Frank Armstrong, Drop Kicker

by Matthew M. Colton

  CHAPTER XXII.

  SAVED BY THE WIRES.

  Finding himself trapped, Frank threw himself on the door and wrenchedat the knob with all his strength. It held firm. Again and again hedrove his shoulder against the panels, but the door, though old, wasstout, and resisted his savage attacks. Soon he gave up in despairthe attempt to escape that way.

  "I'm kidnapped for sure," he said aloud, and his voice soundedstrangely hollow in that empty hallway. He shivered, for, althoughthe night outside was mild and warm, inside there was a deadly chillin the air as if the sunlight had never touched it. A half moon washanging in the sky and lit the countryside faintly, but in here wasthe deepest gloom. Tiny slits of light came through the chinks hereand there in the boarded windows and cast long knife-like bars acrossthe floor, but instead of lighting the place they actually made itseem blacker because of the contrast.

  Frank was not a coward, but he would have given a good deal to besafely out of the place. The whole house seemed full of noises. Heturned his back to the door and faced the stairway, which, now thathis eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom, he could make outdimly. He could trace it about half way up to the floor above, whereit disappeared into utter blackness. As he strained his eyes andears a board creaked near him, as if a human foot had trod on it.He recoiled as if shot and turned his eyes in the direction of thenoise. But there was no repetition of the sound. Away down the hallwhere his vision could not penetrate came a rustle as of silk, andthen what appeared to be a few stealthy steps; then silence, brokenonly by the sighing of the night wind around the corners of the house.

  It was all Frank could do to keep from yelling with fright, for thenoises of the old house had gripped his nerve. But by degrees, as hestood there with his back to the door, he gained control of himself.There was nothing to hurt him, he argued with himself; the noiseswere only natural ones; the rustlings were perhaps made by the wingsof birds that had made their nests in the old house, finding entrancethrough the chimney, maybe, or through a broken upper window.

  "Oh, what a dummy I am," said Frank to himself, "to allow myself tobe caught this way! I have been spirited off here and locked up for awhile so that Gamma may have its own way up at the Library meeting.But David and Jimmy and the Codfish can carry it through as wellor better than I could. They can present the scheme and read theconstitution--the constitution," he gasped aloud; "I have it in mypocket!" His hand flew to his pocket. There it was, sure enough, abulky bundle of papers.

  "That settles it. I've got to get out of this hole somehow." Therewas a determined ring to his voice as it echoed from the bare walls.He left his place by the outer door and turned into the room on theright, the door of which stood partly open. Guided by the chinksof light he examined the windows one after the other. Two of themwere broken, but they were securely boarded up from the outside. Thewindow at the side of the room had not even a sash. Raising his foothe drove it here with all his might against the barricading boards,but they did not budge to his repeated blows. He gave up this roomas a bad job, and felt his way into the hall once more and across itto the opposite front room. Here he had no better luck. The windowswere securely shut and boarded like the windows in the other room.At one of them, where there was an opening of several inches betweenthe boards and where the light came through more strongly than atany other of the windows, he smashed the glass with his foot and,getting hold of the edge of the board, tried to wrench it loose withhis hands. He might as well have tried to shake down the door post.The nails, driven in years before, had probably rusted, and theboards would have had to be split to fragments before the nails wouldrelease them.

  Nothing daunted, Frank kept on. He pushed open doors that squeaked onrusty hinges and battered at the barriers across the windows. Oncein his rounds he caught his toe on some obstruction on the floor andfell headlong. The crash woke the echoes in the old house and set inmotion scores of mice and rats that went scurrying, squeaking andchattering across the floors.

  Retracing his steps, Frank once more found himself, without furthermishap, in the hall where he had started his futile round. "I'll tryit upstairs," he said, and advanced boldly toward the upper regionsof the house. The stairs creaked and groaned horribly as he ascended,and he heard the patter of the feet of rats as they scurried beforehim. It was none too pleasant a sound. Two of the rooms he tried onthe second floor brought no better result, but in the third, at theback of the house, he found a displaced board and a broken sash.

  "So this is where our friends, the birds, get in," he said. "Thequestion is, can I get out?"

  He stuck his head through the opening and looked down. Below therewas nothing but blackness. "I don't dare risk it. I might break myneck in a cellarway if I dropped." He drew in his head, refreshed bythe breath of free night air, and continued his search. Stumblingthrough the gloom of the upper hall, his hand came in contact with aladder. He gave it a jerk, but it was nailed securely to the floor."The attic!" he exclaimed aloud; "if there's a skylight and I can getout on the roof perhaps I can make some one hear."

  Up the ladder he went. If it was black below, it was still blackerwhere he was now penetrating, for not even a ray of moonlightentered. The air was close and stifling, and in the attic of the oldhouse, where he found himself in a few moments, he could scarcelybreathe. His entrance there disturbed some night birds that had takenpossession of the place, and they flew about uttering angry cries anddashing so close to him that he could feel the fanning of air fromtheir wings. With his arm across his face, he felt for a ladder whichmust lead to the skylight, if indeed there was a skylight in the roofabove. After traversing half the length of the house and collidingwith the corner of the chimney, his hand touched wood. It was anotherladder, and his heart jumped with joy at the touch. The rounds werecovered with a thick layer of dust, deposited there through manyyears of disuse. Up its short length Frank went cautiously till hishead touched the roof. He felt around carefully till his hand toucheda hasp. With a sudden jerk he pulled it aside and with his headpressing against the skylight, bored upward. To his great joy theheavy skylight moved and swung up on its rusty hinges, and in anothermoment he was out on the roof of the house with the stars above hishead.

  What a relief it was to be out of that dismal house! The horrors ofit lay below him, but was he any better off? Could he make any onehear him, and, if they did hear him, would any one be likely to cometo such a place? Wasn't he in as bad a fix as before? These questionsjumped into his brain in rapid succession.

  "Help! Help!" Frank raised his voice and shouted. Again and again heshouted, but there was no answering hail. Off to the left he couldplainly see the lights of Queen's School. As a bird flies, it was notmore than half a mile from his perch to the Library where his friendswere holding their meeting and no doubt wondering where he was. Whatwere they thinking of him? He began hitching along on the roof towardthe front of the house, his intention being to attempt a descent,hand over hand, along the roof's edge to the eaves, where, if hecould see the ground, he might risk a drop.

  Hitching along laboriously, Frank encountered an obstruction whenhe was halfway to the end of his journey. He felt of it. It was aninsulator, and stretching away from it on both sides was a wire ofsmall diameter. "Telephone," said Frank to himself. "How I wish Ihad an instrument." He climbed over it and went on. Suddenly hestopped: "By Jove, I wonder if that is our wire to Queen's Station?It certainly comes down this way." He was thinking hard.

  "It _is_ the wire!" he shouted joyfully. "I remember now Murphy saidhe put an insulator on this old house because there were no treesnear to take the span."

  Instantly he turned back to the wire. On one side of the insulatorthe wire was stretched tightly, but the other side hung sagging. Hereached out and pulled on the slack side and found that he could drawit up a foot or more.

  "Just the thing!" he exclaimed joyfully. "Now we'll see what happens!"

  Straddling the roof, Frank again took hold of the slack loop of thewire and pulled with all his s
trength. When he had hauled it as tightas possible, he reached down and put a coil around his foot, and wasoverjoyed to find that he could hold the wire in position that way,although the strain almost pulled him apart. Then, taking his knife,he began to saw at the wire. When he had made a little notch in it heworked it back and forth, bending it this way and that, and suddenlyit fell apart.

  "Hurrah!" shouted Frank. "Now we'll see if any one hears me."

  Taking a broken end of wire in each hand he began tapping themtogether. Carefully he called: _F-F-F-F-F-F_; _JC-JC-JC-JC_. Thesewere the calls of his own room and of Jimmy's. He was using the endsof the broken wire to send Morse signals. After each attempt, withfingers moistened to accentuate their sensitiveness to any returnsignal, he waited. Thus calling and waiting he kept on for severalminutes. "They're probably all in the Library, but Murphy ought tohear me if the wire is cut in at the Station."

  Varying the call of _Q_, which was the Station, with calls of _F_ and_JC_, Frank kept on, but with the strain of the wire pulling on hisfoot and cutting into the flesh he was nearly exhausted.

  Suddenly in response to his call of _F-F-F_ came a shock which madehim jump. Some one had opened a telegraph key somewhere on the line.The current had been broken and closed. He tapped slowly, making theletters very plain so that no one could misunderstand, "_C-o-m-eq-u-i-c-k h-a-u-n-t-e-d h-o-u-s-e F-r-a-n-k_." Over and over herepeated his message. Suddenly there came a succession of electricthrills along the wire as if a key had been rattled rapidly, andFrank received the signals plainly through his moistened fingers"_O-K._" He had been heard and understood. With a sigh of relief, helet go of the loose end of the wire and shook it free of his foot.The released wire went swishing down the roof and the connection wasbroken for good.

  Carefully Frank made his way back to the skylight and backed down theladder into the darkness beneath. "I'll be ready for them--if theycome," he added dubiously. "And the back room where the board is offis more comfortable in spite of the rats than this sharp roof." Downamong the startled birds that beat madly around the attic he wentagain, down the second ladder to the floor, and then made his way tothe back room, where he settled himself on the window ledge waitingfor his rescue, if rescue it was to be.

  Frank found himself in comfort compared to his position on the roof,but he soon began to wonder whether he had not better, after all,take a chance of a drop in the darkness. He got up, examined theopening, found it too small to squeeze through, and was preparing tomake the best of it on his ledge, when his ear caught the sound ofa step in the lower part of the house. He stood up with body bentforward listening intently.

  There was no imagination about it this time. It was a slow step,sometimes shuffling, then again firm and quick. Occasionally itstopped, seemingly irresolute. Then it began again. Whatever orwhoever it was, the owner of the step appeared to be going the roundof the rooms. Now it was on the stairs ascending. Frank listenedwith his heart in his mouth. Slowly the step came on, reachingthe landing, stopped, began again and came on shufflingly in hisdirection. Frank stepped on the window ledge and reached for theopening between the boards. Suddenly a light flared up, and throughthe open door Frank saw a boy standing with a lighted match in hishand. It lit the gloom only for a moment and went out in the draft.Frank, startled by the sight, gave a yell. There was an answeringgroan, the sound of a falling body and then silence. Almost at thesame moment shouts were heard outside. Frank sprang to the openingand answered the hail with all the power of his lungs: "Here, here,'round at the back of the house!" There was the sound of crashingthrough the tangle of shrubbery and a voice from below--Jimmy'svoice--calling, "What in thunder are you doing there?"

  "Taking a moonlight meditation," returned Frank flippantly; "buthurry up, I've had enough. Rip off a board on one of the lowerwindows if you can. I'm in trouble up here."

  Lights flashed below and the sound of several different voices cameto Frank's ears. Reassured by the presence of his friends, Frankgroped his way to the door in front of which his visitor had fallen.He found the huddled heap of humanity, touched the face and feltit warm, which relieved him greatly. From below came the sound ofripping wood and breaking glass, and, in another minute, Jimmy, witha lantern in his hand, bounded up the stairway, followed by Lewisand several other boys. All were astonished to see Frank, his facestreaked with dust and grime, standing by the side of a prostratefigure. The rays of the lantern were directed to the face of the oneon the floor.

  "Bronson!" all exclaimed in a breath.

  "Great Scott!" cried Jimmy in amazement, "what are you fellows doinghere and what's the matter with Bronson?"

  Bronson, who had fainted from fright when he heard Frank's yell inthe darkness, now opened his eyes and sat up, looking around dazedly.Suddenly he seemed to remember: "Don't leave me! Don't leave me!" hecried piteously, grabbing Jimmy by the legs. "I'll tell all about it,but don't leave me here. He'll come back."

  "Tell us what? Who'll come back?" ejaculated Jimmy.

  And there on the floor Bronson poured out his story in brokensentences and with hanging head. He told how the Gamma had plannedthe kidnapping of Frank to break up the meeting, with the hope thatthe attempt to form a new society might be checked and the absent boydiscredited. The attempt, as it proved, had been partly successful,for, despite the eloquent words of the Codfish and David, who hadstriven to hold it together until Frank could be found, the Gammaelement in the meeting had broken it up. It was on Jimmy's return tothe room that he had heard Frank's signal and gone in search of him.

  "Was Dixon in this scheme?" said Frank, when Bronson finished.

  "Yes," was the answer.

  "And was he responsible for the affair in the bell tower?"

  "No; Whitlock, Colson and I were the ones in that. But I'll make itright with Dr. Hobart. I'll confess everything. Only don't leave mehere, please don't."

  On the way back to Queen's School, Bronson freely confessed hispart in the affair of the haunted house. He had been detailed byDixon to see that the men who had been hired to spirit Frank away,carried out their part of the work, and he was hidden near the pathwhen Frank was marched past him. Just as he started to leave, therearose alongside of him the gigantic figure of a man, who, mutteringsomething about being on his property, drew him to the back of thehouse and, entering by the cellarway, left him there, fastening thedoor on the outside. More dead than alive from fear, Bronson hadheard Frank shuffling around on the floor above him, and then, whenthe noise ceased, with a few matches he had in his pocket he startedto find his way out. During Frank's absence on the roof he had gainedthe first floor, and it was he whom Frank heard when he returnedto his post by the broken window. The shock of Frank's voice whenBronson, searching for a means of escape, had penetrated to thesecond floor, was too much for his shaking nerves, and he collapsedon the floor. The men who had kidnapped and carried off Frank werethree men from the village, one of whom was a locksmith, whichaccounted for his possession of a key to the old house.

  It later came out that the gigantic man who had captured andincarcerated Bronson, was none other than a half-witted negro of thevillage, who was abroad at all times of the night, and who, unknownto any one, had a way of entering and leaving the old house by anopen cellarway. It was probably he who, by showing lights in thehouse at night, had terrified the villagers into the belief that theplace was haunted.

  Before Bronson was allowed to go that night, he was taken to Frank'sroom, where, under the dictation of the Codfish, he wrote and signeda full confession of the part he had played in the bell towerincident, and of his knowledge of the kidnapping of Frank.