"We didn't pay much attention to it," was the answer given by Merriwell's Sea Cove informant. "Likely he walked off, or went away on the boat or train. Easy enough to get out of this place."
With this meager information, Frank and his friends hurried back on the launch to Glen Springs.
"He isn't dead!" was Merry's cheerful declaration. "That must have been Barney that Bart and I saw."
"But the walking?" Hodge dubiously questioned.
"And why should he be in hiding?" Diamond demanded.
"Some men love darkness, because their deeds are evil," Dismal droned.
"Well, you may be sure that Barney's deeds were not evil," said Frank, "Barney is straight, and true blue."
Night was at hand when the launch cast anchor in the shallow harbor in front of Glen Springs and sent a boat ashore with Merry and the friends he had chosen for the vigil of the coming hours of darkness. The landlord of the little hotel was not pleased that they had returned for the purpose of capturing the "ghost," though he was beginning, as he confessed, to feel "creepy" about it himself.
"I was intendin' to set up and watch for it, if you hadn't come," he finally admitted.
No one answering to Barney's description had been seen in Glen Springs through the day. In fact, no stranger whatever had been seen in the place from the time the launch went away until it returned.