"Aren't you afraid of ghosts, boy—"
"Ghosts!"
Tad uttered the word in a startled voice.
"Wha—what ghosts?"
"Yes."
"No, I'm not," he answered sharply. "But if it were night I think I'd run. Pshaw! you're no more ghost than I am. You're just a girl and I am going to find out where you are right now."
Acting upon his resolution, Tad began searching for the owner of the voice again. But when he had crawled to one side of the rock, the voice appeared to be on the other, where he had just been.
After a time Tad gave it up. He no longer heard the mysterious voice, so he clambered down, and after examining the rock from the ground once more, mounted his pony for return to camp.
Arriving there, his companions wanted to know where he had been, but Tad managed to evade their question without giving them a direct answer.
He was determined to return on the following day, when he would go about finding the owner of the mysterious voice in a different way.