“Eighty-six dollars for admissions and seventeen-fifty on the refreshments,” replied Beals. “Not so bad for the first night and I guess everybody was pleased with the way things went. By the way, Ned, that was quite a stunt of yours. Tell us about it.”
“Yes; let’s hear how you worked it,” urged several voices.
“Well, I’m glad you all approved of it, and I guess it satisfied such of the crowd as were expecting some haunted stuff,” replied Ned. “It’s too long a story to start on tonight. Sometime I’ll try to show you how it was done.”
At the outskirts of town, Sam was dropped at the gate of his humble dwelling, and hardly was the car again in motion when Ned startled his companions with this announcement.
“Boys, I didn’t want to mention it before Sam, for fear of scaring him worse than he’s scared already, but I’ll tell you now that the stunt you saw was no doing of mine. What that light was or where it came from I don’t know any more than any of you do—but I mean to find out!”
CHAPTER XII
WARNINGS
“Sam has quit on us!” announced Tommy Beals, as he joined Ned Blake and Dick Somers at the latter’s house on Monday morning.
“You mean he’d like to quit,” laughed Ned. “I got down to the town hall bright and early this morning and paid that lease in full, right up to the end of September. I met Sam as I was coming out and showed him the receipt. He gave me one scared look and shambled off toward home without a word. Has anything new happened, Fatty?”
“Well, it’s darned queer,” began Beals, taking off his cap and running his fingers through his stubby hair. “Sam came around to see me yesterday morning before I was out of bed. Usually he won’t move on Sunday, except to go to church, but yesterday was different. He hung around till I finished breakfast and then coaxed me out to the barn, where he told me about the wildest yarn I ever listened to.”
“Something he’d dreamed the night before, I suppose,” scoffed Dick.