"Don"t know," came Scotty"s breathless reply. "Keep an eye out while I tie my shoe."
Rick sucked in his breath. The blue light! It was closer, tantalizingly close. He suddenly realized he stood on the edge of a clearing, and the blue light hovered on the opposite edge. It danced mockingly.
"Come on!" Rick bounded away from Scotty, and crashed through a dozen feet of underbrush, intent on the light. It wasn"t moving! It hovered, as though waiting. For an instant his determination faltered. One thing to chase an object, another to have it wait for you!
He charged on, and his foot slid on soft dirt. He lost balance and his arms flailed to regain his footing, too late! He slid, his back striking painfully as he flew into blackness!
Rick fell, turning slowly through the air. He had time for one brief yell of fear and warning before the wind was smashed out of him. He plunged deep into icy water and struggled frantically as he plummeted into the depths.
It seemed to Rick as though he plunged downward for an eternity. He had no breath; it had been slammed out of him from impact with the water.
But he resisted the terrible temptation to breathe and drove his arms downward to check his plunge. In a few seconds he was shooting to the surface again, his chest an agony from lack of air. His arms and legs worked as he literally clawed his way to the air once more, and he shot high into the blessed atmosphere as he broke the surface.
Rick floated, lying on his back, breathing deeply and grateful just to be alive. He heard Scotty calling his name, but had to wait for several breaths before he could manage a weak yell.
He didn"t know what had happened, except for one clear thing: they had been mousetrapped. The ghost had lured them on, waiting until the pit was reached before pausing in flight to give them a chance to catch up.
And the chance had turned out to be the trap.
"Rick! Can you hear me?"
"I hear you." Scotty seemed terribly far away. Then Rick saw his friend"s silhouette, as a dark shape against the lesser darkness of the sky. At a guess Scotty was fifty feet up.
"Hang on while I get a light!"
Rick wondered if his pal was going all the way back to get one of the flashlights they had left behind in the precipitous chase. He wasn"t worried about his ability to stay afloat.
He had his breath back somewhat now, so he paddled slowly to a point on the wall of the pit under Scotty"s position. He b.u.mped gently into rock and felt with his hands while treading water. The rock surface was rough, but the roughness was regular, the wall flat. Then his fingers felt a groove and his mind created the image to match it. A drill hole!
He was in a quarry!
It made sense, Rick thought. This was good limestone country. The ghost had simply led them to an abandoned limestone quarry, and he had obligingly fallen in! A miracle he hadn"t broken his neck.
Yellow light cut the darkness and he looked up. Scotty apparently didn"t intend to be caught without matches again, for in a moment he appeared, a torch of dry twigs in his hand. It blazed brightly. Scotty placed it on the quarry"s lip and added more fuel. The flames mounted higher as the wood caught. Only when the flames were high enough to see by did Scotty look down.
"See a way up, Rick?"
[Ill.u.s.tration: _"See a way up, Rick?" Scotty called_]
Rick was already searching. On the side to the right of where he had fallen in was a shelf about two feet above the water. It led to another shelf. He swam for it and pulled himself out, shaking water from his clothes. The second shelf was easily reached, but then he was stuck. It was easily twenty feet to the rim. The flickering light showed a sheer wall that could not be climbed without a rope.
Scotty could see the problem, too. "I guess it"s us for a rope. I"m sure glad you didn"t fall on that side."
"Amen." Where Rick had fallen was a sheer drop into the water. On any other side he would have landed on a shelf.
"Will you be okay?" Scotty asked. "I"ll leave the fire burning."
"Take off," Rick replied. "I"m happy as a cliff swallow on my little shelf. Don"t be long."
"Okay." Scotty was gone, leaving only the yellow glow of the fire for company.
Unless, Rick thought, the Blue Ghost was hovering nearby, snickering at the success of his efforts.
Thankful that it was a warm night, he removed his garments one at a time and wrung the water from them. The surface of the quarry pool caught the yellow light of the waning fire as he poured water from his shoes. He was very thoughtful. What was the meaning of the night"s events?
His wringing out finished and his damp clothes back on, he sat down on the limestone shelf to be as comfortable as possible while waiting.
He had set out at top speed to catch a ghost, but the ghost had caught Richard Brant. He wasn"t sure what that meant, but he was sure it meant something. He shivered, as much from reaction as the dampness. Maybe time would tell.
CHAPTER VII
The Frostola Man
Rick Brant was filled with cold anger. It showed in the determined set of his lips as he swung Dr. Miller"s car around the turn leading to the bridge across the creek. He was no longer content to wait for developments. After last night"s episode, he and Scotty intended to take the war to the enemy--for war it had become, the moment the Blue Ghost had led them on the wild-goose chase ending with Rick in a deep quarry.
It was pure luck that Rick had not been hurt by the drop into the quarry. True, the ghost had led them to the side that dropped sheer into the water, but impact with the water after a fifty-foot drop was enough to cause damage if one landed in the wrong position. Rick had hit feet first, simply by chance.
Scotty looked at him as the car turned toward the picnic grounds.
"Aren"t we going to town?"
"Sure. But I want another look at the landscape."
"What do you expect to see?"
"I don"t know," Rick admitted. "I"m just hoping for an idea."
He drove through the trees, across the picnic ground, and came to a stop before the mine shaft. There was no one in sight, and the grounds were just as they had left them.
Rick studied the scene, searching for anything offbeat, any anomaly.
There was nothing, except for the iron pipe from which spring water flowed. That bothered him. Dr. Miller"s explanation might be the right one, but he didn"t really think so. If tailings from the mine had been dumped there, the hill would not be so steep or so regular. The years would have weathered the rock debris, but not to such a natural-looking formation.
"If they didn"t dump the tailings there," he thought aloud, "where did they dump them?"
"Tailings?" Scotty prompted.
"Rock from the mine. Stuff with no ore in it, or such low-grade stuff that it was worthless."
"I see. Well, they didn"t dump it in sight. But they couldn"t have dumped it far from here. It wouldn"t be sensible to cart worthless rock away any distance."
They hadn"t used the tailings for roads around the mine. The roads were natural dirt, with good drainage and no sign of rock ballast. Rick tried to imagine another use, but couldn"t, until Scotty spoke.
"Suppose they used up all the rocks throwing them at the Yankee soldiers?" Scotty asked whimsically.
The question started a train of thought that gave Rick the answer in a few seconds. "You"ve hit it. They didn"t throw the rocks, but they used them against the Yankees. I"ll bet on it. Come on."
He got out of the car and led the way through the trees to where the creek flowed on its quiet way. There were low embankments a few yards back from the water"s edge. "There are the rocks."