ne had shaken him.

Dr. Miller passed the milk pitcher to Rick, then asked, "Are you certain
you heard laughter? It wasn't a trick of the wind?"

"I'm sure it was laughter," Barby said solemnly. "Captain Costin was
laughing at mortals who dared to enter his tomb."

Rick glanced at his sister, hoping she was joking. She wasn't. "I'm not
certain," he admitted. "It all happened at once. I mean, the torch went
out, there was a sort of sudden breeze, and we got out of there into the
daylight."

He had a mental image of he and Scotty executing that ancient and
honorable maneuver known as getting out of there! They had reached the
mine entrance in a dead heat, probably breaking several world's records
for foot racing.

"We didn't stop to listen," he added with some embarrassment. "We just
got."

"Well, I should think so!" Jan Miller said vehemently. "It's a wonder
your hair didn't turn white."

Scotty raised a hand and ruffled his dark crewcut. "Didn't it?" he asked
ruefully. "I took it for granted that it had."

Dr. Miller chuckled. "Put on a few more hot dogs," he called to his
wife. "These boys need nourishment. They've been through an ordeal." To
Rick and Scotty he said seriously, "You needn't be embarrassed. The fear
of the unknown, combined with the fears we have of closed places, almost
complete darkness, and our own physiological reactions to the unexpected
make us do our thinking with our legs instead of our heads in some
situations."

It was neatly put. Rick acknowledged the scientist's statement. "It
isn't as though we had been scared away for good. We're going back,
equipped with lights a ghost can't blow out."

"And I'm certain you'll find nothing but an abandoned shaft," Dr. Miller
replied. "After all, the dust showed no sign of human occupancy, you
said."

"Ghosts don't leave tracks," Barby murmured.

Scotty accepted another hot dog from Mrs. Miller. "Thank you. Look,
everyone, we can make two assumptions. Either that the ghost is real, in
which case we call in the Society for Psychic Phenomena, or that the
ghost is a man-made thing, in which case we search for the man."

"I'm still not buying assumption number one," Rick stated flatly. "My
hair may be white, or close to it, and I'm ready to admit that the
apparition is a mighty convincing spook, but I don't really _feel_ it's
a ghost."

Jan Miller spoke up. "Rick's hunches are pretty good. If he doesn't
believe in the ghost, it isn't just bec