"Yes, sure you did, Elmer; but you never said a word about finding anything!" George remarked.
"But he looked it," muttered Chatz, with increasing uneasiness.
"I went up to that window again, and hunted around to see if there was any sign of footprints there," Elmer continued. "You know that in all the years the house has been lying there deserted the dust has collected everywhere, though don't ask me where it could come from, because I don't know. Sometimes rain would beat in through the broken windows, and lay it, but the wind coming later on set it free again. Anyway, there was tracking dust there on that floor, and I found what I was looking for!"
Everybody was hanging on his words. Chatz gave a groan. He saw that a death blow was being given to his cherished belief; for of course if Elmer had found tracks, the one who had made them could never have been a ghost.
No one else was sorry, apparently. Indeed, there was more or less actual relief in the series of sighs that welled up, especially from George, who had secretly been getting a little shaky with regard to his disinclination to believe in the ability of spirits to return to the scene of their earthly troubles for divers purposes.
"You mean there was a track there; is that it, Elmer?" asked Toby.
"I found several of them, though our tramping around had almost covered the trail up," Elmer went on, steadily.
"But how could you tell them from the marks we left?" continued Toby.
At that Elmer laughed.
"Well, that was as easy as tumbling off a log, Toby," he replied. "I guess even a tenderfoot could have told, because you see the strange track showed that the other party was barefooted!"