by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER VI. THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL PLAYS GHOST
At midnight, the Peaceful Hart ranch lay broodily quiet under itsrock-rimmed bluff. Down in the stable the saddle-horses were butformless blots upon the rumpled bedding in their stalls--exceptHuckleberry, the friendly little pinto with the white eyelashes and theblue eyes, and the great, liver-colored patches upon his sides, and theappetite which demanded food at unseasonable hours, who was now munchingand nosing industriously in the depths of his manger, and making a gooddeal of noise about it.
Outside, one of the milch cows drew a long, sighing breath of contentwith life, lifted a cud in mysterious, bovine manner, and cheweddreamily. Somewhere up the bluff a bobcat squalled among the rocks,and the moon, in its dissipated season of late rising, lifted itselfindolently up to where it could peer down upon the silent ranch.
In the grove where the tiny creek gurgled under the little stone bridge,someone was snoring rhythmically in his blankets, for the boys hadtaken to sleeping in the open air before the earliest rose had openedbuds in the sunny shelter of the porch. Three feet away, a sleeperstirred restlessly, lifted his head from the pillow, and slappedhalf-heartedly at an early mosquito that was humming in his ear. Hereached out, and jogged the shoulder of him who snored.
"Say, Gene, if you've got to sleep at the top of your voice, you betterdrag your bed down into the orchard," he growled. "Let up a little,can't yuh?"
"Ah, shut up and let a fellow sleep!" mumbled Gene, snuggling the coversup to his ears.
"Just what I want YOU to do. You snore like a sawmill. Darn it, you'vegot to get out of the grove if yuh can't--"
"Ah-h-EE-EE!" wailed a voice somewhere among the trees, the sound risingweirdly to a subdued crescendo, clinging there until one's flesh wentcreepy, and then sliding mournfully down to silence.
"What's that?" The two jerked themselves to a sitting position, andstared into the blackness of the grove.
"Bobcat," whispered Clark, in a tone which convinced not even himself.
"In a pig's ear," flouted Gene, under his breath. He leaned far over andpoked his finger into a muffled form. "D'yuh hear that noise, Grant?"
Grant sat up instantly. "What's the matter?" he demanded, ratherill-naturedly, if the truth be told.
"Did you hear anything--a funny noise, like--"
The cry itself finished the sentence for him. It came from nowhere,it would seem, since they could see nothing; rose slowly to a subduedshriek, clung there nerve-wrackingly, and then wailed mournfully down tosilence. Afterward, while their ears were still strained to the sound,the bobcat squalled an answer from among the rocks.
"Yes, I heard it," said Grant. "It's a spook. It's the wail of a lostspirit, loosed temporarily from the horrors of purgatory. It's sent as awarning to repent you of your sins, and it's howling because it hates togo back. What you going to do about it?"
He made his own intention plain beyond any possibility ofmisunderstanding. He lay down and pulled the blanket over his shoulders,cuddled his pillow under his head, and disposed himself to sleep.
The moon climbed higher, and sent silvery splinters of light quiveringdown among the trees. A frog crawled out upon a great lily--pad andcroaked dismally.
Again came the wailing cry, nearer than before, more subdued, and forthat reason more eerily mournful. Grant sat up, muttered to himself, andhastily pulled on some clothes. The frog cut himself short in the middleof a deep-throated ARR-RR-UMPH and dove headlong into the pond; and thesplash of his body cleaving the still surface of the water made Geneshiver nervously. Grant reached under his pillow for something, andfreed himself stealthily from a blanketfold.
"If that spook don't talk Indian when it's at home, I'm very muchmistaken," he whispered to Clark, who was nearest. "You boys stay here."
Since they had no intention of doing anything else, they obeyed himimplicitly and without argument, especially as a flitting whitefigure appeared briefly and indistinctly in a shadow-flecked patch ofmoonlight. Crouching low in the shade of a clump of bushes, Grant stoletoward the spot.
When he reached the place, the thing was not there. Instead, he glimpsedit farther on, and gave chase, taking what precautions he could againstbetraying himself. Through the grove and the gate and across the roadhe followed, in doubt half the time whether it was worth the trouble.Still, if it was what he suspected, a lesson taught now would probablyinsure against future disturbances of the sort, he thought, and keptstubbornly on. Once more he heard the dismal cry, and fancied it held amocking note.
"I'll settle that mighty quick," he promised grimly, as he jumped aditch and ran toward the place.
Somewhere among the currant bushes was a sound of eery laughter. Heswerved toward the place, saw a white form rise suddenly from the veryground, as it seemed, and lift an arm with a slow, beckoning gesture.Without taking aim, he raised his gun and fired a shot at it. The armdropped rather suddenly, and the white form vanished. He hurried up towhere it had stood, knelt, and felt of the soft earth. Without a doubtthere were footprints there--he could feel them. But he hadn't a matchwith him, and the place was in deep shade.
He stood up and listened, thought he heard a faint sound farther along,and ran. There was no use now in going quietly; what counted most wasspeed.
Once more he caught sight of the white form fleeing from him like thevery wraith it would have him believe it. Then he lost it again; andwhen he reached the spot where it disappeared, he fell headlong, hisfeet tangled in some white stuff. He swore audibly, picked himself up,and held the cloth where the moon shone full upon it. It looked like asheet, or something of the sort, and near one edge was a moist patch ofred. He stared at it dismayed, crumpled the cloth into a compact bundle,tucked it under his arm, and ran on, his ears strained to catch somesound to guide him.
"Well, anyhow, I didn't kill him," he muttered uneasily as he crawledthrough a fence into the orchard. "He's making a pretty swift get-awayfor a fellow that's been shot."
In the orchard the patches of moonlight were larger, and across oneof them he glimpsed a dark object, running wearily. Grant repressed animpulse to shout, and used the breath for an extra burst of speed. Theghost was making for the fence again, as if it would double upon itstrail and reach some previously chosen refuge. Grant turned and ran alsotoward the fence, guessing shrewdly that the fugitive would head for theplace where the wire could be spread about, and a beaten trail led fromthere straight out to the road which passed the house. It was the shortcut from the peach orchard; and it occurred to him that this particularspook seemed perfectly familiar with the byways of the ranch. Near thefence he made a discovery that startled him a little.
"It's a squaw, by Jove!" he cried when he caught an unmistakable flickerof skirts; and the next moment he could have laughed aloud if he had notbeen winded from the chase. The figure reached the fence before him, andin the dim light he could see it stoop to pass through. Then it seemedas if the barbs had caught in its clothing and held it there. Itstruggled to free itself; and in the next minute he rushed up andclutched it fast.
"Why don't you float over the treetops?" he panted ironically."Ghosts have no business getting their spirit raiment tangled up in abarbed-wire fence."
It answered with a little exclamation, with a sob following close uponit. There was a sound of tearing cloth, and he held his captive upright,and with a merciless hand turned her face so that the moonlight struckit full. They stared at each other, breathing hard from more than therace they had run.
"Well--I'll--be--" Grant began, in blank amazement.
She wriggled her chin in his palm, trying to free herself from hispitiless staring. Failing that, she began to sob angrily without anytears in her wide eyes.
"You--shot me, you brute!" she cried accusingly at last. "You--SHOT me!"And she sobbed again.
Before he answered, he drew backward a step or two, sat down upon theedge of a rock which had rolled out from a stone-heap, and pulled herdown beside him, still holding her fast, as if he half believed hercapa
ble of soaring away over the treetops, after all.
"I guess I didn't murder you--from the chase you gave me. Did I hit youat all?"
"Yes, you did! You nearly broke my arm--and you might have killed me,you big brute! Look what you did--and I never harmed you at all!" Shepushed up a sleeve, and held out her arm accusingly in the moonlight,disclosing a tiny, red furrow where the skin was broken and stillbleeding. "And you shot a big hole right through Aunt Phoebe's sheet!"she added, with tearful severity.
He caught her arm, bent his head over it--and for a moment he wasperilously near to kissing it; an impulse which astonished himconsiderably, and angered him more. He dropped the arm ratherprecipitately; and she lifted it again, and regarded the wound withmournful interest.
"I'd like to know what right you have to prowl around shooting atpeople," she scolded, seeing how close she could come to touching theplace with her fingertips without producing any but a pleasurable pain.
"Just as much right as you have to get up in the middle of the nightand go ahowling all over the ranch wrapped up in a sheet," he retortedungallantly.
"Well, if I want to do it, I don't see why you need concern yourselfabout it. I wasn't doing it for your benefit, anyway."
"Will you tell me what you DID do it for? Of all the silly tomfoolery--"
An impish smile quite obliterated the Christmas-angel look for aninstant, then vanished, and left her a pretty, abused maiden who isgrieved at harsh treatment.
"Well, I wanted to scare Gene," she confessed. "I did, too. I just knowhe's a cowardy-cat, because he's always trying to scare ME. It's Gene'sfault--he told me the grove is haunted. He said a long time ago, beforeUncle Hart settled here, a lot of Indians waylaid a wagon-train hereand killed a girl, and he says that when the moon is just past the full,something white walks through the grove and wails like a lost soul intorment. He says sometimes it comes and moans at the corner of the housewhere my room is. I just know he was going to do it himself; but I guesshe forgot. So I thought I'd see if he believed his own yarns. I wasgoing to do it every night till I scared him into sleeping in the house.I had a perfectly lovely place to disappear into, where he couldn'ttrace me if he took to hunting around--only he wouldn't dare." Shepulled down her sleeve very carefully, and then, just as carefully, shepushed it up again, and took another look.
"My best friend TOLD me I'd get shot if I came to Idaho," she remindedherself, with a melancholy satisfaction.
"You didn't get shot," Grant contradicted for the sake of drawing moresparks of temper where temper seemed quaintly out of place, and staredhard at her drooping profile. "You just got nicely missed; a bullet thatonly scrapes off a little skin can't be said to hit. I'd hate to hit abear like that."
"I believe you're wishing you HAD killed me! You might at least havesome conscience in the matter, and be sorry you shot a lady. But you'renot. You just wish you had murdered me. You hate girls--you said so. AndI don't know what business it is of yours, if I want to play a joke onmy cousin, or why you had to be sleeping outside, anyway. I've a perfectright to be a ghost if I choose--and I don't call it nice, or polite, orgentlemanly for you to chase me all over the place with a gun, tryingto kill me! I'll never speak to you again as long as I live. When I saythat I mean it. I never liked you from the very start, when I first sawyou this afternoon. Now I hate and despise you. I suppose I oughtn'tto expect you to apologize or be sorry because you almost killed me. Isuppose that's just your real nature coming to the surface. Indians loveto hurt and torture people! I shouldn't have expected anything else ofyou, I suppose. I made the mistake of treating you like a white man."
"Don't you think you're making another mistake right now?" Grant's wholeattitude changed, as well as his tone. "Aren't you afraid to push thewhite man down into the dirt, and raise up--the INDIAN?"
She cast a swift, half-frightened glance up into his face and the eyesthat glowed ominously in the moonlight.
"When people make the blunder of calling up the Indian," he went onsteadily, "they usually find that they have to deal with--the Indian."
Evadna looked at him again, and turned slowly white before her tempersurged to the surface again.
"I didn't call up the Indian," she defended hotly; "but if the Indianwants to deal with me according to his nature--why, let him! But youdon't ACT like other people! I don't know another man who wouldn't havebeen horrified at shooting me, even such a tiny little bit; but youdon't care at all. You never even said you were sorry."
"I'm not in the habit of saying all I think and feel."
"You were quick enough to apologize, after supper there, when you hadn'treally done anything; and now, when one would expect you to be at leastdecently sorry, you--you--well, you act like the savage you are! There,now! It may not be nice to say it, but it's the truth."
Grant smiled bitterly. "All men are savages under the skin," he said."How do YOU know what I think and feel? If I fail to come through withthe conventional patter, I am called an Indian--because my mother wasa half-breed." He threw up his head proudly, let his eyes rest for amoment upon the moon, swimming through a white river of clouds just overthe tall poplar hedge planted long ago to shelter the orchard from thesweeping west winds; and, when he looked down at her again, he caught aglimpse of repentant tears in her eyes, and softened.
"Oh, you're a girl, and you demand the usual amount of poor-pussy talk,"he told her maliciously. "So I'm sorry. I'm heartbroken. If it willhelp any, I'll even kiss the hurt to make it well--and I'm not a kissingyoung man, either, let me tell you."
"I'd die before I'd let you touch me!" Her repentance, if it was that,changed to pure rage. She snatched the torn sheet from him and turnedabruptly toward the fence. He followed her, apparently unmoved by herattitude; placed his foot upon the lower wire and pressed it into thesoft earth, lifted the one next above it as high as it would go, andthus made it easier for her to pass through. She seemed to hesitatefor a moment, as though tempted to reject even that slight favor, thenstooped, and went through.
As the wires snapped into place, she halted and looked back at him.
"Maybe I've been mean--but you're been meaner," she summed up, inself-justification. "I suppose the next thing you will do will be totell the boys. Well, I don't care what you do, so long as you neverspeak to me again. Go and tell them if you want to--tell. TELL, do youhear? I don't want even the favor of your silence!" She dexterouslytucked the bundle of white under the uninjured arm, caught the loosefolds of her skirt up in her hands, and ran away up the path, not oncestopping to see whether he still followed her.
Grant did not follow. He stood leaning against the fence-post, andwatched her until her flying form grew indistinct in the shade of thepoplar hedge; watched it reappear in a broad strip of white moonlight,still running; saw it turn, slacken speed to a walk, and then loseitself in the darkness of the grove.
Five minutes, ten minutes, he stood there, staring across the level bitof valley lying quiet at the foot of the jagged-rimmed bluff standingboldly up against the star-flecked sky. Then he shook himselfimpatiently, muttered something which had to do with a "doddering fool,"and retraced his steps quickly through the orchard, the currant bushes,and the strawberry patch, jumped the ditch, and so entered the grove andreturned to his blankets.
"We thought the spook had got yuh, sure." Gene lifted his headturtlewise and laughed deprecatingly. "We was just about ready to startout after the corpse, only we didn't know but what you might get excitedand take a shot at us in the dark. We heard yuh shoot--what was it? Didyou find out?"
"It wasn't anything," said Grant shortly, tugging at a boot.
"Ah--there was, too! What was it you shot at?" Clark joined in theargument from the blackness under the locust tree.
"The moon," Grant told him sullenly. "There wasn't anything else that Icould see."
"And that's a lie," Gene amended, with the frankness of afoster-brother. "Something yelled like--"
"You never heard a screech-owl before, did you, Gene?" Grant
creptbetween his blankets and snuggled down, as if his mind held nothing moreimportant than sleep.
"Screech-owl my granny! You bumped into something you couldn'thandle--if you want to know what _I_ think about it," Clark guessedshrewdly. "I wish now I'd taken the trouble to hunt the thing down; itdidn't seem worth while getting up. But I leave it to Gene if you ain'tmad enough to murder whatever it was. What was it?"
He waited a moment without getting a reply.
"Well, keep your teeth shut down on it, then, darn yuh!" he growled."That's the Injun of it--I know YOU! Screech-owl--huh! You said when youleft it was an Indian--and that's why we didn't take after it ourselves.We don't want to get the whole bunch down on us like they are onyou--and if there was one acting up around here, we knew blamed well itwas on your account for what happened to-day. I guess you found out, allright. I knew the minute you heaved in sight that you was just about asmad as you can get--and that's saying a whole lot. If it WAS an Indian,and you killed him, you better let us--"
"Oh, for the lord's sake, WILL YOU SHUT UP!" Grant raised to an elbow,glared a moment, and lay down again.
The result proved the sort of fellow he was. Clark shut up without eventrailing off into mumbling to himself, as was his habit when argumentbrought him defeat.