CHAPTER IV

A STARTLING SIGHT

A flash of the lantern showed the slope of the roof and a broken tin gutter. Plainly the intention of the man was to mount this roof and the watching boy wondered how he was going to do it, as there was a decided slope to the house covering. But the man with the lantern evidently knew his territory, for he stepped from the top of the ladder and his foot descended to the roof, resting in a hole which the elements had eaten through the shingles. He began to climb upward, picking his way along the top of the roof with a certain foot, knowing the breaks and the rough spots where he could travel in safety. Without wavering he pressed on and reached the top of the house, where a crooked chimney was shadowily revealed in the glow of the light. The man raised the lantern.

Ted peered eagerly from his post in the bushes, hoping to get a good look at the man but he was doomed to disappointment, at least as far as the man’s face was concerned. He had his back to the boy and only the general outline was disclosed by his act of raising the lantern. He was outlined against the sky in a blurred picture, and he seemed to be tall and thin. His clothing was of the roughest sort and his hat was a relic which might, at one time, have been a soldier’s campaign hat. The roof seemed to be familiar to the man, for he proceeded to business as coolly as though he was standing on the firm ground instead of on the slope of a rotting roof on a solitary house in the mountains.

He rested the lantern on the top of the tilted chimney and then dropped his hands to his waist, fumbling there for a few moments and puzzling Ted, who could not make out this latest move. At length the question was cleared up, for the man began to pull on something which revealed itself as a rope and which was coiled around his waist. In a few minutes it slipped off of his person and then he proceeded to tie one end of it to the handle of the lantern. Then he dropped the lantern down the mouth of the chimney, paying the rope out gradually, his body bent over so that he could look down the shaft.

Ted was rooted to the spot by the strangeness of the thing. The light had ceased to shine abroad, instead, it now shot up a feeble shaft from the interior of the chimney, bathing the head and shoulders of the lone man in its wavering, uncertain gleam. The lower part of the man’s body was lost to sight and the upper portion, half disclosed, gave a weird appearance, as though the man was a half-spirit materializing in the air. With absorbed attention the man lowered the lantern until the end of his rope put an end to the process and then he began what looked to be a profound search of the depth of the brick shaft. He moved the rope from side to side, backward and forward, the ray of light shifting as he did so, becoming larger and smaller as the man persisted in his efforts.

Whether or not his work proved profitable Ted never knew, for he could not see the face of the man and there was nothing to be learned as long as the purpose of the thing was a mystery. But the man concluded his search in short order, drawing up the rope rapidly and pulling out the lantern. Rapidly he untied the rope, wound it around his waist and then descended the roof, finding the places where he dared to walk. His foot found the top rung of the ladder and he reached the earth a few seconds later.

The lantern was once more deposited on the ground. The ladder was removed and placed in the bushes, and the work of the man seemed to be finished. He picked up the lantern and walked off, passing so close to the hiding Ted that the boy felt the perspiration start suddenly as he realized that the faltering rays of the lantern might disclose his hiding place. The looks of the man were unknown and the prospect of being seen by a man whose features were still formless in his mind did not look inviting to Ted. But the man passed the spot while he was thinking of these things and started down the mountain, leaving him to lie there and wait until it was safe to go on.

It was manifestly not safe to go on just then. The man was below him and in the darkness Ted might start a stone down and advertise his presence, in which case the game would be very much against him, for the man with the light knew the country and he was a stranger in a strange land. He watched the lantern bobbing down the slope until it was out of sight and then he sat up, turning the whole thing over in his mind.

“By George, that surely was a funny one!” he thought. “What in the world should he go and lower the lantern down the chimney for?”

The whole circumstance was so unusual that he was forced to give up the solution as a bad job and one far beyond his powers to figure out. The house which the boy had caught brief glimpses of was apparently a deserted old place of no value whatsoever and why any one should take the trouble to search it with a lantern for was beyond him.

“Can it be possible that there is something of value in the house?” he wondered, as he stood up and looked in vain for the light. “I can’t see why else a man should look around a place in the night. I wonder why he doesn’t look around in the daytime? Probably he would have to have a lantern in the daytime as well as in the night if he wanted to explore the bottom of that chimney.”

Ted glanced toward the black outline of the house, hesitating as a thought entered his mind. He was debating the question of entering and looking around the place. In one sense, he wanted to do so, and in another he did not want to. The curiosity of the whole thing was strongly upon him, yet the solitary house was not inviting. He had no way to make a light and he knew better than to think of prowling a dark house, yet he could make an expedition around the house and get a fair idea of the place. Then another thought caused him to abandon that idea.

“There may be some well close to the house, and I couldn’t afford to fall into it. No, I guess I’ll be better off to stay out and away from it. After we have made our camp up here I’ll go through the house some day.”

Realizing that it was becoming far later than he had had any idea of, Ted decided to go back to his little car and drive home. For a moment he paused, undecided. In his haste to track the man with the lantern he had not taken time to map out in his mind the direction in which he had come and for a moment he was dismayed at the blackness of the woods. Anyone used to at least the partial illumination that exists at all points in a city is apt to be disagreeably surprised at the total blackness of the night in the woods, and Ted was experiencing this feeling now. But he fought off his uneasiness.

“I’ll get back to the car,” he told himself. “I’ve got to! I’ll just follow down the side of the mountain. Gosh, I never knew how dark the woods could be!”

He began to descend carefully, feeling his way before him, covering to the best of his knowledge the route which he had followed as he tracked the man with the light. Once or twice he came out on ledges which ended abruptly and he was compelled to retrace his steps and work further down, but before long he found ground which was more level. In a few moments he heard the murmur of the stream and recognized it as that of Bear Creek.

“Landed almost at home!” he exulted. “Now I guess I can find my way to the Rattletrap!”

He started to cross the long glade which had been the camp of the Black Riders and came in sight of the springs. A light flashed there and he stopped quickly.

Beside one of the springs the lantern rested on the ground and the figure which had carried it bent over the spring, washing his hands. Ted’s foot touched and rolled a stone, which made a slight noise as it rolled.

The man at the spring bent forward without looking around and with a single breath blew the light out.

The situation was an odd one and not at all a comfortable one. The man with the lantern was there in the darkness, crouching beside his darkened instrument, doubtless peering around him to ascertain who it was who had approached. Ted stood on the spot where he had first seen the man at the spring, undecided as to what to do, his nerves tingling. The one comforting thought that he had was to the effect that the man did not know who it was that had come up behind him and so he felt a certain reassurance. But if the prowling man knew from what direction the sounds of approach came he might take it into his head to explore in the dark, a thing which might be very bad for Ted.

In silence they both kept their positions—at least Ted hoped that the man was keeping his, and as for the boy he never moved a muscle, but listened with straining ears. No sound of a footstep or anything else reached him, the woods were silent and as far as sound went Ted might just as well have been in another world. But he knew that the man was there near him and the feeling was not a happy one.

It was always possible for him to call out and explain his presence there, trusting to luck that the man before him was no madman and that his explanation would be accepted on its face value. But the actions of the man were so stealthy, so mysterious, that they could not possibly be honest ones. For any man to bend forward and blow out a lantern in one, swift decisive breath was worthy of comment by the most unsuspicious, and it would be reasonable to suppose that explanations would not be accepted by a man engaged in the type of business that this was employed in.

So he waited for what seemed an age and when the situation had become almost unbearable he heard a stone roll and a twig snap some distance away from the spring, conclusive proofs that the man with the lantern was stealing away. Other sounds, accidental but informing, came to him in the distance which the man was trying to put between himself and the boy and Ted felt a sense of relief.

“But he knows that I am here,” he realized. “He must be up to something so shady that he doesn’t want to see anyone, no matter who they may be. Maybe he is one of the fellows who gives this camp the reputation of being haunted, and I don’t wonder that anyone would think of such a thing if they saw him dodge around with his lamp. I hope he doesn’t show up and give the boys a scare, because some of them are pretty young.”

Guided solely by a sense of direction, Ted found the path and located his car in the same spot where he had left it. A rapid inspection convinced him that the little machine had not been harmed and he got in, starting his engine and leaving the spot as rapidly as possible.

“I must get home,” he thought. “My folks will be worrying and I don’t want them to do that. Tomorrow I must hunt up Buck and tell him what I saw out there. I think that he will agree with me that we ought to keep it quiet.”

Ted’s folks were beginning to get worried but his appearance reassured them and he gave the excuse that certain things about the camping spot had interested him so much that he had remained at the place longer than he had intended to. Conscious that he had told the truth and not wishing to alarm them with any further details, he retired for the night and enjoyed a good sleep.

On the following day he and Buck attended the local Young Men’s Bible Class in their church and on the way back they discussed the things which Ted had related to his chum on the way to the church. Buck was unable to figure anything out and he agreed that they should make it their own secret.

“We’ll take a look at that old house when we get camping there,” he said. “Maybe when we see what it looks like in the daylight we will be able to tell something. Whatever we do, we mustn’t allow the boys to know what you saw and we’ll have to laugh down any silly stories that are brought up.”

“When the gentleman with the lantern sees that there is a camp around he’ll probably stay away,” replied Ted.

“You’re not even going to tell Mr. Calvert, are you?”

“No, I’ll just tell him that I am impressed with the camp site itself. No use in spreading alarm, and it might get out. After all, that man might have had a good reason to walk around in the woods at night, and we’d only look silly making a big story out of it.”

“Sure. Well, I’m all set for the trip. We start this week, and it can’t come too soon for me.”