ice caught the faint plash of a bush or limb of tree
dropping into the water. Then the sounds ceased, and only the faint
murmur of that slow-running stream disturbed the silence.

For a few moments they waited there, and then together crept up out of
the gorge. Just as they emerged from the pall of the fog, and where the
moon's thin disk still outlined that narrow white-blanketed valley, they
paused, looking across, above, below and all around, and listening as
intently as two human beings so environed would when believing danger
near. And as they looked and listened for moments that seemed hours,
suddenly, scarce five rods away, they saw a man slowly emerged from the
bush-covered bank, rapidly cross this narrow gorge, apparently walking
on the fog, and disappear in the dark thicket on the other side!

Forgetting in the first shock of supernatural added to natural fear that
they stood fully exposed in the faint moonlight, they looked at each
other, while a cold chill of dread seemed to check even the power to
think. Manson was the first to recover, and with a quick, "We must
hide," almost hissed, dropped on all fours behind a bush, followed by
his comrade. That the motion betrayed them to watchful eyes is certain,
for the next instant, out from the dark thicket across the gorge there
leaped a flash of red fire, and the ping of a bullet, cutting leaves and
twigs above them, told its own tale. Too scared to think of returning
the fire, or conscious that to do so was unwise, they slowly crawled
deeper into the scrub and along the top of the hillock. All that night
they kept together, and how long it was until the gray light of coming
dawn lifted a little of their burden of fear, no one who has never
skulked along a picket line in darkness and dread can imagine!

When the relief guard came, Manson and his mate tried to discover where
their night-prowling enemy had crossed that narrow gorge, if he had
crossed at all, but could not. Whether ghost, or shadow, or
flesh-and-blood enemy had walked on fog in the faint moonlight before
them, they could not tell, and never afterward were they able to
determine. The only certain fact was that some one had fired at them,
and fired meaning to kill! Wisely, too, they agreed to keep the ghost
part of that experience a secret, and none of their comrades ever knew
they had seen a man walking upon the fog.

CHAPTER XIV.

BESIDE THE CAMP FIRE.

Both Manson's and Pullen's regime