"Come on; I'll go in first.

It's all tommy-rot about the place being haunted.
In any event, ghosts don't monkey around at this time of day.

It's hardly dusk." "But, gosh dern it," exploded Anderson Crow, "we seen it!" "I seen it first," said Isaac Porter proudly.
"But I heerd it first," peeped up Master Bud.
"You've all been drinking hard cider or pop or something like that," said the brawny scoffer.
"Now, see here, you're gittin' fresh, an--" began the marshal, swelling up like a pigeon.
"Look out behind!" sang out Mr.Bonner, and Anderson jumped almost out of his shoes, besides ripping his shirt in the back, he turned so suddenly.
"Jeemses River!" he gasped.
"Never turn your back on an unknown danger," cautioned the young man serenely.

"Be ready to meet it." "If you're turned t'other way you c'n git a quicker start if you want to run," suggested Jim Borum, bracing himself with a fresh chew of tobacco.
"What time is it ?" asked Wicker Bonner.
Anderson Crow squinted up through the leafless treetops toward the setting sun; then he looked at the shadow of a sapling down on the bank.
"It's about seven minutes past five--in the evenin'," he said conclusively.

Bonner was impolite enough to pull out his watch for verification.
"You're a minute fast," he observed; but he looked at Anderson with a new and respectful admiration.
"He c'n detect anything under the sun," said Porter with a feeble laugh at his own joke.
"Well, let's go up and ransack that old cabin," announced Bonner, starting toward the willows.