Well, I must finish up this investigation business of Judge Baronet's,"
I declared. "Come, here's a haunted house waiting for us. Father says it
hasn't been inhabited since the Frenchman left it. Are you afraid of
ghosts?"

We were going up a grass-grown way toward the little stone structure,
half buried in climbing vines and wild shrubbery.

"What a cunning place, Phil! It doesn't look quite deserted to me,
somehow. No, I'm not afraid of anything but Indians."

My arm was about her in a moment. She looked up laughing, but she did
not put it away.

"Why, there are no Indians here, Phil," and she looked out on the sunny
draw.

My face was toward the cabin. I was in a blissful waking dream, else I
should have taken quicker note. For sure as I had eyes, I caught a flash
of red between the far corner of the cabin and the thick underbrush
beyond it. It was just a narrow space, where one might barely pass,
between the corner of the little building and the surrounding shrubbery;
but for an instant, a red blanket with a white centre flashed across
this space, and was gone. So swift was its flight and so full was my
mind of the joy of living, I could not be sure I had seen anything. It
was just a twitch of the eyelid. What else could it be?

We pushed open the solid oak door, and stood inside the little room. The
two windows let in a soft green light. It was a rude structure of the
early Territorial days, made for shelter and warmth. There was a dark
little attic or loft overhead. A few pieces of furniture--a chair, a
table, a stone hearth by the fireplace, and a sort of cupboard--these,
with a strong, old worn chest, were all that the room held. Dust was
everywhere, as might have been expected. And yet Marjie was right. The
spirit of occupation was there.

"Do you know, Marjie, this cabin has hardly been opened since the poor
woman drowned herself in the river, down there. They found her body in
the Deep Hole. The Frenchman left the place, and it has been called
haunted. An Indian and a ghost can't live together. The race fears them
of all things. So the Indians would never come here."

"But look there, Phil!"--Marjie had not heeded my words--"there's a
stick partly burned, and these ashes look fresh." She was bending over
the big stone hearth.

As I started forward, my eye caught a bit of color behind the chair by
the table. I stooped to see a purple bow of ribbon, tied butterfly
fashion--Lettie Conlow's ribbon. I p