The library clock was striking six as he issued into the street. He had the work of an hour to accomplish in twenty-five minutes. Some freshmen, under the circumstances, would have gritted their teeth and cursed. Norse only gritted his teeth, for he was of another sort. Up South University Avenue to Washtenaw he ran. There, on the northwest corner, was a huge stone, set, doubtless, to prevent delivery boys from running their wagons over the curbing. The wind had blown the snow clear of this stone and Norse sank upon it, half exhausted. He proceeded to fix his skates to the soles of his heavy shoes without waiting to regain his breath. He stood up to test the clamps. They gripped viciously. Ahead lay the road, gleaming in the pale light. Norse smiled. Through the handles of the satchel he passed the skate strap and thrust his head through the loop, that the bag might swing against his back. He dug the point of one skate into the gritty crust, struck out with long, even strokes, and began a swift ascent of the Scott Hill on the Middle Road to Ypsilanti. IV Fifteen years ago there were four distinct and widely separated haunted houses in the vicinity of Ann Arbor. One, in West Huron Street, was for years pointed out to naughty children as the home of the original bogey man. On an occasion,--so the story goes--three seniors resolved to spend a night in the ticklish place for the purpose of determining scientifically the causes of the strange knockings and human groans that previous tenants had complained of. The results of their investigations were never known. The seniors were never seen again! That is the tale. The circulation of it tended to make their abiding-place secure to the spirits for many years. But at last an owner braver than those before him, and fortified by innumerable expressions of contempt in which a picturesque and virile profanity played a leading part, proceeded without more ado to raze the ancient structure to the ground. His action gave rise to a second story. It became generally understood that the spirits, their own home gone, joined forces with the ghostly occupants of the second haunted house in nightly carryings-on. Then this house was rent asunder. Thus it went until the time of this story when there remained but one authentic haunted house in town. Its location added to the mystery supposed to surround it. It capped a bleak hill on the left of the so-called "Middle Road" to Ypsilanti. Behind it loomed a dense wood and to the right and left stretched dreary fields, deserted save by the gophers and chipmunks whose superstition seemed not to warrant their leaving the premises after establishing or disestablishing the presence of ghostly occupants in the bleak house on the hill. The place was consistently pointed out to strangers as the midnight carnival-ground of the devil and his imps, and it was further gravely averred that horses shied in passing after nightfall.