by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER IV THE HAUNTED POOL
Next day Johnny disappeared among the rhododendrons and mountain ivy thatgrow along the right bank of Pounding Mill Creek. His step was light, hisheart was gay. And why not? Had he not fulfilled his mission? Had he notdiscovered the much needed half-back for the Hillcrest coach? And did henot carry in his hands, beside a short split bamboo rod, a can of "softcraws"? And were not soft craws the bait of baits for this season of theyear? He looked with pride and joy upon the half dozen crawfish, that,having recently shed their shells, held up soft and harmless claws forhis inspection.
"I'll get that old sport, the king of all black bass, today," he assuredhimself. "I'll have him in less than an hour."
He might have fulfilled this promise had it not been for a lurking shadowthat, passing silently on before him, came to rest at last on a rockyledge, above the second deep pool in Pounding Mill Creek.
Johnny had little interest in that second pool for the present. In factthat particular pool had a peculiar sort of horror for Johnny. A man hadbeen drowned in that pool. He recalled the story with a chill. A group offoreign laborers, so the story went, had driven up the creek from theGap. They had meant to dynamite this pool and get a mess of fish. Sincethis was against the law and since they found Zeb Page, a deputy sheriff,sitting on a near-by boulder, they had decided to take a swim. The poolwas deep, all of twenty feet. Four of the foreigners could swim. Thewater was fine. They enjoyed it immensely.
They had all crawled out on the bank to sun themselves when one of theirnumber, who had never known the delights of swimming, said, "That'snothing. I can do that." He dove in, clothes and all. He disappearedbeneath the placid surface of the pool. Ten seconds elapsed, twenty,forty, a full moment, and he did not reappear.
Alarmed, his comrades dove for him. Ten minutes later they brought him tothe top, dead. In each of his two coat pockets, they found a heavyrevolver.
"I always said," old Uncle Joe Creech always exclaimed after telling thisstory, "that totin' pistol guns would keep a good man down. And that tomy notion mighty nigh proves hit plumb fer sarton."
"And folks do say," he would add with a lowered voice and shifting eyes,"that this here foreigner can be heard on a still night in the dark ofthe moon, a shootin' off of them there pistol guns. But then shucks!" hewould squirt tobacco juice at a crack in the floor. "Shucks! How could hean' him drowned and dead?"
Sure enough, how could he? All the same, Johnny never dropped his bait inthat deep pool. He always had a shivery feeling that it might catch onsomething soft and that if he hauled in hard enough, he'd bring a deadbody to the top. Pure fancy, he knew this to be, but anyway there wereenough other pools to be fished in. Why not pass this one up? He meant topass it up on this day, as on all others, but fate had decreed otherwise.
Quite forgetting the deep pool that lay just beyond the last clump ofmountain laurel, Johnny happily dropped his first wriggling soft crawinto the shadowy waters of the pool next to that one where, more thanonce, a grand and glorious old black bass had eluded him.
"I'll get him," he whispered. "Get him for sure."
But would he? He waited. Lurking in the shadows, he watched the dry linesink down, inch by inch. Then, with a soundless parting of the lips, hesaw the line begin shooting away.
"Bass," he whispered. "Big old black bass."
The bass he knew, would run a yard, two, three yards, then pause. Shouldhe give the line a quick jerk then, setting the hook? Or, as many wiseanglers advised, should he wait for the second run?
The line ceased playing out. Old bass had paused. "Now," Johnnywhispered. "Now? Or--" He gave a quick jerk. He had him. His heartleaped. He began reeling in.
Then his hopes fell, only a little fellow. It must be. No real pull atall. Nor was he mistaken. Close to the surface there appeared a beautifulyoung bass, perhaps nine inches long, the kind those mountain nativescall "green pearch." With a deft snap of his line, Johnny switched himoff, then watched him as, for a moment, stunned by the suddenness of itall, he stood quite still in the water. Johnny's thoughts were alladmiration. How beautiful he was, like the things a Chinaman does ingreen lacquer.
But the big old black fellow, still lurking down there somewhere in theshadows? What of him? At once Johnny was alert. Drawing in his line, heoffered up one more precious soft craw on the altar of a fisherman'shope.
Down, down went the craw-dad. Down, down sunk the line. But what wasthis? Of a sudden the line shot away. Startled, eyes bulging, Johnnywatched his line play out, a yard, two, three, four, five, all but thelength of the pool.
Then, "Now!" he breathed once again. And--what? Was he snagged on a rock?It seemed so. But who could be sure? He strained at his line cautiously.It did not budge.
"Fellow'd think it was an alligator," he whispered. He put a little morestrain upon his line. It gave to his touch. Then, of a sudden it wentslack.
"Dumb! Got off! He--"
At that instant the pole was all but jerked from his hand and atprecisely the same instant, the most magnificent fish he had ever seenleaped clear of the water. He leaped again and yet again. Johnny's heartstood still. Then as he saw the fish vanish, felt the tug and knew hestill had him, his heart went racing.
It was at this precise second in the long history of the world thatJohnny's ears were smitten by an unearthly scream. It came from thedirection of that other pool, the foreigner's death pool, the hauntedpool. The scream was repeated not once but twice. It was followed by aloud splash.
There could be but one conclusion. Someone had been about to fall intothe pool. That someone could not swim. Someone HAD fallen into the deeppool.
Johnny dropped his pole, heaved a sudden sigh of regret and at the sametime dashed through the bushes. Arriving breathless at the edge of thatother pool, he saw a head rise partially above the water. A mass ofcrinkly brown hair floated on the surface. Without further thought,Johnny plunged, clothes and all, into the pool, to begin an Australiancrawl toward the spot where the head had been. But where was it? For aspace of ten seconds, he could not locate it. When at last his racinggaze came to rest, it was upon a spot close to the opposite bank. Thehead was there, also a pair of fair, round shoulders.
Johnny paused in his swimming to see a girl, of some sixteen summers,emerge, fully clothed and dripping, from the pool.
Just then she turned about to look at him and say, as a rare smile playedabout her lips, "Oh! You in swimming too?"
To measure Johnny's emotions at that moment would be impossible. The girlwas beautiful. But the witch? Why had she screamed? Had she meant todeceive him? And his fish? Gone of course. Even a Tennessee shad couldloose himself from a drifting pole like that.
"No," he said, speaking slowly. "I'm not in swimming. I fell in, same asyou did."
"But I didn't fall in," the girl shook the water from her hair. "I jumpedin."
"And do you always scream like that when you dive?" Johnny was puzzledand angry.
"Nearly always." The girl sat down upon a rock in the bright sunshine."There's some sort of bird that screams before he dives. I like it."
"And I suppose," Johnny said mockingly, "that you always go in clothesand all?"
"Always," she said soberly. "It wouldn't be quite decent not to unlessyou have a bathing suit. And I haven't one. I've asked Dad to buy me onemany times but he always forgets."
"Who's Dad?" Johnny asked quickly.
"Dad is Colonel Crider. I'm Jensie Crider. Now please," there was afriendly note in her voice, "stop being ugly. Come on out in the sun.We'll be all dry in a half hour. I want you to tell me about a lot ofthings."
Jensie Crider, Johnny was thinking to himself. The very girl I've wantedto know. And such a meeting as this!
"You made me lose a black bass, a--a whopper," he grinned in spite ofhimself.
"Oh! I'm sorry!" she was all sympathy. "But I'll find you another, abigger one. You wait and see!" She stood up to shake herself until her
damp garments spun about her. "Now please do come up and get all driedout."
Who could but obey this order from so beautiful a siren?
"Now tell me," she said when Johnny had settled himself upon the rock,"what do you do besides catch fish?"
"Sometimes I go scouting for football players."
"Do you find them?"
"Found one last night."
"Down here in the mountains?" she voiced her surprise.
"It's Ballard Ball. You'd be astonished. He's an artful dodger. I--" hewas about to tell her how he had found him but changed his mind. "I--I'mgoing to take him with me to college."
"Oh, college." The girl's voice dropped. "Father wants me to go tocollege. I'm not going."
"Why not?"
"Why should I?"
Johnny told her why. He spoke in such glowing terms of big footballgames, wild rallies, of bonfires, and sings around great open fireplaces,the joyous friendships of youth and the satisfaction to be had fromlearning something new every day that at last quoting from last Sabbath'sSunday School lesson, she murmured:
"'Almost thou persuadest me.'"
"But see!" she sprang to her feet. "Now we are all dry. And I shall keepmy promise. Now for that big, black bass!"