"On your toes," Scotty whispered. "Let's rush it while the Blue Ghost is
still there."

Rick swallowed hard. In spite of his conviction that a human agency, and
not a supernatural one, produced the Blue Ghost, he didn't care much for
rushing right into the apparition. In fact, he didn't like it at all.
The mist had felt clammy the first time, even though no harm had come to
them. But, he told himself sternly, Scotty was right. They either had
faith in their assumptions or they didn't.

"Wait until the show is almost over," Rick whispered.

A voice from behind them called, "Better get out of there, you two.
That's where the ghost appears."

The boys turned to reassure their well-wisher, and in that moment a sigh
went up from the crowd. Rick heard a sudden splash, and then the white
mist was rising, billowing almost over their heads!

He watched, fascinated and scared, and saw the Blue Ghost appear. The
apparition was elongated from Rick's viewpoint, but the act was the
same. The boy saw no sign of a projector beam, no sign of any human
agency, and the lack of both turned his knees to water. He was
close--very close--yet he could detect no sign of human origin in the
thing overhead. Horror swept through him. Had he been wrong, he and
Scotty?

His pal's hand fell sharply on his back. "Let's get him, boy! Let's find
out for once and all!"

Somehow he got his legs moving. He and Scotty went up the steep slope,
scrambling right toward the thing that was now holding out bloody hands!

They were in the mist! Rick sensed the blueness around him, and with
sick horror realized that the ghost continued his act as though they
were not even there.

Scotty yelled, and in the same instant sharp pain swept across Rick's
face. Bitter, terrible cold encompassed him, turned the skin on his face
rigid, seared his eyeballs with cold so intense it was like burning
heat. He staggered and fell, hands clutching his frozen face. He tried
to yell for help and couldn't. He rolled down the hillside that he had
climbed seconds before, and Scotty's falling body crashed into him,
knocked the breath from him.

And overhead, the vision of the Union cavalry officer, face distorted in
agony, faded slowly from sight, leaving only the icy, billowing mist.

CHAPTER XII

The Dead Water

Hands lifted Rick and Scotty to their feet and voices demanded to know
what had happened. Other voices berated them, calling them a pair of
young idiot