Читать книгу The Hermit of Gordon's Creek - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 7

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Lee waited patiently at first, though she sat tense and alert for every sound. But as the minutes passed she dismounted and, leading the animals to a solitary clump of stunted red fir trees, hitched them to the nearest one. Then she walked toward the mine.

Within about six feet of the entrance she stopped, and in a small, nervous voice called, “Hal!” Then, louder: “HAL!”

The soothing voice of the warm, chinook winds whispered about her head, the raucous screech of the eagle taunted her from above, but no human sound issued from out the mine. The atmosphere became doubly still because of the sepulchral silence that hovered about the entrance to the ill-fated place.

Lee clasped and unclasped her hands, then let them fall at her sides clutching fearfully at her khaki riding-breeches. She advanced a few feet nearer until she could almost see into the dark place. She called once more, trembling and afraid.

The eagle screeched again, circling high above her head. In desperation, she stepped right up to the entrance and listened. Not a sound. It made her dizzy and faint to look into the black depths of the place. The day was so bright and sunlighted and free. And the mine seemed to her like some vast, suffocating prison of darkness. Unconsciously, she took a step backward.

But Lee, at heart, was not a coward. Her fear for Hal soon overcame what she lacked in courage. The next moment she was stumbling past the enclosure, trembling yet brave. And though her heart thumped wildly she was able to stand calmly and contemplate how she could find her way through that long forbidding-looking passageway.

She reached out slowly. Her hand came in contact with the damp, slimy wall and the shock of it caused her to jump forward. Instantly, she recoiled, stifling a scream. Her small booted foot had stepped on the inert form of a human being.

She was so terrified that she never remembered clearly just how she managed to drag that dead weight out into the sunlight. She said she realized after a moment that it was Hal and that he was alive, though very still.

Little by little she managed to pull him down the trail and under the trees. Once there she set to work rubbing his forehead and wrists, but her heart misgave her at the sight of his bleeding head. With an almost blind dexterity she made a tight bandage for it by combining two of her handkerchiefs with one of his. Then she knelt by him, anxiously.

He stirred, bewildered and dizzy. “Where . . .” he began uncertainly.

“You’re safe, Hal,” she cried joyfully. “I dragged you out! Oh, are you all right?”

“Hm-mm,” he answered feeling of his bandaged head and slowly rising. “I guess, I was out, huh? Man alive, something hit my bean—and how!”

“But you’re all right—you’re certain?” she asked frantically. “You haven’t a fractured skull or anything like that?”

Hal lay back on the ground for a moment. “It’s kind of hazy what happened—you know it? Somehow I just can’t remember what happened. All I know, I hit my head one awful bang. But I guess it isn’t fractured—I was just out, that’s all. I’m going back to see what happened.”

Lee got up. “You’ll do nothing of the kind, Hal Keen,” she said angrily. “You’re going to come right back home with me and have a doctor look at your head. You’ll not go back in that mine for anything. Not today!”

Hal grinned in spite of himself. “All right,” he said. “I was only kidding you, Lee—I’m grateful to you, honestly. You’re a brick for plucking up courage and going in after me like you did, considering how you hate the spooks. The next time I go poking around in deserted mines, I’ll have a flashlight with me.”

“And you’ll not go poking around alone,” said Lee seriously. “I know it isn’t brave to say so, Hal, but I’m afraid of that place and I can’t get over the feeling. I’ve never been past that enclosure until today and I hope I never get any further than just that. I would have died if I had had to go any further than that before I found you. Luck was with me that you fell there. I didn’t hear you cry or anything.”

“I guess I didn’t say a word,” Hal admitted, allowing himself to be helped into the saddle. “I’m just a little dizzy. Guess I must have slipped, huh?”

“Well, you did something, that’s sure,” Lee answered slipping into her saddle lightly. “Come on now, Hal, let’s get away from this place just as quickly as possible. It’s . . . it’s . . . oh, I think it’s just too awful. I hope you’re cured now and believe what I say,” she added, spurring her horse.

Hal followed her quietly, allowing himself one curious glance at the mine before they took the curve. “It would take more than a bump on the head to cure me of anything, Lee,” he said whimsically. “I’ve got a bitter headache from Bitter Root Mine, but I’m not cured at all. In fact, I’m anxious to see what it was that made me slip. I don’t think it was a ghost either!”

It was when they were in sight of the ranch once again that Hal remembered for the first time all that had transpired in the mine. Eagerly he told it to Lee, anxiously waiting for the effect.

“Don’t you see,” he said in conclusion, “it was just as if someone pulled my feet right out from under me.”

“Of course,” she said simply, “and I’m glad it was nothing more than that. You just slipped and fell and struck your head, that was all. But it goes to prove that there’s some spooky thing in that place. One either chokes or falls, it seems.”

“Well, one doesn’t fall all by himself, Miss Lee,” Hal said vehemently. “Not the way I did. Besides if you had listened closely you wouldn’t take my fall so calmly. You said you picked me up just past the enclosure, did you?”

“Yes, what of it?” she asked interested.

“I didn’t fall just past the enclosure. I had walked more than fifteen feet along that passageway before I fell. What do you make of that?”

“You probably stepped back a little way before you fell, don’t you think so?”

“Never fifteen feet,” Hal declared. “Someone upset me, and I don’t mean maybe.”

Suddenly the roar of a plane sounded overhead and Hal looked up in time to see it making a graceful turn at a remarkably low altitude. With the dip of its left wing he could plainly see the inscription COMET X-1 RANCH.

“Kip and Pedro must be back,” said Lee. “They’ve taken that short cut that I showed you before.”

Hal didn’t answer, but cantered hurriedly on toward the ranch house. Lee shrugged her shoulders. She supposed he was still thinking and wondering about his experience at the mine.

He was.