Obediently they started off; then Ferris ran back. “I forgot,” he said hastily. “A little while ago we heard a car out on the road. It slowed down, but we couldn’t tell whether it stopped, or whether the trees muffled the sound.”
“A car?” repeated Cavvy thoughtfully. “Humph! Of course it might be just a farmer’s jitney passing; it’s not really very late. Better be careful when you get out on the road, though. This guy must have someone or other to bring him news.”
Ferris nodded, and without further comment turned and vanished into the shadows. Listening intently, Cavanaugh heard the faint rustle of their hurried passage through the bushes. Then silence fell—a silence utter and complete and different, somehow, in its quality from the silence of even a few moments before. He was alone now—yet not alone. Somewhere in that spooky ruin of a house mystery and danger lurked. He felt it in every breath he drew, and it needed a distinct effort of will to force himself into action.
But there was nothing else to do. He could not stop here; he must begin at once to search for his missing friend. Slowly he approached the house and circled it. At the back door he paused and whispered Micky’s name. There was no answer, nor did he, curiously, seem to expect one. He took a step or two forward, his eyes, by this time accustomed to the darkness, sweeping the shadowy outlines of the house and shed. Then his foot struck something on the ground and bending down he picked up a stout stick which lay there in the tall grass.
Micky’s stick! He knew the heft and feel of it, and a fresh wave of apprehension swept over him. Why should Micky have dropped it here after carrying it with him all afternoon?
And then, as he stood there motionless, his heart began to throb suffocatingly. A faint scraping sound had come to him, and in another moment he realized that the door beside him was slowly, silently opening.
CHAPTER XXVIII
TO THE RESCUE
Slowly, silently, inch by inch the portal widened. Beyond that first faint scraping sound, not the slightest creak accompanied the stealthy movement. Cavanaugh, flattened against the house wall, simply saw the black shadow of the door as it swung outward, growing imperceptibly wider against the almost equally dark background behind it. It was almost as if the thing were happening without human agency; and to the boy, already keyed up by the strange doings of the night, the suspense became well nigh intolerable.
He longed to shout, to dash forward, to run away—to do anything which would end that desperate tension. The thudding of his heart suffocated him; he felt sure the sound was audible for yards. It was only by digging teeth painfully into under lip that he was able to keep a precarious hold on himself.
Then all at once he saw a blurred white patch against the shadow of the door—a hand resting on the latch. His own fingers gripped the hickory staff with unconscious force; his muscles stiffened. A faint rustling beat on his taut nerves with a sense of actual physical shock. What was coming? Who was coming? Could it possibly be McBride? Or was it that beastly fat man with the pasty, yellow, hairless face?