CHAPTER XIV
A CALL FROM THE DARKNESS
"Perhaps you don't believe I saw anything at the window," repliedWill, somewhat indignantly.
"Oh, I don't doubt that you think you saw something at the window."
Will seized a searchlight, grabbed Tommy by the shoulder, andpulled him out of the door and around to the north side of thecabin.
The boys were not dressed especially for a midnight excursion inthe snow, and their teeth chattered as they made their way againstthe chilling wind. However, they stuck to their purpose and soonstood under the window which Will had pointed out."
"There!" the boy exclaimed in a triumphant tone. "Now perhapsyou'll tell me I didn't see anything through the glass."
A light snow had fallen during the late hours of the night, andthere, plainly revealed on the undisturbed surface--undisturbedonly for what they saw--were clearly outlined the footprints of twopeople.
One had worn moccasins, the other such shoes as might have beenpurchased at any department store in Chicago.
"And the tenant came back!" grinned Tommy.
"Then why didn't he come in?" demanded Will.
"Because he's scared of us!"
The boys followed the tracks toward the morass some distance andthen returned to the cabin.
"Whoever the fellow is," Will argued, "he found it necessary to geta half-breed or Indian guide."
"How do you know that?" asked Tommy. "That may have been Antoinein the moccasins."
"I give it up!" replied Will. "I don't know anything about it."
"I shouldn't wonder at all if some faithful Hindu had sailed acrossthe Pacific ocean, and traveled half across the continent, torescue a faked Brass God from the polluted hands of an Unbeliever."
"You don't really think there's any of this Hindu temple businessin this Little Brass God case, do you?" asked Tommy.
"Well, the face I saw at the window looked like that of an EastIndian!" declared Will. "His skin was brassy, and his eyes had thedevil's leer in them just as the eyes of the Little Brass God aresaid to have."
"Well," Tommy declared with a yawn, "I'm going back to bed!"
"That's what I'm going to do," Will agreed. "If we sit up hereuntil we solve this new problem, we'll probably never get any moresleep as long as we live."
Seeing that the door and windows were securely fastened, the boys,who had been sleeping together, went back to their bunk, and therewas only the crackling of the fire and the roaring of the wind tobreak the silence.
Tommy was soon sound asleep, but Will lay awake listening. Againhe heard the window sash rattle, but this time he did not move.
Then he dozed off into slumberland, dreamed that he was on atropical island where the perfume of the roses was so heavy on theair that breathing almost became a task. He opened his eyesdreamily, saw the fire blazing cheerily, heard the wind roaringaround the corners of the cabin, and closed them to dream the samedream over and over.
At last he awoke with a start and sensed a peculiar odor in theroom. He lay perfectly still for a moment wondering what it couldall mean, when a voice as smooth and as evil as the hissing of asnake, cut through the air. He listened but did not move.
"You have hidden it!" the voice said.
There was a long pause and then the voice broke the silence again.
"Arise and come to me."
The next moment the boy heard Thede moving in the bunk above. Thelad first threw his legs over the rail, and Will heard him drawingaway the blankets. Then the boy slipped softly to the floor andmoved, as one who walks in his sleep, toward the north window.
"Come to me, come to me, come to me!" the voice repeatedinsistently.
"I'll come to you, all right, in about a minute," Will mused, "ifyou try any of that magic business here."
Thede continued to move toward the window, walking with his handsoutstretched, as the somnambulist frequently walks.
When the boy reached the window he staggered back as if from ablow, then moved forward again, as if bent on leaving the cabin byway of the narrow opening.
Will raised himself in the bunk, drew an automatic from under hispillow, and fired point blank at the glass. There was a crash andthe cabin grew cloudy with powder smoke.
Thede sat down on the floor abruptly and began rubbing his eyes.
"I guess I walked in my sleep," he said. "I do sometimes."
The shot had awakened Tommy and Sandy, who came bounding to thefloor.
"What'd you shoot at?" they asked.
"The Little Brass God!"
"I guess you've got the Little Brass God on the brain!'' grinnedSandy.
"Yes," Tommy cut in, "you've gone and busted a perfectly good paneof glass when there isn't another one within a hundred miles."
"Did you hit any one?" George called feebly from the bunk.
"I don't know!" replied Will. "I'm going out to see in a minute."
But Tommy and Sandy were out of the door and chasing around thecorner of the house before Will could disentangle himself from theblanket.
Instead of passing outside, then, he stepped over to the window andlooked out. The boys were there looking over the freshly fallensnow with an electric searchlight.
"Did I see anything?" asked Will with a note of victory in hisvoice.
"Somebody saw something!" answered Sandy. "There's blood on thesnow! Some one found a bullet!"
"I'm going to dress and find out where these tracks lead to!" Tommydeclared. "This is too much mischief for me!"
"Stick your face up in the air," advised Will with a grin.
"Snow!" shouted Tommy with a gesture of disgust. "These tracks'llbe full of the beautiful before we could walk forty rods!"
"That's about the size of it!" agreed Will. "So you may as wellcome back into the house and we'll go back to bed."
When the boys entered and closed the door again, it was fouro'clock and they decided not to go back to bed again that night.
"How'd you know there was some one there?" Sandy asked of Will.
"I heard the window sash rattle, then a strong perfume--somethinglike opium or hasheesh--was forced into the room, then the fellowon the outside began to work his hypnotic spell."
"You say it right!" exclaimed Tommy.
"It's just as simple as anything you ever read in a dailynewspaper," declared Will. "This Little Brass God we are tracingup belongs either in a Hindu temple in India, or the Hindus thinkit belongs there. At any rate, some dusky old hypnotizer has beensent after it!"
"You'd better get a new dream book!" Sandy broke in. "Whoever cameto the window tonight, came there to find out what we were doing inthis cabin! That's all there is to that!"
"Whoever came to the window tonight," Will repeated, "came therefor the purpose of hypnotizing one of us boys into telling wherethe Little Brass God is hidden!"
"Then he must be about fourteen miles off his trolley," laughedSandy. "We don't know where the Little Brass God is hidden."
"He threw an Oriental perfume or narcotic of some, kind into theroom and let out his persuasive language," Will went on. "If youdon't believe he hypnotized Thede, just ask him what he heard justbefore he got out of bed."
"I heard some one calling to me," Thede answered.
"What did he say?"
"He told me to come to him."
"And you was obeying that command when you started toward thewindow?"
"I guess that's right," answered the boy, "but it's all so hazythat I don't know much about it."
"And then I fired at the window and broke the spell and also thepane of glass!" explained Will. "If he comes back here again, I'llshoot from the outside! We can't be kept awake nights by any EastIndian magic."
"East Indian granny!" declared Sandy.
"You read about such occurrences in the newspapers every day!"declared Will. "We see people hypnotized and forced to obey thecommands of others, not only in the private parlor but on the openstage. Sometimes, too, the hypnot
ic influence is assisted bystrange Oriental perfume. There's nothing extraordinary about itat all! In fact, there is only one word that describes it, andthat is the word uncanny."
"Fix it anyway you want it!" grinned Tommy. "There's a brokenwindow, and there's blood on the snow, and we found Thede lying onthe floor when we sprang out of bed. If that doesn't make a goodcase of circumstantial evidence, I don't know what does!"
"This Little Brass God is getting on my nerves!" declared Sandyafter a short pause. "We've been up against smugglers on LakeSuperior; up against rattlers and wreckers in the FloridaEverglades, and up against train robbers on the Great Divide, butthis ghost business gets my goat!"
"Perhaps you'd like to go back to Chicago empty-handed?" askedTommy.
"Not so you could notice it!" was the reply. "If there's anythingI like, it's nice little Boy Scout excursions like this. All wehave to do to get busy is to get a camping outfit together andmarch off into the wilderness. Everything else comes right alongas a matter of course. Everything else, from magic haunches ofvenison, which appear when you wave your hand, to Little BrassGods, which grin down from the wall one second and vanish in smokethe next!"
"Aw, come on to bed!" cried George.
"I'm going to sit up and get breakfast!" declared Tommy. "Sandy'sgot a grouch on, and there's nothing on earth so good for a grouchas a slice of broiled venison."
Tommy dressed himself and chased outdoors in order to bring in themeat supply. He returned without it. The venison was gone!