"And meantime no one can use it?"
"That's it. It seems silly, doesn't it? If the courts take so long to decide it must mean, I should think, that both sides were partly right, and I should think they'd want to settle it between themselves, and so each get some use out of the land. There's an old house, more than a hundred and fifty years old, in the woods, too."
"Doesn't anyone live in it?"
"No one now. Tramps go there sometimes, I've heard, because it is so lonely. Some people say it's haunted, but I guess the tramps played ghost, just so that people would stay away and let them alone."
"Gee, if there's a ghost around, I hope he stays in when we're passing. I'm afraid of them!"
"Why, how could a ghost hurt you, Tom? Anyhow, you don't need to worry about ghosts in the daytime. They only come out at night."
"It's pretty dark in here, Jack. The woods are mighty thick."
"I believe you are scared, Tom," said Jack, laughing. "Well, don't you worry! I'm pretty sure that if anyone ever did see a real thing here that he thought was a ghost it was a tramp in disguise. And I don't believe you're afraid of a tramp—though I'd rather meet a ghost, myself, than a vicious tramp."
"Gee, that railroad train's whistle sounds good," said Tom, a few minutes later. "That must be at the crossing."
"Yes. It isn't much further now. And the house is near the crossing, too. I believe the people who lived in it made a great fuss when the railroad went through, and that was about the time when the quarrel started. They said it would spoil their property to have the station so near them—instead of which, if they could only see it, it's made it a whole lot more valuable."