The Galloping Ghost | Page 8

Then, with a laugh as hollow as a voice from a graveyard at midnight, the skeleton set off at a long striding gallop.
He was lost from sight before Johnny could recover from his surprise or Tom Howe could scramble to his feet.
"A--a galloping ghost!" Johnny exclaimed, as he bent over his companion. "Are you hurt?"
"No--not much." Howe was coming round.
"Hardly at all. But, man! Oh, man! What hard knuckles that ghost has!"
"What's this? A ghost?" Once more a new voice broke in upon them.
Johnny looked up, then scowled. He had recognized the voice of a reporter from the city's pink journal. He hated the paper and disliked this reporter.
But when one speaks of a ghost he needs must explain.
Explain he did, and that with the least possible number of words.
"A ghost! A galloping ghost on the scene of kidnaping that is sure to cause a nation-wide search!
What a scoop!" The reporter was away even before Johnny had completed his meager description.
"A galloping ghost." Johnny pronounced the words slowly as Howe, now quite recovered, stood up beside him, then scowled.
"What do you make of that?"
"Not a thing," Howe answered bluntly. But after all, the real question is, is this ghost for us or against us?"
"Do ghosts always take sides?"
"Oh inevitably!" Howe laughed a short cackling laugh that went far toward relieving the tension of the moment.
"Come!" he said. "Let's see what Drew has been doing. He--"
"Watch out! Duck!" Seizing Johnny's arm with a vice-like grip, he dragged him down.
Not an instant too soon. There came the crack of a pistol, followed by the dull thwack of a bullet against the side of the car just over their heads, And after that a cold, dead silence.
CHAPTER V
RED WINS TO LOSE
DREW LANE, Tom Howe's team mate, had not seen the Galloping Ghost. In truth it was some distance from the sleeping car to the river bank. After picking his way across the tracks, flashing his light this way and that in search of clues--some article dropped in hasty flight, a broken match, a cigarette thrown away--he came at last to a narrow stretch of rockstrewn, cinder-embedded ground.
Here his mood changed. Snapping off his light, he thrust one hand deep in his coat pocket and sauntered forward like some college youth taking the air.
This was Drew Lane's favorite pose. With his faultless derby, his spotless suit of sea-green and his natty tie, he carried it off well. Many a tough egg had called him a "fresh college kid," only to find himself the next moment lying on the sidewalk feeling of a lump on his jaw caused only by Drew's capable fist.
That fist at this moment was curled around a nasty looking thing of blue steel. At a second's notice Drew could set that blue steel pal of his spouting fire, right through his pocket. And his aim, while indulging in this type of shooting, was the despair of all evil doers.
Drew was approaching what appeared to be a dangerous spot. In the half darkness before him a great steam shovel mounted on a dredge stood with crane outstretched like some fabled bird ready to bend down and pluck his lifeless body from the river. Plenty there were, too, who would have witnessed the act with a grunt of satisfaction.
As he approached the dredge a small craft, moored ahead of the dredge and smelling strongly of fish, gave forth a hollow bump- bump.
Fearlessly the young detective hopped aboard this fishing schooner. For a moment his light flashed here and there.
"No one," he muttered.
Hopping ashore, he made his way to the scow supporting the dredge. Having reached it he dropped on hands and knees, to creep its entire length. From time to time, with the aid of his flashlight, he examined several posts and the outer surface of the scow. When at last he stood once more upon his feet it was with a grunt of satisfaction.
"Went south," he muttered. "Speed boat, all right. Wonder how far? Go up the river in the morning. Find out--"
His thoughts were broken short off by the bark of an automatic. One shot, that was all; then silence.
With the spring of a panther Drew was off the barge, across the narrow open space and lost in the labyrinth of sleeping cars.
In an astonishingly short time he was close the scene of the mysterious kidnaping.
"Tom! Tom Howe!" he called softly. "Are you there?"
There came no answer. Only from the river came the hollow bump-bump of the fishing schooner.
"Tom! Tom Howe!" he called. Still no answer.
Then, without warning, the car before him began to move. For lack of a better thing to do, he hopped aboard and went rattling away into the city's great depot.
* * *
It was during this same night, at a somewhat later hour, that Red Rodgers and