CHAPTER VIII
THE HAUNTED SWAMP
Drenched by rain, almost blinded by the incessant lightning, Chick drewup on the narrow footway among the grasses that the wind swept againsthis face.
"I'm lost!" he muttered.
All around him, as far as his sight could reach in the flashes, tall,waving, unbroken marsh grass showed.
"Somewhere I took a wrong path," Chick told himself.
Shivering, he stood, fumbling at the buttons of his coat.
"That man who tried to make me think he was a spook, calling himself'the Thing that never was, and the Man who Never Lived,'" he saidbitterly, "tore my coat pocket."
He put a hand inside his garment to estimate the damage.
A great feeling of elation crowded out his momentary shudder of fear onrealizing his dreadful situation.
"He didn't get--the tracing!" cried Chick to the storm-swept grass.
He laughed in exultant delight.
"That Doc!" he exclaimed. "He was in such a hurry that instead ofgetting the tracing I had folded down on itself, he grabbed out theenvelope of stamps I had in that pocket!"
Crowded into a long manila envelope Chick always kept a loose lot ofassorted postage stamps, ready to "trade" for new varieties to add to acollection he was making.
In his haste the unknown--but easily guessed--adversary had caught holdof the fat envelope, crushed down as Chick had pinned in the otherpaper. Released, it had popped up. That had been his trophy. Chickdanced and shouted triumphantly.
"He's welcome to all those Bavarian and Venezuelan duplicate stamps!"cried Chick, making sure that the precious tracing was secure from anychance rip of the pocket allowing it to drop out, "and if he can makeanything by selling a hundred cancelled American two-cent stamps, hewill do better than I ever did!" He felt elated; but the distressingsituation he was in came back to him and his face sobered in theglaring light of the tempest.
"I see the boathouse," he told himself. "I guess I'd better go backthere, and not try to get out of here in this storm."
By guiding himself in the revealing light from the skies, he managed toget back to the right path, pushing through clutching clumps of thesoggy, clinging grass that had hidden the way out but did not whollyconceal the way back. He had heard the Dragonfly, knew it had gone up.
Once more sheltered he shivered in his wet clothing, but made the bestof a bad condition by righting an old, rickety chair and turning up thelantern wick till it gave a better light.
"Now," he remarked to himself, "let's see--Doc was here, and for allhis denials I am sure he had taken the tracing--maybe others! Iremember that I was sorting out the drawings of the new, all-metalship, to make blue-prints in the morning. Scott came in and I guess Iwas so excited at the prospect of guarding the airlanes that I leftthose drawings on the big table."
There it would be easy for Doc, sweeping up, to find them, to abstractany--or many.
"But he might have told the truth about not 'celebrating,'" he said,thoughtfully. "He never has any money to buy big bottles of alcohol. Ifhe had been paid by anybody for the new designs, he wouldn't have hadthe one I discovered. He must have been waiting for somebody else tocome."
He recalled the course of events that had transpired. Had the "otherman" come? Was it he who had played ghost? Chick wondered, clutchinghis torn, soggy coat as tightly about him as possible. Not that itwarmed him much; but the act was involuntary as his mind focused on theweird apparition he had seen.
Instinctively his eyes went to that dark, gloom-crowded corner of thehovel.
In a lull of the storm he seemed to hear something gurgling, slapping,like water against pilings. It was too clear to come from the channelsbeyond the closed door.
"I wonder--if there was a trap door--" he meditated.
Summoning his courage he walked over to the corner. To his surprise hediscovered, in the gloom that had concealed it, an unclosed flap of theflooring, leaning back against the wall. In the dull light from thelantern it had not been noticed, against the similarly dark wall boards.
"It's a trap door to steps so the boatman can get down to the dories hekeeps tied under the place," Chick decided.
He did not care to explore the mysterious depths below, however.
Closing the square of flooring on the fury of the water beneath, hereturned to his chair.
"I know about the Man who Never Lived, now," he told himself. "It wasDoc Morgan. He saw I had the tracing. He told me all that made-upstuff, and then went out. He came back, over the dories, maybe, underthe place, and came up the ladder, in oilskins and rubber cap andgloves. Pouff! I guess that's all there was to the ghost."
That made him wonder if, in some way, they might find an equallysensible explanation for the spectre that had appeared and vanished somysteriously in the clouds.
"But Don flew right into that cloud!" Chick objected to his own hopefultheory. "There wasn't a thing there."
He sat, shivering with the chill of his wet garb, wondering how longthe successively approaching storms would continue.
Long hours seemed to pass. Chick got up, exercised, flailed his armsand did gymnastic exercises to promote circulation. Nevertheless, timedragged slowly.
The intensity of the storm lessened: lightning came more fitfully, rainceased, thunder grumbled and ceased to crash, dying away in the South.Chick went to the door, looking out.
"There are stars," he observed the bright sparks showing through thedrifting, scattering shreds of the tempest, "maybe I ought to try toget home. They'll be worried about me. I wonder where Don and Garrylanded and if they got down all right."
They had, but far up the Hudson.
Swamp life began to make itself heard--and felt.
Fish leaped, hungry for insects. Frogs began to sing their uncannysongs. Mosquitos, made ferocious by the cooling air, attacked Chick inswarms. He retired to the house, closing the door, killing as many ofthe pests as he could.
The bites decided him against a foray into the marsh paths. He had readof several cases of people, lost in marshy country, who had beendangerously bitten and infected by the swarms of nocturnal pests, swampmosquitos.
He sat down again, drawing out and spreading the map before him on histable.
Damp, softened, the paper was very hard to handle. He wondered, as hestudied it, why Doc had chosen that special one, if it was all he hadtaken.
"It doesn't show much of the real construction detail," he mused. "IfI'd wanted to sell plans, I'd have taken the detail drawings--the newpontoon design, the special tail construction plans, the details of theway the plates would fit together for strength and lightness. Oh, well,maybe Doc took what first came to hand and was looking it over--withhis bottle to help him think it was valuable!"
He looked up, startled.
"Was that a step?" he asked himself, straining his ears.
With instinctive caution he slipped the curled paper back into hiscoat, buttoning its loose buttons across his chest.
A low, hollow thumping came to his tense ears.
"What's that?" he wondered. "Where is it coming from?"
He kept mouse-still, listening.
"It's--at the door!"
His heart was in his throat.
"Has Doc come back?" he watched the door. Something--or someone--wasfumbling at the latch, striking knuckles against the wood.
In spite of his earlier assurance that the supposed spook had been onlya man made horrible by light and queer clothing, Chick felt a chillstrike to his marrow.
The latch clicked.
Slowly the door began to open.
With wide--staring eyes--Chick fixed his gaze on the widening crack.
He jumped. With a slam the door came inward, banging against the innerboards.
In the dark square--there was nothing visible.
He summoned his wit and by sheer force of will made himself run to thedoor. He looked out. The path, the planking, the platf
orm on which thehouse stood, were devoid of sign of human life.
He ran back, closing the door. He dragged the table against it, bracingit against another strange attack. He stood over the trap door toprevent its uncanny opening without warning.
Then the lantern flame flared up, guttered--went out!
A sound, half squeal, half groan, assailed Chick's ears as he coweredin the dark hovel. He realized at once what it was.
Pushing the table across the floor, the door was being opened.