o the sandpile, which I investigated and found a stick
planted therein. I pulled it up and saw a pin sticking in the end of
it. Further excavation revealed a crumpled piece of paper on which was
written in Ptolemy's round hand:

"Want to see kids. Am going home. Tell Beth I bet she dasent go to
the haunted house alone at night. Ptolemy."

"Poor Huldah!" sighed Silvia.

"I thought he was having the time of his life here," said Rob.

"He was sore," declared Beth, "because you and Lucien wouldn't take
him with you on the fishing trip. He was moping by himself all the
morning."

"Trying to think up some new deviltry," I theorized, "to make us feel
bad."

"No," asserted Silvia, "I think he really misses the boys. The
Polydores, for all their scrappings, are very clannish. But how do you
suppose he got down to Windy Creek?"

"He could catch plenty of rides along the way, but what is puzzling me
is how he got the money to pay his fare."

"He seemed very well provided with cash," informed Rob. "I tried to
pay for his ticket down here, but he insisted on buying it himself."

Silvia worried so much about what might happen to him en route that
after dinner I motored to Windy Creek with some tourists who had
stopped at the hotel in passing.

I called up long distance and after some delay got in communication
with our house. Ptolemy himself answered and assured me he had arrived
all "hunky doory", that Huldah, who was out on an errand, was "hunky
doory", and that the kids were all "hunky doory." In fact, his
cheerful tone indicated that the whole universe was in the beatific
state described by his expressive adjective.

I was really ripping mad at his taking French leave and so giving
Silvia cause for her anxiety, but I forbore to reprimand him by word
or tone, lest he get even by "coming back" literally. I did tell him
how the loss of the note for twenty-four hours had caused a general
excitement, but he felt no remorse for his share in the situation,
blaming Diogenes entirely and bidding me "punch the kid's face" for
unpinning the note.

On my return from Windy Creek I was fortunate enough to fall in with a
farmer who lived near the hotel. He was driving some sort of a machine
he called an _autoo_. He was an old-timer in the vicinity and related
the past, present, and pluperfect of all the residents on the route. I
had a detailed and vivid account of the midnight visitor of the
haunted house.

"I'd jest natur