“It’s easy to say you ‘saw’ something if you mean to ‘be it,’” Chick explained. But Toby shook his head.
“He wouldn’t go that far to try to throw a scare into you,” he remonstrated. “And Doe seldom uses alcohol. More’n that, there’s some mighty funny goings-on around this marsh, of late—mighty funny.”
“I know it!” Chick agreed. “That spooky airplane and then the two ghosts crashing together—Scott said some old-timer around the marsh had seen it and remembered about a crack-up years ago and thinks it’s the ghost of the pilot who caused the smash, unable to rest, haunting the place; and—from what we saw—I begin to wonder.”
“Not me. Gosh-a-mighty, son, there’s a whole heap of easier ways to account for it than that. Supposing the airport beacon was lit, say—flashing around. Supposing your airplane was to fly across that ray just when it came onto a cloud. How about the shadow?”
“Don showed how that could be, when he came in,” Chick agreed, “but that won’t account for the crash of two airplanes.”
“But if Scott had took up the Dart—in the name of all-possessed!” Sitting in the chair the boatman slapped his knee. “That’s what it was. The Dart flew one way. You was going another.”
He paused to emphasize his next words.
“The two shadows showed, coming together!——”
“That won’t explain it,” Chick interrupted. “The airplanes were of the old style—like the war Jennies, or old-style biplanes.”
“In that queer light, and with your minds keyed up to expect something——”