“It got Waddell--bad,” drawled Monty, biting a corner of his lip. “That’s why he sold out. It was gettin’ him. Bad.” Having filled the trench and patted the dirt smooth, Monty straightway began to dig another trench beside it. “What is there to get a fellow?” Gary looked challengingly at Monty. “I’ve stayed with it two weeks, and I haven’t been got yet.” He laughed a little. “The Piutes told me a man disappeared here and left his Voice behind him. Of course that’s Injun talk. What’s the straight of it, Monty?” “Well--nobody ever called me superstitious yet,” Monty grinned, “but that’s about the size of it. Steve Carson came up missing. Since then, there’s that Voice. I know it started in right away. I was over here helping hunt for him, and I heard it. Some says Steve went loco and tried to walk out. If he did, he left mighty onexpected, and he didn’t take anything at all with him. Not even a canteen, far as I could see. He had two, I know--and they was both hangin’ on the same nail beside the door. Uh course, he might a had another one--I hadn’t been over to Johnnywater for a coupla months, till I come over to see what was wrong. I was scoutin’ around the country for a week or more, tryin’ to get some trace of him.” Having completed the second trench, Monty filled that one as carefully as he had filled the first. Abruptly he looked at Gary. “Yuh-all ain’t--_seen_ anything, have yuh?” CHAPTER THIRTEEN “I DON’T BELIEVE IN SPOOKS” A silence significant, almost sinister, fell. Gary rose from the doorsill, took a restless step or two and turned, so that he faced Monty, and the open doorway. He looked past Monty, into the cabin. A quick glance, almost a furtive one. Then he laughed, meeting Monty’s inquiring eyes mockingly. “Seen anything? No. Nothing I shouldn’t see, at least. Why?” He laughed again, a mirthless kind of laugh. “Did Waddell throw in a spook along with the Voice?” “Waddy got powerful oneasy,” Monty observed, choosing his words with some care. “Waddy claimed he seen Steve Carson frequent. I didn’t know----Say! Did the Piutes tell yuh-all how Steve Carson looked?” Gary’s eyes slid away from Monty’s searching look. “No. I didn’t ask. I just got a notion that Waddell maybe looked like that.” He lifted his chin, his glance once more passing Monty by to go questing within the cabin. “I don’t believe in spooks,” he stated clearly, a defiant note creeping into his voice in spite of him. “That’s the bunk. When people start seeing spooks, it’s time they saw a doctor and had their heads X-rayed. I’ll tell you what I think, Monty. I think that when we check out, we stay _out_. Get me? I can’t feature giving death all these encores--when, damn it, the audience is sitting hunched down into its chairs with its hands over its faces, afraid to look. If we clapped and stamped and whistled to get ’em out before the curtain, then I’d say they had some excuse.