ately, as he smiled at the speaker; "but if there was any good
and sufficient reason for my doing the same, I'd agree to come alone,
and spend a whole night in the deserted quarry. However, I'm not
particularly _hankering_ after the experience, so please don't try to
hatch up any wild scheme looking to that end. If you want to come,
Julius, you're welcome to the job."

Julius shuddered, and looked a bit pale at the very thought.

"Oh! I wasn't even dreaming of it, Hugh," he hastened to declare.
"I'd much prefer to being asleep in my own comfy bed at home when
midnight comes around, and the last thing on earth you'd catch me
doing would be out hunting spooks."

It was just as Julius finished saying this that they received a
sudden shock. A loud and thrilling sound, not unlike a human shriek,
came to their ears, filling each and every boy in the car with a
sense of unmitigated horror. It was so exceedingly dreadful that K.
K. involuntarily brought the auto to a full stop, and then turned a
face filled with mingled curiosity and awe upon his comrades.

CHAPTER III

TALKING OF GHOSTS

"That was no crow cawing, boys, believe me!" ejaculated K. K.

"Crow! Well, I should say not!" added Horatio instantly. "If you
asked me right to my face I'd mention a donkey braying. Gee! but it
was fierce!"

"But what would a donkey be doing away up here at the old quarry,
where there hasn't been a stroke of work done these many years; tell
me that?" demanded Julius defiantly.

"I don't believe it was a donkey," said Hugh, shaking his head, as
though he, too, found himself exceedingly puzzled; "but I'm not in a
position to explain the thing. That was certainly a queer noise, for
a fact."

"Extraordinary!" assented Thad Stevens.

"Well, I should call it perfectly awful!" Horatio clipped in.

"Horrible would be a better word to describe it," eagerly followed
Julius, who, it must be confessed, was trembling all over; of course,
not with fear, or anything like that, but just because of excitement,
he assured himself.

"And," continued the sensible Hugh, "if that's the sort of noises
these farmer folks have been hearing right along, I don't wonder some
of them have been nearly scared out of their wits. It was bad enough
in broad daylight, with the sun shining; so what must it have seemed
like in the moonlight, or when it was pitch dark?"

"Wow! excuse me from coming up here after dusk," muttered Julius.
"I'm no