“Had we known who he was,” said the leader, “we’d never risked our lives to rescue him from the redskins. Comrades, listen. In yonder small, dark room lie the bleaching bones of poor Tanglefoot Bill. While we are debating over the proper fate for Bill’s slayer, I would suggest that we place the wretched captive in that room with the remains of his victim.”
This proposal meeting no opposition, Grant was pushed toward a door, at which one of the masked fellows took his place with his hand on the knob. At a signal from the leader, the door was opened, the blindfold snatched from Rod’s eyes, and he was given a push that sent him staggering into the room. At the same time some one cried in his ear:
“Behold the bones of your victim!”
The door slammed and the key was hastily turned in the lock.
Barely succeeding in keeping upon his feet, Rodney Grant stumbled against something that rattled; and then in the deep darkness of that place he saw lying at his very feet what seemed to be a skeleton, every bone of which glowed with a dull, phosphorescent luminosity. Involuntarily he backed away from the thing until he had retreated against the door.
“Great jackrabbits!” he gasped. “It can’t be——” He choked, the words seeming to stick in his throat, for, to his added amazement and consternation, the skeleton moved, its head rising slowly from the floor and the upper part of its body following. Little by little it continued to rise, until at last it was in an upright position. Then one long, faintly gleaming arm was lifted from its side until it became outstretched toward the shivering, cowering lad. From some source a hollow groan sounded, followed immediately by a faint, huskily spoken word, twice repeated:
“Retribution! Retribution!”
Outside that room, which in the days when the building had served as a bowling alley had been a washroom and a closet for the keeping of clothing and various other articles, one of the masked jokers was manipulating the cords that had caused the skeleton to rise and lift its arm. Another fellow, with his mask removed, had applied his lips to a knothole in the partition, through which he sent the groan and spoke that terrible sounding word.
“Gee whiz!” giggled the fat chap. “I’ll bet he’s pretty near frightened into fits. I know I’d be.”
“Shut up, Chub!” hissed the leader, who was listening at the door. “Of course he’s scared stiff, for he’s a coward, anyhow.”