“You paid another visit to the camp, the time the ghost chased you,” reminded Buck.
“Yes, and if anybody set yore camp on fire, that feller must have done it, ’cause I didn’t.”
“Did you hang a skeleton in the woods?” Buck asked.
“Don’t know nothin’ about no skeleton,” was the dogged reply.
“All right, I guess I can see your part in it all,” replied Buck. “Now, Jerry Jackson, why did you do it? What was the idea of trying to scare us out of a camp that was our own?”
The man looked uneasy and cast about him with restless eyes. He shifted his foot and looked down.
“I dunno, I must have been crazy,” was the answer.
“That won’t do, my friend!” Buck cried, sharply. “You are going to speak up and tell the truth or we will hand you right over to the authorities! Out with it now!”
“Well, I didn’t want you boys around here because I was lookin’ for some money that was supposed to be hid in this house,” replied the man, fearing to keep the truth back. “A crazy feller named Bainbridge lived here and he died a short time ago. I heard that there was some money in the house and I been lookin’ for it. Just when I was goin’ good you boys had to come snoopin’ around. ‘I’ll get rid of ’em,’ I sez, ‘I’ll play ghost and scare ’em back to town.’ So I tried it, but you fellows wouldn’t go.”
“No, you are right there. Was that why you lowered a lantern down a chimney on a rope one night?”