CHAPTER XI

TOM HAS A SPOOK HUNT OF HIS OWN

“WHY, my boy,” murmured Mr. Tremaine, in a kindly tone, “you appear to be altogether demoralized.”

“I am a bit upset, just for the moment,” Dixon admitted. “Yet I am not a coward.”

“You don’t believe, actually, there are any such things as ghosts?” queried his host.

“Certainly not!”

“Then——”

“But I can’t begin to account for what I saw, nor for what happened. Tremaine, what would you say if you saw a white apparition—a big one—and if you fired four shots through it, almost at arm’s length, without injuring that apparition? What then?”

“I’d be puzzled, I admit,” assented the older man. “I can’t understand your experience.”

“I guess I’m a bit steadier, now,” laughed Oliver Dixon, presently. “Now, what do you want to do, Tremaine? I’m with you for whatever you say.”

“Why, we can’t both leave the house. Will you watch here while I go into the woods where you met with your adventure?”

“Are you going alone?” demanded the younger man, as though a good deal astonished.

“Why, yes; certainly.”

“Don’t you think it foolhardy?”

“Well, _you_ got out alive, didn’t you?” questioned Henry Tremaine, with a quizzical smile. “I’ll hope for at least just as good luck.”

“Shan’t I call the boys, and have at least one of them go with you? Or else, leave them on guard here, while I go with you?”

“It isn’t necessary,” decided the owner of the bungalow, promptly. “The boys need some sleep to-night. Let them sleep. You stay here and I’ll try to pick up your route through the woods. Now, describe to me, as well as you can, where you went.”

This Dixon either did, or pretended to do.

“Keep your eyes all around the outside of the house here,” was Tremaine’s last word, after which, holding his rifle at ready, he trudged off over the grounds and into the woods.

More than an hour passed before the owner of the bungalow came back.

“I saw nothing—absolutely nothing, nor heard anything,” reported Mr. Tremaine. “Dixon, I can’t fathom your experience in the woods.”

“I can’t either,” admitted the younger man.

It did not occur to the older man to doubt Dixon. Though their acquaintance was recent, Dixon had impressed Henry Tremaine as being a gentleman, and dependable.

For some little time the two discussed Dixon’s alleged experience with the ghost, as they strolled around the house through the dark. At last it came time to call Tom Halstead and Joe Dawson for their next tour of watch duty, and Tremaine went inside to arouse them.

Though gaping a bit drowsily, both boys responded promptly, taking over the rifles and a supply of ammunition from the men whom they were to relieve.

“When you two get through it will be daylight,” announced Mr. Tremaine. “Slip into the house, then, and get at least a bit of a nap. I’ll see to it that you’re called in plenty of time for the day’s sport. Get all the sleep you possibly can.”

Following this, Mr. Tremaine gave a brief account of Dixon’s “adventure.” Then Dixon himself gave a more detailed description of his alleged meeting with the “ghost.” To him, however, Tom and Joe listened with but scant attention. Their dislike of Dixon had grown to a point where it was difficult even to pretend politeness to him.

“Humph!” uttered Joe, when the two men had gone inside the bungalow.

“That’s your opinion of Dixon’s yarn, is it?” demanded Halstead.

“He’s either lying, or dreaming,” proclaimed young Dawson, bluntly.

“I’d like to find out which,” muttered Captain Tom, “though I can guess, already. Joe, old fellow, you don’t say much, but I’m fast learning to pin to your judgments of people. You didn’t like Dixon from the first moment he showed himself on board the ‘Restless,’ did you?”

“I don’t believe I enthused over him,” grimaced Dawson.

“Dixon couldn’t really be responsible for the Ghost of Alligator Swamp, could he?” demanded Tom Halstead, suddenly.

After that abrupt query both boys were silent for a while as they trudged about the grounds together.

“No,” decided Joe, at last. “It isn’t at all likely, for, according to Ham Mockus, and also according to some of the white people we talked with in Tres Arbores, the Ghost of Alligator Swamp has been doing business for the last three years, at least.”

Twice more around the house they went. Tom, thinking deeply, at last burst forth:

“Joe, I’m going to do just what Dixon did. I’m going into the woods yonder, and see whether _I_ can have the luck to encounter that big white spook.”

Joe Dawson halted, peering queerly into his chum’s face.

“Tom, you don’t mean that!”

“Yes, I do.”

“But the risk? I don’t mean the spook. You’d like only too well to meet that, I know. I mean the snakes. In a country as full of rattlers as this section is, it’s mighty dangerous to go stepping about through the woods on a dark night.”

“Dixon braved ’em, didn’t he?” challenged Tom Halstead, defiantly.

“He only says he did, remember. My idea is that he didn’t go very far into the woods.”

“Well—I’m going,” said Tom, deliberately, after a thoughtful pause.

“Be careful, then, old fellow!”

Joe, who seldom said much, and who rarely did anything demonstrative, reached out his hand, gripping Halstead’s.

“I’m wishing myself good luck,” laughed Halstead, over his shoulder, as he started away. “If I’m gone a goodish while, don’t worry. And remember that your post is guarding the house!”

Joe Dawson felt a sense of almost unaccountable uneasiness steal over him as his straining eyes watched his chum slowly vanish into the gloom, and then finally disappear under the shadows of the trees at the edge of the forest.

“I wonder if I ought to have kept him back?” chafed Joe Dawson, again and again, as he trudged vigilantly around the bungalow, pausing to peer off into the darkness whenever he came around to the side from which Skipper Tom Halstead had departed.

Joe became more worried every moment. Yet the time slipped by. From the forest came not a sound or a sign of any kind. At last the first pale streaks of dawn appeared.

“Say!” muttered Joe, almost angrily, halting to glare off at the forest. “What on earth is Tom doing—taking a nap under the trees?”

Daylight became more pronounced. Surely, there could be no harm in leaving the yard for a moment or two—now. Joe darted into the bungalow, up the stairs, and into the room where Jeff Randolph slept.

“Come, get up!” commanded Dawson, energetically. “Get a gun and come down by the door. Tom Halstead is missing, and I’ve got to go after him.”

Though Jeff was, at first, inclined to resent the arousing, as soon as he understood what was in the wind the Florida boy tumbled off his cot in lively fashion and began to pull on his clothes.

“Anything up, Dawson?” softly called Henry Tremaine, poking his head through the doorway of his bedroom.

“Tom Halstead went into the woods, and hasn’t come back,” quivered Joe. “I’m going to look for him.”

“Don’t stir until I get down below,” called Henry Tremaine, sharply. “I’ll be there in a minute and a fraction.”

Nor did Joe Dawson have to wait long ere Henry Tremaine, with hunting rifle in hand, bounded out from the house, followed by Oliver Dixon.

“Dixon will stand on guard here, while the rest of us go into the woods,” declared Tremaine. “Now, lead on quickly, the way you saw Halstead go.”

Off at a quick run started Joe Dawson. They entered the woods, spreading out in a line as they went.

“Here—everybody!” yelled Henry Tremaine, within two minutes. His hail brought Joe and Jeff to him on the jump.

“Look at the ground here,” cried the owner of the bungalow, hoarsely. “There’s been a struggle here.”

“And good old Tom was in it!” panted Joe, making a dive for the ground, then holding up one of the brass uniform buttons bearing the monogram of the Motor Boat Club.

The three discoverers stood staring blankly at one another for the next few seconds.

“See if there’s a trail—look about for it,” commanded Tremaine, himself beginning to search about over the ground.

“Here’s the start of one,” called Jeff, presently. “And now it dies out. Hunters of the Everglades, I reckon, were the men who did this trick. They know how to cover trails. Yet perhaps they’ve given us a clue, for the trail, as it starts, heads toward the water.”

Feverishly these startled ones pressed on to the lake’s edge. As they came down to the water they saw no craft out yonder—nothing but the morning mist over the surface of the lake and the many small islands visible from where they stood.

“Great Scott!” roared Joe. “Look at the pier! The launch is gone—taken from under our very noses!”

It did not require a second look to make sure that the motor boat was, indeed, gone!