LITMIR.BIZ

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his imagination—but I’m going to be shown!”

      Then and there I dismissed the unnatural fears which had shaken me. If the creature existed, I would shoot it; if the whole affair were one of those queer mental quirks which come to all men, if the prints were caused by some natural agency not at the moment obvious to my deduction, well and good.

      I went around to the car and hauled in my provisions. The electricity was on in the house, and I got the electric range working and managed to make myself a fairly decent meal. At times I found myself desirous of casting quick glances over my shoulder, at windows or doors, but I repressed it firmly. I was not going to get into Balliol’s condition if I could help it.

      Lunch over, I dragged a rocker to the veranda and enjoyed a smoke, with the beauties of the lake outspread before me. By reason of a deep indendation of the lakeshore, the bluff on which my house was built faced almost due east; opposite me, across the bight, I saw the roofs of a farmhouse, doubtless my nearest neighbor in that direction.

      It occurred to me that if I wanted to talk business, the noon hour would be an excellent time to do it.

      So I went down to the boathouse again, opened up the water doors, and filled the boat’s tank with gas. She was in good shape, and almost with the first turn of the wheel the spark caught. A moment later I was chugging out into the lake, feeling intensely pleased with myself, and I headed directly down to my neighbor’s dock among the tules or reeds.

      The neighbor himself I found sitting on his front porch. He was a brawny, bearded man of stolidly slow speech, Henry Dawson by name. I introduced myself as the new owner of Balliol’s ranch, and was in turn introduced to Mrs. Dawson and two strapping Dawson boys. They all eyed me with frank curiosity.

      I lost no time in setting forth my business. Dawson, like all farmers, was content to let me talk as long as I would. When I cautiously broached the subject of renting my land, however, he nodded his head in slow assent.

      “Ought to rent,” he stated, as though he thought just the opposite. “Maybe. Don’t know as folks would want the house, though.”

      “I want that myself,” I said. “What I want to rent is the fruit land. Could you handle it?”

      At this direct assault, he hemmed and hawed. He was a very decent chap, however, and when I make it clear that I was not after extortionate rentals he came around quickly. I could see the house had killed the place, for some reason.

      “Just what’s the matter with that house?” I demanded, while he was making up his mind about rental. “Is it those skulls in the front wall?”

      “Blamed if I know,” he rejoined slowly. “Reckon it’s that, much as anything. Gives folks a creepy feelin’.”

      “Why didn’t Balliol get along there?”

      He gave me a slow stare. “Get along? Why, I guess he got along all right. He was kind o’ queer in his ways, ye might say; but he got along right well, Mr. Desmond.”

      “Where on earth did he get those skulls, though?”

      “Dug ’em up right on the ground, I heard. He done all the work himself on that house, except what he hired done. Guess it was an old Injun cemetery; there was a heap of Injuns here in the old days. Quite a bunch here yet. They sent ’em to a reservation, but the poor devils got homesick and were ’lowed back. Right prosperous farmers, some of ’em, today. Well, about that orchard, I reckon we can manage it if we settle on the right terms.”

      We settled, then and there, at terms which were satisfactory to both of us.

      CHAPTER VI

      I Buy a Gun

      I asked Dawson about big birds, but he said there was nothing larger than a buzzard around the lake; and presently I went home again. The rest of the day passed quietly, and after writing a few letters, chiefly on business, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the just.

      I was well satisfied with my new home, and for the coming six months my partner in New York could run the decorating business without my aid, so there was nothing to worry me.

      The next morning I was up and off early, this time in the canoe, and got in an hour’s fishing before sunrise. Although it was distinctly the wrong season for fish, I trolled down along the shore off the reed-beds, and picked up two fine bass, both over three pounds.

      About sunrise I headed for home, well content with results. I wanted to visit Lakeport this morning, chiefly to see if there was any news from my Los Angeles bank about those checks. That Balliol had struggled along in poverty on his ranch, as the newspaper account had said, was quite absurd; that he had died in poverty, with eleven thousand dollars in his pocket, was entirely nonsensical.

      Across the little bay from my place I paused suddenly. I had already learned from neighbor Dawson that Balliol had obtained his skull-decoration from relics of the red men, so their gruesomeness was removed in some measure. But—that did not explain what I now saw.

      As it chanced, I had found a pair of field-glasses in a niche in the cobbled chimney, and had brought them along. Now I raised and focused on my house; rather, on the front wall under the veranda, where the skulls were located. To my uneasy surprise, I found my eyesight corroborated. The eyes of those six skulls were gleaming and flaming with a brilliant crimson!

      Optical delusion? Not a bit of it. Reflections from the rising sun to the bone-level? Not a bit of it; such reflections would not come in a scarlet flame from the eyes of each and every skull. They were reflecting the lurid sunrise squarely at me, of course; but those hollow eye-sockets were filled with red fire.

      I dropped the glasses, seized the paddle, and spurted for home, savagely determined to run down the uncanny hoodoo which had settled on this house of mine. As I drew nearer to my landing, I could see those red skull-eyes flaming more and more distinctly. There was no optical illusion whatever.

      Then I was in the boathouse beneath the bluff, and of course the house was shut from view. Making fast the canoe, I paused to pick up a broken oar to serve as club, then ran up the path. Puffing, I gained the bluff in front of the house.

      “Confound it!” I exclaimed blankly. “Am I going off my head?”

      The crimson flame was gone from the skull-eyes. There was not a sign of it. In the sockets the white cement came close to the surface, and there could be no mistake.

      I was completely taken aback by this startling development.

      Of course, I told myself, there must be an explanation. Perhaps the sand in the cement was glassy, and at certain angles reflected the sun—that would be plausible in a single instance, but it would not do for twelve eye-sockets. Whatever the explanation might be, it was certainly beyond my comprehension. Then, again, the color of those eye-sockets had been a distinct blood hue.

      As I stood there staring at the cement wall, I jumped suddenly. From the kitchen of the house came a banging crash, and I remembered a double boiler I had set out on the stove. Someone—or something—was in the kitchen, and had knocked it over!

      Swearing under my breath, I leaped to the veranda and ran through the house. Now, I glanced at every room in my course; and I can swear that the house was absolutely empty. So was the kitchen when I reached it. Yet by the stove, whence it had obviously been knocked by some direct agency, the double boiler lay on the floor, a pool of water surging from it, and running directly to the stove from the doorway—but not back again—was a single line of muddy tracks. They were the tracks of the pterodactyl!

      I was staggered, right enough. A prehistoric monster with a wing-spread of twenty-five feet does not hide easily in a bare kitchen; yet I looked around as if expecting to see the brute before me. Then I rushed to the windows. The yard was absolutely empty. The monster might be somewhere in the encircling trees; it might have flown out and down to the lake while I was coming through the house; but, by the gods; it had been here. Those muddy tracks on the floor reassured me, certified to my sanity and common sense.

      Hastening outside, I looked around. The barn, which

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