Читать книгу Tom Slade: Forest Ranger - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 11

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He saw it peering in through the open window as if it were hovering in space outside. A face with staring eyes and matted hair. The shrieking wind subsided momentarily, and in the interval the baying below could be clearly distinguished. The lull permitted the rain to pour straight down and Tom saw the face through the downpour as something unreal, intangible.

What was this horrible thing? Tom was no coward, but he shuddered. He did not speak for he thought that the apparition would not answer, that it had no power of human speech. If he spoke and it did not answer the effect would be unnerving. He stared at it, horrified, panic-stricken. And meanwhile the baying below could be faintly heard like a voice spent, as if coming from another world....

“They ain’t nobody up there now ’less you call a spook somebody.” Tom remembered those words, spoken on the porch of the village store. “A spook and his spook dog.” And the young schoolmaster’s words came back to him all in a flash. “Vollmer’s face—his hair was all matted—appeared up in that little house and stared at them. And they were crowding down the stairs when they heard a dog baying at the foot of the tower—but when they went down there wasn’t any dog there. But still the baying kept up....”

What was this ghastly business? Tom stood aghast, every nerve on edge. Fear thrives on uncertainty. Tom’s panic gave him an impulse which acted as a safety valve. Scarcely knowing what he did, he reached out suddenly as if to pass his hand through the spectral face. Then two arms clasped his and held fast.

“Let go!” Tom screamed.

“The dogs—they’re—they’re coming up,” said a voice.

“I know you,” Tom panted, trying to wrench his arm free while with the other he tried frantically to pull down the window. “Vol—you let go—you’re Vollmer—let me get out of this place—you—are you—Vollmer?”

“Yes, help me in,” the voice answered, “the hounds are coming up.”

The two hands clutched Tom’s trembling arm—they were very real. And a drenched form clambered over the window ledge. A round face with blond hair and staring eyes was before him in that little lofty shelter. “They’re—they’re down—they’re down there,” the voice panted. “You—got to—I didn’t do anything—save me.”

THEN TWO HANDS CLASPED HIS ARM.

Tom was ashamed that for the first time in his life he had fallen victim to fear and credulity. Here was an amazing apparition indeed, but it was no specter. It was a boy of perhaps fifteen years, drenched to the skin and in a state of panic fright. By way of proving his restored composure, Tom nonchalantly threw the field-glass on the covered sleeping shelf and closed the window. He seemed quite cynical in his attitude toward ghostly sights and noises. One might have thought that he would have tossed a ghost aside in the same way.

“Well, I’ll be hanged!” he said. “Who the dickens are you and what are you doing here?”

“I—I climbed up,” cried the boy, brushing aside his streaming hair. “They set dogs—I didn’t do it—I didn’t mean to——”

“How did you cut your hand?” Tom asked.

“Climbing up and hanging on,” the boy cried. His terror was shocking. “I—I wouldn’t—I didn’t—I don’t care what they say—I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t!”

“Shh, take it easy,” said Tom. “How am I going to help you if I don’t know what’s the matter?”

“They’ll tear me all to pieces, they will,” the boy wailed. “They got to prove—haven’t they? I didn’t, I didn’t, I cross my heart I didn’t!”

Amid the gusts of the storm the baying could be heard far below in the darkness.

“I’m—I’m a scout—do you think they kill people?” the boy cried. “They’ll tear me all to pieces—and they’ll let them know where I am, they will.”

“Vollmer, is that your name?” Tom asked.

“Yes, and they’ll kill me,” the boy cried, clutching Tom’s arm. “I’m a real one—a real scout—don’t you believe me——”

Tom Slade, who knew what a scout was if any one did, slowly drew a pistol out of his pocket. “They won’t kill you, Henny,” he said.

“Why—they—why won’t they?”

“Why, just because they won’t,” said Tom. “I’m a scout too, so you can believe me just as I believe you. Give us your hand, Henny—shake. Sit down now and let’s see what’s what.”

But Tom did not sit down. He picked up the pistol and, opening the little door, descended down the steps into the black night. The gale careered among the girders of the tower, whistling and shrieking, then swept off to moan and wail in the lonely forest.

At the foot of the structure two sparkling eyes looked at Tom, and a dark form sprang at his throat. A pistol shot sounded, almost drowned in the tempestuous gale, and the great bloodhound that had leaped up at him lay dead at his feet.

“Now, now they’ll kill you,” the boy said as Tom reëntered the little room.

“I don’t think they will,” said Tom grimly. “Nobody will ever try twice to kill me whether it’s a dog or a man. So it’s a real boy and a real dog—or it was! Sit down over there and tell me what it’s all about, Henny. I don’t think anybody will bother us up here, not for a while anyway. Let’s blow out the candle, hey? Now they won’t have any light or any sound to help them, whoever they are.”

And so these two were alone in the darkness in that little shelter in the mountain wilderness while the raging storm beat furiously outside.