To tell the truth, Jack would have been pleased could he have slipped ashore to observe what the professor from Ann Arbor could be doing just then; but he did not dare venture. It would look too much like impudence. As he himself had said, if the gentleman had wished for their company, he certainly must have asked them to go ashore with him.
As to his being deeply interested in ghosts, and a patient investigator of remarkable manifestations for years, Jack took all that with a grain of salt. Perhaps it might be so, but Jack believed he was not far wrong in believing that Professor Marshland had only mentioned the fact to excuse his evident desire to go ashore and look around.
He was gone a long while. Indeed, Jack guessed that perhaps the gentleman could have explored the whole island in the time that elapsed before he again showed up. Still, there was also a chance that he might have been doing something in connection with the old cabin.
When he did appear he was smiling broadly.
“Sorry to say I couldn’t find any evidence of the supernatural,” he remarked, in answer to the eager look Josh gave him as he clambered aboard his stubby little boat once more. “And that inclines me to the belief that some one who loves a practical joke was only trying to throw you into a state of fright, boys. I regret, too, that I cannot remain over a night with you, in the hope of being granted a look at this wonderful spectre. If anything more remarkable occurs, I’d be very much obliged if one of you would write an account of it and mail me at the college.”
“Sure, we will, Professor,” said the willing Josh. “And if so be we capture that flickering ghost, we’ll send it to you by express, charges collect.”
“Do so,” laughed the gentleman. “I won’t object, I assure you. Well, here’s wishing you luck, boys. And thank you for all the information you’ve given. It may be of more assistance to me in my calling than you imagine. Start up, John. It’s back to the hotel for us now.”
So the noisy little motor went chugging away, passing around the point; and by degrees the sound died out, as other islands came between.
“Say, let me tell you, I like that man,” Josh up and said, without any urging.
“He is a smart one, all right, and don’t you forget it,” remarked George.