nce of coming
on his footprints, and then trying to follow the same. We could
easily tell them, for K.K. had on his running shoes, you remember.
By tracking him, step by step, don't you see, we could tell just
where he met with his trouble, even find out, perhaps, the nature
of his accident, and continue to follow him up."

"That would suit me first rate," said Julius, promptly; "and my fine
electric hand-torch might come into play with a vengeance. There's
nothing better going for following a trail in the dark, because the
light is focussed, you see, on a small compass. Why, you can pick
up night-walkers like everything when the fishing season's on, by
using a flashlight. I could even find a needle in a haystack, I
believe, with one of these jim-dandy contraptions."

"All right, Julius, we'll appoint you head tracker, then," chuckled
Horatio. "But, after all, perhaps we'll run across our comrade yet,
before we get out of this tangle. We're about to come to the most
critical point of the entire trip, remember, for the old quarry is
just ahead of us."

Horatio chanced to be on the side of the car toward the quarry. He
was not spending nearly so much time now looking ahead, leaving that
task to his chums; even while talking he kept his eyes fixed upon
the dark expanse that represented the surrounding woods, anticipating
catching a glimpse of something, he hardly knew what, at any moment
now. Doubtless all those silly yarns retailed by the ignorant gossiping
farm-hands in the market-place in Scranton, while they tried to
outdo one another in matching fairy stories, must have been circulating
through Horatio's brain just then. The heavy atmosphere of the
deserted stone quarry, and its lonely surroundings, added to the
mysterious disappearance of K.K., combined to make him peculiarly
susceptible to such influences as see ghosts in every white object
that moves in the darkness.

This being the case with the Juggins boy it was not to be wondered
at that there could be traced a vein of actual gratification in his
voice when he suddenly electrified his companions by exclaiming:

"Hugh! fellows, I tell you I saw it right then, just as that Swanson
farmhand vowed to me he did once on a time this last summer---it
was a light, waved up and down, back and forth, and just like they
teach you when you join the Signal Corps, and learn how to wigwag with
a flag or a lantern. It came from right over yonder, where we all
kn