"Well, it is a long yarn," replied Pullen, "but, from your make-up, the island is just such a spot as you would enjoy visiting. As I told you the other night, I was born and brought up on an island off the coast of Maine, and when I was quite a lad I first heard about this island, and that no one ever went there because it was haunted. I wasn't old enough to understand what being haunted meant, but later on I did. They used to tell about it being a hiding-place for smugglers before I was born, and that a murder had been committed there and that some one in a fishing boat had seen a man fully ten feet tall, standing on a cliff on it, one night. Dad, who was a sea captain, used to laugh at all this, and yet almost everybody believed there was some mystery connected with it. Another thing, I guess, helped give it a bad name was the fact that a ship was wrecked on it once, and no one discovered it until long after, and then they found four or five skeletons among the rocks. Another queer thing about this island that is really a fact is, that any time, day or night, you can hear a strange, bellowing sound like that of a mad bull, coming from somewhere on it. When there is a storm you can hear it for miles away. The sound can't be located anywhere, and yet you can hear it all the time. If you are one side, it seems to come from the other, and go around to that side and it is back where you came from. Inside the island is a circular pocket or walled-in harbor, like the crater of a volcano, that is entered through a narrow passage between two cliffs. Altogether it's a curious place, but as for ghosts--well, I've been there many a time and never saw one yet. But then, I do not believe in spooks, and perhaps that accounts for it. It's like the believers in spiritualism, that can readily see their dead ancestors' faces peering out of a cabinet, and all that sort of bosh, but I never could. I'll bet," with a laugh, "that you could go to Pocket Island and see ghosts by the dozen." "I would like to go there," replied Manson quietly, "and if we ever get home alive, I will." "Come and make a visit, and I'll take you there," said Pullen; "that is" (soberly) "if I ever go home." The story-telling ceased while the two friends, each thinking of the same thing, gravely watched the slowly fading fire. "Come," said Pullen at last, "quit thinking about what may happen, and tell me another ghost story. It's your turn now." But Manson was silent, for the story-telling mood had fled, and his thoughts were far away. "Where are you now?" continued Pullen, studying his comrade's face. "With some girl, I'll bet; am I right?" "Yes," answered Manson slowly, "I was with some one just then, and thinking of a fool promise I exacted from her before I left, and all this ghost-story telling has made me realize what an injury I may have done her by exacting that promise." "Tell me," said Pullen, "I can sympathize with you, for I, too, have a girl I left behind me."