Ronicky Doones Treasure | Page 6

"Where does Hugh Dawn live?"
"Hugh Dawn?" said the other, his eyes blank with the effort of thought. Then he shook his head. "Dunno as I ever heard about any Hugh Dawn. Might be you got to the wrong town, son."
It was partly disappointment, partly relief that made Ronicky Doone sigh. After all, tie had done his best; and, since his best was not good enough, Hugh Dawn must even die. However, he would still try.
"You're sure there's no Dawn family living in these parts?"
"Dawn family? Sure there is. But there ain't no Hugh Dawn ever I heard of."
"How long you been around here?"
"Eight years come next May Day."
'Very well," said Ronicky brusquely, recalling that it was ten years before that Hugh Dawn, according to Jack Moon, had disappeared. "Where is the Dawn house?"
"Old Grandpa Dawn," said the proprietor, "used to live out there, but he died a couple of years back. Now they ain't nobody but Jerry Dawn."
"The son?"
"It ain't a son. She's a girl. Geraldine is her name. Most always she's called Jerry, though. She teaches the school and makes out pretty good and lives in that big house all by herself."
"And Where's the house, man?" cried Ronicky, wild with impatience.
"Out the east road about a couple of miles. Can't help knowing it, it's so big. Stands in the middle of a bunch of pines and -- "
The rest of his words trailed away into silence. Ronicky Doone had whipped out of the door and down the steps. Once in the saddle of Lou again, he sent her headlong down the east road. Would he be too late, after this delay at the hotel and the talk with the dim-minded old hotel proprietor?
The house, as he had been told, was unmistakable. Dense foresting of pines swept up to it on a knoll well back from the road, and over the tops of the trees, through the misting rain and the night, he made out the dim triangle of the roof of the building. In a moment the hoofs of the mare were scattering the gravel of the winding road which twisted among the trees, and presently he drew up before the house.
The face of it, as was to be expected at this hour of the night, was utterly blank, utterly black. Only the windows, here and there, glimmered faintly with whatever light they reflected from the stormy night, the panes having been polished by the rain water. As he had expected, it was built in the fashion of thirty or forty years before. There were little decorative turrets at the four comers of the structure and another and larger turret springing from the center of the room. He had no doubt that daylight would reveal much carved work of the gingerbread variety.
A huge and gloomy place it was for one girl to occupy! He sprang from the saddle and ran up the steps and knocked heavily on the front door. Inside, he heard the long echo wander faintly down the hall and then up the stairs, like a ghost with swiftly lightening footfall. There was no other reply. So he knocked again, more heavily, and, trying the knob of the door, he found it locked fast. When he shook it there was the rattle of a chain on the inside. The door had been securely fastened, to be sure. This was not the rule in this country of wide-doored hospitality.
Presently there was the sound of a window being opened in the story of the house just above him. He looked up, but he could not locate it, since no lamp had been lighted inside.
"Who's there?" called a girl's voice.
It thrilled Ronicky Doone. He had come so far to warn a man that his life was in danger. He was met by this calm voice of a girl.
"Who I am doesn't matter," said Ronicky Doone. "I've come to find Hugh Dawn. Is he here?"
There was a slight pause, a very slight pause, and one which might have been interpreted as meaning any of a dozen things. Then: "No, Hugh Dawn is not here."
"Lady," said Ronicky Doone, "are you Geraldine Dawn?"
"Yes," said the voice. "I am she."
"I've heard of you," said Ronicky; "and I've heard of Hugh Dawn. I know that he's in this house. What I want to do is -- "
"Whatever you want to do," broke in that amazingly mild voice, "you will have to wait till morning. I am alone in this house. I do not intend to have it entered before daylight comes. Hugh Dawn a not here. If you know anything about him, you also know that he hasn't been here for ten years."
And there was the sound of a window being closed with violence.
To persist in efforts at persuasion in the face of such a