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

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. K. started up again, and by another minute the old car had passed in among the trees, with the overgrown brush "swiping" against the sides every foot of the way. It was necessary that they proceed slowly and cautiously, because none of them had ever been over that long disused road before, and all sorts of obstacles might confront the bold invaders of the wilds.
Hugh was using his eyes to good advantage,