Читать книгу Tom Slade: Forest Ranger - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 10

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Tom never knew exactly how he did grope his way to the top of the mountain. He was a good scout, if ever there was one, and he used tactics in dealing with the monster. One fitful guide he had, the lightning. Whenever it flashed he quickly laid out his course for a few yards.

At last, after hours, a long flash showed him the lookout tower outlined against the black sky. There was something startling, uncanny, in the sudden and vivid appearance of this alien thing, the handiwork of man, there on the lonely mountaintop. He saw it first bathed in the luminous glare. It appeared before him, a sort of glowing specter, strange with a peculiar strangeness, thus lifted out of its black environment. Then it withdrew into the stormy darkness.

He ascended the zigzag stair wearily, holding fast to the rail, for the steps were slippery with running water and the wind blowing a gale through the open structure. At each little landing where the stairs turned he paused, fatigued to the point of dropping, and rested for a brief moment while the wind and rain lashed him. At the top landing he fumbled in his pockets for the key the warden had sent him and entered the musty little room.

The tiny place was suffocating: oppressive with the atmosphere of long disuse. Its shelter was welcome, but there was something strangely jarring in the beating of the rain against the windows which were on every side.

In his hours of almost hopeless groping through that mountain wilderness, he had thought fondly of the cozy little shelter which would shut out the wild night. But now that he was there, he felt a certain uneasiness in its small, dark confines. There had been nothing spooky about the boisterous storm while he was in it. But listening to it from within this tiny, aerial bunk was another matter. The place was full of creaks and uncanny noises and Tom felt that another minute without a light would well-nigh unnerve him.

He struck a match and had his first glimpse of the place. There was the round table covered with the map under glass. The dirty, misshapen candle in its tallow-covered, rusty holder. The field-glass. With difficulty he got the candle lighted. It illumined hardly more than the table, leaving the surrounding area in shadow. There was an old kitchen chair, a rough chest, and a little cupboard. On opposite sides of the room were two sleeping bunks, one entirely without coverings, the other containing a pillow and a smelly, mildewed quilt. An old magazine lay on this one; the picture on its cover showed a returning transport crowded with soldiers.

Outside the wind swept and moaned, and sometimes raised its voice in a sort of sudden, petulant complaint. The candlestick trembled audibly. The field-glass danced on the smooth glass. Tom laid it sideways and placed the magazine under the candlestick. Silence. He took down the telephone receiver and held it to his ear. He waited, ten seconds, half a minute, but no voice answered. He was shut off from the world. The storm raged and lashed the steel framework below him.

He threw off his oilskin coat and sank wearily down upon the locker. He was either almost asleep or almost fainting. He managed to raise the nearest window and in a second the gale cleansed the foul place. Then he sank down again, exhausted, his senses ebbing. The candle went out and the roaring wind blew the magazine open and drove it off the table. Its fluttering pages carried it against the field-glass and drove that also to the floor.

This aroused Tom and half-consciously he relit the candle and stood the field-glass upright on the table where it danced to the accompaniment of the driving wind. And then he heard, in an interval of the clamor, the baying of a dog far below him. The jolly little field-glass danced on its two stiff, stout legs. The tower shook. Then a lull. And the baying of dogs far below him in the tempestuous night.

And then he saw the face....