"H'm! I not only agree to all you say, Fred, but I reckon I know right now where they've got Colon shut up. He's in the haunted mill, boys!"
CHAPTER X
THE AMBUSH
Several of the other boys had uttered exclamations when Sid made this statement. Fred, however, did not seem to be very much impressed.
"A haunted mill!" he repeated; "that's something new to me. I thought I'd heard about everything queer around Riverport; but I didn't know you had ghosts hanging out here. Where's it at, Sid; and why do you call it haunted?"
"Oh! I'd almost forgotten all about that place," the other replied; "you see none of the boys ever go up any more to the mill-pond swimming, since Dub Jasper from over in Mechanicsburg way, got caught in that sucker hole, and near drowned. Folks said it was too dangerous for us there. But I thought I'd told you about the old mill, and how it hadn't been used for years now."
"But is it haunted; did anybody ever see a ghost there?" asked Fred, determined to get at the truth.
"Shucks! no," Bristles broke in with; "the boys just started to call it that because it looks so gloomy like, standin' there deserted. We used to play around it. I've slid over on the big wheel myself, lots of times, and gone all the way around, under water as well. But I guess there's no real ghost about it, Fred."
"All the same," continued Sid, "it would make a great place to keep a fellow so nobody could find him. I understand that the owner closed it up, boarded the windows, and locked the doors, after we quit going there."