each
board before trusting his weight on it, called out:

"The marks are here, all right, fellows. Nat did start to look into the
old mill. Come over, but be careful. Go slow, Chatz," he warned again,
as the impetuous Southern boy slipped, and might have landed in the
slimy sluice only that Lil Artha threw out a hand and clutched him.

They were now almost in the shadow of the deserted mill. It looked
gloomy and forbidding to the eyes of at least Elmer and the tall lad,
though Chatz may have considered it an object well worth coming a long
distance to see.

"Wow! I must get some pictures of this same old ruin while we're up
here," said Lil Artha, who carried a little pocket camera along, and was
a very clever artist indeed.

"A fine idea," remarked Elmer; "but there are a lot of good people in
Hickory Ridge who would think a picture of Munsey's mill very tame and
incomplete without the ghost showing in it."

"Ah!" said Chatz, his face aglow.

"Oh, well," Lil Artha went on, "perhaps now I might be lucky enough to
tempt that same ghost to pose for me. Anyhow I mean to ask him, if so be
we happen to run across his trail."

He looked at Chatz, and then winked one eye humorously at Elmer. But the
Southern boy did not deign to take any notice.

"Come, let's go in, fellows," he said, impatiently.

With that the three started for the other side of the mill, where an
entrance could most likely be much more easily effected.

Elmer continued to watch the ground, and from the satisfied look on his
face Lil Artha felt sure the scout master must be discovering further
traces of the missing boy.

Perhaps, after all, they would find Nat hiding inside the mill or the
dwelling alongside. Perhaps he had been so busy investigating that he
had not noticed their shouts, or the bugle call, for the falling water
made quite a little noise.

Or, on the other hand, possibly Nat may have been seized with a sudden
desire to tease his comrades in return for many a practical joke of
which he had been the victim.

But one of the three was quite firm in his belief that neither of these
explanations would turn out to be the true one.

Of course this was Chatz Maxfield, through whose mind had run the
conviction that poor Nat Scott must have paid dearly for his temerity in
invading the haunted mill.

Yes, Chatz feared that the ghost must have got Nat, though he was afraid
to openly proclaim his belief. Fear of ridicule was a weakness of