“If you go,” he threatened, “you’ll lose the bonus I promised to everybody who’d work a week straight here and not be scared away by silly stories. Besides, we’ve got to keep on looking for Jim.”
“A man vanishing isn’t a silly story,” snarled one man.
Sim, Terry, and Dorothy were interested in the efforts of the contractor and realized that he was trying desperately to keep his force together. It was a sort of last stand with him, since so many of the more ignorant workers had left previously. Arden, hardly knowing why, wandered out and around to the rear of the old Hall. She was tired of the confusion but did not want to give up.
“I wonder if I could think this out?” she reasoned. “There must be some answer.”
In a sort of mental fog, Arden walked on a little farther into the field. She found herself in a tangle of weeds where once had been beds of flowers. There was one of the entrances to the great cellar under the old mansion, just under a little back porch.
Arden peered down the crumbling stone steps and looked past the sagging, rotting, open door into the blackness. A damp, musty smell floated up to her; perhaps the remains of the aroma that must have clung to the cellar since its days of full and plenty.
As Arden stood there, she was surprised to see a little flickering light in the darkness of the cellar. Suddenly the light, which was bobbing about like a will-o’-the-wisp, came to a stop.
“Somebody’s down there!” gasped Arden. “Oh——”
A moment later she heard a scream. It was the high-pitched and frightened voice of a girl.
Then, out of the black cellar, with horror showing on her face, came running—Betty Howe!