stood close back of Mary’s chair. Dick sat on his heels next to Dora. The wind that had rattled loose boards had gone down. Not a sound was to be heard. The fire in the stove had burned to ashes. The room was getting cold but the girls did not notice. With wide, almost startled eyes they were watching the old man who was again chewing on an end of his gray beard.
Suddenly he cupped an ear with one palsied hand and seemed to be listening intently. Mary clutched Dora’s arm. She expected the old man to ask them if they heard a gun shot, but he didn’t. He dropped his arm and commenced in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Fer the las’ year o’ his life, Sven Pedersen give up minin’. He reckoned as how he’d never find his sister an’ he’d jest been pilin’ up wealth to give to her, he sed. He used to spec’late about poor Bodil a lot. She’d be a young woman now, he’d say, sad like, if them bandits let her live. Then thar was times when he’d hope she’d died ruther than be fetched up by robbers. He didn’t talk much about anythin’ else. Folks never knew whar he went to do his buyin’; thot as how he’d go off to Bisbee, but ’twa’n’t so. He come here arter midnight so’s not to be seen. He tol’ me if, chance be, Bodil was alive an’ showed up arter he was dead, he wanted her to have his gold. He writ a letter in that furrin tongue o’ his an’ give it to me. I got it yit. In it he tol’ Bodil whar he’d got his fortin hid.” The old man paused and blinked his eyes hard.
Mary asked softly, “But she never came, did she, Mr. Harvey? That poor Little Bodil with the china-blue eyes and the corn-silk hair.”
“No, she never come, an’ I cal’late she never will. Lucky Loon didn’t reckon she would, really, but he hung on till he felt death comin’. Then he tol’ me what he was a plannin’ to do to hisself.” The old man glanced anxiously at Jerry, who stood with his hands on Mary’s shoulders. “It’s a mighty gruesome story, the rest o’ it, Jerry lad. Do you reckon it’d better be tol’?”
It was Dora who replied, “Oh, please, Mr. Harvey! We girls aren’t a mite scary. It’s only a story to us, you know. It all happened so long ago.”
“Wall, as I was sayin’, Sven Pedersen knew he hadn’t long to live, so one night thar was a blizzard threatenin’ – an’ it turned into as bad a one as when he furst blowed into my store years back. Whar was I?” He looked blankly at Mary who prompted with, “So one night when he felt that he was soon to die – ”
“Sven come to me an’ swore me to keep it secret what he was goin’ to do. He sed that back of his house an’ opening into it, he had a vault. He’d jest left room for hisself to creep into it. Then he was goin’ to wall it up, an’ lay hisself down an’ die.”
“Oh, how terrible!” Dora exclaimed. “Surely he didn’t do that?”
The old man sighed. “Fur as I know he did. I seen as how he was white as a ghost an’ coughin’ suthin’ awful. I tol’ him to stay at the store till the blizzard blew over. It commonly lasted three days, but out he went an’ I never seen him sence.”
“Poor Lucky Loon!” Mary said commiseratingly.
“An’ poor Little Bodil,” Dora began, when she glanced at the old man who had suddenly sat erect, staring into a dark corner.
“Oh, Mr. Harvey,” Mary whispered, “do you see that ghost?”
They all looked and saw a flickering light. Then Jerry, glancing up at the hanging lamp, saw that the kerosene had burned out. One more flicker and the store was in darkness. Mary screamed and clung to Jerry, but Dora, remembering her flash, turned it on.
Dick, matter-of-factly, glanced about, saw the oil can, pulled down the lamp, refilled it, and relighted it.
“Thank ye! Thank ye!” the old man said. “I reckon that’s about all thar is to hants anyhow. I never had no reason to believe in ghosts an’ ain’t a-goin’ to start in now. Wall, must yo’ be goin’? Drop in tomorrer an’ ef I kin find it, I’ll show yo’ that yellar ol’ letter Lucky Loon left fer his gal.”
CHAPTER VII
MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
It was midnight when Mary Moore awoke with a start and sat up, staring about her wild-eyed. “Where am I? Where am I?” her terrorized cry, low though it was, wakened Dora, who, sitting up, caught her friend in a close embrace.
“Mary,” she whispered reassuringly, “Mary, you’re here with me. We’re in bed in your very own room. Did you have a nightmare?”
In the dim starlight, Dora saw how pale and startled was the face of her friend. Mary’s big blue eyes looked about the room wildly as though she expected to see someone lurking in the dark corners.
“There’s no one here,” Dora assured her. “See, I’ll prove it to you.” She reached for her flash which she had left on a small table near her head. The round disc of light danced from corner to corner of the dark room. The pale blue muslin curtains, waving in the breeze at open windows, looked like ghosts, perhaps but Mary knew what they were. Still she was not satisfied.
“Dora,” she whispered, clinging to her friend’s arm, “are you sure the window at the top of the outside stairway is locked? Terribly sure?”
“Of course. I locked it the last thing, but I’ll get up and see.” Dora slipped out of bed and crossed the room. The long door-like window was securely fastened. The other two windows were open at the top only. No one could possibly have entered that way.
“Try the hall door,” Mary pleaded, “and would you mind, awfully, if I asked you to look in the clothes closet?”
Dora had no sense of fear as she was convinced that Mary had been dreaming some wild thing, and she didn’t much wonder, after the gruesome story they had heard the night before.
“Now, are you satisfied?” Dora climbed back into bed and replaced the flash on the table.
“I suppose I am.” Mary permitted herself to be covered again with the downy blue quilt. “But it did seem so terribly real, and yet, now that I come to think, it didn’t have anything at all to do with this room. We were in some bleak place I had never seen before. It was the queerest dream, Dora. In the beginning you and I went out all alone for a horseback ride. The road looked familiar enough. It was just like the road from Gleeson down to the Douglas valley highway. We were cantering along, oh, just as we have lots of times, when suddenly the scene changed – you know the way it does in dreams – and we were in the wildest kind of a mountain country. It was terrifyingly lonely. We couldn’t see anything but bleak, grim mountain ranges rising about us for miles and miles around. Some of them were so high the peaks were white with snow. I remember one peak especially. It looked like a huge woman ghost with two smaller peaks, like children ghosts, clinging to her hands.
“The sand was unearthly white and covered with human skeletons as though there had been a battle once long ago. We rode around wildly trying to find an opening so that we could escape. Then a terribly uncanny thing happened. One of those skeletons rose up right ahead of us and pointed directly toward that mountain with the three ghost-like snow-covered peaks. But our horses wouldn’t go that way, they were terrorized when they saw that hollow-eyed skeleton, waving his bony arms in front of them. They reared – then whirled around and galloped so fast we were both of us thrown off and that’s when I woke up.”
“Gracious goodness,” Dora exclaimed with a shudder. “That was a nightmare! For cricket’s sakes,
