Dan Carter and the Cub Honor Part 25

"It will weigh a ton too! Say, maybe we will have time enough to nab 'em!"

"You dash for a 'phone, Dan," Brad advised in a whisper. "Sneak around behind the hedge and don't let that kid, Pete, see you. I'll keep watch until you get back."

"I'll hurry as fast as I can."

Dan started to creep away. He had taken less than three steps when a sudden commotion inside the church brought him up sharply.

From the interior of the building, issued an eerie scream.

Then utter confusion! He could hear Pat and the other Bay Sh.o.r.e boys gasping and yelling as they evidently pushed and shoved one another down the iron stairway which led from the belfry.

Dan couldn't guess what had happened. Had one of the boys fallen on the stairs? But surely that wouldn't have been enough to have caused such panic.

As he hesitated, wondering whether to wait or hasten on to find a telephone, the intruders began to pour out of the building.

Pat was the first to crawl through the narrow opening.

"What happened?" Pete demanded. "Where's the bell?"

"Bell?" Pat laughed hysterically. "That bell can stay up there forever!

The church is haunted!"

The other Bay Sh.o.r.e boys came out of the coal chute as fast as they could squeeze through. Without even waiting for their buddies, they started on a run away from the building.

Pat and Pete stayed until the last member of their gang had reached safety. Hastily, they slammed down the door of the coal chute.

At that moment, from overhead, came the faint tap-tap-tap of the church bell. It was a muted sound but one which could not have been caused by the light breeze which was blowing.

"Hear that?" Pat muttered fearfully. "I'm getting away from this place-fast!"

He fled, leaving Pete to bound after him. In another moment, Dan and Brad were the only two left in the churchyard.

"What d'you know?" Brad chuckled, recovering from the rapidity of the flight.

"We lost our chance to trap 'em inside the building," Dan said regretfully, returning to stand beside the Den Chief at the coal chute opening. "What do you suppose happened in there?"

"I wish I knew. Want to go inside and find out?"

"Say, are you kidding?"

"Sure, I am," Brad chuckled. "You couldn't drag me into that building tonight. All the same, I'm mighty curious. Pat and his boys must have seen or heard something that completely unnerved them."

"Pat's no coward either."

"No, it would take plenty to jolt him, Dan. It was more than just a tapping bell." Brad gazed thoughtfully up at the dark belfry.

Dan s.h.i.+vered, feeling ill at ease. "That bell's enough to give me the jim-jams," he confessed. "This isn't the first time we're heard it. How do you explain it, Brad? You don't think the church could be-"

"Haunted? Say, be your age!"

"I know it's silly," Dan admitted, sheepishly. "But so many queer things have happened here."

"Man-made queer things."

"What do you mean by that, Brad?" Dan quickly caught him up.

The older boy, however, did not answer. He moved back a few paces so that he could obtain a better view of the shadowy belfry.

"See anything?" Dan asked, following him nervously.

"Nothing."

"We didn't imagine the tapping of that bell, Brad."

"No, it sounded all right. And it didn't ring by itself either."

"Then you think someone may be up there-right now?"

"Could be."

"Gosh, it scares me to think about it," Dan muttered. "Even now, someone might be watching us, and we couldn't see him."

"Don't get yourself worked up," Brad advised in a matter-of-fact voice.

"We're safe enough here so long as we don't go inside the building."

The boys circled the church, studying it from every angle. Now that Pat and the others had fled, it was difficult to believe that anything ever had been amiss. The old building appeared as deserted as on the day when the Cubs first had seen it.

"At any rate, we know how Pat and his bunch got inside the church that first time," Dan commented. "Through the coal chute."

Both he and Dan felt a trifle discouraged over the outcome of their little adventure. With half a break they might have caught the Bay Sh.o.r.e boys inside the building! Now, it seemed they were no closer than ever to proving the innocence of the Cubs.

"No use to telephone Mr. Hatfield now, or to call the police," Dan remarked, sunk in gloom. "We m.u.f.fed it right, Brad."

"Oh, I wouldn't say so." The older boy was quite cheerful. "We learned quite a bit. And we can be sure of one thing. I don't think Pat and his pals will come back here for awhile."

"Not after the way they poured out of that building." Dan grinned at the recollection. "I sure wish we could have had a picture! Even Pat was scared half out of his wits!"

"Hearing that bell tap gave me quite a start myself," Brad admitted frankly. "I wish I knew what it was that scared those kids. They must have seen something-not a ghost either!"

"Want to come back here sometime to investigate?" Dan proposed, half jokingly. "When it's daylight, I mean?"

"Maybe I will," the Den Chief replied. "I intend to talk this over with Mr. Hatfield. If he thinks we wouldn't run afoul of the trustees, I may try to get in there again to see what I can learn."

CHAPTER 15 MEASLES