“What the dickens?” Dan muttered.
As he watched, a shadowy figure slithered from behind the foliage and vanished toward the graveyard.
CHAPTER 4
PAYMENT REFUSED
Dan stood very still for a moment, staring fixedly at the place where the shadowy figure had disappeared. He wasn’t sure what he had seen, or for that matter whether he had observed anything.
Had his approach frightened away someone who had been loitering at the rear windows of the old church? So far as he could see from the road, no one now was lurking in the cemetery. However, the tilted tombstones offered many hiding places.
Dan briefly considered ambling over to study the layout but decided against it. The hour was late and he was due home. Besides the old church stood in an isolated area, easily accessible to tramps who might come up the slope from the river area.
“No use asking for trouble,” he thought. “Whoever was prowling around, probably wasn’t doing any harm.”
Dan waited a few minutes longer, thinking he might again glimpse the elusive figure. Seeing no one, he trudged on home.
Sunday was a pleasant, quiet day in the Carter household. Dan attended church school in the morning as was his usual custom.
After that came a big dinner, and then a half hour spent with the funnies. Suddenly he dropped the newspaper as if its pages were charged with electricity.