Part 17 (1/2)
At that Elmer laughed.
”Well, that was as easy as tumbling off a log, Toby,” he replied. ”I guess even a tenderfoot could have told, because you see the strange track showed that the other party was _barefooted_!”
”Oh!” gasped George and Lil Artha in a breath; while Chatz did not say a single word, only sat there with his eyes fixed on the beaming face of the scout master, and the light of a cruel disappointment in their depths.
”I tried to follow the trail,” continued Elmer, ”but that dust happened to be limited in its scope, so that it was more than I could master, and I had to give it up. But of course the fact that a barefooted man had been at that window where Toby said he saw a white face gave me lots to think about, even if I did make up my mind not to say anything about my find until I had more to tell.”
When Elmer paused to get his breath Toby grinned as though greatly pleased.
”See!” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, thrusting his chin out aggressively, ”some of you other fellows thought I was seeing things that didn't exist, and you knocked me right hard about gettin' a pair of specs, because I needed the same. But seems like it was you ought to go and visit the oculist. I _did_ see a face, and it was sure a white one in the bargain. But excuse me, Elmer, for keepin' the floor so long; that's out of my system now, and let's forget it. Please go on and tell us the rest, because I'm dead sure there's a lot more back of this.”
”Well,” the other scout observed, ”of course, when we got home I was bound to go around and ask a lot of questions about the old Cartaret place up here; and everything else I could hit on. What I learned didn't add a great deal to my stock of knowledge until just by accident I happened to read a little item in an old number of the Stackhouse _News_ that came to our house, and it set me to thinking out a theory. That article was about a family named Oxley that live near Stackhouse I should think. It seems that they have the misfortune to have a son who is crazy, because of some accident to his head several years ago. He wasn't violent, and like some people they couldn't bear the thought of having him shut up in an asylum; so they hired a keeper, and he was watched at home. But it seems that he must have slipped away, for a report had gone out that he was missing, and the paper asked its readers to communicate with the family if by chance they came upon a demented man, dressed in the white uniform of a Spanish officer; for it seems he had been in Cuba during the war, and imagined himself a soldier again.”
Elmer paused to let what he had said sink into the minds of his chums; and it could be easily seen from the way they exchanged knowing looks that the full significance of the scout master's discovery had struck them heavily.
”Elmer, you hit the right nail on the head when you guessed that!” cried Toby.
”Dressed in white, too; that clinches the thing!” added Lil Artha.
”I'm afraid it does,” sighed Chatz, in a disappointed tone, while George only said:
”Mebbe it does; but you can't always sometimes tell!”
CHAPTER XV
THE BOOGIE OF THE TOWER
”LET Elmer go on, and tell us some more,” suggested Toby.
”Yes, we can talk it all over after we know the whole thing,” added Lil Artha.
”Once I got that notion in my head,” the scout master continued, ”and I began to investigate along those lines. When I heard from two farmers in the market, who happened to live up this way, that for weeks they had been missing things off their places, mostly something to eat, I began to figure it out that the crazy man had to live, and would most likely forage for his grub, about like Sherman's b.u.mmers did in the Civil War, subsisting on the enemy's country.
”One of the hayseeds told me he had even set a trap for the thief, thinking it might be just an ordinary hobo; and when the alarm came one night he had hurried out to the hen-house only to find a couple of chickens gone, and the trap sprung, but no victim in it, for the thief had been too smart for him. But he said it beat him all hollow when he found tracks of _bare feet_ around on the partly frozen ground in the morning, because it seemed queer that any tramp would be going around without shoes so near winter time!”
”Whew!” gasped Toby, entranced, and almost held spellbound by this thrilling recital of facts and fancies.
”The other farmer,” Elmer went on to say, ”told me that twice when he had had a visit from the strange thief he managed to glimpse something white that was making off at top speed, and which he expected was a man, though he couldn't be sure. He also said he had loaded up his double-barrel shotgun, and was going to give the rascal a hot reception the next time he called around. All of which kept making me feel that I was on the right track.”
”You just bet you were, Elmer!” Lil Artha exclaimed.
”A figure in white, remember, fellows; and the one we saw to-night was dressed that way, as sure as shooting!” said Toby, convincingly.
”The poor Oxley fellow was in Cuba during the Spanish war, and must have fetched the white uniform of a Spanish officer home with him,” suggested Ty Collins; ”when he went out of his mind he imagined himself a Spanish recruit, and they let him wear that soldier suit to humor him.”
”Yes, and right now he believes he has escaped from an American prison, and is trying to hide from the guard. He has to eat to live, and so he steals things from the farmers around. Of course it's only a matter of good luck that he hasn't been shot before now; and it couldn't last much longer.”
”Why, when winter gets here in dead earnest the poor fellow would freeze to death, like as not,” George remarked, showing that he was being convinced against his will.