“Wha–what is it, sir?” he asked, striving to keep his voice steady.
“I don’t know,” returned Mr. Curtis, briefly. He had slid into his riding-breeches and was hurriedly dragging on the heavy boots. “That’s what we’ll have to find out.”
Bob hastily caught up his trousers. “It–it sounded like somebody being–choked,” he said shakily.
Every one was out on the floor now, grabbing hastily for his clothes. Oliver caused a momentary spasm of mirth by trying to crowd both feet into one trouser-leg, but for the most part the boys huddled on their things in silence, shivering a bit from cold and nervousness. In about two minutes they were ready, and, catching up their staves, they hurried out into the open, the scoutmaster leading the way.
It had stopped snowing, and overhead a few stars gleamed coldly out of the blue-black sky. The wind had died down and the snow-clad woods stretched away before them, dim, white, oppressively silent, the tree-trunks black, the laden hemlocks distorted into queer shapes and shadows.
The bright gleam from the scoutmaster’s flash-light, sweeping the snow about the cabin door, showed it unbroken by a single footprint of man or animal. They pushed on through the group of hemlocks, showering themselves with icy particles, but still they neither saw nor heard anything unusual. Then, just as some of the sounder sleepers were beginning to wonder whether they might not have dreamed it all, there rang out suddenly from among the tall laurel-bushes to their left a piercing, gurgling scream.
The horrible sound, so much clearer and more blood-curdling in the open, seemed to paralyze them all. For a fraction of a second they stood motionless; then Mr. Curtis plunged forward through the snow, and the rest followed in a straggling group, eyes starting and hands spasmodically clenching their staves.
“It’s somebody being–murdered!” gasped Bob Gibson, huskily. “I knew the minute I heard it that something awful–”
He broke off with a queer, inarticulate murmur. Mr. Curtis had stopped so suddenly that the boy just behind narrowly escaped running into him. Throwing back his head, he sent peal after peal of laughter ringing through the silent woods. The scouts stared, dazed, as if they thought he had taken leave of his senses.
“What is it, sir?” begged two or three voices at once. “What–”