Pathfinder

by Douglas, Alan

  Matty, as he finished speaking, came to a sudden pause.

  "We might as well take a breathing spell," he remarked, "because we're getting pretty close to the meeting place anyhow. Besides, here's a chance for me to show you how Elmer manages."

  The others crowded around, eager to see for themselves what object lesson Matty expected to lay before them.

  "Now I want you to notice right here," he said, pointing to the ground, "that the footprints of the two boys ahead suddenly stop. Here are the plain marks left purposely by Elmer and Lil Artha. Do you notice how they run alongside this fallen tree?"

  "That's a fact," declared George, as all of them walked slowly along.

  "The two foxes in the lead thought to puzzle the hounds by jumping on this long log, and running its entire length," said Matty, with a grin, "but they had their trouble for nothing. Why, it was such an old trick that Elmer guessed it at a glance. He must have gained quite a lot on 'em here."

  George and Landy exchanged glances.

  "Well, there's a heap more in this game than I ever thought of," admitted the latter.

  "Don't see how he does it," remarked George, with a doubting shake of his head.

  "Oh, the more you study up on this thing," said Red, "the better you'll like it. No end of clever stunts that can be engineered. But see here, Matty, didn't you say we must be getting near the place where we expected to round up both foxes and hounds?"

  "Yes, I'm looking to hear the bugle any minute right now," replied the leader.

  "Where was it fixed for?" asked Landy.

  "Oh, I thought you knew," Matty replied, as they once more took up the broad trail, at the point beyond the end of the fallen tree.

  "I heard some talk about an old mill, but didn't pay much attention to it," remarked Landy, carelessly.

  "Then you've got to turn over a new leaf, old fellow, if you expect to ever succeed as a good scout," Red broke in with.

  "How's that?" demanded Landy.

  "Because," replied the red-headed lad, himself always wide-awake and on the alert, "a scout to succeed must forever keep his wits about him and observe things. In fact, Elmer says he should take as a motto, besides the words 'Be Prepared' the old sign you see at railroad crossings."

  "Stop! look! listen!" exclaimed Matty, Larry, and Chatz in chorus.

  "I suppose I am somewhat sleepy," grumbled Landy, "but perhaps some day I'll surprise you wide-awake Slim Jims by doing something real smart. But tell me more about this mill."

  "You sure must have heard of Munsey's mill?" remarked Matty.

  "Oh, I believe it does sound kind of familiar, but then I must have forgotten all I ever heard about it," Landy confessed.

  Red and Matty exchanged glances, and shook their heads mournfully. It seemed a pretty tough proposition to ever expect to make a good and profitable scout out of such poor material.

  "Well," said the patrol leader, "there is a long story connected with the old ramshackle mill. No use of my going into all the details. It's been abandoned a good many years now. People have tried to live there three times since old Munsey was found dead there, but they had to give it up."

  "Yes, suh," Chatz broke in, his eyes shining brightly, for this was a subject that appealed very strongly to him, "they just couldn't hold out. Got cold feet after going through the experience and had to quit."

  "But why?" demanded Landy.

  "Because they declared the old mill was haunted!" replied Matty.

  "Yes, suh, it was haunted," echoed Chatz.

  The Southern boy had always confessed to a streak of superstition in his make-up. He admitted that he must have imbibed it from association with the ignorant little negro lads with whom he had been accustomed to play down on the plantation.

  He had even admitted once to carrying in his pocket, as a charm, the left hind foot of a rabbit, which animal had been killed by himself in a graveyard when the moon was full.

  The boys plagued Chatz so much that he had by degrees shown signs of considering most of his former beliefs as folly.

  Still, the mere mention of a haunted house set his nerves to quivering. Chatz might be a timid fellow when up against anything bordering upon the ghostly, but on all other occasions he had proven himself brave, almost to the point of rashness.

  It was "Doubting George" who burst out into a harsh laugh.

  "A haunted house!" he exclaimed. "Ghosts! Strange knockings! Thrilling whispers! Ice-cold hands! Oh, my, what a lark! I've always wanted to get up against a thing like that. Don't believe in 'em the least bit. You could talk to me till you was gray-headed, and I'd just laugh. There never was such things as ghosts, never!"

  Chatz looked at him rather queerly.

  "Oh, well, perhaps you're right, George," he said, holding himself in check, "but I've read of some people who had pretty rough experiences."

  "Rats! They fooled themselves every time," declared the boy who would not believe. "Bet you it was the wind whistling through a knot hole, or a parcel of rats squeaking and fighting between the walls. Ghosts! It makes me laugh."

  "Same here," declared Red.

  "Listen!" exclaimed Larry just then, making them all start. Through the timber ahead of them came the sweet clear notes of a bugle.

  "Told you so, fellows," declared Matty, smiling; "that's Elmer. He's learning to use the bugle nearly as well as Mark himself."

  "Then we're at the end of our trail following, are we?" asked Landy, not without a sigh of relief, for it had not been as easy work in his case as with his less stout comrades.

  "Well, pretty near," Matty replied. "We've got to keep it up till we come in sight of the mill."

  "But why?" asked George, who seemed to want to know every little thing, so that his natural tendency to object might have a chance to show itself.

  "Oh, well, there might be one more opening for a message, and our main business is to translate these, you know."

  "Do we stay long at the old mill?" asked Chatz.

  Red gave him a quick, suspicious look.

  "Aw, I reckon I know what's on our comrade's mind," he remarked, with a wink.

  "As what?" demanded Landy.

  "Chatz thinks he'd like to prowl around some, and see if that ghost has left any signs. 'Tain't often he's had a chance to meet up with a real haunted house, eh, Chatz?" and Red gave the Southern boy a sly dig in the ribs.

  "Never had that pleasure in all my life, fellows, I assure you," replied the Southern boy, with ill-concealed delight in his manner.

  "But say, no respectable ghost was ever known to walk except at midnight, and we don't intend camping out at the old mill, do we, just because of this silly talk?" asked George.

  "Oh, the rest of us don't, but Chatz might take a notion to stay over," laughed Red. "When a fellow is set on investigating things he don't understand, and which were never meant for us to understand, there's just no telling how far he will carry the game."

  Chatz gave him a lofty look.

  "Thank you for the compliment, suh," he said.

  They continued to follow the "spoor" of the two hounds, left so plainly for their guidance.

  It was not long before another stick that held a bark "message" was discovered. And Landy felt immensely elated to think that by some chance he had been the first to see the "sign."

  "I'll surprise you fellows yet, just mark me," he chuckled, while Matty was trying to read the queer little characters Elmer had marked upon the brown inner side of the fresh bark torn from a convenient tree close by.

  "Wish you would, old top," remarked Red, with his customary enthusiasm.

  "You'll get to like all these things more and more, the farther you go," said Larry.

  "I feel that way already," was Landy's quick reply; "only I'm that clumsy and slow-witted I just don't see how I'm ever going to keep up with the procession."

  "Elmer says it's only keeping everlastingly at it that makes a good scout," remarked Chatz.

  Evidently, from the way these boys c
ontinually quoted "Elmer," the assistant scout master must be a very popular fellow in Hickory Ridge, and those who have made a study of boy nature can understand what rare elements the said Elmer must have in his composition to make so many friends and so few enemies.

  "Come around and see what I've made out of this message," said Matty just then.

  It proved to be the concluding communication, and in plain picture language informed those for whom it was left that the two foxes had stopped here, made a dense smoke to attract their missing comrade, and when joined by him, the three had gone on together to the rendezvous at the old mill.

  "Fine," cried Landy, when he heard what a remarkable story those rude drawings told.

  "Very good—if true," admitted George.

  "Well, come along and we'll prove it," laughed Matty; "for unless I miss my guess the mill is close by."

  "Sure," declared Red. "I can hear the noise of water tumbling down some rocks, or over a mill dam."

  Five minutes later and Chatz called out:

  "There you are, suh!"

  The mill could be seen through the trees, and all of the boys felt the greatest eagerness to hurry along and reach this spot.

  It happened that none of this bunch had ever set eyes on Munsey's mill, or the pond just above it. There were plenty of places nearer Hickory Ridge for fishing purposes. And besides, the dear familiar old "swimming hole" was more convenient than this place, nearly seven miles away.

  "I see Elmer and Lil Artha," observed Larry.

  "Yes, and there's another fellow just beyond. I reckon it must be Ty Collins," said Chatz.

  Elmer waited for them to come up. He and his companions were standing on the edge of the dam which had long ago been built in order to hold up the water and form the big lonely looking pond beyond.

  "Ugh, what a spooky looking place this is!" exclaimed Larry, as soon as they drew up where they could look out on the big pond, its surface in places partly covered with lily plants, and the long trailing branches of weeping willows dipping down to the water.

  "It sure is, suh!" remarked Chatz, plainly interested, and not a little excited.

  "Here we are, Elmer," called out Matty; "and I guess the second bunch will be along soon. I see Ty and Toby, but where's Nat Scott?"

  Elmer gave him a serious look.

  "That's just what we're wondering," he said. "They all reached the old mill, you see, but Nat seems to have disappeared in a mighty queer way!"

  * * *

  CHAPTER III.

  THE STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE OF NAT.

  "Oh!"

  Chatz was the only one who gave utterance to a sound after Elmer had made this surprising, as well as alarming, admission.

  The others were looking, first at Elmer, then at each of his three companions as well; and finally out upon the dismal pond that assumed much the appearance of a lake, it stretched so far up the valley, almost a quarter of a mile, in fact.

  Just then the only sound they heard was the noisy scolding of the water as it went over the spill or apron of the stout dam that had stood all these long years, defying floods and the ravages of time.

  And somehow, there was something chilling in the very lonesome character of their surroundings.

  Of the ten scouts present, Chatz seemed to be the only one who did not look solemn. There was an eager glow in the Southern boy's dark eyes, as though the situation appealed to that element of superstition in his nature.

  And Elmer, noting this expression, that was almost of glee, knew that when the companions of Chatz fondly believed they had cured him of his silly faith in ghosts and such things, they had made a mistake. The snake had only been "scotched," not killed. It was already awakening again, under the first favorable conditions.

  "Say, this ain't any part of the game, is it?" demanded Red.

  "Yes, you don't expect us to guess what's become of Nat, and then find him grinning at us, perhaps astraddle of a limb up in a big tree?" remarked Larry.

  "I asked these fellows," said Elmer, seriously, "and both Toby and Ty gave me their word of honor that no game or joke was set up between them. If Nat is playing a prank then he's doing it on his own account."

  "And Nat ain't generally the fellow to think of playing a joke on his chums," declared Larry.

  "Gee, this is getting wild and woolly now!" remarked Landy; "I'm all of a tremble. What if the poor fellow fell over this dam here, struck his head on a rock, and lies right now at the bottom of that black pool where the foam keeps on circling around and around. Ugh! It makes me shiver, fellows, honest and truly."

  George, as usual, scoffed at the idea of anything having happened to Nat Scott.

  "He'll show up as soon as he feels like it, make sure of that," he declared.

  "Have you called him!" asked Matty.

  "Yes, all of us did," replied Lil Artha, whose customary rollicking good nature seemed subdued in a measure for once.

  "And he didn't answer?" demanded Chatz.

  "We never heard a word, and that's a fact, boys," declared Toby Jones, uneasily.

  Then they all looked around again, their eyes naturally roving in the quarter where, near the farther end of the dam, the old mill stood.

  Its day was long since past. The great water wheel at the end of the sluice had partly fallen to pieces with the passage of time and the ravages of neglect. What was left seemed to be almost entirely covered with green moss, among which the clear little fingers of water trickled.

  Suddenly a discordant scream rang out. It was so fearful that several of the fellows turned pale, and all of them started violently.

  "There!" ejaculated Chatz.

  His manner was almost triumphant; just as though he would like to demand whether these chums of his could not find some reason to believe as he did, after such a manifestation.

  "Oh, glory, what was that!" quivered Landy, as he clutched the arm of Elmer Chenowith.

  "But it didn't come from the mill," declared Larry. "Sounded to me like it was out there on the pond."

  "Good for you, Larry," remarked Elmer.

  "Then I was right?" asked the other.

  "You certainly were, and if the whole of you turn your eyes aways up yonder, perhaps you'll notice a big black-and-white bird come to the surface. It dived just after scolding us for disturbing its fishing excursion."

  Following the direction indicated by Elmer's extended finger the scouts all watched eagerly.

  "I see something moving just behind that bunch of lily pads," exclaimed one with keen vision.

  "There it swims out now, and it's a big water bird, too. Looks like a goose to me," Landy remarked, earnestly.

  "That's a loon, fellows!" exclaimed Red.

  "Is it, Elmer?" they demanded in a breath.

  "Just what it is, and nothing else," replied the acting scout master. "They are very common up in the Great Northwest. And once you've heard their wild laugh you'll never forget it."

  "Huh, sounds just like the shout of a crazy man to me," ventured Lil Artha.

  "Everybody says that," Elmer declared. "And I never knew a single fellow who liked to hear a loon call. Some say it's a sign of ill luck to be scolded by a loon."

  "Ill luck!" echoed Chatz, once more looking in the direction of the ramshackle old mill.

  "But see here," remarked Matty, "tell us about Nat, won't you? When was his queer disappearance first noticed, Elmer?"

  "Well, when Lil Artha and myself arrived here we found Toby and Ty throwing stones out in the pond, scaring the little red-marked turtles that were sitting by dozens on every old log and rock, and great big bullfrogs as well."

  "Never saw so many whopping big frogs in all my life," declared Ty.

  "You see," explained Toby, "we missed Nat, but thought he had just wandered off to look around. Ty and me, why, we felt too tired to explore things till the rest came along."

  "Oh, but you could amuse yourselves throwing things into the water, eh?" Matty remarked, with such a vein of sarcasm in his
voice that Toby immediately aroused to defend himself.

  "'Twa'n't that at all, Matty Eggleston; prove it by Ty here if either of us was afraid to go inside your old haunted mill, was we, Ty?" he exclaimed, with a fine show of righteous indignation.

  "Course we wasn't," Ty hastened to declare, with a decided shake of his tousled head. "We walked along the shore till we came to a nice shady place, and then squatted down, meanin' to wait till Elmer showed up. Then I popped a rock at a sassy little turkle, and pretty soon both of us were letting fly."

  "When did you miss Nat, and where was he the last you saw him?" asked Matty, who was expected some day to become a lawyer.

  "Oh!" answered Toby, "he said he'd hang around the dam here and look into things. You know Nat always did want to pry into everything he saw."

  "What then?" Matty went on asking.

  "Why, we saw Elmer and Lil Artha coming, and went to meet 'em, that's all," replied Ty.

  "Have any of you been inside the mill?"

  "Why, no," Toby spoke up. "Elmer and Lil Artha sat down to rest, and you see we expected Nat to pop out on us any minute, so we just didn't say anything about it till they asked."

  "And that was just about the time we first heard your voices close by," said Elmer, "so we made up our minds to wait till you joined us, when we could scatter and search."

  "Search!" echoed Larry. "Good gracious! do you think Nat can be lost?"

  "It doesn't seem possible," admitted Elmer, "but I blew the bugle, and sounded the assembly. If Nat heard that he is scout enough to know it was a command for him to come in—if he could."

  "Whew! this is something we didn't expect to run up against—a mystery right in the start," remarked Matty, mopping his face with his big bandana handkerchief, which he wore about his neck, cowboy fashion, with the knot behind.

  "You never can tell, suh!" said Chatz, in a solemn manner; and somehow none of the boys seemed quite as ready to scoff at the Southerner's superstitious belief, as usual.

  "But hadn't we better be looking around?" remarked Matty. "Nat may have gone into the old mill, bent on investigating, and some accident have happened to him."