It was well known that many people shunned the vicinity of the old Cartaret place, some eight miles away from Hickory Ridge, because queer stories passed current concerning white figures seen stalking about the weed-grown grounds, and looking out of the open windows of the ruined house. That was why Toby had been wise enough to keep his secret until they were so far on the road that there was little likelihood of any boy venturing to propose that they abandon the nutting expedition and return home.
"Well, I knew some of you fellows would be saying that," he now remarked; "so I asked Elmer about it, and he advised me to bottle up till we'd gone half-way to the place. So now, I hope nobody wants to go back?"
"Oh! you needn't look at me that way, Toby," Chatz hastened to exclaim; "p'raps I may be silly enough to believe in ghosts, but nobody ever called me a coward; and where the rest of you go, suh, Chatz Maxfield can be counted on to follow."
"Me too!" chirped Ted.
"P'raps now you may remember that once before we ran foul of a haunted place up at that old mill," remarked George, "and it turned out to be only a bunch of game-fish poachers at work there. I never did take much stock in ghosts."
"You never take much stock in anything, suh, I notice, till you've pulled the same to pieces, and examined it all ovah," the Southern scout told him, quickly.
"Then it theems that you know about the thupply of nuts up at the old Cartaret place, do you, Toby?" asked Ted.
"I asked a man who was sent up there only a couple of weeks back by the lawyers that have the estate in charge, to look it over and see if it was worth while to try and repair the ruined house. And say, he told me he never saw trees loaded with such a crop of dandy nuts as there were in that woods back of the house. You never heard of any fellows going up there to gather hickories, did you? I guess nobody ever goes inside half a mile of the place if they c'n help it. And Elmer, he fell in with my scheme right away. Besides, you see, I'm taking something with me that I hope to get a chance to try out on this trip," and Toby pointed back to a mysterious bundle lying in the bed of the wagon, on the many gunny-sacks that had been brought along in order to hold the anticipated harvest of nuts for winter use.
"Well, well, well!" George exclaimed, in his skeptical way, "now chances are that's some other foolish invention of yours, Toby—a new kind of flying machine that'll drop you ker-plunk in a frog pond, or crack your head on a log when you try it out."
"Nothing'd ever be accomplished in this world if everybody had your doubting nature, George," the driver of the wagon told him; "I happen to be built on a different model, and p'raps you may live long enough to hear the name of Jones go thundering along the pathway of fame on everybody's lips."