Sergeant Murray glanced at the clock and sighed. “Neil,” he said, with immense patience, “I’d like to believe that what you’ve been telling me is true. I’d really like to believe it. But the fact of it is, you’ve only got the word of some cranky old-timer to go by, and a couple of bad dreams that Toby’s been having, and that’s all you know.”

“What about the photograph? The picture of Misquamacus? George, there were three days between those pictures, and yet they were taken on opposite sides of the continent!”

There was a pause, and then Sergeant Murray continued, “Neil, I’m sorry. I haven’t seen those pictures. But they don’t constitute no proof. Anyone could have written any kind of date on the back of those prints, and you don’t even know if they were taken where the old-timer said they were.”

Neil sat back. “Then what are you trying to tell me?” he asked. “Are you trying to tell me you won’t help?”

Sergeant Murray looked a little abashed, but he said, as reasonably as he could manage, “I’ll help when there’s good cause to, Neil. You know that as well as I do. But if I put a guard on those schoolchildren, that means that a whole lot of taxpayers’ money is going to be tied up for a long time, and a whole lot of people are going to be asking me why. Now, what am I going to say? That I’ve put a patrolman on school guard because Neil Fenner believes the children are being taken over by Red Indian ghosts? That I’ve risked the security on a whole score of homes, and I’ve had to halve the beach patrols, just because we’re being threatened by medicine men from a hundred years ago? Come on, Neil, you have to see my point of view.”

“You’re laughing at me,” said Neil.

Sergeant Murray slowly shook his head. “I’m not laughing at you, Neil. Sometimes, circumstantial evidence appears to be pretty convincing. It’s easy to make yourself believe that something’s true, just because it appears to fit the facts as you know them. But what you have to ask yourself is, do you know all the facts? Or enough of them to make a sound judgment?”

“George, I’m only asking because of the children. They’re at risk, and I believe it’s up to us to protect them.”

Sergeant Murray stood up and hitched up his gun belt. Outside in the police station yard, Officer Turnbull was arriving to relieve him. He gave Neil an awkward, embarrassed smile.