"Then I suppose I shall be able to get out of here!" Danny chirped. "I can't do it, unless I am shot out. I slipped in here easy enough, but I've grown, I guess, for I can't slip back."

"How did you get in there, anyway?"

"Climbed in."

"I'm afraid you will have to climb out."

A gunner came hurrying upon the scene.

"Wh-what?" he sputtered.

"Our little friend is in need of a.s.sistance. If he gets out of there he will never play cannon-ball again."

"If you will just fire me!" Danny begged, not a bit abashed.

The gunner was not at all willing that Danny's plight should be discovered by an officer, so he quickly went to Danny's a.s.sistance, and "fired" him by bodily pulling him out of the cannon.

"Thanks!" chirped the little joker, as he dropped to the ground. "Bink says that I'm a small-caliber projectile, but I was quite big enough for that cannon. Say, do you fire men every day?"

The gunner could not suppress a grin.

"Men? Well, you're likely to get fired, young feller, if you monkey round these guns!" he declared.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE MYSTERY CLEARED AWAY.

What news was obtainable at Sea Cove about Barney Mulloy was important, though somewhat unsatisfactory. Barney had been attacked by tramps and badly hurt, but not killed, though at first the report of his death had gone out. One of the tramps had been nearly killed in the fight, and Mulloy had disappeared.

"What became of him? Where did he go?" were Merriwell's questions.

"We didn't pay much attention to it," was the answer given by Merriwell's Sea Cove informant. "Likely he walked off, or went away on the boat or train. Easy enough to get out of this place."

With this meager information, Frank and his friends hurried back on the launch to Glen Springs.

"He isn't dead!" was Merry's cheerful declaration. "That must have been Barney that Bart and I saw."

"But the walking?" Hodge dubiously questioned.

"And why should he be in hiding?" Diamond demanded.

"Some men love darkness, because their deeds are evil," Dismal droned.

"Well, you may be sure that Barney's deeds were not evil," said Frank, "Barney is straight, and true blue."

Night was at hand when the launch cast anchor in the shallow harbor in front of Glen Springs and sent a boat ash.o.r.e with Merry and the friends he had chosen for the vigil of the coming hours of darkness. The landlord of the little hotel was not pleased that they had returned for the purpose of capturing the "ghost," though he was beginning, as he confessed, to feel "creepy" about it himself.

"I was intendin' to set up and watch for it, if you hadn't come," he finally admitted.

No one answering to Barney's description had been seen in Glen Springs through the day. In fact, no stranger whatever had been seen in the place from the time the launch went away until it returned.

"It's mighty curious," Bart grimly observed.

"I have a feeling that we will learn to-night just what it is," said Merriwell.

Frank occupied his old room, and sat at the window with Hodge, while Diamond, Rattleton, and Bruce remained in the office. The doors leading to the corridor were at first closed. Merry looked at his watch after the lights were put out in the part of the building occupied by the landlord and his family.

"It ought to be coming around again pretty soon," Bart remarked, finding it impossible to escape a queer, uneasy feeling, anxious as he was to see the specter, and determined as he was to effect its capture if it again appeared.

As he said it, the sounds of those mysterious steps were again heard in the corridor, and they heard the occupants of the office fling open the door.

"You weren't walking in here?" Diamond demanded.

"Not on your life!" Bart answered.

"But we heard some one!"

"Of course you did, and so did we. And we heard it last night!"

Rattleton and Bruce came on through into Merriwell's room.

"Scrate Gott, this is enough to turn a man's hair white!" Rattleton sputtered.

"Did you think we were just jollying you about this?" Bart sharply asked.

"No, but----"

"You're likely to see the thing, as well as hear it," Hodge a.s.serted.

The landlord, who had not retired, though making a pretense of so doing, tumbled down in much excitement, in response to Rattleton's summons.

"Did you see it, boys?" he gasped.

His face was white, and he was trembling. All the a.s.sumed bravery had gone out of him.

"Only heard it walking there in the hall," Frank answered.

The landlord gave a jump. He had forgotten that he was standing by the corridor door.

"Oh, you can't see anything!" Frank reminded. "That's the trouble. We can hear the thing walking, but we can't see anything. Close the door, and we may be able to hear it again."

"Don't! don't!" the landlord pleaded.

"But I want you to hear it. Perhaps you can tell us what it is."