Chapter 3

The purr
of a rapidly moving motor rose above the rain, the light rose, fell,
swerved to the right and to the left.

“Someone must be in a hurry,” commented Bridge.

“I suppose it is James, anxious to find you and explain his absence,”
suggested The Oskaloosa Kid. They both laughed.

“Gad!” cried Bridge, as the car topped the hill and plunged downward
toward them, “I'd hate to ride behind that fellow on a night like this,
and over a dirt road at that!”

As the car swung onto the straight road before the house a flash of
lightning revealed dimly the outlines of a rapidly moving touring car
with lowered top. Just as the machine came opposite the Squibbs' gate a
woman's scream mingled with the report of a pistol from the tonneau
and the watchers upon the verandah saw a dark bulk hurled from the
car, which sped on with undiminished speed, climbed the hill beyond and
disappeared from view.

Bridge started on a run toward the gateway, followed by the frightened
Kid. In the ditch beside the road they found in a dishevelled heap the
body of a young woman. The man lifted the still form in his arms. The
youth wondered at the great strength of the slight figure. “Let me help
you carry her,” he volunteered; but Bridge needed no assistance. “Run
ahead and open the door for me,” he said, as he bore his burden toward
the house.

Forgetful, in the excitement of the moment, of his terror of the horror
ridden ruin, The Oskaloosa Kid hastened ahead, mounted the few steps to
the verandah, crossed it and pushed open the sagging door. Behind him
came Bridge as the youth entered the dark interior. A half dozen
steps he took when his foot struck against a soft and yielding mass.
Stumbling, he tried to regain his equilibrium only to drop full upon the
thing beneath him. One open palm, extended to ease his fall, fell upon
the upturned features of a cold and clammy face. With a shriek of horror
The Kid leaped to his feet and shrank, trembling, back.

“What is it? What's the matter?” cried Bridge, with whom The Kid had
collided in his precipitate retreat.

“O-o-o!” groaned The Kid, shuddering. “It's dead! It's dead!”

“What's dead?” demanded Bridge.

“There's a dead man on the floor, right ahead of us,” moaned The Kid.

“You'll find a flash lamp in the right hand pocket of my coat,” directed
Bridge. “Take it and make a light.”

With trembling fingers the Kid did as he was bid, and when after much
fumbling he found the button a slim shaft of white light fell downward
upon the upturned face of a man cold in death--a little man, strangely
garbed, with gold rings in his ears, and long black hair matted in the
death sweat of his brow. His eyes were wide and, even in death, terror
filled, his features were distorted with fear and horror. His fingers,
clenched in the rigidity of death, clutched wisps of dark brown hair.
There were no indications of a wound or other violence upon his body,
that either the Kid or Bridge could see, except the dried remains of
bloody froth which flecked his lips.

Bridge still stood holding the quiet form of the girl in his arms, while
The Kid, pressed close to the man's side, clutched one arm with a fierce
intensity which bespoke at once the nervous terror which filled him and
the reliance he placed upon his new found friend.

To their right, in the faint light of the flash lamp, a narrow stairway
was revealed leading to the second story. Straight ahead was a door
opening upon the blackness of a rear apartment. Beside the foot of the
stairway was another door leading to the cellar steps.

Bridge nodded toward the rear room. “The stove is in there,” he said.
“We'd better go on and make a fire. Draw your pistol--whoever did this
has probably beat it; but it's just as well to be on the safe side.”

“I'm afraid,” said The Oskaloosa Kid. “Let's leave this frightful place.
It's just as I told you it was; just as I always heard.”

“We can't leave this woman, my boy,” replied Bridge. “She isn't dead.
We can't leave her, and we can't take her out into the storm in her
condition. We must stay. Come! buck up. There's nothing to fear from a
dead man, and--”

He never finished the sentence. From the depths of the cellar came the
sound of a clanking chain. Something scratched heavily upon the wooden
steps. Whatever it was it was evidently ascending, while behind it
clanked the heavy links of a dragged chain.

The Oskaloosa Kid cast a wide eyed glance of terror at Bridge. His
lips moved in an attempt to speak; but fear rendered him inarticulate.
Slowly, ponderously the THING ascended the dark stairs from the gloom
ridden cellar of the deserted ruin. Even Bridge paled a trifle. The man
upon the floor appeared to have met an unnatural death--the frightful
expression frozen upon the dead face might even indicate something
verging upon the supernatural. The sound of the THING climbing out of
the cellar was indeed uncanny--so uncanny that Bridge discovered himself
looking about for some means of escape. His eyes fell upon the stairway
leading to the second floor.

“Quick!” he whispered. “Up the stairs! You go first; I'll follow.”

The Kid needed no second invitation. With a bound he was half way up
the rickety staircase; but a glance ahead at the darkness above gave
him pause while he waited for Bridge to catch up with him. Coming more
slowly with his burden the man followed the boy, while from below the
clanking of the chain warned them that the THING was already at the top
of the cellar stairs.

“Flash the lamp down there,” directed Bridge. “Let's have a look at it,
whatever it is.”

With trembling hands The Oskaloosa Kid directed the lens over the
edge of the swaying and rotting bannister. His finger slipped from the
lighting button plunging them all into darkness. In his frantic effort
to find the button and relight the lamp the worst occurred--he fumbled
the button and the lamp slipped through his fingers, falling over the
bannister to the floor below. Instantly the sound of the dragging chain
ceased; but the silence was even more horrible than the noise which had
preceded it.

For a long minute the two at the head of the stairs stood in tense
silence listening for a repetition of the gruesome sounds from below.
The youth was frankly terrified; he made no effort to conceal the fact;
but pressed close to his companion, again clutching his arm tightly.
Bridge could feel the trembling of the slight figure, the spasmodic
gripping of the slender fingers and hear the quick, short, irregular
breathing. A sudden impulse to throw a protecting arm about the boy
seized him--an impulse which he could not quite fathom, and one to which
he could not respond because of the body of the girl he carried.

He bent toward the youth. “There are matches in my coat pocket,” he
whispered, “--the same pocket in which you found the flash lamp. Strike
one and we'll look for a room here where we can lay the girl.”

The boy fumbled gropingly in search of the matches. It was evident to
the man that it was only with the greatest exertion of will power that
he controlled his muscles at all; but at last he succeeded in finding
and striking one. At the flare of the light there was a sound from
below--a scratching sound and the creaking of boards as beneath a heavy
body; then came the clanking of the chain once more, and the bannister
against which they leaned shook as though a hand had been laid upon it
below them. The youth stifled a shriek and simultaneously the match went
out; but not before Bridge had seen in the momentary flare of light a
partially open door at the far end of the hall in which they stood.

Beneath them the stairs creaked now and the chain thumped slowly from
one to another as it was dragged upward toward them.

“Quick!” called Bridge. “Straight down the hall and into the room at
the end.” The man was puzzled. He could not have been said to have been
actually afraid, and yet the terror of the boy was so intense, so real,
that it could scarce but have had its suggestive effect upon the other;
and, too, there was an uncanny element of the supernatural in what they
had seen and heard in the deserted house--the dead man on the floor
below, the inexplicable clanking of a chain by some unseen THING from
the depth of the cellar upward toward them; and, to heighten the effect
of these, there were the grim stories of unsolved tragedy and crime. All
in all Bridge could not have denied that he was glad of the room at the
end of the hall with its suggestion of safety in the door which might
be closed against the horrors of the hall and the Stygian gloom below
stairs.

The Oskaloosa Kid was staggering ahead of him, scarce able to hold his
body erect upon his shaking knees--his gait seemed pitifully slow to
the unarmed man carrying the unconscious girl and listening to the chain
dragging ever nearer and nearer behind; but at last they reached the
doorway and passed through it into the room.

“Close the door,” directed Bridge as he crossed toward the center of the
room to lay his burden upon the floor, but there was no response to
his instructions--only a gasp and the sound of a body slumping to the
rotting boards. With an exclamation of chagrin the man dropped the girl
and swung quickly toward the door. Halfway down the hall he could hear
the chain rattling over loose planking, the THING, whatever it might
be, was close upon them. Bridge slammed-to the door and with a shoulder
against it drew a match from his pocket and lighted it. Although his
clothing was soggy with rain he knew that his matches would still
be dry, for this pocket and its flap he had ingeniously lined with
waterproof material from a discarded slicker he had found--years of
tramping having taught him the discomforts of a fireless camp.

In the resultant light the man saw with a quick glance a large room
furnished with an old walnut bed, dresser, and commode; two lightless
windows opened at the far end toward the road, Bridge assumed; and there
was no door other than that against which he leaned. In the last flicker
of the match the man scanned the door itself for a lock and, to his
relief, discovered a bolt--old and rusty it was, but it still moved
in its sleeve. An instant later it was shot--just as the sound of the
dragging chain ceased outside. Near the door was the great bed, and
this Bridge dragged before it as an additional barricade; then, bearing
nothing more from the hallway, he turned his attention to the two
unconscious forms upon the floor. Unhesitatingly he went to the boy
first though had he questioned himself he could not have told why; for
the youth, undoubtedly, had only swooned, while the girl had been the
victim of a murderous assault and might even be at the point of death.

What was the appeal to the man in the pseudo Oskaloosa Kid? He had
scarce seen the boy's face, yet the terrified figure had aroused within
him, strongly, the protective instinct. Doubtless it was the call of
youth and weakness which find, always, an answering assurance in the
strength of a strong man.

As Bridge groped toward the spot where the boy had fallen his eyes, now
become accustomed to the darkness of the room, saw that the youth was
sitting up. “Well?” he asked. “Feeling better?”

“Where is it? Oh, God! Where is it?” cried the boy. “It will come in
here and kill us as it killed that--that--down stairs.”

“It can't get in,” Bridge assured him. “I've locked the door and pushed
the bed in front of it. Gad! I feel like an old maid looking under the
bed for burglars.”

From the hall came a sudden clanking of the chain accompanied by a loud
pounding upon the bare floor. With a scream the youth leaped to his
feet and almost threw himself upon Bridge. His arms were about the man's
neck, his face buried in his shoulder.

“Oh, don't--don't let it get me!” he cried.

“Brace up, son,” Bridge admonished him. “Didn't I tell you that it can't
get in?”

“How do you know it can't get in?” whimpered the youth. “It's the thing
that murdered the man down stairs--it's the thing that murdered the
Squibbs--right here in this room. It got in to them--what is to prevent
its getting in to us. What are doors to such a THING?”

“Come! come! now,” Bridge tried to soothe him. “You have a case of
nerves. Lie down here on this bed and try to sleep. Nothing shall harm
you, and when you wake up it will be morning and you'll laugh at your
fears.”

“Lie on THAT bed!” The voice was almost a shriek. “That is the bed the
Squibbs were murdered in--the old man and his wife. No one would have
it, and so it has remained here all these years. I would rather die than
touch the thing. Their blood is still upon it.”

“I wish,” said Bridge a trifle sternly, “that you would try to control
yourself a bit. Hysteria won't help us any. Here we are, and we've to
make the best of it. Besides we must look after this young woman--she
may be dying, and we haven't done a thing to help her.”

The boy, evidently shamed, released his hold upon Bridge and moved
away. “I am sorry,” he said. “I'll try to do better; but, Oh! I was so
frightened. You cannot imagine how frightened I was.”

“I had imagined,” said Bridge, “from what I had heard of him that it
would be a rather difficult thing to frighten The Oskaloosa Kid--you
have, you know, rather a reputation for fearlessness.”

The darkness hid the scarlet flush which mantled The Kid's face. There
was a moment's silence as Bridge crossed to where the young woman still
lay upon the floor where he had deposited her. Then The Kid spoke. “I'm
sorry,” he said, “that I made a fool of myself. You have been so brave,
and I have not helped at all. I shall do better now.”

“Good,” said Bridge, and stooped to raise the young woman in his arms
and deposit her upon the bed. Then he struck another match and leaned
close to examine her. The flare of the sulphur illuminated the room
and shot two rectangles of light against the outer blackness where the
unglazed windows stared vacantly upon the road beyond, bringing to a
sudden halt a little company of muddy and bedraggled men who slipped,
cursing, along the slimy way.

Bridge felt the youth close beside him as he bent above the girl upon
the bed.

“Is she dead?” the lad whispered.

“No,” replied Bridge, “and I doubt if she's badly hurt.” His hands ran
quickly over her limbs, bending and twisting them gently; he unbuttoned
her waist, getting the boy to strike and hold another match while he
examined the victim for signs of a bullet wound.

“I can't find a scratch on her,” he said at last. “She's suffering from
shock alone, as far as I can judge. Say, she's pretty, isn't she?”

The youth drew himself rather stiffly erect. “Her features are rather
coarse, I think,” he replied. There was a peculiar quality to the tone
which caused Bridge to turn a quick look at the boy's face, just as
the match flickered and went out. The darkness hid the expression
upon Bridge's face, but his conviction that the girl was pretty was
unaltered. The light of the match had revealed an oval face surrounded
by dark, dishevelled tresses, red, full lips, and large, dark eyes.

Further discussion of the young woman was discouraged by a repetition of
the clanking of the chain without. Now it was receding along the hallway
toward the stairs and presently, to the infinite relief of The Oskaloosa
Kid, the two heard it descending to the lower floor.

“What was it, do you think?” asked the boy, his voice still trembling
upon the verge of hysteria.

“I don't know,” replied Bridge. “I've never been a believer in ghosts
and I'm not now; but I'll admit that it takes a whole lot of--”

He did not finish the sentence for a moan from the bed diverted his
attention to the injured girl, toward whom he now turned. As they
listened for a repetition of the sound there came another--that of
the creaking of the old bed slats as the girl moved upon the mildewed
mattress. Dimly, through the darkness, Bridge saw that the victim of the
recent murderous assault was attempting to sit up. He moved closer and
leaned above her.

“I wouldn't exert myself,” he said. “You've just suffered an accident,
and it's better that you remain quiet.”

“Who are you?” asked the girl, a note of suppressed terror in her voice.
“You are not--?”

“I am no one you know,” replied Bridge. “My friend and I chanced to be
near when you fell from the car--” with that innate refinement which
always belied his vocation and his rags Bridge chose not to embarrass
the girl by a too intimate knowledge of the thing which had befallen
her, preferring to leave to her own volition the making of any
explanation she saw fit, or of none--“and we carried you in here out of
the storm.”

The girl was silent for a moment. “Where is 'here'?” she asked
presently. “They drove so fast and it was so dark that I had no idea
where we were, though I know that we left the turnpike.”

“We are at the old Squibbs place,” replied the man. He could see that
the girl was running one hand gingerly over her head and face, so that
her next question did not surprise him.

“Am I badly wounded?” she asked. “Do you think that I am going to die?”
The tremor in her voice was pathetic--it was the voice of a frightened
and wondering child. Bridge heard the boy behind him move impulsively
forward and saw him kneel on the bed beside the girl.

“You are not badly hurt,” volunteered The Oskaloosa Kid. “Bridge
couldn't find a mark on you--the bullet must have missed you.”

“He was holding me over the edge of the car when he fired.” The girl's
voice reflected the physical shudder which ran through her frame at the
recollection. “Then he threw me out almost simultaneously. I suppose he
thought that he could not miss at such close range.” For a time she was
silent again, sitting stiffly erect. Bridge could feel rather than see
wide, tense eyes staring out through the darkness upon scenes, horrible
perhaps, that were invisible to him and the Kid.

Suddenly the girl turned and threw herself face downward upon the bed.
“O, God!” she moaned. “Father! Father! It will kill you--no one will
believe me--they will think that I am bad. I didn't do it! I didn't
do it! I've been a silly little fool; but I have never been a bad
girl--and---and--I had nothing to do with that awful thing that happened
to-night.”

Bridge and the boy realized that she was not talking to them--that for
the moment she had lost sight of their presence--she was talking to that
father whose heart would be breaking with the breaking of the new day,
trying to convince him that his little girl had done no wrong.

Again she sat up, and when she spoke there was no tremor in her voice.

“I may die,” she said. “I want to die. I do not see how I can go on
living after last night; but if I do die I want my father to know that
I had nothing to do with it and that they tried to kill me because
I wouldn't promise to keep still. It was the little one who murdered
him--the one they called 'Jimmie' and 'The Oskaloosa Kid.' The big one
drove the car--his name was 'Terry.' After they killed him I tried to
jump out--I had been sitting in front with Terry--and then they dragged
me over into the tonneau and later--the Oskaloosa Kid tried to kill me
too, and threw me out.”

Bridge heard the boy at his side gulp. The girl went on.

“To-morrow you will know about the murder--everyone will know about it;
and I will be missed; and there will be people who saw me in the car
with them, for someone must have seen me. Oh, I can't face it! I want to
die. I will die! I come of a good family. My father is a prominent man.
I can't go back and stand the disgrace and see him suffer, as he will
suffer, for I was all he had--his only child. I can't bear to tell you
my name--you will know it soon enough--but please find some way to
let my father know all that I have told you--I swear that it is the
truth--by the memory of my dead mother, I swear it!”

Bridge laid a hand upon the girl's shoulder. “If you are telling us the
truth,” he said, “you have only a silly escapade with strange men upon
your conscience. You must not talk of dying now--your duty is to your
father. If you take your own life it will be a tacit admission of guilt
and will only serve to double the burden of sorrow and ignominy which
your father is bound to feel when this thing becomes public, as it
certainly must if a murder has been done. The only way in which you
can atone for your error is to go back and face the consequences with
him--do not throw it all upon him; that would be cowardly.”

The girl did not reply; but that the man's words had impressed her
seemed evident. For a while each was occupied with his own thoughts;
which were presently disturbed by the sound of footsteps upon the floor
below--the muffled scraping of many feet followed a moment later by an
exclamation and an oath, the words coming distinctly through the loose
and splintered flooring.

“Pipe the stiff,” exclaimed a voice which The Oskaloosa Kid recognized
immediately as that of Soup Face.

“The Kid musta croaked him,” said another.

A laugh followed this evidently witty sally.

“The guy probably lamped the swag an' died of heart failure,” suggested
another.

The men were still laughing when the sound of a clanking chain echoed
dismally from the cellar. Instantly silence fell upon the newcomers upon
the first floor, followed by a--“Wotinel's that?” Two of the men had
approached the staircase and started to ascend it. Slowly the uncanny
clanking drew closer to the first floor. The girl on the bed turned
toward Bridge.

“What is it?” she gasped.

“We don't know,” replied the man. “It followed us up here, or rather
it chased us up; and then went down again just before you regained
consciousness. I imagine we shall hear some interesting developments
from below.”

“It's The Sky Pilot and his gang,” whispered The Oskaloosa Kid.

“It's The Oskaloosa Kid,” came a voice from below.

“But wot was that light upstairs then?” queried another.

“An' wot croaked this guy here?” asked a third. “It wasn't nothin'
nice--did you get the expression on his mug an' the red foam on his
lips? I tell youse there's something in this house beside human bein's.
I know the joint--it's hanted--they's spooks in it. Gawd! there it is
now,” as the clanking rose to the head of the cellar stairs; and those
above heard a sudden rush of footsteps as the men broke for the open
air--all but the two upon the stairway. They had remained too long and
now, their retreat cut off, they scrambled, cursing and screaming, to
the second floor.

Along the hallway they rushed to the closed door at the end--the door
of the room in which the three listened breathlessly--hurling themselves
against it in violent effort to gain admission.

“Who are you and what do you want?” cried Bridge.

“Let us in! Let us in!” screamed two voices. “Fer God's sake let us in.
Can't you hear IT? It'll be comin' up here in a minute.”

The sound of the dragging chain could be heard at intervals upon the
floor below. It seemed to the tense listeners above to pause beside the
dead man as though hovering in gloating exultation above its gruesome
prey and then it moved again, this time toward the stairway where
they all heard it ascending with a creepy slowness which wrought more
terribly upon tense nerves than would a sudden rush.

“The mills of the Gods grind slowly,” quoted Bridge.

“Oh, don't!” pleaded The Oskaloosa Kid.

“Let us in,” screamed the men without. “Fer the luv o' Mike have a
heart! Don't leave us out here! IT's comin'! IT's comin'!”

“Oh, let the poor things in,” pleaded the girl on the bed. She was,
herself, trembling with terror.

“No funny business, now, if I let you in,” commanded Bridge.

“On the square,” came the quick and earnest reply.

The THING had reached the head of the stairs when Bridge dragged the bed
aside and drew the bolt. Instantly two figures hurled themselves into
the room but turned immediately to help Bridge resecure the doorway.

Just as it had done before, when Bridge and The Oskaloosa Kid had taken
refuge there with the girl, the THING moved down the hallway to the
closed door. The dragging chain marked each foot of its advance. If it
made other sounds they were drowned by the clanking of the links over
the time roughened flooring.

Within the room the five were frozen into utter silence, and beyond the
door an equal quiet prevailed for a long minute; then a great force
made the door creak and a weird scratching sounded high up upon the old
fashioned panelling. Bridge heard a smothered gasp from the boy beside
him, followed instantly by a flash of flame and the crack of a small
caliber automatic; The Oskaloosa Kid had fired through the door.

Bridge seized the boy's arm and wrenched the weapon from him. “Be
careful!” he cried. “You'll hurt someone. You didn't miss the girl much
that time--she's on the bed right in front of the door.”

The Oskaloosa Kid pressed closer to the man as though he sought
protection from the unknown menace without. The girl sprang from the
bed and crossed to the opposite side of the room. A flash of lightning
illuminated the chamber for an instant and the roof of the verandah
without. The girl noted the latter and the open window.

“Look!” she cried. “Suppose it went out of another window upon this
porch. It could get us so easily that way!”

“Shut up, you fool!” whispered one of the two newcomers. “It might hear
you.” The girl subsided into silence.

There was no sound from the hallway.

“I reckon you croaked IT,” suggested the second newcomer, hopefully;
but, as though the THING without had heard and understood, the clanking
of the chain recommenced at once; but now it was retreating along the
hallway, and soon they heard it descending the stairs.

Sighs of relief escaped more than a single pair of lips. “IT didn't hear
me,” whispered the girl.

Bridge laughed. “We're a nice lot of babies seeing things at night,” he
scoffed.

“If you're so nervy why don't you go down an' see wot it is?” asked one
of the late arrivals.

“I believe I shall,” replied Bridge and pulled the bed away from the
door.

Instantly a chorus of protests arose, the girl and The Oskaloosa Kid
being most insistent. What was the use? What good could he accomplish?
It might be nothing; yet on the other hand what had brought death
so horribly to the cold clay on the floor below? At last their pleas
prevailed and Bridge replaced the bed before the door.

For two hours the five sat about the room waiting for daylight. There
could be no sleep for any of them. Occasionally they spoke, usually
advancing and refuting suggestions as to the identity of the nocturnal
prowler below-stairs. The THING seemed to have retreated again to the
cellar, leaving the upper floor to the five strangely assorted prisoners
and the first floor to the dead man.

During the brief intervals of conversation the girl repeated snatches
of her story and once she mentioned The Oskaloosa Kid as the murderer of
the unnamed victim. The two men who had come last pricked up their ears
at this and Bridge felt the boy's hand just touch his arm as though in
mute appeal for belief and protection. The man half smiled.

“We seen The Oskaloosa Kid this evenin',” volunteered one of the
newcomers.

“You did?” exclaimed the girl. “Where?”

“He'd just pulled off a job in Oakdale an' had his pockets bulgin' wid
sparklers an' kale. We was follerin' him an' when we seen your light up
here we t'ought it was him.”

The Oskaloosa Kid shrank closer to Bridge. At last he recognized the
voice of the speaker. While he had known that the two were of The Sky
Pilot's band he had not been sure of the identity of either; but now it
was borne in upon him that at least one of them was the last person on
earth he cared to be cooped up in a small, unlighted room with, and a
moment later when one of the two rolled a 'smoke' and lighted it he saw
in the flare of the flame the features of both Dopey Charlie and The
General.