The boy was just skeptic enough to have plenty of fun listening to ghost stories by people who believed or half way believed them; and it became a habit of his to bring up the subject in talking with different people, and listen to their ghost stories if any might be provoked.

One spring he heard a ghost story that clung to him, and as he grew older and older the ghost in the story seemed more real. It was during the spring roundup of cattle, and he and an old Westerner had been riding and working together for a number of days cutting out and separating cattle, and taking some to one range and some to another, when, after a long day\'s ride over the hills of Wabaunsee County, they found that they were not able to reach home, and made a camp at Wakarusa falls. They boiled some coffee and fried some salt meat, and this, together with some bread and some hard-boiled eggs, made a good supper. Afterwards they lay down with their saddles for pillows and commenced the usual process of talking one another to sleep. Looking up at the stars and out at their dying fire, the boy thought of the phantom fisherman and other ghosts, and asked the old ranger what he knew about such. The old fellow stretched out on the ground, and reaching over took hold of the boy, as he said:

"Kid, I guess I\'ve seen as many ghosts as anybody, but there\'s one that I never forget, and it\'s always comin\' back to me. Years ago, when I wasn\'t any older than you, way back in York State, I coaxed my father and mother ever so many times to let me come out West. We had some folks living out this way, and from the letters they wrote, I was crazy to come out here. They didn\'t want me to come, and said I ought to go to school, and tried to make me go to school; but I wouldn\'t do any good in school nor at anything else, and once or twice I run away from home, and they caught me and brought me back. One day my mother called me into the house, and I noticed that my father was sitting down at the............