Part 4

“Of course this ghost is simply some would-be humorous person who is having some fun,” was the colonel’s opinion. But Mr. Powers had another opinion.

“I doubt that very much, Morrell. The thing has been going on for years and some very good citizens have given up their homes just on account of it. The joke would have worn out years ago. No, I’m inclined to think that there is something deeper in it than mere fun.”

“Some determined effort should be made to drive the ghost from the Ridge,” grumbled the headmaster.

“Who is to start it?” shrugged the parson. “No one seems to want to and the sheriff of the county simply laughs at the whole business.”

As a result of this talk the colonel called Rowen and Jim into his tent after drill that very afternoon. They faced him expectantly.

“Gentlemen,” said the colonel. Then he paused, and a frown swept over his face. “I call you gentlemen, and will continue to do so until one of you is proved guilty of deliberate lying. Your conflicting stories show that one of your statements, coming from one or the other of you, is a deliberate falsehood. But to get back to the business in hand: I have just heard some more tales concerning this ghost of the Ridge, and in view of it I have decided to drop the suspension against Captain Mercer. The word of one of you is as good to me as the word of the other, and until I prove that one of you is trying to conceal anything I must consider the case dismissed until further notice. Mr. Rowen, you say you did not hear Mr. Mercer call out nor did you see the white shape. But on the other hand, Captain Mercer did tell you immediately that he had seen a white shape, and that the ghost—or whatever it was—had started the stampede. Inasmuch as you did not see Captain Mercer start the stampede, and you doubted his word, I shall be able to hold him only on the count of being absent without official leave. For that Captain Mercer will receive demerits. It that all clear, and satisfactory?”

“Very much so, to me, sir,” approved Jim. Rowen muttered.

“What was that, Mr. Rowen?” the colonel asked, sharply.

Rowen lost his temper in his sudden fright. “I simply said that of course a Mercer would get the breaks, sir!” he sneered. Then, realizing the slip he had made, his face turned white.

“So!” murmured the colonel. His eyes flashed but his voice was calm. “I asked you if my decision was satisfactory, Mr. Rowen.”

“Yes, sir,” murmured the disappointed cadet.

“Very well. You are both dismissed,” nodded the colonel. Left alone, his brain worked busily. He saw a good many things in a clear light now.

“Petty jealousy, and he is trying to revenge himself on Mercer,” thought the little colonel. “I guess I can pretty well tell which one of those young men is lying!”

On the following morning, when the Orders of the Day were read, Jim and his friends were delighted to hear in the crisp voice of the battalion orderly that the charges brought against Captain Mercer by Sentry Rowen were to be temporarily dismissed, with the exception of the charge of leaving camp unofficially, for which Captain Mercer was to receive twenty-five demerits.

A hundred demerits were sufficient to send a man home from the encampment and two hundred at school would dismiss any cadet permanently.

That afternoon there was a partial holiday and the cadets set out to enjoy themselves. It was a mild and warm afternoon, with a fleecy sky overhead, through which the sun peeped at intervals. Don and Jim sat in the tent, trying to decide just what to do.

“What do you say to a hike over the Ridge, a sort of exploring trip?” was Don’s suggestion.

“Sounds good,” approved Jim. “Who can we get to go along with us?”

“We’ll scout around and find out,” announced Don, getting up from his cot.

After looking up their most intimate friends they found that only Terry and Raoul Vench cared to go tramping.

“We’ll be glad to go along,” yawned the redhead. He and Raoul had been idly watching the swimmers when Jim and Don found them. “I’m weary o’ doing nothing!”

“Too lazy to do anything but watch the other fellows swim around and enjoy themselves, is that it?” inquired Jim.

“Yes, but you see, I enjoy it that way,” returned Terry, seriously. “I have a vivid imagination and in time, by concentrating on the swimmers, I too feel the cool of the water and the exhilaration of the exercise. Just requires a little imaginative concentration, Jimmie my friend.”

“You’re a wonderful fellow,” glowed Jim. “Just you imagine me a couple of ice-cream sodas, will you?”

“Pay me first!” grinned Terry. “Money back if I fail to come across.”

The four cadets set out at a brisk pace up the slope of the Ridge. It was heavily wooded and every now and then they came across a clearing in which a farmhouse could be seen. They were not long in reaching the very top of the series of hills called Rustling Ridge and they paused to look down into the opposite valley from the one above which their camp was pitched.

“Nice picture,” observed Terry. “Why do they call this place Rustling Ridge?”

“In the fall, when the wind blows hard, the leaves rustle, and from that fact comes the name,” Don volunteered.

“How’d you learn that?” Vench wanted to know.

“I asked a farm boy who was watching us play baseball the other day,” replied the infantry lieutenant.

“Look at that old house up there,” called out Jim, pointing to a huge square structure that showed a battered roof with leaning chimneys over the tops of the trees. “Looks like a fitting habitation for the ghost of this place.”

“Just about,” agreed Vench. “But that little cabin down below looks better to me, because I bet we can get a good drink at the place. Let’s go down.”

The others agreed and they tramped down the side of the slope toward a plain little cabin, constructed of unpainted boards, with a roofed front porch on it. At some distance below them they could see the largest town in the county.

“What town is that?” asked Jim.

“I think that must be Rideway,” replied Don.

Reaching the cabin they rounded the corner, to halt suddenly as they saw a figure there. It was a little old man in a wheelchair, a man with sparse gray hair, sallow cheeks, and a few good teeth remaining. His eyes were keen and penetrating and he was puffing in evident enjoyment on a huge pipe.

He greeted them readily enough. “Hi, there, boys, step right up,” he shrilled, in a rasping voice. “Soldiers, eh? You look pretty young. Where you stationed?”

“We aren’t soldiers of the United States Army,” Don told him. “We are cadets from Woodcrest Military Institute, and we’re camping over on the other side of the Ridge. We were passing by and thought we’d drop in for a drink of water.”

“Thought you were too young-looking for regular soldiers,” nodded the old man, taking in every detail of their uniforms. “Want a drink of good water, eh?”

“Yes,” Don replied. “But we wouldn’t want to trouble you any.”

“Oh, hush up!” was the good-natured reply. “I know that you’re thinking I’m out of commission and I can’t help you. Just sit down on the porch here and see how old Peter Vancouver does it.”

With that the old man gave the right wheel of his chair a whirl and to the astonishment of the boys shot himself around in a half circle and in through the open door. From there they saw him roll across the room and vanish through the door of another room.

“My gosh!” breathed Terry. “Can’t he work that buggy of his!”

“Probably years of practice has made him proficient,” said Don, softly.

With the same bewildering speed and dexterity the man returned in his chair, holding a pitcher and a tin cup in his hand. Even while in motion he poured the water out.

He seemed to enjoy watching the boys drink deeply, and when they had finished he wheeled back to the kitchen and returned at lightning speed. Noting the interested looks of the boys he chuckled.

“Guess the old man knows how to walk well’s if he had feet, eh?”

“You walk better than a whole lot of people who have feet,” gravely affirmed Vench.

“If you was spending your life in one of these all-fired things you’d know how to ride one, too,” he told them. “Don’t you fellows go. I don’t see a heap of folks and I like to chin once in a while.”

“We’ll be glad to stay and talk with you, Mr. Vancouver,” smiled Jim, leaning back against a post. “We are just out exploring and we’d just as soon sit here and talk as wander around.”

“Glad to hear you say it,” approved the old man. “Let’s hear something about that there camp of yourn.”

The boys told him several things about the camp, all of which seemed to interest him deeply. In the course of the talk the incident of the ghost and the stampede was mentioned. The old man bent eagerly forward.

“Did you get a visit from the ghost?” he cried.

“Yes, he stampeded our horses,” Jim told him. “What do you know about him, Mr. Vancouver?”

The man chuckled. “All a poor old invalid would know about such like he hears,” the man replied. “I ain’t never seen the thing, but I heard plenty. Raises old Ned in the hills here, and has been at it for years.”

“If we get a chance we are going to nail him good,” Don promised.

“Good idea,” Mr. Vancouver approved. “Blasted business has been driving people off the Ridge for years. Wouldn’t be surprised if the fellow drove you cadets home.”

“Drive us out of camp!” ejaculated Vench, stirring.

“He might!” the old man said.

“He’ll have to go some to do that,” snorted Terry. “He’ll be lucky if we don’t steal his best nightgown right off him!”

“Getting late, fellows,” warned Don. “We had better be getting back. Thanks a lot for your good drink of water, Mr. Vancouver, and we’ve enjoyed being with you.”

“Enjoyed being able to talk to you boys,” he returned heartily. “Come up again some time.”

“We’ll be glad to,” promised the boys, as they started off. Mr. Vancouver called a final word after them.

“You had better keep your eyes open for that cussed ghost! No tellin’ when he’ll pop up and scare the life out of you!”

The cadets laughed good-naturedly and walked at a rapid pace up the side of the Ridge. The sun was going down in the west and they would have to keep up a good stride in order to arrive in time for supper.

“Interesting old fellow, that Vancouver,” Jim observed.

“He surely is,” Vench agreed. “We’ll have to chat with him some other time.”

“Too bad he can’t move around—that is, walk around,” Don said. “As a matter of fact, he does move around mighty fast, but I mean it is a shame he can’t go walking around, same as you and me.”

“Like everybody else around here, he believes that dog-goned ghost is the last word in efficiency,” growled Terry. “I guess the real trouble is that nobody dares to put on a real hunt for the ghost. Fellows, we’ll have to make it our business to run down that ghost!”

“If it pops up again soon, we will,” Don promised.

8 Moving Flame

For a week or more there were no unusual events. Camping life went on calmly, the drill and fun occupying the days in regular succession. By this time all of the boys were enjoying themselves to the utmost. Muscles were limber and strong, bodies straight and vigorous, and the appetites outrageous.

“We certainly are keeping the cooks hustling,” Terry chuckled one day in the mess tent. “I’m going for another helping of beans.”

But when the genial redhead went to the kitchen tent he was firmly but politely refused “Nothing doing, Mr. Mackson,” said the mess sergeant, firmly. “You’ve already had three plates full and that is the allotment.”

“No more beans for a starving man?” Terry inquired, in dismay.

“No more for you anyway. I don’t know why you should be starving, I’m sure.”

“All right,” returned the red-headed one, calmly. “My mother will get even with you!”

“What do you mean, your mother will?” cried the cook, staring.

“When my body is shipped home, and she learns that her darling boy starved to death in the camp, she will spend the rest of her life calling down vengeance upon the head of the hard-headed and hard-hearted cook that turned him away with tears in his eyes!” was the answer. The mess tent shook with the laugh that went up. But the cook was prepared to answer him back.

“You’re right about the cook turning him away with tears in his eyes,” the cook said. “It brings tears to my eyes to see the hole in the bean pile when you get eating!”

Terry retired thoughtfully, paying no heed to the mocking gibes which greeted him on all sides. After a moment he looked at Vench, who was eating across the table from him. Vench had just pushed his plate to one side.

“How many plates of beans did you have, Raoul?” Terry whispered.

“Two was enough for me,” returned the little one.

“My son, heaven’s blessings upon you! Just take my plate and hit the trail for the cook!”

Mr. Vench took Terry’s plate and gravely approached the cook. But as soon as that worthy saw the particular dent in the tin plate he shook his head wisely.

“Nothing doing, Mr. Vench,” he said. “That is Mackson’s plate. You don’t work that game here!”

“Thank you, sir!” Vench murmured, while the cadets enjoyed the failure of the move to the utmost. With that Vench turned away. But at that moment the cook was called to the far end of the mess tent. With swiftness that was commendable Vench reached over the stove and heaped the plate. Then he sped back to the delighted Terry.

“Ram that in your musket and keep still!” he said, as he took his place.

Terry needed no second invitation. He dug into the pile of beans with alacrity. And in a moment the sharp voice of the cook reached him.

“Mr. Mackson, where did you get those beans?”

Terry looked blank. “I am not at all sure, sir,” he answered, politely. “I had just turned my back, and when I looked around there they were, right under my nose!”

“Did you come and take them while I was not looking?” cried the cook.

“Haven’t been out of my seat since you broke my heart with your refusal,” was the answer. “And you didn’t give any to Mr. Vench, so it is up to you to figure out how I got the beans!”

“Bring them here, Mr. Mackson!” ordered the mess sergeant.

Terry shoveled the last forkful into his mouth. “Beg pardon?” he asked blandly.

“I’ll put you on report!” growled the sergeant.

“My dear fellow, you can’t,” smiled Terry. “I didn’t take them myself and so you have no charge to prefer. And if you did I’d pound all the beans out of you once I got you away from the mess tent!”

“That amounts to threatening an officer while on duty, Mr. Mackson!” charged the sergeant.

“That’s not a threat, that’s a promise,” grinned the redhead. The sergeant muttered savagely but subsided.

“Much obliged,” Terry whispered to Vench. “Some day I’ll help you out.”

“But not in the matter of beans,” smiled Vench. “They just don’t happen to be my weakness!”

One of the steady visitors to the camp was the little Carson boy. He was the son of the farmer from whom the camp supplies were purchased, and the cadets had taken a great liking to him. He was a friendly, likable boy and obviously deeply interested in the activities of the young soldiers. He watched all of their maneuvers with fascinated interest and the cadets welcomed him in their tents.

“That youngster has the makings of a good cadet in him,” Don said. “Too bad he isn’t one of us. How would you like to be a cadet, Jimmie?”

The boy flushed with pleasure and looked around the tent. “I’d like it more than anything else in the world,” he told them. “I’ll tell you a secret. Want to hear it?”

“Well, if it isn’t too deep for us, we would,” Jim assured him.

“I’m saving my money to go to Woodcrest,” the little fellow confided. “Guess how much I have saved already?”

“I can’t imagine, but I hope it is a lot,” replied Don.

“It is!” was the eager retort. “I have a dollar and fifty-seven cents toward it!”

“That’s great!” said Terry promptly. “You’ll need a little more than that, but it is a good beginning, anyway. Just you keep on going.”

“I’ll surely be glad when I get a uniform like you have,” the boy went on, wistfully. “I think they’re swell.”

There were other boys who drifted to the camp but they did not attract the attention of the cadets as much as the Carson boy did. They came to look around and fool a bit and in time most of them were chased away. But Jimmie Carson was never in the way and so he was allowed to come often to camp.

One afternoon a group of cadets went for another hike over the Ridge and on the way back they passed the Carson farm. Jimmie called to them to come in and they did so. To their delight Mrs. Carson, a plain, kindly woman of middle age, insisted that they try a huge apple pie that she had made.

“Don’t give any to Terry, Mrs. Carson,” begged Jim, as they sat on the back porch. Don, Jim, Terry, Douglas and Vench were there at the time.

“Why is that? Doesn’t he feel well?” the farmer’s wife inquired, anxiously.

“He has had stomach trouble for a long time,” returned Jim, gravely. “The doctor said that of all things in the world, he mustn’t eat apple pie!”

“I’ll tell you what it is, Mrs. Carson,” spoke up the persecuted one, before anything else could be said. “I have a falling stomach and I can’t seem to locate the bottom at any time. But I’m sure that if I can only have a slice of that apple pie I’ll surely plug up the floor of my stomach and have no more trouble!”

“Of all the left-handed compliments in the world!” gasped Douglas. “He must think your pie is some kind of cement with which to secure his stomach. Tell a lady that her pie will plug him up!”

Mrs. Carson laughed heartily. “I guess there is nothing the matter with any of you boys,” she said. “Try my pie and see if it is like cement!”

“I could die of embarrassment!” murmured Terry, as he bit into his piece of pie. “But this pie will surely revive me.”

The farmer himself came up and talked to the boys for a time. The unexpected arrival of the soldiers on the Ridge and the subsequent contract to supply them with fresh food had done wonders for the poor farmer and his family. A good many dollars were coming his way from the camp down the slope.

“Here is the baby of the family,” smiled Mrs. Carson, appearing a little later with a pretty little girl of six. The cadets promptly forgot all else in their efforts to amuse and entertain Dorothy Carson. It was late before they headed back to camp, after thanking the farmer’s wife for the good time they had had.

“I’ve had pie before,” murmured Terry. “But never such pie as that!”

“Is that so?” inquired Jim. “Well, it is a cinch that Don and I can’t believe anything you say hereafter!”

“Why not?”

“Because one time at our house you said the same thing about my mother’s pie,” said Jim.

“But don’t forget, this pie helped his stomach!” said Vench, slyly. “Probably your mother’s pie didn’t plug up the bottom of his stomach!”

“If I ever speak again, it will be to myself, and in a dark room,” sighed Terry.

They had not been back in the tent long before the Officer of the Guard appeared at the tent with a list in his hand. “Lieutenant Mercer, you will report for guard duty at Post Number Three at twelve o’clock,” he informed Don.

“Very good, sir,” Don saluted.

At midnight Lieutenant Don reported to the sentry at the far end of the camp, at a point near the farm belonging to the Hyde family. After an exchange of instructions he took the post, waiting for the call. It came soon after.

“Sentry, Post Two,” someone said near to him. Don faced toward the sentry who was next to him. “Sentry, Post Three,” he called. Number Four passed the report call on until eight sentries had reported. Then they began their pacing up and down on their patrols.

Don’s stretch was a long one, extending from the edge of the camp at the company street to a point back of the horse corral. At no time did he meet the sentry who patrolled Post Four. Just at the time Don reached the place where Post Four joined his post the other sentry was at the far end of his stretch, and when Don had returned to the company street Number Four was at the beginning of his post patrol. In this way there was no likelihood of sentries stopping to chat and no huge gaps left in the line of patrol duty.

The moon was a mere slice but the stars were bright pinheads in the sky. The air was warm and heavy with the smell of the woods. Don enjoyed his patrol thoroughly. At twelve-thirty he looked up the Ridge casually. Toward the top he saw a tiny jet of flame, right above the Hyde place.

“Looks like somebody striking a match,” he reflected, pacing slowly.

Then he stopped quickly. The jet of flame sprang up rapidly. Something was burning, flaring up into a huge ball of roaring fire. And as Don looked, completely at a loss, this mass of flame moved with ever increasing speed down the hill toward the Hyde house!

9 Sharp Work as Fire Fighters

Don stood spellbound while the huge ball of fire rolled down on the Hyde place. There was a crash that he could hear plainly even at his distance and the burning ball hit the barn. In a twinkling of an eye the wooden structure caught fire.

Then Don came to life. Raising his rifle he fired three swift shots, waking the camp instantly.

The Officer of the Guard rushed up to him. “What is the trouble, Lieutenant?” the cadet panted. But a red glow in the sky told him the story at once.

“Report a large fire at that farmhouse,” said Don. The Officer of the Guard dug for the colonel.

By this time the cadet camp was well lighted by the glare from Hyde’s barn. The colonel saw that hard work was needed and he directed the bugler to sound assembly. This was done, and the half-dressed cadets fell in formation.

“Secure all pails and double-quick it to the farmhouse!” was the order. The colonel knew that in this rural area there was no organized fire department and whatever attempts were made to extinguish a fire always came from helpful neighbors. Instantly, the ranks broke and the commissary department was fairly turned upside down as the soldiers rummaged for pails. When these had been secured they raced down the company street and took the road to Hyde’s house.

Fortunately for them—and for the Hydes—the distance was short. When the first cadets arrived in the front yard the barn was a roaring furnace. Hyde and his two sons were running around the yard in an aimless fashion and as Jim and Terry arrived the three of them dashed into the blazing barn. A moment later they came out, each of them hanging onto squealing, thrashing horses.

“The horses!” cried Jim, and at the word the cavalrymen and the artillerymen formed a body around him. In a mass they rushed the door of the barn. Fighting their way inside past the Hydes, who were coming out, the cadets paused to look about the stable, gasping as the heavy smoke crowded down their lungs.

The inside of the barn was curiously lighted. A pall of heavy smoke hung in the structure, and through this curtain the dull red flames shone and licked. Snapping and crackling sounds reached their ears as the wood burned, and a terrible shrieking, from the terrified horses, went right through them. Blind with fear the animals kicked and screamed.

No word was spoken as the cadets made a rush for the nearest horses. Jim had not put on a shirt, but some of the others had and these they now whipped off, throwing them over the heads of the rearing animals. Jim scooped a blanket up from the rack as he passed and made a cast for the head of a big dray horse in a stall.