*CHAPTER XVII*
*BILLIE MEETS TRESPASSERS*
It was unlike any sound the girls had ever heard back at the Cove;almost like a human being in distress and yet like some animal cry too.
"It's a fox," whispered Astrid, getting nearer to her big sister.
"No, it isn't," said Abby. "That's a deer. They always yell like thatwhen the moon's full."
"It was right near, I think, right outside." Kit sat up eager and tense."Shall I flash the light, Jean?"
"Not yet. Wait until it comes again. I think it was only some nightbird."
So they waited breathlessly. Every tiny creaking noise in the old housewas intensified by the heavy silence. Jean rose and went to the window.The moon was not up yet, and it was hard to distinguish objects, butdown in the garden she thought she saw something that looked like a cowlying down.
"I can't tell just what it is. It may be only a stray cow or horse,"she said softly.
"Throw something at it," suggested Kit, hopefully. "Let's all throwsomething."
"Just to see whether it jumps or not," Astrid assented. She huntedaround and found some loose half bricks in the chimney place.
"Where's Tip? He hasn't barked once," remarked Abby.
"Dogs are always frightened when they see ghosts. Let me fire away atit first, girls." Astrid took aim and the half brick flew down at thedark object with a deadly thud, but there was no stampede. She leanedfar out the window, staring at it anxiously. "It seems to me I can seeit move and it has horns and a sort of woolly tail, girls."
"Sounds like a yak," Kit chuckled. "I'm willing to do this much. I'llgo to the door and open it, and you girls stay here with bricks tothrow, and when I flash the light on it, if it jumps you can save me."
But before she could carry out the plan the sound came again, longer andmore thrillingly penetrating than before. It was a wail and a challengeand a moan all in one, not just one cry, but a prolonged succession ofthem. As soon as it stopped Piney exclaimed:
"Now I know. That's an owl and it comes from the little garret over the'ell' where we couldn't climb because there weren't any stairs. Don'tyou know, girls?"
"Sure, Piney?" Etoile's tone was almost trembling. "Never I hear sucha cry."
"Oh, I have. It's an owl, I know it is, one of those big ones. Ridingthrough the woods at night coming home from town I've been half scaredto death by one of them. Sounds like seventeen ghosts all rolled intoone. Come along, Kit. You and I'll go hunt it up."
The rest followed gingerly, a strange procession bearing candles, Kitleading with the flash, light. Tip stumbled up drowsily from thekitchen door and barked at them.
"Oh, yes, it's all very well for you to bark now," laughed Jean. "Whydidn't you go after that noise?"
They reached the "ell" room and found a trapdoor in the ceiling. Abbyremembered seeing a ladder out in the back entry behind the door andthis was brought in.
"And see this, girls," she exclaimed, running her finger over it. "Nodust on the rounds. That shows it's been used lately."
"Aren't we perfectly wonderful scouts? Abby, I love the way you nevermiss anything." Kit leaned the ladder up against the wall, and mountedit, with Piney close behind and the other girls at its base. "What ifit shouldn't be an owl--"
She stopped with her palm against the trapdoor. Raising it about an inchshe flashed the light, and there was a great fluttering and floppingoverhead.
"What did I tell you!" Piney cried excitedly. "Do it again, Kit. Itcan't hurt you and the light blinds it."
So the trap-door was lifted again with the light of the electric handlamp turned on full and Kit cautiously pulled herself up into theaperture. It was tent shaped and low, not more than four feet at itshighest. But instead of being bare like the rest of the old house,there were certainly evidences of human occupancy. There was a tin canfilled with fresh water, and a strip of rag carpet laid down on thefloor. A box of fish hooks and neatly rolled lines lay on one side, andthere was a small frying pan and a horn handled steel knife and fork.Rolled up in one corner was a pair of old overalls, and some books muchthe worse for wear lay beside them. Kit's glance took in everything,and last of all, backed into a corner and blinking hard, was the ghostitself,--a big white owl.
Piney pulled herself up too, and reached out after the books gently soas not to frighten the owl any more. With a couple in her hand, theylowered the door again, and joined the others.
"It's an owl and a hermit's nest," Kit told them excitedly. "Open thebooks, Piney. Is there any name inside?"
Piney read off the titles,
"'Treasure Island' and 'Peveril of the Peak.' He's got a nicecollection, hasn't he, whoever he is? There isn't any name inside.There's a bookplate in each though."
"Let me see." Helen and Kit both tried to look at the same time. Thebookplate was pasted in each, but it was a hard one to decipher. Itlooked like some cryptogram with its intertwined letter forms, and theygave it up for the night.
"Well, there was certainly fresh water in that tin," Kit saidpositively, "and that shows the haunted house is inhabited by somethingtangible, I mean something besides the owl. Let's go to bed very calmlyand sleep. I'm sure we've laid the ghost."
It did seem as though they had, for the remainder of the night waspeaceful and safe except for the owl crying out lonesomely at intervalsuntil about four o'clock, when the dawn came. Rolled in their blankets,the girls slept soundly until the sunlight threw broad golden beams intotheir quarters.
There was no rope on the windlass at the well, so Ingeborg proposed thatthey go down to the river and wash there. It was lots of fun. Theyfound that the dark and fearsome object they had heaved bricks at thenight before was only a big gray rock half sunken in the ground.
Along the river margin turtles sunned themselves in rows on thehalf-submerged logs, and a muskrat scuttled clumsily for cover at sightof the invaders.
"I wish we could go right in," said Jean, looking up and down thewinding course of the river as she parted the alders; "but it isn'treally safe when you don't know the water. This looks full ofunexpected holes and snags. Where does it run to?"
"Down past the two mills, and rises away up in the Quinnebaug Hills,"Piney told her, kneeling on a flat rock and splashing herself well. "Didyou see that black snake hustle out of the way then? They're awfulcowards. Yes, Jean, this comes from Judge Ellis's place about two milesbeyond here, three and a half by road."
"Judge Ellis? Billie's grandfather?"
"You talk just as if you knew him, Kit."
"Well, I feel as if I do, and when I do I'm going to take him rightunder my wing and be a mother to him," said Kit defiantly.
"Who? The Judge?"
"No. This Billie person. Or I'll trot him home to Mother and let herbe nice to him."
"Here are some fishpoles, girls, hidden in the bushes," Doris calledout. "Know what I think? There are boys around."
All at once upstream they heard somebody whistling. At first it soundedalmost like a bird trilling high and clear, but birds do not sing"Marching Through Georgia," so the girls sat there on the bank,sheltered from view by the alders, and waited until a flat bottomedrow-boat came into view. Standing at the stern, one bare foot on theback seat and one on the cross seat, with a long punting pole in hishands, was a boy of about fifteen. His head was bare and his overallswere rolled above his knees. Whistling recklessly, sure of himself andthe solitude, he came down the river and guided the boat to shore nearwhere the girls sat. He hauled it up half-way out of the water, droppedthe pole into it, and started up the bank before he caught sight ofthem.
"That's Billie Ellis," Piney said quickly, and waved her hand to him infriendly greeting. "Hello, Billie."
"Hello," Billie returned. "Where'd you come from?"
"We came from Whence and are going Whither," Kit spoke up merrily. "Gotsome fish for breakfast?"
Billie hesitated, tr
ying to appear nonchalant, but plainly very muchrattled at these persons who had taken up squatter rights on his domain.He rolled down his overalls very slowly and deliberately to gain time,and this gave the girls a chance to see just what he looked like, thisBillie person, as Kit had dubbed him. He was taller than Honey by agood deal, with short-cropped curly hair rather nondescript in color,and big brown eyes, eyes as startlingly frank and uncompromising intheir gaze as those of a deer. He was tanned a nice healthy brown, andhis smile was extremely satisfying if one were looking for friendliness.Altogether, the Greenacre girls approved of Billie at sight. To theothers he was more or less familiar, even while none of them knew himwell.
"Where you all going?" he asked.
"Just walking over the country," Abby told him. "Where are you going,Billie?"
Billie flushed at this direct query.
"Oh, I don't know," he answered lamely. "I come down the river a lot."
"We fed the owl," Kit said innocently. "Just some bread and ham. Isuppose it thought it had a new kind of mouse."
Billie glanced at her with quick boyish indignation. They had not beensatisfied with finding out his landing place and swimming hole. They hadgone into the old house and discovered his secret den and the big whiteowl. He had always regarded girls as semi-dangerous, but this was worsethan even he had expected. He turned to Piney as the one in the crowdthat he knew best.
"What did you go into the house for?"
"Shelter for the night," Piney answered promptly. "The door was openand we went in. If folks don't want company they should keep their doorslocked. Anyhow, nobody lives here and we didn't hurt a thing. Wewanted to see the ghost."
Billie grinned at this admission, a quick mischievous grin that made hiswhole face light up and seem to sparkle with fun.
"Did he come up and rattle his chains for you?"
"No, he didn't, and I don't believe he ever did for anybody else."
"Maybe not," Billie agreed blandly. "How far up the river are yougoing?"
"To Mount Ponchas."
"That's only seven and a half miles. You can go along up the hill roadfrom here, and when you come to the state road that has telegraph poleson it, you turn off and go west. It's three hills over and you passthrough one village, Shiloh Valley. When you come to Ponchas don'tforget to look for the grave of the Cavalier."
"Where's that?" asked Jean. "We haven't heard of it at all."
This was touching Billie's heart in the right spot. He knew every rodof land for miles around Gilead and loved its old historic lore. Thegirls did not know it then, but life was rather a dull affair over atthe Judge's place. There were only the Judge himself; Mrs. Gorham, hishousekeeper; Farley Riggs, his general business man; and Ben Brooks, thehired man. It was rather an unsympathetic household for a boy offifteen, especially one who had been unwelcome; but he had made friendswith Ben and had found him a treasure house of information.
There might be other sections of importance in the United States besidesGilead Center, Connecticut, but Ben held them in slight esteem. He hadbeen born and brought up there and had never even wanted to go away.The sun had always risen and set for him beyond the encirclingQuinnebaug Hills. He was about forty when Billie first came, genial,optimistic, rather good-looking, and an insatiable reader.
Billie's two favorite occupations were ranging the country on personalhikes of exploration and sitting up in Ben's room over the corn house inthe evenings, looking at his books and magazines and listening to himtalk on current topics and historic events. No topic was too intricatefor Ben to tackle. No government ever evaded him when it came todiplomatic tricks or ways. He was on to them all, as he told Billie.
So now Billie remembered how Ben had told him about the mysteriousstranger who had come to Gilead back in the earliest days of thesettlement. The colonists had suffered much from Indian raids untilthere came into their midst a man whom they called the Cavalier. Withhis negro body-servant, he had lived amongst them and taught themdefense against their savage foes, taught them the best way to win overthe soil and reclaim the wilderness. Yet when he died they knew no moreof him than on the first day when he rode into their village. His gravelay over on the south side of Mount Ponchas where he had wished it tobe, near a rock where he had often held council with the Indians.
"Be sure to see it when you get there," Billie advised. "I wish I wasgoing along with you."
"Come over to our place, won't you, Billie?" Kit asked in her mostneighborly way. "I'd like to ask you about some arrow heads we found.Will you?"
Billie nodded his head nonchalantly. It was like giving a bird aninvitation to call on you, or handing your card to a rabbit. But hewatched them as they went up the hill road from the river, and whenDoris turned and waved, he waved back. At least he was interested inhis trespassers, even though he could not quite forgive them for havingdiscovered his pet hiding place.