who's been out on a private reconnoissance, comes back an'
whispers ter me: 'Ssst, Bill! The cur's found! Don't tell Ranch; the
bloke'd die of heart failure. I struck his trail an' follered it--an'
say, Bill, what'n thunder do yer think? Them heathen Chinos has _et
him_!' Lord, now, wouldn't that jolt youse? Them Chinos a-eatin'
Daggett! It give me an awful jar, an' Buck he felt it, too. That there
mutt had acted right decent, an' we knew Ranch would have bats in the
belfry fer fair if he hoid tell o' the pup's finish; so says Buck;
'Let's not tell him, 'cause he's takin' on now like he'd lost mother an'
father an' best goil an' all, an' if he knew Daggett was providin' chow
fer Chinos he'd go clean bug house an' we'd have ter ship him home ter
St. Elizabeth.'

"I says O. K. ter that, an' we made it up not ter let on ter Ranch; an'
now here comes the spook part yer been a-waitin' fer.

"Four or five nights later I was on guard, an' my post was the farthest
out we had on the north. There was an ol' road out over that way, an'
I'd hoid tell it led ter a ol' graveyard, but I hadn't never been there
myself an' hadn't thought much about it till 'long between two an'
three o'clock, as I was a-hikin' up an down, when somepin' comes
a-zizzin' down the road hell-fer-leather on to me, a-yellin' somepin'
fierce. Gee, but I was skeered! I made sure it was a spook, an' there
wasn't a bit o' breath left in me. I was all to the bad that time fer
sure. Before I had time ter think even, that screamin', streakin' thing
was on me an a-grabbin' roun' my knees; an' then I see it was one o'
them near-Christian Chinos, an' he's skeered more'n me even. His eyes
had popped clean out'n their slits, an' his tongue was hangin' out by
the roots, he was that locoed. I raised the long yell fer corporal of
the guard, which happened, by good luck, ter be Buck, an' when he come
a-runnin', thinkin' from the whoops I give we was bein' rushed by the
hole push of Boxers, the two of us began proddin' at the Chink ter find
out what was doin'. Took us some time, too, with him bein' in such a
flutter an' hardly able ter even hand out his darn ol' pigeon English,
that sounds like language comin' out of a sausage machine. When we did
savvy his line of chop-suey talk, we found out he'd seen a ghost in the
graveyard, an' not only seen it but he knew who the spook was an' all
about him. We was gittin' some serious ourselves an' made him tell us.

"Seems it was a