Читать книгу The Copperhead Trail Mystery - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 7

Table of Contents

“Murder, huh?” Hal breathed in Mac’s ear. “This is just a little too much to swallow. I....”

“Quiet, Red!” Mac warned. “I want to listen where he is. He can’t see us where we are now and he may take it in his head to find out. Stay put a second.”

Hal’s heart beat against his chest like a triphammer. His feet slid a fraction of a yard in the gravel of the roadbed and it seemed to him a terrific noise. He fancied that the deep silence which followed was pregnant with sound. Mac gave his arm a warm, friendly tug and it gave him an idea.

“Listen, Mac,” he whispered. “It’ll be pitch dark in a very few minutes, huh?”

“It usually does get dark,” Mac breathed with an inaudible chuckle.

Hal grinned at the pleasantry and gave his companion a friendly nudge. “We can keep under cover here for those few minutes. He most likely will feel safer foraging down here then—same as us. There’ll be two against one, gun or no gun, and believe me, I’m anxious for it to happen.”

“Same here, Red. Great idea. He can’t possibly see us from up there anywhere. He has to come down here if he wants to take another shot at us—providing he has any pride in his marksmanship, of course.”

“And that’s a good argument,” Hal grinned, “considering the high price of ammunition.”

“Righto.”

They waited with tired, cramped muscles and watched the objects about them gradually covered by the great black cloak of night. Even the gaunt peaks dissolved into nothingness before their eyes. There was something appalling about it to Hal and as Mac’s genial features became a part of the night too, it gave him an odd, suffocating feeling. For a horrible moment, he had the thought that the black vaulted dome on high was conspiring against them and holding them helplessly in its grip.

“Gosh, Mac,” Hal said in a hissing whisper, “I can’t even see you.”

“Same here,” said the other, “but I can hear you, though. Breathing so heavily—what’s the matter?”

“Just funny thoughts I get. I don’t like waiting for unseen things when a night’s so black. Not a star—nothing! I’d just like to jump out on the track and declare myself. Invite that bird to come down and do his darndest, huh? Gosh, it’s the waiting and the darkness that gets on my nerves.”

“I feel the same way, Red, yet I’ve always prided myself on steel nerves. Funny. It wouldn’t have been a bad idea for us to have used our brains and got a lantern or two from the conductor. If we have the luck to hike in peace the rest of the way, we’ll do it stumbling.”

“And I’ve got three beauts of searchlights in my trunk,” Hal mumbled regretfully. His right foot had gone to sleep and he stamped it impatiently on the gravel releasing hundreds of the little pebbles and causing them to shift with a distinct swishing sound.

He was immediately aware of the signs of activity up on the embankment. A rain of sand fell at his feet and in a moment he had jumped out on the track.

“Come down here like a man—whoever you are!” he shouted. “Come down....”

“Listen!” warned Mac.

But a few feet away they heard, then saw the shadow of a man jump down from the embankment and onto the roadbed. Hal squared his great shoulders and took long strides forward only to see the almost ghostly shadow dissolve into the darkness.

“Gosh, gosh!” Hal roared. “Ghost or no ghost, I’m good and mad. I’ll bust him right....”

“Calm yourself, Red,” Mac interrupted. “Did you ever hear a ghost run like that? Listen!”

The light tap, tap of retreating footsteps sounded against the ties. Each one echoed and reëchoed in the still mountain air until Hal impulsively took up the chase, calling Mac close upon his heels. Shout after shout they sent forth after the elusive would-be murderer until the narrow railroad cut reverberated eerily and the glistening rails answered with a challenging hum.

Hal hadn’t the remotest idea how near he was to his quarry. He simply stumbled on blindly and breathlessly, urging the cautious Mac to keep up the chase.

“How do you know where he is?” asked Mac wearily.

“I don’t know,” Hal shouted in answer, “and what’s more, I don’t care!”

Mac chuckled. “Red, old top, you’re all wool and a yard wide. Me for you every time. I won’t stop until I drop.”

“Atta boy, we’ll both drop.”

Perhaps this came nearer the truth than they guessed for after a time Hal was forced to stop and rest. Mac was soon stumbling up behind, weary but smiling and shrugging his shoulders with a gay nonchalance.

“I can’t hear him now that we’ve stopped,” said Hal, listening very intently.

“Neither can I,” Mac agreed, allowing himself the luxury of sitting down on the nearest rock. “And I was never so glad to say anything in all my life. Let’s forget about it, Red—we’ll have better health if we do,” he added with a chuckle.

Hal grinned but quickly grew serious. “That’s just it, Mac,” he reasoned. “We’ll have better health, but maybe somebody else coming along here won’t. And to make it safe for the other fellow I ought to have that bird by the neck right now. He ought to be made to give up that rifle if he’s a little off and just taking fly shots for the fun of it. Isn’t it funny, Mac—I can’t get it out of my head but what that bird’s a bug!”

“Same thought I had myself, Red. What sane person would pot shot at two strangers in the dusk as he did at us. For one thing....”

Suddenly a thin, cackling laugh rose out of the darkness beyond, and grew in volume until it became a shriek, weird and terrifying.