"They were dark shadows, that"s all. No moon to see by, or at least not enough. Couldn"t make out what they looked like."
"Has anyone else seen them in the fields?" Scotty wanted to know.
"Sure enough. Two or three that I know of, maybe more."
The tenant farmer paused, then asked a question of his own. "Why are you so interested in this new ice-cream man?"
Rick considered. "He interested us," he said finally. "He"s not a Virginian. And he didn"t seem to know much about the ghost."
Belsely"s comment brought Rick"s carefully built up a.s.sumptions tumbling down around his ears. "Oh, he knows about the ghost, all right. He saw it once that I know of, when he was sellin" ice cream to the girl campers." The farmer added, "I was standin" right next to him at the time."
Rick looked at Scotty helplessly. "Thank you, Mr. Belsely," he said unhappily. "You"ve certainly given us plenty to think about!"
The boys watched as the tenant farmer walked up the road to his own house, as solid and dependable as the very earth he walked on. There was no arguing with what he had seen, only with his interpretation of it.
Clearly, Rick thought, he had seen figures in the fields on several occasions. But what had the figures actually been doing?
"Don"t be too discouraged," Scotty offered. "The ice-cream man seeing the ghost doesn"t mean he isn"t involved. Wasn"t the girls" picnic the first time the ghost made a public appearance? He may have been checking on the way the ghost looked."
"What do you suppose Belsely was doing there?" Rick asked.
"Probably just wandered over to see what was going on. I"ve noticed people are pretty casual about the affairs over there. No reason why Belsely wouldn"t take an evening stroll to see how the party was going."
"Well keep our plan," Rick decided. "It"s the only lead we have, so we"d better use it."
By the time the Sons of the Old Dominion started to arrive for the annual feast, the boys were in their chosen position, upstream from the mine at a point where they couldn"t fail to see all who traveled the road, but where no one could see them through the thick screen of foliage.
They had applied insect repellent liberally, but the insects swarmed around them anyway, although bites were few. They lay quietly and watched car after car arrive, but without seeing a familiar face.
During a lull in the traffic Rick asked, "Do you suppose we got here too late? He may have come earlier."
"I doubt it. Besides, where would he have parked his scooter? It isn"t anywhere between us and the mine because we looked, and I doubt that he"d walk any farther than this."
Rick had to agree that it wouldn"t make much sense to park the vehicle any farther away than the spot they had selected from which to watch.
The traffic ceased. All Sons of the Old Dominion apparently had arrived, and all were presumably feasting on good food. It was only eight o"clock; the ghost wasn"t due for an hour. Rick thought an hour was probably more than the ghost producer needed to get ready for his appearance. Only a few minutes might be needed. That meant he and Scotty would have to wait until a few minutes before nine, to be sure no one slipped by.
One late arrival roared past as they waited, and then all was quiet. At ten minutes to nine Rick admitted defeat. "Either he isn"t coming, or he got there through the fields. Let"s go see if he shows up."
As they hiked down the road, ears attuned for a motor vehicle behind them, Rick explained his theory of ghost production to Scotty. "There"s only one way a transparent spook can be produced, and that"s optically.
In the movies they use a double exposure. The only way to produce an optical image on mist is with a projector of some kind."
"Spook projector," Scotty agreed. "Only where is this projector located?"
That, Rick pointed out, was the prize-winning question. "All we can do is keep an eye open for the projector beam."
"Both eyes," Scotty corrected.
It was one minute before nine when they arrived at the mine entrance.
The Sons of the Old Dominion were still eating, but there was a lack of noise or joyousness that made Rick aware that the Sons knew about the ghost. He saw groups facing the place where the ghost would appear.
The boys were in front of the mine entrance. By unspoken agreement they moved to a position directly in front of the pool. If the ghost appeared, it would be almost over their heads. The shelf was too high for them to see into the water, but they were in a position where any human activity couldn"t possibly be overlooked.
"On your toes," Scotty whispered. "Let"s rush it while the Blue Ghost is still there."
Rick swallowed hard. In spite of his conviction that a human agency, and not a supernatural one, produced the Blue Ghost, he didn"t care much for rushing right into the apparition. In fact, he didn"t like it at all.
The mist had felt clammy the first time, even though no harm had come to them. But, he told himself sternly, Scotty was right. They either had faith in their a.s.sumptions or they didn"t.
"Wait until the show is almost over," Rick whispered.
A voice from behind them called, "Better get out of there, you two.
That"s where the ghost appears."
The boys turned to rea.s.sure their well-wisher, and in that moment a sigh went up from the crowd. Rick heard a sudden splash, and then the white mist was rising, billowing almost over their heads!
He watched, fascinated and scared, and saw the Blue Ghost appear. The apparition was elongated from Rick"s viewpoint, but the act was the same. The boy saw no sign of a projector beam, no sign of any human agency, and the lack of both turned his knees to water. He was close--very close--yet he could detect no sign of human origin in the thing overhead. Horror swept through him. Had he been wrong, he and Scotty?
His pal"s hand fell sharply on his back. "Let"s get him, boy! Let"s find out for once and all!"
Somehow he got his legs moving. He and Scotty went up the steep slope, scrambling right toward the thing that was now holding out b.l.o.o.d.y hands!
They were in the mist! Rick sensed the blueness around him, and with sick horror realized that the ghost continued his act as though they were not even there.
Scotty yelled, and in the same instant sharp pain swept across Rick"s face. Bitter, terrible cold encompa.s.sed him, turned the skin on his face rigid, seared his eyeb.a.l.l.s with cold so intense it was like burning heat. He staggered and fell, hands clutching his frozen face. He tried to yell for help and couldn"t. He rolled down the hillside that he had climbed seconds before, and Scotty"s falling body crashed into him, knocked the breath from him.
And overhead, the vision of the Union cavalry officer, face distorted in agony, faded slowly from sight, leaving only the icy, billowing mist.
CHAPTER XII
The Dead Water
Hands lifted Rick and Scotty to their feet and voices demanded to know what had happened. Other voices berated them, calling them a pair of young idiots for rushing a ghost like that.
Rick staggered in the grip of the supporting hands. His heart was pounding and there was a constriction in his chest. Tears streamed down his cheeks as his tear ducts spouted fluid to protect his eyes from the now-vanishing cold. His cheeks felt numb, but sensation was returning.
At last he regained his equilibrium and found his handkerchief. He mopped his face and suddenly realized that his face was flushed, as though with fever. The sensation of burning cold was gone. He took a deep breath, grateful to be nearly normal again.
Scotty was also back to near normal. To the questions from the surrounding circle of Sons of the Old Dominion they could only say that they didn"t know what had happened.
"Suddenly our faces froze," Rick explained shakily. "At least mine did."
"Same here," Scotty supplemented.
"It was like the cold of ... of ... I don"t know, really. It was cold, but like nothing I"ve ever experienced before. The shock was so great I just sort of crumpled and fell."