Part 3 (1/2)

”Eight o'clock and all's not well, I'm afraid,” suggested Fred.

”Are you afraid?” demanded John with a laugh.

”No, I'm not afraid, but somehow when I think of this business,” replied Fred, ”I find I have some s.h.i.+vers.”

”You had better not go, my lad,” said John solemnly. ”This is no place for infants or those afflicted with chills.”

”I'm not chilly enough to stay home if all of you are going,” retorted Fred.

”It's just the kind of a night we want,” spoke up George. ”There isn't any moon and it's going to be dark.”

”Those clouds look as if it might rain,” suggested Grant.

”That will be all the better,” said George. ”The darker the night the better the spooks behave. They say it's almost impossible to find any there on a moonlight night.”

”I hope we'll find some to-night,” laughed John, but his voice somehow seemed to belie his confidence.

At all events there was not much conversation in the automobile as it sped swiftly down the road.

George, who was driving, occasionally referred to the various stories he had heard of the deeds in the Meeker House, but his efforts did not meet with any marked response until he said, ”I have heard that Claudius Smith sometimes shows up in the old house.”

”Who's he?”

”He _was_ a Cowboy. He lived more than one hundred and twenty-five years ago. You have got to speak of him as one who 'was' and not 'is'.”

”What makes him come back to the old house?”

”It was one of his favorite places, I'm told.”

”What was he?”

”I told you he was a Cowboy. He got to acting so badly that at last all the farmers and their boys that could be spared from the army got together and chased him clear down on Long Island.”

”Did they get him?” inquired Fred.

”They did. They brought him back and took him to Goshen, where they hanged him in the old courtyard.”

”I shouldn't think he would come back here to the Meeker House,”

suggested Grant. ”I should think his ghost would 'hang' around the court house up at Goshen.”

”I can't tell you about that,” said George, ”but it may be that he follows the road he used to travel. That may be the reason why part of the time he's here at the old Meeker House.”

”He must have been a great boy,” suggested Fred.

”He certainly was, and he wasn't the only one. I have heard my father tell about a man here in Jersey named f.a.gan. He was one of the Cowboys that they used to call the Pine Robbers.”

”Who were they?” inquired John.

”Why there were a dozen or more bands of these Pine Robbers. They used to make their headquarters in the Pines back of Lakewood. They would dig a hole in the sand and hide in it the stuff they had stolen, and then, when they had enough to make up a cargo they would take it to Toms River and s.h.i.+p it to New York, where William Franklin helped them dispose of it.”