"As what?" queried George, cautiously.
"Oh, well, perhaps he tripped and fell, striking his head as he went down. Then again, a rotten plank might have given way under him, and let him get an ugly fall," Matty replied.
"That sounds reasonable enough," said Elmer, "and now I want some of you to scatter around and see if you can discover any trace of our missing comrade. Red, you get a long pole and poke down in that deep pool, though I feel pretty sure you won't find any sign of him there, because there isn't a mark of blood on the rocks, as there would be if he had fallen from up here on the dam."
The boys looked aghast.
Up to this point perhaps Landy and several others may have indulged in a hope that after all perhaps this might only be a little finish to the remarkable game of fox and hounds which they had been playing.
Indeed, Red and Larry had once or twice even exchanged sly winks. They actually suspected that Elmer had secretly ordered Nat to conceal himself, up among the branches of a tree, perhaps, so as to have the whole party guessing, and running around like a pack of dogs off the scent.
Now the last vague hope in this particular seemed shattered by Elmer's thrilling suggestion.
And more than Red's horrified eyes roved in the direction of the ugly black pool, across the surface of which the foamy white bubbles kept circling constantly, as the surplus water ran over the dam.
"Where will the rest of us look, Elmer?" asked Matty, breaking the awful silence that had gripped them after hearing the scout master's suggestion.
"Any old place," replied Elmer; "only I guess you needn't go far along that farther shore, because Toby and Ty were there where you see that big oak tree."
"They couldn't see the dam from there, could they?" asked Red, quickly.
"No, that's true," answered Toby.
"And so they wouldn't know whether anybody knocked poor Nat over here; or if he went across to the old mill," Red continued.
"Right you are, Red," replied Ty; "but neither did we hear any shout. An old bluejay was screechin' in the woods near us. Yep, a feller might 'a' called out and we not noticed it."
"I want two of you to go with me to the mill," said Elmer.
"Count me for one!" cried some one, instantly; and of course that was the eager Chatz, who would have started a new rebellion had he been debarred that privilege.
"And I'm the second victim," declared Lil Artha, with a grin, but at the same time looking very determined.
"All right," said Elmer; "fall in behind me, and we'll see what the inside of the mill looks like."
* * *
CHAPTER IV.
THE SEARCH FOR A CLEW.
Following the lead of Elmer, the tall lanky scout and the wiry Southern boy quickly found themselves at the other end of the mill dam.
Lil Artha had cast his eyes about him as he cautiously made his way along. He seemed to be figuring on what chance there might be for an active chap like Nat Scott slipping on one of the wet and moss-covered stones, to go tumbling down toward that suspicious black pool.
Not so Chatz Maxfield.
Apparently he had made up his mind from the start that this strange vanishing of their comrade must have some connection with the mystery of the old mill.
Did they not admit that three separate times people had tried to live there in the dwelling that was part and parcel of the mill; and on every occasion they had given it up as a bad job?
Why?
Well, it seemed to be understood that none of them could stand the sights and sounds which had come to them while under that roof.
People might scoff at such things all they had a mind to, but surely it seemed as if there must be something in it.
At any rate, everyone of those three families believed the mill house haunted. And for many years now, no one had had the nerve to occupy the place.
And yet it had once been a paying venture, for the main road was only a few hundred yards away from this lonely, forbidding-looking pond, where the frogs grew so large and the red-marked "turkles," as Ty Collins called them, were so saucy.
"Careful here!" warned Elmer, as they arrived at the runway, where in times past the water was turned on when the mill was to be operated.
The boards were rotting and slimy, and if one made a slip he might get a wet jacket in the sluice, where there was more or less running water.
Elmer held up a hand to hold his comrades back. He seemed to be down on his hands and knees, as though examining something that had just caught his attention.
"What is it?" asked Lil Artha.
"He came this way, all right, boys."
"Do you mean Nat?" questioned Chatz.
"Why, of course," replied the leader.
"How do you know?" continued Chatz.
"I've been following Nat's trail for miles," answered Elmer, "and sure I ought to know what his footprint looks like. Here it is on this clay just beside the sluice. Wait till I cross and see if he made the other side all right."
"He must, because he ain't in the sluiceway," remarked the tall boy.
A minute later and Elmer, who had carefully crossed over, testing each board before trusting his weight on it, called out:
"The marks are here, all right, fellows. Nat did start to look into the old mill. Come over, but be careful. Go slow, Chatz," he warned again, as the impetuous Southern boy slipped, and might have landed in the slimy sluice only that Lil Artha threw out a hand and clutched him.
They were now almost in the shadow of the deserted mill. It looked gloomy and forbidding to the eyes of at least Elmer and the tall lad, though Chatz may have considered it an object well worth coming a long distance to see.
"Wow! I must get some pictures of this same old ruin while we're up here," said Lil Artha, who carried a little pocket camera along, and was a very clever artist indeed.
"A fine idea," remarked Elmer; "but there are a lot of good people in Hickory Ridge who would think a picture of Munsey's mill very tame and incomplete without the ghost showing in it."
"Ah!" said Chatz, his face aglow.
"Oh, well," Lil Artha went on, "perhaps now I might be lucky enough to tempt that same ghost to pose for me. Anyhow I mean to ask him, if so be we happen to run across his trail."
He looked at Chatz, and then winked one eye humorously at Elmer. But the Southern boy did not deign to take any notice.
"Come, let's go in, fellows," he said, impatiently.
With that the three started for the other side of the mill, where an entrance could most likely be much more easily effected.
Elmer continued to watch the ground, and from the satisfied look on his face Lil Artha felt sure the scout master must be discovering further traces of the missing boy.
Perhaps, after all, they would find Nat hiding inside the mill or the dwelling alongside. Perhaps he had been so busy investigating that he had not noticed their shouts, or the bugle call, for the falling water made quite a little noise.
Or, on the other hand, possibly Nat may have been seized with a sudden desire to tease his comrades in return for many a practical joke of which he had been the victim.
But one of the three was quite firm in his belief that neither of these explanations would turn out to be the true one.
Of course this was Chatz Maxfield, through whose mind had run the conviction that poor Nat Scott must have paid dearly for his temerity in invading the haunted mill.
Yes, Chatz feared that the ghost must have got Nat, though he was afraid to openly proclaim his belief. Fear of ridicule was a weakness of Chatz. It often causes boys to hide their real feelings, and even appear to be much bolder than they naturally are.
Once around the end of the mill and they saw the dwelling attached to it.
Here, too, was the old road, now overgrown with weeds and almost hidden from view. And yet, twenty years ago, in Miller Munsey's time, no doubt farmers daily drove up here with sacks of corn, wheat, or rye, to have the grain delivered to them again in the shape of
flour.
"Shall we try to go in by way of the house door?" asked Lil Artha.
"No," replied Elmer, "he went in through that opening where some boards are off the side of the mill. Perhaps we'd better do the same."
"A good idea," remarked Chatz, with the air of one who could not get inside the walls of the mill too speedily to please him.
"Just as you say, Elmer," the lanky scout observed; for having been in the company of the other when the latter was acting as pathfinder to the expedition, Lil Artha was more than ever filled with admiration for his wonderful talents in discovering things supposed to be lost.
So Elmer without further hesitation ducked through the opening, with his two allies keeping close to his heels.
At any rate it was somewhat more restful inside the mill.
Those walls, even if now going rapidly into a condition of decay, shut out some of the noise caused by the falling water.
Lil Artha and Chatz both looked about them eagerly, even anxiously, as soon as they found themselves within those walls which had once resounded to the clatter of the grinding.
Their motives, however, were probably as far apart as the two poles; while the long-legged scout hoped, yet dreaded, to see the figure of Nat Scott lying somewhere about, Chatz, on the other hand, was anticipating discovering some token of ghostly visitors.
Nothing rewarded either of them, however. The interior of the mill was of course in a generally dilapidated condition. What remnants of the crushing and milling machinery remained were rusty and broken, as though tramps may have made the place a refuge, and tried to destroy what they could not carry away to sell.
The boards creaked dismally under their tread. More than that, they were loose in places, and Lil Artha, stepping upon the end of one, might have vanished through a gap in the floor only that his agility saved him.
"Wow, would you see that, now, Elmer!" he exclaimed, his voice sounding strange amidst such singular surroundings.
"You made a neat side step, old fellow," said the one addressed. "Some of us, more clumsy, would have slid down into the cellar."
"Say, now, I wonder—" began Lil Artha, and then stopped to stare at the treacherous plank that formed such a trap.
"You're wondering whether poor old Nat could have taken that tumble?" suggested Elmer.
"That's what I was; what do you think?" asked the tall scout.
"Here, lay hold and we'll soon find out," remarked Elmer, bending over the loose plank.
It required considerable tugging to get it out of the bed it had occupied so long, even if it was fastened by no nails.
Both of them lay down and thrust their faces into the gap.
"Looks pretty dark down there, don't it?" asked Lil Artha, who was secretly shivering with the anticipation of making a grewsome discovery, but who would not have his comrades know the true condition of his nerves for a good deal.
"It sure does that," was Elmer's reply.
"I can just make out something or other lying down there; it might be an old log, you know, and again, p'raps it ain't."
Lil Artha did not venture to say plainly that he more than half feared lest the object he could see might turn out to be poor Nat Scott. But that was a fact.
"Well, let's find out for sure."
Elmer, while speaking, was taking something from his pocket. It proved to be an old newspaper, from which he tore a sheet, crumpling it up into a ball.
"I generally carry a newspaper along when I go into the woods," he said in explanation. "And it's wonderful what a help it sometimes turns out to be in case you want to start a quick fire. Now for a match."
"I'm sorry now," remarked Lil Artha.
"About what?" asked the scout leader.
"That I didn't think to fetch it along—that new electric hand torch my father gave me on my birthday, you remember, Elmer?"
"Oh," laughed Elmer, "well, who'd ever think we'd have any need of a torch on this hike! Why, it was an altogether daylight affair, and we expected to be back home long before supper time. I even promised Mark to practice battery work some this afternoon. There, now watch when it drops. I hope there's nothing down there to take fire."
"If the old trap did go up in smoke I guess nobody would care much," muttered Lil Artha, as he pressed his face still further into the opening, after Elmer released his fire ball.
The burning paper seemed to alight upon the damp earthen floor of the cellar. Immediately both boys tried to secure a mental photograph of all there was below them.
"It's only a log!" cried Lil Artha, in a relieved tone of voice, and at the same time betraying more or less disappointment, for perhaps he had made up his mind that they were to be treated to some species of horror.
"You're right," added Elmer, "that's what it is—an old log that has lain there, goodness only knows how long. Nat doesn't seem to have slipped down into the cellar, then, does he?"
"Not that you could notice," replied Lil Artha, and then he added: "but Elmer, didn't you notice something jump when that paper first went down?"
"Well, yes, I did, for a fact, Arthur."
"Any idea what it could be?" persisted the other.
"I hope you're not thinking of that ghost we've heard so much about?" said Elmer.
"Now, that's hardly fair, Elmer; you know I don't take any stock in fairy tales or hobgoblin yarns. But something sure moved."
"A big rat I guess, perhaps a muskrat from the pond above. They sometimes find a burrow leads them to some old, unused cellar."
"But look over there, and you'll see a lot of white bones, Elmer," pursued Lil Artha.
"That's a fact. Some animal must have fallen in here, starved to death, and been eaten up by the rats."
"But, Elmer, are you sure they are animal bones?"
"I noticed the skull, and I think it must have been a large dog," replied Elmer.
Then he and the tall scout scrambled hastily to their feet, for Chatz had suddenly given utterance to an exclamation that seemed to contain much of both surprise and mystification.
* * *
CHAPTER V.
THE TRAIL GROWS WARMER.
"Say, just look up there, fellows!"
Chatz pointed a quivering finger upward as he gave utterance to these words.
Of course both Elmer and the lengthy scout followed his directions, and turned an inquiring gaze toward the dimly seen rafters of the old deserted mill.
"Gee whittaker! what in the dickens are they?" exclaimed Lil Artha, as his startled eyes rested on what seemed to be countless numbers of queer little bunches of dusky gray or brown hair.
They looked for all the world like some farmer's wife's winter collection of herbs, tied up in small packages, and fastened in regular order along the different beams.
"Well, I declare," laughed Elmer.
"You know what they are, Elmer; let us in on it, won't you?" demanded Chatz.
"Nothing whatever to do with the ghost, but all the same often found in haunted houses, church belfries, and old towers. See here."
He stooped and picked up quite a good-sized stone that happened to be lying on the floor.
Elmer was a pitcher on the Hickory Ridge baseball nine, and could hurl a pretty swift ball.
When he shot that stone upward it went like a young cyclone, struck the rafters with a loud bang, clattered around from one beam to another, and finally fell back to the floor with a thud.
This latter sound was certainly not heard by any one of the three scouts, for it was utterly drowned in a tremendous rush as of sturdy wings, and several openings above were filled with some rapidly flying objects.
"Wow, did you ever see the like of that now!" cried Lil Artha.
"What were they, Elmer?" asked Chatz, who had really been too startled to think fairly.
"Bats!" replied the scout leader, promptly.
"I supposed as much," declared Chatz, "and as you remarked just now, they always seem to like a building said to be haunted."
"Wel
l," remarked the tall boy, "sometimes I've had the fellows hint to me that I had bats in my belfry; but sure not that many. Why, I reckon there must have been well-nigh a thousand in that gay bunch, Elmer."
"I guess there were, more or less," replied the other.
"And now what?" asked Chatz.
"Let's look further here before we go into the house itself," the scout master made reply.
So they went from one end of the deserted mill to the other, peering into every place where it seemed there might be the slightest hope of discovering their missing comrade.
Elmer even entered a small room off the main floor, and which had possibly been used as an office when the grist-mill was in business.
"Nothing doing, Elmer?" announced Lil Artha, as the other came out again.
Elmer shook his head in the negative.
"Don't seem to be around here at all," he said.
"Well, let's try the house," suggested Chatz; and it was easily seen from his manner that he was eager to make the change.
After one more careful glance around, as if to make absolutely positive that nothing had been neglected, the scout leader nodded his head.
"Come on, then, fellows," he said.
So the others once more fell in his wake, like true scouts who knew their little lesson full well, and were ready to follow their leader wherever he might choose to go.
Elmer had previously noticed a door leading, as he believed, from the main mill into the cottage that had once been the miller's home.
Toward this he now pushed. He wondered if he would find the door fastened in any way. One touch told him it was not.
And so, without hesitation, Elmer strode across the threshold into what had once been the happy home of a contented miller, until trouble came, and tragedy ended it all.
Like the mill itself the house was fast falling into a state of decay.
It was only a cottage of some four rooms, all on the one floor. The boys passed from one apartment to another until presently they had been over all the territory comprised within those four walls, so far as they could see.
Both Chatz and Lil Artha uttered exclamations that breathed their disappointment.
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