Pathfinder | Page 9

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