“Ghosts,” said Jonas Keeler, leaning his back against the side of the barn and crossing his legs. “I didn’t know that there was any around here, although we used to hear and see plenty of them down in Pike County where I lived when I was a boy.”

“Where did you go to find them, pap?” asked Caleb, who seemed to be deeply interested in what his father had to say.

“We didn’t go anywhere to see them. They generally came to us, and they came, too, just when we didn’t want to see them. We used to find them in grave-yards; and now and then they would come into our barns and houses. What did they do to you, Peleg? You need not be afraid to speak of them here, because there ain’t no ghosts about.”

“They didn’t do anything to me,” answered Peleg, “cause why, I got afraid and dug out.”

Peleg had been looking for a place to sit down, and when nothing else offered he sat down on the floor of the barn and drew his feet under him. His story was a long one and immensely thrilling. He said that he and Nat did not hear anything out of the ordinary until they came to Manchester, and then the storekeeper put them on their guard. He told about the queer things he had heard while going through the bushes, and then he came to the strange words Nat had used—“Here I am and there I am” until Jonas began to look wild. But when he came to the tree on the hillside which dropped its boughs when Nat called upon him, Jonas’s face, which had thus far betrayed the deepest interest, suddenly gave away to a smile, and he finally threw his head back against the barn and broke out into a violent laugh.

“Now I will tell you what’s the fact; it is the truth and nothing else,” stammered Peleg, who was lost in wonder. “I saw it with my own eyes.”

“No doubt you did,” said Jonas, wiping his eyes to get rid of the tears that held to them. “But don’t you know that that was the sign of falling weather? If you don’t, you have lived in this country a good while for nothing.”

“That’s what I tell him,” said Mr. Graves. “He has got so interested in the ghosts that he is willing to believe he sees ghosts in everything.”

“Well, all I have to say is, let them that think differently go down there and stay all night,” said Peleg. “I won’t do it for no man’s money.”

“Did Nat feel afraid when you spoke of the ghosts?” asked Jonas.

“Naw. That boy ain’t afraid of anything. He even called after me when I started for home to come back again, but I didn’t go.”

“Caleb, have you got them cows milked?” asked Jonas, getting upon his feet. “Then you had better stir your stumps and we will go in and get some breakfast. It is after grub time now, and I begin to feel hungry.”

“Well, Jonas, what are you going to do?” inquired Mr. Graves, who somehow took this as a gentle hint that he had got through with their conversation. “Are you going down there to see about that money?”

“Naw,” said Jonas; whereupon Caleb, who had gathered up a milk-bucket, turned and looked at him with mouth and eyes wide open. “There ain’t no money there. When Nat gets tired of looking for it he will come back.”

Mr. Graves acted as though he wanted to say something else, but Jonas picked up a fork and began tossing about the fodder and paid no further attention to him. He waited a minute or two, then motioned to Peleg, put his rifle on his shoulder and went out. Jonas continued tossing about the fodder until they were well on their way to the house, and then stood the fork up where it belonged and called to Caleb in a whisper:

“Say; do you believe all that boy said about ghosts?” said he.

“Yes. Don’t you?” said Caleb in surprise.

“No, I don’t. There may be some down there—I ain’t disputing that; but Nat never used words to help him look for that money. Say, I am going down there.”

“Oh, pap!” was all Caleb could say in reply.

“I am, and if there is money there, I will bet you he has found it.”

“But, pap, you said there wasn’t any there.”

“Don’t you see I said that just to keep old man Graves and his boy at home? Hurry up and milk them cows and I will hitch up the horse.”

“Are you going with the wagon?”

“Course. It is easier to ride than it is to walk, and the first thing we know—”

“Must I go with you?” said Caleb, almost ready to drop.

“Of course you are. I can’t go alone; and think of the money we will have when we come back!”

“Well, pap, you can go and I’ll stay here. It ain’t safe to go. Peleg has been down there and he said he would not go again for no man’s money. I’ve got a heap of work to do—”

“Now, Caleb, you just shut up about the work you’ve got to do,” said Jonas angrily. “You will have to go with me and that is all about it. If Nat is not afraid of the ghosts, why should you be?”

“Yes; but you know how good Nat was to the old man when he was alive. If I had been that way, I could have gone, too.”

Jonas evidently did not hear this last remark of Caleb’s, for he seized the harness and went in to fix up the horse which did not look able to travel twenty miles to save his life. But then that was the way that Jonas’s stock all looked. In a few minutes he had the harness on and led him out of the barn to hitch him to the wagon. It was just at this time that Mr. Graves and his party were going outside the bars and his wife was coming down the walk to meet him. She was coming with long strides, too, as if she had something on her mind.

“Say, Jonas,” said she, as soon as she was near enough to make him hear.

“Well, say it yourself,” retorted Jonas. “I know all about it. I am going down to old man Nickerson’s woods, me and Caleb are, and we are going to have that money. Have you anything to say against it?”

“Oh, Jonas, don’t you know that there are ghosts down there?” said Mrs. Keeler, almost ready to believe that the man had taken leave of his senses to propose such a thing.

“Then that’s what his wife stopped in the house for,” said Jonas, and he shouted out the words so that Mr. Graves could hear them. “What does she know about ghosts? Now I heard all Peleg’s story, and I listened to it as though I believed it; but if Nat is down there and can stay there all night without the ghosts troubling him, why can’t other people do it, too? There ain’t no ghosts there.”

“Do you really think so, Jonas?”

“I know it. You see by going with the horse we’ll get there in the daytime, and everybody knows that ghosts can’t hurt you then. I will make him get that money and then me and you will have good times.”

“But maybe Nat won’t do it. He would be a fule to tell you where that money is hidden.”

Jonas was by this time engaged in hitching one of the traces to the whiffletree of the wagon. He stopped in his work, leaned against his horse which did not seem able to bear any weight but his own, and put his hands into his pockets.

“That boy is a plumb dunce if he is going down there to find that money and then give it up to you, who didn’t do the first thing toward helping him,” continued Mrs. Keeler.

“What’s the reason Nat won’t give up the money to me?” demanded Jonas.

“Because you won’t have your switch handy.”

“I have my knife in my pocket, and I tell you that switches are as handy down there in the woods as they be up here,” said Jonas, once more turning to his work. “What did that old woman Graves have to say to you?”

“Oh, she told the awfulest stories of what Peleg had seen,” said Mrs. Keeler, moving up to be a little closer to her husband. “She told about the heads and horns coming out of the bushes—”

“She made that all up out of her own head,” interrupted Jonas, who became angry again. “Peleg did not see anything, because if he had, Nat would have become frightened, too. Now is breakfast ready? I am just crazy to be on my way to them woods. When you see us coming back, you can just take them old caliker gowns of yours and bundle them into the fire. You won’t have any more use for them.”

Mrs. Keeler tried to look pleased at this, but somehow or other she could not help thinking of the work Jonas would have to do before she could take those “caliker gowns” and tumble them into the fire. But she did not say any more for she knew it would be useless. She led the way toward the house to get breakfast ready, and Jonas followed with the wagon. Caleb came along presently with the milk, and he was the most sober one in the lot. He knew better than to refuse to go with his father, for there was that switch down in the barn. It had not been brought into use since his father threatened to apply it to Nat for saying that he would not give up the shoes he had purchased, and Caleb did not want to see it brought out for his benefit.

Jonas was evidently not at ease during breakfast, for he talked incessantly about the money which he knew was there, and the way he was going to induce Nat to show it to him.

“Just let me touch that switch to him once and see how quick he will run to that place where the money is hidden,” said Jonas, with an approving wink at his son. “He will go so fast that you can’t see him for the dust. If he don’t do it, I have another thing that will get next to him. I’ll tie him up and leave him there in the woods without a bite to eat or a drop to drink, and see how long he will be in coming to his senses.”

The breakfast being over there was nothing to detain them. Caleb got up and took down his father’s rifle which he closely examined. With that in his hands he was pretty sure that he could fight his way with any ghost that came in his path.

“Put a double charge of powder in there and two bullets,” said Jonas. “That’s the way I come it over a deer, and I will bet you if one of them ghosts gets those balls in his head—Well, he will be a dead ghost, that’s all.”

“You will let me carry the rifle, won’t you?” said Caleb.

“No, I reckon I had best carry it myself and you do the driving,” said Jonas, stretching out his hand for the weapon. “You can drive that old horse a heap faster than I can, and if I see one of those horns stuck out from the bushes—”

“Now, Jonas, don’t talk that way,” whined Mrs. Keeler, casting uneasy glances about the room. “There may be one of them here now.”

“Naw, there ain’t. There ain’t no ghosts in the world. If you are ready Caleb, jump in. You will see us somewhere about sun-down.”

Jonas went ahead to lower the bars so that the wagon could drive through, and then, paying no further attention to his wife, he climbed to his seat, and Caleb cracked the whip and drove off.

“Hit the old fellow and make him go faster,” said Jonas. “We must get there by sun up, and have plenty of time to do the work besides. If we don’t, we have got to come home in the dark.”

This was all the encouragement that Caleb needed to make him keep up a tremendous beating of the horse all the way to Manchester. The horse suffered and did his best, but he did not seem to carry them over the miles very rapidly; but at length, to Caleb’s immense relief, the village appeared in sight. Of course the travelers were hungry and the horse needed watering, and so they drew up before the store at which Nat had purchased his things. Of course, too, the storekeeper knew them; he knew everybody within a circle of twenty miles around, and greeted them very cordially.

“Well, if there ain’t Jonas,” said he, briskly. “Are you going up to the woods to see how Nat is getting on? He was in here an hour or so ago, but I don’t see what he got those things for. He told me that he was going to look at some timber, and he bought a pick-ax and spade. Now what is he going to do with them?”

This was the same man who had waited on Nat when he was in the store, and he was determined to find out what those digging implements were to be used for. The customer whom he had consulted, was outside attending to some necessary business and getting a team ready to go up to Mr. Nickerson’s woods and find out, but he looked upon Jonas’s coming as a most fortunate thing, and he hoped that by some adroit questioning he could learn something; but he soon gave it up as a bad job.

“Now the boy doesn’t want a pick-ax and spade to find timber with, does he?” continued the storekeeper. “He must be going to dig in the ground with them, and I would like to know what he is after. He said he was going to repair some fences; but I did not believe it.”

“Give me ten cents’ worth of crackers and ten cents’ worth of cheese,” said Jonas, who wanted to get a little time to think about this matter. “I believe we are going to have falling weather before long.”

“It looks like it now,” said the man, hurrying to fulfill Jonas’s order. “We need rain badly. What did you say Nat wanted that spade and pick-ax for?”

“Oh yes; he is going to fix some fences, and of course he needs a spade to get the blocks in right,” said Jonas, who had been doing some tremendous thinking while the storekeeper was getting out his crackers and cheese. “I am going up to look at him and see that he does his work right Yes, the old man is dead,” said he, in reply to a question. “And if I can pay the tax rates on this place I shall have it.”

“Did he leave you anything?” asked the storekeeper. “I suppose that is what you are looking out for.”

“I don’t know why I should look for that more’n anything else,” said Jonas, in a tone of voice that showed the storekeeper that he did not care to answer any more questions on this point. “The money was his own, and he left it to whom he pleased.”

Having secured his crackers and cheese and the horse having drunk all he could, Jonas and Caleb climbed into the wagon again and continued on their way. At this moment the customer drove up with a team.

“It is no go, Eph,” said the storekeeper. “That’s Jonas in that wagon. He did not say anything about money, but I will tell you what I think: If the old man has left any money, he has got it hidden up there in the woods. Let us wait until the boy comes down here and then go for him.”

“It beats the world how everybody seems to think that the old man had left us some money,” said Jonas, as plainly as a mouthful of cracker would permit. “Everyone seems to think that the old man had money, and I believe he had, too. And it all rests with Nat. If he’s found it I am going to know where it is. Hit him hard, Caleb, and make him go faster.”

The six miles that lay between them and the village seemed to have lengthened out wonderfully, but the old horse finally covered the distance at last and drew up at the place where the boys had crossed the fence to enter the bushes. There had been somebody through there, that was plain; but Caleb’s eyes grew wild when he looked at the dark masses of brush that lay before him; and even Jonas was not quite so lively as he had been.

“I tell you it is mighty dark in there,” said the elder, getting his rifle into shape for instant shooting. “Go ahead, Caleb.”

“Now I won’t do it,” said Caleb, seizing his father’s arm and trying to push him toward the fence. “Give me the gun and I’ll go.”

But that gun was something that Jonas did not want to part with. He felt safe when he had that weapon, and that was more than could be said if Caleb had charge of it.

“Well, stay right close behind me and then nobody can hurt you,” said Jonas, speaking two words for himself and one for Caleb. “Don’t run away. The best way to fight these ghosts is to—”

“But, pap, you say there isn’t any,” Caleb reminded him.

“Now I don’t believe there is; but it is well to be on the safe side. Come on, now.”

It was hard work for Jonas to screw up his courage to cross the fence, but he finally did it at last. As soon as he was safe in the bushes Caleb scrambled after him.