CHAPTER XVI

The Haunted House

Days passed without word or sign from the missing girl. The marshal

haunted the post-office and the railroad station, hoping with all his

poor old heart that word would come from her; but the letter was not

there, nor was there a telegram at the station when he strolled over to

that place. The county officials at Boggs City came down and began a

cursory investigation, but Anderson's emphatic though doleful opinions

set them quite straight, and they gave up the quest. There was nothing

to do but to sit back and wait.

In those three days Anderson Crow turned greyer and older, although he

maintained a splendid show of resignation. He had made a perfunctory

offer of reward for Rosalie, dead or alive, but he knew all the time

that it would be fruitless. Mark Riley, the bill-poster, stuck up the

glaring reward notices as far away as the telegraph poles in Clay

County. The world was given to understand that $1000 reward would be

paid for Rosalie's return or for information leading to the apprehension

and capture of her abductors.

There was one very mysterious point in connection with the

affair--something so strange that it bordered on the supernatural. No

human being in Bramble County except the two boys had seen the

double-seated sleigh. It had disappeared as if swallowed by the earth

itself.

"Well, it don't do any good to cry over spilt milk," said Anderson

bravely. "She's gone, an' I only hope she ain't bein' mistreated. I

don't see why they should harm her. She's never done nobody a wrong.

Like as not she's been taken to a comfortable place in New York, an'

we'll hear from her as soon as she recovers from the shock. There ain't

no use huntin' fer her, I know, but I jest can't help nosin' around a

little. Mebby I can git some track of her. I'd give all I got in this

world to know that she's safe an' sound, no matter if I never see her

ag'in."

The hungry look in his eyes deepened, and no one bandied jests with him

as was the custom in days gone by.

* * * * *

There were not many tramps practising in that section of the State.

Anderson Crow proudly announced that they gave Tinkletown a wide berth

because of his prowess; but the vagabond gentry took an entirely

different view of the question. They did not infest the upper part of

the State for the simple but eloquent reason that it meant starvation to

them. The farmers compelled the weary wayfarer to work all day like a

borrowed horse for a single meal at the "second table." There was no

such thing as a "hand-out," as it is known in the tramp's vocabulary. It

is not extraordinary, therefore, that tramps found the community so

unattractive that they cheerfully walked miles to avoid it. A

peculiarly well-informed vagrant once characterised the up-state farmer

as being so "close that he never shaved because it was a waste of hair."

It is hardly necessary to state, in view of the attitude of both farmer

and tramp, that the misguided vagrant who wandered that way was the

object of distinct, if not distinguished, curiosity. In the country

roads he was stared at with a malevolence that chilled his appetite, no

matter how long he had been cultivating it on barren soil. In the

streets of Tinkletown, and even at the county seat, he was an object of

such amazing concern that he slunk away in pure distress. It was indeed

an unsophisticated tramp who thought to thrive in Bramble County even

for a day and a night. In front of the general store and post-office at

Tinkletown there was a sign-post, on which Anderson Crow had painted

these words:

"No tramps or Live Stock Allowed on these Streets.

By order of

A. CROW, Marshal."

The live stock disregarded the command, but the tramp took warning. On

rare occasions he may have gone through some of the houses in

Tinkletown, but if he went through the streets no one was the wiser.

Anderson Crow solemnly but studiously headed him off in the outskirts,

and he took another direction. Twice in his career he drove out tramps

who had burglarised the houses of prominent citizens in broad daylight,

but what did it matter so long as the "hoboes" were kept from

desecrating the main street of the town? Mr. Crow's official star,

together with his badge from the New York detective agency, his Sons of

the Revolution pin, and his G.A.R. insignia, made him a person to be

feared. If the weather became too hot for coat and vest the proud

dignitary fastened the badges to his suspenders, and their presence

glorified the otherwise humble "galluses."

On the fourth day after the abduction Marshal Crow was suddenly aroused

from his lethargy by the news that the peace and security of the

neighbourhood was being imposed upon.

"The dickens you say!" he observed, abandoning the perpetual grip upon

his straggling chin whiskers.

"Yes, sir," responded the excited small boy, who, with two companions,

had run himself quite out of breath all over town before he found the

officer at Harkin's blacksmith shop.

"Well, dang 'em!" said Mr. Crow impressively.

"We was skatin' in the marsh when we heerd 'em plain as day," said the

other boy. "You bet I'm nuvver goin' nigh that house ag'in."

"Sho! Bud, they ain't no sech thing as ghosts," said Mr. Crow; "it's

tramps."

"You know that house is ha'nted," protested Bud. "Wasn't ole Mrs. Rank

slew there by her son-in-law? Wasn't she chopped to pieces and buried

there right in her own cellar?"

"Thunderation, boy, that was thirty year ago!"

"Well, nobody's lived in the ha'nted house sence then, has they? Didn't

Jim Smith try to sleep there oncet on a bet, an' didn't he hear sech

awful noises 'at he liked to went crazy?" insisted Bud.

[Illustration: The haunted house]

"I _do_ recollect that Jim run two mile past his own house before he

could stop, he was in sech a hurry to git away from the place. But Jim

didn't _see_ anything. Besides, that was twenty year ago. Ghosts don't

hang aroun' a place when there ain't nothin' to ha'nt. Her son-in-law

was hung, an' she ain't got no one else to pester. I tell you it's

tramps."

"Well, we just thought we'd tell you, Mr. Crow," said the first boy.

In a few minutes it was known throughout the business centre of

Tinkletown that tramps were making their home in the haunted house down

the river, and that Anderson Crow was to ride forth on his bicycle to

rout them out. The haunted house was three miles from town and in the

most desolate section of the bottomland. It was approachable only

through the treacherous swamp on one side or by means of the river on

the other. Not until after the murder of its owner and builder, old

Johanna Rank, was there an explanation offered for the existence of a

home in such an unwholesome locality.

Federal authorities discovered that she and her son-in-law, Dave Wolfe,

were at the head of a great counterfeiting gang, and that they had been

working up there in security for years, turning out spurious coins by

the hundred. One night Dave up and killed his mother-in-law, and was

hanged for his good deed before he could be punished for his bad ones.

For thirty years the weather-beaten, ramshackle old cabin in the swamp

had been unoccupied except by birds, lizards, and other denizens of the

solitude--always, of course, including the ghost of old Mrs. Rank.

Inasmuch as Dave chopped her into small bits and buried them in the

cellar, while her own daughter held the lantern, it was not beyond the

range of possibility that certain atoms of the unlamented Johanna were

never unearthed by the searchers. It was generally believed in the

community that Mrs. Rank's spirit came back every little while to nose

around in the dirt of the cellar in quest of such portions of her person

as had not been respectably interred in the village graveyard.

Mysterious noises had been heard about the place at the dead hour of

night, and ghostly lights had flitted past the cellar windows. All

Tinkletown agreed that the place was haunted and kept at a most

respectful distance. The three small boys who startled Marshal Crow from

his moping had gone down the river to skate instead of going to school.

They swore that the sound of muffled voices came from the interior of

the cabin, near which they had inadvertently wandered. Although Dave

Wolfe had been dead thirty years, one of the youngest of the lads was

positive that he recognised the voice of the desperado. And at once the

trio fled the 'cursed spot and brought the horrifying news to Anderson

Crow. The detective was immediately called upon to solve the ghostly

mystery.

Marshal Crow first went to his home and donned his blue coat,

transferring the stars and badges to the greasy lapel of the garment. He

also secured his dark lantern and the official cane of the village, but

why he should carry a cane on a bicycle expedition was known only to

himself. Followed by a horde of small boys and a few representative

citizens of Tinkletown on antiquated wheels, Mr. Crow pedalled

majestically off to the south. Skirting the swamp, the party approached

the haunted house over the narrow path which ran along the river bank.

Once in sight of the dilapidated cabin, which seemed to slink farther

and farther back into the dense shadows of the late afternoon, with all

the diffidence of the supernatural, the marshal called a halt and

announced his plans.

"You kids go up an' tell them fellers I want to see 'em," he commanded.

The boys fell back and prepared to whimper.

"I don't want to," protested Bud.

"Why don't you go an' tell 'em yourself, Anderson?" demanded Isaac

Porter, the pump repairer.

"Thunderation, Ike, who's runnin' this thing?" retorted Anderson Crow.

"I got a right to deputise anybody to do anything at any time. Don't you

s'pose I know how to handle a job like this? I got my own idees how to

waylay them raskils, an' I reckon I been in the detectin' business long

enough to know how to manage a gol-derned tramp, ain't I? How's that?

Who says I ain't?"

"Nobody said a word, Anderson," meekly observed Jim Borum.

"Well, I _thought_ somebody did. An' I don't want nobody interferin'

with an officer, either. Bud, you an' them two Heffner boys go up an'

tell them loafers to step down here right spry er I'll come up there an'

see about it."

"Gosh, Mr. Crow, I'm a-skeered to!" whimpered Bud. The Heffner boys

started for home on a dead run.

"Askeered to?" sniffed Anderson. "An' your great-grand-dad was in the

Revolution, too. Geminy crickets, ef you was my boy I'd give you

somethin' to be askeered of! Now, Bud, nothin' kin happen to you. Ain't

I here?"

"But suppose they won't come when I tell 'em?"

"Yes, 'n' supposin' 'tain't tramps, but ghosts?" volunteered Mr. Porter,

edging away with his bicycle. It was now quite dark and menacing in

there where the cabin stood. As the outcome of half an hour's

discussion, the whole party advanced slowly upon the house, Anderson

Crow in the lead, his dark lantern in one hand, his cane in the other.

Half way to the house he stopped short and turned to Bud.

"Gosh dern you, Bud! I don't believe you heerd any noise in there at

all! There ain't no use goin' any further with this, gentlemen. The dern

boys was lyin'. We might jest as well go home." And he would have

started for home had not Isaac Porter uttered a fearful groan and

staggered back against a swamp reed for support, his horrified eyes

glued upon a window in the log house. The reed was inadequate, and Isaac

tumbled over backward.

For a full minute the company stared dumbly at the indistinct little

window, paralysis attacking every sense but that of sight. At the

expiration of another minute the place was deserted, and Anderson Crow

was the first to reach the bicycles far up the river bank. Every face

was as white as chalk, and every voice trembled. Mr. Crow's dignity

asserted itself just as the valiant posse prepared to "straddle" the

wheels in mad flight.

"Hold on!" he panted. "I lost my dark lantern down there. Go back an'

git it, Bud."

"Land o' mighty! Did y'ever see anythin' like it?" gasped Jim Borum,

trying to mount a ten-year-old boy's wheel instead of his own.

"I'd like to have anybody tell me there ain't no sech things as ghosts,"

faltered Uncle Jimmy Borton, who had always said there wasn't. "Let go,

there! Ouch!" The command and subsequent exclamation were the inevitable

results of his unsuccessful attempt to mount with Elon Jones the same

wheel.

"What'd I tell you, Anderson?" exclaimed Isaac Porter. "Didn't I say it

was ghosts? Tramps nothin'! A tramp wouldn't last a second up in that

house. It's been ha'nted fer thirty years an' it gits worse all the

time. What air we goin' to do next?"

Even the valiant Mr. Crow approved of an immediate return to Tinkletown,

and the posse was trying to disentangle its collection of bicycles when

an interruption came from an unsuspected quarter--a deep, masculine

voice arose from the ice-covered river hard by, almost directly below

that section of the bank on which Anderson and his friends were herded.

The result was startling. Every man leaped a foot in the air and every

hair stood on end; bicycles rattled and clashed together, and Ed

Higgins, hopelessly bewildered, started to run in the direction of the

haunted house.