CHAPTER VI

THE ECHO CAPTURED

FLORETTA had intended to hunt for treasure, hoping to get something more valuable than the bra.s.s b.u.t.ton that her mother had found.

She was not at all afraid of Jack Tiverton, but of those larger boys she was not quite sure.

As she knelt beneath the window she could hear only the voices of the boys that were nearest to the hut, and hearing only parts of their conversation, she could not understand what the first speaker expected to find.

"If I find it, I'll put it where it will be safe," he said.

There was a pause, and then a voice more distant replied.

She did not hear what it said, but she did hear the answer made by the boy who had first spoken.

"If the ghost of the old hermit was in the hut, it might hear you."

"Yes, and what would he say about your hunting for things that may have belonged to him?" said another, with a teasing laugh.

"Oh, I'm not afraid," was the careless answer.

"You're not?" jeered a laughing voice.

"I think we've poked around out here long enough without finding anything," said Jack Tiverton, "let's hunt inside the house."

"Wait a minute," called a boy who had not yet spoken, "just till I've looked into this hollow tree trunk."

"And _then_ what?" asked a merry voice.

"_Then_ hunt in the house, of course!" was the curt reply.

Floretta thought she saw a chance for fun.

Softly, yet quickly, she crept up the rickety little stairway, built close against the wall, and leading to the tiny loft.

The loft was really little more than a s.p.a.ce beneath the roof where the old hermit might have stored a few provisions. She could not stand, or even sit, erect, and she crouched upon the bit of dusty flooring.

She was none too soon, for in a few seconds the boys rushed in, and then began a discussion as to whether it would be safe to take a plank up from the floor to look beneath it for hidden treasure.

"You oughtn't to do that," said Jack Tiverton, "somebody might arrest you, or all of us, if folks found out we did it."

"Arrest us for spoiling a floor in this old hut!" cried an older boy. "I wonder you don't think the old hermit might holler if he heard us pull up a plank!"

"Well," said Jack stoutly, "you'd be as scared as I would if he did holler!"

"You're a small boy, Jack, and easily scared," was the taunting reply.

"Well, pull up a plank, and see what happens. I dare you to!" cried Jack.

"Here goes then!" said the older boy, and catching hold of a plank that had rotted at one end, he pulled it up.

"_Oh, let it alone!_" groaned a boy in a farther corner of the room, in an attempt to imitate an old voice.

"_Oh, let it alone!_" came in exactly the same voice from the loft.

Sidney c.u.mston, the big boy, who had laughed at little Jack Tiverton, dropped the plank, and turned pale, while not a boy spoke or moved.

"Come, come!" said Sidney, when he caught his breath, "we're a precious pack of sillies! Help me lift this big board, will you?"

"Will you?" came from the loft, in the very manner in which he had said it.

Again he dropped the plank.

"What does it mean?" cried Sidney.

"Mean?" came his last word repeated.

The boys were now thoroughly frightened.

"Come!" cried Sidney, "let's leave here!"

"Here!" came a repet.i.tion of his last word, and big as he was, he had turned to run, when a faint ripple of smothered laughter came down from the loft.

Immediately Sidney's pale face flushed red. It flashed through his mind that these younger boys had seen that he was frightened.

He had been laughed at by the owner of the voice that had mocked him, and the boys would _never_ stop laughing.

Quickly he mounted the steps, and roughly he dragged little Floretta from her hiding place, half carrying her down the stairway, because it was too narrow for two to descend.

"So you thought it was funny, just _funny_ to mock us, did you?" he asked, when they reached the floor.

Floretta was not laughing now.

She was sullen, and at the same time frightened.

What would they do to her?

They crowded around her, frowning and making all sorts of wild suggestions as to what should be done with her.

"Keep her mocking till she's got enough of it!" cried one.

"Put her back in the loft, and leave her there! She seemed to like there," said another.

The big boy, whose hand was still on her shoulder, was more angry than either of the others.

He was a bully, always ready to torment some one smaller than himself.