Finally Currie spoke. "Have you noticed the scent in the air has grown fainter?"

"Yes. A good deal. It's almost gone. Is it possible that the ground still holds the foul odor of the men in that camp, and that with rain or other conditions it may return?" asked Bill.

"Well, it's certainly from natural conditions," said Currie still clinging steadfastly to his skepticism. "Could be a paper mill."

"Oh, sure. Lots of industry around here," Bill said sarcastically. "I don't think so, Currie. I understand there's a place in Poland where a Nazi death camp buried so many bodies that the odor has sometimes been unbearable. No one has even been able to farm the land."

"Well, that may have some scientific basis," Currie replied. He tried to dismiss the voices from his mind. An odor was the sort of thing a man could deal with rationally.

"You know, it's the anniversary of the date the Raiders were hanged - July 11th," Bill said. But when he thought about it, if spirits really did return to Andersonville, a place that had seen so much horror, wouldn't one day be as likely as another? He wondered, too, whether other visitors had experienced any strange phenomena here.

The next morning the park personnel seemed puzzled. They had no explanation nor did they know of any such reports in the month of July in previous years. On the other hand, tourists did not usually lodge that close to the stockade itself.

Currie mused. "Odd. Captain Wirz himself would be hanging from the end of a rope only a year later at the Old Capitol prison in Washington, D.C., convicted of brutality here. I guess such a possibility never occurred to him as he watched the Raiders getting theirs."

"Some of the kids think the ghost of Wirz still walks the road out there. Comes back because he feels guilty, I guess," the young park ranger commented jocularly to Currie. "But I'd say that's just imagination, wouldn't you?"

"I certainly don't believe in ghosts," Currie barked at him gruffly.

Bill shot Currie an ironic look. The ranger's face reddened. "Of course not. I understand that, sir," he said apologetically.