"We'd better put it back where it belongs," replied the scout leader.
"I reckon you're right, suh," observed Chatz. "If some one came in here, walking in the dark, he might take a nasty header down this hole."
"Say, supposing your ghost did that," remarked the tall scout, as he helped lift the wooden square back to where it belonged; "why, you could do better than asking questions of an outsider, because, Chatz, you might interview your old ghost himself."
The other drew himself up.
"Kindly omit calling it my ghost, if you please, suh," he said, stiffly. "I don't pretend to have any claim on the object in question—if there really is such a thing. I'm only wanting to know; and I come from South Carolina, suh, not Missouri."
Elmer, after one last glance around the kitchen, was heading for the other room where an exit could be made.
And it was almost ludicrous to see with what haste the other two followed after; just as if neither of them cared to be left alone inside the walls of the haunted mill cottage.
Once outside, they found several of their comrades clustered near by, evidently awaiting them. That curiosity was rapidly reaching fever heat it was easy to see from the anxious looks cast upon those who had been investigating the interior of the buildings.
No doubt every fellow had meanwhile been industriously engaged in ransacking his brain to remember all he had ever heard concerning Munsey's mill, and the troublesome spirit that had frightened away three separate tenants in years gone by.
They were rather a demoralized trio of boys who welcomed the coming of Elmer, Chatz, and Lil Artha.