Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1900-09-06

TOM BENTLEY started the story.
He was riding home at midnight
from his s~weetheart's. over at Aber-
deem. He was just about to ford Flat
Rock river when his ears were startled
by a song, in a woman's voice. APP
parently the sound came from the
wooded bluff on the other side; yet
the nearest house was two miles away,
and what a woman was doing in that
lonely spot at midnight, was a mys-
terry. 1t was a peculiar song, too, and
young Bentley's hair began to rise;
but knowing he had to get home that
night, he pushed his mare into the
stream. When he was about half
across, the mysterious song broke off
as suddenly as it had begun.
Nobody in Chester believed the
story at first, for it was pretty gener-
ally known that Marcia Whipple's
father always kept a barrel of hard
cider in his cellar. But when Prof.
Anderson, of the State Geological So
ciety, told the same story a week
later, people began to talk; and when
Rev. Homer Thulstrup, of the First
NJ. E. church. passed through the
same experience, one Sunday night,
riding his circuit, the reign of terror
began in Chester. Boys were afraid
TO go as far as the wood pile after
dark; children were afraid to go to
bed alone; housewives began to take
in their 'washings at night; people
locked their doors and bolted their
windows for the first time in the his
tory of Chester: moonlight rides fell
into disfavor. Strange things hap
pened. The townhall bell tapped in
h dead of night; strange animals
were seen lurking under porches;
uee noises were heard in the grave
yard on the hill: black cats that no.
body owned skulked across ~oackyards;
and an owl hooted in the sycamore
in front of Squire Henneberry's house
a week before little Mary H~enneberry
died.
One night. about a month after the
beginning of the excitement, a horse
man rod quietly out of Chester by
way of the Flat Rock road. Two pis-
tolls were stuck in his belt. He forced
his horse briskly along until he
reached the river, forded it and can
tered o. down the lonely road, as he
had done many a time before when
bound for Marcia Whipple's. But aft
err going a quarter of a mile, this
time he turned his mare about and
walked her noiselessly back on the
roadside grass, as far as the ford
again. There horse and rider re-
manned mOtionless for several min
utes-
Suddenly, a wild, weird song burst
forth from the dark bluff above-a
rush of melody, note piled on note,
bird-like and wordless, yet unmistak-
ably human. After a moment he
lifted the reips and the mare stepped
into the water. With the first hoof-
splash the music ceased.
On reaching the other bank, Bentley
tied his horse to a sapling. and began
the ascent of the bluff. He reached
the top without much difficulty.
though his heart was humping with
the combined exertion and excitement.
The wooded summit was as dark as a
tomb, and he could scarcely make out
the dark boles of the trees. Nothing
daunted, though, he felt his way along
until he had traversed the whole bluff.
No rae of a human being could he
find. Then for an hour he sat silent
and motionless on the root of a tree
waiting and listening; but nothing ex-
eept the gurgling of the river and the
restless paving of Molly below came to
his ars.
The next night he came again a hit
the earlier. This time he carried in ad-
dftion to his pistols. a pair of climbing
vpurs. Tying Molly a quarter of a mile
up the road, he crossed the ridge and
approached the bluff from the side OPP
posite hat taken the night before.
With noiseless steps he picked his way
toward an old oak that stood in the
center of the bluffs fiat top-a tree
which he had once climbed for a
screech-owl's nest. He strapped on his
spurs and climbed as far as the fork.
Here. in the hollow in which he had
found the nest-now half-flled with
dead leaves and the litter of squirrels
and bidrs-he took up his watch, invis-
IDLE from below.
The place was as silent as death, ex-
cept for the moaning of the river. One,
two, three dreary hours dragged by. |
His legs began to cramp him painfully,
but he sat there as stoically as an In
dian watching a derrick. The moon
came up, a great red balloon heavily
lifting itself above the murky horizon.
Soon it began to CLEAN upon the sur
face of the river, and then mounting
still higher it fecked the forest floor
beneath him with faint, blue-gray
patches.
Eleven o'clocki a screech-owl be-
gan its mournful piping somewhere
near, and made him think of Mary Hen