“Spook bugles sound just the same.”
“How do you know?”
“How could they be heard if they didn’t? Here’s your father. Good-morning, Mr. Wheeler. Who’s your musical neighbor?”
But Daniel Wheeler did not smile.
“Go up to your mother, Maida, dear,” he said; “she—she isn’t well. Cheer her up all you can.”
“What’s the trouble?” Allen asked, solicitously, as Maida ran from the room.
“A strange thing, my boy. Did you hear a bugle call last night?”
“Yes, sir; it sounded ‘taps.’ Is there a camp near by?”
“No; nothing of the sort. Now—well, to put it frankly, there is an old tradition in Mrs. Wheeler’s family that a phantom bugler, in that very way, announces an approaching death.”
“Good Lord! You don’t mean she believes that!”