CHAPTER III.
THE STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE OF NAT.
"Oh!"
Chatz was the only one who gave utterance to a sound after Elmer had made this surprising, as well as alarming, admission.
The others were looking, first at Elmer, then at each of his three companions as well; and finally out upon the dismal pond that assumed much the appearance of a lake, it stretched so far up the valley, almost a quarter of a mile, in fact.
Just then the only sound they heard was the noisy scolding of the water as it went over the spill or apron of the stout dam that had stood all these long years, defying floods and the ravages of time.
And somehow, there was something chilling in the very lonesome character of their surroundings.
Of the ten scouts present, Chatz seemed to be the only one who did not look solemn. There was an eager glow in the Southern boy's dark eyes, as though the situation appealed to that element of superstition in his nature.
And Elmer, noting this expression, that was almost of glee, knew that when the companions of Chatz fondly believed they had cured him of his silly faith in ghosts and such things, they had made a mistake. The snake had only been "scotched," not killed. It was already awakening again, under the first favorable conditions.
"Say, this ain't any part of the game, is it?" demanded Red.
"Yes, you don't expect us to guess what's become of Nat, and then find him grinning at us, perhaps astraddle of a limb up in a big tree?" remarked Larry.
"I asked these fellows," said Elmer, seriously, "and both Toby and Ty gave me their word of honor that no game or joke was set up between them. If Nat is playing a prank then he's doing it on his own account."
"And Nat ain't generally the fellow to think of playing a joke on his chums," declared Larry.
"Gee, this is getting wild and woolly now!" remarked Landy; "I'm all of a tremble. What if the poor fellow fell over this dam here, struck his head on a rock, and lies right now at the bottom of that black pool where the foam keeps on circling around and around. Ugh! It makes me shiver, fellows, honest and truly."
George, as usual, scoffed at the idea of anything having happened to Nat Scott.
"He'll show up as soon as he feels like it, make sure of that," he declared.
"Have you called him!" asked Matty.
"Yes, all of us did," replied Lil Artha, whose customary rollicking good nature seemed subdued in a measure for once.
"And he didn't answer?" demanded Chatz.
"We never heard a word, and that's a fact, boys," declared Toby Jones, uneasily.
Then they all looked around again, their eyes naturally roving in the quarter where, near the farther end of the dam, the old mill stood.
Its day was long since past. The great water wheel at the end of the sluice had partly fallen to pieces with the passage of time and the ravages of neglect. What was left seemed to be almost entirely covered with green moss, among which the clear little fingers of water trickled.
Suddenly a discordant scream rang out. It was so fearful that several of the fellows turned pale, and all of them started violently.
"There!" ejaculated Chatz.
His manner was almost triumphant; just as though he would like to demand whether these chums of his could not find some reason to believe as he did, after such a manifestation.
"Oh, glory, what was that!" quivered Landy, as he clutched the arm of Elmer Chenowith.
"But it didn't come from the mill," declared Larry. "Sounded to me like it was out there on the pond."
"Good for you, Larry," remarked Elmer.
"Then I was right?" asked the other.
"You certainly were, and if the whole of you turn your eyes aways up yonder, perhaps you'll notice a big black-and-white bird come to the surface. It dived just after scolding us for disturbing its fishing excursion."
Following the direction indicated by Elmer's extended finger the scouts all watched eagerly.
"I see something moving just behind that bunch of lily pads," exclaimed one with keen vision.
"There it swims out now, and it's a big water bird, too. Looks like a goose to me," Landy remarked, earnestly.
"That's a loon, fellows!" exclaimed Red.
"Is it, Elmer?" they demanded in a breath.
"Just what it is, and nothing else," replied the acting scout master. "They are very common up in the Great Northwest. And once you've heard their wild laugh you'll never forget it."
"Huh, sounds just like the shout of a crazy man to me," ventured Lil Artha.
"Everybody says that," Elmer declared. "And I never knew a single fellow who liked to hear a loon call. Some say it's a sign of ill luck to be scolded by a loon."
"Ill luck!" echoed Chatz, once more looking in the direction of the ramshackle old mill.
"But see here," remarked Matty, "tell us about Nat, won't you? When was his queer disappearance first noticed, Elmer?"
"Well, when Lil Artha and myself arrived here we found Toby and Ty throwing stones out in the pond, scaring the little red-marked turtles that were sitting by dozens on every old log and rock, and great big bullfrogs as well."
"Never saw so many whopping big frogs in all my life," declared Ty.
"You see," explained Toby, "we missed Nat, but thought he had just wandered off to look around. Ty and me, why, we felt too tired to explore things till the rest came along."
"Oh, but you could amuse yourselves throwing things into the water, eh?" Matty remarked, with such a vein of sarcasm in his voice that Toby immediately aroused to defend himself.
"'Twa'n't that at all, Matty Eggleston; prove it by Ty here if either of us was afraid to go inside your old haunted mill, was we, Ty?" he exclaimed, with a fine show of righteous indignation.
"Course we wasn't," Ty hastened to declare, with a decided shake of his tousled head. "We walked along the shore till we came to a nice shady place, and then squatted down, meanin' to wait till Elmer showed up. Then I popped a rock at a sassy little turkle, and pretty soon both of us were letting fly."
"When did you miss Nat, and where was he the last you saw him?" asked Matty, who was expected some day to become a lawyer.
"Oh!" answered Toby, "he said he'd hang around the dam here and look into things. You know Nat always did want to pry into everything he saw."
"What then?" Matty went on asking.
"Why, we saw Elmer and Lil Artha coming, and went to meet 'em, that's all," replied Ty.
"Have any of you been inside the mill?"
"Why, no," Toby spoke up. "Elmer and Lil Artha sat down to rest, and you see we expected Nat to pop out on us any minute, so we just didn't say anything about it till they asked."
"And that was just about the time we first heard your voices close by," said Elmer, "so we made up our minds to wait till you joined us, when we could scatter and search."
"Search!" echoed Larry. "Good gracious! do you think Nat can be lost?"
"It doesn't seem possible," admitted Elmer, "but I blew the bugle, and sounded the assembly. If Nat heard that he is scout enough to know it was a command for him to come in—if he could."
"Whew! this is something we didn't expect to run up against—a mystery right in the start," remarked Matty, mopping his face with his big bandana handkerchief, which he wore about his neck, cowboy fashion, with the knot behind.
"You never can tell, suh!" said Chatz, in a solemn manner; and somehow none of the boys seemed quite as ready to scoff at the Southerner's superstitious belief, as usual.
"But hadn't we better be looking around?" remarked Matty. "Nat may have gone into the old mill, bent on investigating, and some accident have happened to him."
"As what?" queried George, cautiously.
"Oh, well, perhaps he tripped and fell, striking his head as he went down. Then again, a rotten plank might have given way under him, and let him get an ugly fall," Matty replied.
"That sounds reasonable enough," said Elmer, "and now I want some of you to scatter around and see if you can discover any trace of our missing comrade. Red, you get a long pole and poke down in that deep pool, though I feel pretty sure you won't find any sign of him there, because there isn't a mark of blood on the rocks, as there would be if he had fallen from up here on the dam."
The boys looked aghast.
Up to this point perhaps Landy and several others may have indulged in a hope that after all perhaps this might only be a little finish to the remarkable game of fox and hounds which they had been playing.
Indeed, Red and Larry had once or twice even exchanged sly winks. They actually suspected that Elmer had secretly ordered Nat to conceal himself, up among the branches of a tree, perhaps, so as to have the whole party guessing, and running around like a pack of dogs off the scent.
Now the last vague hope in this particular seemed shattered by Elmer's thrilling suggestion.
And more than Red's horrified eyes roved in the direction of the ugly black pool, across the surface of which the foamy white bubbles kept circling constantly, as the surplus water ran over the dam.
"Where will the rest of us look, Elmer?" asked Matty, breaking the awful silence that had gripped them after hearing the scout master's suggestion.
"Any old place," replied Elmer; "only I guess you needn't go far along that farther shore, because Toby and Ty were there where you see that big oak tree."
"They couldn't see the dam from there, could they?" asked Red, quickly.
"No, that's true," answered Toby.
"And so they wouldn't know whether anybody knocked poor Nat over here; or if he went across to the old mill," Red continued.
"Right you are, Red," replied Ty; "but neither did we hear any shout. An old bluejay was screechin' in the woods near us. Yep, a feller might 'a' called out and we not noticed it."
"I want two of you to go with me to the mill," said Elmer.
"Count me for one!" cried some one, instantly; and of course that was the eager Chatz, who would have started a new rebellion had he been debarred that privilege.
"And I'm the second victim," declared Lil Artha, with a grin, but at the same time looking very determined.
"All right," said Elmer; "fall in behind me, and we'll see what the inside of the mill looks like."