Читать книгу The Hermit of Gordon's Creek - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 5

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The Comet X-1 Ranch looked to be no more than a white speck from where they stood. Amidst the vast acres of buffalo grass the spotless outbuildings and main ranch house seemed to dwindle into nothingness. Off to the east on the rolling prairie and distant buttes herds of sheep moved lazily in the warmth of noonday. But on the lower slopes of Crosley Range, the sun shone gaily upon Hal and Lee who were nibbling upon the remnants of a light luncheon. Their horses were grazing contentedly in a small grassy hollow near by.

“That road that you see running northeast and east,” said Lee, waving her slim brown arm, “is one of the boundaries of Papa’s property. It’s a county road, Gordon Highway, and leads directly into the city, past the airport. Then there’s a little country road that branches from it running south and southwest until it dwindles into a trail that comes up from the lower slope and meets the creek trail just above Mr. Winters’ cabin. We can go home that way this evening if you like and it will give us a good excuse for going past forbidden territory.”

“Who forbids it?” grinned Hal. “The old man?”

“That’s what I meant, of course,” said Lee, kicking her spurs against the rock on which they were sitting. “Mr. Winters has said time and again that he doesn’t like snooping strangers. And you are a stranger to him. But at one time about fifty years ago it was actually forbidden territory. A man named Crosley (after whom this range is called) discovered what he thought was a very rich copper mine. It’s a little above here on our way to Mr. Winters’ and I’ll show it to you. You’d never think to look at the entrance to the old shaft that tragedy ever took place there.”

Hal reached over to the basket between them and secured another sandwich. “I always eat when I’m interested,” he laughed. “Go on—that’s my weakness—tragedy.”

Lee’s laugh rang out in the silent noonday like the tinkling of a bell. “You’ve got a weakness for adventure, Hal,” she said, “but I guess it’s a good weakness.” Then, seriously: “This Mr. Crosley, as the story goes, slaved and stinted himself and his wife and child, putting every penny he could into the prospect. There came a time (I don’t know just how long it was) when another man, who was an enemy of his, put in a claim for the mine.”

“Man, that was tough,” said Hal, reaching for another sandwich.

Lee smiled and continued. “Well, it was pretty hard, that’s certain. Papa said that poor Mr. Crosley didn’t have a chance because his enemy bought his claim to it—whatever that means.”

“Pull,” said Hal. “Man . . .”

“Mr. Crosley’s enemy gave him notice to get out,” said Lee gravely. “The poor man had a cabin right near the mine too. But he wouldn’t give up the mine—he went crazy and forbade anybody to come up the trail past there. He put his wife and child behind him inside the shaft and they fortified themselves there for days, it is said. After the siege had ended and there came no sound from the shaft, his enemy and the sheriff and a posse crept up.”

“And found ’em dead, huh?” asked Hal, with a sandwich poised in mid-air and his mouth wide open.

“All three of them,” said Lee. “His wife and child had died from being down in the foul atmosphere of the mine all that time. Mr. Crosley, poor man, had killed himself. But that wasn’t all—two days afterward his enemy and some other men were trapped and drowned in the shaft when the dam broke up the creek and it came pouring its waters down the hills. Wasn’t that just too awful!”

“And how!” Hal agreed with a pretty big mouthful. “And now I suppose they say the place is haunted, huh?”

“Of course it is,” Lee said with a wry smile. “When you’ve heard a story as many times as I’ve heard that why you’d come to believe it too. Papa doesn’t believe it, of course, but then he’s an easterner really. I’ve lived all but one year in Montana, so I’ve reason to be an honest-to-goodness westerner.”

“But that isn’t any reason to be superstitious,” said Hal. “All westerners aren’t superstitious, are they?”

“No, silly,” Lee laughed, “but they have a lot of traditions that easterners haven’t, I guess. Believe it or not, Bitter Root Mine hasn’t an ounce of copper in it to this day and old prospectors say that Mr. Crosley proved that he had struck a rich vein when he first staked his claim.”

Hal wanted to believe the old tale; certainly he was tremendously moved by it. But the thought of the mine being haunted brought a smile to his handsome features.

“How is the mine haunted—does Mr. Crosley’s ghost parade in and out of it?” he asked laughingly.

“You can laugh,” answered Lee good-naturedly, “but even Papa couldn’t stay in it for more than a second. He said it was just as if something stifled him so that he was driven out.”

“Just as I said,” Hal observed whimsically. “It must have been the old timer’s ghost.”

“Well, I think it was. Everyone that’s ever been in there has had the same experience and that’s proof, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely, positively. I’m never convinced, though, until I see the white sheet with my own eyes and hear the skeleton rattle,” Hal told her with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

The girl looked at him searchingly for a moment, then frowned. “You’re making fun of me, Hal, and I think you’re just too awful,” she said, trying to keep the mirth out of her voice. “For being so smart, I’m going to dare you to go in it and see how long you can stay in it!”

Hal laughed outright. “I didn’t need that dare—I intended to see for myself anyhow. But I think it’s the bunk—you know it? But let’s get going, huh?”

Lee gave him a quizzical sort of smile and, without a word, rose and went to her horse. She wore an air as if to say, “It’s for me to know and you to find out.”

They cantered up the trail, leaving the lower grassy levels for the more heavily timbered stretches through which their trail wound. It was shady and pleasant and had it not been for the riotous medley of woodland birds and the rhythmic beat of horses’ hoofs upon the ground the vast range would have been deadly silent—a thing apart from the noisy work-a-day world.

Hal’s supersensitiveness caused him to be immediately aware of this silence underlying these natural disturbances. He whistled gaily until the sudden roar of an airplane motor sounded overhead. They could just about distinguish the clip of one glistening wing through the wide-spreading branches above their heads.

“They must be out hunting for poor Collins,” Lee observed, squinting her brown eyes skyward. “He carried a lot of valuable mail, I guess. I heard Papa say that yesterday. You know how those things get around. Pedro was over in the city early yesterday morning and he heard it from one of the men there. He told it to Kip and Kip told it to Papa. Well, they’ll have an awful hunt if the poor fellow floundered into a canyon. There’s a hundred of them on this range alone. Some of them are so hidden, they say that they’ve never been really explored by man.”

Hal shuddered visibly. “Maybe they’ll never find him, huh?”

“Maybe not. The last airman lost that was reported last seen over this range has never been found. Part of the plane’s wing was recovered a month ago in Ryder’s Basin, about two miles from here. And it’s two years now that the plane has been lost.”

The trail narrowed considerably as they emerged into the open once more. Sunlight, dazzling and hot, shone steadily down upon the barren looking slope that they were ascending, giving its thin covering of mould a sickly greenish hue. A strange distant screech echoed faintly in the depths of the canyon below them.

“Do you have eagles around here?” Hal asked curiously.

“A few now and then. That was one, all right. He’s been around here since the summer began,” Lee answered, reining in her horse. Then, indicating a curious looking U-shaped gap in the massive rocky face of a higher level, she said: “I’ve an idea the old fellow keeps house in that wind gap up there. Every time I come up this trail I hear a yelp from him and there’s always something glistening up in that gap. Do you see it?”

Hal did, though it meant no more than just a mere glisten to his city trained eyes. Lee’s calm observance of it astounded him more than the knowledge itself. “Man, I should think you’d be kind of scared, wandering around here with an eagle flying loose,” he said with true tenderfoot simplicity.

Lee laughed heartily. “I’d rather trust myself in the open with that eagle than down in the mine with the ghost.”

Hal couldn’t comprehend this sort of thing—he didn’t try to. Besides, Lee’s mirth-lighted eyes had suddenly become grave and frowning. The young man turned in his saddle inquiringly.

The girl nodded. “Do you hear a horse?” she asked.

“No. Whereabouts—coming or going?”

“Going. It sounds just about at the mine—around that next sharp turn. No, it’s getting farther away now. Let’s spur on and see who it can be.”

“Maybe it’s Crosley’s ghost,” Hal teased. “Did he ride a horse or a mule?”

Suddenly they heard a hoarse, muffled cry.