Chapter XXX: Hollow Chuckles

On a moose trail that leads down the steep slope of the ridge lying between Duncan’s Bay and Tobin’s Harbor a flashlight gleamed. Once, twice, and yet again Johnny Thompson saw that light flashing among the trees high up and far away, and he wondered a long wonder. He said nothing to Drew Lane. The time had come for silence and action. Bending low, he drove their boat forward at increased speed.

Meanwhile the light on the slope blinked on and off, was lost among the shadows of tall spruce trees, came out into the open, vanished behind overhanging rocks, then was lost to view altogether as it reached lower levels where giant spruce trees, a primeval forest, cast deep shadows over a small world as dark as a tomb.

“That light,” Johnny told himself, “is no witch light of the night. Some one is coming down the ridge. Wonder who? And why? Drew said this island was practically uninhabited in winter. Looks as if the ghost of every Indian, explorer or trader who ever visited these shores has returned to-night.

“Ghosts,” he whispered to himself, “surely are queer!” He was thinking of the Galloping Ghost.

“Now we’ll swing in.” It was Drew who broke this curious chain of thoughts.

Fifteen minutes more of silent rowing and their boat touched without a sound on a mossy shore.

“Good!” Drew breathed. “Bushes here. We can hide the boat. May need it in case—”

He did not finish, but Johnny caught the meaning—in case the men they were after were too strong for them. He had visions of Drew stumbling through the brush carrying his bullet-riddled body. It was not a pleasing vision. He put it out of his mind.

And indeed there was need of this. There was little or no trail on this side of the channel. Here a moose had crowded his way through the brush; and here, becoming discouraged, he had left the next comer to make the best of things and had taken to the water.

There was need for extreme caution. The snapping of a twig, the sudden rush of a moose disturbed in the night, would betray their presence.

“About half the way,” Drew breathed at last.

A stretch of barren, sloping rocks greeted their eyes.

“Skirt it.”

They crept across in the shadows.

“Must be nearly there. Get ready.” Drew was calm. Though little more than a boy, he was a seasoned trooper.

“There! There’s a gleam of light!” Johnny gripped his arm.

“Just around this next clump of pines we’ll get a clear view. And then—”

They were around those pines before Johnny in his suspense breathed twice.

“Now! You ready?” Drew squared his shoulders.

“Now then, you fellows!” His voice sounded out strangely in the night. “We got you covered. Reach for the stars!”

There was a sound of sudden commotion by the camp fire. Three figures leaped into view. But they were not “reaching for the stars.” Their hands hung awkwardly at their sides.

“Now what—” Drew all but dropped his gun.

“That’s not the bunch we’re after,” he said in a low tone aside to Johnny. “Got to keep ’em comin’ though. Got guns. May shoot us without knowing what it’s all about.

“As you are!” he commanded sharply. “One move, and out goes your light.”

The men did not move. Instead, as Drew approached them slowly, they stood blinking into his flashlight.

Drew took in the scene at a glance. The camp had been made on a shelving rock. A little back from the fire lay the hind quarters of a moose.

“Great luck!” he thought to himself. “Poachers. Not allowed to kill moose on this island.”

“Honest, mister,” it was a grown boy who spoke at last, “we only kill what we got to have to eat. We can’t starve.”

“Ya, we do,” put in a heavy-set man with ham-like hands.

“We-l-l—” Drew was thinking fast. “I’m an officer of the law. I could take you all right. But I’m after bigger game. There are kidnapers on this island. Know that?” He turned to the boy of the group.

“No, I— There’s some queer ones back there at Baley’s cabin. We seen ’em. Sort of black. But not niggers, I don’t think.”

“They’re the ones. How’d you like to help catch them?”

“We—” The boy stared. Then of a sudden he started talking rapidly in a strange language. His two beefy companions listened with popping eyes.

“They’ll do it, all right,” Drew whispered to Johnny. “Got to! Between the devil and the deep blue sea, they are. Go to jail for poaching or help catch crooks. What would you do?”

“We’ll go,” the strange boy said simply.

“Ya. We do,” one of the men agreed.

“Good! Now we are five,” Drew exulted. “Not a bad lot,” he mumbled to Johnny. “Just ignorant and hungry. Good shots, too, I’ll bet on that.”

Johnny took a long breath. All that suspense, and the kidnapers still some distance away! He felt very much like an empty sack. But he must carry on. Shaking himself, he set his teeth hard. “All right, I’m ready.”

Once again they plunged into the night. Now they were five men and two boats.

And all the while the mysterious flashlight was making its way along the shore, coming from the opposite direction toward Baley’s cabin which might, Johnny believed, be the scene of a bloody battle within the hour.

This time, after a careful study of the situation, Drew decided that the journey should be made entirely by water. The island was narrow, the boy moose hunter explained. A dock virtually formed a door step to the cabin. One had but to reach that dock, and he was at the cabin.

“You fellows lead the way,” Drew commanded. “Not too fast. Watch your oars. Not a creak from them. Keep your oarlocks damp. And don’t talk! Not a whisper! If these men get the drop on you, whang! You’re gone!”

“Ya. We do,” the older of the men agreed hastily. Johnny noticed that his knees were shaking.

“Good shock troops,” was his mental comment. “No good for a real scrap.”

A half hour of breathless suspense, and they were gliding along the island’s short shore line, nearing the dock.

“Now!” Drew had driven their boat alongside the others. “You fellows fall back. We’ll take the lead. Wherever we go, you follow close!”

They caught this whispered command, fell back, then followed on.

Drew had driven their boat to the very side of the dock, and was in the act of creeping toward the prow, when he paused to hiss:

“Listen!”

No need for this command. Johnny’s keen ears had caught it, the most unearthly sound heard on land or sea—a hollow chuckle that fairly dried the marrow in his bones.

“Wha-what is it?” he whispered.

“Who knows?” Drew was creeping forward once more.

“Light in the cabin,” came back to Johnny faintly. “They’re there all right. We’ll creep up on ’em. Get the drop if we can. We—”

“Listen!”

Again came that hollow chuckle. “As if it came from an empty cabin.” Johnny shuddered.

“All set. Come on.” Hollow chuckles meant little to Drew Lane.

Forgetting the moose hunters at their backs, they crept across the short stretch of planking that led to the cabin door.

Johnny thought he heard his heart’s wild beating. Some creature, small and very fast, shot across the way before them. It was with the utmost difficulty that he kept his lips sealed.

“Now!” Drew’s hand was on the knob. “I’ll throw the door open. You cover ’em. Shoot if they make a false move. Kidnapers have little claim on life.”

“If the door is—”

Johnny did not finish. The door was open. He found himself standing beside Drew in the dark; the candle light of the room was gone. Two bulky figures stood before them. On the table something bright gleamed.

“Guns!” he told himself.

Astonishment all but overcame him as he realized that their presence was not even suspected. Then men were standing with their backs to them.

It took but one glance at the window in the opposite wall to discover the cause of this unheard-of suspense. Outside the window was a grinning, gleaming skull. And even as Johnny saw it there came again that unearthly chuckle.

Quite as paralyzed as those before him, Johnny stood open-mouthed, staring.

It was Drew Lane who broke the spell. “All right there!” His tone was smooth and cold as ice. “You, Tony Piccalo, and you, Spike O’Connor! Just reach for the sky! And if you can’t get it, just keep on reaching!”

With one hand he held his own automatic, with the other he was removing the gangsters’ weapons to his own pockets.

The men whirled about. For a second silence too deep for words hung over the place.

“Oh, all right,” one of the men grumbled. “You got us. We don’t fight spooks. That was the Galloping Ghost.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts.” Drew switched on his flashlight. “Now, then, you fellows sit right down there in the corner, and I’ll tell you what we want you for, and why.

“No, I won’t.” His voice changed as his eyes roved the room. “Where’s the Red Rover and that girl, Berley Todd? Come, now! Quick! Where are they?” The steel in his gun was not harder than the ring in his voice.

“Honest—” The man known as Spike O’Connor, a bad one according to his own previous estimation, was shaking. “Honest, we don’t know.”

“Don’t know?” Drew’s finger trembled at the trigger.

“Fact!” the other man put in hastily. “Got away from us, they did, more’n three days ago. We sent out a man to look for them. He didn’t come back. We sent out two more. They didn’t come back. I tell you, this island gets ’em! Ghosts and all that.” The way this bad man trembled was good to see.

“Perhaps I might be able to help you,” came from the doorway. Johnny whirled about to find himself staring into a pair of friendly eyes that gleamed beneath a ten-gallon hat. Ed, the scout, had caught up with them at last.

“They’ve been with me until to-night, the Red Rover and Berley Todd have.” The scout advanced to the center of the room. “Now unless that squall we had an hour or two ago took ’em out to sea, they should be on Passage Island where there are civilized human beings.”

“In that case,” said Drew, spinning about, “we’ve got to fly over to Passage Island. And that on the double quick! Can’t let this get out.

“Where is this Passage Island?” he demanded of the scout. “Can a fellow land there in a sea plane?”

“Four miles off Blake’s Point. Land on the lee side all right.”

“Then we’re off.”

“Here, Johnny, slip these on ’em.” He dangled two pairs of handcuffs. “It’ll be a little crowded with four of us in the red racer, but we’ll make it. We—”

He broke off to stare at the doorway. Standing there was a very tall and very thin young man in a tight-fitting suit.

“Jimmie Drury!” he exclaimed. “How’d you come here?”

“Walked, old son. Walked. How’d you suppose?” Jimmie Drury, reporter for the News, grinned from ear to ear. “Worth it, too! Grand story. Good old scoop!”

“Good enough story,” Drew grumbled. “But you’ll not shoot it till I tell you when. I’ll tell you about that later.

“We’re off for Passage Island,” he grinned. “You’ll walk there, too, I suppose; just four miles of Lake Superior. And they tell me Superior never gives up her dead.”

“I’ll be there, never fear!” Jimmie laughed. “Sooner than you’d think! Before you arrive, perhaps. Who knows?”