CHAPTER XXII

BAB LOSES HER INHERITANCE

Even while Gordon Seymour enlarged upon his fascinating theory, Bab shook her head unhappily.

“I’ve thought of that, too, Don,” she confessed. “But it would take time to follow up that clew. And we haven’t any time! Not that I blame Rosa Lee,” she added swiftly, loyally. “She is my old nurse, remember, and is doing exactly what any one of us would do if we were in her place. She doesn’t care a rap for Mrs. Fenwick. She smells danger in the air and wants to get us away from it. I don’t blame her a bit, but I--I’m horribly disappointed.”

They tried appealing to Mrs. Fenwick, but this did little good. The quiet, unassertive woman appeared to have been profoundly shocked by what had happened the night before. She was more than ever like a fussy hen, fearful that one of her chicks would come to harm.

“I’m sorry to have to cut your vacation short, children,” she said. “But there is something very odd about this old house. I don’t like it. I feel with good Rosa Lee that the sooner we leave it, the better.”

No hope there!

“Never mind, we’ve got a day left,” said Gordon to Bab. “Let’s make one more attempt at finding the money.”

But Bab shook her head. She was truly discouraged.

While the boys worked down in the cellar feverishly, sounding walls and floor, the girls packed their few belongings. It was an unhappy, rebellious packing, broken by frequent appeals to Rosa Lee. They felt that if they could get the old nurse to relent, Mrs. Fenwick would relent also.

“Can’t you change your mind, Rosa Lee?” Bab begged, arms about the old black woman. “Just two days more--one----”

But for once, Rosa Lee was obdurate.

“It’s fo’ yo’ own sake, honey,” she replied. “If Ah had mah way we’d be startin’ to-day. Now you git along wiv you and finish yo’ packin’. You’ll be much safer at home dan in dis spooky place.”

All the time the girls were up in their room the sapajou sat on the open lid of Bab’s trunk and regarded proceedings with black, inquisitive eyes.

“Well,” said Bab forlornly, “I’ll have one thing to take back to Grandmother and Granddaddy, sha’n’t I, you funny little thing? I’ll have the sapajou!”

“He’s cute, but a poor substitute for a fortune,” sighed Gerry. “Any minute now,” she added darkly, “I may go down and wring Rosa Lee’s neck. I’ve felt it coming on all morning.”

“Goodness, I’d better lock the door before murder is added to the list of your sins!” laughed Bab.

Rosa Lee’s spirits rose in exact proportion to the depression of the girls and boys. Evidently the prospect of immediate flight cheered her mightily. The sound of her singing reached the girls and caused them to frown blackly as, their packing done, they descended to the cellar to overlook the work of the boys. They found the latter hot, dirty, disheveled, and about ready to give up.

“Nothing doing, Bab,” Charlie announced reluctantly. “We’ve been all over this place some twenty times. If there’s an entrance to a subcellar or an extra room here, we can’t find it.”

“Not without an ax,” Gordon agreed, discouraged at last. “We’d have to rip up the whole place to find anything. And that would mean time, Bab!”

“Just what we ain’t got!” cried Gerry. “No wonder I feel murderous when I think of Rosa Lee and Mrs. Fenwick.”

“Can’t you make them wait another week, Bab?” Gordon pleaded.

Bab shrugged her shoulders. She was trying desperately to keep back the tears of disappointment.

“You heard what they said. You--you can try your luck, if you like, Don. But--I guess--we go home to-morrow.”

It was a dismal gathering at the dinner table that night--all except the sapajou, who swung from the curtain rod and chattered companionably at them. Bab was silent, apathetic. Gordon watched her anxiously, knowing that her thoughts were of her grandparents.

“I suppose I could sell the house to Mr. James--and let him find the fortune, if there is one,” thought Bab unhappily. “I might get enough from the sale to help Grandfather and Grandmother a little, anyway. I suppose that is what I’ll have to do.”

Later that night when they were all in bed, Bab continued her dismal thoughts.

“I can go to work, I suppose,” she thought. “But there isn’t much a young girl can do and it would break Granddaddy’s heart to have me go to work. Granddaddy hoped as much as I from this mysterious legacy of Uncle Jeremiah’s, and now there’s n-no hope!” She clenched her hand and felt the lucky ring scrape against her finger.

The lucky ring!

Bab said the words over to herself and began to cry softly, her face smothered in the pillows. After a long, long while she fell asleep.

Hours later she awoke, gasping. A hand clutched her shoulder, shaking her wildly.

“Get up! Get up!” cried a terrified voice out of the darkness. “The house is on fire!”

Bab began to cough, half strangled; sat up in bed; staggered to her feet. There was an acrid smell of smoke in her nostrils. Her throat was full of it. The room was reeking with it.

Dimly she saw other figures; heard sleepy, frightened voices crying out. She stared at the person who had wakened her, who still clung desperately to her arm. Even in that awful moment, Bab had an impulse of sheer wonder as the light of the fire showed her the little scarecrow boy, the mysterious companion of the Hindu!

“How--how did you get here?” she cried.

But the child only clung the tighter to her, moaning his fear.

“Oh, let us get out of here. Don’t you see the house is on fire? We’ll be burned alive! I--I came to warn you!”

The door of the room burst suddenly open. Rosa Lee and Mrs. Fenwick half fell into the room, followed by the boys. Gordon slammed the door shut, stood against it, panting, rubbing the smoke from his tortured eyes.

“Bab, are you safe? Oh, Bab----”

“All right, Don, so far!” She came across the smoke-filled room, the frightened child pressed close to her side. “How can we get out? Which way?”

“The stairway’s cut off,” said Gordon in a queer, grim voice that did not sound like his. “We’ll have to get out the window--this window, Bab. It seems the only side of the house that isn’t in flames.”

Instantly Bab caught the idea. Stumbling, half-blinded, running into Mrs. Fenwick and Gerry and Rosa Lee, who groped about the smoke-filled room, she ran to the bed, stripped the sheets from it. She was tying them together with fingers that trembled when she felt Gordon at her side.

“Atta girl, Bab! Better let me pull them tight, though. I’ve got more strength, maybe.”

Bab relinquished the sheets gladly, for her fingers were all thumbs. Again she put her arm about the little lad who had never left her side and whom Gordon, in his feverish excitement, had not even noticed. There was a terrifying crackling from below. The floor of the room was becoming unbearably hot. At any moment the flames might break through--envelop them----

Charlie helped Gordon pull the knots tight while Bab found and brought a blanket.

“If the sheets aren’t long enough----” she began.

“We can’t use that,” said Gordon brusquely. “It would slip.”

“Got a counterpane?” asked Charlie.

There was one that they had found in the cupboard of the old house. Bab brought it, feeling dizzy, light-headed. She could scarcely find her way. Gerry was at her elbow. A gasping, “Can I help, Bab?” A shake of the head.

Gordon was tying the counterpane to the sheets. Charlie pulled with him, testing it.

“Now, then!” cried Gordon. The improvised rope was ready. “Quick! Help me shove the bed over to the window!”

There was a sharp, rending sound. The fire had burst through the floor at one corner of the room; was running along the boards like a sinuous red snake.

Some one screamed. It was Gerry. Bab caught her by the shoulders, shook her, without knowing what she did.

“We’re all right,” she said huskily. “Keep your nerve, Gerry! We’re all right!”

It took Gordon and Charlie only a moment to fasten the rope to the bedpost while the flame licked along the floor. Without contact with the fire their bodies felt blistered, their tongues were thick. A moment more and the room would be a mass of flames.

“Over with you!” cried Gordon. “Make believe you’re monkeys. Slide down that rope!”

“The sapajou,” sobbed Bab. “He’s lost. He’ll be burned to death.”

“Out with you!” cried Gordon. “Down that rope!”

Gerry was over the window sill; was sliding downward, gripping desperately with hands and knees. The little lad next--though he fought to be left with Bab. Then Mrs. Fenwick. Then Rosa Lee. They reached the ground, were safe. Bab saw Rosa Lee clasp the child to her capacious breast.

The fire burst with a roar behind them. The heat was intolerable. Their clothes were beginning to smolder.

Charlie made for the window and was drawn back roughly by Gordon.

“Bab first. Quick, Bab!”

Over the window sill into the blessed cool air, skin rubbed from the palms of her hands by the swift slipping downward. Never mind! There was the safe, cool earth beneath her with Rosa Lee to catch her in a great embrace and pull her away from the burning building.

A crowd of country folk had gathered. The ringing of a bell announced that the rural fire department was at the scene. Bab could see the men hurrying with their buckets--like ants, she thought, and almost as helpless.

Her eyes turned upward toward the window of the room from which she had just escaped. Charlie slipped down the rope, jumped to the ground as she watched.

Gordon, Gordon! One might know he would wait till the last, with the fire roaring behind him, reaching out hungrily for him.

“Gordon!” sobbed Bab. “Oh, Gordon, be quick!”

The boy flung his leg over the sill, grasped the rope and slid down it like a monkey. It was then they saw his coat had begun to burn. They ran to him but, with quick presence of mind, Gordon shrugged out of the smoldering garment and let it fall harmlessly to the ground.

“I’m not very well dressed,” he grinned ruefully. “But something tells me that coat won’t be of any further use to me!”

“Nothing matters,” cried Bab, “as long as we are all safe!”

The fire brigade was really busy now. One whole side of the house was on fire. A ladder had been propped just beyond reach of the flames and up this swarmed a constant line of men with buckets. Farmers had come from all about to watch the burning of the “haunted house.” Satisfied that every living person in the place was safe, they probably felt a certain satisfaction in the conflagration. It appeared certain, at any rate, that the “ghost” would burn with the house, and this was, above all things, a consummation devoutly to be wished.

Some such thought was in Bab’s pretty head as she stood with her arm about the little scarecrow lad who had so strangely warned her of the fire and watched her inheritance from Uncle Jeremiah go up in smoke. Perhaps a fortune--that aggravating, elusive, alluring hidden wealth of the old miser--was being consumed with the house. Who knew?

“Well, I guess it just wasn’t meant that I was to find that money--not even with the help of the lucky ring!” she said in a husky whisper.

“You poor dear!” said Gerry, putting an arm about Bab. “I forgot how you must be feeling.”

Before Bab could reply, the child at her side cried out and clung to her wildly.

“Oh, oh! Don’t let him get me!”

Holding the boy close to her, Bab whirled about in time to see the swarthy face of the Hindu peering at them from the shadows beyond the light thrown by the fire. As Bab flung up her hand in an instinctive gesture of defense, the Hindu sprang toward them, face ugly, hand outstretched to seize the shivering, wretched child.

But as the boy screamed and Bab cried out for help another figure darted from the shelter of the bushes. The Hindu stumbled over an upflung root in the path and sprawled his length on the ground. As he scrambled to his feet a hand was laid upon his shoulder--the stern, firm hand of the law.

“I’ve got you this time, you rascal,” drawled a voice Bab instantly recognized. It belonged to the sheriff of Clayton. “No use to give me your dirty looks,” as the prisoner turned eyes of malignant hatred upon him. “Put your hands in front of you--quick!” he ordered, as the Hindu made a stealthy motion toward the broad sash knotted at his belt. “Want I should use you for target practice? No? Good! Now mebbe you’ll come along to town quietly with me.”

Stunned by the suddenness of this drama, Bab Winters watched mutely while Sheriff Rawson locked a pair of handcuffs about the swarthy wrists of the Hindu.

“Now you’ve got him, Mr. Sheriff,” said Gerry audaciously “may we ask what you are going to do with him?”

“There’s a little party in the county jail,” said the sheriff grimly. “This here Hindu, he’s been invited!” He gave the scowling prisoner a long, contemptuous look, then turned to Bab.

“You see, Miss, we’ve been followin’ this fellow a right smart while. He looked like he was up to some mischief, but up till to-night we never could get anything definite on him. But just a little while back I was layin’ in wait here, having got on his trail at last, when I saw him sneakin’ out of your house and I followed him. We’d gone a right smart way when I smelled smoke and saw the sky was red. I guessed it was from here, and hurried to the village to give the alarm. Then I doubled back to see if I could be any help here and found the Hindu at the scene. It puzzled me some, his coming back like that, till I saw what he was after. The kid must have given him the slip some way, and it was the kid he was after.”

Every one looked at the ragged, dirty child clinging to Bab. Sheriff Rawson took a step forward and spoke in a gentle tone to the boy.

“Listen, kid. It was this black-skinned beggar that set the house on fire, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” said the child. Then, beneath the malignity of the Hindu’s gaze, he shrank back against Bab. “Oh, I can’t!” he wailed. “He said if I talked he’d kill me!”

“Mighty little killin’ he’ll do with those bracelets on his wrist,” said the sheriff dryly. “Come, speak up, sonny--you got the whole power of the law behind you.”

Then a queer thing happened. At the words of the sheriff the child straightened up. Firmly, but gently, he pushed away Bab’s arms. His eyes turned with shrinking and loathing upon the darkly scowling face of the Hindu, wandered to the grim, set face of the sheriff, and rested there. The girls watched him wonderingly.

“Bab, I never was so thrilled in my life!” whispered Gerry. Then the boy spoke in a quick, excited voice, finger pointed at the Hindu.

“Have you really got him safe?”

“Reckon he’d have a good time breakin’ away from me, son,” said the sheriff reassuringly. “If you’ve something to tell, fire away.”

As the onlookers watched, breathless, the child seemed to grow taller. A queer little figure with a very dirty face in the torn and soiled rags that formed his clothing, he yet had some of the dignity of a finger of fate. His hand, stretched out toward the Hindu, was steady, accusing.

“He is the wickedest man on earth,” said the child tensely. “Sometimes he talks to himself, and I have heard him say when he thought I was asleep that he would set the old man’s house on fire. To-night when he went out, I followed him. I--I hid in the bushes.”

The Hindu took a threatening step forward, but the long fingers of the sheriff held his arm as in a vise.

“Steady, son,” he said to the boy. “What then?”

“I saw him go into the house and come out again. I waited until I saw smoke and flames and I knew what he had done!”

“A lie!” snarled the Hindu.

“It was not a lie!” The child turned fiercely upon the prisoner, small fists clenched. “It isn’t a lie, either, that you stole me from my people----”

“He what?” asked the sheriff eagerly.

“He stole me from my father and mother.” The child began to tremble and tears filled his eyes. “He brought me here to live in a hut and in caves in the woods, and we were always hiding from some one----”

“From me, son!” interrupted the sheriff grimly.

“And because I cried for my mother,” sobbed the boy, hiding his face on Bab’s shoulder, “he--he beat me.”

Bab put her arm about the boy while Gerry showered the sheriff with excited questions. The latter raised a warning hand.

“Just a minute.” His voice was brisk, professional. “You say,” turning to the child, “that this scoundrel here stole you. You mean he kidnaped you?”

“From the hotel where I was staying with my m-mother and father,” said the child in a muffled voice.

“Where was this hotel?” the sheriff insisted, frowning at the Hindu.

“S-scarsdale,” stammered the child.

“Scarsdale!” cried the two girls from that town. Gerry added a little wildly:

“Why--why, that’s where we live!”

“Ah recalls there was a kidnapin’ in Scarsdale,” said Rosa Lee, shuffling forward. “An’ if Ah’s not mistaken, dere’s a reward out for de recovery ob dat chile.”

“Of course!” cried Gerry joyfully. “That’s the one we read about in the paper!”

Bab’s head whirled.

“Wait! Wait a minute!” she cried. “Of course I remember the kidnaping, but in that case the stolen child was a girl--not a boy.”

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