of the ghastly night.
Up, up, up it came toward the first floor. The pattering of the feetceased. The clanking rose until the five heard the scraping of the chainagainst the door frame at the head of the cellar stairs. They heard itpass across the floor toward the center of the room and then, loudand piercing, there rang out against the silence of the awful night awoman's shriek.
Instantly Bridge leaped to his feet. Without a word he tore the bed frombefore the door.
"What are you doing?" cried the girl in a muffled scream.
"I am going down to that woman," said Bridge, and he drew the bolt,rusty and complaining, from its corroded seat.
"No!" screamed the girl, and seconding her the youth sprang to his feetand threw his arms about Bridge.
"Please! Please!" he cried. "Oh, please don't leave me."
The girl also ran to the man's side and clutched him by the sleeve.
"Don't go!" she begged. "Oh, for God's sake, don't leave us here alone!"
"You heard a woman scream, didn't you?" asked Bridge. "Do you suppose Ican stay in up here when a woman may be facing death a few feet belowme?"
For answer the girl but held more tightly to his arm while the youthslipped to the floor and embraced the man's knees in a vice-like holdwhich he could not break without hurting his detainer.
"Come! Come!" expostulated Bridge. "Let me go."
"Wait!" begged the girl. "Wait until you know that it is a human voicethat screams through this horrible place."
The youth only strained his hold tighter about the man's legs. Bridgefelt a soft cheek pressed to his knee; and, for some unaccountablereason, the appeal was stronger than the pleading of the girl. SlowlyBridge realized that he could not leave this defenseless youth aloneeven though a dozen women might be menaced by the uncanny death below.With a firm hand he shot the bolt. "Leave go of me," he said; "I shan'tleave you unless she calls for help in articulate words."
The boy rose and, trembling, pressed close to the man who,involuntarily, threw a protecting arm about the slim figure. The girl,too, drew nearer, while the two yeggmen rose and stood in rigid silenceby the window. From below came an occasional rattle of the chain,followed after a few minutes by the now familiar clanking as the ironlinks scraped across the flooring. Mingled with the sound of the chainthere rose to them what might have been the slow and ponderous footstepsof a heavy man, dragging painfully across the floor. For a few momentsthey heard it, and then all was silent.
For a dozen tense minutes the five listened; but there was no repetitionof any sound from below. Suddenly the girl breathed a deep sigh, andthe spell of terror was broken. Bridge felt rather than heard the youthsobbing softly against his breast, while across the room The Generalgave a quick, nervous laugh which he as immediately suppressed as thoughfearful unnecessarily of calling attention to their presence. The othervagabond fumbled with his hypodermic needle and the narcotic which wouldquickly give his fluttering nerves the quiet they craved.
Bridge, the boy, and the girl shivered together in their soggy clothingupon the edge of the bed, feeling now in the cold dawn the chilldiscomfort of which the excitement of the earlier hours of the night hadrendered them unconscious. The youth coughed.
"You've caught cold," said Bridge, his tone almost self-reproachful, asthough he were entirely responsible for the boy's condition. "We're anice aggregation of mollycoddles--five of us sitting half frozen up herewith a stove on the floor below, and just because we heard a noise whichwe couldn't explain and hadn't the nerve to investigate." He rose. "I'mgoing down, rustle some wood and build a fire in that stove--you twokids have got to dry those clothes of yours and get warmed up or we'llhave a couple of hospital cases on our hands."
Once again rose a chorus of pleas and objections. Oh, wouldn't he waituntil daylight? See! the dawn was even then commencing to break. Theydidn't dare go down and they begged him not to leave them up therealone.
At this Dopey Charlie spoke up. The 'hop' had commenced to assert itsdominion over his shattered nervous system instilling within him a newcourage and a feeling of utter well-being. "Go on down," said he toBridge. "The General an' I'll look after the kids--won't we bo?"
"Sure," assented The General; "we'll take care of 'em."
"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Bridge; "we'll leave the kids uphere and we three'll go down. They won't go, and I wouldn't leave themup here with you two morons on a bet."
The General and Dopey Charlie didn't know what a moron was but they feltquite certain from Bridge's tone of voice that a moron was not a nicething, and anyway no one could have bribed them to descend into thedarkness of the lower floor with the dead man and the grisly THING thatprowled through the haunted chambers; so they flatly refused to budge aninch.
Bridge saw in the gradually lighting sky the near approach of fulldaylight; so he contented himself with making the girl and the youthwalk briskly to and fro in the hope that stimulated circulation might atleast partially overcome the menace of the damp clothing and the chillair, and thus they occupied the remaining hour of the night.
From below came no repetition of the inexplicable noises of that nightof terror and at last, with every object plainly discernible in thelight of the new day, Bridge would delay no longer; but voiced his finaldetermination to descend and make a fire in the old kitchen stove. Boththe boy and the girl insisted upon accompanying him. For the first timeeach had an opportunity to study the features of his companions ofthe night. Bridge found in the girl and the youth two dark eyed,good-looking young people. In the girl's face was, perhaps, just a traceof weakness; but it was not the face of one who consorts habitually withcriminals. The man appraised her as a pretty, small-town girl who hadbeen led into a temporary escapade by the monotony of village life, andhe would have staked his soul that she was not a bad girl.
The boy, too, looked anything other than the role he had been playing.Bridge smiled as he looked at the clear eyes, the oval face, and thefine, sensitive mouth and thought of the youth's claim to the crimebattered sobriquet of The Oskaloosa Kid. The man wondered if the mysteryof the clanking chain would prove as harmlessly infantile as these twowhom some accident of hilarious fate had cast in the roles of debaucheryand crime.
Aloud, he said: "I'll go first, and if the spook materializes you twocan beat it back into the room." And to the two tramps: "Come on, boes,we'll all take a look at the lower floor together, and then we'll get agood fire going in the kitchen and warm up a bit."
Down the hall they went, Bridge leading with the boy and girl closeat his heels while the two yeggs brought up the rear. Their footstepsechoed through the deserted house; but brought forth no answeringclanking from the cellar. The stairs creaked beneath the unaccustomedweight of so many bodies as they descended toward the lower floor.Near the bottom Bridge came to a questioning halt. The front room layentirely within his range of vision, and as his eyes swept it he gavevoice to a short exclamation of surprise.
The youth and the girl, shivering with cold and nervous excitement,craned their necks above the man's shoulder.
"O-h-h!" gasped The Oskaloosa Kid. "He's gone," and, sure enough, thedead man had vanished.
Bridge stepped quickly down the remaining steps, entered the rear roomwhich had served as dining room and kitchen, inspected the two smallbedrooms off this room, and the summer kitchen beyond. All were empty;then he turned and re-entering the front room bent his steps toward thecellar stairs. At the foot of the stairway leading to the second floorlay the flash lamp that the boy had dropped the night before. Bridgestooped, picked it up and examined it. It was uninjured and with it inhis hand he continued toward the cellar door.
"Where are you going?" asked The Oskaloosa Kid.
"I'm going to solve the mystery of that infernal clanking," he replied.
"You are not going down into that dark cellar!" It was an appeal, aquestion, and a command; and it quivered gaspingly upon the verge ofhysteria.
Bridge turned and looked into the youth's face. The man did not l
ikecowardice and his eyes were stern as he turned them on the lad fromwhom during the few hours of their acquaintance he had received so manyevidences of cowardice; but as the clear brown eyes of the boy met histhe man's softened and he shook his head perplexedly. What was thereabout this slender stripling which so disarmed criticism?
"Yes," he replied, "I am going down. I doubt if I shall find anythingthere; but if I do it is better to come upon it when I am looking for itthan to have it come upon us when we are not expecting it. If there isto be any hunting I prefer to be hunter rather than hunted."
He wheeled and
The Oakdale Affair Page 11
