on any such game, you see."

Hugh and the others laughed at such a clever explanation.

"Whatever the truth may be," said Hugh, "I hardly believe it'll turn
out anything like that, K.K. But you might as well start on. We're
only losing time here, and it seems as though the thing doesn't mean
to give us another sample of that swan song."

"For which, thanks!" sighed Julius. "I know music when I hear it, and
if that's what they call a song of the dying swan excuse me from ever
listening to another. I can beat that all hollow through a megaphone,
and then not half try."

So the chauffeur started up, and they were soon moving along the rough
road that had once, no doubt, been kept in repair, when the heavy
wagons carried out the building stone quarried from the hillside, but
which was now in a pretty bad shape.

Two minutes afterwards and the road took them directly alongside the
quarry dump, where the excavated earth had been thrown. They could
now see the cliff rising up alongside. It looked strangely bleak,
for, of all things, there can hardly be a more desolate sight than
an abandoned stone quarry, where the weeds and thistles have grown up,
and puddles of water abound.

Of course, the boys all stared, as they slowly wound along the road
in full view of the entire panorama that was being unrolled before
their eyes. They noted how in places there seemed to be deep fissures
along the abrupt face of the high cliff. These looked like caves,
and some of them might be of considerable extent, judging from their
appearance.

"If this great old place chanced to be nearer town," said K.K.,
managing to get a quick glimpse, although, as a rule, he needed all
his attention riveted on the rough road he was trying to follow, "I
reckon some of the fellows would have high times exploring those
same holes in the hill."

"It's just as well then it's as far distant as happens to be the case,"
Hugh told him; "because the doctors in Scranton would have broken arms
and legs galore to practice on. That same old quarry would make a
dangerous playground."

"Oh!"

That was Julius uttering a startled exclamation. He gripped Horatio
so severely by the arm that he must have pinched the other. At any
rate, Horatio gave a jump, and turned white; just as though his nerves
had all been stretched to a high tension, so that anything startled him.

"Hey! what did you do that for?" snapped Horatio, drawing away. "Think
you're a ghos