Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's Part 29

"Aw, Rose! owls don't howl. It's wolves that howl--or coyotes such as we saw at Cowboy Jack's. Don't you remember the coyote caught in the trap that you thought was a dog?"

Rose's mind would not be drawn from the thing in question. She said, quite as fearfully:

"Maybe this is a wolf, Russ."

"Of course not," declared the boy trying to speak bravely. "There aren't any wolves in this part of the country. I asked Frane, Junior."

But there was evidently a savage creature here that Russ Bunker had known nothing about, for now it cried out again! Its long, quavering note echoed through the woods and made the boy and girl stand again and s.h.i.+ver.

"I--I guess it isn't any animal after all," said Rose suddenly, and speaking with some relief. "That's a woman. Of course it is. But she must be lost, or something bad has happened to her. Oh, Russ!" she added, suddenly seizing her brother once more. "I know what it must be.

And they are almost always ladies, so Phillis says."

"What's that?" demanded Russ, puzzled.

"It's a ha'nt! It's a lady ha'nt! I do believe it must be!"

"Aw, Rose, what you talking about?" demanded her brother, yet secretly quite as much troubled by the strange, eerie sound as she was. "You know that haunts are only make-believe."

"We-ell!" sighed Rose, "maybe that's only a make-believe sound we hear.

But--but I don't like it. There!"

For a third time the screech was repeated. It seemed nearer. Russ could not be confident that it was "make-believe." The strange sound seemed very real indeed.

CHAPTER XXIII

A FOUR-LEGGED GHOST

"I don't like that noise a bit," whispered Rose, standing close to her brother. "It--it makes me all s.h.i.+very."

"But, if it is only just a woman calling----"

"There must be something awful the matter with her, if she has to scream like that," declared Rose.

As they did not hear the noise again for a little while, both of them plucked up courage, and they went on to the burned cabin. The sticks they had set up were still standing. Russ fastened each of the four pasteboard "letters" to a stick at the four corners of Mammy June's ruined house.

There was light enough from the stars for the two children to see quite plainly what they were about. Rose, however, was looking all about them while Russ did the work of setting up the printed signs for Sneezer Meiggs to see if he came home unexpectedly.

"What do you expect to see, Rose?" demanded her brother loftily.

"I don't know. Philly says ha'nts are all in white."

"I don't see anything very white around here," rejoined Russ.

"But there are so many colored folks, perhaps some of the ha'nts might be black," suggested Rose. "Then we wouldn't see them very well in the shadows."

"I don't believe----" began Russ.

The strange shriek was again heard. Russ stopped in his speech. Rose uttered a sharp cry. The screech--and it did sound like a woman's voice, the voice of a woman in fearful pain or fright--seemed very near them.

"It's right over there in that patch of woods," said Russ. "I guess she is lost--or something."

"Do you believe it is only a lady and not a ha'nt, Russ?" demanded his sister.

"Of course it isn't a ha'nt! Such things can't be! And if it was a ghost, a ghost is nothing but air, and how could air have such a voice as that?"

This reasoning seemed to close the argument. Rose felt that her brother must be right. Besides, Russ went right on talking, and talking very bravely.

"I think we ought to see what the matter is with her, Rose. She is in trouble--maybe she is lost and scared."

"So am I scared," murmured Rose.

"But think how much more you would be scared," her brother said seriously, "if you were in those woods alone and didn't know that there was anybody else near."

"I wouldn't make so much fuss about it," muttered Rose, for she suspected the thought in Russ Bunker's mind and she was really too scared to approve of it at once.

"We've got to find her," said the boy impressively.

"Now, Russ!" almost wailed Rose, "you wouldn't go into those woods?

Aren't you scared?"

"Of course I'm scared," said Russ. "Who wouldn't be? But just because I am scared I know the woman must be even more scared. She's got to be taken out of the woods and shown where the big house is. Or, if she is a colored lady, we'll take her to the quarters."

"I--I wish Daddy was here," ventured Rose.

"But he isn't here," said Russ, with some vexation. "So we've got to find the woman by ourselves."

"Oh, dear!" murmured Rose.

But she would not let Russ go alone into the patch of forest behind the site of Mammy June's burned cabin; nor did she feel like remaining alone in the clearing. Russ picked up a good sized stick and started toward the woods.

"Let's shout when we get to the edge," whispered Rose.

They did so; but, really, their voices sounded very faint indeed. No reply came. It was several minutes after, and Russ and Rose were quite a distance into the woods and following what seemed to be a half-grown-over path, before the "woman" screamed again.

"Goodness! How hateful that sounds!" cried Rose.

"I guess she is more scared than we are," ventured Russ. "What do you think?"

"I think I'd like to be back at the house," answered Rose.

But Russ would not agree with her. As he went on he grew more confident.

They did not see even a rabbit. And Russ and Rose knew that rabbits were often out at night.

If they had but known it, the awful screech that so disturbed them, disturbed the rabbits and the other small fry of the woods much more. At the sound of that terrible hunger-cry all the rabbits, and hares, and birds that nested on the ground or in trees, trembled.