"This made little impression at the house until Mose himself was frightened; then Radnor saw that the hoax had reached the point where it was no longer funny, and he determined to get rid of Jeff immediately. While he drove him to the station he left Mose behind to straighten up the loft; and Mose, coming into the house to put some things away, met ghost number two just after he had robbed the safe. If Mose's eyes looked as they did to-day I fancy the fright was mutual. The ghost, in his excitement, dropped one package of papers, but bolted with the rest. He made for his lair in the spring-hole and examined his booty. The bonds were no more than old paper; he tossed them aside. But the pennies and five-cent pieces were real; he lit out for the village with them. The robbery was not discovered till morning and by that time the fellow was at 'Jake's place' on his way toward being the drunkest nigger in the county. "He stayed at the Corners a week or so until the money was gone, then he came back to the spring-hole. But he made the mistake of venturing out by daylight; the stable-men caught him and took him to the Colonel, and you know the rest. "As soon as I heard the story of the beating I decided to follow it up; and when I heard of a jet black spirit rising from the spring-hole, I decided to follow that up too. At daylight this morning I routed out one of the stable-men, and we went down and examined the spring-hole; at least I examined it while he stood outside and shivered. It yielded an even bigger find than I had hoped for. Chucked off in a corner and trampled with mud I found the bonds. A pile of clothing and carriage cushions formed a bed. There were the remains of several fires and of a great many chickens--the whole place was strewn with feathers and bones; he had evidently raided the roosts more than once. "When I finished with the spring-hole it still lacked something of six o'clock and I rode over to the village hoping to get an answer to my telegram. I wanted to get Jeff's case settled. 'Miller's store' was not open but 'Jake's place' was, and it was not long before I got on the track of my man. There was no doubt but that I had him accounted for up to the time of the thrashing; after that I could only conjecture. He had not appeared in the village again; the supposition was that he had taken to the woods. Now he might or he might not have come in the direction of Luray. All the facts I had to go upon were, a man of criminal proclivities, who owed Colonel Gaylord a grudge, and who was used to hiding in caves. It was pure supposition that he had come in this direction and it had to be checked at every point by fact. I didn't mention my suspicions because there was no use in raising false hopes and because, well--" "You wanted to be dramatic," I suggested. "Oh, yes, certainly, that's my business. Well, anyway I felt I was getting warm, and I came over here this morning with my eyes open, ready to see what there was to see.