The youth saw a slight though well built man in ragged clothes and disreputable soft hat. The image was photographed upon his brain for life—the honest, laughing eyes, the well moulded features harmonizing so well with the voice, and the impossible garments which marked the man hobo and bum as plainly as though he wore a placard suspended from his neck.
The stranger halted. Once more darkness enveloped them. “Lovely evening for a stroll,” remarked the man. “Running out to your country place? Isn't there danger of skidding on these wet roads at night? I told James, just before we started, to be sure to see that the chains were on all around; but he forgot them. James is very trying sometimes. Now he never showed up this evening and I had to start out alone, and he knows perfectly well that I detest driving after dark in the rain.”
The youth found himself smiling. His fear had suddenly vanished. No one could harbor suspicion of the owner of that cheerful voice.
“I didn't know which road to take,” he ventured, in explanation of his presence at the cross road.
“Oh,” exclaimed the man, “are there two roads here? I was looking for this fork and came near passing it in the dark. It was a year ago since I came this way; but I recall a deserted house about a mile up the dirt road. It will shelter us from the inclemencies of the weather.”
“Oh!” cried the youth. “Now I know where I am. In the dark and the storm and after all that has happened to me tonight nothing seemed natural. It was just as though I was in some strange land; but I know now. Yes, there is a deserted house a little less than a mile from here; but you wouldn't want to stop there at night. They tell some frightful stories about it. It hasn't been occupied for over twenty years—not since the Squibbs were found murdered there—the father, mother, three sons, and a daughter. They never discovered the murderer, and the house has stood vacant and the farm unworked almost continuously since. A couple of men tried working it; but they didn't stay long. A night or so was enough for them and their families. I remember hearing as a little—er—child stories of the frightful things that happened there in the house where the Squibbs were murdered—things that happened after dark when the lights were out. Oh, I wouldn't even pass that place on a night like this.”
The man smiled. “I slept there alone one rainy night about a year ago,” he said. “I didn't see or hear anything unusual. Such stories are ridiculous; and even if there was a little truth in them, noises can't harm you as much as sleeping out in the storm. I'm going to encroach once more upon the ghostly hospitality of the Squibbs. Better come with me.”
The youth shuddered and drew back. From far behind came faintly the shout of a man.
“Yes, I'll go,” exclaimed the boy. “Let's hurry,” and he started off at a half-run toward the dirt road.
The man followed more slowly. The darkness hid the quizzical expression of his eyes. He, too, had heard the faint shout far to the rear. He recalled the boy's “after all that has happened to me tonight,” and he shrewdly guessed that the latter's sudden determination to brave the horrors of the haunted house was closely connected with the hoarse voice out of the distance.
When he had finally come abreast of the youth after the latter, his first panic of flight subsided, had reduced his speed, he spoke to him in his kindly tones.
“What was it that happened to you to-night?” he asked. “Is someone following you? You needn't be afraid of me. I'll help you if you've been on the square. If you haven't, you still needn't fear me, for I won't peach on you. What is it? Tell me.”
The youth was on the point of unburdening his soul to this stranger with the kindly voice and the honest eyes; but a sudden fear stayed his tongue. If he told all it would be necessary to reveal certain details that he could not bring himself to reveal to anyone, and so he commenced with his introduction to the wayfarers in the deserted hay barn. Briefly he told of the attack upon him, of his shooting of Dopey Charlie, of the flight and pursuit. “And now,” he said in conclusion, “that you know I'm a murderer I suppose you won't have any more to do with me, unless you turn me over to the authorities to hang.” There was almost a sob in his voice, so real was his terror.
The man threw an arm across his companion's shoulder. “Don't worry, kid,” he said. “You're not a murderer even if you did kill Dopey Charlie, which I hope you did. You're a benefactor of the human race. I have known Charles for years. He should have been killed long since. Furthermore, as you shot in self defence no jury would convict you. I fear, however, that you didn't kill him. You say you could hear his screams as long as you were within earshot of the barn—dead men don't scream, you know.”
“How did you know my name?” asked the youth.
“I don't,” replied the man.
“But you called me 'Kid' and that's my name—I'm The Oskaloosa Kid.”
The man was glad that the darkness hid his smile of amusement. He knew The Oskaloosa Kid well, and he knew him as an ex-pug with a pock marked face, a bullet head, and a tin ear. The flash of lightning had revealed, upon the contrary, a slender boy with smooth skin, an oval face, and large dark eyes.
“Ah,” he said, “so you are The Oskaloosa Kid! I am delighted, sir, to make your acquaintance. Permit me to introduce myself: my name is Bridge. If James were here I should ask him to mix one of his famous cocktails that we might drink to our mutual happiness and the longevity of our friendship.”
“I am glad to know you, Mr. Bridge,” said the youth. “Oh, I can't tell you how glad I am to know you. I was so lonely and so afraid,” and he pressed closer to the older man whose arm still encircled his shoulder, though at first he had been inclined to draw away in some confusion.
Talking together the two moved on along the dark road. The storm had settled now into a steady rain with infrequent flashes of lightning and peals of thunder. There had been no further indications of pursuit; but Bridge argued that The Sky Pilot, being wise with the wisdom of the owl and cunning with the cunning of the fox, would doubtless surmise that a fugitive would take to the first road leading away from the main artery, and that even though they heard nothing it would be safe to assume that the gang was still upon the boy's trail. “And it's a bad bunch, too,” he continued. “I've known them all for years. The Sky Pilot has the reputation of never countenancing a murder; but that is because he is a sly one. His gang kills; but when they kill under The Sky Pilot they do it so cleverly that no trace of the crime remains. Their victim disappears—that is all.”
The boy trembled. “You won't let them get me?” he pleaded, pressing closer to the man. The only response was a pressure of the arm about the shoulders of The Oskaloosa Kid.
Over a low hill they followed the muddy road and down into a dark and gloomy ravine. In a little open space to the right of the road a flash of lightning revealed the outlines of a building a hundred yards from the rickety and decaying fence which bordered the Squibbs' farm and separated it from the road.
“Here we are!” cried Bridge, “and spooks or no spooks we'll find a dry spot in that old ruin. There was a stove there last year and it's doubtless there yet. A good fire to dry our clothes and warm us up will fit us for a bully good sleep, and I'll wager a silk hat that The Oskaloosa Kid is a mighty sleepy kid, eh?”
The boy admitted the allegation and the two turned in through the gateway, stepping over the fallen gate and moving through knee high weeds toward the forbidding structure in the distance. A clump of trees surrounded the house, their shade adding to the almost utter blackness of the night.
The two had reached the verandah when Bridge, turning, saw a brilliant light flaring through the night above the crest of the hill they had just topped in their descent into the ravine, or, to be more explicit, the small valley, where stood the crumbling house of Squibbs. The purr of a rapidly moving motor rose above the rain, the light rose, fell, swerved to the right and to the left.
“Someone must be in a hurry,” commented Bridge.
“I suppose it is James, anxious to find you and explain his absence,” suggested The Oskaloosa Kid. They both laughed.
“Gad!” cried Bridge, as the car topped the hill and plunged downward toward them, “I'd hate to ride behind that fellow on a night like this, and over a dirt road at that!”
As the car swung onto the straight road before the house a flash of lightning revealed dimly the outlines of a rapidly moving touring car with lowered top. Just as the machine came opposite the Squibbs' gate a woman's scream mingled with the report of a pistol from the tonneau and the watchers upon the verandah saw a dark bulk hurled from the car, which sped on with undiminished speed, climbed the hill beyond and disappeared from view.
Bridge started on a run toward the gateway, followed by the frightened Kid. In the ditch beside the road they found in a dishevelled heap the body of a young woman. The man lifted the still form in his arms. The youth wondered at the great strength of the slight figure. “Let me help you carry her,” he volunteered; but Bridge needed no assistance. “Run ahead and open the door for me,” he said, as he bore his burden toward the house.
Forgetful, in the excitement of the moment, of his terror of the horror ridden ruin, The Oskaloosa Kid hastened ahead, mounted the few steps to the verandah, crossed it and pushed open the sagging door. Behind him came Bridge as the youth entered the dark interior. A half dozen steps he took when his foot struck against a soft and yielding mass. Stumbling, he tried to regain his equilibrium only to drop full upon the thing beneath him. One open palm, extended to ease his fall, fell upon the upturned features of a cold and clammy face. With a shriek of horror The Kid leaped to his feet and shrank, trembling, back.
“What is it? What's the matter?” cried Bridge, with whom The Kid had collided in his precipitate retreat.
“O-o-o!” groaned The Kid, shuddering. “It's dead! It's dead!”
“What's dead?” demanded Bridge.
“There's a dead man on the floor, right ahead of us,” moaned The Kid.
“You'll find a flash lamp in the right hand pocket of my coat,” directed Bridge. “Take it and make a light.”
With trembling fingers the Kid did as he was bid, and when after much fumbling he found the button a slim shaft of white light fell downward upon the upturned face of a man cold in death—a little man, strangely garbed, with gold rings in his ears, and long black hair matted in the death sweat of his brow. His eyes were wide and, even in death, terror filled, his features were distorted with fear and horror. His fingers, clenched in the rigidity of death, clutched wisps of dark brown hair. There were no indications of a wound or other violence upon his body, that either the Kid or Bridge could see, except the dried remains of bloody froth which flecked his lips.
Bridge still stood holding the quiet form of the girl in his arms, while The Kid, pressed close to the man's side, clutched one arm with a fierce intensity which bespoke at once the nervous terror which filled him and the reliance he placed upon his new found friend.
To their right, in the faint light of the flash lamp, a narrow stairway was revealed leading to the second story. Straight ahead was a door opening upon the blackness of a rear apartment. Beside the foot of the stairway was another door leading to the cellar steps.
Bridge nodded toward the rear room. “The stove is in there,” he said. “We'd better go on and make a fire. Draw your pistol—whoever did this has probably beat it; but it's just as well to be on the safe side.”
“I'm afraid,” said The Oskaloosa Kid. “Let's leave this frightful place. It's just as I told you it was; just as I always heard.”
“We can't leave this woman, my boy,” replied Bridge. “She isn't dead. We can't leave her, and we can't take her out into the storm in her condition. We must stay. Come! buck up. There's nothing to fear from a dead man, and—”
He never finished the sentence. From the depths of the cellar came the sound of a clanking chain. Something scratched heavily upon the wooden steps. Whatever it was it was evidently ascending, while behind it clanked the heavy links of a dragged chain.
The Oskaloosa Kid cast a wide eyed glance of terror at Bridge. His lips moved in an attempt to speak; but fear rendered him inarticulate. Slowly, ponderously the THING ascended the dark stairs from the gloom ridden cellar of the deserted ruin. Even Bridge paled a trifle. The man upon the floor appeared to have met an unnatural death—the frightful expression frozen upon the dead face might even indicate something verging upon the supernatural. The sound of the THING climbing out of the cellar was indeed uncanny—so uncanny that Bridge discovered himself looking about for some means of escape. His eyes fell upon the stairway leading to the second floor.
“Quick!” he whispered. “Up the stairs! You go first; I'll follow.”
The Kid needed no second invitation. With a bound he was half way up the rickety staircase; but a glance ahead at the darkness above gave him pause while he waited for Bridge to catch up with him. Coming more slowly with his burden the man followed the boy, while from below the clanking of the chain warned them that the THING was already at the top of the cellar stairs.
“Flash the lamp down there,” directed Bridge. “Let's have a look at it, whatever it is.”
With trembling hands The Oskaloosa Kid directed the lens over the edge of the swaying and rotting bannister. His finger slipped from the lighting button plunging them all into darkness. In his frantic effort to find the button and relight the lamp the worst occurred—he fumbled the button and the lamp slipped through his fingers, falling over the bannister to the floor below. Instantly the sound of the dragging chain ceased; but the silence was even more horrible than the noise which had preceded it.
For a long minute the two at the head of the stairs stood in tense silence listening for a repetition of the gruesome sounds from below. The youth was frankly terrified; he made no effort to conceal the fact; but pressed close to his companion, again clutching his arm tightly. Bridge could feel the trembling of the slight figure, the spasmodic gripping of the slender fingers and hear the quick, short, irregular breathing. A sudden impulse to throw a protecting arm about the boy seized him—an impulse which he could not quite fathom, and one to which he could not respond because of the body of the girl he carried.
He bent toward the youth. “There are matches in my coat pocket,” he whispered, “—the same pocket in which you found the flash lamp. Strike one and we'll look for a room here where we can lay the girl.”
The boy fumbled gropingly in search of the matches. It was evident to the man that it was only with the greatest exertion of will power that he controlled his muscles at all; but at last he succeeded in finding and striking one. At the flare of the light there was a sound from below—a scratching sound and the creaking of boards as beneath a heavy body; then came the clanking of the chain once more, and the bannister against which they leaned shook as though a hand had been laid upon it below them. The youth stifled a shriek and simultaneously the match went out; but not before Bridge had seen in the momentary flare of light a partially open door at the far end of the hall in which they stood.
Beneath them the stairs creaked now and the chain thumped slowly from one to another as it was dragged upward toward them.
“Quick!” called Bridge. “Straight down the hall and into the room at the end.” The man was puzzled. He could not have been said to have been actually afraid, and yet the terror of the boy was so intense, so real, that it could scarce but have had its suggestive effect upon the other; and, too, there was an uncanny element of the supernatural in what they had seen and heard in the deserted house—the dead man on the floor below, the inexplicable clanking of a chain by some unseen THING from the depth of the cellar upward toward them; and, to heighten the effect of these, there were the grim stories of unsolved tragedy and crime. All in all Bridge could not have denied that he was glad of the room at the end of the hall with its suggestion of safety in the door which might be closed against the horrors of the hall and the Stygian gloom below stairs.
The Oskaloosa Kid was staggering ahead of him, scarce able to hold his body erect upon his shaking knees—his gait seemed pitifully slow to the unarmed man carrying the unconscious girl and listening to the chain dragging ever nearer and nearer behind; but at last they reached the doorway and passed through it into the room.
“Close the door,” directed Bridge as he crossed toward the center of the room to lay his burden upon the floor, but there was no response to his instructions—only a gasp and the sound of a body slumping to the rotting boards. With an exclamation of chagrin the man dropped the girl and swung quickly toward the door. Halfway down the hall he could hear the chain rattling over loose planking, the THING, whatever it might be, was close upon them. Bridge slammed-to the door and with a shoulder against it drew a match from his pocket and lighted it. Although his clothing was soggy with rain he knew that his matches would still be dry, for this pocket and its flap he had ingeniously lined with waterproof material from a discarded slicker he had found—years of tramping having taught him the discomforts of a fireless camp.
In the resultant light the man saw with a quick glance a large room furnished with an old walnut bed, dresser, and commode; two lightless windows opened at the far end toward the road, Bridge assumed; and there was no door other than that against which he leaned. In the last flicker of the match the man scanned the door itself for a lock and, to his relief, discovered a bolt—old and rusty it was, but it still moved in its sleeve. An instant later it was shot—just as the sound of the dragging chain ceased outside. Near the door was the great bed, and this Bridge dragged before it as an additional barricade; then, bearing nothing more from the hallway, he turned his attention to the two unconscious forms upon the floor. Unhesitatingly he went to the boy first though had he questioned himself he could not have told why; for the youth, undoubtedly, had only swooned, while the girl had been the victim of a murderous assault and might even be at the point of death.
What was the appeal to the man in the pseudo Oskaloosa Kid? He had scarce seen the boy's face, yet the terrified figure had aroused within him, strongly, the protective instinct. Doubtless it was the call of youth and weakness which find, always, an answering assurance in the strength of a strong man.
As Bridge groped toward the spot where the boy had fallen his eyes, now become accustomed to the darkness of the room, saw that the youth was sitting up. “Well?” he asked. “Feeling better?”
“Where is it? Oh, God! Where is it?” cried the boy. “It will come in here and kill us as it killed that—that—down stairs.”
“It can't get in,” Bridge assured him. “I've locked the door and pushed the bed in front of it. Gad! I feel like an old maid looking under the bed for burglars.”
From the hall came a sudden clanking of the chain accompanied by a loud pounding upon the bare floor. With a scream the youth leaped to his feet and almost threw himself upon Bridge. His arms were about the man's neck, his face buried in his shoulder.
“Oh, don't—don't let it get me!” he cried.
“Brace up, son,” Bridge admonished him. “Didn't I tell you that it can't get in?”
“How do you know it can't get in?” whimpered the youth. “It's the thing that murdered the man down stairs—it's the thing that murdered the Squibbs—right here in this room. It got in to them—what is to prevent its getting in to us. What are doors to such a THING?”
“Come! come! now,” Bridge tried to soothe him. “You have a case of nerves. Lie down here on this bed and try to sleep. Nothing shall harm you, and when you wake up it will be morning and you'll laugh at your fears.”
“Lie on THAT bed!” The voice was almost a shriek. “That is the bed the Squibbs were murdered in—the old man and his wife. No one would have it, and so it has remained here all these years. I would rather die than touch the thing. Their blood is still upon it.”
“I wish,” said Bridge a trifle sternly, “that you would try to control yourself a bit. Hysteria won't help us any. Here we are, and we've to make the best of it. Besides we must look after this young woman—she may be dying, and we haven't done a thing to help her.”
The boy, evidently shamed, released his hold upon Bridge and moved away. “I am sorry,” he said. “I'll try to do better; but, Oh! I was so frightened. You cannot imagine how frightened I was.”
“I had imagined,” said Bridge, “from what I had heard of him that it would be a rather difficult thing to frighten The Oskaloosa Kid—you have, you know, rather a reputation for fearlessness.”
The darkness hid the scarlet flush which mantled The Kid's face. There was a moment's silence as Bridge crossed to where the young woman still lay upon the floor where he had deposited her. Then The Kid spoke. “I'm sorry,” he said, “that I made a fool of myself. You have been so brave, and I have not helped at all. I shall do better now.”
“Good,” said Bridge, and stooped to raise the young woman in his arms and deposit her upon the bed. Then he struck another match and leaned close to examine her. The flare of the sulphur illuminated the room and shot two rectangles of light against the outer blackness where the unglazed windows stared vacantly upon the road beyond, bringing to a sudden halt a little company of muddy and bedraggled men who slipped, cursing, along the slimy way.
Bridge felt the youth close beside him as he bent above the girl upon the bed.
“Is she dead?” the lad whispered.
“No,” replied Bridge, “and I doubt if she's badly hurt.” His hands ran quickly over her limbs, bending and twisting them gently; he unbuttoned her waist, getting the boy to strike and hold another match while he examined the victim for signs of a bullet wound.
“I can't find a scratch on her,” he said at last. “She's suffering from shock alone, as far as I can judge. Say, she's pretty, isn't she?”
The youth drew himself rather stiffly erect. “Her features are rather coarse, I think,” he replied. There was a peculiar quality to the tone which caused Bridge to turn a quick look at the boy's face, just as the match flickered and went out. The darkness hid the expression upon Bridge's face, but his conviction that the girl was pretty was unaltered. The light of the match had revealed an oval face surrounded by dark, dishevelled tresses, red, full lips, and large, dark eyes.
Further discussion of the young woman was discouraged by a repetition of the clanking of the chain without. Now it was receding along the hallway toward the stairs and presently, to the infinite relief of The Oskaloosa Kid, the two heard it descending to the lower floor.
“What was it, do you think?” asked the boy, his voice still trembling upon the verge of hysteria.
“I don't know,” replied Bridge. “I've never been a believer in ghosts and I'm not now; but I'll admit that it takes a whole lot of—”
He did not finish the sentence for a moan from the bed diverted his attention to the injured girl, toward whom he now turned. As they listened for a repetition of the sound there came another—that of the creaking of the old bed slats as the girl moved upon the mildewed mattress. Dimly, through the darkness, Bridge saw that the victim of the recent murderous assault was attempting to sit up. He moved closer and leaned above her.
“I wouldn't exert myself,” he said. “You've just suffered an accident, and it's better that you remain quiet.”
“Who are you?” asked the girl, a note of suppressed terror in her voice. “You are not—?”
“I am no one you know,” replied Bridge. “My friend and I chanced to be near when you fell from the car—” with that innate refinement which always belied his vocation and his rags Bridge chose not to embarrass the girl by a too intimate knowledge of the thing which had befallen her, preferring to leave to her own volition the making of any explanation she saw fit, or of none—“and we carried you in here out of the storm.”
The girl was silent for a moment. “Where is 'here'?” she asked presently. “They drove so fast and it was so dark that I had no idea where we were, though I know that we left the turnpike.”
“We are at the old Squibbs place,” replied the man. He could see that the girl was running one hand gingerly over her head and face, so that her next question did not surprise him.