[1 Terry Comes to Grief] 9 [2 The “Gossip” Runs Wild] 21 [3 At Rustling Ridge] 30 [4 Strange Tales from the Ridge] 41 [5 A Fight and a Stampede] 51 [6 The Trouble Bug Bites Deep] 61 [7 The Old Man of the Ridge] 71 [8 Moving Flame] 83 [9 Sharp Work as Fire Fighters] 93 [10 Emergency Service] 103 [11 The Ghost Patrol] 114 [12 A Brush with the Sheriff] 124 [13 The Shape in the Moonlight] 134 [14 Disobedience Loses the Game] 144 [15 Dawning Light] 153 [16 Listening In] 164 [17 Breaking Up Hydes’ Party] 174 [18 The Last of the Ghost] 190
THE Mercer Boys
IN THE Ghost Patrol
1
Terry Comes to Grief
A number of young men in the gray uniforms which formed the ordinary dress of the cadets at Woodcrest Military Institute stood around the counter in the school supply room. It was early in July and the summer encampment was at hand. It was the custom at Woodcrest for the third and second classmen to go to summer camp, while the younger classmen and the seniors went home for their vacation. The score or more of young soldiers who were in the supply room this July afternoon were busy getting their camping uniforms.
During the school year the neat, distinguished gray uniforms were worn, but on the encampment the more serviceable campaign uniforms, patterned after those worn by the United States Army, were required.
A tall, red-headed cadet, with twinkling eyes and a humorous expression perpetually on his good-natured, freckled face, was at the moment the next one to be waited on. He gave the sizes of his garments and then grinned.
“If it is convenient, I’d like a uniform in a shade to match my hair!” he requested. This grin was answered by half a dozen others, for Terry Mackson was a great favorite with his classmates in the new second class, into which he and his pals, the Mercer boys, had just graduated.
“We have nothing as red as all that,” the cadet clerk grinned in return. “Would something in deep orange do?”
“Possibly it would, if you are careful to get something that won’t conflict with my beauty!” returned the cadet.
“We haven’t a thing in stock that would conflict with or detract from your beauty,” said the clerk, gravely. “These uniforms are ugly in the extreme, and I’m sure you won’t find them a drawback in the least, Mr. Mackson!”