"We kinder thought of suggesting it to you before," said Mr. Trigg slowly, "and that mebbe we've played this little game long enough--for suthin's happened that's makin' it anything but funny. We'd have told you before, but we dassent! Speak out, Clint, and tell the president what we saw the other night, and don't mince matters."
The president glanced quickly and warningly around him. "I thought," he said sternly, "that we'd dropped all fooling. It's no time for practical joking now!"
"Honest Injun--it's gospel truth! Speak up, Clint!"
The president looked on the serious faces around him, and was himself slightly awed.
"It's a matter of two or three nights ago," said Grey slowly, "that Trigg and I were passing through Sycamore Woods, just below the hotel. It was after twelve--bright moonlight, so that we could see everything as plain as day, and we were dead sober. Just as we passed under the sycamores Trigg grabs my arm, and says, 'Hi!' I looked up, and there, not ten yards away, standing dead in the moonlight, was that dummy! She was all in white--that dress with the fairy frills, you know--and had, what's more, A HEAD! At least, something white all wrapped around it, and over her shoulders. At first we thought you or some of the boys had dressed her up and lifted her out there for a joke, and left her to frighten us! So we started forward, and then--it's the gospel truth!--she MOVED AWAY, gliding like the moonbeams, and vanished among the trees!"
"Did you see her face?" asked the president.