In a position I should judge about twenty yards from the point where the path from the Stockslager path led over the cliff to the rocks below, we crouched against a hummock. The ocean roared beneath us and the white froth of the breakers, tumbling on the rocks, could be faintly seen. Each time it would flash into the corner of my eye, I thought it was ghost time. I don’t believe in ghosts, of course; but, under such circumstances, one can’t help wondering a little bit. From behind us, as we lay there, once, twice, thrice, four times we heard the toot, toot of the train; and I knew that we had lain there for two mortal hours, because the train made hourly round trips.
I thought of Sampson and his snug office and his snug salary; and I compared myself, taking the chances of anything from a pistol ball to pneumonia for my thirty dollars a week. I concluded to quit the business at the end of this scrape. But I always determined to do that under such circumstances. So does every newspaper man; and they always show up for work the next day. Were we not at least potential paranoiacs we wouldn’t be newspaper men. Certainly otherwise we wouldn’t do the things we do for the pay we get. Regarding newspaper photographers, there is no question. They are all crazy; except one.
We had drunk the last drop from the healthy flask apiece we had brought and I was settling back in soggy misery for more suffering, my eyes so blurred with watching and staring that I could see slinking forms in fancy every place I turned, when Lanagan’s lean hand clutched my leg. He had taken a position lower and nearer the path than I and could get a dim perspective of the edge of the cliff just where the path descended.
I peered ahead. Faintly I could see a single figure, outlined in blurred relief and then it disappeared, apparently into thin air. Whether it was man or woman I could not have told. That it disappeared before my eyes I knew.
It gave one a creepy feeling. I was about to speak to Lanagan but his warning pressure was still on my calf. Probably thirty minutes passed, or it may have been only three. Another figure came into view; and then another, and disappeared.
Then I realised that the first figure had simply slipped down the path and out of sight. I wondered if something of the sort hadn’t happened when McCluskey was ghost hunting.
Still Lanagan held that vice-like clutch on me. Another prolonged interval. Two more figures bulked into view and disappeared. Many more minutes passed and Lanagan said no word. The wind during the hours had died away, but the rain continued, pelting now straight down. Lanagan’s hand finally loosened itself from my leg. He pointed over the ocean toward the intermittent flashes of the lighthouse at Land’s End. Between the Land’s End and Fort Point lights could be seen—the lights of a vessel.
“She’s a day overdue on account of the storm,” Lanagan shot up at me. “She’s heading through the Golden Gate now. We’ll have some fun shortly, I reckon.”
He straightened up and stretched himself and I did likewise, threshing my arms to start the blood into circulation. I was cold, cramped and grouchy.
“Jack,” I said impatiently, “cut out this mystery stuff and give me the facts. You’ve got me neck and neck with pneumonia now. Kick through with this story, whatever it is, or I’m going to tear down that cliff after those fellows and start something if only to keep warm.”