“Let us go back and look for the lost trinket; that will solve the problem;” Stephen proposed.
“Never mind the trinket, boys;” said Charley; “it will keep till another day. But give me a scrap of paper and a more respectable pencil than my own ruinous one, and I’ll write something worth while.”
Wonderingly, Marmaduke handed out the articles asked for, and Charley wrote as follows:—
ONE SLATE PENCIL REWARD.
DEAD OR ALIVE!
This reward will be given to anybody who revives a ghost, dead or alive, to claim these bones and solve this mystery.
C. Goodfellow.
Then, to prove his fearlessness, he retraced his steps to the bones, looking as brave as the hero of an orthodox love story, and pinned his notice to a scrubby tree hard by.
Tracking his way back to his schoolfellows, he said, “Boys, I’m hungry.”
Without more ado the heroes turned their faces homewards, each one except Marmaduke satisfied with his own exploits. Marmaduke jogged on ahead in sullen silence; and while the sage held forth, with schoolboy oratory, on anatomy, astronomy, geology, navigation, jugglery, osteology, whale-fishing, and ventriloquism, the other three amused themselves by carving baskets out of peach-stones, and wounding their index fingers in the hazardous attempt.