darkness, as blithe hope and sombre desperation. Yet the dark face, perhaps, would strike more forcefully on vibrant heart-strings; for mingled with its resolution was an unconscious pathos. To a sympathetic eye, too, the ragged, shapeless clothing of the younger man would have appealed more strongly than the well-fitting garb of the other. But Marion was not looking at the dressof the pair. Silently, steadfastly, here in her dream-cavern she was studying faces—and men.
“Well,” Douglas said slowly, removing his pipe—and stopped. He saw the hollow eyes, eloquent with tobacco-hunger, follow the motion of the blackened briar. Wiping its stem on a sleeve, he passed it over. Steve grabbed it and began eagerly sucking in the strong incense of bygone smokes. The little touch of comradeship was not lost on the girl, nor was the next movement of the blond man. He produced a tobacco-tin, picked out a third of its contents, and handed the rest to Steve.
“Better not smoke it,” he suggested. “The smoke will float outside. Chew it. I’ll have Uncle Eb get more for both of us. Now I won’t argue with you about moving. You say you won’t, and that ends it. But you’ve got to doctor up. You’ve got to bake that pain out of your lung, kill that cough, knock out the headache and fever, keep warm and dry. Take care of yourself. Remember you’re not so hardy as you were three years ago.”
Steve nodded, grinding the pipe-stem between his teeth.
“Them three years would of kilt me, but I had to live to git Snake.”
“Uh-huh. Now I’ll go home and send up the best medicine I have. It isn’t much: mostly quinine. But you take it. To-night, when there isn’t much chance that anybody’ll be prowling up here, you make a fire, boil some water, bake your chest with hot cloths. Marion can fix you up a mustard plaster, too, andfetch it back with the medicine; you wrap it around that lung, and it ought to draw out the misery. I’ll send you up some good wool socks, too. And you wear ’em! Now will you follow Old Doc Hampton’s orders?”
“I’ll foller ’em, Hamp.”
“Good enough. Now I’ll go get that medicine.” He arose and clapped on his hat. “I won’t be back here myself unless I’m needed—the fewer that come here the better. But take care of yourself.”
Steve gripped the extended hand, his face softening.
“Much ’bliged, Hamp. An’ take care o’ yer own self. Snake’s a-fixin’ to git ye some way, I bet ye. Cuss him, will I ever git to him?”
In the cavernous eyes, in the prediction of trouble from Snake, were a significance which Douglas was to remember later on, but which he hardly noticed now. He only answered the rebellious question.
“Not until you’re able to handle him. Right now you can’t even handle yourself.”
Steve’s mouth tightened in angry admission that he realized it. With a last long draw at the pipe he handed it back.
“I’ll handle him right rough ’fore long,” he gritted. “G’by.”
With a nod and a smile Douglas followed Marion, who, still wordless, now was half out of sight in the lower entrance. Down they went, passing through a series of smaller caverns, twisting and crouching and dropping, until they came out into sunlight. Before them, hardly a rod away, rose the face of thecliff. Around were bowlders half as big as houses. Among these the girl led an irregular way—and they were under an overhanging crag, looking out across the Traps.
Looking back, he decided that any one would have an extremely difficult time in finding Steve’s covert unless guided to it. Once away from here, he doubted whether he himself could retrace his course. Marion’s dream-cave was as complete a hiding-place as could well be imagined: double entrances and exits, both almost impossible of discovery, the upper one forming a natural flue for a night fire; well-watered, with wood at hand for the taking, plenty of air and sufficient light; yes, it was almost ideal—until the snows should come.
“Go careful down here,” the girl’s voice broke in on his reflections. “It’s pretty rough. Here’s where I took a fall the night the catamount ’most got me.”
Down again they went, over a steep talus; among more bowlders, and out at last on grassy, bushy soil; through undergrowth to a faint foot-track running north. Along this they trod for some time in silence.
“If it’s a fair question, what did Steve mean by saying he was born like a wolf-pup?” he asked at length.
“It’s so,” she said, half reluctantly. “His—his folks wasn’t married, and his pop went off and left his mom ’fore Steve was borned, and he never come back. His mom, she went kind of queer into the head about it. She was into the woods all the time, a-travelin’ and a-whisperin’, folks say. Steve was borned outdoors,like he says. She died pretty soon, and so he hasn’t got any folks.”
Another long silence. Now he knew what Uncle Eb meant by saying the boy had been born unlucky and never had had a chance. Poor, pitiful little tragedy of the hills! The girl deserted by her man just when she most needed his companionship and protection; the staring, whispering young mother-to-be wandering in the leafy solitudes; the new little life coming into the world as primitively as that of the first-born son of mankind; the kindly old Mother Earth taking back into her great bosom one more of her daughters who had loved and lost—a tragedy ever new, yet old as the trust of women and the callousness of men. Poor little mother! Poor Steve!
He might have asked more about the boy—how he had lived and grown—but a glance at the girl told him she would say no more. In all his wanderings among the people of the Traps, this was the first time any one had told him anything about the past of another; and even now it probably was told only because Steve himself had virtually given permission. He asked nothing further. It was she who now asked a question or two of her own.
“When you asked him to come down to your house had you forgot the ha’nt might git him?”
“By George, I did! Clean forgot that ha’nt of mine. Is that why he wouldn’t come?”
“No-o, I guess not. Not so much. But mebbe ’twas one of the things he was thinkin’ about; he figgers a lot of things into his head that don’t comeouten his mouth. But tell me, jest what does that ha’nt do? The same kind of things all the time? Nobody else ever stayed there long ’nough to find out if the ha’nt worked reg’lar. You know him pretty well by now, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“Well, I don’t pay much attention to him. He—or it—scared me green in the face the first night, but he’s never done me any real harm, and I’ve never seen anything in a white sheet gibbering at me—nor anything else. But this is what I know about him.” And he described the muffled footfalls in attic and stairway, the rustling and movement of the mattress, and the uncanny suggestion thatsomethingelse was there.
“Ooh!” She shuddered and looked nervously around. Then, banishing the visions conjured up by his words, she became practical. “Did you ever think that mebbe the thing walkin’ round was a rat?”
“A rat? If he is, Mister Rat has feet as big as pillows. I thought of it, yes. But it’s queer—I’ve never heard a rat or a mouse scamper or gnaw in that house. You’d think there would be plenty of them, but I’ve never seen nor heard a sign. And I’m positive it was no rat that got into bed with me.”
“M-h’m. Well, I wonder, now—do you want a cat? We’ve got four of ’em, always pesterin’ round for somethin’ to eat. They’re Spit and Spat and Fit and Fat—I named ’em all my own self. Spit and Spat are ugly and they make noises like their names. Fit has fits and Fat’s fat. I’ll give you Spit if you want him. He’s quick as lightnin’ and an awful good ratter,and he’ll be company for you, too. Leave that attic door open and see what he’ll do. Want to?”
“All right,” he chuckled. “But if that heavy-footed ha’nt steps on Spit’s tail and Spit raises the roof with a gosh-awful yowl when I’m asleep—there won’t be any house left. I’ll go head-first through the wall and knock down the whole layout.”
She burst into a merry laugh, in which he joined. Quickly she suppressed it, however, looking around once more—not for a night-walking phantom this time, but for something which prowled as stealthily by day, ranging the whole countryside: the sinister pair whose presence kept Steve in a hole in the ground.
“You hadn’t ought to make me laugh so sudden-like,” she reproved. But as they went onward she giggled several times, and he chuckled in sympathy. Nothing more was said, however, until they emerged into a small field. Before them, dingy and bare, stood the Oaks house.
“Lost?” she smiled then, seeing his surprised look. “Didn’t think it was so nigh, did you? We come back by the short way—it don’t take half as long as goin’. Tell me”—she drew closer to him—“what you a-huntin’ pop for?”
He hesitated. Then, as bluntly as she had revealed her knowledge of Lou and the bridge, he told her. She did not seem much surprised, though she was plainly disturbed.
“I was ’fraid so,” she murmured. “I figgered ’twas somethin’ like that, after you brought that corn-hook home. But if pop done that, ’twas Snake that put himup to it! Consarn him!” She stamped a foot in swift wrath. “Snake! Heisa snake—a nasty p’isonous copperhead that bites without a warnin’! And he gits clear while other folks pay!”
“Snake’s the man I want,” he acquiesced. “I’ve been after him, too. But I want to get the truth out of your pop. And I’ll get it——”
“I’m ’fraid you won’t,” she interrupted soberly. “I’m ’fraid he’s gone for good. Seems like we’d have heard somethin’ ’fore if he was a-livin’. Mebbe—mebbe Snake done somethin’ to him that night. Snake, he’s a-layin’ awful low since then; nobody’s seen him.”
“Well, he’ll come to light sometime. He’ll have to. And now we have to look out for somebody else. I’ll get down to the house and bring up that medicine. By-by.”
“G’by.”
They parted, to his mingled regret and relief—for, be a girl’s father ever so base, it is inevitably distasteful to discuss with her that father’s ignominy. Down the road he walked fast toward his own abode and the waiting medicine.
With the sun-baked sand under his feet he realized anew how unseasonably hot was the day. The air was breathless, and heat-waves curved and twined visibly along the highway. Soon he shed his coat and shoved back his hat. As he neared his haunted house, too, he became more and more aware that the atmosphere was tainted by the same odor which had been breeze-borne to his nostrils earlier in the day.
Then, rounding the little curve beyond which stood the Dalton house, he checked his stride.
Beside the road, in his own yard, were a weather-beaten wagon and a white horse. They were Uncle Eb’s. The old man himself was not in sight.
Douglas jumped forward with increased speed. Uncle Eb might be waiting for him in the house, but that was hardly likely; the old man did not like that house. Had something happened to him?
The explosive voice of Eb himself came to him. It broke from the brushy land on the other side of the road, mingled with sounds of progress through thick going.
“—Jest like Jake Dalton,” it was saying, “jest like I’m a-tellin’ ye. Hampton never had no hand into this, though I wouldn’t blame him none s’posin’ he had—— Wal! thar he is now!”
From the brush emerged Eb and two others: the man-hunters, Ward and Bill. All were chewing tobacco furiously. All looked pale.
“What’s wrong?” Douglas sharply demanded.
“Wrong! Good gosh, son, is yer nose stopped? It’s Nat!”
Dumb, the blond man gaped at the three. Ward and Bill were eyeing him keenly. Uncle Eb pulled off his hat, mopped his brow on a sleeve, squirted a mouthful of brown juice, and went on barking.
“Jest like Jake Dalton! He’s up into the bresh—’side the brook—face down an’ deader’n—wal, ’most as dead as Jake. He’s been ther’ three-four days, these fellers think—ever sence he run outen yer housethat night he left his cawn-hook. An’ this hot weather to-day—wugh! I ain’t a-goin’ to High Falls to-day after all. I’m a-goin’ right back home soon’s we—— Have ye got a shovel? Nat needs a shovel powerful bad.”
“What happened to him?” Somehow Douglas knew the answer already, but he had to ask.
“What happened to Jake Dalton? I dunno. But he’s jest like Jake—swelled up awful, an’ not a mark onto him—no gunshot, no knife, no nawthin’—jest dead! Ther’s sumpthin’ into that house o’ yourn, son—that ha’nt or sumpthin’, I dunno—that kilt him jest the same’s it kilt Jake. He run into the bresh an’ fell down an’ died same’s Jake done. Have ye got that shovel?”
“No.”
“Wal, I’ll go borry one. Glad to git away a few minutes. Hoss, c’m’ere! Whoa! G’yapalong!”
With an apprehensive backward look at the house the agitated old fellow was off. The man-hunters spat in unison, never taking their eyes off Douglas, who still stared at the brush. Mechanically he got out his pipe, loaded it, lit it, and puffed.
“Well, fellows,” he said presently, “this is news to me. I’ve been hunting this Nat Oaks—he was the one I suspected of knifing my dummy—but I didn’t finish him. Looks bad for me, perhaps, but——”
“You’re in the clear,” cut in Ward. “We might make out a case if we tried hard enough, but we ain’t tryin’. If the stiff had wounds on him you might have some explainin’ to do; and we’re goin’ to do somelookin’ round, anyhow. But unless somethin’ new turns up we’ll leave the thing lay as it is.”
Douglas nodded and reluctantly stepped toward the hidden brook. The other two remained where they were.
A short distance in from the road he found Nigger Nat. He was stark naked, his clothing having been cut from him by the pocket-knives of the officers in their search for wounds. Feet, hands, and face were mired by the mud in which he had expired; and the gross face now was a bloated mask of bestiality. Nowhere on the torso was any mark.
Douglas took one rapid, comprehensive look. Then he retired hastily to the road, where he reloaded his hot pipe and awaited the return of Uncle Eb. Wordless, two chewing and one smoking, the trio of city men stood regarding the haunted house.
The ha’nt, which of late Douglas had carelessly regarded as a sort of joke, was a joke no longer. With his own eyes he had just looked on the horrid handiwork of the grisly thing which stalked within those walls by night. What was it? Why had it not closed its fearful grip on his own throat? How long before it would do so?
Perhaps Jake Dalton and Nat Oaks knew the answer to the ghastly riddle. But their lips were sealed for all time.