“That’s your opinion of Dixon’s yarn, is it?” demanded Halstead.
“He’s either lying, or dreaming,” proclaimed young Dawson, bluntly.
“I’d like to find out which,” muttered Captain Tom, “though I can guess, already. Joe, old fellow, you don’t say much, but I’m fast learning to pin to your judgments of people. You didn’t like Dixon from the first moment he showed himself on board the ‘Restless,’ did you?”
“I don’t believe I enthused over him,” grimaced Dawson.
“Dixon couldn’t really be responsible for the Ghost of Alligator Swamp, could he?” demanded Tom Halstead, suddenly.
After that abrupt query both boys were silent for a while as they trudged about the grounds together.
“No,” decided Joe, at last. “It isn’t at all likely, for, according to Ham Mockus, and also according to some of the white people we talked with in Tres Arbores, the Ghost of Alligator Swamp has been doing business for the last three years, at least.”
Twice more around the house they went. Tom, thinking deeply, at last burst forth:
“Joe, I’m going to do just what Dixon did. I’m going into the woods yonder, and see whether I can have the luck to encounter that big white spook.”