ngle word in reply did Hugh
receive. The man listened and nodded his head, as though he could
dimly understand what the boy was saying. Evidently he was in
something of a dazed condition, if, as K. K. affirmed, his senses
were beginning to assume a normal condition after years of darkness.

It was a terrible job getting K. K. down from that elevated place.
The man showed them how best to manage. He seemed really solicitous,
and it could be seen that he had taken quite a liking to K. K. during
their brief intercourse, since the latter had been found groaning on
the ground.

Eventually the level below the cliff was attained. Poor K. K. had
groaned many times, hard though he fought to repress the sounds, for
it was unavoidable that he should receive many jostlings while being
transferred to the lower level.

Then they made their way across the open space, and finally arrived
at the waiting car, in which the injured youth was deposited and made
as comfortable as the conditions allowed. The deranged man watched
all this with a wistful gleam in his eye. He had fled from his kind
while still gripped in the darkness of madness, but with the first
glimmer of reason being seated once more on its throne he commenced
to yearn after human fellowship again.

Since the boys had all taken such a deep-seated interest in the
matter it may be proper before the "ghost" of the haunted quarry is
dropped altogether from the story to state that the very next morning
Hugh went over to Hackensack and electrified the Coursen family with
certain remarkable news he brought. It ended in their all starting
forth and arriving at the quarry. They found the demented man
awaiting their coming as though he had guessed what Hugh had in his
mind. More than that he greeted them soberly, and called each member
of the family by name, something he had not been able to do since
that dark cloud descended upon his mind years back.

There seemed reason to believe that in due time Doctor Coursen might
regain his full senses again and spend a few years more with his
delighted relatives before the end came.

Hugh, of course, learned all about him and how he had served years in
the army, first as a sergeant in the Signal Corps, and later on
becoming a surgeon of considerable reputation before the accident in
the tropics deprived him of his reason. Perhaps it had been the
utterly helpless condition of poor K. K., when he came accidentally
upon the inju