“Anything you say, sir.”
No use to try to break Perry Stokes of that “sir” business. No. I tried it too many times. I threatened to fire him out of the club if he didn’t stop using that “sir” every time he talked to somebody. But you can’t break a habit that a fellow gets honest from his own father. No. His pop was butler up at Judge Granbery’s. And that’s just what Perry Stokes was to our club. Nobody could change him. In fact, you would have broken his heart if you made him stop that.
The boys were all at the clubhouse. We could hear them singing “Silvery Moon,” and I could see Lew Hunter’s shadow on the window shade as he sat by the organ and played.
Just as we turned to go up the porch steps, there came from across the river the most unholy scream I ever heard. No use trying to tell you what it sounded like. I couldn’t. No, it was a yell like I never heard before in my whole life. It wasn’t human. It broke out like an angry cry, turned into a fearful howl, and died out in a shivering wail that left a ghostly echo bounding back from the Pelham hills.
“What was that, Hawkins?” asked Perry in a frightened whisper.
“Golly Moses!” I exclaimed. But I couldn’t say any more. I rushed up the porch steps and burst open the door, Perry at my heels. The singing stopped abruptly. The boys turned upon me with a questioning look.
“Didn’t you hear it?” I asked.
“Hear what?” asked Shadow Loomis.
I looked at them for a moment, and then I shook my head and, without a word, walked back into my little writing room, where I sat down to write to the twins. The singing in the meeting room began again. Lew Hunter was teaching them a new song, new to those boys, although I often heard my mother sing it—
On a hill far away,
Stood an old, rugged cross—
Yeah, I believe it sounded sweeter to me that night just because I remembered how it sounded in my mother’s voice when she sang it on an evening while I was in Pop’s study doing my lessons and she was working in the kitchen. I snatched up my pen and was soon scribbling away on the letter to Harold—
It took me about twenty minutes to write it. I had just sealed the envelope when the singing stopped.
Shadow Loomis stood between the curtains that hung in the door of my office.
“Would you care to go across, Hawkins?” he asked. “Robby and I are ready to go. And there’s a Pelham boy—Dave Burns, says he knows you—and he is afraid to go home alone. Wants us to take him over.”
I licked a two-cent stamp and pounded it down on the letter with my fist. I thought of that unearthly sound I had heard—
“Oh well,” I said. “I’ll go over with him—sure. How about the other fellows?”
“They’re starting for home with Dick. Only you and Robby and Perry Stokes and my brother John—”
“Sure,” I broke in. “As long as Perry is there to come back with me.”
I wish I had said no. I wish I hadn’t taken that trip across the river that night. Of course, I got through alright. But that night stays in my memory as if somebody had printed it there with a red-hot iron.
“Perry,” I called softly, as I reached to blow out my desk lamp.
“I have the rifle, Hawkins,” he assured me. “Whenever you are ready, sir.”
“Come on, Shadow,” I said.
We put out the lights in the clubhouse. Outside on the porch, Robby and the Rolling Stone waited for us, talking to a dark figure whom I recognized as Dave Burns, one of the Pelham fellows from across the river.
“Have you got a boat, Dave?” I asked.
“I had one,” he said. “When I come over, I had one. But ’tain’t thar’ now, Hawkins. Thet’s jis’ why I come up to ax yo’ boys would yo’ go over wit’ me. When I got down to the bank thar’, it war’ gone.”
“That looks suspicious, to say the least,” said Robby Hood. “Who could have taken it?”
“Oh,” I said. “Who indeed? Why not Stoner or Androfski the Silent? Or maybe Jude the Fifth or our friend with whom we haven’t had the pleasure of talking to thus far, Three-Finger Fred?”
“Don’t make no diff’rence,” said Dave, the Pelham. “They allus looks alike to me. I ain’t hankerin’ to meet none o’ them. It war’ bad enough in the old days when Stoner—”
“Shut up,” I said shortly.
We had been walking down the bank. The Rolling Stone had been leading the way, and I saw him stop with his arms stretched out wide, a signal for us all to stop.
A dim shadow—it was too dark down in the bushes near the riverbank—but a dim shadow had crossed our path. It was only the movement we saw. Nobody could have told what it was that moved.
“Doggone!” muttered Rolling Stone John. “Looks like one o’ them smart ellicks; take yer time, Hawkins—”
You bet we took our time. Rolling Stone Loomis had sharper ears than his brother Shadow. We waited for fully five minutes, expecting to see it move again. But nothing moved. I walked up close to the Rolling Stone.
“What was it, John?” I asked.
“Search me,” he replied. “You saw as much as I did. Where’s that guy with the gun?”
Perry moved ahead of me. He stood beside the Rolling Stone. I could just see them there together, peering into the dark toward the water.
“Come on,” said the Rolling Stone. “I ain’t afeared, Hawkins.”
He and Perry Stokes led the way.
I wish I had turned back right there. I wish I had not gone a step farther. I wish I had believed the Pelham fellows when they told me that the thing that had frightened them over on Burney’s Field was not an owl. But what’s the use wishing now?
We followed Perry and the Rolling Stone. Perry stood with his rifle while John Loomis ducked into the willows and brought around the homemade launch that belonged to Robby Hood. We all piled in and took Dave Burns over to the Pelham shore. We said we would take him up to his house, so we carried out our promise. We walked along the single path through the woods till we came to Dave’s house. He said good-night and went in. Shadow suggested that we take a look at Burney’s Field by moonlight. It was only a short distance to the edge of the field through a little grove. I would have said no. But when Shadow mentioned it, the Rolling Stone, who never knew what it meant to be afraid, started right for the edge of the trees that formed the boundary line of Burney’s Field. We followed him. Before we knew it, we stood looking out upon that wide stretch of treeless ground. The moon, a silver crescent, threw a silver glow all around us. I whispered that we had better be getting back to the boat and home. But no! Rolling Stone wanted to stand there a while and look at the moonlight hanging like silver threads upon the tips of the trees around the edge of Burney’s Field. This was no time for a thing like that, I said, but—
Ah!
From somewhere on Burney’s Field came again that awful cry that I had heard earlier in the evening—a terrible cry, a sound I can not describe, but in all my life, I don’t believe I ever heard the like of it. There was something in that cry that simply froze my blood—scared me so badly that, in my excitement, I leaped clean off my feet and stumbled over some object. I landed flat upon my stomach between two trees. I heard Shadow Loomis call, “John! John! Come back here, you fool—don’t you dare to go—” And then they came over to me, all of them, and were just helping me to my feet when once again came the cry—so near us as to sound ten times louder, and the next minute the boys had dropped me and yelled, yeah they yelled, and beat it—for a terrible thing had suddenly come out of nowhere and was plunging madly in the dark around us—I raised myself on one knee and threw myself over into a dark patch of bush, as something like a whirlwind went crashing through the trees not two feet from my head. I heard the loud voice of Rolling Stone John—
“Follow me, you guys—”
His tone was a command. The next minute we were all running for the river. Without a word, we hustled into the homemade launch and pushed off.
“What the dickens was it?�
� I asked, as the motor started.
“Listen!”
It was the Rolling Stone who spoke.
“Jumpin’ jeeminy, the old Stoney fella!”
The sound of the old brass horn floated up to us upon that still night air. What had that old brass horn’s false notes to do with the terrible scream that had scared us silly and the unknown thing that had come near crushing my head? The Pelhams were right. It was not an owl that had scared the Pelhams. It was this unearthly screaming thing—
“You boys better hustle up the river for home,” I said to Shadow. “And here Perry, give them the rifle—they’ve got farther to go than we have.”
“Not so you could notice it,” said Shadow shoving back the gun. “We are three to your two. Me and Robby and Rolling Sto—I mean my brother John—we can take care of ourselves. Besides, we got a motor. We will get home all right. You fellas beat it fast as you can and get home safe.”
Which we did.
CHAPTER 19
Link Returns
DOC WATERS and the sheriff were sitting on our clubhouse porch when we came down to our next meeting.
“Glad to see you, Doc,” I said. “And you too, Sheriff. Goin’ to stay for the meetin’?”
“Oh maybe so,” said the sheriff, with a grin. “We ain’t seen you boys for quite a spell.”
“We’ve got something to talk over with you,” said Doc Waters.
I nodded my head. “I thought so,” I said, smiling. “I been expecting you to come.”
The boys all followed our captain, Dick Ferris, into the clubhouse. Doc and the sheriff came in, too. Perry Stokes brought two chairs forward for the men, and then all the boys got in their places around the table. Dick hit the table with his wooden hammer, and the meeting was on.
“Well,” said Doc, after our roll call. “Old Judge Granbery sent us down here. He wants to know what mischief you boys were up to over on Burney’s Field the other night!”
“No mischief,” I answered. “We didn’t have any trouble at all, Doc.”
“But the noise,” said Doc. “I heard it, but I thought I wouldn’t say anything about it. But when the judge told me he heard it—”
“Yeah, the judge heard it,” spoke up the sheriff. “He told me right away to get Doc Waters and investigate the noise.”
“You mean that cry in the night—that awful scream?” I asked.
“I sure do,” said the sheriff. “It seemed to skeer the old Judge a heap. Must ’a’ been turribel. Judge Granbery says he never heard sich a sound in his born days. What were it?”
“I wish I knew,” I said. Then I told Doc how the Pelhams had first heard it. I told him how we took Dave Burns home and how we had been frightened to death in the woods on the edge of Burney’s Field. By the time I had finished, Doc had a very serious look on his face.
“Hawkins,” he said. “You’ve been through a lot of danger in your young life, and you’ve seen some exciting times. But I warn you about this—there is some great danger over on Burney’s Field. What it is, I can’t say. But I warn you to stay at a safe distance—especially at nighttime—from Burney’s Field.”
“Now what did this thing look like?” asked the sheriff. “Tell me all the p’ticklers.”
“It didn’t look like anything, sir,” spoke up Perry Stokes. “We stood at the edge of the woods where Burney’s Field began. It was very dark under those trees, with bushes all around on every side. Something passed us, but we could not see what it looked like, sir.”
“But you must have seen something,” Doc Waters insisted.
“I did,” said Shadow Loomis. “But what it was I couldn’t tell you. You see, just as Perry says, it shot past us in the dark. Call it a shadow, if you like. A great dark shadow—”
“A shadder ain’t goin’ to make sich noise and screechin’,” broke in the sheriff. “Now, might this yere Stoner’s Boy be mixed up in this?”
“Perhaps,” I said. “But I can’t say. It might be Androfski—”
“Is that boy still in the habit of coming around here?” asked Doc.
“Very much so,” I said. “The habit has grown on him. He comes often.”
Shadow Loomis and Robby Hood were explaining to the sheriff then for the third time just exactly what happened the night we heard that awful cry. Doc Waters came over and sat close to me.
“All right, Hawkins,” he said in a low voice. “Now tell me. What was it?”
I looked him in the eye.
“What’s the idea?” I said. “Didn’t I tell you, Doc, all that I know about it?”
“Oh, come,” said Doc with a smile. “You know more, alright. I know you, Hawkins. I never forget how you figured out some things down in Cuba which were worse puzzles than this.”
I smiled.
“Give me time, Doc,” I said. “Tell you the truth, I got such a fright the other night that I’m not over it yet. I haven’t been able to think. Give me a little time. I’ll come and tell you when I find out.”
Doc patted me on the shoulder.
“All right, my boy,” he said. “But I’m looking to you to take care of these boys. Don’t let any of them get hurt. You know it’s dangerous across the river. Keep them here. That way we won’t have to explain anything to the judge. You know what a hard time I had to get him to allow you to have your meetings.”
“You can trust me, Doc,” I said. “I’ll not let any of ’em get hurt.”
Doc nodded and rose quickly.
“Alright, Mister Sheriff,” he said. “Let’s get out and let these boys finish their meeting in peace.”
The sheriff got up. Doc turned, and held out his hand to me. “And yourself, Hawkins—take care of yourself—I wish you wouldn’t go over there any more.”
“It’s goin’ t’ be all right, Doc,” I said softly, as I took his hand and shook it. “Thanks just the same. How you expect me to figure this thing out if I don’t go over there again?”
Doc nodded his head; the next minute he and the sheriff hurried out of the door.
“And now for our regular meeting,” said Dick. “Hawkins, what other business have we to talk about beside that Burney’s Field thing?”
“The Skinny Guy,” I said. “How long since he has been around here?”
“Not since the day we were over in the deserted dugout,” said Shadow Loomis. “I’ve been wondering, too, where he disappeared to.”
“Don’t worry about the old Skinny Guy,” said Jerry Moore. “He’ll show up again soon. Most likely he’s scouting around after Stoner. I know him.”
“Didn’t he leave any word where he was going?” asked Shadow Loomis.
“He never does,” said Robby Hood, laughing. “He just ducks, and then all of a sudden, he bobs up again someday.”
But I was lonesome for Link, and although he had left us often in this way, I was a bit worried about him. What with all this strange goings-on with Stoner, Androfski, Simon Bleaker, and the rest, it wouldn’t have surprised me at all if Link had become trapped somewhere in a den of one or the other of these strange characters. So just as soon as the meeting ended and the boys all shot out to the hollow for baseball practice, I hustled on down to the willows. The minutes could wait, I said to myself. I would write them down when I came back. What I wanted now was a canoe, and I hurried Johnny McLaren’s yellow birch out of its hiding place and shoved it into the water. When I walked back to get a paddle, the bushes moved, and Perry Stokes came out with his rifle.
“I’ll paddle for you, Hawkins,” he said.
“I’m going down to the island, Perry,” I said. “I won’t need—”
“I’m going along, sir,” he said. “I’ve got the rifle, you see. I don’t like to see you go out alone this way, sir. And on the river, too. That Jude boy is looking for you—”
“Oh, alright,” I broke in. “Hurry on, jump in. Wait, I might as well get both paddles now, since you’re going with me.”
We paddled swiftly downstream with the current giv
ing us a helping hand; neither of us spoke a word on the whole trip. Once, as we passed the old wrecked steamboat Smokey City on the bank near Hobbs’s Ferry, Perry caught my eye and nodded toward shore as though he meant to remind me of Jude. But I turned my eyes quickly to the water, and we shot along until, fifteen minutes later, we landed on Seven Willows Island. We beached the canoe in a safe place, and then I started running for the little backwater pool, the “lily pond” as Link called it, where he had his old houseboat, in which he had been camping out during the past few weeks.
But the place was silent. Not a sign of anybody in this hidden spot. The birds, though, in the thick trees above were splitting their throats with glad song, but that alone was all one heard. I ran up to the houseboat. The door was open. Link never bothered about locking it since it was in a hidden place and no one beside us was ever known to have discovered the hidden houseboat, except one Red Runner, Fourth-in-Line Oder, who was now safe in the judge’s school for bad boys.
I hurried through the houseboat, hoping to find some sign that would tell me where Link had gone. But all that I could figure out was that he had not been in the houseboat for several days. The bread that he had in his little food cabinet was hard as a rock. The dust upon the table also proved that he had not been around for quite a time. Link always keeps his place pretty clean. He was a good housekeeper. He had to keep house for his pop in the good old days before they got rich, when they both used to live down on our river in an old houseboat not even as good as this one.
“Come on, Perry,” I said. “Link’s not been here for days. We might as well go back. Step lively, I want to go through this wildwood fast as we can.”
This island is a beautiful place. Any place is beautiful in summertime where there are a great many trees and bushes and grass. But this old island is a wonderful place. It seems as if nature had tried to see how beautiful she could make it. I thought, when we started back, that we would go as fast as we could. I found myself walking slow now, gazing around me, above me, and about my feet. It made me think of the old pioneers who used to walk these places. No wonder they were fond of these wildwoods, even though they were then thick with enemy Indians. I said to myself, I bet the spirit of old Daniel Boone and the ghost of Simon Kenton came back here in the summertime to enjoy all this loveliness. The wild flowers decorated different spots until one would think—
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