The Go Ahead Boys and the Mysterious Old House Part 3

"Eight o'clock and all's not well, I'm afraid," suggested Fred.

"Are you afraid?" demanded John with a laugh.

"No, I'm not afraid, but somehow when I think of this business," replied Fred, "I find I have some s.h.i.+vers."

"You had better not go, my lad," said John solemnly. "This is no place for infants or those afflicted with chills."

"I'm not chilly enough to stay home if all of you are going," retorted Fred.

"It's just the kind of a night we want," spoke up George. "There isn't any moon and it's going to be dark."

"Those clouds look as if it might rain," suggested Grant.

"That will be all the better," said George. "The darker the night the better the spooks behave. They say it's almost impossible to find any there on a moonlight night."

"I hope we'll find some to-night," laughed John, but his voice somehow seemed to belie his confidence.

At all events there was not much conversation in the automobile as it sped swiftly down the road.

George, who was driving, occasionally referred to the various stories he had heard of the deeds in the Meeker House, but his efforts did not meet with any marked response until he said, "I have heard that Claudius Smith sometimes shows up in the old house."

"Who's he?"

"He _was_ a Cowboy. He lived more than one hundred and twenty-five years ago. You have got to speak of him as one who 'was' and not 'is'."

"What makes him come back to the old house?"

"It was one of his favorite places, I'm told."

"What was he?"

"I told you he was a Cowboy. He got to acting so badly that at last all the farmers and their boys that could be spared from the army got together and chased him clear down on Long Island."

"Did they get him?" inquired Fred.

"They did. They brought him back and took him to Goshen, where they hanged him in the old courtyard."

"I shouldn't think he would come back here to the Meeker House,"

suggested Grant. "I should think his ghost would 'hang' around the court house up at Goshen."

"I can't tell you about that," said George, "but it may be that he follows the road he used to travel. That may be the reason why part of the time he's here at the old Meeker House."

"He must have been a great boy," suggested Fred.

"He certainly was, and he wasn't the only one. I have heard my father tell about a man here in Jersey named f.a.gan. He was one of the Cowboys that they used to call the Pine Robbers."

"Who were they?" inquired John.

"Why there were a dozen or more bands of these Pine Robbers. They used to make their headquarters in the Pines back of Lakewood. They would dig a hole in the sand and hide in it the stuff they had stolen, and then, when they had enough to make up a cargo they would take it to Toms River and s.h.i.+p it to New York, where William Franklin helped them dispose of it."

"Who was William Franklin?" demanded Grant.

"Why, every educated man knows that William Franklin was the last royal governor of New Jersey. He was the son of old Ben Franklin. He inherited his father's brains, but not his father's disposition. He was one of the bitterest of all the Tories, and when the war of the Revolution broke out he went to New York to be with his friends."

"What happened to this man f.a.gan?" asked Fred. "Is his ghost around here, too?"

"I can't tell you," replied George, "whether it is here or not. I know f.a.gan got to be such a bad man stealing, shooting, tormenting the women and children that finally a big gang of men took after him and caught him down here between Trenton and Freehold."

"Did they do anything to him after they caught him?" inquired Grant.

"Not very much. They just hanged him from the limb of a big tree by the side of the road and left the body swinging there in the air for two or three days. Finally they left the head in the noose, stuck a long pipe between the jaws and my grandfather used to tell me that the head was there until the crows had picked out the eyes and left nothing but the grinning skull."

"That's a nice story to tell just before we make our bows at a spook party," said Fred.

The boy was striving to speak lightly, but his voice sounded strange even in his own ears. Indeed, by this time, after the gruesome stories of the Cowboys had been told, the nerves of all the boys were on edge.

The dim outlines of the Meeker House were now plainly visible. The silence that rested over the place was unbroken except for the sighing of the wind as it swept through the ancient pine trees that grew in the front yard.

"This is a ghost story up to date, isn't it?" said Grant. "I don't suppose many of those Cowboys or Skinners ever traveled around in automobiles."

"Probably not," said John dryly, and conversation abruptly ceased.

"George, don't you think you had better leave your automobile up here on the road and not take it clear down to the house?" inquired Fred in a whisper, when they drew near the place they were seeking.

"What for?" inquired George.

"Oh, nothing, only I thought it would be more out of the way there. You see the house is on the corner and if some one makes a sharp turn there they might run into it without seeing it."

"Just as you say," replied George good-naturedly.

Acting upon the suggestion, the automobile was stopped about a hundred yards from the house and the boys at once prepared to walk across the yard toward the front door.

No one spoke until Fred whispered sharply, "What's that?"

"What's what?" retorted George, also speaking in a whisper.

"Nothing but a branch creaking up in the tree," suggested Grant.

"I guess that's what it was," a.s.sented Fred, and the four boys at once resumed their advance upon the ancient house.

"Come on, fellows," whispered George. "We'll try the front door first."

The attempts of the boys, however, to open the door were unavailing. The door was ma.s.sive and although it creaked and groaned it was strong and all the attempts to open it proved failures.

"You stay here, fellows," whispered George. "I'll go around to the back of the house and see if I can get in there."

"I'll go with you," suggested Fred.