. He would
not deny its possibility, but repeated over and over his belief that
ghosts always return to the place of the murder and to no other place,
and that the repetition of the story would drive away his summer
boarders.

"I tell him he was just dreaming," said Bart.

"Sure!" with a look of relief. "Of course, he was dreaming. There's been
nobody in Glen Springs looking like the chap you describe, and I'm sure
that nobody has been walking in that corridor, 'less it was burglars."

So Frank went back to his room, accompanied by Bart. He knew that he had
not been asleep, though, and he felt sure that he had really seen and
heard something, and was not the victim of a hallucination. Merriwell
sat down again by the open window, and Bart dropped into a chair by his
side.

"If the thing comes again, we'll capture it!" said Hodge. "Somebody may
be playing ghost, just to scare us. I have heard----"

He did not complete the sentence, for he really heard something at the
moment that stilled the words on his lips and drove the blood out of his
face.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp!

The sounds came unmistakably from the corridor.

"There it is again!" Frank exclaimed.

Bart leaped toward the door and quickly threw it open. The lamplight
again streamed out into the corridor. But the sounds had ceased, and the
corridor was empty. Hodge stared down the corridor in stupid
bewilderment.

"Of all the strange things!" he gasped.

"That is the strangest!" Merriwell added. "You heard it for yourself
then!"

Bart walked out into the corridor, peered out of doors through the glass
set in the side door, and opened the door leading into the deserted
office. There was nothing to be seen. When he came back, his face was
beaded with moisture.

"Merry, I wish you'd tell me the meaning of that!"

"I wish you would tell me, Bart! You thought I was dreaming, or fancied
that I saw and heard something. You see now that you were mistaken."

"Unless I am dreaming myself!"

"You are perfectly wide-awake, Hodge, and so am I! There is a mystery
here."

"Never knew anything like it," mopping his face. "Whew! It brings the
cold sweat out on me!"

He dropped down into the chair by the window, leaving the corridor door
open. Nothing further was heard.

"Ghosts don't like a bright light!" Merry reminded, smiling grimly. Bart
got up, closed the door, and sat down again.

Then his hair seemed to stand upright on his head. Out of the sh