Tom Slade on the River Part 6

"Wouldn't that have been a sight for mother's boy!" said Garry. "Swinging on a thin branch on the top of a tree and looking cross-eyed at a ghost!

I'd have had that Ches.h.i.+re cat in _Alice in Wonderland_ beaten a mile."

"Captain Crawford who died," said Tom, "picked up a lot of them. The higher up you are the better. In an aeroplane you needn't even shut your eyes."

"Well, truth is stranger than friction, as Roy says," said Connie; "this trail we're on now is no ghost, anyway-hey, Toma.s.so?"

Tom did not answer.

"I got a splinter in my finger, too," said Garry.

"Must have been scratching your head," said Connie.

"That's what I get from seein' things," said Garry.

"We'll string the life out of Pee-wee, hey?" said Doc. "Tell him we saw a ghost--"

"We did," Tom insisted.

"You mean Garry did," said Doc. "Of course, we have to take his word for it."

"Buffalo Bill saw them, too," said Tom, plodding on.

"Not Bill Cody!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Doc, winking at Garry.

"Yes," said Tom.

"Is it _possible_?" said Doc, "Where'd you read that-in the _Fly-paper_?"

"There's a trail ghost a hundred miles long out in Utah that n.o.body on the ground ever saw. Curtis followed it in his biplane," said Tom.

"Fancy that!" said Doc.

Tom plodded on ahead of them, in his usual stolid manner. "I don't say you can always do it," he said; "it's kind of-something-there's a long word-sike--"

"Psychological?" said Doc. "We get you, Toma.s.so."

CHAPTER V ADVENTURE OF THE RESCUE PARTY

"I bet there are real ghosts in here," said Garry, as they climbed the slope which became more difficult as they went along.

"Regular ones, hey?" said Doc.

"Sure, the good old-fas.h.i.+oned kind."

"No peek-a-boo ghosts," said Garry.

"Well, you can knock ghosts all you want to," said Connie, "but I always found them white."

"Slap him on the wrist, will you!" called Doc. "Believe _me_, this is some impenetrable wilderness!"

"How?"

"Impenetrable wilderness-reduced to a common denominator, thick woods."

Withal their bantering talk, it seemed indeed as if the woods might be haunted, for with almost every step they took some crackling or rustling sound could be heard, emphasized by the stillness. Now and again they paused to listen to a light patter growing fainter and fainter, or a sudden noise as of some startled denizen of the wood seeking a new shelter. Ghostly shadows flitted here and there in the moonlight; and the night breeze, soughing among the tree tops, wafted to the boys a murmuring as of some living thing whose elusive tones now and again counterfeited the human voice in seeming pain or fear.

The voices of the boys sounded crystal clear in the solemn stillness.

Once they paused, trying to locate an owl which seemed to be shrieking its complaint at this intrusion of its domain. Again they stopped to listen to the distant sound of falling water.

"That's the brook, I guess," said Tom.

Their approach to it seemed to sober the others, realizing as they did that effort and resourcefulness were now imperative, and mindful, too, though scarcely hopeful, that these might bring them face to face with a tragic scene.

"Pretty tough, being up here all alone with somebody dying," said Doc.

"You said something," answered Garry.

They were entering an area of underbrush, where the trail ceased or was completely obscured, so that there wasn't even a ghost of it, as Doc remarked. But the sound of the water guided them now and they worked their way through such a dense maze of jungle as they had never expected to encounter outside the tropics.

Tom, going ahead, tore the tangled growth away, or parted it enough to squeeze through, the others following and carrying the stretcher and first-aid case with greatest difficulty.

"How long is this surging thoroughfare, I wonder," asked Garry.

"Don't know," said Tom. "I don't seem to have my bearings at all."

After a little while they emerged, scratched and dishevelled, at the brook which tumbled over its pebbly bed in its devious path downward.

"We're pretty high up, do you know that?" Doc observed.

"I don't see as there's much use hunting for marked trees," Tom said. "I must have come another way before. I don't know where we're at. What d'you say we all shout together?"

This they did and the sound of their upraised voices reverberated in the dense woods and shocked the still night, but no answering sound could be heard save only the rippling of the brook.

"We stand about as much chance as a s...o...b..ll in a blast furnace," said Garry.

"The thing to do," said Tom, ignoring him, "is to follow this brook, somebody on each side, and look for a trail. If there's anybody here they'll be upstream; it's too steep from here down. And one thing sure-they'd have to have water. Lucky the moon's out, but I wish we had two lanterns."

"We'll be lucky if the oil in this one lasts," Doc put in.

Following the stream was difficult enough, but it was easier than the forest they had just come through and they picked their way along its edge, Tom and Garry on one bank and Doc and Connie on the other.

"I don't believe anyone's been in this place in a thousand years; that's the way it looks to me," said Doc.

"I'd say at least three thousand," said Garry.