min'
home late, piped as usual, and as he came zigzaggin' down a dark lane,
he looked up suddenly and saw four men marchin' solemnly toward him,
carryin' a coffin. McDougall clutched his head. 'God help me,' he
cried. 'It is the vision.' Then he turned in his tracks and shot over
a hedge and up the bank, screamin' like mad. The spirits carryin' the
coffin yelled at him and, droppin' the coffin, started up the hill
after him. But McDougall only yelled louder and ran faster, and
finally they lost him in the hills. So they went back. They were not
spirits at all, and it was a real coffin. A woman had died, and they
were takin' her in to town ready for the funeral next day. But the
next day we found McDougall lyin' face down on the grass ten miles
away, stone dead."

The girls shivered, and Carol shuffled her chair closer to David's bed.

"Ran himself to death?" suggested David.

"Well, he died," said the Scotchman.

"Is it true?" asked Carol, glancing fearfully through the screen of the
porch into the black shadows on the mesa.

"Absolutely true," declared the Scotchman. "I was in the searchin'
party that found him."

"I--I don't believe in spirits,--I mean haunting spirits," said Carol,
stiffening her courage and her backbone by a strong effort.

"How about the ghosts that drove the men out into the graveyards in the
Bible and made them cut up all kinds of funny capers, and finally
haunted the pigs and drove 'em into the lake?" said Barrows slyly.

"They were not ghosts," protested Carol quickly. "Just evil spirits.
They got drowned, you know,--ghosts don't drown."

"It does not say they got drowned," contradicted Barrows. "My Bible
does not say it. The pigs got drowned. And that is what ghosts
are,--evil spirits, very evil. They were too slick to get drowned
themselves; they just chased the pigs in and then went off haunting
somebody else."

Carol turned to David for proof, and David smiled a little.

"Well," he said thoughtfully, "perhaps it does not particularly say the
ghosts were drowned. It says they went into the pigs, and the pigs
were drowned. It does not say anything about the spirits coming out in
advance, though."

Carol and Barrows mutually triumphed over each other, claiming personal
vindication.

"Do you believe in ghosts, Mr. Duke?" asked Miss Tucker in a soft
respectful voice, as if resolved not to antagonize any chance spirits
that might be prowling near.

"Call them