  “There is someone there, after all, then!” exclaimed Cavvy quickly. “What did he look like, Rit?” Ritter’s gaze, still wide and nervous, swept along the row of broken or shuttered windows, returning quickly to the one near the corner. “I—I don’t know, exactly,” he answered. “White and fat and—and sort of queer looking. Let’s get out of here, fellows. This beastly place gives me the creeps.” “But we can’t go without finding out about the trees,” protested McBride. “It would be a shame to let them go.” “Of course it would,” agreed Cavvy impatiently. “We’ve got to— Well, now what’s the matter?” Ritter started slightly and withdrew his wandering gaze from the gaunt outlines of the great barn. “N—nothing,” he stammered. “I thought I—saw something—moving down there, but I guess I didn’t. What are you going to do now?” “Knock at the door and ask him if he’s willing to sell his trees for Government use,” returned Cavanaugh tersely. “Nobody can eat us for doing that.” The stout chap sighed deeply, but made no actual reply. It was with very evident distaste, however, that he followed the others past the pool and on through the tall grass to the front porch. The wooden steps were rotted into fragments, and as the boys scrambled up without their aid, they felt the old flooring give dangerously under their feet. The door itself seemed strong enough, however. Though streaked and weathered and bare of paint, it sounded hard and firm under the vigorous rapping of Cavanaugh’s knuckles. The knock echoed curiously, with hollow, prolonged reverberations. “Sounds empty,” remarked Cavvy, intently listening. “Like Rit’s stomach,” grinned Micky, giving Ritter a sudden poke in that region which made him jump nervously. “Haven’t you any sense?” he snapped irritably. “It is empty,” spoke up Champ Ferris suddenly. He had been peering curiously through a broken pane in the narrow window beside the door. “There’s not a darn thing in the hall that I can see but a couple of boxes and a mess of dirt and rubbish.” Cavanaugh waited a few moments and then knocked again. By this time the silence and desolation of the place was beginning to wear upon the spirits of others than Ritter. A frankly deserted house often has interesting possibilities. But this gloomy ruin, so far from the unfrequented road, that appeared to be the hiding place of a mysterious unknown, was something quite different. “Funny,” commented Cavvy presently, in an unconsciously lowered tone. “He must have heard that. I wonder why he doesn’t answer.... Well, suppose we try the back door.” They left the sagging porch and circled the house in silence. The path ran along this side and was the only thing which showed the slightest trace of use. Everything else was overgrown with grass and weeds. The path ended at the rear door, and here, too were more black walnuts. There was also a great pine, one of the largest they had ever seen, which towered up not a dozen feet from the house. Its huge trunk actually touched the wall of a decrepit woodshed, while the lower branches swept across the roof of the main building. “That’s a corking tree,” said Cavvy admiringly. “But what a crazy place to plant it. It’s a wonder to me there’s any roof left at all, with the needles and all to rot it. The fellow who did it must have been some nut.” “Regular wal-nut,” murmured Micky from force of habit. “Help!” groaned Cavanaugh. “Can’t you pull off anything better than that? Besides, it’s the pine I’m talking about. Here; give us that club of yours,” he went on, taking Micky’s hickory staff. “Maybe I can raise him with that.” The clatter he made would certainly have roused anyone but a deaf person, but apparently it had no effect whatever on the eccentric occupant of the old house. When the hollow echoes died away, all four boys stood motionless, fairly holding their breath as they listened for the sound of footsteps inside. But none came, and presently Cavvy, backing away a little, stared curiously up at the dingy, slatternly windows. “It’s got me,” he said with a touch of petulance. “I don’t see why the dickens a man wouldn’t answer a knock at his own door, unless— Jingo! I wonder if he would be hiding from something?” “That’s just it!” put in Ritter in a shrill, nervous whisper. “How do we know he isn’t a criminal, or—or an escaped lunatic, who’s broken in here perhaps? Maybe he’s not the owner of the house at all. Let’s beat it, Cavvy. We’re just wasting time, and it’ll be pouring in a little while. I felt a drop on my face just now.” Cavanaugh did not answer. His own face, still upturned, had taken on an oddly intent, curiously puzzled stare. His gaze, no longer focussed on the windows, had shifted to a point just under the sagging eaves where a long branch of the pine tree stretched across the roof, seeming almost to touch the rotting shingles. Suddenly his face flushed, his lips half parted, a look at once eager and incredulous flashed into his widening eyes. Swiftly those eager eyes followed the limb to where it joined the massive trunk, then darted upward to the point at which that trunk disappeared in a baffling mask of dark green foliage. Then, of a sudden, there came the grating of a key and the door beside them was flung abruptly open. “Well?” snarled a voice. “What’s the matter with you? What do you mean trying to pound a man’s door down like this?” Ritter gasped and stepped swiftly backward, treading on Ferris’s toes. Cavanaugh whirled about, unconsciously tightening his grip on the stick he held. Even Micky felt an unpleasant tingling on his spine as he met the shifting glance of the individual in the doorway. There was something oddly repellant about the man—something to be felt, in that first moment, rather than defined. He was big beyond the ordinary, but with a flabby, unwholesome bulk that reminded one of a jellyfish. His hands were soft and pudgy; his clothes hung about him like shapeless bags. All this and more they swiftly noted without hitting on the feature which roused that curious repulsion. Then suddenly they saw. The creature had no hair! His shiny scalp was bare of any vestige; he had no eyebrows or eyelashes. The flesh which hung about his pendulous jowls in pasty, yellow rolls was as innocent of a beard as any baby’s. Moreover, his eyes—gray they were and very small and pale—stared unwinking, the hairless lids so narrowed that an alien roll of flesh showed there, making those lids look double. “What’s the matter,” repeated the fat man, as the four stared at him without speaking. “Ain’t you got voices?” “There’s nothing the matter,” returned Stafford, recovering his self-possession. “We came to find out if you’d be willing to sell your trees.” The fishy eyes widened abruptly. “Trees?” shrilled the man. “Trees?” For an instant his gaze flashed upward. “What do you mean? Who are you?” “We’re boy scouts from Wharton,” Stafford explained quietly, keeping his eyes fixed intently on the pasty, pudgy face. “We’ve been ordered by the Government to make a census of all the black walnut trees whose owners are willing to sell. The wood is needed for gun stocks and airplane propellers. You’ll get a good price, and be doing a service to your country at the same time.” “Oh, walnut trees! That’s all you want? Gunstocks? You’re sure? Well, I won’t sell. The—nuts are too valuable.” “But—” “Never mind any buts,” cut in the fat man harshly. “I’ve told you, and that’s enough. I’ll remind you, also, that this is private property and you’re trespassing. The sooner you get off it the better I’ll be pleased.” Without further comment he closed the door with a slam, leaving the boys to stare at one another with wry faces. “Sweet temper,” commented McBride. “Regular merry little sunshine, isn’t he?” “He ought to be made to turn over those trees for Government use,” exclaimed Champ Ferris hotly. “I’ll bet he’s a regular pro—” “Come ahead and let’s get out of here,” interrupted Cavanaugh hastily. “He won’t sell, and that’s the end of it. No use wasting any more time.” He turned quickly from the door and led the way toward the path. At the corner of the house he paused for a second to send back a sharp, searching glance at the great pine tree beside the woodshed. Then he passed on, striding briskly along the path without so much as a backward look at the dreary gray house standing out against a background of equally dreary sky. He entered the fringe of undergrowth that edged the clearing, passed thence into the stretch of woods and kept steadily on for several hundred yards. Then he stopped suddenly and faced the others, his expression alert and eager. “Listen, fellows,” he said abruptly, in low swift tones. “There’s something wrong back there. Did you notice that pine tree by the shed?” “Sure. It’s the biggest one I ever saw,” answered Micky. “I wasn’t thinking about its size,” went on Cavanaugh hastily. “You remember the long limb that runs over the roof? Close by the house there’s a branch that’s lately been broken off and hangs down—probably in the storm yesterday. Well, just under the eaves at a point where that branch must have covered them—two wires come out and run over to the big limb!” |
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