The slight sound made by travelers here reechoed as if a score of spectral voices were complaining of the strangers’ intrusion into their domain. The place was called Ghost’s Trail and with reason, for one had but to pause where a death’s head was graven on a wayside stone and call aloud, when there answered a wailing chorus out of the solemn depths. It was said that two large rocks were responsible for these ghostly medleys. But some there were who found the explanation in a murder which had once been committed at this lonely spot. Be this as it might, there was something eery about this sequestered way which afforded a short cut to Temple Camp. The playing of the shadows conjured up queer figures which often seemed like human forms lurking among the trees. Such was Tom’s first impression of a moving object ill-concealed beyond a trunk. Soon, however, as the travelers came abreast of the tree, there emerged a gaunt figure, surprised into reluctant exposure, and trembling visibly. It was the figure of a youngish man in the last extreme of emaciation and shabbiness, but Tom could make no guess as to his age for before he could glimpse the face the stranger was already hurrying along the path in the direction from which our travelers had come. What Tom did notice with surprise was that old Caleb Dyker stood stark still, staring back at the almost fleeing form. “You know him?” Tom asked. But his companion did not answer, only stood, as it seemed transfixed, staring at the apparition. “You know him?” he repeated curiously. “That you, Joey?” the old man called in the high pitched, broken voice of age. The moment seemed tense though Tom did not know why. “Joey—that you?” But the hurrying figure neither turned nor answered. CHAPTER VIII THE DERELICT FINDS A PORT For a moment Tom’s imagination pictured the stranger as the fugitive grandson and he was conscious of a certain amusement at the likeness of such a meeting to the happenings in a photo-play. “Know him?” he asked rather anxiously. “I thought it were Joey Ganley,” the old man said. “His folks were neighbors of mine in the old village. He went out west, Joey did, when they stole our homes. He done well out there and sent his mother money to build a house in the new village. You didn’t happen to see that house?” The old man did not vouchsafe Tom any details by which Joe Ganley’s fine gift to his mother might be identified. “N—not to know it,” said Tom. “I haven’t been in West Hurley much.” “In Woodstock they have crazy artists,” the old man said, apparently forgetting all about the stranger. “That’s near West Hurley, isn’t it?” “Some on ’em wears socks two different colors. One of ’em has long hair wanted to paint me in a picture. You don’t happen to know him, do you? He gave me two dollars.”