forth."

Scotty asked, "Where were you while all this was going on?"

"In the orchard, scared pink, but not so scared as curious."

A man of real courage, Rick thought. Believed in ghosts, but had the
nerve to watch them in action. "Mr. Belsely, you said none of them shone
like the Blue Ghost. Did the others look solid?"

"They were dark shadows, that's all. No moon to see by, or at least not
enough. Couldn't make out what they looked like."

"Has anyone else seen them in the fields?" Scotty wanted to know.

"Sure enough. Two or three that I know of, maybe more."

The tenant farmer paused, then asked a question of his own. "Why are you
so interested in this new ice-cream man?"

Rick considered. "He interested us," he said finally. "He's not a
Virginian. And he didn't seem to know much about the ghost."

Belsely's comment brought Rick's carefully built up assumptions tumbling
down around his ears. "Oh, he knows about the ghost, all right. He saw
it once that I know of, when he was sellin' ice cream to the girl
campers." The farmer added, "I was standin' right next to him at the
time."

Rick looked at Scotty helplessly. "Thank you, Mr. Belsely," he said
unhappily. "You've certainly given us plenty to think about!"

The boys watched as the tenant farmer walked up the road to his own
house, as solid and dependable as the very earth he walked on. There was
no arguing with what he had seen, only with his interpretation of it.
Clearly, Rick thought, he had seen figures in the fields on several
occasions. But what had the figures actually been doing?

"Don't be too discouraged," Scotty offered. "The ice-cream man seeing
the ghost doesn't mean he isn't involved. Wasn't the girls' picnic the
first time the ghost made a public appearance? He may have been checking
on the way the ghost looked."

"What do you suppose Belsely was doing there?" Rick asked.

"Probably just wandered over to see what was going on. I've noticed
people are pretty casual about the affairs over there. No reason why
Belsely wouldn't take an evening stroll to see how the party was going."

"Well keep our plan," Rick decided. "It's the only lead we have, so we'd
better use it."

By the time the Sons of the Old Dominion started to arrive for the
annual feast, the boys were in their chosen position, upstream from the
mine at a point where they couldn't fail to see all who traveled the
road, but where no one could see them through the thick scre