_ 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.
"Am I badly wounded?" she asked. "Do you think that I am going to die?" The tremor in her voice was pathetic--it was the voice of a frightened and wondering child. Bridge heard the boy behind him move impulsively forward and saw him kneel on the bed beside the girl.
"You are not badly hurt," volunteered The Oskaloosa Kid. "Bridge couldn't find a mark on you--the bullet must have missed you."
"He was holding me over the edge of the car when he fired." The girl's voice reflected the physical shudder which ran through her frame at the recollection. "Then he threw me out almost simultaneously. I suppose he thought that he could not miss at such close range." For a time she was silent again, sitting stiffly erect. Bridge could feel rather than see wide, tense eyes staring out through the darkness upon scenes, horrible perhaps, that were invisible to him and the Kid.
Suddenly the girl turned and threw herself face downward upon the bed. "O, God!" she moaned. "Father! Father! It will kill you--no one will believe me--they will think that I am bad. I didn't do it! I didn't do it! I've been a silly little fool; but I have never been a bad girl--and---and--I had nothing to do with that awful thing that happened to-night."
Bridge and the boy realized that she was not talking to them--that for the moment she had lost sight of their presence--she was talking to that father whose heart would be breaking with the breaking of the new day, trying to convince him that his little girl had done no wrong.
Again she sat up, and when she spoke there was no tremor in her voice.
"I may die," she said. "I want to die. I do not see how I can go on living after last night; but if I do die I want my father to know that I had nothing to do with it and that they tried to kill me because I wouldn't promise to keep still. It was the little one who murdered him--the one they called 'Jimmie' and 'The Oskaloosa Kid.' The big one drove the car--his name was 'Terry.' After they killed him I tried to jump out--I had been sitting in front with Terry--and then they dragged me over into the tonneau and later--the Oskaloosa Kid tried to kill me too, and threw me out."
Bridge heard the boy at his side gulp. The girl went on.
"To-morrow you will know about the murder--everyone will know about it; and I will be missed; and there will be people who saw me in the car with them, for someone must have seen me. Oh, I can't face it! I want to die. I will die! I come of a good family. My father is a prominent man. I can't go back and stand the disgrace and see him suffer, as he will suffer, for I was all he had--his only child. I can't bear to tell you my name--you will know it soon enough--but please find some way to let my father know all that I have told you--I swear that it is the truth--by the memory of my dead mother, I swear it!"
Bridge laid a hand upon the girl's shoulder. "If you are telling us the truth," he said, "you have only a silly escapade with strange men upon your conscience. You must not talk of dying now--your duty is to your father. If you take your own life it will be a tacit admission of guilt and will only serve to double the burden of sorrow and ignominy which your father is bound to feel when this thing becomes public, as it certainly must if a murder has been done. The only way in which you can atone for your error is to go back and face the consequences with him--do not throw it all upon him; that would be cowardly."
The girl did not reply; but that the man's words had impressed her seemed evident. For a while each was occupied with his own thoughts; which were presently disturbed by the sound of footsteps upon the floor below--the muffled scraping of many feet followed a moment later by an exclamation and an oath, the words coming distinctly through the loose and splintered flooring.
"Pipe the stiff," exclaimed a voice which The Oskaloosa Kid recognized immediately as that of Soup Face.
"The Kid musta croaked him," said another.
A laugh followed this evidently witty sally.
"The guy probably lamped the swag an' died of heart failure," suggested another.
The men were still laughing when the sound of a clanking chain echoed dismally from the cellar. Instantly silence fell upon the newcomers upon the first floor, followed by a--"Wotinel's that?" Two of the men had approached the staircase and started to ascend it. Slowly the uncanny clanking drew closer to the first floor. The girl on the bed turned toward Bridge.
"What is it?" she gasped.
"We don't know," replied the man. "It followed us up here, or rather it chased us up; and then went down again just before you regained consciousness. I imagine we shall hear some interesting developments from below."
"It's The Sky Pilot and his gang," whispered The Oskaloosa Kid.
"It's The Oskaloosa Kid," came a voice from below.
"But wot was that light upstairs then?" queried another.
"An' wot croaked this guy here?" asked a third. "It wasn't nothin' nice--did you get the expression on his mug an' the red foam on his lips? I tell youse there's something in this house beside human bein's. I know the joint--its hanted--they's spooks in it. Gawd! there it is now," as the clanking rose to the head of the cellar stairs; and those above heard a sudden rush of footsteps as the men broke for the open air--all but the two upon the stairway. They had remained too long and now, their retreat cut off, they scrambled, cursing and screaming, to the second floor.
Along the hallway they rushed to the closed door at the end--the door of the room in which the three listened breathlessly--hurling themselves against it in violent effort to gain admission.
"Who are you and what do you want?" cried Bridge.
"Let us in! Let us in!" screamed two voices. "Fer God's sake let us in. Can't you hear IT? It'll be comin' up here in a minute."
The sound of the dragging chain could be heard at intervals upon the floor below. It seemed to the tense listeners above to pause beside the dead man as though hovering in gloating exultation above its gruesome prey and then it moved again, this time toward the stairway where they all heard it ascending with a creepy slowness which wrought more terribly upon tense nerves than would a sudden rush.
"The mills of the Gods grind slowly," quoted Bridge.
"Oh, don't!" pleaded The Oskaloosa Kid.
"Let us in," screamed the men without. "Fer the luv o' Mike have a heart! Don't leave us out here! IT's comin'! IT's comin'!"
"Oh, let the poor things in," pleaded the girl on the bed. She was, herself, trembling with terror.
"No funny business, now, if I let you in," commanded Bridge.
"On the square," came the quick and earnest reply.
The THING had reached the head of the stairs when Bridge dragged the bed aside and drew the bolt. Instantly two figures hurled themselves into the room but turned immediately to help Bridge resecure the doorway.
Just as it had done before, when Bridge and The Oskaloosa Kid had taken refuge there with the girl, the THING moved down the hallway to the closed door. The dragging chain marked each foot of its advance. If it made other sounds they were drowned by the clanking of the links over the time roughened flooring.
Within the room the five were frozen into utter silence, and beyond the door an equal quiet prevailed for a long minute; then a great force made the door creak and a weird scratching sounded high up upon the old fashioned panelling. Bridge heard a smothered gasp from the boy beside him, followed instantly by a flash of flame and the crack of a small caliber automatic; The Oskaloosa Kid had fired through the door.
Bridge seized the boy's arm and wrenched the weapon from him. "Be careful!" he cried. "You'll hurt someone. You didn't miss the girl much that time--she's on the bed right in front of the door."
The Oskaloosa Kid pressed closer to the man as though he sought protection from the unknown menace without. The girl sprang from the bed and crossed to the opposite side of the room. A flash of lightning illuminated the chamber for an instant and the roof of the verandah without. The girl noted the latter and the open window.
"Look!" she cried. "Suppose it went out of another window upon this porch. It could get us so easily that way!"
"Shut up, you fool!" whispered one of the two newcomers. "It might hear you." The girl subsided into silence.
There was no sound from the hallway.
"I reckon you croaked IT," suggested the second newcomer, hopefully; but, as though the THING without had heard and understood, the clanking of the chain recommenced at once; but now it was retreating along the hallway, and soon they heard it descending the stairs.
Sighs of relief escaped more than a single pair of lips. "IT didn't hear me," whispered the girl.
Bridge laughed. "We're a nice lot of babies seeing things at night," he scoffed.
"If you're so nervy why don't you go down an' see wot it is?" asked one of the late arrivals.
"I believe I shall," replied Bridge and pulled the bed away from the door.
Instantly a chorus of protests arose, the girl and The Oskaloosa Kid being most insistent. What was the use? What good could he accomplish? It might be nothing; yet on the other hand what had brought death so horribly to the cold clay on the floor below? At last their pleas prevailed and Bridge replaced the bed before the door.
For two hours the five sat about the room waiting for daylight. There could be no sleep for any of them. Occasionally they spoke, usually advancing and refuting suggestions as to the identity of the nocturnal prowler below-stairs. The THING seemed to have retreated again to the cellar, leaving the upper floor to the five strangely assorted prisoners and the first floor to the dead man.
During the brief intervals of conversation the girl repeated snatches of her story and once she mentioned The Oskaloosa Kid as the murderer of the unnamed victim. The two men who had come last pricked up their ears at this and Bridge felt the boy's hand just touch his arm as though in mute appeal for belief and protection. The man half smiled.
"We seen The Oskaloosa Kid this evenin'" volunteered one of the newcomers.
"You did?" exclaimed the girl. "Where?"
"He'd just pulled off a job in Oakdale an' had his pockets bulgin' wid sparklers an' kale. We was follerin' him an' when we seen your light up here we t'ought it was him."
The Oskaloosa Kid shrank closer to Bridge. At last he recognized the voice of the speaker. While he had known that the two were of The Sky Pilot's band he had not been sure of the identity of either; but now it was borne in upon him that at least one of them was the last person on earth he cared to be cooped up in a small, unlighted room with, and a moment later when one of the two rolled a 'smoke' and lighted it he saw in the flare of the flame the features of both Dopey Charlie and The General. The Oskaloosa Kid gasped once more for the thousandth time that night.
It had been Dopey Charlie who lighted the cigaret and in the brief illumination his friend The General had grasped the opportunity to scan the features of the other members of the party. Schooled by long years of repression he betrayed none of the surprise or elation he felt when he recognized the features of The Oskaloosa Kid.
If The General was elated The Oskaloosa Kid was at once relieved and terrified. Relieved by ocular proof that he was not a murderer and terrified by the immediate presence of the two who had sought his life.
His cigaret drawing well Dopey Charlie resumed: "This Oskaloosa Kid's a bad actor," he volunteered. "The little shrimp tried to croak me; but he only creased my ribs. I'd like to lay my mits on him. I'll bet there won't be no more Oskaloosa Kid when I get done wit him."
The boy drew Bridge's ear down toward his own lips. "Let's go," he said. "I don't hear anything more downstairs, or maybe we could get out on this roof and slide down the porch pillars."
Bridge laid a strong, warm hand on the small, cold one of his new friend.
"Don't worry, Kid," he said. "I'm for you."
The two other men turned quickly in the direction of the speaker.
"Is de Kid here?" asked Dopey Charlie.
"He is, my degenerate friend," replied Bridge; "and furthermore he's going to stay here and be perfectly safe. Do you grasp me?"
"Who are you?" asked The General.
"That is a long story," replied Bridge; "but if you chance to recall Dink and Crumb you may also be able to visualize one Billy Burke and Billy Byrne and his side partner, Bridge. Yes? Well, I am the side partner."
Before the yeggman could make reply the girl spoke up quickly. "This man cannot be The Oskaloosa Kid," she said. "It was The Oskaloosa Kid who threw me from the car."
"How do you know he ain't?" queried The General. "Youse was knocked out when these guys picks you up. It's so dark in here you couldn't reco'nize no one. How do you know this here bird ain't The Oskaloosa Kid, eh?"
"I have heard both these men speak," replied the girl; "their voices were not those of any men I have known. If one of them is The Oskaloosa Kid then there must be two men called that. Strike a match and you will see that you are mistaken."
The General fumbled in an inside pocket for a package of matches carefully wrapped against possible damage by rain. Presently he struck one and held the light in the direction of The Kid's face while he and the girl and Dopey Charlie leaned forward to scrutinize the youth's features.
"It's him all right," said Dopey Charlie.
"You bet it is," seconded The General.
"Why he's only a boy," ejaculated the girl. "The one who threw me from the machine was a man."
"Well, this one said he was The Oskaloosa Kid," persisted The General.
"An' he shot me up," growled Dopey Charlie.
"It's too bad he didn't kill you," remarked Bridge pleasantly. "You're a thief and probably a murderer into the bargain--you tried to kill this boy just before he shot you."
"Well wots he?" demanded Dopey Charlie. "He's a thief--he said he was--look in his pockets--they're crammed wid swag, an' he's a gun-man, too, or he wouldn't be packin' a gat. I guess he ain't got nothin' on me."
The darkness hid the scarlet flush which mounted to the boy's cheeks--so hot that he thought it must surely glow redly through the night. He waited in dumb misery for Bridge to demand the proof of his guilt. Earlier in the evening he had flaunted the evidence of his crime in the faces of the six hobos; but now he suddenly felt a great shame that his new found friend should believe him a house-breaker.
But Bridge did not ask for any substantiation of Charlie's charges, he merely warned the two yeggmen that they would have to leave the boy alone and in the morning, when the storm had passed and daylight had lessened the unknown danger which lurked below-stairs, betake themselves upon their way.
"And while we're here together in this room you two must sit over near the window," he concluded. "You've tried to kill the boy once to-night; but you're not going to try it again--I'm taking care of him now."
"You gotta crust, bo," observed Dopey Charlie, belligerently. "I guess me an' The General'll sit where we damn please, an' youse can take it from me on the side that we're goin' to have ours out of The Kid's haul. If you tink you're goin' to cop the whole cheese you got another tink comin'."
"You are banking," replied Bridge, "on the well known fact that I never carry a gun; but you fail to perceive, owing to the Stygian gloom which surrounds us, that I have the Kid's automatic in my gun hand and that the business end of it is carefully aiming in your direction."
"Cheese it," The General advised his companion; and the two removed themselves to the opposite side of the apartment, where they whispered, grumblingly, to one another.
The girl, the boy, and Bridge waited as patiently as they could for the coming of the dawn, talking of the events of the night and planning against the future. Bridge advised the girl to return at once to her father; but this she resolutely refused to do, admitting with utmost candor that she lacked the courage to face her friends even though her father might still believe in her.
The youth begged that he might accompany Bridge upon the road, pleading that his mother was dead and that he could not return home after his escapade. And Bridge could not find it in his heart to refuse him, for the man realized that the boyish waif possessed a subtile attraction, as forceful as it was inexplicable. Not since he had followed the open road in company with Billy Byrne had Bridge met one with whom he might care to 'Pal' before The Kid crossed his path on the dark and storm swept pike south of Oakdale.
In Byrne, mucker, pugilist, and MAN, Bridge had found a physical and moral counterpart of himself, for the slender Bridge was muscled as a Greek god, while the stocky Byrne, metamorphosed by the fire of a woman's love, possessed all the chivalry of the care free tramp whose vagabondage had never succeeded in submerging the evidences of his cultural birthright.
In the youth Bridge found an intellectual equal with the added charm of a physical dependent. The man did not attempt to fathom the evident appeal of the other's tacitly acknowledged cowardice; he merely knew that he would not have had the youth otherwise if he could not have changed him. Ordinarily he accepted male cowardice with the resignation of surfeited disgust; but in the case of The Oskaloosa Kid he realized a certain artless charm which but tended to strengthen his liking for the youth, so brazen and unaffected was the boy's admission of his terror of both the real and the unreal menaces of this night of horror.
That the girl also was well bred was quite evident to Bridge, while both the girl and the youth realized the refinement of the strange companion and protector which Fate had ordered for them, while they also saw in one another social counterparts of themselves. Thus, as the night dragged its slow course, the three came to trust each other more entirely and to speculate upon the strange train of circumstances which had brought them thus remarkably together--the thief, the murderer's accomplice, and the vagabond.
It was during a period of thoughtful silence when the night was darkest just before the dawn and the rain had settled to a dismal drizzle unrelieved by lightning or by thunder that the five occupants of the room were suddenly startled by a strange pattering sound from the floor below. It was as the questioning fall of a child's feet upon the uncarpeted boards in the room beneath them. Frozen to silent rigidity, the five sat straining every faculty to catch the minutest sound from the black void where the dead man lay, and as they listened there came up to them, mingled with the inexplicable footsteps, the hollow reverberation from the dank cellar--the hideous dragging of the chain behind the nameless horror which had haunted them through the interminable eons of the ghastly night.
Up, up, up it came toward the first floor. The pattering of the feet ceased. The clanking rose until the five heard the scraping of the chain against the door frame at the head of the cellar stairs. They heard it pass across the floor toward the center of the room and then, loud and piercing, there rang out against the silence of the awful night a woman's shriek.
Instantly Bridge leaped to his feet. Without a word he tore the bed from before the door.
"What are you doing?" cried the girl in a muffled scream.
"I am going down to that woman," said Bridge, and he drew the bolt, rusty and complaining, from its corroded seat.
"No!" screamed the girl, and seconding her the youth sprang to his feet and threw his arms about Bridge.
"Please! Please!" he cried. "Oh, please don't leave me."
The girl also ran to the man's side and clutched him by the sleeve.
"Don't go!" she begged. "Oh, for God's sake, don't leave us here alone!"
"You heard a woman scream didn't you?" asked Bridge. "Do you suppose I can stay in up here when a woman may be facing death a few feet below me?"
For answer the girl but held more tightly to his arm while the youth slipped to the floor and embraced the man's knees in a vice-like hold which he could not break without hurting his detainer.
"Come! Come!" expostulated Bridge. "Let me go."
"Wait!" begged the girl. "Wait until you know that it is a human voice that screams through this horrible place."
The youth only strained his hold tighter about the man's legs. Bridge felt a soft cheek pressed to his knee; and, for some unaccountable reason, the appeal was stronger than the pleading of the girl. Slowly Bridge realized that he could not leave this defenseless youth alone even though a dozen women might be menaced by the uncanny death below. With a firm hand he shot the bolt. "Leave go of me," he said; "I shan't leave you unless she calls for help in articulate words."
The boy rose and, trembling, pressed close to the man who, involuntarily, threw a protecting arm about the slim figure. The girl, too, drew nearer, while the two yeggmen rose and stood in rigid silence by the window. From below came an occasional rattle of the chain, followed after a few minutes by the now familiar clanking as the iron links scraped across the flooring. Mingled with the sound of the chain there rose to them what might have been the slow and ponderous footsteps of a heavy man, dragging painfully across the floor. For a few moments they heard it, and then all was silent.
For a dozen tense minutes the five listened; but there was no repetition of any sound from below. Suddenly the girl breathed a deep sigh, and the spell of terror was broken. Bridge felt rather than heard the youth sobbing softly against his breast, while across the room The General gave a quick, nervous laugh which he as immediately suppressed as though fearful unnecessarily of calling attention to their presence. The other vagabond fumbled with his hypodermic needle and the narcotic which would quickly give his fluttering nerves the quiet they craved.
Bridge, the boy, and the girl shivered together in their soggy clothing upon the edge of the bed, feeling now in the cold dawn the chill discomfort of which the excitement of the earlier hours of the night had rendered them unconscious. The youth coughed.
"You've caught cold," said Bridge, his tone almost self-reproachful, as though he were entirely responsible for the boy's condition. "We're a nice aggregation of mollycoddles--five of us sitting half frozen up here with a stove on the floor below, and just because we heard a noise which we couldn't explain and hadn't the nerve to investigate." He rose. "I'm going down, rustle some wood and build a fire in that stove--you two kids have got to dry those clothes of yours and get warmed up or we'll have a couple of hospital cases on our hands."
Once again rose a chorus of pleas and objections. Oh, wouldn't he wait until daylight? See! the dawn was even then commencing to break. They didn't dare go down and they begged him not to leave them up there alone.
At this Dopey Charlie spoke up. The 'hop' had commenced to assert its dominion over his shattered nervous system instilling within him a new courage and a feeling of utter well-being. "Go on down," said he to Bridge. "The General an' I'll look after the kids--won't we bo?"
"Sure," assented The General; "we'll take care of 'em."
"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Bridge; "we'll leave the kids up here and we three'll go down. They won't go, and I wouldn't leave them up here with you two morons on a bet."
The General and Dopey Charlie didn't know what a moron was but they felt quite certain from Bridge's tone of voice that a moron was not a nice thing, and anyway no one could have bribed them to descend into the darkness of the lower floor with the dead man and the grisly THING that prowled through the haunted chambers; so they flatly refused to budge an inch.
Bridge saw in the gradually lighting sky the near approach of full daylight; so he contented himself with making the girl and the youth walk briskly to and fro in the hope that stimulated circulation might at least partially overcome the menace of the damp clothing and the chill air, and thus they occupied the remaining hour of the night.
From below came no repetition of the inexplicable noises of that night of terror and at last, with every object plainly discernible in the light of the new day, Bridge would delay no longer; but voiced his final determination to descend and make a fire in the old kitchen stove. Both the boy and the girl insisted upon accompanying him. For the first time each had an opportunity to study the features of his companions of the night. Bridge found in the girl and the youth two dark eyed, good-looking young people. In the girl's face was, perhaps, just a trace of weakness; but it was not the face of one who consorts habitually with criminals. The man appraised her as a pretty, small-town girl who had been led into a temporary escapade by the monotony of village life, and he would have staked his soul that she was not a bad girl.
The boy, too, looked anything other than the role he had been playing. Bridge smiled as he looked at the clear eyes, the oval face, and the fine, sensitive mouth and thought of the youth's claim to the crime battered sobriquet of The Oskaloosa Kid. The man wondered if the mystery of the clanking chain would prove as harmlessly infantile as these two whom some accident of hilarious fate had cast in the roles of debauchery and crime.
Aloud, he said: "I'll go first, and if the spook materializes you two can beat it back into the room." And to the two tramps: "Come on, boes, we'll all take a look at the lower floor together, and then we'll get a good fire going in the kitchen and warm up a bit."
Down the hall they went, Bridge leading with the boy and girl close at his heels while the two yeggs brought up the rear. Their footsteps echoed through the deserted house; but brought forth no answering clanking from the cellar. The stairs creaked beneath the unaccustomed weight of so many bodies as they descended toward the lower floor. Near the bottom Bridge came to a questioning halt. The front room lay entirely within his range of vision, and as his eyes swept it he gave voice to a short exclamation of surprise.
The youth and the girl, shivering with cold and nervous excitement, craned their necks above the man's shoulder.
"O-h-h!" gasped The Oskaloosa Kid. "He's gone," and, sure enough, the dead man had vanished.
Bridge stepped quickly down the remaining steps, entered the rear room which had served as dining room and kitchen, inspected the two small bedrooms off this room, and the summer kitchen beyond. All were empty; then he turned and re-entering the front room bent his steps toward the cellar stairs. At the foot of the stairway leading to the second floor lay the flash lamp that the boy had dropped the night before. Bridge stooped, picked it up and examined it. It was uninjured and with it in his hand he continued toward the cellar door.
"Where are you going?" asked The Oskaloosa Kid.
"I'm going to solve the mystery of that infernal clanking," he replied.
"You are not going down into that dark cellar!" It was an appeal, a question, and a command; and it quivered gaspingly upon the verge of hysteria.
Bridge turned and looked into the youth's face. The man did not like cowardice and his eyes were stern as he turned them on the lad from whom during the few hours of their acquaintance he had received so many evidences of cowardice; but as the clear brown eyes of the boy met his the man's softened and he shook his head perplexedly. What was there about this slender stripling which so disarmed criticism?
"Yes," he replied, "I am going down. I doubt if I shall find anything there; but if I do it is better to come upon it when I am looking for it than to have it come upon us when we are not expecting it. If there is to be any hunting I prefer to be hunter rather than hunted."
He wheeled and placed a foot upon the cellar stairs. The youth followed him.
"What are you going to do?" asked the man.
"I am going with you," said the boy. "You think I am a coward because I am afraid; but there is a vast difference between cowardice and fear."
The man made no reply as he resumed the descent of the stairs, flashing the rays of the lamp ahead of him; but he pondered the boy's words and smiled as he admitted mentally that it undoubtedly took more courage to do a thing in the face of fear than to do it if fear were absent. He felt a strange elation that this youth should choose voluntarily to share his danger with him, for in his roaming life Bridge had known few associates for whom he cared. _