CHAPTER XV WEARY CEASES TO SCOFF
Hardly an hour had elapsed since its previous trip when the patientflivver was again coughing its way up the drive to the Coleson house.Neither Wat Sanford nor Jim Tapley had been asked to join in theexploration of the old road, because, as Dave Wilbur expressed it, Watand Jim were jumpy enough already.
“Let’s scout around a little before we tackle the road,” suggested Ned.“Red and Fatty can have another look out there between the end of thehouse and the woods while Dick and I go over the ground down toward thebeach. Do you want to come with us, Weary?”
“Nope. ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth,’” drawled Dave. “I’ll stickaround and make sure this humpbacked spook doesn’t carry off theflivver,” he added with a grin, as he lolled back comfortably andallowed his long legs to dangle over the side of the car.
Charlie Rogers glared angrily at the scoffer. “Here’s hoping he carriesit off—and you with it!” he growled.
“Don’t let him get your goat, Red,” urged Tommy, as he seized Rogers’arm and hurried him out of ear-shot of Wilbur’s irritating chuckle.
For half an hour the boys searched every foot of ground in the vicinityof the house without finding anything new.
“I guess this is about enough,” declared Ned. “There’s nothing to belearned here. Now let’s start at this end of the old road and trace itback as far as it goes. Four of us can walk ahead and Dave can followwith the car.”
For perhaps two miles the boys threaded the grass-grown track, which wasso overgrown in places that the small trees and bushes swept both sidesof the car, as it crept along behind the party on foot. There was ampleevidence of the recent passage of some vehicle in the broken twigs andstripped leaves along the way, and whenever the grassy surface gaveplace to sand, the marks of rubber tires were plainly visible.
“Here’s where Ned and Fatty and I struck into this road the other day,”exclaimed Dick, pointing to a clump of crooked birches which herecognized as marking the spot.
“You’re right,” agreed Ned. “From now on, we’ll be traveling over newground and we must keep our eyes open. Let’s go slow and cut out thetalking.”
Half a mile farther, Ned, who was in the lead, halted suddenly anddropped to his knees.
“What is it?” whispered Dick, who was close behind.
“Some kind of a clearing,” was the cautious reply. “There’s a pile ofslabs and I can see a shanty. Lie low, fellows, while I sneak up for acloser look,” and creeping silently away to one side, Ned disappearedamid the thick undergrowth.
For ten minutes the boys lay motionless; then a low whistle brought thempeering over the pile of slabs to see Ned standing before the shack.
“What do you make of it?” asked Rogers, as they hurried forward to joinNed, who was looking in at the partly open door of the hut.
“It’s nothing but a shanty the wood-cutters used when they cut thetimber off this tract about ten years ago,” declared Wilbur, who haddriven up and halted at the door.
“I guess you’re right, Dave,” replied Ned, “but let’s see what’sinside,” and pushing the door wide open, he stepped in, closely followedby the others.
The cabin was oblong in shape, being about fifteen feet long by eight ornine feet wide. At one end were two bunks built against the wall. In themiddle of the room stood a rough table of slabs and in a corner was arusty stove propped up with bricks in lieu of missing legs. Dick lifteda rust-eaten lid and peered into the fire-box.
“Ashes,” he remarked. “Cold ashes.”
“Which proves simply that there’s been no fire here for the last fewhours,” asserted Rogers. “That bunk looks as if it may have been sleptin recently but I’ll admit it’s only guess work.”
Ned had been glancing about the shanty, his keen eyes taking in everydetail. All at once he bent low and peered closely at something on thefloor beside the table.
“What have you found, Ned?” asked Tommy Beals, and at his words theother boys crowded around.
“Keep back!” warned Ned. “Don’t disturb them.”
“Don’t disturb _what_?” demanded Rogers. “I can’t see anything—unlessyou mean those black ants!”
“That’s just what I do mean,” answered Ned. “Ants don’t act that waywithout some reason,” and he pointed to a straggling column of theinsects, which were emerging from a crack in the floor, advancing to aspot beneath the table, and hurrying back again to the crack as thoughtime were a matter of supreme importance to them.
“They’ve got a nest somewhere under the floor,” remarked Tommy. “Look!They’re carrying their eggs in their mouths!”
Ned was on hands and knees poking with the blade of his jack-knife amongthe hurrying ants at the head of the column. “That was a good guess ofyours, Fatty,” he laughed, “only it happens that in this particular casewhat they’re carrying isn’t eggs.”
“What is it then?” demanded Beals.
“Bread crumbs,” was the quick reply, “and there’s more of ’em on thetable.”
It needed but a moment’s investigation to confirm Ned’s statement.
“Somebody ate a meal here awhile ago—that’s quite evident,” declaredDick, excitedly.
“Yes, and not so very long ago either,” supplemented Rogers. “Thishustling bunch of ants would carry away half a loaf of bread in a fewhours.”
“Well, supposing somebody did eat here—or supposing they slept in thatbunk Red is so keen about. What business is it of ours? Where’s theproof of any connection between them and our affair at Coleson’s?”demanded Dave Wilbur. “I’m going to take a snooze in the car till youghost-getters find something more exciting than a rusty stove, atumbledown bunk and a flock of black ants!” and with these words, helounged out of the door.
“I guess maybe Weary’s more than half right,” admitted Beals, ruefully.“Confound him though; I wish we’d had him out at Coleson’s that night!”
“I’ll say so!” growled Rogers.
Reluctantly the boys left the shack, but as they passed the corner ofthe building, Dick halted and began to read aloud: “‘All persons arehereby warned against starting fires in any and all forest lands underpenalty of—’” Dick paused in his reading. “That’s a fire-warden’sposter,” he remarked with a jerk of his ever ready thumb toward aplacard tacked upon the side of the shanty. “The ranger has beenhere—maybe it was he who left the crumbs.”
“Nothing doing!” declared Rogers. “That paper has been there a month,easy. Don’t you think so, Ned?”
Ned Blake did not answer. He was looking fixedly at the poster from thelower corner of which a sizable scrap had been torn, thus interferingwith Dick’s reading, as has been noted. A long moment Ned stared, thenreaching into an inside pocket, he brought forth a fragment of paperwhich he carefully unfolded. Three strides brought him to the cabinwhere with a quick movement he placed his piece of paper against thetorn corner of the fire warning. The ragged edges fitted togetherperfectly. “You wanted some proof awhile ago, Dave,” he said quietly.“Take a look at this, will you?”
Wilbur descended languidly from the car and joined the group at Ned’selbow. “Sure it fits,” he drawled as he glanced at the fragment of paperunder Ned’s thumb. “It fits perfectly—but what of it?”
Without a word Ned turned the scrap in his fingers and displayed thewords scrawled upon its reverse side. Over his shoulder the boys readthem eagerly.
“I don’t want company here.
“E. C.”
“Zowie!” yelped Dick Somers. “That’s the very paper we found tacked onthe front door of the Coleson house!”
“Gosh a’mighty!” wheezed Tommy Beals. “Let’s dig out o’ here! I don’tlike it!”
Charlie Rogers could not restrain a furtive glance over his shoulder atthe half-open door of the shanty and even Dave Wilbur’s scoffing wassilenced for the moment.
“I’ll have to admit that this doesn’t ex
plain much,” began Ned, as hereplaced the fragment of paper in his pocket. “In fact, it raises morequestions than it answers, but at least we can be reasonably sure thatone or more of our nightly visitors has been making some use of this oldshack and also of this old road. Now let’s see if we can find _what_use.”
With interest roused to a high pitch, the boys resumed their explorationof the wood-road, scanning every tuft of grass and every broken bush asthey passed. After leaving the shanty, the road surface had become moresandy and the marks of rubber tires more frequent as well as moredistinct, until at length they formed a clearly defined track in whichthe ribbed pattern of the tires showed plainly.
“We’re coming to the end of the road!” exclaimed Rogers, pointing to awall of solid green that blocked the way some thirty yards ahead.
The boys had halted to consider this surprising fact, when anexclamation from Dave Wilbur drew all eyes in his direction. The lankyyouth had dismounted from his car and now stood staring wide-eyed at theroadway immediately before him.
“What’s the matter, Weary?” gibed Rogers, a bit maliciously. “Do _you_see a ghost?”
“The tracks!” blurted Wilbur. “Where are the tire tracks? They’vedisappeared!”
It was true. From the point where the boys stood, to the wall of foliagethat apparently marked the end of the road not a tire mark showed uponthe smooth, firm surface of the ground. As if actuated by a commonimpulse, all eyes turned back along the road. Yes, the marks were thereplainly enough, but at a point almost beneath their feet the tracksceased as abruptly as if the mysterious car had suddenly left the earthlike an airplane.
Dave Wilbur was the first to speak. “Fellows,” he began in a tone quitedifferent from his customary lazy drawl, “I’ll _crawfish_. I said Iwanted to see some of this ghost stuff that you’ve been telling about.I’ll admit I thought it was bunk, but now I’m satisfied that ghost, orno ghost, there’s some darned funny business going on here!”
“If this is the end of the road, I suppose we’ll have to turn round andgo back the way we came,” observed Tommy Beals with a nervous glancealong the back track.
“Maybe so, but first I’d like to have a closer look at what’s ahead,”suggested Ned, and moving forward, he approached the barricade of livinggreen that merged with the foliage of a giant oak. In a moment he wasshouting for the others to join him, and as they hurried to do so, Nedparted the curtain of thick growing creepers to disclose the smoothsurface of the main highway not twenty feet beyond.
“Here’s the answer to at least a part of the riddle,” cried Dick. “Comeahead with the car, Dave,” and as the flivver shot forward the boyspulled the vines aside sufficiently to allow the car to force its waypast and gain the road beyond.
“Whoever uses that old wood-road has certainly hit upon a clever schemeto hide the entrance!” exclaimed Rogers, as he looked back at the vinesthat twined upward about the big oak and hung like a great curtain fromone of its horizontal limbs. “If I hadn’t seen it done, I’d neverbelieve a car could enter or leave this place.”
“Yes, but the _tracks_!” insisted Dave. “The screen of vines is simpleenough, but how can a car pass in or out and leave no tracks? _My_ carleft tracks,” and Dave pointed to the faint marks left by the wheels ofthe flivver upon the twenty-foot width of hard ground between the edgeof the macadam road and the barrier of vines.
“That’s just one more question we can’t answer—yet,” replied Ned. “Imove we go home now and get together tomorrow morning. Perhaps by thensome of us may have doped out an explanation.”