ons are supposed to appear at midnight.

"I didn't really expect anything," Barby went on, "because who believes
in ghosts anyway?" She shuddered. "At least I didn't then. But at nine
someone let out a scream, and we looked, and there was a white mist
rising above the mine, and then the Blue Ghost appeared right in the
mist, and it was awful." She ran out of breath and paused.

"It really was," Mrs. Miller said quietly. "Go on, Barby."

"Well, the ghost was a handsome young officer in a blue uniform, the
Civil War kind. And he held out his hands, and he looked so ... so
appealing. And then he suddenly put his hands on his chest, and when he
pulled them away they were all ... all bloody."

Barby gulped. Rick shot a quick glance at the Millers. They were
nodding. So all had seen the same thing, then.

"Anyway, he faded away then, and only the white mist was left. But
honestly, it was ... well, it was so real! And the whole thing was blue,
sort of, except for the ... the blood. That was red." Barby finished
whitely, "It kind of broke up the picnic."

Rick could imagine. Great galloping ghouls! What had happened? He
couldn't believe the ghost was real, but Barby and the Millers were
obviously convinced.

"Incredible," Scotty muttered. "That's some yarn!"

Rick agreed. "I want to see this Blue Ghost," he stated.

Dr. Miller smiled. "You both look rather doubting. I must admit that I
don't believe in ghosts. My entire scientific training rejects the
explanation. But let me assure you, we saw a genuine apparition just as
Barby described it, and I can offer no reasonable hypothesis. I have
thoroughly inspected the area, and there is no physical evidence I have
been able to see."

Rick digested this statement. His first thought, of course, had been
that the ghost was somehow man-made. He still didn't reject the idea,
but Dr. Miller's comments made it clear that the source of the ghost at
least wasn't obvious.

"When do we see this ghost?" Rick asked.

Dr. Miller replied, "How about tonight?"

A sudden chill of premonition wormed its icy way up Rick's spine. "That
will be fine," he said shakily.

CHAPTER III

The Blue Ghost

Rick, Scotty, Barby, Jan, and the Millers walked leisurely along the
slow-moving creek, down the dirt road to the old Bailey bridge. They
passed the Sky Wagon and its protecting alarm system, and Rick wondered
humorously to himself if the alarm would warn of spirits or only of
hum