a great, white bird with flapping
wings and slowly fluttered to the earth.

A door opened below. Alfred nearly collapsed. Tip-toeing across the room
he stumbled over an object on the floor causing a great racket. Falling
on the floor he crawled behind a number of old quilting frames and lay
there ever so quiet expecting momentarily to hear some of the family
ascending the stairs.

Crawling slowly to the stairs he softly descended, opened the door and
shot out into the darkness of the night. The perspiration streaming down
his face. Wiping it away with his soot begrimed hands, so blackened his
countenance his companions scarcely recognized him when he reached the
rendezvous, the old school-house on the commons.

When the last sheet fluttered down from the garret, Win Scott stepped
under it. Tommy Morehouse's back door opened. With the sheet fluttering
about him, Scott ran down the garden path and out through the barn into
Stable Street.

Nearly opposite the stable from which he had just emerged was the big
stable of the Marshall House, a tavern kept by Isaac Vance, the uncle of
Ike Stribeg, the afterwards noted circus agent.

Baggy Allison and Hughey Boggs, characters of the town, were seated on a
bench outside the door of the big stable. Scott, pulling the sheet more
closely about him and waving his arms wildly, quickly crossed the street
towards the two worthies, thinking to have some fun with them. Both
caught sight of him at the same instant. One corner of the sheet,
fluttering high in the air, it certainly was a skittish looking object
that floated down upon the two superstitious men. Over went the bench, a
chair or two, Allison stepped in a tin pail as he arose, his foot
entangled in it. The clattering of Baggy's foot in the pail added ten
fold to the terror of Hughey. He swore afterwards he could feel the
clutch of the long, bony fingers of the ghost on his neck.

[Illustration: He Could Feel the Clutch of Long, Bony Fingers on Him]

The hostlers flew, both trying to enter the narrow door of the tavern.
Wedged in the doorway, each thought the other holding him. Fighting,
cussing, scratching, they were pulled into the big tap room filled with
guests. All imagined the two hostlers were fighting and endeavored to
separate them.

Baggy Allison was very slow of speech; Hughey Boggs stuttered painfully.
After they were separated they kept up their clawing and waving.

Baggy, pointing toward the stable, blurte