Chapter XXXVI: Westy Circumvents a Ghost?

For a few tense moments they stood, staring and unmoved, as if glued to the very spot. The apparition had disappeared within the hollow and it seemed to them that, perhaps after all, it was only a spirit they had seen hovering over the precipice. Suddenly Artie broke the spell.

“Spirits don’t generally use ropes, do they?” he asked naively, as if he had been thinking it over seriously.

“No, and spirits don’t make a noise running through the Pass at night either!” Westy exclaimed. He then explained to them the weird sight he had witnessed. How he had first discovered the figure hurrying in the moonlight beyond, and then gradually becoming enveloped in the darkness, coming through the Pass. “I didn’t imagine it either, for I could hear him breathing as he ran past me. When I started after him and we got to the Fork, he went straight up to the cliff!”

Artie was wide-eyed with excitement when Westy revealed to them the possibility of it being a lowly mortal who was causing this furore, but Uncle Jeb listened rather skeptically to the detailed account of this unusual adventure, and preferred believing his own way, irrespective of any other proof, no matter how convincing it might seem.

“I reckon we hain’t got no call ter be meddlin’ aroun’ with ghosts,” Uncle Jeb put in. “I guess we jes’ better leave him ter his spooky bizness up thar, so long as he hain’t hurtin’ anything o’ ourn. We’ll jes’ git along pronto ter the Inn!”

Taking his rifle, they started off, Uncle Jeb going it as fast as they. Reaching the Fork, Westy was seized with a most inordinate desire to lag behind a little. He looked longingly up the trail and wondered if he could chance it.

Uncle Jeb and Artie, running along, kept silent so as to keep what strength they had for some later, unseen need. But so preoccupied were they with the shadow of disaster ahead that they were not aware of their missing member.

Westy stood rigid at the Fork as they went on, until he ceased to hear the steady patter of their shoes along the trail. Then, he turned and went up the trail, swiftly but quietly, stepping as much as possible on the moss-covered ground and paying strict attention that he was keeping well out of the limelight.

Breathless, his nerves tingling with the thrilling excitement of the mysterious, he got down flat on his stomach as he made the Cliff. Slowly, ever so slowly, he dragged his body over the cold, rough stones. Directly in the moonlight, he approached the precipice cautiously and looked over.

The hollow was dark and Westy could not see anything to satisfy his curiosity. He listened intently, having covered his nostrils with his handkerchief to muffle the sound of his own breathing. Gradually, he was rewarded. Sounds; some one inhaling as if under intense strain. Then there reached his keen ears the monotonous chip, chip, that a metal instrument would make coming in direct contact with stone.

Whoever it was, thought Westy, they were well within the enclosure, carrying out some dark, hidden purpose in selecting such an hour as this. But what for?

Hadn’t Artie been imprisoned in there long enough to know every inch of that dank, gloomy place? He certainly didn’t overlook a spot on that smooth surface anywhere in his frenzied attempts to get out.

That something was in the wind was a certainty. Westy resolved then and there to find out what it was before another sun had set upon the horizon. He was never more sure of anything in his whole life than he was right now, that a human being was concerned in all this and not any ghost, as Uncle Jeb would have it.

It wasn’t just the sporting thing to do, this fearless scout thought, to be poking into things that perhaps wouldn’t turn out to be his affair after all. He chided himself for having let Uncle Jeb and Artie go on unknowingly, and perhaps have to bear the brunt of the danger that was threatening and even at the present moment might have already invaded the Inn.

And so, as he started to draw back as cautiously as he came, his hand came in contact with something rough, just under the weedy growth that sprouted wild between the rocks. Westy stopped and divided the weeds and saw that it was a rope that he had touched. It ran right over the precipice, just as the watchers had seen the figure descend on it. Fate was surely on his side at least, he thought, secretly smiling.

Following the course of the rope he came to a large pine tree, quite a way back on the cliff, where it was tied ever so securely, to the bottom of the trunk. With a deep sigh of satisfaction, he turned and ran pell-mell on down to the Pass and so into the black night again.

His heart contracted with dread when he came stumbling out of the Pass into the open trail once more. There ahead of him was a sight formidable enough to put fear into the heart of any one. It actually looked as though the country around for miles was a seething furnace, the glare in the sky was so great. Westy drew the cool night air into his lungs and started a fresh pace.

Coming nearer and nearer, and at last leaving the mountain trail behind, he took the open road, dashing across fields now and then to save whatever time he could. As he rested for a few precious seconds, almost within calling distance of the Inn, he could feel the force of the heat even there that this raging inferno was expelling over the surrounding countryside. This fact spurred him on considerably, and at last he reached there pretty much out of breath.

The outbuildings were all ablaze and the stable was now a mere memory of its former glory, the crimson embers being the only thing left to identify the spot. One end of the Inn had already caught fire and was in a fair way to continue with fury.

Nothing could be seen of either Artie or Uncle Jeb in the front at all. Darting around to the back, shouting at the top of his voice all the while, he came upon them, also trying to make themselves heard and pounding frantically on the back door. Westy realized why they hadn’t heard him, between the deafening roar of the flames and the noise of their own voices.

Uncle Jeb and Artie looked at Westy as though he were a ghost also.

“Wha-ar hev yuh been, lad?” he asked quickly, but with deep concern. “Yuh shure gave us one scare. Never missed yuh ’til we got yonder. Artie ’n I went a ways back agin, ’n cudn’t find ye nohow. Jes’ got here a minit back, ’n we find all them durn shutters barred from t’ inside, ’n both doors bolted too. Nary a one o’ them hez answered yit, ’n ye can’t git them doors down even with a hatchet.”

In their present excitement, Uncle Jeb and Artie forgot about Westy’s disappearance, for which he was glad. Time enough for that later, he thought.

The heat was becoming unbearable in the back and, unable to stand it further, they went around to the front again. They went over each individual window on the way around and shook the doors with all their might. Why the windows were shuttered and barred at this time of year Uncle Jeb could not conceive. His anxiety was plainly visible through the deep emotion in his voice. He said they had called at the front and back both until they were hoarse. There wasn’t any way that they could break in downstairs. Doors and shutters were both of logs, and even with a hatchet it would take one half the night to make even a dent in one of them. The upper windows were likewise fortified and the frenzied trio stood there helpless, wondering how two people could sleep through all this.

The lower part of the building was built entirely of logs and the upper part of frame. A slate-covered shed over the veranda ran straight up to the bedroom windows in such a way that it would be a difficult thing for one to try and balance himself upon it.

Westy was taking note of all this while Uncle Jeb was talking and he was also thinking fast.

“I can’t fer my life know what Ol’ Pop’s a-thinkin’ o’, a-barrin’ himself in like thet on a hot night. Never knew him ter do it afore ’cept in winter, o’ course,” Uncle Jeb said, plainly puzzled.

“The whole back is afire now!” exclaimed Artie, who came running around from the side of the Inn.

“Well!” said Westy decisively, as if he had told them in detail before what he contemplated doing. “I’ll have to take the nine-hundredth chance, I guess.”

“What?” asked Artie excitedly.

“Just give me a boost from the railing, that’s all!”

“You’re not----” Artie and Uncle Jeb both spoke simultaneously.

Before they finished what they had started to say, Westy had hopped on the porch railing and was making ready to climb the pillar supporting it.