Galusha the Magnificent | Page 8

not to mention reasonable prices and pleasant people and no frills, were all but a mile away at the Restabit Inn at Gould's Bluffs--beautiful Gould's Bluffs. No wonder they called them beautiful.
He returned the pocketbook to his inside pocket and the flashlight to an outside one, turned up his coat collar, pulled the brown derby down as tightly upon his brow as he could, picked up the heavy suitcase and started forth to tramp the mile which separated his tired self from food and rest--especially rest.
The first hundred yards of that mile cut him off entirely from the world. It was dark now, pitch dark, and the fog was so thick as to be almost a rain. His coat and hat and suitcase dripped with it. The drops ran down his nose. He felt as if there were almost as much water in the air as there was beneath him on the ground--not quite as much, for his feet were wetter than his body, but enough.
And it was so still. No sound of voices, no dogs barking, no murmur of the wind in trees. There did not seem to be any trees. Occasionally he swept a circle of his immediate surroundings with the little flashlight, but all its feeble radiance showed was fog and puddles and wet weeds and ruts and grass--and more fog.
Still! Oh, yes, deadly still for a long minute's interval, and then out of the nowhere ahead, with a suddenness which each time caused his weakened nerves to vibrate like fiddle strings, would burst the bellow of the great foghorn.
Silence, the splash and "sugg" of Galusha's sodden shoes moving up and down, up and down--and then:
"OW--ooo--ooo---ooo--OOO!!"
Once a minute the foghorn blew and once a minute Galusha Bangs jumped as if he were hearing it for the first time.
The signboard had said "1 MILE." One hundred miles, one thousand miles; that was what it should have said to be truthful. Galusha plodded on and on, stopping to put down the suitcase, then lifting it and pounding on again. He had had no luncheon; he had had no dinner. He was weak from illness. He was wet and chilled. And-- yes, it was beginning to rain.
He put down the suitcase once more.
"Oh, my soul!" he exclaimed, and not far away, close at hand, the word "soul" was repeated.
"Oh, dear!" cried Galusha, startled.
"Dear!" repeated the echo, for it was an echo.
Galusha, brandishing the tiny flashlight, moved toward the sound. Something bulky, huge, loomed in the blackness, a building. The flashlight's circle, growing dimmer now for the battery was almost exhausted, disclosed steps and a broad piazza. Mr. Bangs climbed the steps, crossed the piazza, the boards of which creaked beneath him. There were doors, but they were shut tight; there were windows, but they were shuttered. Down the length of the long piazza tramped Galusha, his heart sinking. Every window was shuttered, every door was boarded up. Evidently this place, whatever it was, was closed. It was uninhabited.
He came back to the front door again. Over it was a sign, he had not looked as high before. Now he raised the dimming flashlight and read:
"THE RESTABIT INN. Open June 15 to September 15."
September 15!!! Why, September was past and gone. This was the 3rd of October. The Restabit Inn was closed for the season.
Slowly, Galusha, tugging the suitcase, stumbled to the edge of the piazza. There he collapsed, rather than sat down, upon the upper step. Above him, upon the piazza roof, the rain descended heavily. The flashlight dimmed and went out altogether.
"OW--ooo---ooo--ooo--OOO!!" whooped the foghorn.
Later, just how much later he never knew exactly, Mr. Bangs awoke from his faint or collapse or doze, whichever it may have been, to hear some one calling his name.
"Loosh! Loosh! Loosh!"
This was odd, very odd. "Loosh" was what he had been called at college. That is, some of the fellows had called him that, those he liked best. The others had even more offensive nicknames. He disliked "Loosh" very much, but he answered to it--then.
"Loosh! Loosh! Loosh, where are you?"
Queer that any one should be calling him "Loosh"--any one down here in . . . Eh? Where was he? He couldn't remember much except that he was very tired--except--
"Loosh! Looshy! Come Looshy!"
He staggered to his feet and, leaving the suitcase where it was, stumbled away in the direction of the voice. The rain, pouring down upon him, served to bring him back a little nearer to reality. Wasn't that a light over there, that bright yellow spot in the fog?
It was a light, a lighted doorway, with a human figure standing in it. The figure of a woman, a woman in a dark dress and a white apron. It must be she who was calling him. Yes, she was calling him again.
"Loosh! Loosh!