So Owen carried out his design, and when he got aboard the big car he took with him not only a lantern, well filled with oil, but also his brand new twelve-gauge shotgun.

At last they were off.  Every fellow felt a peculiar sense of exhilaration that possibly even bordered on anticipation, take possession of him; for the future was there before them all unknown.  Who could say what strange adventures might befall them before this undertaking was finished?

Of course they had the headlights turned on at full force, and Hugh at the wheel found no difficulty in keeping the middle of the road.  He did not mean to pursue a reckless pace, because, if they met with an accident it would spoil all their plans.  Better to go at an ordinary rate of speed, and make haste slowly, so to speak.

Meanwhile there was a clatter of tongues aboard the big car.  Julius, Thad and Owen had dozens of pertinent questions ready to fire at Horatio, who was kept busy making illuminating replies.  Thus the trio learned how K.K. had unwisely determined to cover the entire course and only whispered his intention to his chum, Horatio, at the same time binding him to silence, for fear lest Mr. Leonard put a damper on his plans by vetoing the scheme in the start.

Then suggestions began to flow like water after a storm.  All sorts of possibilities covering such a strange disappearance were advanced.  Owen believed that Horatio was not far amiss when he declared there might be something in that ghost business, after all; and that poor K.K. had found it out to his cost; though, beyond this broad statement, Owen declined to commit himself, because he, of course, could not imagine what a genuine ghost would look like, in the daytime at that; or what such an apparition would be likely to do to a boy who had had the ill-luck to fall into its clutches.

A dozen additional ideas were advanced, some of them bordering on the absurd and others really plausible.  The unlimited resources of a boy’s fertile mind in conjuring up remarkable explanations in a mysterious case like the one now engaging their attention had not yet been reached at the time Hugh suddenly announced they were close to the place where the abandoned quarry road started in from the thoroughfare they were then following.

“We just passed the twin oaks I remember stood alongside the road on the left,” he explained, at the same time slowing up considerably; “and they are close to the turning-in place.”

“I noticed them in particular, you see, because I didn’t want to lose even three seconds when on the run, in searching for some sign of the spot; though, of course, I could have looked for the marks of our tires left there at the time we came back from our nutting excursion, and went through to the other road.  Yes, here we are right now, and I’m going to turn in, boys.”

He negotiated the turn without accident, though the branches of the trees did scrape against the sides of the car in a way that made some of the occupants shudder; for already they were beginning to feel a trace of the uneasiness that their gruesome surroundings were apt to arouse within their boyish hearts.