\"It ain’t any use, Huck, we’re wrong again.\"
\"Well, but we can’t be wrong. We spotted the shadder to a dot.\"
\"I know it, but then there’s another thing.\"
\"What’s that?\".
\"Why, we only guessed at the time. Like enough it was too late or too early.\"
Huck dropped his shovel.
\"That’s it,\" said he. \"That’s the very trouble. We got to give this one up. We can’t ever tell the right time, and besides this kind of thing’s too awful, here this time of night with witches and ghosts a-fluttering around so. I feel as if something’s behind me all the time; and I’m afeard to turn around, becuz maybe there’s others in front a-waiting for a chance. I been creeping all over, ever since I got here.\"
\"Well, I’ve been pretty much so, too, Huck. They most always put in a dead man when they bury a treasure under a tree, to look out for it.\"
\"Lordy!\"
\"Yes, they do. I’ve always heard that.\"
\"Tom, I don’t like to fool around much where there’s dead people. A body’s bound to get into trouble with ’em, sure.\"
\"I don’t like to stir ’em up, either. S’pose this one here was to stick his skull out and say something!\"
\"Don’t Tom! It’s awful.\"
\"Well, it just is. Huck, I don’t feel comfortable a bit.\"
\"Say, Tom, let’s give this place up, and try somewheres else.\"
\"All right, I reckon we better.\"
\"What’ll it be?\"
Tom considered awhile; and then said:
\"The ha’nted house. That’s it!\"
\"Blame it, I don’t like ha’nted houses, Tom. Why, they’re a dern sight worse’n dead people. Dead people might talk, maybe, but they don’t come sliding around in a shroud, when you ain’t noticing, and peep over your shoulder all of a sudden and grit their teeth, the way a ghost does. I couldn’t stand such a thing as that, Tom—nobody could.\"
\"Yes, but, Huck, ghosts don’t travel around only at night. They won’t hender us from digging there in the daytime.\"
\"Well, that’s so. But you know mighty well people don’t go about that ha’nted house in the day nor the night.\"
\"Well, that’s mostly because they don’t like to go where a man’s been murdered, anyway—but nothing’s ever been seen around that house except in the night—just some blue lights slipping by the windows—no regular ghosts.\"
\"Well, where you see one of them blue lights flickering around, Tom, you can bet there’s a ghost mighty close behind it. It stands to reason. Becuz you know that they don’t anybody but ghosts use ’em.\"
\"Yes, that’s so. But anyway they don’t come around in the daytime, so what’s the use of our being afeard?\" \"Well, all right. We’ll tackle the ha’nted house if you say so—but I reckon it’s taking chances.\"
They had started down the hill by this time. There in the middle of the moonlit valley below them stood the \"ha’nted\" house, utterly isolated, its fences gone long ago, rank weeds smothering the very doorsteps, the chimney crumbled to ruin, the window-sashes vacant, a corner of the roof caved in. The boys gazed awhile, half expecting to see a blue light flit past a window; then talking in a low tone, as befitted the time and the circumstances, they struck far off to the right, to give the haunted house a wide berth, and took their way homeward through the woods that adorned the rearward side of Cardiff Hill.