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 ghost, Julius, and feel like biting, do you? Well,
try somebody else's arm, if you please."

"But didn't any of the rest of you see it?" gasped the said Julius,
not deigning to quarrel over such a trivial thing as a pinch.

"See what?" asked Steve, still staring hard at the quarry, which they
were by now fairly well past.

"Well, I don't know exactly what it was," frankly admitted the
disturber of the peace. "But it moved, and beckoned to us to come on
over. You needn't laugh, Steve Mullane, I tell you I saw it plainly
right over yonder where that big clump of Canada thistles is growing.
Course I'm not pretending to say it was a man, or yet a wolf, but it
was something, and it sure did move!"

Hugh was looking with more or less interest. He knew how things
appear to an excited imagination, and that those who believe in
uncanny objects seldom have any trouble about conjuring up specters
to satisfy their own minds.

So all of them, save, perhaps, the driver, kept their eyes focussed
on the spot mentioned by Julius until the first clump of trees shut
out their view of the old stone quarry and its gruesome surroundings.

"I looked as hard as I could," said Horatio, "but never a thing did I
see move. Guess you've got a return of your old malady, Julius, and
you were seeing things by daylight, just as you say you used to in
the dark."

"The only explanation I can give," spoke up Hugh, and, of course,
every one lent a willing ear, because, as a rule, his opinions
carried much weight with his chums; "is that while Julius may have
seen something move, it was only a long, feathery plume of grass,
nodding and bowing in the wind. I've been fooled by the same sort of
object many a time. But let it pass, boys. We've turned our back on
the old quarry now, and are headed for the road again, two miles
above Hobson's mill-pond. I only hope we find it better going on
this end of the abandoned trail. This jumping is hard on the springs
of the car, and also on our bones."

"For one," said Julius, "I hope never to set eyes on the place again."

"Oh! that's silly talk, Julius," c