“What’s what?�
Dick took a few steps forward, clanking and rattling his chains, and stood still in an open space, revealed and concealed by the light of a fading young moon. His white drapery glimmered and gleamed with pale phosphorescent light, and the green eyes in the ghastly old skull glared like a demon’s. He uttered a sepulchral moan.
The negroes rushed pell-mell into the cabin, tumbling over one another.
“A ha’nt! a ha’nt! a ha’nt!�
Dick’s moan broke into a laugh, but that came to an abrupt end. For a dozen dogs ran to investigate the strange appearance which, after all, had a human scent. Dick in his flowing drapery stood for a moment at a disadvantage. But he jerked up the sheet and gave a kick that sent one cur yelping away. And then he laid about him so vigorously with his bundle of tools that the dogs retreated, yelping and howling, while their masters crouched indoors, shaking with terror.
Mightily amused and pleased with himself, Dick went on down the road. He passed the hollow where Solomon Gabe’s cabin stood, and came to Mine Creek. He paused to look at his gruesome image in the still, dark water. Then he turned to follow the path to the mine.
As he turned, he faced a pile of logs, the ruins of the old blacksmith’s hut. It was in shadow except for a ray of moonlight at one side. In that streak of moonshine, there rose, as if the earth had yawned and let forth a demon, a little, dark, bowed figure with a black, evil face. It was horribly contorted, the eyes wide and staring, the lips writhing in terror.
For a minute Dick and the fiendlike figure stood silent, face to face. Then the boy stepped back. His foot caught on a root; he stumbled and, with a wild gesture and an awful clanking of chains, fell flat on the ground.
A screech quivered through the air, so sudden, so wild and terrified that it seemed like a live, tormented thing. The dark form crashed through the bushes and was gone.
Dick recovered himself in a minute. He scrambled to his feet and, clutching his drapery, ran up the hill toward the old mine. He hurriedly rid himself of his ghostly apparel, took out his flashlight, and threw the skull and the tools into the mine hole. Then, with the sheet bundled under his arm, he sped homeward. As he passed Peter Jim’s cabin, he heard fervent prayers and pious groans; the “frolic� had been turned into a prayer meeting.