Sugar Creek Gang Set Books 19-24 by Paul Hutchens

Author:Paul Hutchens [Hutchens, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8024-8203-7
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Published: 1998-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

How long I’d slept, I didn’t know. I’d had quite a time keeping warm, in spite of the fire, the blanket I had over me, and all my clothes. It seemed I’d almost waked up quite a few times because of being cold. But I’d had gone back to sleep in spite of the wind that shook our house and made me think of Little Jim’s idea that we might wake up in the morning on the shore near the lodge.

And then all of a sudden I was wide awake, sitting up on my bench bunk, my heart pounding, my worried eyes looking about at the strange shadows of things—the other boys asleep all around me, the stack of wood not far from the stove, the sturdy picnic table with Circus and Big Jim sleeping on it.

The flickering light from the stove made everything look ghostlike, especially to a scared-half-to-death boy, which it seemed right that second I was. I didn’t know why. Something had jerked me to a sitting position with all the sleep knocked out of me.

The face of Poetry, who’d been sleeping nearest me, was like that of a frightened, mussed-up-haired ghost. His husky whisper came across the few feet of space between us: “Did you hear that?”

Had I heard it! I most certainly had. Just one second before he asked his question, there’d been what sounded like a scream outside, not far from the shanty door.

Before I could answer Poetry, there was another high-pitched cry that sent a shower of shivers all over me. I knew the door Ed had built was strong, but any large wild animal that wanted to could break it down.

The weird, wailing sound that had shattered my sleep all to smithereens was enough to give even the most experienced woodsman the heebie-jeebies.

The rest of the gang’s sleep was shattered, too. “M-maybe it’s the b-b-bear!” Dragonfly stammered.

“Bears don’t scream,” Big Jim’s husky voice corrected him. Then he added in a tone that didn’t agree with his words, “It might just be the house cat looking for us and smelling our fish.”

But I knew his mind’s eye wasn’t seeing the big beautiful tomcat that had been hanging around the lodge ever since we’d been there.

I wished that was all it was, but I knew whatever I’d heard wasn’t any tame animal.

“Listen,” Big Jim’s half-calm voice exclaimed.

There was something different about the sound this time. It wasn’t a trembling caterwaul as it had seemed before. It was like a human being’s voice, a frightened, exhausted cry for help.

Woman! I thought. That was what the smothered cry coming to us from somewhere out in that howling blizzard sounded like—a woman’s high-pitched, trembling scream, calling, “He-e-e-elp! He-e-e-elp!”

“What’ll we do?” Dragonfly’s worried voice broke into my thoughts.

“Go back to sleep,” Poetry suggested and yawned as if he was indifferent, the very opposite of what I knew he was. “It’s probably just a wildcat. They often scream like that when they’re hunting.”

Before Dragonfly or anybody could disagree with

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