d the youth. "There are matches in my coat pocket," he
whispered, "--the same pocket in which you found the flash lamp. Strike
one and we'll look for a room here where we can lay the girl."

The boy fumbled gropingly in search of the matches. It was evident to
the man that it was only with the greatest exertion of will power that
he controlled his muscles at all; but at last he succeeded in finding
and striking one. At the flare of the light there was a sound from
below--a scratching sound and the creaking of boards as beneath a heavy
body; then came the clanking of the chain once more, and the bannister
against which they leaned shook as though a hand had been laid upon it
below them. The youth stifled a shriek and simultaneously the match went
out; but not before Bridge had seen in the momentary flare of light a
partially open door at the far end of the hall in which they stood.

Beneath them the stairs creaked now and the chain thumped slowly from
one to another as it was dragged upward toward them.

"Quick!" called Bridge. "Straight down the hall and into the room at
the end." The man was puzzled. He could not have been said to have been
actually afraid, and yet the terror of the boy was so intense, so real,
that it could scarce but have had its suggestive effect upon the other;
and, too, there was an uncanny element of the supernatural in what they
had seen and heard in the deserted house--the dead man on the floor
below, the inexplicable clanking of a chain by some unseen THING from
the depth of the cellar upward toward them; and, to heighten the effect
of these, there were the grim stories of unsolved tragedy and crime. All
in all Bridge could not have denied that he was glad of the room at the
end of the hall with its suggestion of safety in the door which might
be closed against the horrors of the hall and the Stygian gloom below
stairs.

The Oskaloosa Kid was staggering ahead of him, scarce able to hold his
body erect upon his shaking knees--his gait seemed pitifully slow to
the unarmed man carrying the unconscious girl and listening to the chain
dragging ever nearer and nearer behind; but at last they reached the
doorway and passed through it into the room.

"Close the door," directed Bridge as he crossed toward the center of the
room to lay his burden upon the floor, but there was no response to
his instructions--only a gasp and the sound of a body slumping to the
rotting boards. With an exclamation of c