oot. Come ahead, follow me."

Eight or ten of these prints, among many others which Roy did not pause
to distinguish, brought them to the concrete road which runs through the
old reservation, the Knickerbocker Road, as it is called. Here the
leader of the Silver Foxes was baffled. There was no following
footprints here.

They paused for a moment, considering. The white road stretched like a
ribbon straight north and south. The temporary makeshift cross streets
could be seen in black outline with their silent, ghostly, gloomy
buildings, standing in more or less regular order. Here and there was an
area of lesser darkness where some boarded side had fallen away
revealing the fresher wood of the interiors.

The two scouts moved northward a little way along this permanent,
central road, the backbone of the old camp. Still they could hear that
strange, unearthly voice.

Suddenly out of the darkness near them sped a form. It crossed the road,
entered one of the old buildings and hurriedly emerged, entering
another. It seemed like some lost spirit of the night. It passed within
ten feet of the scouts, never noticing them. It seemed intent with a
kind of diabolical intentness. Meanwhile the voice continued, now
mournful, now petulant, now clear, now modulated, according to the
rising wind.

The two scouts paused spellbound as if in a place haunted. The figure
had disappeared but they could hear the patter of its running, and once
or twice a fleeting dark shadow. The breeze was freshening and conjuring
every sound about the ramshackle buildings into spectral wailings. A
fragment of glass falling from a window startled the listeners.
Agitated, their nerves tense, they strained their eyes for glimpses of
the hurrying apparition and listened to the ghostly concert.

"It's he," said Warde; "we've got to catch him. Do you think that sound
is a tree toad? _Listen!_" He pulled his hat on tighter because of
the rising wind.

"First I thought it was," Roy said. "But it isn't. They make funny
noises but not like that. It's off there and up high. It's not any
animal--or loose boards or anything like that. Come on."

Suddenly out of the blackness arose a piercing scream. Its echo
resounded from the dried boards of some building and re-echoed from
another as if its terror-stricken owner had three voices. It mingled
with that wailing voice, distant, aloof. Then they heard human words,
sounding strange and unhuman.

"_I'm coming! W