“Wind?” he debated. “Wind blew last night, but not hard. H’m! How come?”
Approaching guardedly, he peered within. Nobody was there. Nothing seemed altered. The place not only looked empty—it felt empty.
But before stepping over the threshold he shoved the door hard with one foot. It swung back and struck the wall, proving that nothing waited behind it. Entering, he shot a glance into the bedroom where lay the forgotten dummy of burlap. For a second he stood rigid. Then he leaped into the room.
The dummy still lay there. But it had been visited in the night. The visitor had left a memento of his call. Its handle jutted horizontally from the huddled sacks.
Douglas grasped that handle and drew upward. From the burlap and the corn-husk mattress beneath slid a long blade. Grimly he inspected it. When he turned toward the outer room his face was flint.
He had seen that murderous tool before. It was the corn-hook of Nigger Nat Oaks.
CHAPTER XVIII
HUNTERS OF MEN
Moving rapidly about, Douglas inspected his real bedroom and the spidery attic, finding his bough-tip couch undisturbed and the upper room empty. Back in the main room, he glowered anew at the bayonet-like blade which had been driven with such venomous force into what seemed to be a sleeping man.
“This cooks your goose, Nat Oaks!” he growled. “You’ve let yourself in for the worst mauling you ever got in your low-down life. Just as soon as you and I meet up again—and we’ll meet just as quick as I can find you!”
He strode to the door. But there he slowed, stayed by the reflection that Nigger Nat was not likely to be at home now and that he did not know where else to look. “Better build a fire, eat, and dry out,” whispered Common Sense. So he slammed the door shut and returned to the cold stove.