Kastle Krags: A Story of Mystery

by Absalom Martin

  CHAPTER II

  The allurement of a September day had brought me far down the trail,past the neck of the marsh, and far from my accustomed haunts. But Icould never resist September weather, particularly when the winds arestill, and the sun through the leaves dapples the trail like a fawn'sback, and the woods are so silent that the least rustle of a squirrel inthe thicket cracks with a miniature explosion. And for all the gloom ofthe woods, and the tricky windings and cut-backs of that restless littleserpent of a trail, I still knew approximately where I was. A naturalsense of direction was seemingly implanted with less essential organs inmy body at birth.

  The Ochakee River wound its lazy way to the sea somewhere to my right. Ahalf mile further the little trail ended in a brown road over which amotor-car, in favorable seasons, might safely pass. The Nealman estate,known for forty miles up and down the shore, lay at the juncture of thetrail and the road--but I hadn't the least idea of pushing on that far.Neither fortune nor environment had fitted me to move in such a circleas sometimes gathered on the wide verandas of Kastle Krags.

  I was lighting a pipe, ready to turn back, when the leaves rustled inthe trail in front. It was just a whisper of sound, the faintestscratch-scratch of something approaching at a great distance, and onlythe fact that my senses had been trained to silences such as theseenabled me to hear it at all. It is always a fascinating thing to standsilent on a jungle-trail, conjecturing what manner of creature ispushing toward you under the pendulous moss: perhaps a deer, moregraceful than any dancer that ever cavorted before the footlights, orperhaps (stranger things have happened) that awkward, snuffling,benevolent old gentleman, the black bear. This was my life, so no wonderthe match flared out in my hand. And then once more I started to turnback.

  I had got too near the Nealman home, after all. I suddenly recognizedthe subdued sound as that of a horse's hoofs in the moss of the trail.Some one of the proud and wealthy occupants of the old manor house wassimply enjoying a ride in the still woods. But it was high time heturned back! The marshes of the Ochakee were no place for tenderfeet;and this was not like riding in Central Park! Some of the quagmires Ihad passed already to-day would make short work of horse and rider.

  My eye has always been sensitive to motion--in this regard not greatlydissimilar from the eyes of the wild creatures themselves--and Isuddenly caught a flash of moving color through a little rift in theoverhanging branches. The horseman that neared me on the trail wascertainly gayly dressed! The flash I caught was _pink_--the pink thatlittle girls fancy in ribbons--and a derisive grin crept to my lipsbefore I could restrain it. There was no mistaking the fact that I wasbeginning to have the woodsman's intolerance for city furs and frills!Right then I decided to wait.

  It might pay to see how this rider had got himself up! It might affordcertain moments of amusement when the still mystery of the Floridannight dropped over me again. I drew to one side and stood still on thetrail.

  The horse walked near. The rider wasn't a man, after all. It was a girlin the simplest, yet the prettiest, riding-habit that eyes ever laidupon, and the prettiest girl that had ridden that trail since the woodswere new.

  The intolerant grin at my lips died a natural death. She might be theproud and haughty daughter of wealth, such a type as our more simplecountry-dwellers robe with tales of scandal, yet the picture that shemade--astride that great, dark horse in the dappled sunlight of thetrail--was one that was worth coming long miles to see. The dark, mossywoods were a perfect frame, the shadows seemed only to accentuate herown bright coloring.

  It wasn't simply because I am a naturalist that I instantly noticed andstored away immutably in my memory every detail of that happy, prettyface. The girl had blue eyes. I've seen the same shade of blue in thesea, a dark blue and yet giving the impression of incredible brightness.Yet it was a warm brightness, not the steely, icy glitter of the sea.They were friendly, wholesome, straightforward eyes, lit with the joy ofliving; wide-open and girlish. The brows were fine and dark above them,and above these a clear, girlish forehead with never a studied line. Herhair was brown and shot with gold--indeed, in the sunlight, it lookedlike old, red gold, finely spun.

  She was tanned by the Florida sun, yet there was a bright color-spot ineach cheek. I thought she had rather a wistful mouth, rather full lips,half-pouting in some girlish fancy. Of course she hadn't observed meyet. She was riding easily, evidently thinking herself wholly alone.

  Her form was slender and girlish, of medium height, yet her slenderhands at the reins held her big horse in perfect control. The heels ofher trim little shoes touched his side, and the animal leaped lightlyover a fallen log. Then she saw me, and her expression changed.

  It was, however, still unstudied and friendly. The cold look ofindifference I had expected and which is such a mark of ill-breedingamong certain of her class, didn't put in its appearance. I removed myhat, and she drew her horse up beside me.

  It hadn't occurred to me she would actually stop and talk. It had beenrather too much to hope for. And I knew I felt a curious little stir ofdelight all over me at the first sound of her friendly, gentle voice.

  "I suppose you are Mr. Killdare?" she said quietly.

  Every one knows how a man quickens at the sound of his own name. "Yes,ma'am," I told her--in our own way of speaking. But I didn't know whatelse to say.

  "I was riding over to see you--on business," she went on. "For myuncle--Grover Nealman, of Kastle Krags. I'm his secretary."

  The words made me stop and think. It was hard for me to explain, even tomyself, just why they thrilled me far under the skin, and why thelittle tingle of delight I had known at first gave way to a mighty surgeof anticipation and pleasure. It seems to be true that the first thingwe look for in a stranger is his similarity to us, and the second, hisdissimilarity; and in these two factors alone rests our attitude towardshim. It has been thus since the beginning of the world--if he is toodissimilar, our reaction is one of dislike, and I suppose, far enoughdown the scale of civilization, we would immediately try to kill him. Ifhe has enough in common with ourselves we at once feel warm andfriendly, and invite him to our tribal feasts.

  Perhaps this was the way it was between myself and Edith Nealman. Shewasn't infinitely set apart from me--some one rich and experienced andfree of all the problems that made up my life. Nealman's niece meantsomething far different than Nealman's daughter--if indeed the man had adaughter. She was his secretary, she said--a paid worker even as I was.She had come to see me on business--and no wonder I was anticipatory andelated as I hadn't been for years!

  "I'm glad to know you, Miss----" I began. For of course I didn't knowher name, then.

  "Miss Nealman," she told me, easily. "Now I'll tell you what my unclewants. He heard about you, from Mr. Todd."

  I nodded. Mr. Todd had brought me out from the village and had helped mewith some work I was doing for my university, in a northern state.

  "He was trying to get Mr. Todd to help him, but he was busy and couldn'tdo it," the girl went on. "But he said to get Ned Killdare--that youcould do it as well as he could. He said no one knew the countryimmediately about here any better than you--that though you'd only beenhere a month or two you had been all over it, and that you knew thehabits of the turkeys and quail, and the best fishing grounds, betterthan any one else in the country."

  I nodded in assent. Of course I knew these things: on a zoologicalexcursion for the university they were simply my business. But as yet Icouldn't guess how this information was to be of use to Grover Nealman.

  "Now this is what my uncle wants," the girl went on. "He's going to havea big shoot and fish for some of his man friends--they are coming downin about two weeks. They'll want to fish in the Ochakee River and in thelagoon, and hunt quail and turkey, and my uncle wants to know if--if hecan possibly--hire you as guide."

  I liked her for her hesitancy, the uncertainty with which she spoke.Her voice had nothing of that calm superiority that is so often heardin the offering of humble employment. She was
plainly considering mydignity--as if anything this sweet-faced girl could say could possiblyinjure it!

  "All he wanted of you was to stay at Kastle Krags during the huntingparty, and be able to show the men where to hunt and fish. You won'thave to act as--as anybody's valet--and he says he'll pay you realguide's wages, ten dollars a day."

  "When would he want me to begin?"

  "Right away, if you could--to-morrow. The guests won't be here for twoweeks, but there are a lot of things to do first. You see, my uncle camehere only a short time ago, and all the fishing-boats need overhauling,and everything put in ship-shape. Then he thought you'd want some extratime for looking around and locating the game and fish. The work wouldbe for three weeks, in all."

  Three weeks! I did some fast figuring, and I found that twenty days, atten dollars a day, meant two hundred dollars. Could I afford to refusesuch an offer as this?

  It is true that I had no particular love for many of the city sportsmenthat came to shoot turkey and to fish in the region of the Ochakee. Thereason was simply that "sportsmen," for them, was a misnomer: that theyhad no conception of sport from its beginnings to its end, and that theycould only kill game like butchers. Then I didn't know that I would careabout being employed in such a capacity.

  Yet two or three tremendous considerations stared me in the face. In thefirst place, I was really in need of funds. I had not yet obtained anyof the higher scholastic degrees that would entitle me to decent pay atthe university--I was merely a post-graduate student, with thecomplimentary title of "instructor." I had offered to spend my summercollecting specimens for the university museum at a wage that barelypaid for my traveling expenses and supplies, wholly failing to considerwhere I would get sufficient funds to continue my studies the followingyear.

  Scarcity of money--no one can feel it worse than a young man inflamedwith a passion for scientific research! There were a thousand things Iwanted to do, a thousand journeys into unknown lands that haunted mydreams at night, but none of them were for the poor. The two hundreddollars Grover Nealman would pay me would not go far, yet I simplycouldn't afford to pass it by. Of course I could continue my work formy alma mater at the same time.

  Yet while I thought of these things, I knew that I was only lying tomyself. They were subterfuges only, excuses to my own conscience. Theinstant she had opened her lips to speak I had known my answer.

  To refuse meant to go back to my lonely camp in the cypress. I hoped Iwasn't such a fool as that. To accept meant three weeks at KastleKrags--and daily sight of this same lovely face that now held fast myeyes. Could there be any question which course I would choose?

  "Go--I should say I will go," I told her. "I'll be there bright andearly to-morrow."

  I thought she looked pleased, but doubtless I was mistaken.