“Well, you can knock ghosts all you want to,” said Connie, “but I always found them white.”
“Slap him on the wrist, will you!” called Doc. “Believe me, this is some impenetrable wilderness!”
“How?”
“Impenetrable wilderness—reduced to a common denominator, thick woods.”
Withal their bantering talk, it seemed indeed as if the woods might be haunted, for with almost every step they took some crackling or rustling sound could be heard, emphasized by the stillness. Now and again they paused to listen to a light patter growing fainter and fainter, or a sudden noise as of some startled denizen of the wood seeking a new shelter. Ghostly shadows flitted here and there in the moonlight; and the night breeze, soughing among the tree tops, wafted to the boys a murmuring as of some living thing whose elusive tones now and again counterfeited the human voice in seeming pain or fear.
The voices of the boys sounded crystal clear in the solemn stillness. Once they paused, trying to locate an owl which seemed to be shrieking its complaint at this intrusion of its domain. Again they stopped to listen to the distant sound of falling water.
“That’s the brook, I guess,” said Tom.
Their approach to it seemed to sober the others, realizing as they did that effort and resourcefulness were now imperative, and mindful, too, though scarcely hopeful, that these might bring them face to face with a tragic scene.
“Pretty tough, being up here all alone with somebody dying,” said Doc.
“You said something,” answered Garry.