“On my old Kentucky home
So far away!”
They went on, singing, Alf setting a pace that if adhered to would cover the three miles to Broadwood in short time. Presently the old Cider Mill came into sight, a tumble-down two-story affair beyond whose empty casements the moonlight, entering through holes in the sagging roof, played strange pranks with the imagination. The old mill was popularly supposed to be haunted, and it quite lived up to its reputation so far as appearances were concerned. Weeds choked the doorways, and even grew from the rotting sills. Behind the mill lay the marsh, and a little stream that had once turned the stones murmured eerily as it wandered through the sluice.
“Why didn’t you find a more cheerful place to stow the things?” asked Dan as they drew up in front of the mill. “I’ll bet I saw a ghost in there then.”
“Bet you it’s full of them,” said Roeder with a shiver. “I wouldn’t go in there for a thousand dollars.”
“Don’t be an ass,” muttered Alf, crossly. “Nobody asked you to go in. I left the things just inside the door, and I’ll get them myself.”
“Well, hurry up, then,” said Tom.
Alf started through the waist-high growth of dead weeds, but paused before he had gone more than a dozen steps.
“I can’t carry them all,” he grumbled. “One of you fellows come and help me.”
“Oh, go ahead,” laughed Dan, “don’t be scared.”
“I’m not scared,” replied Alf, indignantly. “But one of you chaps might help lug the stuff out.”