The weight which had crushed the bush down had been a prone, dead
weight. At intervals of perhaps three or four feet were gathered
wounded strands of the tall grass, as if some groping hand had
reached ahead, gathering and pulling on them. Pulling a helpless
weight. Pee-Wee knew this for he saw with the eyes of a scout.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE TRAIL'S END
This trampled channel petered out in a comparatively bare area
across which was more brush. Almost hidden in this was a tumbled-down
shack, hardly bigger than a closet, in which boys who had been wont
to dive from the old bridge had donned their bathing suits. It had
been thrown together as a storage place for fishing tackle and crab
nets and these latter, rotten and gray with age still hung in the
dank, musty place.
Pee-Wee paused a moment, irresolute, nervous. He had a strange
feeling, a feeling of apprehension which amounted to a certainty.
And as he paused two charred bits of timber from the old bridge,
still held together by a rusty brace, creaked, and the creaking
seemed loud in the stillness of desolation.
A rusty can, the discarded receptacle of bait, lay at his feet,
and in his hesitation and transient fear, he kicked it, and followed
it, kicking it again.
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