Part 4 (1/2)

”It sounded like a long, low call for help!” was the reply. ”I believe all the calls from deserted houses are long and low, what?”

”Right you are!” Alex. answered. ”Say, what's the matter of taking Captain Joe with us when we go to the house? If there's a ghost behind the casings, he'll be certain to find and bring it out to us!”

”Then I'm strong for Captain Joe!” cried Jule. ”We'll bring the perturbed spirit on board and put it with our collection of animals!

And there's the breakfast call, at last!” he continued, whereat both boys rushed into the cabin.

Clay, who had been tinkering around the motors for half an hour, entered the cabin before breakfast was over, his face looking troubled, his clothing smeared with grease.

”I have an idea that we'll stop here a few days until some one goes to one of the towns hereabouts and brings back some bolts,” he said. ”The motors are out of whack, and ought not to be operated in the shape they are in.”

”I'll go back to Hickman in the rowboat,” declared Case. ”I have a notion that I'd like to see the town.”

”And row against that current?” asked Alex. ”I see you doing it!”

”You couldn't do it in a thousand years!” Jule observed.

”Well,” Case went on, looking at his map of the river, ”there's New Madrid, on the Missouri side. I might walk up there and back in a day.”

”Up there?” laughed Alex., looking over Case's shoulder. ”Why do you say up there? New Madrid is north from here, all right, but it is down stream, for all that!”

”Well, walk down there, then!” Case replied. ”I want to learn something about that robbery anyway, and there may be news of it; besides, a walk along the river will be a sort of a picnic. It isn't more than ten or twelve miles to the town.”

”Then you'd better arrange to return to-morrow,” Clay advised. ”You are not used to such long walks. We are in no hurry to go on, for we have all the time there is until this time next year!”

So it was finally arranged that Case should walk down to New Madrid and get the needed repairs for the motors, while the others looked over the country which lay about them. When Alex. suggested the visit to the deserted house, Clay was anxious to become one of the party. He said he had had the same idea in his mind ever since seeing the old place.

”After Case goes,” Jule suggested, ”that would leave only Mose and Teddy Bear on board the _Rambler_. I don't believe it is safe to leave her alone.”

”Of course it isn't,” Clay admitted, ”so I'll remain here to-day and visit the old building to-morrow. Then you two boys can remain at home.”

Everything being satisfactorily arranged, Alex. and Jule started away up the bayou in the rowboat. The old basin was full of water, and so there was little current, which made it easy rowing. In half an hour they were at the foot of an old pier, slanting over on weak legs like a tipsy man. It was plain that the landing had not been used for commercial purposes for a long time.

The boys fastened the boat and ran briskly up the rotting footway which led to the enclosure in which the old house stood. There was a wilderness of trees and shrubs in the enclosure, and the walks, which had evidently once been carefully tended, were now overgrown with weeds and long gra.s.s. Lizards darted out of unseen places and sped away as the boys advanced along a broken walk which led to the front door of the mansion.

At the very threshold the boys paused, listening. The ragged blinds were flapping in the breeze, and the trees which rimmed the enclosure rustled and creaked in a most uncanny way, but these sounds were not the ones which brought the adventurous boys to a halt.

The noise they heard sounded like the tones of a violin, coming from a great distance. The notes, faint, sweet, perplexing, rose and fell on the wind, now lifting into a weird song, now dropping to the softest melody!

”There's some one here, after all!” Jule suggested, though there was a question in the way the words were spoken. ”Some one lives here? What do you think?”

Alex. pointed to the broken door which opened into the disordered hall, to the window blinds, beating the casings at the will of the wind, and at the long gra.s.s and weeds growing between the planks and stones of the walks.

”I don't believe any one lives here!” he insisted.

”Then what is it making the music?” demanded Jule. ”If that isn't some one playing the violin you may eat my head for a cabbage!”

They listened again. The sounds stopped directly, then there came a banging of doors and a rustle, as if some one in trailing clothes was being dragged through the hall. Then a shriek which appeared to come from directly under the feet of the boys cut the air, lifting into a terrifying yell at the end. The lads involuntarily started back down the path, but both stopped and faced the house again.

”I'm not going away without knowing more about it!” Alex. declared.

”That's the way I look at it!” grinned Jule. ”We can't turn tail and run like a couple of cowards. I wish we had brought Captain Joe along with us!”