“Perhaps, but I am telling you only facts. Well, time slipped by and I was treated worse and worse at the boarding school. Then, one day I got a letter from an old woman who had once been a servant in the Robertson family. She said she was dying, but before she died she wished to tell me something. She said she was sure that William Robertson had made a will leaving his property to my mother and her heirs. She said she thought he had gone to the old mill with it, and that maybe the will was hidden in the mill. She added that Jabez Trask knew about this will and was looking for it and probably wanted to destroy it, so that he could keep possession of the Robertson fortune. That letter set me to thinking, and one day I up and ran away from the school.” “To find the will, I suppose,” said Andy. “Yes. But first I had to locate the old mill—and also locate Jabez Trask, who had moved, as I told you. You must remember that I was a stranger in this part of the country and had never known much about the Robertsons or the old mill. When I found the old mill I learned that it had the reputation of being haunted.” “I believe I begin to see the truth!” cried the young major. “What do you think?” asked Bert Field. “Jabez Trask makes folks believe the old mill is haunted so that they will keep away. He is afraid that if folks visit the mill they may, accidentally or otherwise, find the missing will.” “That’s it exactly—or at least, that is how I figure it out,” answered the strange youth. “Do you think Trask plays ghost?” asked Pepper. “If he does, I’d like to go there and catch him at it.” “He either does it himself or has somebody do it for him,” answered Bert Field. “You must remember that he is a very queer man,—very suspicious as well as miserly.” “Have you been to his mansion, or to the old mill yet?” questioned Pepper. “Yes, I was near the mansion several times, once during that thunderstorm, when I saw two of you, and I have been around the old mill. I tried to enter it once, when it was dark, but was warned away by a ghostlike figure. I wasn’t much alarmed by the ghost, but when the figure threatened to shoot me I walked away.” “That proves that the so-called ghost is nothing but a man,” was Andy’s comment. “Well, I was sure of that before,” he added.