Cat o' mountain

Sunset stretched its long shadows again across the Traps.

Up on the heights, the light of day still was bright and clear. But down in the bluff-bulwarked valley of the Coxing Kill, a thousand feet lower than the Minnewaska table-land behind which the sun was rolling down in the southwest, the dusk was slowly shading into dark. Already the air vibrated with the swelling chorus of the katydids, scraping out their insistent warning of frost which had not yet come; and from every grassy space cheeped the lonesome dirge of the crickets. Night was drawing on.

Down on the diminutive stoop of a little house beside the Clove road, a man stirred and glanced around him with a frown. The steadily increasing clack of the big green bush-bugs and the growing chill of eventide had routed the thoughts which he had been drawing through the stem of a blackened but empty pipe—thoughts which, to judge from his absent gaze and the half-smile on his lips, were more pleasant than those now obtruding themselves. He shook his shoulders as if to dislodge the night chill settling there. Abruptly he stood up.

His swift survey swept the little fallow field at his right, where the black choristers of the grass were chirping away among the unseen roots; the narrow sand-track of road, empty of all but thickening shadows; the darkling mass of trees and brush at his left. Then he pivoted and peered into the darkness lying beyond a door which had been standing open at his back.

Nothing showed in the room beyond—nothing, that is, which should hold the fixed attention of a man; nothing alive. Vaguely, in the wan light still entering through the cracked panes of a curtainless side window, he could see a rickety table with one leg broken, a chair minus a back, a little rusty stove, and, in one corner, a jumble of small things recently dumped from his pack. Along a wall which started beside the open doorway showed the faint outlines of three more doors, all in a row. And that was all.

Nothing, surely, in such a scene need make this man listen keenly and half lift the shotgun in one fist. Yet he stood there for a long minute, searching the room repeatedly, then centering his gaze on the first of those three doors in the wall. That door stood open. And the queer chill between his shoulder-blades was not all due to the coolness following the sinking of the sun: it was that clammy feeling inherited by mankind through countless generations—the subconscious warning that a hidden menace lurks behind the back. And his ears subtly corroborated the caution of his nerves. Despite the clamor of the insects, he could have sworn that in the first room there at the right he had heard a slight rustle.

That room was the bedroom. It was a mere cubby-hole, not more than seven feet square, containing only a crude bed and a lamp-shelf, both fixed. The bedstead, which the new tenant had inspected and decided to use, apparently had been built in the room by the former owner; a solid contrivance of boards and hardwood posts, with interlaced ropes serving as a spring, and a noisy mattress of corn-husks. Head, foot, and one side were snug against three of the walls, leaving only a yard-wide space between bed and door. At the foot was the one tiny window of the room.

To enter that sleeping-closet, anything must go through the door or the window. The window now stood open, for Douglas had forced up its cobwebby frame after sweeping the floor as best he could with a stubby old broom found in the grass; but that opening was within ten feet of his left hand as he sat on the steps, and nothing could possibly have gone in there without his knowledge. Still less could anything have gone past him through the door. Yet he felt in his marrow that something was there.

With slow, careful shifting of his balance he stole across the meagre stoop. Not a board creaked, not a sound did his descending soles make. With the same stealth he leaned against the door-jamb and inched his head inside. At length, braced by hands against the wall, he was leaning far in and peering through that right-hand door. In the dimness beyond stood no living thing.

Until his arm-muscles began to ache he hung there; and never a sound came to him from within. Yet his nerves continued to deliver their warning. In that room where Jake Dalton had slept was something; something besides the bed and the bare lamp-shelf; invisible, intangible, but—something!

He drew back and glanced around once more. The dusk was drawing around the little clearing a closer cordon of gloom; an eerie whisper came from the pines, swept by a gusty wind; the throb of insects resounded as before. Nothing moved. He felt for a match. When he had it, he stepped heavily into the house and tramped over to his gas-lamp, hanging on a nail; turned its valve, shook it up, and waited for the water and carbide to mingle and form the gas. In the brief interval of waiting he watched all around and rapidly reviewed his movements since opening that window.

He had explored the place, finding at the second door a stairway leading into a dusty loft littered with dead wasps; at the third, a room even smaller than the bedroom, partly filled with stove-wood. Outside he had found a well, in which the water seemed good, and a little shed holding only a broken barrel or two, burlap bags, an empty jug, and similar trash. Both door and window had been open while he made his inspection; but he had returned to the bedroom and tossed his blankets on the mattress, and nothing new was there then. And since that time he had not been more than ten feet from it.

The fumes of gas struck his nostrils. He lit the match and touched it to the little nozzle. White and bright, the flame lit up the place. He strode into the bedroom.

Absolutely nothing new was there. With a self-derisive grin, he stooped and glanced under the bed. The floor was bare.

“Now are you satisfied, you timid old woman?” he jeered. “What’s the matter with you, anyhow? Getting nerves?”

His words hollowly mocked him from the outer room. With a disgusted snort he turned away. Boots thumping defiantly, he clattered back to the three-legged table, shoved its crippled side against the wall, kicked the backless chair up to it, and set the lamp on it. To the little pile in the corner he went, and from it he extracted the dry remainder of a bread-loaf and a paper-wrapped chunk of cheese. Then he returned and sat down, hitching around in the chair to get his back toward a windowless wall.

“All the same,” he meditated, sawing off a slice of bread with his jack-knife, “if I stay here long I’ll have to make some improvements. For one thing, that bedroom is too darned handy. Window opens right on the road. So does the front door. No curtains on any of these windows, no key for that door. With Snake Sanders and Nat Oaks both thirsting for my gore and undoubtedly acquainted with the position of that bed—yes, I reckon I’d better move up-stairs or something. No use in lying meekly down and inviting a fistful of shot to come in and mess me up. No sense in sitting here in the light now, either.”

He turned off the gas-flow, set the lamp under the table, and fell to munching his meagre provender.

“However, I’m safe enough in that room to-night,” he told himself. “Nobody knows I’m here except Uncle Eb, who isn’t coming back until to-morrow—and maybe little Miss Marion, who isn’t likely to tell. There’s nothing in that room but imagination, and imagination won’t keep me very wide awake. Ho-hum! I’m going to sleep like a log this night.”

He arose, dipped a cup of well-water from his canvas pail dangling from a nail in a low ceiling-beam, washed down his food, and reseated himself.

“Yes, sir,” he informed the loneliness, carving another chunk of cheese, “this is my night to sleep. Last night I sprawled between two rocks, and the night before I lost a lot of repose watching those backwoods detectives prowl around and spy on me from the bushes down beside the creek. Things have been coming right fast in the last three days. Before that I’d never been inside that wall of cliffs over yonder. And now I’ve killed a catamount, assisted at the demise of three dogs, knocked one eminent citizen stiff and helped send another to sleep; made two able-bodied enemies and one potential friend—Uncle Eb—and given love’s young dream a boost along the rocks to a new hide-out. Oh, yes, and assisted an escaped conv——”

He bit off the last word, suddenly aware that he was talking aloud and recalling the ancient proverb to the effect that walls sometimes listen. Gloom now surrounded him, for the slow-dying gas flame had sunk to a little blue button on its nozzle. Rising again, he tiptoed to the door and spied around. No lurking form was near.

“Guess that will be about enough talking,” he concluded.

He drew back and shut the door. Stepping across the room, he found the table, brought it over, and set it against the door so that the slightest push from outside would tip it over with a warning clatter. Then he went along the walls, tested the windows and a rear door—all of which were warped into immovability—and, carrying his gun and the chair, retired to the gloomy bedroom. There he placed gun and chair beside the bed, and on the chair he laid matches. After frowning thoughtfully at the open window he sighed and closed it.

Deliberately he undressed and rolled up in his blankets. For a minute or two he lay reveling in his freedom from clothing and the yielding embrace of the crackling but comfortable old mattress. Then the first grateful feeling of physical comfort passed. He lifted his head from the rolled-up coat forming his pillow, and turned his dilating eyes around. Over him was creeping a feeling of oppression, of inability to obtain air; and, worse yet, a panicky sensation that he was in a trap.

The blankets were snug and warm; yet that queer chill was crawling over him again. The air was fresh and clean; yet he opened his mouth as if stifled. Around him lay silence and blackness, intensified rather than relieved by the deadened chorus of insects outside and the lighter shade of the window. He turned suddenly on a side. At the loud rustle of the husks under him he jumped half erect.

A moment he poised; then he flung himself angrily back.

“You idiot!” he muttered. “You miss the stars overhead and the little night breezes around; that’s all. You’re in a house, and you’ll have to get used to it. Go to sleep, you fool!”

He shut his eyes and forced himself to breathe regularly. But through his brain streaked the thought:

“You’re in a dead man’s bed! You don’t know what killed him! You——”

“Oh, shut up!” he growled aloud, bouncing over on the other side. “What’s that to me? I’m going to sleep!”

For a few minutes he stubbornly held his position. But he was lying now with his back to the open door into the main room, and the creepy feeling at his shoulder-blades became intolerable. He turned again. But this time he made the movement deliberately, and at the repeated crackle of the mattress he grinned. After blinking at the dark a minute he relaxed, warm once more at the back, his eyes closing naturally.

Rapidly his fatigue asserted itself. With the muffled lullaby of the crickets swinging rhythmically on, he lost himself.

Hours passed. He slept peacefully on, changing his position a little at intervals, unconscious of his movements or of anything else. Then, all at once, he found himself up on an elbow, staring wide-eyed into the dark.

Something had moved. It seemed that the bed itself was quivering slightly. Yet there was no sound near him—no new sound anywhere——

What was that? There was a sound now—but not in the room. It was up overhead—up in the empty attic; a sound of muffled footfalls, deliberately crossing the floor; a sound like that of bare heels going quietly across the boards. It traveled to and fro, as if an undressed man were wandering aimlessly. Then it began to come down-stairs.

A bump, and it stopped. Another bump; another pause. Then two soft bumps telling of a couple more stairs descended. It was the sound of a man stealing quietly down, halting to listen for any noise below; a man not deft enough to put his weight on his toes and avoid the bump of heels. Yet the stairs did not creak as they would under the weight of a man.

Very quietly, Douglas moved over and found a match. With the same stealth he opened the gas-valve of his lamp. While he waited for the acetylene flow he heard the heels reach the lowest step. He listened for the stealthy turning of the knob and the creak of door-hinges. They did not come.

Cracking the match on his thumb-nail, he lit the gas and shot its ray outward. Nothing met his gaze—nothing but the table against the outer door. Softly he lowered his feet, gripped his gun, and arose. Reason told him no man could be in that attic; but his ears positively asserted that a man had come down those stairs.

On his toes he drifted outward. In the main room he saw no living thing. Quietly he set the lamp on the floor, its beam glaring at the stair door. With a swift grab he turned the knob and tore the door open.

Then, gun leveled, he stood and gaped.

The stairway was utterly empty.