“Oh, hold on there, fellows!” expostulated the other boy; “I didn’t say that I really and truly believed any of those awful stories, did I?  But so many different persons have told me the same thing that, somehow, I came to think there might be some fire where there was so much smoke.  Of course, it can’t be a ghost, but, nevertheless, there are queer goings-on about that deserted quarry these nights—­three different people, and one of them a steady-going woman in the bargain, assured me they had glimpsed moving lights there, a sort of flare that did all sorts of zigzag stunts, like it was cutting signals in the air.”

“Hugh, do you think that could be what they call wild-fire, or some folks give it the name of will-o’-the-wisp, others say jack-o’-lantern?” demanded Horatio Juggins, who had been listening intently while all this talk was going on.

“I’d hardly like to say,” replied Hugh thoughtfully.  “As a general thing that odd, moving light is seen in low, damp places.  Often it is noticed in graveyards in the country, and is believed to be induced by a condition of the atmosphere, causing something like phosphorescence.  You know what a firefly or lightning bug is like, don’t you, Horatio?  Yes, and a glow-worm also?  Well, they say that there are black-looking pools of stagnant water lying around the old quarry; and yes, I think the lights seen might come from just such conditions.”

“That sounds all very well, Hugh,” continued Julius, “but what about the terrifying cry that sometimes wells up from that same place?”

“A cry, Julius, do you say?” exclaimed Horatio, his eyes growing round now with increasing wonder and thrilling interest, “do you really and truly mean that, or are you only joshing?”

“Well,” the narrator went on to say soberly, “two fellows told me they’d heard that same shriek.  One was hunting a stray heifer when he found himself near the quarry, and then got a shock that sent him on the run all the way home, regardless of trees he banged into, for it was night-time, with only a quarter-moon up in the western sky.  The other had laughed at all such silly stories, and to prove his bravery concluded to venture out there one night when the moon was as round as a cartwheel.  He got close to the deserted workings when he too had a chill as he heard the most outlandish cry agoing, three times repeated, and——­well, he grinned when he confessed that it took him just about one-fifth the time to get back home that he’d spent in the going.”

“Whee! perhaps there may be some sort of wild animal in one of the caves they tell about up there?” ventured Horatio.  “I’m not a believer in ghosts, and I don’t consider myself a coward, either; but all the same it’d have to be something pretty big to induce me to walk out there to that same lonely quarry after nightfall.  Now laugh if you want to, K. K.”

“Well,” interrupted Hugh, just then, “we’re approaching the place right now where that old quarry road I spoke of starts in.  I’d like ever so much to take a look at that same quarry, by daylight, mind you.  Is there any objection, fellows, to our testing out that road right now?  It used to be a pretty fair proposition I’ve been told, so far as a road goes, and I think we could navigate the same in this car.  K. K. how do you stand on that proposition, for one?”