Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts | Page 9

from them in clouds.
It trickled from them now in thin wisps of vapour. They could almost
hear the soft grey ash dropping on the hearth.
A log spluttered. Then the invalid's voice clattered in--
"It's the bears--the bears! They've come after Bill, and next it'll be my
turn. I warned you--I told you he wasn't deep enough. O Lord, have
mercy . . . mercy . . . !" He pattered off into a prayer, his voice and
teeth chattering.
"Hush!" commanded the Gaffer gently; and Lashman choked on a sob.
"It ain't bears," Cooney reported, still with his ear to the door.
"Leastways . . . we've had bears before. The foxes, maybe . . . let me
listen."
Long Ede murmured: "Take us the foxes, the little foxes . . ."
"I believe you're right," the Gaffer announced cheerfully. "A bear
would sniff louder--though there's no telling. The snow was falling an
hour back, and I dessay 'tis pretty thick outside. If 'tis a bear, we don't
want him fooling on the roof, and I misdoubt the drift by the north
corner is pretty tall by this time. Is he there still?"
"I felt something then . . . through the chink, here . . . like a warm
breath. It's gone now. Come here, Snipe, and listen."
"'Breath,' eh? Did it smell like bear?"
"I don't know . . . I didn't smell nothing, to notice. Here, put your head
down, close."

The Snipe bent his head. And at that moment the door shook gently.
All stared; and saw the latch move up, up . . . and falteringly descend
on the staple. They heard the click of it.
The door was secured within by two stout bars. Against these there had
been no pressure. The men waited in a silence that ached. But the latch
was not lifted again.
The Snipe, kneeling, looked up at Cooney. Cooney shivered and looked
at David Faed. Long Ede, with his back to the fire, softly shook his feet
free of the rugs. His eyes searched for the Gaffer's face. But the old
man had drawn back into the gloom of his bunk, and the lamplight
shone only on a grey fringe of beard. He saw Long Ede's look, though,
and answered it quietly as ever.
"Take a brace of guns aloft, and fetch us a look round. Wait, if there's a
chance of a shot. The trap works. I tried it this afternoon with the small
chisel."
Long Ede lit his pipe tied down the ear-pieces of his cap, lifted a light
ladder off its staples, and set it against a roof-beam: then, with the guns
under his arm, quietly mounted. His head and shoulders wavered and
grew vague to sight in the smoke-wreaths. "Heard anything more?" he
asked. "Nothing since," answered the Snipe. With his shoulder Long
Ede pushed up the trap. They saw his head framed in a panel of
moonlight, with one frosty star above it. He was wriggling through.
"Pitch him up a sleeping-bag, somebody," the Gaffer ordered, and
Cooney ran with one. "Thank 'ee, mate," said Long Ede, and closed the
trap.
They heard his feet stealthily crunching the frozen stuff across the roof.
He was working towards the eaves over-lapping the door. Their breath
tightened. They waited for the explosion of his gun. None came. The
crunching began again: it was heard down by the very edge of the eaves.
It mounted to the blunt ridge overhead; then it ceased.
"He will not have seen aught," David Faed muttered.

"Listen, you. Listen by the door again." They talked in whispers.
Nothing; there was nothing to be heard. They crept back to the fire, and
stood there warming themselves, keeping their eyes on the latch. It did
not move. After a while Cooney slipped off to his hammock; Faed to
his bunk, alongside Lashman's. The Gaffer had picked up his book
again. The Snipe laid a couple of logs on the blaze, and remained
beside it, cowering, with his arms stretched out as if to embrace it. His
shapeless shadow wavered up and down on the bunks behind him; and,
across the fire, he still stared at the latch.
Suddenly the sick man's voice quavered out--
"It's not him they want--it's Bill! They're after Bill, out there! That was
Bill trying to get in. . . . Why didn't yer open? It was Bill, I tell yer!"
At the first word the Snipe had wheeled right-about-face, and stood
now, pointing, and shaking like a man with ague.
"Matey . . . for the love of God . . ."
"I won't hush. There's something wrong here to-night. I can't sleep. It's
Bill, I tell yer. See his poor hammock up there shaking. . . ."