CHAPTER VIII

A GRIM FIND EXPLODED

The silence lasted for what seemed to be a long moment and then Buck and Ted sprang to their feet. A dozen tongues were unloosed and an exciting chorus went up, in which uneasiness prevailed.

“What in the world could that have been?” Buck asked Ted, as they peered into the darkness beside the camp, in the direction from which the sound had seemed to come.

“You’ve got me,” was the perplexed answer. “I never heard anything like it before in my life. Let’s get the lanterns and go look around.”

They went to the tents to get the lanterns and Bob and Charlie got out the ones in the middle tents and lighted them. The boys were now standing in a huddle around the fireplace and talking.

“I knew that this was no place for us,” Plum was telling the other boys. “I always heard that this camp was haunted. I guess I’m going home.”

“Maybe we had all better go home,” suggested another boy.

“Yes, go home and let the whole town have the laugh on us!” snorted Drummer.

The four lanterns were lighted but before they sallied forth another sound reached their ears. It was that of an object which had apparently just fallen, for they could hear it strike the rocks and break. This came from the same direction as the weird call had come and for an instant they simply stood and looked in the direction, waiting for some further sign. But the silence was unbroken.

“Well, let’s go,” said Ted, starting off towards the woods with his lantern. “We’ll see if we can learn anything.”

He and Buck took the lead, the two smaller boys bringing up cautiously in the rear, fearful but curious. The two older boys plunged straight into the bushes that fringed the camp and mounted the slopes of the mountain, looking before them as they went, on the alert for something unusual. There was no further sound and they proceeded to the spot from which the sound had come, to find it a high and bare rock which commanded an excellent view of their camp.

“Somebody stood here and looked down at the camp,” said Buck, with conviction.

“You’re right about that,” nodded Ted. “I think they must have dropped something at the bottom of this big rock. Let’s go and see.”

“Here come the rest of the boys,” said Bob.

The others had become tired of standing around the fires and now, as their courage began to return, they climbed the short slope and joined the boys with the lanterns. The lightbearers had made their way down to the base of the rock and there they flashed the light around, resulting in an instant discovery. On a smaller rock lay some fragments of a sea shell, now broken into several sections.

“Just an old sea shell!” cried Drummer. “What good is that?”

“Do you know what it is?” Ted asked Buck.

“Can’t say that I do,” he shook his head.

Ted picked up the fragments, fitting them together until the large shell was nearly whole. “This is a conch shell,” he said. “It is often used as a horn, and when it was blown it makes plenty of noise, as we just found out! This is the horn which was blown to scare us.”

“That’s a seashore shell, isn’t it?” Plum asked.

“Yes, a large marine shell, a univalve shell, and it can be blown into and makes quite a good horn. Somebody from up on top of that rock saw us down in the camp and just tooted that shell to scare us.”

“Didn’t they use those shells a lot in the Revolutionary war, to call people?” a boy asked.

“Yes, and this may be one as old as that. Some farmer around here must have owned it.”

“I’ll bet anything that those Black Riders had shells like that and maybe all that stuff about the camp being haunted is true,” argued Plum. “It sort of seems as though a spirit of one of those fellows is trying to warn us away!”

“Do you believe in ghosts, Plum?” Ted asked, looking straight into the eyes of the big boy.

“Well, no, but——”

“If this was a ghost he was a pretty careless one wasn’t he? Couldn’t even hold on to his conch. I guess we don’t have to worry about anyone as careless as that.”

Plum muttered but no further attention was paid to him. They hunted all around the rock and even went a short distance into the surrounding woods, but not a single clue was to be found. The woods were dark and silent, breathing an air of mystery.

Ted ordered them back to the camp and to bed. There was a bit of protest at this, but Ted put it down at once.

“There is no need to sit up and talk about it all,” he told them. “It is already past the hour for retiring anyway, and you need sleep, because some of you didn’t sleep any too well last night. I guess everything is over and you’ll have nothing to worry about.”

“You guess!” grumbled Plum, expressively.

Ted looked at him sternly. “We’re not going to sit up like a bunch of frightened old maids looking for something to happen,” he said. “Into your tents, now!”

There was much chattering as the boys reluctantly obeyed this order. Buck and Ted met for a final word.

“Looks as though somebody didn’t want us around here,” Buck said.

“I’m afraid that is the whole point,” nodded Ted, speaking in a low tone. “But we have every right to be here and no one is going to make us go. The bad part about this whole thing is that we can’t ask any of these little fellows to stand guard at night. They’d fall asleep and be scared to death in the bargain. Neither can you and I do all the watching, so we’ll have to just trust to luck and be on the lookout.”

But the balance of that night passed quietly away. The two leaders tried to sleep lightly and some of the boys slept fitfully and fearfully, but there was nothing to disturb them and when the morning came the events of the night did not seem so black as they had seemed at the time.

After camp chores had been completed the two older boys and a small squad set out to make a thorough search of the immediate neighborhood, but nothing was found although their search was an exhausting one. It was finally given up as a bad job and the afternoon was devoted to swimming. That evening and night were undisturbed and for the first time since they had struck camp everyone got a good and satisfactory sleep.

On the following day they took a hike, leaving a reserve force back at the camp under Buck. Between themselves they had agreed that one of them was to stay in camp if the other was out of it, and Ted felt safer knowing that the camp was well protected. They made a long trip of it, climbing the mountains, finding a deep valley and a cave and when it was growing late in the afternoon they came back, tired but satisfied. Ted had purposely led them around by the old house where he had first watched the man with the lantern and as soon as the boys saw the place they wanted to explore it.

Nothing suited Ted better and they roamed all over the house, finding it of great interest. It had evidently been furnished at the time of its abandonment, for there were beds and bureaus, tables, chairs and a sofa in the house, all the worse for the wear and tear of the elements which had found unobstructed entrance through doors and broken windows. It was not a farm house, for there was no barn near it and it appeared to be more on the style of a private house. On one corner, just above the front porch, there was an octagon tower or cupola and they entered that from the front bedroom, obtaining from its glassless windows a fairly good view off across the mountains. Whoever had lived in the place had left it fully furnished and the storms of a few years and one or two visiting and curious persons, possibly small boys, had made a wreck out of the glassware and the furniture.

Ted looked around carefully to see if there was any clue as to why the man with the lantern should have lowered the thing into the chimney but he could learn nothing definite. There were several open fireplaces in the house and he could see no reason why anyone should want to lower a lantern to them. When they finally left the place he had obtained a working knowledge of it but was none the wiser as to the intentions of the mountain prowler.

The others were preparing the fires for supper when they returned and everyone helped in the process of getting the evening meal. Buck and the camp squad planned a hike on the following day while the others took their turn at guarding the camp.

Once more the night passed without incident and they were beginning to feel reassured. If someone did not desire their presence they had undoubtedly tired of the attempt to oust them and they were now able to enjoy the camping trip unmolested.

Buck’s squad went for their hike on the following day and came in late in the afternoon. They had taken an entirely different direction and they had but one incident of importance to report. In a sheltered valley about a mile away they had come upon something that excited their curiosity.

“It was a good sized log cabin,” Drummer related. “There was a high barbed wire fence around it! Can you imagine a log cabin way out in the woods with a barbed wire fence around it?”

“Anyone living in it?” Ted asked.

“Yes, I guess so, at least it looked as though somebody was. A couple of windows were open and a curtain was flapping out in the breeze. The gate on the fence was padlocked. Whoever lives way out there doesn’t want any company.”

“It surely is a queer looking place,” Buck said, thoughtfully “Right in the midst of wild country, too. There is a little cabin that looks like a stable in the back of the place, and a steamer chair was out in front. We went up and looked in but nobody came out, though if there was anybody at home they must have heard us talking.”

“Funny that anyone should want to put up a fence like that out in the mountains,” Ted thought. “And with curtains and a steamer chair in evidence, it doesn’t look as though it was some wild mountaineer. I’d like to know who it is.”

“Maybe someone around here knows about the place,” suggested Buck. “When we go for eggs and butter we’ll find out.”

“Yes, and we will have to go tomorrow,” nodded Ted. “By the way, we must build a good ice box. I think we can sink one in the mud down near the creek.”

They were on their way to the tents that night to turn in, when an odd sound reached their ears, causing them to look toward the back section of their camp beyond the tents. The wind had been blowing in gusts for the last hour and there had been a distinct rustling in the trees and bushes. But this was something different, a rattle and a click, and it came from a section which they had never bothered to investigate with any degree of interest, though it is probable that one or two of them had been to the spot. They stood outside the tent and listened, and as a gust of wind sighed through the trees the clicking came again.

“What can that be?” Buck asked.

Ted reached into the tent and took down the lantern. “We’ll soon see,” he said. But one of the younger boys was ahead of him. Bob Gilmore, the captain of the tent next to Buck’s, took the lantern from his tent and taking a short cut between the tents, plunged into the undergrowth. The light winked at them for a moment and then was gone.

The others followed Buck, Ted, and Charlie Wells in a body as they hurried on after Bob. Then, right in front of them they heard a smothered gasp and a crashing. Bob burst through the bushes, lantern in shaking hand, his face white as a sheet.

“A skeleton!” he gasped, staring at them with wide eyes.

“A what?” cried Buck, sharply.

“A skeleton,” the boy repeated. “Hanging on a tree and the bones are clicking together. Listen!”

The wind sighed, and the clicking noise reached them, blanching the faces of the boys. Ted started forward, and in an open space he came upon a sight calculated to unnerve anyone not gifted with feelings of iron. A skeleton hung from an old rope, swaying in the breeze, the skull lying on the ground upside down. In the dark glade, lighted only by their lanterns, the sight was indeed a creepy and chilling one.

The other boys came crowding in, huddling in a group, scared but fascinated, while Ted picked up the skull and examined it. Then he moved all around the hanging bones, the lantern flashes stabbing through the ribs. When he turned to the others they were amazed to find that he was smiling broadly.

“What is the joke?” Buck asked, blankly.

“Why, this poor skeleton must feel pretty much out of place here in the woods,” was Ted’s reply. “He belongs in, and must recently have come from a doctor’s office!”