CHAPTER IX.
MARK DISCOVERS THE GHOST AND FINDS HIM IN A TRYING POSITION.
Mark dashed through the bushes for a hundred yards, heedless of the clinging thorns of the rattan vine that tore his clothes, and scratched his face and hands until they bled, before reaching the scene of what sounded like a terrible struggle.

The screams for help told him that at least one of the contestants was a human being in sore distress, and in thus rushing to his assistance Mark did not give a moment's thought to his own safety.

As he burst from the bushes he found himself in a little open glade on the opposite side of the point from that on which he had landed.

Here he came upon a struggle for life such as rarely takes place even in the wilder regions of the South, and such as but few persons have ever witnessed.
On the farther side of the glade, clinging with the strength of despair to the trunk of a young magnolia-tree, lay a boy of about Mark's own age.

His arms were nearly torn from their sockets by some terrible strain, and his eyes seemed starting from his head with horror.