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 table and that there was a chair near his where she had been sitting. she asked me to sit down, and she pulled up another chair, and then she said: ' jack, we've been talking about you, and we know that you want to go out west, and that you want to go so bad that you're not doin' any good here. your paw and i have talked it over, and thought it over, and prayed over it, and we think that maybe it would be best for you to go, and we're goin' to give you what we can spare and let you strike out.' we hadn't had a letter from the folks in the west for a long time, but we hunted up the old address, and mother tied up a big bundle of clothes for me, and they gave me a railroad ticket and nine dollars and fifty cents, which was all the money they had in the house. on the day i left i started for the station on foot, and looked back many times because father and mother both were hanging over the gate watching me go. i don't know how many times i looked back, kid, but i do know that i looked back enough that the looks of them has been with me all these years; and lots and lots of times it seems to me that i can see the old man as he held up his hand and yelled 'goodbye, boy, goodbye!' and ma right by his side. it may be that there ain't any real ghosts for some people, but them old faces are real when they come back to me. it's more than thirty years, and ever so long i thought i'd go back and see them some day, and i used to write them that i would, but i never did; and they're both gone now. their ghost is all i have, and i kind o' like it, and wouldn't trade it off for anything in the world."
as the story ended the stars gradually went out for the boy, and he thought no more of ghosts until morning. since then, he has accumulated quite a number of ghosts of his own of the same kind and character as the ones that followed the old cattleman, all born of the grief of separation, and they are all real to him and have become part of his life.
