Читать книгу Westy Martin on the Old Indian Trail - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 9

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The site they picked for camp was about a half hour’s walk off the main highway. A clearing, hidden by a grove of giant trees, it nestled comfortably in the frowning shadow of the mountain.

They came upon it by following the Old Trail. At the clearing it ended abruptly. Beyond, a mountain brook plashed on, seeming to delight in confusing Westy as to where the Trail took up again. There was no sign of its going up the mountain—none that he could see.

Warde and Benny were busy setting things to rights. Westy had been sent to the brook for some water. He watched it coming down the mountain and along back of the clearing. He followed it leisurely and wondered if its stony bed had once been part of the Trail.

The dashing little rivulet bubbled defiantly as he walked along. It was enjoying being an obstruction to this boy scout. In its hurried murmurings, Westy imagined it was whispering the secret of the lost trail. But strain his ears as he did, he could not divine one bit of the whispered secret.

At last he came to the jumping-off place of the stream. At least he called it so. It took a sharp turn and disappeared under two large boulders forming a small arch which the brook ran under. At the top, they were grown together and stood rather shakily on the edge of some overhanging rock. They looked not very sure of themselves, Westy thought. A part of the mountain, a part of each other, and yet severed beneath. Almost as if Fate meant them not to be one—ever!

Westy drew his water at that point. It was cooler, somehow, than up at the clearing. Benny, seeing him there, came on down.

“I’ve been trying to find the rest of that darn Trail,” Westy explained. “I guess it got lost in the brook skeenteen hundred years ago. And now, this brook disappears from under my very eyes and under these queer-looking boulders, too. Where does it go? That’s what I’d like to find out!”

“We should climb up those boulders and that mountain to find out?” Benny asked, anxiously. He was visualizing, with apprehension, the stupendous effort it would require of him.

Westy laughed. “I wish for your sake, Benny,” he said, “that mountains and boulders like these were covered with velvet instead of moss. We’ll have to take them as they are and climb them.”

“My poor hands—my poor feet!” Benny exclaimed, with an attempt to sound tragic. He couldn’t manage it, however, and so he laughed. “You’ll see how I do it, Westy, when even I hate the thoughts of it right now.”

“You’ll like it,” Westy assured him, “once you get used to it. It’s like everything else. But talking of this brook, I think there must be a gorge back there somewhere. This part of the mountain doesn’t look so high to me. We’ll try it in a day or so.”

“Anyhow, it’s not today we’ll do it,” Benny said, with great relief. “Already on the two feet I’m standing, I’m falling asleep.”

The sun was a bit of ribboned scarlet, when their little camp was all in order. Supper over, they sat down, tired and weary, to watch the fire burn itself out. Benny looked longingly through the open tent flap at the two trim-looking cots all ready to receive their respective occupants.

He was to sleep with Westy. “That was to protect him from ghosts,” Westy explained to Warde.

Before twilight had given way to night they were all sleeping soundly. Benny’s fears were put to rout in the dreamless sleep of exhaustion. Westy was dreaming pleasantly—leaping with one superhuman bound up over the boulders and mountainside. Warde’s dreams were filled with never ending searches for Westy—only to find him, at last, standing beside his bed.

Warde rubbed his eyes. He felt someone, something by him. He did not know whether he was still dreaming or not. It was an effort to wake himself. In the dark he couldn’t see anything and he fumbled under his pillow for the searchlight.

“Are you awake, Warde?” he heard a voice whisper.

Warde sat up straight. “Who’sit?” he asked.

“Shush! ’S—me—Wes. I’m right by you. Don’t talk loud! I don’t want to wake Benny.”

“What’s the idea?” Warde asked, alarmed. “What’s’matter?”

Westy sat carefully and quietly down on the edge of Warde’s cot. “I don’t know,” he said, faintly. “I thought I heard a noise in here. Something woke me up, anyhow.”

“Is that all?” Warde queried. “Gee, I thought it was something startling. You must have heard one of Pee-wee’s chipmunks or a mountain goat. One or the other.”

“I don’t know. I just felt it, kind of,” Westy explained, ignoring Warde’s joking. “First I was dreaming and then all of a sudden I felt something. When I woke up, though, I couldn’t hear a sound.”

“Aw, you were dreaming,” Warde assured him. “Did you look outside?”

“No, but I will,” he answered, and looked out of the tent. Drawing his head in, he noticed their supply box cover off. It stood right at the foot of Warde’s cot. “Things’ll get all damp if that’s left off,” Westy mumbled to himself, as he covered it.

He tiptoed back to Warde’s cot. “There’s nothing,” he whispered. “Everything’s quiet. Guess I was dreaming, all right.”

“Sure, you were,” Warde agreed, as he snuggled down into the warm covers. He heaved a sigh, thankful to return to his blissful slumbers.

Long after Westy had convinced himself that his fears were but dreams, he lay awake. He listened to Benny’s deep, even breathing and then to the myriad night noises all about them. An owl hooted its eerie cry, near by. After that, Westy pushed himself farther down under the covers and buried his head. He stayed that way until he felt he would suffocate.

When he raised his head again, all was quiet. He listened until his ears heard no more, for he slowly fell asleep. He did not know how long he had been asleep—he only knew that he was slowly waking, as before. The realization came gradually. He opened his eyes and stared into the darkness.

As he stared he felt that it wasn’t a dream that woke him again. He felt positive that within the tent was some presence other than Warde’s, Benny’s or his own. Not a sound was there to give him such knowledge. Not a sound, but the beating of his own heart. And the very darkness, somehow, was sound itself.

After a time his eyes became accustomed to the darkness. He looked toward the tent opening. Something moved there. He was sure of it! Something rose—a bulky form—stood in the opening and then merged itself with the darkness outside.

What was it? A ghost?

Westy felt beads of cold perspiration trickling down his forehead. He seemed not able to move his body upon the cot. A sort of paralysis had gripped his arms and legs. He strained his ears for the crackle of some bush or the breaking of a twig underfoot. He waited.

Nothing came to answer his waiting fears. Nothing but the night and the myriads of little mountain people toiling away, up in the hills and darkness.

Westy got up.