The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path | Page 4

hardly like to say," replied Hugh thoughtfully. "As a general thing
that odd, moving light is seen in low, damp places. Often it is noticed
in graveyards in the country, and is believed to be induced by a
condition of the atmosphere, causing something like phosphorescence.
You know what a firefly or lightning bug is like, don't you, Horatio?
Yes, and a glow-worm also? Well, they say that there are black-looking
pools of stagnant water lying around the old quarry; and yes, I think the
lights seen might come from just such conditions."
"That sounds all very well, Hugh," continued Julius, "but what about
the terrifying cry that sometimes wells up from that same place?"
"A cry, Julius, do you say?" exclaimed Horatio, his eyes growing round
now with increasing wonder and thrilling interest, "do you really and
truly mean that, or are you only joshing?"
"Well," the narrator went on to say soberly, "two fellows told me they'd
heard that same shriek. One was hunting a stray heifer when he found
himself near the quarry, and then got a shock that sent him on the run
all the way home, regardless of trees he banged into, for it was
night-time, with only a quarter-moon up in the western sky. The other
had laughed at all such silly stories, and to prove his bravery concluded
to venture out there one night when the moon was as round as a
cartwheel. He got close to the deserted workings when he too had a
chill as he heard the most outlandish cry agoing, three times repeated,
and----well, he grinned when he confessed that it took him just about
one-fifth the time to get back home that he'd spent in the going."
"Whee! perhaps there may be some sort of wild animal in one of the

caves they tell about up there?" ventured Horatio. "I'm not a believer in
ghosts, and I don't consider myself a coward, either; but all the same
it'd have to be something pretty big to induce me to walk out there to
that same lonely quarry after nightfall. Now laugh if you want to, K.
K."
"Well," interrupted Hugh, just then, "we're approaching the place right
now where that old quarry road I spoke of starts in. I'd like ever so
much to take a look at that same quarry, by daylight, mind you. Is there
any objection, fellows, to our testing out that road right now? It used to
be a pretty fair proposition I've been told, so far as a road goes, and I
think we could navigate the same in this car. K. K. how do you stand
on that proposition, for one?"
"Count me in on anything that promises an adventure, Hugh," came the
prompt reply. "There is plenty of gas in the tank, and if we do get a
puncture on the sharp stones we've got an extra tube along, with lots
and lots of muscle lying around loose for changing the same. That's my
answer, Hugh."
"Thad, how about you?" continued the shrewd Hugh, well knowing that
by making an individual appeal he would be more apt to receive a
favorable response, because it goes against the average boy's pride to
be accounted a weakling, or one addicted to believing old wives' fairy
stories of goblins, and all such trash.
"Oh, count me in, Hugh," responded the other, with an indifference that
may possibly have been partly assumed; but then Thad Stevens was
always ready to back his enterprising chum, no matter what the other
suggested.
"Horatio, it's up to you now!" Hugh went on remorselessly, as K. K.
stopped the car at a signal from the other, and faint signs of what had
once been a road were to be distinguished just on the left.
"Majority rules, you know," said the wise Juggins boy, "and already
three have given their assent; so it's no back-out for little Horatio."

"Course I'll agree, Hugh," quickly added Julius, when he saw that the
other had turned toward him. "I'm just as curious as the next fellow to
see that old haunted quarry--in the daytime, of course. Besides,
everybody knows there isn't any such thing as a ghost. All such stories,
when they're sifted down, turn out to be humbugs. Sometimes the
moving spectre is a white donkey browsing alongside the road. Then
again I've heard of how it was a swing that had a white pillow left in it
by the children, and the night wind caused it to advance and retreat in a
terrible way. Hugh, let's investigate this silly old business while we're
on the spot."
And by these wonderfully brave words Julius hoped to dissipate any
notion concerning his alleged timidity that may have lodged in the
brains of his chums.
So K.