“I guess not, Brick,” answered Don encouragingly. “I don’t think—”
Just then it came!
Again a weird, blood-chilling shriek rang down the passage, repeating itself in a thousand echoes, and again before the terrified gaze of the boys that frightful figure upreared itself and seemed to advance toward them with waving arms and threatening gestures.
Another long-drawn shriek and the apparition disappeared, seeming to melt at once into nothingness.
The boys clung close together, their hearts beating like triphammers, their minds dazed. Only gradually did they relax, and for a long time they trembled like leaves.
“I—I tell you it is a ghost,” said Teddy, at last, tried beyond endurance.
“And I tell you it isn’t,” retorted Don, who, however, was shaken almost as much as his comrade.
“It is, it is!” reiterated Teddy, covering his face with his hands, as though thus he could shut out the memory of the hideous apparition.
“Oh, if I only had my rifle,” groaned Don, to whom the mere feel of that trusty weapon would have brought strength and comfort.
“It wouldn’t have done you any good if you had had it,” replied Teddy. “You’d have to have a silver bullet in it to kill a ghost.”