by Morgan Scott
CHAPTER XVIII
FLIGHT.
As he ran, the terrible fear that had clung to him grew to giganticproportions. Panting and gasping, he exerted every effort in that firstburst of speed. The sound of his flying feet echoed through the silentstreets, and those echoes, flung back to his ears, made it seem that apart of the sound was produced by other feet than his own. It seemedthat there was a fearsome pursuer at his very heels, reaching for himwith eager, clawlike hands. He dared not pause an instant in his flightto look back. On and on he ran, down through Cross Street, retracing hiscourse up the slope to Lake Street, and still on past the silent andgloomy academy.
From exhaustion and lack of breath his pace had slackened perforce. Inall his experience in athletics, never before had he exerted himselfuntil, the breath wholly pumped from his lungs, he could only gasp inexquisite pain, while his very head threatened to burst.
At length, just beyond the academy, he stumbled and fell. Half stunnedby the shock, he fully expected to feel himself pounced upon by thatunknown pursuer.
Recovering, he looked around as he struggled to his feet. He was quitealone; he could see no moving, living object.
"Still," he thought, as he stood gulping in air to relieve his collapsedlungs, "I could swear something chased me. It was right behind me allthe way. I couldn't see it, but I could feel it. If it's that sort of athing, it's no use to run; I can't run away from it."
But when he started on again the fear returned, and it was only by themost tremendous effort that he restrained the impulse to resume running.Every moment or two he looked back, and sometimes he stopped and turnedsquarely in his tracks.
His relief was great when he saw, near at hand, the house where heboarded. He would get inside, close the door quickly behind him, andshut the unseen pursuer out.
But the door did not open beneath his hand. He tried it again and again,presently realizing with dismay that he had failed to fasten back thecatch of the spring lock when he came out. Yesterday, in changing hisclothes, he had discovered that his latch key was missing. Search for ithad been vain, and Mrs. Carter had not been able to furnish another key.
"Well, this is a fix!" he whispered. "I'm locked out. I don't want torap and get them up, for I would have to explain. Then, too, if they gota look at me they'd know there's something wrong. I must show it plainenough."
He walked silently around to the rear of the house. There was the ell,upon the roof of which his window opened, and close to the end of theell stood the chestnut tree, with one stout branch projecting over theroof. He thought of climbing the tree, reaching the roof by means ofthat limb, and crawling along to obtain admittance through the window ofhis chamber.
Remembering the fearsome spectacle revealed to him outside that windowthis very night, he faltered and drew back. He was terrified lest,having climbed to the roof, he should find himself once more face toface with the apparition.
"It's no use," he almost sobbed; "I can't do it! Anyhow, why should Iwish to get in there? If it's a ghost, I couldn't shut it out. I mayneed the things in my bag; I'd certainly like to have them; but I mustdo without them."
He knew that a hostler slept all night in Hyde's livery stable, and thatthere was a bell by which the man might be aroused. Now, however, forthe first time it occurred to him that he lacked money. Having paidOsgood a small debt, less than three dollars remained in his pocket. Itwas thirty-four miles to Watertown, and it would require many timesthree dollars to pay for a rig to carry him there.
"Perhaps they'll trust me," he muttered. "I'll tell a good story. I'llmake it out a case of life or death--and perhaps it is."
Then something seemed to whisper in his ear that he could not endure thescrutiny of any one without betraying himself. Furthermore, if he shouldhire a rig and a man to drive him to Watertown, that would betray thedirection of his flight. Should they desire to stop him and bring himback, the telephone would serve them well.
"I'm done for," he groaned--"done for! I don't know what to do."
Desiring sympathy, longing for advice, he thought of Osgood, and at oncehe decided that Ned ought to know without delay what had happened.
Crossing lots and open fields, he avoided the streets of the town as faras possible. He was still pursued by the conviction that some unseenthing was following him, but with set teeth, he restrained the desire torun, holding himself down to a sharp, jerky walk, which was interruptedoccasionally as he looked back. Finally he saw before him the big whitetwo-story house of Mrs. Chester.
Now another problem arose, how to reach Osgood. If he rang at the doorhe would eventually bring either the maid or Mrs. Chester to answer thebell. What could he tell them?
"I know what I'll do," he decided, stooping to run the palm of his handover the loose earth of the street bed.
It did not take him long to gather up a handful of small pebbles, andwith these he approached the house. One after another he flung themupward and heard them clink against the window glass, but he used themall without perceiving a token that he had awakened Osgood. The houseremained dark and silent. A rising breeze caused the limbs of some treesto knock together; it swept Shultz's clammy cheek and made him shiver.
"I must get Ned up," he muttered. "Fool that I am, I've been trying thewrong window. He's in his bedroom, of course, and the window to that ison the side of the house."
Back to the street he went for more pebbles. He was crouching froglike,feeling for them with his hands, when he heard a sound that turned himrigid for an instant.
Footsteps were approaching on the sidewalk; some one was coming up thestreet. Why should any one in that sleepy, well-behaved little town beout at this hour? Was it possible they had already begun searching forhim?
Then he heard voices. There were two persons approaching.
Rising to a crouching position, he ran to the fence across the way fromMrs. Chester's and flung himself over. And, again started in flight, theterror that had driven him in the first place came back with additionalforce; and this was augmented by the sound of voices shouting afterhim--the voices of the two men on the street, who had seen his shadowyfigure as he vaulted the fence.
"There he is!" "That's him!" "There he goes!" "Stop! stop!"
Crying after him in this manner, they came on in pursuit. Venturing tolook back, he saw them tumbling over the fence he had leaped, and oncemore he strained every nerve.
There was now no doubt in his mind; they were after him. Perhaps beforethe coming of the end Roy Hooker's mind had cleared sufficiently for himto tell who struck the fatal blow. Perhaps Roy's father, running fromthe house, had been hurrying to set the officers at work.
In advance, he perceived a dark, straggling line of bushes and lowtrees. Amid them he turned sharply to the left, hoping somehow to doubleon his tracks and baffle the pursuers. Through a thicket of shrubbery heplunged, with the tiny branches viciously whipping his face and tearingat his clothes, as if even they sought to grasp and hold him.
Suddenly he stopped short, his mouth wide open, that he might listen thebetter. The two men had reached the growth, and he could hear themfloundering amid it.
"This way!" one of them cried. "He went this way!"
"Keep still!" urged the other. "We ought to be able to hear him. Keepstill a minute."
The crashing sounds ceased, and the listening boy knew the men werelistening also. Through a great effort of self-command, he kept himselffrom resuming the flight, waiting until the noise of their own movementsshould prevent them from hearing what sounds he might make.
They soon grew impatient and began beating about in the underbrush in anaimless search.
As soon as this happened Shultz moved away, proceeding with a certainamount of caution. Keeping just within the border of the timber andthickets, he went forward as fast as he dared, putting out his hands topart the bushes and slipping through them as silently as possible. Attimes twigs snapped beneath his feet, but, as he had hoped, the men werethemselves making sufficient noise to drown su
ch minor sounds, andgradually he left them far behind.
In the blackness he ran full against a wire fence, and the barbs of thelower strands slashed his trousers and cut his legs. He tore himselffree, felt for the smooth upper strand, bent it downward and straddledover.
Following the line of the fence, he turned full upon the course he hadbeen pursuing when he plunged into the timber. Leaving that shelterbehind him, bending low, he ran on until he returned to the highway somedistance above the home of Mrs. Chester. In the middle of the road hepaused uncertainly.
The moon was rising. Its light, although somewhat muffled by the clouds,was sufficient to enable him to perceive the outlines of objects at aconsiderable distance; it would also reveal him far better to pursuers,and make his escape more difficult were he again seen by them.
"Good-by, Ned," he whispered. "You're asleep, and you don't knowanything about it. Probably you'll never realize just what I've had togo through this night."
Fearing to follow the highway, he again struck across the fields, beforehim the deep stretch of timberland to the north of Turkey Hill. Bymaking his way through those woods and passing round the hill, he couldreach the Barville road some miles from Oakdale.
At the edge of the timber the night wind bore to his ears a sound thatagain halted him dead in his tracks. The bells of Oakdale wereringing--ringing wildly, furiously, as they might ring to arouse thevillagers to battle with a conflagration. Peal upon peal vibratedthrough the night air, and their clanging strokes stabbed the miserableboy like dagger thrusts.
"I know what it means!" he half panted, half sobbed. "They're turningthe whole town out to hunt me down! I'm alone, alone, with everybodyagainst me! What chance have I got? Well, they'll have to catch mebefore I give up."
The woods swallowed him; he was gone. The bells continued to fling forththeir wild alarm. As if wondering at it, and curious to know what it wasall about, the silvery moon peered through a break in the clouds,flooding the open space with its light.
But in the woods through which Charley Shultz staggered on it was dark.In his heart it was darker still.