THE HERMIT’S CABIN.

Not until an hour or more after dinner did any of the boys set out to visit Spirit Island. With the exception of Crane, all showed some eagerness to go; with the stingers extracted from his wounds, Sile was much more comfortable, but he made his condition an excuse for remaining at the camp. And, as the canoe was not large enough comfortably to carry more than three, Stone also self-sacrificingly agreed to remain behind.

The day was hot and muggy and still, and there were some masses of clouds bulking up along the western horizon as the canoe put forth bearing the three investigators. The two who remained behind watched them from the shore and wished them luck.

“Bring back that dog with ye, Sleuthy,” called Sile. “Yeou’ve got lots of courage in the daytime, even if yeou be rather chicken-hearted after dark.”

“Bah!” flung back Piper from the waist of the canoe. “Anything we’ll find isn’t liable to make me run half as fast as you did this morning. As a sprinter, Craney, you could cop the blue ribbon if you happened to be chased by a ‘gouger’ or two.”

“Thinks he’s smart, don’t he?” muttered Sile, turning to Ben. “Why, he’s the biggest coward I ever saw. He’d run from his own shadder.”

In the full light of day Spirit Island wore a harmless, peaceful look, and the cool shadows of its pines seemed genuinely inviting to the perspiring lads who wielded the paddles. As they drew near the island Grant cast a glance toward the heavy black clouds, which were steadily mounting higher in the sky.

“Think there’s going to be a shower, Phil?” he asked.

“Wouldn’t wonder,” answered Springer. “Those look like thunderheads, though we haven’t heard any thunder yet.”

At this very moment, however, a low, muttering, distant grumble came to their ears, as if far away beyond the mountains the storm was getting into action.

“I think, comrades,” said Piper, “it will be wise for us to make all possible haste to conclude our investigations and return to the security of our tent. Without sufficient shelter, I’d scarcely find pleasure in being caught upon this island by a thunderstorm.”

“There’s the hermit’s hut, you know,” suggested Rod.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” returned Sleuth. “And, at any rate, it’s quite possible that the roof is rotten and leaky.”

Again the thunder was heard, somewhat more distinctly this time, and the clouds seemed to increase in blackness and density as they rose.

Choosing a place to land, the boys brought the canoe to the shore, got out and pulled it up safely. There they paused for a moment before seeking a way through the pines, thrilled a bit in spite of themselves by the fact that their feet were at last upon the haunted island.

“Come on,” said Rod. “I agree that it will be a right good plan to hurry some.”

He led the way into the deep shadows of the pines, which seemed strangely hushed and silent in the hot, breathless air. In those woods no bird was heard chirping and no squirrel chattering. It gave them a feeling that flesh-and-blood creatures of all kinds had for some reason learned to avoid the mysterious island.

Presently they came to a small opening or glade amid the pines, and there before their eyes were several deep excavations in the ground.

“Look!” said the Texan in a surprised voice. “There are the holes Granger told us about—the holes made by people seeking to recover some of the plunder Old Lonely was supposed to have buried.”

Only a few moments did they linger there. The thunder was growing louder, and they hurried on until they came into what apparently had once been a well-beaten path. Following this path, they reached another and much larger tree-surrounded open spot, which seemed to be located near the center of the island. And there before them they saw the hut of the old hermit.

It stood at one side of the opening, close beneath the shadows of a thick cluster of pines which were taller than the other trees upon the island. Indeed, so close to these tall trees had the cabin been built that, having sagged and lurched like a person overcome by age and disease, it was now supported by the very largest tree of the group, against which it leaned. Only for this tree, the crude, ill constructed building must have long ago fallen to the ground. A part of the roof had caved in, leaving a ragged hole, and the remainder seemed likely to drop at the slightest provocation. In one side of the cabin there was a small square window, in which remained no fragment of glass or sash. In the front of the cabin the remnants of a stout door made from hewn timbers still hung upon heavy rusty hinges.

So lonely, wretched and repellant was the appearance of this ruin that the three boys, who stood gazing upon it in silence, were all deeply moved, and they wondered that a human being could have lived in such a place for five long years with no friends or neighbors and only a dog as his companion. Truly, it seemed that no one save a hunted criminal, in constant dread of the prison from which he had escaped, would have chosen to dwell there, aloof from other human beings and shut in by the somber pines which protected him from inquisitive eyes.

The silence and gloom of the island, the sight of the old hut, the distant mutterings of thunder, and a subtle, electrical tension in the air combined to give the young investigators a most unpleasant sensation of nervousness, which was revealed by the sudden cackling burst of laughter that came from Springer’s lips—laughter that was suppressed almost as suddenly as it began.

Now it is in strange and silent places that the echo, once believed to be a mocking elf, chooses always to linger, mischievously waiting to make itself heard. And in the depths of the pines beyond the hut the taunting elf awoke in mockery of Springer. The laughter flung back from those recesses, like that of the perturbed boy, yet strangely and weirdly dissimilar, caused Phil to gasp a bit and clutch at Grant’s arm.

“Hear that!” he whispered.

“Nothing but an echo,” said Rodney in a low, even tone, although he realized that his own nerves were unusually tense.

“Gee! that’s right,” breathed Phil in relief; “but it gug-gug-gave me a jump.”

“It must be evident, comrades,” said Piper hurriedly, “that yonder hut can scarce afford us shelter from the storm which is advancing apace.”

The dark clouds had now shut out the sun, and the shadows beneath the pines were swiftly becoming so dense that the eye could pierce them for a short distance only, save when a flash of lightning made every object stand forth with great distinctness. The thunder which followed these electrical discharges was of the snappy, crackling kind, but the protracted space of time between each flash and report made Grant confident that the heart of the storm was yet miles away.

“You’re right, Sleuth,” agreed Springer eagerly; “we cuc-can’t get away from the rain in that old sh-shack.”

“Let’s take a look inside the hut, anyhow,” suggested Grant. “I hate to hike away without doing that much.”

Starting forward as he spoke, he stepped into a shallow excavation, which he would have observed before him under different circumstances. Annoyed, he scrambled up from his knees, to which he had plunged.

“Look out, fellows,” he warned, noticing for the first time that there were many similar excavations in the glade. “The treasure hunters sure have near dug up the whole place.”

With some reluctance Phil and Sleuth followed Rodney. At the open door of the hut the Texan stopped to look inside, and his companions peered over his shoulder. But the gloom was now so intense that little of the hut’s interior could be made out.

“Nun-nothing there, anyhow,” said Phil.

“Nothing that anybody need be afraid of,” declared Piper. But his teeth clicked, and his voice was filled with an odd vibration that betrayed the agitation he sought to conceal.

“I’m going in,” said Rodney. “Let’s all go in, so that at least we can say we’ve done so.”

“Lot of good that will dud-do us,” muttered Springer.

“Here goes,” said Grant, stepping inside.

Moved by a sudden desperate impulse, Piper pushed Springer aside and followed Rodney.

“If you’re afraid,” he flung back at Phil, “you don’t have to come; you can stay out.”

“Who’s afraid?” indignantly snapped Springer. “I guess I’ve gug-got as much nerve as you have.”

He entered also, and the three boys stood there in the hut of the old hermit. Their feet were on the bare ground, for there had never been a floor.

Dimly, at one side of the hut, they could see the framework of a bunk, on which, doubtless, Old Lonely had drawn his last breath, with the faithful dog watching at his side. A chimney, made of stones and clay mortar, had, with the lurching of the hut, broken in two halfway to the roof, and it now seemed ready to come tumbling down in one mass. The stones of the fireplace had been torn up, and doubtless this was the work of those who had fancied it possible some of the man’s plunder might be found beneath them.

“Looks to me lul-like the old shanty is liable to tut-tumble down almost any minute,” whispered Springer chokingly. “I don’t want it to dud-drop on my head.”

Grant lifted his hand. “Listen!” he urged.

With lips parted, they did not breathe for a few moments, and their ears were strained to hear any unusual sound. What they heard seemed to be the dull, muffled regular ticking of a clock coming from some hidden spot which they could not locate.

In the semi-darkness the whites of their eyes shone distinctly as they turned significant glances upon one another. Granger had told them of this mysterious ticking, and it brought vividly to their minds his description of the finding of the dead man with his clock beating off the seconds upon a shelf above the bunk. Perhaps it was the electricity in the atmosphere that produced a tugging sensation at the roots of their hair. Springer’s eyes rolled toward the open doorway, through which he longed to dash, being restrained only by fear that such an action would subject him to the joshing of his campmates. Piper was scarcely less eager to depart.

Such dim light as sifted into the old hut came through the small window and the ragged hole in the roof, above which black clouds were now outspread. Suddenly athwart these clouds streamed a writhing streak of lightning, which illumined the entire interior of the cabin, causing Piper to crouch and cringe, his mouth and throat dry, his heart beating like a hammer.

“By Jinks!” said Rodney. “That was a good one. I reckon it struck somewhere.”

It seemed that it must have struck among the mountainous hills to the westward, for suddenly they echoed and re-echoed with a tremendous crashing, rumbling, earth-jarring roar that gradually and reluctantly died away. Following this a light rush of wind passed through the tops of the tallest pines, dying out quickly and seeming to make the silence still more profound.

And in that silence the three boys distinctly heard a faint tapping, as of ghostly fingers beating feebly against the cabin wall. This was accompanied by a sound still more disturbing, resembling a low, half-whining wail.

“Gug-good by!” choked Springer, as he dashed from the hut.