f blood. But
he was entirely whole; there was no blood visible and we could find no
broken bones. Apparently there was nothing the matter beyond fear, and
of that he was nearly dead. He crawled to the Colonel and clung to his
feet chattering an unintelligible gibberish. His eyes rolling wildly in
the dim light, showed an uncanny yellow gleam. I could see where he got
his name.

The Colonel's own nerves were beginning to assert themselves and with an
oath he cuffed the fellow back to a state of coherence.

"Stand up, you blithering fool, and tell us what you mean by raising
such a fuss."

Mose finally found his tongue but we still could make nothing of his
story. He had been out "prospectin' 'round," and when he came in to go
to bed--the house servants slept in a wing over the rear gallery--he met
the ha'nt face to face standing in the dining-room doorway. He was so
tall that his head reached the ceiling and he was so thin that you could
see right through him. At the remembrance Mose began to shiver again.
We propped him up with some whiskey and sent him off to bed still
twittering with terror.

The Colonel was bent on routing out Radnor to share the excitement and I
with some difficulty restrained him, knowing full well that Rad was not
in the house. We made a search of the premises to assure ourselves that
there was nothing tangible about Mose's ha'nt; but I was in such a hurry
to get the Colonel safely upstairs again, that our search was somewhat
cursory. We both overlooked the little office that opened off the
dining-room. In spite of my manoeuvres the Colonel entered the library
first and discovered that the French window was open; he laid no stress
on this however, supposing that Mose was the guilty one. He bolted it
with unusual care, and I with equal care slipped back and unbolted it. I
finally persuaded him that Mose's ha'nt was merely the result of a
fevered imagination fed on a two weeks' diet of ghost stories, and
succeeded in getting him back to bed without discovering Radnor's
absence. I lay awake until I heard the sound of carriage wheels
returning across the lawn, and, a few minutes later, footsteps enter
the house and tip-toe upstairs. Then as daylight was beginning to show
in the east I finally fell asleep, worn out with puzzling my head for an
explanation which should cover at once Rad's nocturnal drive and Mose's
ha'nt.

CHAPTER VI

WE SEND FOR A DETECTIVE

I slept late the next morn