The captain looked at her.  He was about to ask why she whispered instead of speaking aloud, but the expression on her face caused him to change his question to “What’s the matter?”

Emily looked at Georgie before replying.

“I—­I want to see you,” she answered.  “I want you to come with me.  Come quick.  Georgie, you must stay in the kitchen with Imogene.”

Georgie did not want to stay in the kitchen, but when he found Jedediah there he was more complacent.  The ex-gold seeker and his tales of adventure had a tremendous fascination for Georgie.

Emily led the way toward the front stairs and Captain Obed followed.

“What’s up?” he whispered.  “What’s all the mystery about?”

“We don’t know—­yet.  But we want you to help us find out.  John and I have been up to look at the haunted room and—­and it’s there.”

“There!  What?”

“The—­the ghost, or whatever it is.  We heard it.  Come!”

At the door of the rooms which were the scene of Mr. Cobb’s recent supernatural experience and of Miss Timpson’s “warning” they found Thankful and John standing, listening.  Thankful looked rather frightened.  John was eager and interested.

“You found him, Emily,” he whispered.  “Good.  Captain, you and I are commissioned to lay the ghost.  And the ghost is in.  Listen!”

They listened.  Above the patter and rattle of the rain on the roof they heard a sound, the sound which two or three members had heard the previous night, the sound of snoring.

“I should have gone in before,” whispered John, “but they wanted me to wait for you.  Come on, Captain.”

They opened the door of the larger room and entered on tiptoe.  The snoring was plainly heard now and it seemed, as they expected, to come from the little room adjoining.  Into that room the party proceeded, the men in the lead.  There was no one there save themselves and nothing out of the ordinary to be seen.  But the snoring kept on, plainer than ever.

John looked behind the furniture and under the bed.

“It’s no use doin’ that,” whispered Thankful.  “I’ve done that myself fifty times.”

Captain Obed was walking about the room, his ear close to the wall, listening.  At a point in the center of the rear wall, that at the back of the house, he stopped and listened more intently than ever.

“John,” he whispered eagerly, “come here.”

John came.

“Listen,” whispered the captain.  “It’s plainer here than anywhere else, ain’t it?”

“Yes.  Yes, I think it is.  But where does it come from?”

“Somewhere overhead, seems to me.  Give me that chair.”

Cautiously and silently he placed the chair close to the wall, stood upon it, and, with his ear against the wallpaper, moved his head backward and forward and up and down.  Then he stopped moving and reaching up felt along the wall with his hands.