"If you follow that, it will lead you to Lone Creek," explained
Horace. "Down about ten miles there's a place called the Witches'
Pool, where we go fishing. It's so deep it never dries. We'll go
there some day."
"More ghosts?" inquired Larry as he repeated the name of the pool.
"No, no ghosts," laughed Mr. Wilder, "just the ignis fatuus, or will-o'-the-wisps. All cowboys are very superstitious, you must remember. The land round the pool is swampy and at night you can sometimes see the lights dancing about. I suppose some one saw them, and, finding no person there, immediately decided the pool was a gathering place for witches."
"Pete says it's the bodies of the men who have died of thirst on the plains searching for water," declared Horace in an awed tone.
"That's an ingenious explanation, but it is not the truth, my boy. The lights are caused by certain gases that come from the marshy ground and glow when the atmosphere is in a certain condition. Over in Scotland, on the peat bogs, they call them 'friars' lanterns.'"
"My, but I'd like to see one," sighed Tom.
"Then I'm afraid you'll be obliged to camp by the pool. You might go there a hundred nights and never see a sign of one," returned the ranchman. And then, as the shadows cast by the mountains were reaching farther and farther out onto the prairie, he thought it best to turn the minds of the boys into other channels.
"Shall we camp in the open or would you rather push on to the foothills?" he asked. "It'll be dark by the time we get there."
"I vote to keep going," answered Larry.
"How far is it?" inquired Tom, who was beginning to feel the effects of the many miles in the saddle.