CHAPTER VI.
THE RESULT OF A PRACTICAL JOKE.
The woods rang with their whoops and yells; their circling figures castflitting, grotesque, fantastic shadows. The helpless captive choked andstrangled; the fire had begun to scorch his shins.
Suddenly, with a series of answering yells, half a dozen masked fellowscharged forth from the darkness and fell upon the savages, who, inseeming panic, took to their heels and fled, after a brief show ofresistance. Two or three of the newcomers had apparently made an effortto dress themselves like cowboys, while the remainder simply worerough, ill-fitting clothes, or garments turned wrongside out. One, whoseemed to be the leader, scattered the blazing leaves and sticks withhis feet and began stamping out the fire.
“Pards,” he said, “we’ve put the pesky redskins to rout and saved thispoor fellow from a frightful death. I reckon he will be very grateful.”
The still choking captive, blinking the smoke from his eyes, gazedsharply at the speaker.
“I’m sure much obliged for the temporary relief, Mr. Barker,” he said;“but I’m not chump enough to opine you’re through with your shindig,and I allow there’s something more coming to me.”
“What’s this?” cried the other. “His voice sounds familiar. Hisface—I’ve seen it before. So help me, he’s the galoot that led thecowpunchers who lynched my partner, poor old Tanglefoot Bill. I sworevengeance upon him, and my hour has come. He shall pay dearly for whathe did to Tanglefoot. Eh, pards?”
“That’s right; that’s right,” they cried, glaring threateningly at thecaptive through the eyeholes of their masks.
“Let’s swing him from a limb,” proposed a stout chap, who wasoccasionally losing a peanut from a hole in the bottom of the wellstuffed side pocket of his coat. “Many a time and oft has he boasted ofwhat he has done to cattle rustlers like us.”
“My deduction is——” began a little chap; but instantly some one gavehim a poke in the ribs, which cut him short.
“We’ll bear him to our retreat amid the mountains,” proposed theleader, “and there we can decide what fate shall be meted out to him.Release him from the tree, but blindfold his eyes, in order that he maynot observe the trail we follow.”
These instructions were carried out, although they took care to leaveGrant’s hands pinioned behind his back. A thickly folded handkerchiefwas placed over his eyes and securely tied at the back of his head.Barely was this done when the three redskins and the renegade camesneaking back from the shadows of the woods and joined the self-styledcattle rustlers. Threatening Grant if he made an outcry, they hurriedhim forth from the woods and away toward the twinkling lights of thedistant village. Down the Barville road they went, approaching the darkand silent academy and the gymnasium. Among themselves at intervalsthey muttered fierce threats of vengeance for the death of the mythical“Tanglefoot Bill.”
Once or twice a sound like a suppressed, smothered giggle came frombehind the mask of the fat fellow, causing one of his companions togive him a vigorous punch and hiss into his ear an order to “dry up.”
Within the gymnasium a shaded light glowed dimly. Beneath this lightthey gathered, with the unresisting and still blindfolded captive intheir midst.
“What shall we do with him, comrades?” questioned the leader.
“String him up to a rafter,” urged one of his followers.
“Show him no mercy,” advised another.
“Make short work of him,” growled still another.
“Had we known who he was,” said the leader, “we’d never risked ourlives to rescue him from the redskins. Comrades, listen. In yondersmall, dark room lie the bleaching bones of poor Tanglefoot Bill. Whilewe are debating over the proper fate for Bill’s slayer, I would suggestthat we place the wretched captive in that room with the remains of hisvictim.”
This proposal meeting no opposition, Grant was pushed toward a door, atwhich one of the masked fellows took his place with his hand on theknob. At a signal from the leader, the door was opened, the blindfoldsnatched from Rod’s eyes, and he was given a push that sent himstaggering 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 stumbledagainst something that rattled; and then in the deep darkness of thatplace he saw lying at his very feet what seemed to be a skeleton, everybone of which glowed with a dull, phosphorescent luminosity.Involuntarily he backed away from the thing until he had retreatedagainst the door.
“Great jackrabbits!” he gasped. “It can’t be——” He choked, the wordsseeming to stick in his throat, for, to his added amazement andconsternation, the skeleton moved, its head rising slowly from thefloor and the upper part of its body following. Little by little itcontinued to rise, until at last it was in an upright position. Thenone long, faintly gleaming arm was lifted from its side until it becameoutstretched toward the shivering, cowering lad. From some source ahollow groan sounded, followed immediately by a faint, huskily spokenword, twice repeated:
“Retribution! Retribution!”
Outside that room, which in the days when the building had served as abowling alley had been a washroom and a closet for the keeping ofclothing and various other articles, one of the masked jokers wasmanipulating the cords that had caused the skeleton to rise and liftits arm. Another fellow, with his mask removed, had applied his lips toa knothole in the partition, through which he sent the groan and spokethat terrible sounding word.
“Gee whiz!” giggled the fat chap. “I’ll bet he’s pretty near frightenedinto fits. I know I’d be.”
“Shut up, Chub!” hissed the leader, who was listening at the door. “Ofcourse he’s scared stiff, for he’s a coward, anyhow.”
“He ought to be yelling blub-bloody murder by this time,” murmuredOsceola, the Seminole.
“Can yeou hear anything, Berlin?” asked Tecumpseh, the Shawnee.
“How can I hear anything with all you fellows pushing and chattering?”fretfully retorted the one at the door.
“My deduction is,” said the chap who had pulled the cords, “that he’stoo scared to even utter a chirp.”
“I bate a hundred dollars,” laughed King Philip, “that this will cookhim so he won’t tell no more yarns about hunting Indians and lynchingcattle thieves.”
“Shut up!” once more ordered the leader. “I can hear something now.Listen to that. What’s he doing?”
The sounds, low and weird and doleful, issuing from that small, darkroom, filled them with unspeakable astonishment.
“So help me, Bob,” spluttered King Philip, “he’s singing!”
It was a sad and doleful wailing, like a funeral dirge, and the jokers,who had been ready to shriek with laughter a few moments before, werenow struck dumb by wonderment, and more than one of them felt a shivercreep along his spine. Suddenly the singing ceased, but it was followedby a burst of wild laughter even more startling.
“He’s gug-giving us the ha-ha,” said Osceola. “Now what do you think ofthat!”
There seemed, however, to be no merriment in the strange, wild peals oflaughter which reached their ears. Agitated and apprehensive, onefellow seized the shoulder of the chap who stood at the door.
“Open up, Bark,” he urged—“open up! Turn the lights on, somebody. Let’ssee what’s the matter in there.”
As the lights were turned on the door swung open, and those practicaljokers, crowding forward, beheld a spectacle that made more than onerecoil. In some manner Rodney Grant had succeeded in freeing his handsfrom the rope. His coat had been torn off and flung aside. His shirtwas ripped open at the throat, and one sleeve had been torn intoshreds. He was crouching on one knee directly in front of the danglingskeleton, and the flood of light from the open door fell on a face sowild and terrible that the disguised boys shuddered at beholding it. Hewas white
as a sheet; his eyes glared, and a frothing foam covered hislips.
“Avaunt!” he shrieked. “Quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee! Thybones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; thou hast no speculation inthose eyes which thou dost glare with!”
“Great mercy!” gurgled one of the group at the door. “He’s gonemad—stark, staring mad!”
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