At the first cry of alarm, Ned Blake had rushed out upon the porch closely followed by Dick Somers, and as the weird figure raised its pick for a second swing, both boys sprang from the porch and dashed directly toward the ghostly visitant. For an instant the figure seemed to hesitate; then it turned swiftly and vanished round the corner of the house.
Ned Blake and Dick Somers turned the corner in a breathless rush. Before them lay the open stretch of sand, extending from the end of the house to the fringe of bushes some thirty yards distant. Above the line of trees the late moon hung in the eastern sky, shedding a soft light by which the boys saw clearly the stretch of sand, the fringing bushes, the foundation wall of the house—and nothing else.
“It’s gone!” gasped Ned, staring with unbelieving eyes at the space before him.
“Yes, but where?” cried Dick. “We weren’t five seconds behind when it turned this corner, and there isn’t cover enough between here and the woods for a rabbit to hide in!”
Emboldened by the example of Ned and Dick, several of the men and boys came hurrying forward. Somebody produced a flashlight by means of which a careful search of the vicinity was made but without result. Borrowing the light, Ned made a minute examination of the ground along the foundation wall. The surface was littered with fragments of slate from the roof, but ten feet from the corner of the house a bare patch of sand showed amid the debris and upon this small yellow area a faint mark caught Ned’s eye. With a quick sweep of his hand he effaced the impression and after a few minutes of further search, returned the flashlight to its owner.
“Of course it’s all a hoax,” declared a gentleman, who had kept well in the background while the search was in progress.
“That’s right,” agreed a second, “I guess those two lads had some hand in it—else they wouldn’t have rushed forward the way they did.”
“Well, if it was a trick, I’ll call it a clever one and mighty well carried out,” remarked another, as he returned to his car when the hunt had finally been abandoned.
This seemed to be the general opinion among the guests as they slowly dispersed. Jim Tapley and Wat Sanford had accepted invitations to ride home with friends and made a hasty departure, leaving the other boys to lock up the house and return in Dave Wilbur’s flivver. As the last of the departing cars went honking down the drive, Ned Blake turned to his four companions.
“Fellows,” he began in a voice that betrayed his suppressed excitement, “I found something out there at the end of the house that I didn’t mention at the time!”