“I hope it won’t be too scary,” said Rose.

“I’ll be with you when we try to find out what it is,” went on Russ.  “Boys are never afraid of ghosts or—­or anything.”

“Oh, I won’t be afraid—­not if you’re with me, anyway.  Isn’t it fun to have a secret?  And they don’t know we heard about it!” Rose added.  “Won’t they be s’prised if we find the ghost?”

“I guess they will,” agreed Russ.  “Maybe they’re talking about it now,” he went on, for his father and mother, with Grandpa Ford, several seats back, were talking earnestly together, as Russ could see.  Just what they were saying the two oldest Bunker children did not know.

But, as a story-teller, or a writer of books, can sometimes be in two places at once, and listen to all sorts of talk, without the people who are talking knowing anything about it, I will tell you, as a special favor, that Mr. and Mrs. Bunker and Grandpa Ford really were talking about the “ghost,” at Great Hedge.

“So neither Mr. Ripley nor his daughter, whose horse nearly ran away when she came to see you, could tell what all the queer doings meant at Great Hedge, could they?” asked Daddy Bunker.

“No.  They said they never heard any queer noises when they lived at the place before they sold it to me,” answered Grandpa Ford.  “But your mother and I have heard many strange noises, and we can’t account for them.

“Of course,” went on Grandpa Ford, “I don’t believe in ghosts.  But I know we hear the strange noises, and we don’t know what they mean.  Your mother is annoyed by them.  She has an idea, too, that perhaps there is a secret way for some one to get into our house, and that perhaps some persons go in at night, after we are in bed, and make noises.”

“But why would any one do that?” asked Mrs. Bunker.

“Well, it may be some folks who would like to scare me away so they could buy Great Hedge for themselves,” said Grandpa Ford.  “The place is valuable, and Mr. Ripley sold it to me very reasonably, because his wife and little boy died there and he did not like to stay in the place that reminded him of them so much.  So he sold.”

“So he never heard the queer noises,” said Mr. Bunker musingly.

“He says not.  And neither did his daughter, Mabel.  But Grandmother Ford and I hear them often enough, and so I thought I’d come down, and get all you Bunkers, to have you help me either find out what it is, or drive the ghost away,” and Grandpa Ford smiled.

“Tell us, over again, what sort of noises they are,” said Mother Bunker.  “I have been so busy the last few days, getting ready to travel, that I hardly remember what you said.  Were the noises like yells or groans?  Or were they just hangings?”

“Well,” began Grandpa Ford, “on some nights the noises are like——­”

And just then there came a sudden pop, as of a pistol, and a loud cry from Margy.  She sat up in her seat and fairly shouted: