Part 2

“I thought sure you’d gone after olives, by golly,” blurted Slim, with his mouth half full of dumpling.

“If I’d gone after them, I’d have got them,” Miguel, usually so exasperatingly calm, spoke with some feeling.

“Aw, g’wan! I betche yuh dassent go.” Happy Jack grinned arrogantly.

“You wouldn’t bet anything but words,” retorted Miguel. “There are several of you fellows that seem to be just that brand of sports.” He gave the faint shrug which they all hated.

Big Medicine laid down his knife and fork. “Say, do yuh mind naming over them several fellers?” he inquired abruptly in his booming voice. “I don’t bet words, by cripes--when I bet--”

Miguel smiled across at him blandly. “We were speaking of olives,” he purred “Happy Jack wanted to ‘betche’ I daren’t go after them. He didn’t name the stakes, though.”

“It ain’t because I ain’t willin’ to put ’em up,” glowered Happy. “I’ll betche five dollars, then--if that suits yuh any better.”

Miguel laughed, which was unusual when he was arguing with any one. “Do you mean it? Do you really think that little, weak, pretty-pretty ghost story would scare--a--nigger baby?” His voice taunted the lot of them.

“Don’t yuh believe there’s a ghost, by cripes?” Big Medicine bawled pugnaciously.

“No. Of course I don’t believe it. Neither do you.” Miguel spoke with that weary tolerance which is so hard to endure.

“I do,” Cal Emmett declared flatly. “And I’m willing to bet a horse against them fancy spurs of yours that you dassent go to-night to One Man Coulee and bring away them bottles of stuffed olives.”

“What horse?” asked Miguel, reaching for the chicken platter.

“Well--any darned horse I own!” Cal wore the open-eyed look of innocence which had helped him scare out his opponents in many a poker game. “I say to-night,” he added apologetically to the others, “because it’s going to be clear and lots uh moonlight; and it’s Sunday. But I don’t care what night he tries it. I’ll bet he won’t bring away no olives.”

“Aren’t they there?” Miguel wanted to know.

“Oh--they’re there, I guess. I’ll change the wordin’ a little. I’ll bet yuh dassent go to that shack, and go into it and stay long enough to freeze onto twelve bottles uh anything. To-night,” he added, “at mid--no, any old time between ten and one. And I’ll bet any one uh my four cayuses against your spurs.”

“It’s a go. Does the rest of my riding outfit look good to any of you fellows?” Miguel glanced around the table smilingly. “Happy, for instance--”

“I got five dollars up,” Happy Jack reminded. “But I’ll put twenty with it against your bridle.”

“That bridle’s worth fifty dollars. And my saddle cost two hundred and eighty. I’ll put them up, though, if any one wants to cover the bet.”

“Say, this is a shame. Honest to grandma, I’d hate to see Miggie ridin’ bareback the rest uh the summer--with a rope hackamore, by cripes! Don’t go ’n take all his purty-purties away from him like that, boys! Haw-haw-haw!” It is unwise to laugh like that with one’s mouth full of chicken. Big Medicine choked and retired from the conversation and the room.

“Say, you don’t reelize, by golly, what you’re up ag’inst,” Slim observed ponderously. “If you did--”

“Are you dead-game sports, or are you a bunch of old women?” drawled Miguel. “My outfit is up, if any one has nerve enough to take the bets.”

They wrangled more or less amicably over it, as was their habit. But they did finally bet a great deal more on the foolish venture than they should have done. When, finally, they reached the time and the point of departure, Miguel, like the plains Indians during the fever of horse-racing, was pledged to his hat and his high-heeled boots; while the Happy Family, if they lost, would have plenty of reason to repent them of their rashness.

They waited an hour for Pink and Weary to return, and, when they did not appear, they rode off without them. They pitied Miguel, and told him so. They told of haunted cabins, and of murders and dreams come true, and of disasters that were weird.

Andy Green, when half of the ten miles had been covered, roused himself from his disapproving silence and told them a fearsome tale of two miners murdered mysteriously and thrown into their own mine, and of their dog which howled up and down the mountain gulches when the moonlight lay soft upon the land; told it so that they rode close-huddled that they might catch it all, down to the last gruesomely mysterious incident of the murdered master whistling from the pit to the dog, and of the animal’s whimpering obedience--long years after, when the dog’s bones were bleaching through sun and storm above, and the master’s bones were rotting in the darkness below.

Happy Jack more than once glanced uneasily toward the shadowy hollows as they rode slowly across the prairies through the night silence. Slim set his jaw and rode stiffly, staring straight ahead of him as if he feared what he might see, if he looked aside. Miguel was seen to shiver, though the air was soft and warm.

“Now, this Olafson--” Andy began after a silence which no one thought to break. “The boys joshed me a lot about that. But it was queer--the queerest thing I ever saw or heard. To see him sitting there in the firelight, listening--and while he listened, to hear the wind whoo-whoo around the corners and down the chimney--and the snow swish-swishing against the walls like grave clothes when the ghosts walk--”

“Aw--I thought yuh said there wasn’t any ghosts!” croaked Happy Jack uneasily.

“And then Olafson would lift his violin and draw the bow across--”

Andy, the reins dropped upon the saddle horn, held an imaginary violin cuddled under his chin, and across the phantom strings drew an imaginary bow with slow, sweeping gestures, while his voice went on with the tale, and the Happy Family watched, and listened, and saw what he meant them to see. “And then would come that lonesome whoo-oo of the wind--from the violin. He made me see things. He made me see the storm, like it was a white spirit creeping over the range. He made me see--”

They had reached One Man Coulee while he talked. The Happy Family stared down into the lonely place lying nakedly white under the moon, shivered, and rode slowly down the slope. Like one in a trance Andy rode in their midst, and compelled them with his voice to see the things he would have them see. Compelled them to see Olafson, the master musician, striving after the song of the north wind, and the prairie, and the wolf; made them see him as he opened the door and stood there gazing wildly out, playing--always playing--something weird and wonderful, and supernaturally terrible.

“I don’t envy Miguel his job none, by cripes,” Big Medicine said, as they drew near the point beyond which the cabin would stand revealed to them, and for a wonder he spoke softly.

Andy glanced up at the yellow ball floating serenely over the blue ocean of the sky, down the white-lighted coulee, with fringes of black shadows here and there, and then at the cabin squatting deserted against the green background of willows, with blank, staring window and open doorway.

“If such things can be--if the ghost of Olafson can come back, he’ll come to-night and try again to play the wind,” he said solemnly. “Just a low, even, creepy tone first on open G--”

They rode slowly around to where they faced the door, pulled up short fifty feet away from it, and stared.

“There he is!” Andy’s voice was the whisper which carries far. “He’s come, boys--to play the wind again! A low, creepy note on open G--”

In the doorway, where the moon shone radiantly in, stood a black-clothed figure topped by a grinning, fleshless skull. Cuddled under the horrid, bony chin of it was a violin. The right arm was upraised and bent, poising the bow above the strings. The staring, empty eye sockets were lighted with a pale, phosphorescent glow.

“Well, by golly!” gulped Slim, in an undertone, and backed his horse a little involuntarily.

“Aw--” Happy Jack looked at Irish and Cal, grinned sheepishly, and was silent.

“Go on, Miggie, and git your olives,” Big Medicine murmured. “Twelve bottles. We’ll wait for yuh here.”

Miguel slid off his horse without a word and started forward, hesitating a trifle, if the truth were known.

In the doorway the right arm of the figure trembled and moved slowly upward, pulling the bow lightly across the strings. Came a low, wailing note on open G, which swelled resonantly in the quiet air, rose a tone, clung there, and slid eerily down to silence.

Big Medicine started and stared across at Irish, and Cal Emmett, and Jack Bates, who met his look incredulously. Miguel stopped short and stood a moment in the blank silence which followed. The gaunt, black figure bulked huge in the doorway, and the fleshless mouth grinned at him sardonically.

Miguel took a step or two forward. Again that ghostly arm lifted and swept the bow across the strings. Again the eerie tones came vibrantly, sliding up the scale, clinging, and wailing, and falling again to silence when Miguel stood still.

Big Medicine turned his horse short around, so that he faced those three--Cal, Jack Bates, and Irish.

“Say!--the--the thing’s playin’, by cripes!” he muttered accusingly, and edged off fearfully.

“Aw--say!” Happy Jack moved farther away in sudden, unashamed terror. “What makes it--play?”

Miguel stood longer that time, and the silence rasped the nerves of those who waited farther off. When he moved forward again the playing began. When he stopped, the ghostly arm was still.

Happy Jack, with an unexpected, inarticulate squawk, kicked his horse in the ribs and fled down the coulee. Slim went after him, galloping with elbows flapping wildly. Those who waited longer saw Miguel walk slowly up to the very threshold, and face the ghost that played over and over that one, awful strain. They saw him stop as if to gather together his courage, put down his head as if he were battling a blizzard, and edge past the unearthly figure.

As he disappeared within, brushing swiftly past the ghost, the strings twanged ominously. Came an unearthly screech which was like demons howling as howls the gray wolf before a storm. It raised the hair on the scalp with that prickling sensation which is so extremely unpleasant, and it sent Big Medicine, Cal, Jack Bates, and Irish clattering down the coulee in the wake of Slim and Happy Jack.

Andy Green held his horse and Miguel’s back from following, and watched them out of sight before he rode closer to the awful thing which guarded the door.

“All right, boys--yuh may as well stop the concert; the audience is halfway home by this time,” he called out, chuckling as he dismounted and went clanking up to the doorway. “Say, by gracious, yuh done fine! That last screech was sure a pippin--it like to have stampeded me.”

Pink disentangled his fingers from a fine bit of string and grunted. “It ought to be. We’ve been practicing that howl, off and on, for four hours. How was the fiddling, Andy?”

“Outa sight. Say, yuh better take them strings off the bow, and make darned sure you ain’t having any tracks, or anything. Let ’em come back and find everything just the way they fixed the plant--and then let ’em put in their spare time figuring the thing out, if they can. They’ll likely come moseying back up here, pretty soon--all but Happy and Slim--so you want to hurry. If you two can beat us home, they’ll never get wise in a thousand years of hard thinking.” He looked the ghost over critically, gave a snort, and painstakingly straightened the bow. “Darned grave robbers,” he exclaimed, looking at the skull. “Well, hike boys; I hear ’em coming. Got the olives all right, Miguel? Come and get on your horse. We’ll meet ’em down the trail a ways if we can. And say,” he called over his shoulder, when he was beside his horse again, “you fellows do some going! If you ain’t in bed when we get there, the stuff’s off.” Even while he looked back, Pink and Weary dodged out and vanished in the gloom of the willows.

The Native Son, bearing in a gunny sack twelve bottles of stuffed olives, and on his swarthy face an unstudied grin of elation, was just making ready to mount when Irish and Big Medicine became recognizable in the moonlight below.

“We thought we’d come back and see if you were alive, anyway,” Irish announced shamefacedly, with a glance toward the cabin and the spectral figure in the doorway. “What did it do to yuh, Mig?”

“Nothing, only caterwaul like the devil all the time I was getting the olives. It’s shut up since I came out of the cabin. Seems like it hates visitors.”

“Er--did it--did the ghost make all that noise, honest?” Big Medicine’s voice had lost some of its blatant assurance. He was bewildered, and he showed it.

“You heard him sawing on that fiddle, didn’t you? The screeching seemed to come from--just all over the room.” Miguel waved his free hand vaguely. “Just all over at once. Kinda got my goat, for a minute or two.”

The group rode slowly away, and when Miguel was through speaking they went in silence. Halfway up the hill, Irish turned in the saddle and stared down at the roof of the little cabin showing black under the moon.

“Well--I’ll--be--darned!” he stated slowly and emphatically, and rode on with the others, who seemed to be thinking deeply.

Their meditations must have been to some purpose, for, after a hasty word or two snatched in private with his fellow conspirators, Irish set the pace.

At the stable he did not wait to unsaddle first of all. Instead he went hurriedly inside, lighted a match, and held it up while he surveyed the wall where the Happy Family were wont to hang their saddles--when they hung them anywhere. Two familiar saddles dangled there, each hanging upon its accustomed peg by its accustomed right stirrup, proclaiming silently and unanswerably the fact of their owners’ presence upon the ranch. When the match flickered and went out, Irish discovered that Cal, Jack Bates, Big Medicine, and Happy Jack were standing behind him, staring also.

“Well--I’ll--be--darned!” said Irish again softly, and dropped the stub with a gesture of keen disappointment.

“It wasn’t them, then,” muttered Big Medicine at his shoulder. “And the--the thing--it played, by cripes!”