Suddenly, too, he heard the sound of wheels and the rattle of a horse's hoofs coming along at a smart rate.
"Good; now I can soon find out where I am," thought the boy, and he hurried forward to meet the approaching vehicle. It contained a pretty young woman, wearing a sunbonnet.
Jack had no hat to lift, but he made his best bow as the fair driver came abreast of him.
"I beg your pardon," he began, "but could you tell me----"
The young woman gave one piercing scream.
"Oh-h-h-h-h-h!" she cried, and gave her horse a lash with the whip that made it leap forward like an arrow. In a flash she was out of sight in a cloud of dust.
"Well, what do you know about that?" exclaimed Jack. "She must be crazy, or something, or else she's the most bashful girl I ever saw."
He sat down on a rock at the side of the road to rest and waited for another rig or a foot passenger to come by. Before long he heard a sprightly whistle, and a barefooted boy, carrying a tin pail, and with a fish pole over his shoulder, appeared round a curve in the road.
"Now, I'll get sailing directions," said Jack to himself, and then, as the boy drew near:
The boy gave one look and then, dropping his can of bait, and his pole, fled with a howl of dismay.
"Hi! Stop, can't you? What's the matter with you?" shouted Jack. He ran after the boy at top speed. But the faster he ran the faster the youngster sped along the road.
"Oh-h-h-h-h! Help! Mum-muh!" he yelled, as he ran, in terrified tones.
At length Jack gave up the chase. He leaned against a fence and gave way to his indignation.
"Bother it all," he said. "What can be the matter with these people? Everyone I speak to runs away from me, as if I had the plague or something. Anyhow, that youngster can't be very far down this road. I guess I'll keep right on after him, and then I'm bound to come to some place where there are some sensible folks."
As he assumed, it was not long before he came in sight of a neat little farm-house, standing back from the road in a grove of fine trees. He made his way toward it. In the front yard an old man was trimming rose-bushes.
The old man looked up. Then uttering an appalling screech, he ran for his life into the house. "Mandy! Mandy! Thar be a ghostess in the yard!" he yelled, as he ran.