Truly it was a picturesque scene—a tumbled-down, old mill, the ancient wheel mossy-green with the growth of many years. The roof, in many places, had fallen into decay, and the flapping shutters, half-hanging on rusty hinges seemed like the closing eyelids of a very old man. The doors creaked dismally to and fro in the gentle wind, and the crumbling steps which had been worn by many tramping feet, were tumbling stone from stone. “And this is the haunted mill?” asked Natalie. “It is,” said Blake, simply. “A dark tragedy is hidden behind its crumbling walls.” “What is it?” asked Marie eagerly. “It is a fearsome tale, gentle ladies, a tale for the flickering camp fire rather than for the garish light of day, but such as it is it shall e’en be told unto you.” “Cut out the romantic slush, and give ’em the facts,” broke in Jack. “It’s a mill that was built somewhere around the Revolutionary time,” he went on, “and the story goes that some women and children who took refuge here during an Indian attack were killed by the savages.” “Oh!” murmured the girls. “Really, Jack?” asked his sister, who knew him well. “That’s a fact,” declared Blake, “only he puts it so crudely. He might add that on the anniversary of the massacre the moans of the—er—of those who were cut down in the flower of their youth—echo through the old mill.” “Stop it!” demanded Natalie. “Even in daylight that’s bad enough. If you try to tell that after dark we—we’ll——” “Use the ammonia gun on him!” threatened Mrs. Bonnell. “Well, I’m only telling you the story,” declared Blake. “You don’t have to believe it.” “And does that old man who helped us live here?” asked Alice. “In a little shack around in the back,” said Phil. “Come on, we’ll look at it, and then we’ll go in the mill.” “And does he live in there?” came a chorus from the girls, as they viewed the little shack which the boys pointed out to them. It was a mere hut, consisting of but a single room, into which they looked through not too clean a window. “There is where he lives, moves and has his being,” declaimed Blake. “I guess he isn’t in,” he went on, as he rattled at the rickety door. “Blake!” remonstrated his sister. “He may not like it.” “Oh, we stand in good with Hanson,” declared Jack. “We keep him in tobacco money.” “Horrid!” murmured Natalie. “Let’s go in the mill,” suggested Jack. “There is some curious old-fashioned machinery there that’s worth seeing. This is an historical place.” “I love old places,” murmured Natalie. “But, oh! My camera!” A musty, old, and damp odor greeted them as they crossed the rotting threshold of the ancient mill. “Mind the holes in the floor,” cautioned Jack. “It’s no fun to step into one!” They advanced into the old structure and for a moment stood in the middle of the sagging floor. Overhead were cobwebbed beams and rafters, and from somewhere below came the faint gurgle of the former mill stream that had been wont, in years past, to turn the big wheel.