Taken in all, it was quite a tremendous racket; and even Amos began to look uneasy, as though he found himself entertaining a suspicion that after all there might be some grain of truth connected with that story of the spirits of the trappers who had met a tragic fate, returning to fight their battles over; while Sallie’s face was the picture of dismay.
Crawley was already making for the door; with the evident intention of fleeing from the wrath to come; nor did he stop give his devoted child one thought in this time of alarm. Big Gabe did not mean to be left in the lurch either, evidently. He had an excuse that with only one good arm he was hardly in condition to wrestle with anything or anyone, either human or of a ghostly order.
The retreat became a scramble, with the whole four at the door at the same time, trying to escape from the haunted interior. The groans had ceased but that might only be a ruse to deceive them.
Amos clutched the precious fiddle, and the girl only stopped once, to possess herself of some article of apparel, for which she possibly entertained fondness on account of certain memories associated between it and her dead mother.
So they streamed out of the cabin in a bunch.
Dolph knew enough to hide, and keep very still. Teddy’s little game had worked very well, only it chanced that in fleeing from the haunted cabin, the two game poachers had gone and carried Amos with them.
So far as the rescue of their camp mate went, Teddy and Dolph were no nearer the goal of their ambition than before.
True, the cabin had been abandoned, temporarily at least, to the spirits, but it was an empty victory after all, since the work must be done over again.
There was always a chance that in the open Amos might slip away. But even at that Teddy would refuse to be pacified; because the rascals held possession of his highly prized Marlin gun, and he did not mean to abandon that indispensable weapon without a fight for it.