CHAPTER VII
HARVEST TIME
No one said a single word for the better part of a minute, after Toby had made this astonishing statement. They continued to exchange uneasy looks, and then cast furtive glances up toward the particular window at which Toby had been pointing his trembling finger.
It was however excitement, not fear, that made Toby shiver; for after all he was the first to break the sombre silence, and then it was to make a proposition.
"Let's go back up there, and take a turn around," he said, eagerly; "mebbe we did miss some room, and after all there's somebody ahidin' in the blooming haunted house. What d'ye say, fellows?"
"I'm on!" replied one of them before Toby had really finished speaking; and of course it was Chatz who agreed so readily.
Elmer immediately made a move that announced his readiness to do what the first discoverer of the ghost proposed; Ted and Toby followed suit; and finally George, shrugging his shoulders as though he considered it all folly, came tagging along at their heels grunting to himself.
In this fashion they entered the house, and immediately passed up to the second floor, looking curiously about them again. Nothing was in sight, not even a trespassing bat, for the little creatures had all been alarmed when the boys made their first entry, and flown through various openings into the outer air.
"Now be sure you pick out the right window, Toby," warned Chatz.
"I counted 'em from the outside," replied the other, with a business-like air, "and it was exactly the seventh from the end; and here she is. Everybody count and see for yourselves."
"That's all right," remarked George, triumphantly; "but suppose you show us your old ghost, Toby."
"Never said it was one," protested the other, as he looked about in a puzzled manner; "what I did remark, and I stand back of it still, was that if ever there was such a thing as a spook in this world that must have been one."
George sniffed contemptuously.
"Go on and poke him out, then; I want to be shown, if I ain't from Missouri!" he told Toby, who turned his back on him.
"Well, there doesn't seem to be anything here, Toby, for a fact," said Elmer, as he looked carefully around, up and down, on the floor, and along the hall.
"It's disappeared, as sure as shooting, Elmer," admitted the pilot of the ghost-hunting expedition; "but I give you my affidavy that I did see a face, a white one at that, though it flipped out of sight before I could grab a second look."
"Beats the Dutch what an imagination some fellows have got," grumbled George.
"I tell you I did see something, George!" repeated Toby, firmly.
"Sure, you might have done that," agreed the other, cheerfully; "but it's my honest opinion that it might have been just a little flash of sunlight on a window pane. I've known such a thing to startle me more'n once. And when you shifted your head, why, you got out of focus, and the thing disappeared as you say, like a wreath of smoke. Now, I'm one of the kind that likes to look deep into things; and I never let a mystery grip me. Make up your mind, Toby, that it was something like I'm telling you, and let it go at that."
Toby did not answer. Truth to tell he did not know what to say, for while he still firmly believed he had seen a human face at the window there was nothing around by means of which he could prove it.
He went to the window and looked out.
"Anyhow," he remarked, disconsolately, "even if I was fooled by something, it sure wasn't the sun, because it never strikes this side of the house after noontime; and look at the heavy trees shading it, will you? I give the thing up, and yet I'd like to take a look over this floor."
"Suppose we start in and do it, then?" remarked Elmer, quietly.
Even George accompanied them, though he continued to look superior, and allowed a skeptical expression to appear on his face. Possibly, in spite of his avowed disbelief in ghosts, George did not really care to be left alone in that house; his valor might all be on the surface.
Nothing was found, and Toby finally admitted that it seemed useless wasting any more time prowling around.
"But I'll always believe I did see something," he avowed, as they started out of the building again; "and if we come up here to camp during the Thanksgiving holidays we ought to look into this business closer. P'raps something might show up in the night time that'd be worth seeing."
"Do you really think so, Toby?" exclaimed Chatz, with rapture, as though even the mention of it gave him secret delight.
"Rats!" sneered the unconvinced George.
They had gone only a little way from the house when Elmer called a halt.
"Just wait for me a few minutes, boys," he said; "or, if you feel like it, fetch the wagon around to load up our sacks of nuts."
With these words he turned and went straight back into the house. The others exchanged looks, but did not say anything, though they must have thought this queer on the part of the scout master. But then Elmer was a privileged character, and often did things that mystified his chums, explaining later on, to their complete satisfaction. Perhaps he may have dropped something up there on that second floor, or else conceived a sudden idea which caused him to return for another look around.
"Might as well get loaded up, as hang around here any longer?" suggested Toby.
"I think the same," added George, "for there's no telling who'll be seeing all sorts of queer things next. Must be in the air. Once that sort of thing begins to get around, and it takes a solid mind to ward it off. Never bothers me, though."
"I'll bring the horse up," suggested Toby, with a grin; for in spite of finding himself the target for these shafts of ridicule on the part of the scoffer, Toby dearly loved to hear George offering objections.
"Guess you'd better, because Nancy knows you more'n she does any of the rest of us; and a hoss is a rantankerous creature," said Chatz.
"Particularly a mare," added Toby, as he hurried away; but they noticed that he cast many side glances at the surrounding dense foliage as he went in the direction of the spot where they had left Nancy and the wagon when approaching the grove of nut trees, as though he did not wholly fancy finding himself alone amidst such weird surroundings.
Once the wagon was brought up it did not take the scouts long to get all the sacks of nuts loaded. When they saw what a splendid showing the collection made it caused a fresh outbreak of congratulations all around.
"There never was such a grand lot of nuts brought into town from the day the first cabin was built away back!" declared George, who could not see any reason to throw cold water on this positive fact, with the evidence plainly before him.
"That's what comes of having an idea," remarked Toby, proudly; "if I hadn't engineered this plan we might have spent a hard day in the woods, and only brought home a single bag to show for it. Just look at that wholesale lot, will you?"
"Yeth, and we're all ready to thay you did it with your little hatchet, Toby; it taketh you to hatch up plans, thure it doeth," admitted Ted.
"Wonder what's keeping Elmer?" Chatz observed, as he turned to look toward the house, glimpses of which they could catch through small openings in the dense growth of trees; to immediately add: "there he comes right now."
"Hope he found what he was looking for," George ventured, and nothing further was said in regard to the matter.
Elmer quickly joined them. Chatz looked keenly at his face, and fancied that he could detect something like a faint smile there; but even if the scout master had made any sort of discovery on his last visit to the haunted house, he did not seem ready to take his chums into his confidence.
"Well, that looks like something, boys," he remarked, as he surveyed the great load of filled bags that occupied nearly every bit of space in the wagon bed.
"Oh! we believe in doing a wholesale business when we get started," laughed Toby; "the only thing that's bothering me is where Chatz, Ted and George can find room to sit. Guess they'll have to fix it so as to stretch out on top of our load."
"Ted can crowd in with the two of us on the front seat, if he wants," explained Elmer; "and if somebody gives me a hand we'll soon arrange a place for the other seat back here on top of these four partly filled sacks."
"Consolation prizes, you mean!" muttered George, who did not exactly like the idea of their going to all the trouble of carrying the extra sacks home just to drop them in the yards of the members of the Mallon crowd; George was inclined to be proud, and it seemed to smack too much of pulling "chestnuts out of the fire" for others.
"Well, after all, suh, they worked hard enough to knock those nuts down to be entitled to a share," Chatz remarked, that fine Southern sense of justice cropping up again, despite his dislike for Connie Mallon and all those who trained in his camp.
"Not to speak of the bruises and black eyes some of them must have picked up when they conducted that masterly retreat," Elmer added; "I'll never forget that panic; for I don't believe I ever saw fellows more frightened than they were."
"Well, do you blame them?" asked Ted; "if I got it in my head that bunch of ghosth had it in for me on account of my breaking in on their haunt I'd run like a whitehead too, and thatth right."
"I'd like to see Connie's face when he discovers that sack of nuts in his yard to-morrow a. m.," George continued, actually pursing up his lips in a smile, something he was seldom guilty of.
"Reckon he'll think it rained down in the night," chuckled Chatz.
"More'n likely he'll begin to believe he's only been dreaming that these things happened, and that he did fetch the nuts home with him, after all," Toby volunteered.
"But when the other counties are heard from, and they all compare notes, won't they get on to the game then?" George asked.
"How about that, Elmer?" Toby inquired, turning to the scout master.
"I don't see how they can help but figure it out as it stands," came the reply.
"That is, they'll guess we fetched back their bags for 'em, and not wanting to turn the same over empty, just chucked a lot of nuts in to make 'em stand up," and George as he said this looked as consequential as though he had solved some great problem.
"All I'm afraid of," resumed Toby, "is they'll get the idea in their dense heads that we're only doing this because of fear; that is, we're offering a bribe, hoping they'll forgive us for frightening them, and won't hold us to a reckoning. I don't like knuckling down that way. I wish we thought to put a note in each sack telling them we only turned these nuts over because we had more than we could use ourselves, and thought they'd worked hard enough to earn some."
Elmer, however, shook his head.
"That wouldn't be worth while trying!" he declared. "I think it'd only make them more bitter against us. The best way to do is just to leave the bags in their yards, and say nothing. If they ever ask us why we did it, let's say we thought it only fair they should have some of the proceeds of the raid on the Cartaret grove, because they worked hard enough for it. If they want to make trouble after that why we'll have to accommodate them, that's all."
That settled the matter. When Elmer clinched an argument he seldom left any ground for the others to stand on; and in this case all of the boys seemed to be satisfied to let him do as he proposed, though several privately disliked the idea of carrying that additional weight back home, just to turn over to that turbulent, trouble-making crowd.
"There's nothing more to keep us here, seems like," suggested George; "so what do you say to going home?"
"It's time," admitted Chatz, "and if Nancy is able to draw such a heavy load, we ought to get there before dark, which comes along about five, these November days."
"It's mostly down-grade," Toby went on to say, as he climbed to his seat, and took up the lines; "besides, I told you the animal needed a good haul to take some of that extra spirit out of her. All aboard, fellows; those who can't get a board find a rail. Homeward bound, and with the greatest load of bouncing big nuts ever harvested along Hickory Ridge."
They were a merry lot as they found places on the wagon.
"Hope Nancy behaves herself going home," George remarked, as he tried to fix himself firmly in his seat; "if she took a notion to cut up all of a sudden where d'ye think we'd land back here, with the wagon so full?"
"Plenty of room on the road, George; and believe me you wouldn't have to question where you'd dropped, because it'd be a convincing argument," Elmer told him.
So they started, and all of them turned to take a last look in the direction of the haunted house, as they caught a glimpse of it through the trees.
"Good-bye old ghost!" cried Toby, waving the hand that did not hold the reins; "we'll come again and interview you, mebbe. Take care of yourself, and don't play any mad pranks while we're away."
As they rode off, making their way among the trees, and heading for the vicinity of the road, Chatz turned to Ted, who was sitting in the middle again, having decided to cast his fortunes with the comrades of the rear seat, and remarked in what he meant to be a low tone:
"I'd give something to know, suh, whether Elmer did find out about that thing when he went back into the old house again!" but Ted only shook his head in reply, as though the subject was too deep for him, or else he believed Elmer would take them all into his confidence when he saw fit to do so.