At all events there was not much conversation in the automobile as it sped swiftly down the road.
George, who was driving, occasionally referred to the various stories he had heard of the deeds in the Meeker House, but his efforts did not meet with any marked response until he said, “I have heard that Claudius Smith sometimes shows up in the old house.”
“Who’s he?”
“He was a Cowboy. He lived more than one hundred and twenty-five years ago. You have got to speak of him as one who ‘was’ and not ‘is’.”
“What makes him come back to the old house?”
“It was one of his favorite places, I’m told.”
“What was he?”
“I told you he was a Cowboy. He got to acting so badly that at last all the farmers and their boys that could be spared from the army got together and chased him clear down on Long Island.”
“Did they get him?” inquired Fred.
“They did. They brought him back and took him to Goshen, where they hanged him in the old courtyard.”