“No, he isn’t right,” chirped up Billy. “Mouser had it straight when he talked about hearing ghosts walking.”
“There you are,” said Mouser, glad of the reinforcement.
“It’s easy enough to say that,” put in Howell, “but how are you going to prove it? All the books I ever read say that they don’t make any noise. You can’t bear them coming. So what do you make of that?” he added turning triumphantly toward Billy.
The latter however seemed not to be a bit disturbed.
“All the same I’m right,” he asserted with quiet confidence.
“How can you prove it?” demanded Howell defiantly.
“That’s the talk” came from the others. “Prove it, Billy. Put up or shut up.”
“All right,” replied Billy, accepting the challenge. “I know that ghosts walk because I’ve heard them do it!”
CHAPTER V
PUTTING ONE OVER
There was a shout of amazement from the boys in which could be detected an element of unbelief and derision. But there was also a note of awe that was balm to Billy’s soul. Any one who was so familiar with the supernatural was not to be regarded lightly. Billy felt that he had scored a decided hit and swelled out his chest importantly.
“When did you hear them walk?” asked Skeets, looking about him a little apprehensively.
“You’re just kidding,” declared Shiner, stoutly. “I don’t believe a word of it.”
“I think that Billy’s getting us on a string,” affirmed Fred, although his eager eyes showed that he was none too sure of it.
Billy waited for the storm of protest and comment to subside.
“I mean just what I said,” he affirmed. “Cross my heart and hope to die if I don’t.”
This solemn affirmation helped to quell the doubters, especially as there was nothing to arouse suspicion in Billy’s sober face.
“Well then, tell us all about it,” urged Mouser, who was anxious to obtain confirmation of his own belief.
“It was in our town when old General Bixby was buried,” explained Billy, amid a silence in which one could have heard a pin drop. “There was a big turnout and the band played awful solemn music.”
He paused for a moment.
“Yes, go on, go on,” urged Skeets excitedly. “Was it then that you heard the ghosts walk?”
“Yes,” replied Billy. “It was then that I heard the Dead March.”
There was a moment of stupefaction, as the idea filtered into the minds of Billy’s dupes. Bobby grasped it first.
“Run, Billy run!” he counseled. “They’ll kill you for that!”
But Billy had already edged his way to the rim of the group and by the time they lunged for him was safely out of reach. Then he danced a jig and went through various gestures expressive of his pity and contempt for the victims who had let themselves so readily be taken in.
“It’s too easy,” he shouted. “It really isn’t sportsmanlike to take advantage of such innocent boobs. It’s like taking candy from a baby.”
“It’s no use,” declared Bobby. “Billy is a hopeless case.”
“He sure is,” agreed Mouser, whose faith in ghosts had received a severe bump. “I was watching his face too, but he was so sober that I fell for it and fell good and hard. The only satisfaction is that the rest of you fell for it too.”
Just then Dr. Raymond, the head of the school approached, and the boys subsided. The doctor smiled pleasantly at the group and singled out Bobby.
“I’d like to have you come to my office in a few minutes, Blake,” he said, “and you also Martin and Bangs. I have something to say to you.”
“Very well, sir,” the boys assented.
The doctor passed on, and the boys looked at each other. Usually an invitation to the doctor’s office portended something unpleasant, and was not looked forward to with any degree of enthusiasm.
“Now you’re going to catch it,” chaffed Skeets.
“What have you roughnecks been up to now?” demanded Shiner with mock severity.
“Perhaps he’s going to scold you for falling for my jokes,” Billy rubbed it in.
But the three who had been summoned only smiled. There had been times after midnight spreads and other escapades, when such an invitation would have made them decidedly uneasy. But just at the moment their consciences were clear, and it was without misgiving that a few minutes later they knocked at the doctor’s door and were told to come in.
The doctor was seated at his desk, but rose as they entered and motioned them to seats. He was a tall, rather spare man of middle age, with keen eyes and the face of a scholar, in which could be seen also the experience of a man of affairs. There was an air of natural dignity about him that warned any one that he would be an unsafe man to trifle with. But although he was a strict disciplinarian and the boys stood in wholesome awe of him, he was yet tolerant and broadminded and absolutely just. Any boy that was summoned before him for an alleged offense could be certain of being heard in his own defense, and of getting a “square deal;” and wherever possible, justice would be tempered with mercy.
He had built up a reputation for Rockledge School that was spread far and wide. His instructors were well chosen, the manners and morals of the boys were carefully looked after, and parents had no hesitation in confiding their boys to his keeping. The institution was fortunate in its location, standing on the shores of Monatook Lake, a beautiful body of water, which afforded facilities for bathing, boating and fishing in Summer and for skating and other ice sports in Winter. In addition to these natural advantages, the school had a well-equipped gymnasium and excellently laid out fields for football, baseball and other sports. For training both the mind and the body, Rockledge School left little to be desired; and this was so well understood in that part of the country that there was usually a waiting list of applicants for admission to the strictly limited number of pupils.
“I have sent for you boys,” the doctor said, after they had seated themselves, “to thank you on behalf of myself and the school for the gallant thing you did to-day in saving those boys from drowning in the lake. It took a lot of pluck and hard work, and I’m proud of you.”
The boys looked embarrassed.
“How is Lee Cartier getting along, Dr. Raymond?” asked Bobby eagerly, glad to change the subject. “Mr. Carrier told me that he wasn’t well enough for us to see him.”
The doctor’s face took on a worried look.
“It’s a little early to tell yet,” be replied. “Dr. Evans, who has just gone, told me that the drenching he had received and the exposure afterward while you were getting back to shore had been a severe shock to his system. He comes from the South, you know, and hasn’t been up here long enough to get hardened to our climate. There is a possibility that he may be in for a serious illness. Still, we’ll hope for the best. I won’t keep you any longer,” he said, rising as a signal of dismissal, “but I want once more to say to you that you have done honor to yourselves and the school.”
The boys bowed themselves out and closed the door behind them.
“The doctor’s a brick, isn’t he?” remarked Fred, as they went down the hall.
“You bet he is,” agreed Sparrow. “He’s the real goods.”
“He’s all wool and a yard wide,” was Bobby’s tribute to the head of Rockledge School.
A week passed swiftly by and then another, and by that time Winter had come in earnest. There had as yet been no snow, but the weather had become intensely cold and the lake was beginning to freeze