by John Blaine
“It was a ghost,” Jan Miller said with quiet conviction. “Everyone has always known there was a ghost here.”
Scotty shook his head. “Everyone has always known there were ghosts in a hundred places, if you want to consider all the folklore about spooks. A few people have even claimed to have seen one. But who ever heard of a haunt that put on nightly
performances?”
“You have now,” Barby said flatly.
“Maybe,” Back said.He didn’t know why he was still skeptical. The apparition had been really bloodcurdling in its apparent realness, but he still wasn’t ready to buy a supernatural explanation,
Jan Miller replied with an appropriate quote from William Shakespeare. “There are more things in heaven and on earth than are dreamed of in thy philosophy, Horatio Brant!”
Rick grinned. “That’s true. No one knows better than I how ignorant I am. I can only say that I’m trying to learn. Let’s climb down and look at the pool.”
He led the way down the rocky slope to where the rusted iron pipe jutted from the side of the hill, a thin trickle of water dripping constantly into the pool below. The pool was actually a catch basin in the rock.
Rick examined the pipe. It was ordinary, rusted but still sound. It held no secrets that he could see. He held his mouth under it and tasted the water. It was cold and good, typical spring water, with the taste of minerals in it. He knew from Dr. Miller that it was good to
drink. Picnickers used it regularly.
“Expect evidence to float out with the water?” Barby asked.
“Never can tell,” Rick said, unperturbed. His sister, even more than Jan Miller, was an incurable romantic. If the ghost turned out to be something other than the pitiful shade of Captain Costin, she would be bitterly disappointed, Rick knew.
He got down on his knees, Scotty beside him, and they probed in the water of the rocky basin with their hands. There was a layer of brown algae in the bottom, which was to be expected. It looked dead, but when Rick scraped it, there was green underneath the brown.
Scotty took out his jackknife and probed with the largest blade. Clearly, there was nothing in the basin but a solid rock bottom.
The boys’ eyes met. “The pool bubbled a little last night,” Rick recalled.
Scotty nodded “I saw it, too. But there’s nothing there to make it bubble.”
Jan Miller shuddered. “I almost died when you two idiots scrambled up here. You went right into that awful mist!”
Rick remembered the icy tendril that had curled around his face and a little chill went through him. “It was cool,” he said. “At least the Blue Ghost isn’t warm. Maybe he’s blue with cold.”
Scotty used his jackknife to probe at cracks in the rocky hillside. It was seamed with them, but he found nothing unusual. “I give up,” the dark-haired boy said, his face showing his bewilderment. “There’s absolutely nothing here. So where did the ghost come from?”
“Where does any ghost come from?” Rick asked. “Same place.” Their inspection
should have settled it, but he wasn’t ready to quit yet. To give up would mean admitting that the Blue Ghost was really a spook. He might have to admit it eventually, but not until all avenues of investigation were closed.
“Now what?”Scotty asked.
“Let’s look around some more.”
Barby thought this was nonsense and let them know it. “You two can prowl around all
you want to,” she said. “But I’m not going to get an overdose of sun spook hunting on the rocks. Coming, Jan?”
“Lunch atnoon sharp,” Jan reminded the boys. “We’ll go help Mother. Good luck.”
Rick and Scotty watched them go,then sat down next to the pool.
“What’s on your mind?” Scotty asked.
Rick shrugged.“Nothing. I haven’t the ghost of an idea about this ghost.”
“It was pretty real,” Scotty remembered.
“Too true.”It was so real that Rick almost believed in it. But he was bothered by a vague feeling that something was wrong.
“Look, Scotty. I’ve read plenty of ghost stories, and I’ve read the book by Charles Fort that Dad has in the library. Nothing was ever said about this kind of ghost. Imean, a ghost that went in for public appearances promptly at nine whenever he had an audience.
Of course, there’s no rule that says a ghost has to behave in any definite way, but this is too . . . well, it’s too perfect, if you know what I mean.”
“I do. It’s almost like a show, isn’t it?”
“That’s it. It’s a performance more than an appearance, if there’s any distinction. The ghost did exactly what he’s been doing. Same act.”
Scotty grinned.“Why not? The act is part of the legend, and it’s a pretty convincing one.”
Rick cocked an eyebrow at him. “Whose side are you on?The ghost’s or mine?”
“I have an open mind,” Scotty explained.
The phrase rang a bell in Rick’s head. Open mind -open mine. Could there be some connection between the abandoned mine and the ghost? After all, tie shaft was almost under them. He broached the idea to Scotty.
His pal rose.“Nothing like finding out. Are you for it?”
“I’m for it. Can we get in?”
“We’ll soon see.”
The boys scrambled down the hill and inspected the entrance. Boards had been nailed across the timbered opening, but the nails were rusted and the boards weathered. They could get in simply by pulling the boards loose.
“How about light?”Scotty asked. “We didn’t bring a flashlight.”
“We can do that later. Right now let’s take a look at the entrance. That will tell us if there has been any traffic around.”
The boards came off easily with the screech of old nails pulling loose. In a few moments enough boards were pulled away to allow them to enter on hands and knees. A top board was pulled off to admit light, and they went in together, inspecting the ground closely.
“No sign of visitors,” Scotty said. “Look at the dust. It hasn’t been disturbed for a half century.”
Rick thought his pal probably was right about the length of time. The dust was fine, and thick. No human tracks disturbed it, but the boys saw the delicate tracery where a small animal, probably a field mouse or a chipmunk, had left his spoor.
The tunnel was about eight feet high and wide enough for three people to walk abreast.
Probably the lead ore had been taken out in carts when the mine was in use.
The shaft went straight in, past the range of light filtering in from the entrance.
Nowhere was there a sign of human occupancy or activity, except for the ancient marks on the tunnel walls made by tools in the hands of miners long dead.
“Nothing here,” Rick said, and his voice was lost in the emptiness of the shaft.
Scotty grunted.“Another dead end. Okay, where did the ghost come from?”
Rick didn’t know. He couldn’t even imagine. He puzzled over it as they walked
outside,then suddenly snapped his fingers. “Did you see any sign of water in there?Or a pipe?”
“No. It was dry. No pipes. Why?”
“How was the original artesian well driven?Right into the hillside? If so, why didn’t the mine tunnel strike water?”
Scotty scratched his chin. “Now that you mention it, I haven’t the faintest idea. Have you?”
“Negative. I can’t ever remember having so few ideas. But it’s strange. We’ll have to ask Dr. Miller about it.”
“Maybe the answer is deeper in the mine,” Scotty replied. “Let’s go back and see.”
Rick reminded him that they had no lights. ‘I suppose we could make torches out of junk from the trash cans.”
“Easy, if we can find some newspapers.”
There were several trash cans spotted around the picnic area, and it was indicative of the kind of neat people in the vicinity that they were used. There was no Utter.
The second
canyielded two entire newspapers, one a bulky edition of aWashington paper, the other a ten-page local sheet. The boys split the papers evenly,then rolled them tightly. They frayed one end with a jackknife to make the torch.
“Got a match?” Rick asked.
Scotty looked at him blankly,then grinned. “No, have you?”
“No match, no flint or steel, no ... hey, wait! I’ve got a pocket lens!”
Rick’s enthusiasm for microscopy had extended to the purchase of a twelve-power pocket lens to supplement the microscope Barby had given him. The pocket lens was used for examining specimens before taking them home for closer scrutiny under the more powerful instrument. Rick had not yet gotten used to carrying the small lens and had forgotten it until the need for a burning glass arose.
He took the lens from his watch pocket and unfolded it from the protective metal case.
It focused the sun’s rays to a pinpoint of intense light and heat, and the charred paper then burst into a tiny flame. Rick blew the flame into life, then put his lens back for safekeeping,
“Nothing like the scientific method,” he told his pal. “Who needs matches? Come on.
Let’s burn that ghost out of there.”
Scotty grinned. “Nothing like luck,” he corrected. “Okay, I’m right behind you.”
They retraced their steps into the mine. Rick noted as they went through the entrance that the old mine timbers were pretty well rotted through. He guessed that the mine had been boarded up because it was unsafe. He and Scotty would have to be careful.
In a few moments they were in deep gloom, only the smoky, fitful flicker of Rick’s torch giving them light enough to see by. The newspaper wasn’t burning very well, probably because he had rolled it too tightly. They could see only a trace of daylight.
The old shaft turned at nearly right angles where a geological fault had forced the Civil War miners to change directions in order to follow the vein of good ore. The turn cut off most of the light, except for the waning flicker of Rick’s torch. Scotty hurriedly held his own torch to the flame to light it.
Rick was never sure what happened at that point, whether Scotty’s torch pushed too hard and extinguished his own, or whether a sudden icy wind blew through the mine shaft. He knew only that they were instantly in darkness, while faraway ghostly laughter echoed in their ears.
CHAPTER V
Night Alarm
Rick lathered a hot dog with mustard and took a satisfying bite. It was a down-to-earth hot dog with no mystery, noeerieness about it, for which he was grateful. He hadn’t admitted it, but the incident in the mine had shaken him.
Dr. Miller passed the milk pitcher to Rick,then asked, “Are you certain you heard laughter? It wasn’t a trick of the wind?”
“I’m sure it was laughter,” Barby said solemnly. “Captain Costin was laughing at mortals who dared to enter his tomb.”
Rick glanced at his sister, hoping she was joking. She wasn’t. “I’m not certain,” he admitted. “It all happened at once. I mean, the torch went out, there was a sort of sudden breeze, and we got out of there into the daylight.”
He had a mental image ofhe and Scotty executing that ancient and honorable maneuver known as getting out of there! They had reached the mine entrance in a dead heat, probably breaking severalworld’s records for foot racing.
“We didn’t stop to listen,” he added with some embarrassment. “We just got.”
“Well, I should think so!” Jan Miller said vehemently. “It’s a wonder your hair didn’t turn white.”
Scotty raised a hand and ruffled his dark crewcut. “Didn’t it?” he asked ruefully. “I took it for granted that it had.”
Dr. Miller chuckled. “Put on a few more hot dogs,” he called to his wife. “These boys need nourishment. They’ve been through an ordeal.” To Rick and Scotty he said
seriously, “You needn’t be embarrassed. The fear of the unknown, combined with the fears we have of closed places, almost complete darkness, and our own physiological reactions to the unexpected make us do our thinking with our legs instead of our heads in some situations.”
It was neatly put. Rick acknowledged the scientist’s statement. “It isn’t as though we had been scared away for good. We’re going back, equipped with lights a ghost can’t blow out.”
“And I’m certain you’ll find nothing but an abandoned shaft,” Dr. Miller replied. “After all, the dust showed no sign of human occupancy, you said.”
“Ghosts don’t leave tracks,” Barby murmured.
Scotty accepted another hot dog from Mrs. Miller. “Thank you. Look, everyone, we can make two assumptions. Either that the ghost is real, in which case we call in the Society for Psychic Phenomena, or that the ghost is a man-made thing, in which case we search for the man.”
“I’m still not buying assumption number one,” Rick stated flatly. “My hair may be white, or close toit, and I’m ready to admit that the apparition is a mighty convincing spook, but I don’t really feel it’s a ghost.”
Jan Miller spoke up. “Rick’s hunches are pretty good. If he doesn’t believe in the ghost, it isn’t just because he’s a doubting Thomas. I think the boys should go ahead with their investigation on the assumption that the ghost is caused by someone.”
Barby shook her head, more in sorrow than in anger. “I thought you had more faith than that, Jan.”
“It isn’t a question of faith,” Jan explained. “It’s a question of where you start. If we
start by accepting the ghost as real, there’s nothing we can do. Anyway, we invited the boys down to try to solve a mystery, didn’t we? I guess that proves we didn’t truly believe in the ghost.”
Rick grinned at the dark-haired girl. “Okay, Jan. Now, to carry on where Scotty left off, if we assume the ghost is man-caused, we have to assume it isn’t a practical joke, or that it is. What’s the vote?”
“No evidence,” Dr. Miller said thoughtfully. “It could be a practical joke, although it’s an elaborate sort of thing. More complicated practical jokes than this have been pulled by expert jokesters. On the whole, however, I’m inclined to vote against the joke assumption on the grounds that it has been going on too long. Jokesters are not noted for their staying power. By this time the secret would be out, or we’d be having variations.
The apparition wouldn’t have fallen into a routine.”
Dr. Miller had spotted exactly the thing that was troubling Rick. It was routine, but ghosts are traditionally far from routine. That was actually the biggest argument for assuming that it was man-made, and that it was not a practical joke.
He voiced his thoughts aloud, then asked, “If man-made, and not a practical joke, what’s the motive?”
No one replied, because no one had a possible answer.
“Find the motive and you find just about everything else,” Scotty commented.
“True enough,” Rick agreed. “But if we can’t guess a motive, let’s try another tack.
When did the ghost first appear?”
Barby answered.“Right after the Civil War.”
Rick was patient. “I know. I mean, when did the ghost start making his recent
appearances?”
“About a month ago,” Dr. Miller replied. “We first heard about it from our tenant farmer when we arrived here from Spindrift. He was full of the news, as you can imagine. The ghost first appeared at a Girl Scouts’ campfire.An annual event. The girls are supposed to camp overnight. Needless to say, they didn’t.”
Rick had a quick mental impression of uniformed girls scattering like leaves in a hurricane. “The appearances have been regular since then?”
“Yes. So far as we know, the ghost always appears at nine.”
Rick scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I wonder if he appears when there’s noaudience?
”
Scotty chuckled. “That’s like the question about does a falling tree make a noise if there’s no one to hear it. How can you tell?”
“I ju
st wondered if the ghost would appear for a small audience, like one or two people.”
“Meaning us,” Scotty said with resignation. “When do we try, tonight?”
“Could be.Are there any picnics or meetings scheduled for tonight, Dr. Miller?”
“Not that I know of.The next big affair is two days from now. The Sons of the Old Dominion have their annual steak and crab feast. This is theOldDominionState , you know. It’s a major event in this area.”
“Then we’ll try tonight,” Rick stated, with a glance at Scotty. His pal nodded.
Over a second hot dog, then a third, Rick continued his line of questioning. Not until he began to ask more about details of mine ownership did one interesting fact come to light.
Dr. Miller had received an offer to buy his property at a price considerably above the going market rates just before the ghostly appearances started.
“The offer wasn’t for all the property,” Dr. Miller added.“Only for the portion along our eastern line. It includes the field where you landed, the picnic ground, and our part of the mine property. The house and orchard were not included.”
“How valuable is the part asked for?” Rick queried.
“Not valuable at all, except that the field could be used for hay or alfalfa. That’s why I was rather puzzled.”
“Who wanted the land?” Scotty asked.
“I don’t know. The offer came through Jethro Collins, a local real-estate man. He said he was acting as agent for out-of-town interests that preferred to remain unknown for political reasons. It sounded fishy to me, and I refused.”
“Because it might be crooked?”Rick asked quickly.
“No. That didn’t occur to me. I thought that industrial interests might want the property, and I’m not anxious to have a glue works or something set up as a neighbor. Besides, I don’t care for Collins. I’d rather not do business with him.”
“Could the old mine have any value?” Rick persisted.
