ral Merritt,
commander of the Department of the East. This permission had been
obtained by Lieutenant Andrew Bell, of the First United States
Artillery, who had recently been detailed by the secretary of war as
professor of military science in Yale College.

Merriwell's friends had been invited to join this company of students,
that they might the more quickly reach their friends, and had been
brought to Sandy Hook by the government steamer _General Meigs_. From
Sandy Hook the steamer's large steam-launch had hurried them on to Glen
Springs.

"And now you are going right back with us to Sandy Hook!" Elsie
enthusiastically exclaimed.

Suddenly a silence fell on the jolly party, occasioned by the shadow
that came over the face of Frank Merriwell.

"I can't go until we have settled the mystery of Barney Mulloy," he
declared; and then gave a hurried account of what he and Bart had seen
and heard.

"I hoped you wouldn't say nothin' about that!" grumbled the landlord,
who had been until then an interested listener.

Up to that moment he had seemed pleased, though nervous, for it
gratified him to have guests who were of sufficient importance to be
brought to Glen Springs by the launch of a government steamer.

"This must be all nonsense, you know!" he declared. "And I can't have
any such reports go out about my house. If it gits the reputation of
being ha'nted, then good-by business. I won't have a guest set foot in
the doorway all summer. I know these people who claim not to be
superstitious. They ain't superstitious so long as other people sees
things, but they git confoundedly so soon's they begin to see things
themselves."

"You have seen things at sea that puzzled you?" Merry asked, knowing
that he was making a center shot.

"Who said that I'd ever been to sea? And s'pose I have? I ain't worried
people to death about it and broke up another man's business. There
ain't a thing in this. This ain't out at sea, ye know!"

The landlord seemed to have the peculiar feeling that only ghosts that
sailed or walked the briny deep were worthy of consideration.

"Explain it, then!" Merriwell demanded. "You can make us feel that
nothing strange happened last night if you will explain the thing."

"You was just dopey!" the captain argued. "Your nerves was shook up from
bein' in the water so long, and the skeer of the collision."

Though there seemed no use to make an investigation, Merriwell began one
immediately. He fe