The moonlight sent a half light into the place and for a single instant they thought that the place was empty. Then, as they became accustomed to the place, they saw a lone figure crouching along the wall, trying to conceal itself in the darker shadows of the little tower. The boys drew in sharp breaths and their skins prickled as the man rose from his place of concealment. He knew that he had been observed and his hand fumbled for the knob of the door which opened into the main house.
Buck had a flash of inspiration. He jumped over the low sill into the cupola.
“No you don’t, Jerry Jackson!” he cried.
CHAPTER XXIV
MYSTERIES ARE CLEARED UP
The man who stood before them, seeking to open the door leading into the house was indeed the lone dweller from Hogs’ Hollow. He had heard the two approaching boys and had hidden himself in the cupola of the abandoned house, not dreaming for a moment that they would enter the place. He had heard the scratching made by them as they climbed the porch and their appearance at the open front of the little tower took him by surprise. For a single moment his little eyes gleamed with an impulse of violence, but Buck looked fairly husky and Drummer, though short, was stocky. The man spoke up in a high voice.
“What you fellers want? I ain’t done nothing to you!”
“You are Jerry Jackson, aren’t you?” Buck asked, striking a match and looking closely at the tall, stooped old man. Jackson was past middle age and his hair was a tangled gray mass which hung far below the line which would have been marked by a collar had he possessed one. His clothing was ragged beyond description.
“Yes, I’m Jerry Jackson, but you got nothing against me,” was the whining reply. The old man held something behind him all the time with his left hand and Buck had an uneasy feeling that it might be something in the nature of a weapon. He kept his eyes narrowly on the man as he continued to question him.
“You say we haven’t anything on you, eh? How about scaring us, cutting down our tents, posing on a rock with a horse, and setting fire to the woods!”
The man stirred indignantly. “I never did set on no horse or set the woods on fire!” he cried, vehemently. “I’ll tell you all I ever done to your camp. I walked through it with a lantern the first night you got there, and I blew that conch shell to scare you. I was the one who cut the ropes on your tents, because you had to go and chase me all over the mountain, durn yore hides! While you fellers was gettin’ a soakin’ I slipped down and cut the ropes. Then you chased me another night when I was hangin’ around yore camp, the night I tried to tote off one ’o you, and somebody pegged apples at me! But I never used no horse or set fire to anything.”