cut and ribbon-like as it wound away into the black woods.

Here the arched and intertwined boughs made a dim tunnel in which a refreshing coolness was always felt. A shadowy calm—this stretch of a mile or so. It was always dusk in this foliage-covered way and in the twilight it was all but dark. There was the pungent odor of damp leaves and rotting wood.

The slight sound made by travelers here reechoed as if a score of spectral voices were complaining of the strangers’ intrusion into their domain. The place was called Ghost’s Trail and with reason, for one had but to pause where a death’s head was graven on a wayside stone and call aloud, when there answered a wailing chorus out of the solemn depths. It was said that two large rocks were responsible for these ghostly medleys. But some there were who found the explanation in a murder which had once been committed at this lonely spot.

Be this as it might, there was something eery about this sequestered way which afforded a short cut to Temple Camp. The playing of the shadows conjured up queer figures which often seemed like human forms lurking among the trees. Such was Tom’s first impression of a moving object ill-concealed beyond a trunk.

Soon, however, as the travelers came abreast of the tree, there emerged a gaunt figure, surprised into reluctant exposure, and trembling visibly. It was the figure of a youngish man in the last extreme of emaciation and shabbiness, but Tom could make no guess as to his age for before he could glimpse the face the stranger was already hurrying along the path in the direction from which our travelers had come. What Tom did notice with surprise was that old Caleb Dyker stood stark still, staring back at the almost fleeing form.

“You know him?” Tom asked. But his companion did not answer, only stood, as it seemed transfixed, staring at the apparition.

“You know him?” he repeated curiously.

“That you, Joey?” the old man called in the high pitched, broken voice of age. The moment seemed tense though Tom did not know why.

“Joey—that you?”

But the hurrying figure neither turned nor answered.

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