"It sounded like a long, low call for help!" was the reply. "I believe all the calls from deserted houses are long and low, what?"

"Right you are!" Alex. answered. "Say, what's the matter of taking Captain Joe with us when we go to the house? If there's a ghost behind the casings, he'll be certain to find and bring it out to us!"

"Then I'm strong for Captain Joe!" cried Jule. "We'll bring the perturbed spirit on board and put it with our collection of animals!

And there's the breakfast call, at last!" he continued, whereat both boys rushed into the cabin.

Clay, who had been tinkering around the motors for half an hour, entered the cabin before breakfast was over, his face looking troubled, his clothing smeared with grease.

"I have an idea that we'll stop here a few days until some one goes to one of the towns hereabouts and brings back some bolts," he said. "The motors are out of whack, and ought not to be operated in the shape they are in."

"I'll go back to Hickman in the rowboat," declared Case. "I have a notion that I'd like to see the town."

"And row against that current?" asked Alex. "I see you doing it!"

"You couldn't do it in a thousand years!" Jule observed.

"Well," Case went on, looking at his map of the river, "there's New Madrid, on the Missouri side. I might walk up there and back in a day."

"Up there?" laughed Alex., looking over Case's shoulder. "Why do you say up there? New Madrid is north from here, all right, but it is down stream, for all that!"

"Well, walk down there, then!" Case replied. "I want to learn something about that robbery anyway, and there may be news of it; besides, a walk along the river will be a sort of a picnic. It isn't more than ten or twelve miles to the town."

"Then you'd better arrange to return to-morrow," Clay advised. "You are not used to such long walks. We are in no hurry to go on, for we have all the time there is until this time next year!"

So it was finally arranged that Case should walk down to New Madrid and get the needed repairs for the motors, while the others looked over the country which lay about them. When Alex. suggested the visit to the deserted house, Clay was anxious to become one of the party. He said he had had the same idea in his mind ever since seeing the old place.

"After Case goes," Jule suggested, "that would leave only Mose and Teddy Bear on board the _Rambler_. I don't believe it is safe to leave her alone."

"Of course it isn't," Clay admitted, "so I'll remain here to-day and visit the old building to-morrow. Then you two boys can remain at home."

Everything being satisfactorily arranged, Alex. and Jule started away up the bayou in the rowboat. The old basin was full of water, and so there was little current, which made it easy rowing. In half an hour they were at the foot of an old pier, slanting over on weak legs like a tipsy man. It was plain that the landing had not been used for commercial purposes for a long time.

The boys fastened the boat and ran briskly up the rotting footway which led to the enclosure in which the old house stood. There was a wilderness of trees and shrubs in the enclosure, and the walks, which had evidently once been carefully tended, were now overgrown with weeds and long gra.s.s. Lizards darted out of unseen places and sped away as the boys advanced along a broken walk which led to the front door of the mansion.

At the very threshold the boys paused, listening. The ragged blinds were flapping in the breeze, and the trees which rimmed the enclosure rustled and creaked in a most uncanny way, but these sounds were not the ones which brought the adventurous boys to a halt.

The noise they heard sounded like the tones of a violin, coming from a great distance. The notes, faint, sweet, perplexing, rose and fell on the wind, now lifting into a weird song, now dropping to the softest melody!

"There's some one here, after all!" Jule suggested, though there was a question in the way the words were spoken. "Some one lives here? What do you think?"

Alex. pointed to the broken door which opened into the disordered hall, to the window blinds, beating the casings at the will of the wind, and at the long gra.s.s and weeds growing between the planks and stones of the walks.

"I don't believe any one lives here!" he insisted.

"Then what is it making the music?" demanded Jule. "If that isn't some one playing the violin you may eat my head for a cabbage!"

They listened again. The sounds stopped directly, then there came a banging of doors and a rustle, as if some one in trailing clothes was being dragged through the hall. Then a shriek which appeared to come from directly under the feet of the boys cut the air, lifting into a terrifying yell at the end. The lads involuntarily started back down the path, but both stopped and faced the house again.

"I'm not going away without knowing more about it!" Alex. declared.

"That's the way I look at it!" grinned Jule. "We can't turn tail and run like a couple of cowards. I wish we had brought Captain Joe along with us!"

"Clay wanted him for company," Alex. explained. "Joe looked like his heart was broken when we came off without him! I'll bet he runs away and comes after us!"

Seeing that their automatic revolvers were in working order, the boys walked back up the broken walk, mounted the steps, and pa.s.sed into the ancient hallway of the mansion. All was ruin and decay there. The floor was broken out in places, and there were marks of an axe on the casings of the door and on the narrow windows beside it.

The stairway leading to the rooms above was broken, too, some of the steps being gone entirely. The lads stopped at the foot of the steps for an instant to gaze upward and then turned into a lofty room on the left. This must have been the parlor, and the apartment beyond it must have been the library.

The furniture, which had once been valuable, was broken into bits, and a charred spot on the floor showed where a fire had been kindled. The rooms on that floor were all desolate and dismantled, and the boys soon turned their attention to those above the ruined staircase.

Scarcely had they gained the head of the stairs when the music began again. It seemed to come down the wide hallway which ran nearly through the house parallel with the front.

"We're getting nearer to the band!" Jule whispered.

There was such a hush over the place, such a weird, uncanny atmosphere, that, somehow, the boys did not feel like being loud-voiced or boisterous.

"We'll be running into a reception committee next!" Alex. returned.

The music continued for a few seconds, then ended in a repet.i.tion of the dragging, rustling sound and the shriek which had been heard before. This time the noise indicating physical motion appeared to come from the very hallway where the boys were standing!

Alex. and Jule continued on through the hall until they came to a part.i.tion which shut off the north end of it. There was a door in this part.i.tion, but it was locked. At first all the efforts of the lads failed to budge it.

"There's one part of the ranch that hasn't rotted away," Alex.

observed, as red-faced and perspiring, he paused in his attack on the door.

"That shows there's some one taking care of it," Jule decided.

"Suppose we try the door once more? It ought to give way before our weight."

They both threw their shoulders against the upper panels and they dropped back, revealing a small room which had the appearance of having recently been occupied. There was a wide fireplace at the back of the room, which was at the end of the house, and a chair standing near the hearth was softly cushioned. There was a window on each side of the fireplace, but the curtains were drawn so all the details of the apartment were not visible. The boys drew back for an instant.

"We're breaking into some one's house!" Jule whispered.

"I guess that's right!" Alex. returned. "What ought we to do now?"

"Keep right on until we get at the solution of the mystery," Jule answered. "It may be that we shall find a maiden in distress, and----"

The boy stopped in the midst of his light-hearted speech and looked again through the broken panels of the door at the end of the hall.

What he saw was a side door opening.

As the door swung back an old man, white haired and walking with a stout cane, came into the room and sat down in the chair by the hearth. Then, without glancing toward the broken panels and the boys beyond, he spoke:

"The door is not fastened, boys. You are welcome to enter."

The boys entered, feeling ashamed and half afraid, and the old man pointed to two chairs by the hearth which had not been seen through the broken door.

"Sit down!" he said, almost with an air of command, "and tell me why you are here."

The boys sank down into the chairs; then there came a sharp click, and they felt themselves falling through the floor!