"Ah!" Terry rose in his seat and scanned them eagerly. "We'll have a look at them as soon as I get something to eat.
Really, a farm isn't so bad," he remarked as he stepped out upon the portico. "And is this Solomon?" he inquired as the old negro came forward to take his bag. "Well, Solomon, I've been reading about you in the papers!
You and I are going to have a talk by and by."
CHAPTER XVII WE SEARCH THE ABANDONED CABINS
"Now," said Terry, as Solomon and the suitcase disappeared upstairs, "let's you and I have a look at those haunted cabins."
"I thought you were hungry!"
"Starving—but I still have strength enough to get that far.
Solomon says supper won't be ready for half an hour, and we haven't half an hour to waste.
I'm due in the city the day after to-morrow, remember."
"You won't find anything," I said. "I've searched every one of those cabins myself and the ha'nt didn't leave a trace behind him."
"I think I'll just glance about with my own eyes," laughed Terry. "Reporters sometimes see things, you know, where corporation lawyers don't."
"Just as you please," I replied. "Four-Pools is at your disposal."
I led the way across the lawn and into the laurel growth.
Terry followed with eyes eagerly alert; the gruesome possibilities of the place appealed to him.
He pushed through the briars that surrounded the first cabin and came out on the slope behind, where he stood gazing down delightedly at the dark waters of the fourth pool.
"My word!
This is great.
We'll run a half-page picture and call it the
'Haunted Tarn.'
Didn't know such places really existed—thought writers made 'em up.
Come on," he called, plunging back to the laurel walk, "we must catch our ghost; I don't want this scenery to go to waste."
We commenced at the first cabin and went down the row thoroughly and systematically.
At Terry's insistence one of the stable men brought a ladder and we climbed into every loft, finding nothing but spiders and dust.
The last on the left, being more weatherproof than the others, was used as a granary.
A space six feet square was left inside the door, but for the rest the room was filled nearly to the ceiling with sacks of Indian meal.
"How about this—did you examine this cabin?"
"Well, really, Terry; there isn't much room for a ghost here."
"Ghosts don't require much room; how about the loft?"
"I didn't go up—you can't get at the trap without moving all the meal."
"I see!" Terry was examining the three walls of sacks before us. "Now here is a sack rather dirtier than the rest and squashy.
It looks to me as if it had had a good deal of rough handling."
He pulled it to the floor as he spoke, and another with it.
A space some three feet high was visible; by crawling one could make his way along without hitting the ceiling.
"Come on!" said Terry, scrambling to the top of the pile and pulling me after him, "we've struck the trail of our ghostly friend unless I'm very much mistaken.—Look at that!"
He pointed to a muddy foot-mark plainly outlined on one of the sacks. "Don't disturb it; we may want to compare it with the marks in the cave.—Hello!
What's this?
The print of a bare foot—that's our friend, Mose."
He took out a pocket rule and made careful measurements of both prints; the result he set down in a note book.
I was quite as excited now as Terry.
We crawled along on all fours until we reached the open trap; there was no trace here of either spider-webs or dust.
We scrambled into the loft without much difficulty, and found a large room with sloping beams overhead and two small windows, innocent of glass, at either end.
The room was empty but clean; it had been thoroughly swept, and recently.
Terry poked about but found nothing.
"H'm!" he grunted. "Mose cleaned well.—Ah!
Here we are!"
He paused before a horizontal beam along the side wall and pointed to a little pile of ashes and a cigar stub.
"He smokes cigars, and good strong ones—at least he isn't a lady.
Did you ever see a cigar like that before?"
"Yes," I said, "that's the kind the Colonel always smoked—a fresh box was stolen from the dining-room cupboard a day or so after I got here.
Solomon said it was the ha'nt, but we suspected it was Solomon."