s now munching
and nosing industriously in the depths of his manger, and making a good
deal of noise about it.

Outside, one of the milch cows drew a long, sighing breath of content
with life, lifted a cud in mysterious, bovine manner, and chewed
dreamily. Somewhere up the bluff a bobcat squalled among the rocks,
and the moon, in its dissipated season of late rising, lifted itself
indolently up to where it could peer down upon the silent ranch.

In the grove where the tiny creek gurgled under the little stone bridge,
someone was snoring rhythmically in his blankets, for the boys had
taken to sleeping in the open air before the earliest rose had opened
buds in the sunny shelter of the porch. Three feet away, a sleeper
stirred restlessly, lifted his head from the pillow, and slapped
half-heartedly at an early mosquito that was humming in his ear. He
reached out, and jogged the shoulder of him who snored.

"Say, Gene, if you've got to sleep at the top of your voice, you better
drag your bed down into the orchard," he growled. "Let up a little,
can't yuh?"

"Ah, shut up and let a fellow sleep!" mumbled Gene, snuggling the covers
up to his ears.

"Just what I want YOU to do. You snore like a sawmill. Darn it, you've
got to get out of the grove if yuh can't--"

"Ah-h-EE-EE!" wailed a voice somewhere among the trees, the sound rising
weirdly to a subdued crescendo, clinging there until one's flesh went
creepy, and then sliding mournfully down to silence.

"What's that?" The two jerked themselves to a sitting position, and
stared into the blackness of the grove.

"Bobcat," whispered Clark, in a tone which convinced not even himself.

"In a pig's ear," flouted Gene, under his breath. He leaned far over and
poked his finger into a muffled form. "D'yuh hear that noise, Grant?"

Grant sat up instantly. "What's the matter?" he demanded, rather
ill-naturedly, if the truth be told.

"Did you hear anything--a funny noise, like--"

The cry itself finished the sentence for him. It came from nowhere,
it would seem, since they could see nothing; rose slowly to a subdued
shriek, clung there nerve-wrackingly, and then wailed mournfully down to
silence. Afterward, while their ears were still strained to the sound,
the bobcat squalled an answer from among the rocks.

"Yes, I heard it," said Grant. "It's a spook. It's the wail of a lost
spirit, loosed temporarily from the horrors of purgatory. It's sent as a
warning to repent yo