The two men moved off in the direction of the hermit’s house. Some minutes passed before Blackie dared to relax his body from the stiffened position his fright had put him into. Reason told him to get away from the spot before he was discovered and would have to face the wrath of the two tramps alone; but curiosity and an uncanny fascination seemed to draw him to the house whose grim face had somehow haunted him since first he had arrived at Lenape. With lagging steps, he followed down the lane toward the fateful, tumbledown dwelling.
As he drew near the door, his terror increased. The hounds were making a dismal racket in their kennel, rattling their chains fiercely. One small, dusty window on the ground floor showed red with firelight; the rest of the house was dark. Drawn and yet repelled by what might be going on behind the weather-beaten walls, he dared the chance of one of the dogs escaping and attacking him, crept to the door, and listened.
The sound of voices raised in anger came to him, a bedlam hubbub of words. He thought he could distinguish the peculiar, slouchy dialect of Rattlesnake Joe above the others.
“Ye’re crazed, ye devils! I’ll have the law onto ye!”
“Will ya tell us where yer silver mine is located?”
“No! I won’t tell ye a tarnal thing——”
There was the clatter of a chair overturned on the board floor. A piercing, terrifying scream, hoarse and horrid, came once and broke off. A heavy body slipped noisily to the floor. Afterward endured a hushed, strained silence, during which Blackie heard with distinctness the beating of his own pulse and the hollow ticking of a clock beyond the door.
The wind was rising; a gust swept over the roof of the somber house, rattling the loose shingles and stirring the tops of the pines. Its coming brought panic to Blackie Thorne. He turned and, with eyes starting with horror, fled away into the dark with the ghastly memory of that hoarse, despairing scream still ringing in his ears.
CHAPTER IX
A RAINY DAY
Blackie did not mention to a single soul what he had seen and heard at the hermit’s house the night of the snipe hunt. He wanted nothing more than to forget the terror which had gripped him by the throat as he stood outside the door of the house in the woods. Indeed, when the crystal clear morning came and the busy camp routine began, it was hard to believe that he had witnessed any dark deed the night before.