Uncle Jack was queer—not unhinged, mind you, only just a bit different from ordinary people. He never did a thing in quite the same way some one else would do it. When he left England, a dozen years ago, he stopped with us a while in Hamilton, and then came on here and bought an old Mexican casa. He wanted to get away from folks, he said, but I guess he got tired of it; if he hadn't, he wouldn't have been so dead set on having me with him after my parents died. The bulk of his money is across the water. But hang his money! It's Uncle Jack himself I'm thinking about, now."

"We'll get into the car," said Matt, "and go on a hunt for La Vita Place."

Matt stepped to the crank. As he bent over it, Carl gave a frightened shout.

"Look vonce!" he quavered, pointing along the road with a shaking finger. "Dere iss some more oof der shpooks!"

Matt started up and whirled around. Perhaps a hundred feet from where the three boys were standing, a dim figure could be seen, silvered uncannily by the moonlight.

"Great guns, Carl!" muttered Matt. "Your nerves must be in pretty bad shape. That's a man, and he's been walking toward us while we were talking."

"Vy don'd he come on some more, den?" asked Carl. "Vat iss he shtandin' shdill mit himseluf for? Vy don'd he shpeak oudt und say somet'ing?"

"Hello!" called Ferral. "How far is it to La Vita Place, pilgrim?"

The form did not answer, but continued to stand rigid and erect in the moonlight.

"Ve'd pedder ged oudt oof dis so kevick as ve can," faltered Carl, crouching back under the shadow of the car. "I don'd like der looks oof dot feller."

"Let's get closer to him, Ferral," suggested Matt, starting along the road at a run.

"It's main queer the way he's actin', and no mistake," muttered Ferral, starting after Matt.

Matt was about half-way to the motionless figure, when it melted slowly into the black shadow of the cliff. On reaching the place where the figure had stood, it was nowhere to be seen.

"What do you think of that, Ferral?" Matt asked in bewilderment.

Ferral did not reply. His eyes were bright and staring, and he leaned against the rock wall and drew a dazed hand across his brows.

CHAPTER III.

LA VITA PLACE.

"I'm all ahoo, and that's the truth of it," muttered Ferral. "This is the greatest place for seein' things, and then losin' track of 'em, that I ever got into. There was certainly a man standing right there where you are, wasn't there?"

"That's the way it looked to me," answered Matt. "It can't be that we were all fooled. Imagination might have played hob with one of us, but it couldn't with all three."

Ferral peered around him then looked over the shelf into the gulch, and up toward the top of the cliff.

"Well, sink me, if this ain't the queerest business I ever ran into! Some one must be hoaxin' us."

"Why should any one do that?" asked Matt. "What have they got to gain by such foolishness?"

"I'm over my head. There's no use staying here, though, overhaulin' our jaw-tackle. Let's go on to the ranch."

"That's the ticket! If what we've seen and can't understand means anything to us, it's bound to come out."

They started back.

"Are you on good terms with your cousin, Ralph Sercomb?" Matt asked, as they walked along.

"The last time I saw him was six years ago, when I came to Hamilton to settle up my father's estate. Ralph was there, and I licked him. I can't remember what it was for, but I did it proper. He was always more or less of a sneak, but he's got one of these angel-faces, and to take his sizing offhand no one would ever think he'd do anything wrong."

"Does he live in Hamilton?"

"No, in Denver. His mother and my mother were Uncle Jack's sisters. Last I heard of Ralph he was driving a racing-automobile for a manufacturing firm—a little in your line, I guess, eh?"

By that time the two boys had got back to the machine. Carl was up in front, imagining all sorts of things.

"I peen hearing funny noises," he remarked, as Matt "turned over" the engine and then got up in the driver's seat, "und dey keep chabbering, 'Don'd go on, go pack, go pack,' schust like dot. I t'ink meppy ve pedder go pack, Matt."

"We can't go back, Carl," returned Matt, starting the machine as soon as Ferral had climbed into the tonneau. "We couldn't turn around in this road even if we wanted to."

"Vell, hurry oop und ged avay from dis shpooky blace. Der kevicker vat ve do dot, der pedder off ve vas. I got some feelings dot dere is drouple aheadt. Dot shpook plew indo nodding ven you come oop mit it, hey?"

"The man vanished mysteriously—that's the size of it. If it was daylight, we might be able to figure out how he got away so suddenly."

Under Motor Matt's skilful guidance the Red Flier ran purring along the dangerous road. Half a mile brought the car and its passengers to the end of the cliff and the chasm, and they whirled out into level country, covered with brush and trees.

"There's a light ahead, mates!" announced Ferral, leaning over the back of the front seat, and pointing. "It's on the port side, too, and that agrees with the instructions I got on leaving Lamy. That's La Vita Place, all right enough, and Ralph's at home if that light is any indication."

Owing to the fact that the house was almost screened from the road by trees and bushes, it was impossible for the boys to see much of it. The single light winked at them through a gap in the tree-branches, and was evidently shining from an up-stairs window.

"While you're routing out your cousin and telling him he has company for the night, Ferral," said Matt, turning from the road, "Carl and I will look for a place to leave the car."

"Aye, aye, pard," assented Ferral, jumping out. "There must be a barn or something, I should think. Go around toward the back of the house."

There was a blind road leading through the dark grove toward the rear of the place. The car's lamps shot a gleam ahead and Matt pushed onward carefully. When he and Carl came opposite the side of the house, they heard voices, somewhere within the building, talking loudly. They could not distinguish what was said, as the intervening wall of the building smothered the words.

"Ve don't vas der only gompany vat dey haf do-nighdt, Matt," remarked Carl, in a tone of huge relief. "It feels goot to be so glose py so many real peoples afder dot shpook pitzness."

"I didn't think you believed in ghosts, Carl," laughed Matt.

"Vell, a feller vas a fool ven he don'd pelieve vat he sees, ain'd he?"

"That depends on how he looks at what he sees."

This was too deep for Carl, and before he could frame an answer, Matt brought the Red Flier to a halt in front of a small stone barn.

The barn had a wide door, and Matt got out, took the tail lamp and went forward to investigate. Opening one of the double doors, he stepped inside.

The barn was a crude affair, the stones having been laid up without mortar. The roof consisted of a thatch of poles and boughs, overlaid with earth.

There was plenty of room in the structure, however, for the machine, and there were no horses in the place to damage it.

While Carl opened both doors, Matt ran the Red Flier into its temporary garage. Just as they had closed the doors and were about to start for the house, Ferral ran up to them out of the darkness.

"Here's a go!" he exclaimed. "I pounded on the front door till I was blue in the face, and no one showed up."

"There's some one in the house, all right," declared Matt. "Carl and I heard them."

"Sure ve dit," struck in Carl, "so blain as anyt'ing. Und dare vas a lighdt, Verral—ve all saw der lighdt."

"Well, there's no noise inside the house now, and no light, either," replied the perplexed Ferral. "What sort of a blooming