CHAPTER III

FOLLOWING THE LIGHT

The sight of a lantern high up in the mountains captured Ted’s imagination as well as his attention. The region seemed to be a particularly lonely one and he wondered who the lantern-carrier could be. While there had been light he had looked along the mountain side but had seen no house or barn. The wooded slopes had appeared untouched by the hand of man and altogether too dense and forsaken for a house of any kind. Yet the bearer of the lantern was going somewhere.

The light flashed in and out among the trees as the bearer carried it onward and upward, winking at irregular intervals as it passed back of trees. The gleam was yellow and a trifle dim, yet there was power enough to it for the watching boy to see. Although it was perhaps perfectly natural for someone to walk the mountains with a lantern, Ted’s mind pondered it.

“Wonder where he can be going? It really isn’t any of my business, and I suppose that the person carrying the lantern knows what he is up to, but it looks a bit mysterious. Still, it isn’t necessary to follow it.”

His mind had already considered the possibility of following, but at first he rejected the idea wholly. In the first place, the action would probably end in his seeing the man enter some hidden barn on perfectly proper business, and in the second place, it was the right of anyone to walk along the mountain at any time. But the upward twist and turn of the tiny, bobbing light fascinated him.

“I guess I will follow it,” he finally decided. “I’d like to see where it goes to. I may learn something about the region if anything can be learned on a dark night like this, and anyway, I’ll feel a little more satisfied if I see where the light is going. Now, let’s see how good I am at finding my way around here in the dark!”

Centering his eyes upon the light’s feeble gleam Ted started on his climb up the side of the mountain. As soon as he plunged into the trees he lost sight of the gleam which he was trying to trace, but from time to time he caught sight of it again as he came out into a cleared space. It was no longer moving up but was keeping on a level of the mountain side and he took an abrupt cut across the contemplated line of march. The light moved slower and slower now and he gained upon it.

In one stretch of his climb Ted lost sight of the light altogether and for some moments he was unable to locate it. He was about to give it up as a bad job when a fleeting flash came to him through the trees. Now he made out that the lantern-bearer was standing still and in this interval he hoped to catch up. With this in mind Ted rapidly climbed the last slope and stood on comparatively level ground on what was a great shoulder of the mountains, heavily wooded as was the rest of the region. Before him the lantern, hung in an invisible hand, cast a circle of light around the ground.

In the shelter of some bushes and trees Ted crouched and looked at the lantern. It was an extremely old-fashioned one, with three rounded sides open and the fourth blank. Due to this structure of the lamp Ted was unable to see who it was who held the thing. The uncompleted circle cast by the lantern showed only the tips of two large shoes and the shadowy outline of a pair of trousers which seemed much the worse for wear. Above this, the bearer was invisible and might have been looking in Ted’s direction as well as in any other, for all that the boy knew. In fact, the continued silence of the man, combined with his motionlessness, made Ted somewhat uneasy, for it was possible that he was simply standing there and looking around. Ted imagined that he had made a lot of noise in his climb.

At last the lamp was slightly shifted, much to Ted’s relief, and he saw at once the object of the man’s search, or at least the goal of it. The feeble rays from the old lantern showed dimly the outline of an old house. In the fitful gleam there was revealed a short section of the foundation, which was crumbling away, and a limited view of the warped boarding on the side of the house. It was to this spot that the lone prowler had come and he seemed to be intent upon his job.

As Ted remained at his post watching the lantern and the man moved away, passing along the side of the house. The watcher had a hurried glimpse of broken masonry and rotting boards occasionally obscured by masses of bushes and creepers. The man went around to the back of the house and for a few moments the light was entirely withdrawn from Ted’s sight.

By this time Ted had entered fully into the sense of adventure of the thing. Surely, there was something unusual going on. Something important must be bringing this man out with his lantern to look around an old house. The building itself aroused Ted’s curiosity. Who could have built it up in the solitary fastness of the woods and how long had it been standing idle? Something beside the beauty of the place must be responsible for the intent prowling of the man with the lantern.

“I must see this house by daylight,” Ted decided.

The light winked suddenly around the far corner of the house and moved along the front. Rough steps were revealed and the man with the shadowy legs mounted the steps, crossed the porch and passed through a gaping doorway into a front door. A swift glimpse was afforded Ted of white plaster on the walls and then the light disappeared.

It was gone for some little time, finally appearing briefly in an upper window. After that it disappeared again and was gone so long that Ted grew highly impatient and seriously contemplating leaving. He knew that he should be getting back to the town, for it was late and he had a long drive before him. But the subject in hand fascinated him and he wanted to see it through.

“I’ll give the gentleman a few more minutes,” he thought. “If nothing shows up then, I’ll have to beat it.”

Crouching there in the bushes he waited straining his eyes toward the blackness of the house. The whole mountainside had now become so black that the house was not even distinguishable as a darker blot, and if the man with the lantern had not revealed it, Ted could not possibly have become aware of its presence except by bumping into it. With the light out of sight the darkness was a solid wall.

Just as Ted’s impatience was nearing the breaking point he heard the man with the light returning. There was a sound of crunching footsteps and he came down a staircase in the house and before long the flashing beam of the lantern showed. Man and lantern crossed the front porch and without hesitation approached the bushes off to the left of where Ted was concealed.

Now the lantern was placed on the ground and the man, still invisible and keeping out of the rays of the lamp in a manner that was particularly irritating, crashed his way into the bushes. Something was hauled forth with a rustling, crackling noise. For a brief instant the sides and rungs of a ladder were disclosed and then the thing passed out of the light circle. But there was a bump which led Ted to believe that the ladder, an old common farm ladder, had been placed against the side of the house.

In this guess he was correct. The lantern was lifted from the ground and the two mysterious legs sought the bottom rung of the ladder. As Ted watched, the light and the legs went up step by step, the side of the house, briefly illuminated, sliding by as the man mounted to the top.