"Maybe she was just "sickening for some disease," as Aunt Alvirah says,"
the girl of the Red Mill told Ann Hicks, as they went along. "A sore throat is the forerunner of so many fevers and serious troubles. She might be coming down with scarlet fever."
"Goodness gracious! don"t say _that_" begged Ann.
Ruth feared it, nevertheless. The two girls followed Curly through the narrow path, the dripping bushes wetting their skirts, and briers at times scratching them. Ann was a good walker and could keep up quite as well as Ruth. Beside, Curly was not setting a pace on this occasion, but stumbled on with the lantern, rather blindly.
"Tell you what," he grumbled. "I don"t fancy this job a mite."
"You"re not "afraid to go home in the dark," are you, Curly?" asked Ann, with scorn.
"Not going home just now," responded the boy, grinning. "But the woods aren"t any place to be out in this time of night--unless you"ve got a dog and a gun. There! see that?"
"A cat, that"s all," declared Ruth, who had seen the little black and white animal run across their track in the flickering and uncertain light of the lantern. "Here, kitty! kitty! Puss! puss! puss!"
"Hold on!" cried the excited Curly. "You needn"t be so particular about calling that cat."
"Why not? It must be somebody"s cat that"s strayed," said Ruth.
"Ya-as. I guess it is. It"s a pole-cat," growled Curly. "And if it came when you called it, you wouldn"t like it so much, I guess."
"Oh, goodness!" gasped Ann. "Don"t be so friendly with every strange animal you see, Ruth Fielding. A pole-cat!"
"Wish I had a gun!" exclaimed Curly. "I"d shoot that skunk."
"Glad you didn"t then," said Ruth, promptly. "Poor little thing."
"Ya-as," drawled the boy. ""Poor little thing." It was just aiming for somebody"s hencoop. One of "em "ll eat chickens faster than Gran"s hens can hatch "em out."
Pushing on through the woods at this slow pace brought them to the ruined grist mill and the old dam not before ten o"clock. There was a pale and watery moon, the shine of which glistened on the falling water over the old logs of the dam, but gave the searchers little light. The moon"s rays merely aided in making the surroundings of the mill more ghostly.
n.o.body lived within a mile of the mill site, Curly a.s.sured the girls, and if Amy had found this place it was not likely that she had likewise found the nearest human habitation, for that was beyond the mill and directly opposite to Briarwood and the town of Lumberton.
They shouted for Amy, and then searched the ghostly premises of the ruined mill. Years before the roof had been burned away and some of the walls fallen in. Owls made their nests in the upper part of the building, as the party found, much to the girls" excitement when a huge, spread-winged creature dived out of a window and went "whish! whish! whish!" off through the long gra.s.s, to hunt for mice or other small, night-prowling creatures.
"Goodness! that owl is as big as a turkey!" gasped Ruth, clinging to Ann in her fright.
"Bigger," announced Curly. "Old Scratch! I"d like to shoot him and have him stuffed."
"I"d rather have some of the turkey stuffing," chuckled Ann Hicks. "Owl would be rather tough, I reckon."
"Oh, not to eat!" scoffed Curly. "I"d put him in Gran"s parlor. And that reminds me of an owl story----"
"Don"t tell us any old stories; tell us new ones, if you must tell any,"
Ann interrupted.
"How do you know whether this is old or young till I"ve told it?" demanded Curly, as they all three sat on the ruined doorstep of the mill to rest.
"Quite right, Curly," sighed Ruth. "Go ahead. Make us laugh. I feel like crying."
"Then you can cry over it," retorted the boy. "There was a butcher who had a stuffed owl in his shop and an old Irishman came in and asked him: "How mooch for the broad-faced bur-r-rd?"
""It"s an owl," said the butcher.
"The old man repeated his question--"how mooch for the broad-faced bur-r-rd?"
""It"s an owl, I tell you!" exclaimed the butcher.
""I know it"s _ould_," says the Irishman. "But what d"ye want for it?
It"ll make soup for me boar-r-rders!""
"That"s a good story," admitted Ruth, "but try to think up some way of finding poor little Amy, instead of telling funny tales."
"Oh, how can I help----"
Curly stopped. Ann, who was sitting in the middle, grabbed both him and Ruth. "Listen to that!" she whispered. "_That_ isn"t another owl, is it?"
"What is it?" gasped Ruth.
Somewhere in the ruin of the mill there was a noise. It might have been the voice of an animal or of a bird, but it sounded near enough like a human being to scare all three of the young people on the doorstep.
"Sa-ay," quavered Curly. "You don"t suppose there are such things as ghosts, do you, girls?"
"No, I don"t!" snapped Ruth. "Don"t try to scare us either, Curly."
"Honest, I"m not. I"m right here," cried the boy. "You know I never made that noise----"
"There it is again!" exclaimed Ann.
The sound was like the cry of something in distress. Ruth got up suddenly and tried to put on a brave front. "I can"t sit here and listen to that,"
she said.
"Let"s go," urged Ann. "I"m ready."
"Oh, say----" began Curly, when Ruth interrupted him by seizing the lantern.
"Don"t fret, Curly Smith," she said. "We"re not going without finding out what that sound means."
"Maybe it"s young owls, and the old one will come back and pick our eyes out," suggested Ann.
"Get a club, Curly," commanded Ruth. "We"ll be ready, then, for man or beast."
This order gave Curly confidence, and made him pluck up his own waning courage. These girls depended upon him, and he was not the boy to back down before even a ghostly Unknown.
He found a club and went side by side with Ruth into the mill. The sound that had disturbed them was repeated. Ruth was sure, now, that it was somebody sobbing.
"Amy! Amy Gregg!" she called again.
"Pshaw!" murmured Ann. "It isn"t Amy. She"d have been out of here in a hurry when we shouted for her before."