As a matter of duty he ran forward to where that strange figure in white had been marching to and fro, but just as he fully expected there was not a single sign of the late presence.
So Elmer walked back to where his anxious chums were crouching, craning their necks in the endeavor to ascertain what was going on. He found them ready to ply him with questions; and Toby's first act was to free himself from suspicion.
"George did it, Elmer!" he hastened to say; "with his silly little sneeze. It sure gave us all a shock, and when I thought to look again that bally ghost was gone."
"But how could I help it?" complained the guilty culprit. "I never had the least idea it was coming, when all at once it gripped me hard. If you'd offered me half a million dollars right then not to sneeze, I couldn't have earned thirty cents. It took me just as quick as that," and he snapped his fingers to illustrate how impotent he had been in the grasp of a necessity.
"I've been there myself, George," said Elmer, kindly, because he knew how badly the other scout must feel on account of having upset all their plans; "and just as you say, sometimes a sneeze comes so fast you can't keep it back if your life depended on it. Of course it was unfortunate, because in another minute I'd have been close enough to have done all I wanted."
"But my stars! Elmer," exclaimed Lil Artha, in dismay, "you didn't expect to jump that spooky thing all alone, I hope?"
Elmer laughed, which act proved to the distressed George that his offense could not set so heavily on the mind of the scout master after all.
"Certainly not, Lil Artha," Elmer told the long-legged scout; "I expected to drop back, and get the rest of you before anything was done. But accidents will happen even in the best regulated scout troops, and that was something nobody could help. Better luck next time."
"Then, suh, you don't mean to give up this ghost hunt?" asked Chatz, with a ring of exultation in his voice.
"Not if we have another chance to hook up with the mystery," replied Elmer.