“Great!” he cried, fastening his happy eyes upon the hated thing among the trees.  “Let’s search the place.  By George, this is glorious!”

“Not on your life!” said Ed Higgins.  “You can’t get me inside that house.  Like as not a feller’d never come out alive.”

“Well, better men than we have died,” said Mr. Bonner tranquilly.  “Come on; I’ll go in first.  It’s all tommy-rot about the place being haunted.  In any event, ghosts don’t monkey around at this time of day.  It’s hardly dusk.”

“But, gosh dern it,” exploded Anderson Crow, “we seen it!”

“I seen it first,” said Isaac Porter proudly.

“But I heerd it first,” peeped up Master Bud.

“You’ve all been drinking hard cider or pop or something like that,” said the brawny scoffer.

“Now, see here, you’re gittin’ fresh, an—­” began the marshal, swelling up like a pigeon.

“Look out behind!” sang out Mr. Bonner, and Anderson jumped almost out of his shoes, besides ripping his shirt in the back, he turned so suddenly.

“Jeemses River!” he gasped.

“Never turn your back on an unknown danger,” cautioned the young man serenely.  “Be ready to meet it.”

“If you’re turned t’other way you c’n git a quicker start if you want to run,” suggested Jim Borum, bracing himself with a fresh chew of tobacco.

“What time is it?” asked Wicker Bonner.

Anderson Crow squinted up through the leafless treetops toward the setting sun; then he looked at the shadow of a sapling down on the bank.

“It’s about seven minutes past five—­in the evenin’,” he said conclusively.  Bonner was impolite enough to pull out his watch for verification.

“You’re a minute fast,” he observed; but he looked at Anderson with a new and respectful admiration.

“He c’n detect anything under the sun,” said Porter with a feeble laugh at his own joke.

“Well, let’s go up and ransack that old cabin,” announced Bonner, starting toward the willows.  The crowd held back.  “I’ll go alone if you’re afraid to come,” he went on.  “It’s my firm belief that you didn’t see anything and the noise you boys heard was the wind whistling through the trees.  Now, tell the truth, how many of you saw it?”

“I did,” came from every throat so unanimously that Jim Borum’s supplemental oath stood out alone and forceful as a climax.

“Then it’s worth investigating,” announced the Boston man.  “It is certainly a very mysterious affair, and you, at least, Mr. Town Marshal, should back me up in the effort to unravel it.  Tell me again just what it was you saw and what it looked like.”

“I won’t let no man tell me what my duties are,” snorted Anderson, his stars trembling with injured pride.  “Of course I’m going to solve the mystery.  We’ve got to see what’s inside that house.  I thought it was tramps at first.”

“Well, lead on, then; I’ll follow!” said Bonner with a grin.