CHAPTER XI—IN CAMP SURPRISE

“Camp Surprise?” repeated the driver. “Well, it’s a mighty nice place, as far as scenery goes—for them as likes scenery,” he hastened to add. “I don’t care much for it myself. There’s a waterfall, and a little lake, though I don’t reckon you could get your boat up to it,” and he chuckled. “Yes, folks what come up here always like this neighborhood, and Camp Surprise is one of the best outfits around here. You boys are going to take the small bungalow, I hear.”

“Yes,” assented Jack. “If we get there alive!” he said quickly, for the wagon gave such a lurch that Jack, who was on his feet to assume a more comfortable position, nearly slid out.

“Oh, this isn’t anything,” the driver said. “That stone must ‘a’ been put there since I come down this afternoon,” and he chuckled again. “We’ll get there alive all right.”

“But what I meant was,” went on Jack; “what sort of place is our camp? It has a queer name, you see, and they say—at least we’ve heard—that queer things go on there. What are they?”

The driver was silent a moment, and then he answered:

“Well, I don’t take much stock in them stories myself. I never see anything out of the way happen.”

“Oh, don’t spoil all the romance that way!” begged Cora. “Aren’t there any ghosts?”

“Ghosts! Huh!” the man fairly snorted. “I never see any.”

“But about things being taken?” ventured Bess.

“And the furniture being moved?” asked Belle.

“Humph!” and the driver seemed out of patience. “Things will be taken from almost any camp or bungalow if you don’t watch ’em. Thieves up here aren’t any more virtuous than in the city.”

“And didn’t you hear anything about chairs and tables being moved about?” asked Cora.

The driver fidgeted in his seat.

“G’lang there!” he called to his horses.

“Didn’t you?” persisted Jack’s sister.

“Oh, yes, there was some such story,” the driver finally admitted, slowly. “But I reckon it was just boys skylarking. That was all. Boys will go into any place they can get in you know, and I reckon when they found the bungalow of Camp Surprise without any one in it they just naturally went in and cut up.”

“If they try anything like that when we’re around, there’ll be trouble!” threatened Jack.

Cora sighed.

“All the poetry seems to be going out of it,” she said. “I hoped we would have at least one visitation from the spirits.”

“You may yet,” Walter whispered in her ear. “In my private opinion this driver person is concealing something from us.”

“Do you think so?” asked Cora, hopefully.

“Yes. He’s afraid we won’t stay if he tells all the horrible details of the story.”

“What object would it be to him to have us stay?”

“Why, he may get a percentage on our board. Or perhaps he has the only mountain-cruising buckboard in these parts, and he doesn’t want to lose trade. Have done with thy queries, Friend Jack,” he went on. “We’ll scare up a ghost or two for the young ladies ourselves, if this sordid and heartless driver person refuses.”

Jack left off with his questions about Camp Surprise, and the conversation became general. The driver, who volunteered the information that his name was Jim Dobson, said there was good fishing in the pool of water at the foot of the cataract.

“All you have to do is to throw in your baited hook,” he told the boys, “and haul out as many fish as you want for breakfast, dinner or supper.”

“That sounds good!” commented Jack. “I’m glad I brought my pole.”

“Same here,” echoed Paul, who, when he had time, was an ardent fisherman.

Up and up, and on and on they went over the rough mountain trail, for they had to ascend to a height of about fifteen hundred feet to reach the reservation owned by a company which had divided it into camps and bungalows.

“My, but it is dark!” said Cora, after a period of silence.

A lantern was slung under the buckboard, and cast gleams of light on the ground, but the darkness seemed only blacker by contrast. The horses, however, did not seem to find any difficulties in making their way. They never stumbled, though the boys and girls tried in vain to distinguish anything like a road ahead of them. The wagon was going along in a lane of trees, which in most places met in an arch overhead, thus cutting off what little light might have come from the stars.

Occasionally there would be a break in this leafy arch, and then glimpses could be had of the star-studded sky above. It was a beautifully clear evening, and warm enough to be comfortable.

Now and then Jim Dobson spoke without being asked a question, but he was not unduly talkative. He seemed to enjoy the chatter of the young folks, chuckling now and then at some of their remarks.

As for Cora and the others they talked about everything imaginable, as you may well imagine, from the latest dance steps to what they would do now that they were really starting their summer vacation.

“Is there any golf up here?” asked Bess, who had taken up the sport to “reduce.”

“Well, not enough to hurt,” the driver said. “Once in a while I hear of a case, but it ain’t nothing like as bad as hay fever, and there’s none of that here.”

“Mercy!” whispered Bess to Cora. “I guess he thinks golf is a disease!”

“Well, don’t say anything. He’s real nice.”

“I won’t. But I guess I’d better ask only plain questions after this.”

“I guess so,” Cora agreed.

“Come on there, boys, not that way!” the driver suddenly called, as he pulled his team to the right. “They want to take the road home,” he explained. “There’s a turn here.”

“How you know it I can’t tell,” said Jack. “It’s all as dark as a pocket.”

“Oh, I’m used to it and so are the horses. We’re on a private road now, leading to Camp Surprise. Be there in half an hour.”

“Are you sure this is the right road?” asked Cora. “We don’t want to be lost again,” and she mentioned their going up the creek instead of the river.

“Oh, sure, this is the right road,” the driver assured them.

There was silence for a little while, and suddenly Belle grasped Cora’s arm, and whispered:

“What’s that?”

“Where?” inquired Cora, for Belle’s voice was startling.

“Over to the left—in the woods. Don’t you see something white?”

Cora looked where Belle directed. At the moment the others were deep in a discussion about something of comparative unimportance.

“There!” whispered Belle, tensely, and she gripped Cora’s arm hard.

“Yes—yes. I see it!”

“It—it looks like a—a ghost!”

They both saw something white that seemed to float, rather than move among the trees, and Cora was about to call it to the attention of the others when it disappeared.

“Don’t say anything about it,” she quickly whispered to Belle. “Of course it wasn’t a ghost. It may have been a wisp of fog, or some one going through the woods. Then there’s that—oh, what do they call that light which comes from rotting wood?”

“You mean ignis fatuus?” asked Belle.

“Yes; that’s it. Will-o’-the-wisp some folks term it. It comes from phosphorus. It may have been that.”

They went on a little farther, and suddenly a light shone through the woods, while a dull rumble and roar, increasing in intensity, came to the ears of all.

“What’s that?” asked Jack.

“Camp Surprise,” announced the driver. “That’s the waterfall you hear. Here we be!” he called in louder tones, as an approaching lantern flashed through the dark forest.

CHAPTER XII—DISAPPOINTMENT

“Oh, we’re here,” affirmed Cora, “and we’re sorry to give you so much trouble by being late.”

“No trouble at all!” the chaperon assured them. “Come right in. Supper is all ready and——”

“Whoop!”

“Supper is my middle name!”

“Lead us to it!”

Thus in turn cried Jack, Walter and Paul.

Mrs. Floyd looked a bit startled as she stood revealed in the light of a lamp, the illumination streaming out of the door of a big bungalow.

“It’s only the boys,” explained Cora.

“Only!” accented Bess with a resigned expression.

“Jack!” chided Cora. “Why don’t you behave? Hazel, say something to your brother, you and I have more responsibility than the twins.”

Hazel did not know what to say, and the girls could not help laughing, in spite of themselves at the antics of Jack and his two chums.

“Welcome to Camp Surprise,” said Mrs. Floyd as the girls followed her into the house, or rather, bungalow, for it was of that style of architecture, and was but a story and a half high. The boys followed the girls, Mr. Floyd and the driver bringing up the rear with the valises.

“Do we eat with the family, or at second table?” Jack demanded.

“You shan’t eat with us if you don’t behave,” his sister threatened him. “Do quiet down, boys. Mrs. Floyd may not like——”

“Oh, don’t worry about me, Miss Kimball,” the chaperon hastened to say. “I’ve raised a family, and I know what boys are.”

“If she doesn’t she’ll find out before those three leave,” observed Belle.

The buckboard rattled off in the darkness and the young people were thus thrown on their own responsibilities as far as getting away from the place was concerned, for it was near no railroad.

“Isn’t he afraid to go home alone?” asked Belle.

“Who?” inquired Mr. Floyd.

“That driver; Mr. Dobson I think he said his name was.”

“Afraid? Him? I guess not!” exclaimed the caretaker. “What’s there to be afraid of?”

“The dark woods,” said Belle. “Cora and I thought——”

“Belle, dear, don’t you think we’d better see to our baggage?” interrupted Cora with a sharp glance at her chum. She raised her eyebrows meaningly.

“Oh, yes, I suppose we had. Of course he, being a big man, wouldn’t have anything to be afraid of,” she concluded, nodding in the direction of Mr. Dobson.

“But there’s nothing here to be afraid of,” insisted Mr. Floyd. “Leastways, nothing you can put your hand on, though——”

“Harry,” said Mrs. Floyd, and it seemed as though there was a caution in her voice, “I think I’ll have to ask you to bring in some more wood. I want a hot fire to finish supper.”

“All right,” he answered, and went out.

“Now if you young ladies want to freshen up you’ll have time before I get the meal on the table,” went on the chaperon. “The boys can go with my husband and they’ll be shown where they are to stay. Their bungalow is just across on the other side of the mountain stream. I don’t know just what arrangements you made about the meals for the young men, Miss Kimball——”

“Oh, they’re to shift for themselves,” said Jack’s sister. “They are so uncertain, going and coming, that no earthly mortal could tell when to feed them. They were to have supper with us to-night, and perhaps breakfast in the morning, my mother said. But after that they’ll look after things themselves. They’d rather, anyhow.”

“Sure,” assented Jack, while the others nodded assent. “We can’t be positive when we’ll be on hand.”

The boys followed Mr. Floyd, while Cora and her chums looked about the bungalow before going to their rooms, where their trunks had been carried, having arrived safely the day before.

The main floor of the bungalow consisted of one big living room, with three smaller rooms opening off from it. These could be used as sitting rooms or bed rooms, folding bunks making beds at night. The living room, as also an alcove dining room, was simply but tastefully furnished, with rustic furniture. At one end was a big stone fireplace, though it was so warm now that no blaze was needed.

A broad stairway gave access to the upper story and here the bedrooms were. Though the rooms there were not high-ceilinged they had such large windows that plenty of air was assured. There were two bath rooms, a spring up in the hills filling a tank on the roof so that a supply of running water was to be had.

The bedrooms each contained a white iron bed and just enough furniture to make a simple life agreeable. There was a touch of daintiness, mingled with utility, and the girls were delighted with their apartments.

Soap and water, with a mere suggestion of talcum powder, wonderfully refreshed the four, and they were ready for the appetizing meal, odors of which were wafted up from the kitchen.

This was in a separate part of the bungalow, and the quarters of the caretaker and his wife were in a building connecting with the bungalow by a covered passageway.

“There come the boys back!” exclaimed Hazel, giving a hasty glance in a mirror, as she floated out of Cora’s room, having come in to borrow some hairpins.

“Yes, you can hear them before you see them,” agreed Jack’s sister. “I hope Mrs. Floyd has enough for them to eat.”

“And for us, too. I’m hungry, Cora. But she looked like a good cook.”

“Mother said she was. Well, are you ready to go down?” she called to Bess and Belle.

“Whenever you are,” answered the plump twin.

They found the boys waiting for them in the dining room, which opened off the living room at the rear, and a supper which met the most exacting requirements of Jack and his chums was soon on the table.

“How do you like your quarters?” asked Cora of her brother.

“Couldn’t be better. Not that we’ll be in them much, though. We’ll be over here or out-of-doors most of the time.”

“You can’t live here,” Cora warned him.

“Oh, you’ll be glad enough to have us when the ghost begins to walk,” prophesied Walter.

“Has anything really strange happened here, Mrs. Floyd?” asked Cora, determined to get at the bottom of the matter.

“Well, I suppose you must have heard the stories about Camp Surprise,” answered the chaperon. “It would be strange if you had not. And I must admit that there have been little happenings here that I can’t explain.”

“Such as——,” hinted Bess.

“Oh, disturbances in the bungalow when we weren’t here. Misplaced furniture, and once some silver was taken. But that might be the work of tramps. I don’t set much store by that. However, don’t let it worry you. I don’t believe anything will happen while you’re here.”

“I hope it does,” Jack said. “We’re going to lay the ghost.”

Talk went on during the meal and toward the close Jack said:

“This sure is a fine place! You ought to see the waterfall.”

“Is it nice?” asked Cora. They could hear the roar of it as they sat at table.

“It’s great! I’m going to take some pictures of it,” said Walter. “And the way to our bungalow is over a bridge just made for lovers to stand on and look down into the water.”

“As long as they don’t fall down into the water they’ll be all right,” commented Paul. “But it sure is nice. Our shack is just across the stream.”

“We’ll be all ready to respond to the first alarm, girls,” promised Walter, as the boys left the main bungalow later in the evening to repair to their own. “If the tables begin dancing, or the chairs do a jig, call us.”

“It’s a little far to shout,” said Cora. “We’ll have to put up some sort of telephone from one bungalow to the other.”

It must be admitted that the girls were a little nervous when they went to bed that night. Tales of queer happenings, not easily explicable, are apt to get on the nerves of the best of us. But the young people were tired from their journey and lack of restful sleep the night before, so they had hopes of a good rest.

Cora was awakened by a shout under her window.

“I say! Sis! Cora! Stick out your head!” cried Jack.

Slipping on a robe Cora went to the casement.

“Go on away, Jack!” she ordered. “Let the girls sleep.”

“Sleep? Why, it’s nine o’clock,” he said. “Say, did the ghost walk?”

Cora yawned.

“Not even a creep,” she said. “I didn’t hear a sound.”

“Well, if that isn’t poor luck!” exclaimed Jack in disappointed tones. “There we go and stay awake half the night, expecting a summons to capture a spirit, and nothing happens. Camp Surprise! Where’s the surprise come in, I wonder.”

But there was plenty of time, as Jack soon learned.

CHAPTER XIII—THAT NOISE

“I think it’s all perfect nonsense,” declared Belle. “Of course I don’t mean you, Cora,” she said, “for you only told us what you heard. But I don’t believe a thing will happen.”

“I hope nothing unpleasant does,” remarked Bess, tucking back a rebellious lock of her pretty hair, and glancing at her pink nails which she kept, as Jack taunted her, “in a state of faultless repair.”

“Did you sleep well?” asked Mrs. Floyd, coming in with more coffee.

“Fine,” answered Cora. “And please don’t think we are going to impose on you in this way every morning. We came up to help with the work, and we’re going to do it. But this morning——”

“I know, my dear. You girls don’t exactly need any beauty sleep,” and she beamed at the four pretty faces that smiled back at her, “but you must have been tired after your trip. I don’t in the least mind.”

“You’ll find us quite energetic after this,” predicted Belle. “That is all but my sister, and you see she is——”

“Belle Robinson! If you talk about me that way I’ll—I’ll—— Oh! why do you all poke fun at me?” and Bess seemed quite distressed.

“I won’t any more,” promised Belle. “She is trying to ‘reduce’” she added to Mrs. Floyd, “so let her do all the work she wants to. We shan’t stop her.”

“What’s the program to-day?” asked Hazel, as the girls finished their coffee. “It is perfectly glorious outside. From my window I can see part of the fall. It’s beautiful. I could sit and look at it forever.”

“And not want anybody to share the view?” asked Cora, pinching her blushing cheek.

“The witness refuses to answer,” mocked Belle. “But we mustn’t dawdle here all day. Let’s go and get dressed, and by then——”

There came a knock at the door.

“May we come in?” asked Walter.

“We—want—our—breakfast!” bawled Jack and Paul.

“Mercy no! Don’t let them in!” cried Bess, beating a precipitate retreat.

“We—are—coming!” chanted Walter.

“Stay out a minute,” ordered Cora. “Don’t be afraid, the door’s locked,” she added to her companions. “We’ve just finished,” she went on in louder tones. “Hurry with your breakfasts, and then prepare to give us a good time.”

“Your majesty’s wishes shall be obeyed,” declared Paul, and as the girls went upstairs to put on more conventional garments, the boys hurried in, bubbling over with good spirits, greeting Mrs. Floyd effusively, and preparing to devour everything in sight, which not very remarkable feat (for them) they nearly accomplished.

“Did that waterfall bother you?” asked Jack, of his chums.

“Kept me awake a little,” admitted Walter. “Sounded a bit like the surf at first, and I dreamed I was down at Crystal Bay again.”

“We sure had a swell time down there,” said Jack.

“I like the mountains better,” confessed Paul. “This place suits me.”

“It will be all right,” Jack said. “Now then, let’s see what’s doing.”

“Fishing for mine,” declared Walter. “That pool below the fall looks good to me.”

The others also voted to try their luck as disciples of Izaak Walton, and presently, with rods and lines, having dug some worms where Mr. Floyd showed them a place, they were patiently waiting on the bank of the stream that flowed away from the waterfall.

Camp Surprise was situated amid one of the wildest and most desolate parts of the mountains west of Chelton. It was remarkable, in a way, that such a lonesome place could be found so close to such a number of large and thriving towns and villages. But it was this wildness and isolation that gave it the peculiar charm, and which had led the land company to establish a number of camps and bungalows in the vicinity.

So rugged and diversified was the scenery, that, with the exception of the two bungalows occupied respectively by the boys and girls, no other two buildings were in sight of each other. Though not far removed from one another the dwelling places were off by themselves, giving a seclusion so often demanded by those who go to summer resorts.

At present, as the season had hardly opened, there were no other visitors at Camp Surprise, though many were expected later in July and August. Camp Surprise was not the real name of the place, which was called by the development company, Mountain View. But Camp Surprise had been applied because of the queer happenings, as has been intimated, though so far our friends had seen no occasion for such appellation.

The waterfall and the stream which flowed from it divided practically in half the area of land owned by the Mountain View Company. Having its origin some miles back in the mountains, the stream was augmented by brooks, creeks and other streams until, on reaching Camp Surprise, it had become almost a river.

Flowing along peacefully, through green meadows, or down the slope of some rocky hill, the river came suddenly to a great cleft in the hills, and down this it plunged in a most beautiful fall, from a height of about fifty feet, and perhaps a hundred feet in breadth.

At the foot of the fall was a deep pool, worn in the limestone rocks by the erosion of the falling water, and there the white foam boiled and bubbled in a miniature whirlpool and rapids until the stream slipped farther on down the side of the mountain, in a series of little cascades, in which were, so it was said, many fishes.

The boys had selected as their spot a quiet one, where a sort of eddy, or back-water, made a quiet pool that looked, as Jack said, “like a regular bachelor apartment for fish.”

“Keep still! Don’t move!” called Belle, as she and her chums, now with all their “war paint on,” as Walter hinted, approached the three young men.

“What is it—the ghost or the furniture mover?” asked Walter.

“I just want to get a picture,” Belle explained, snapping her camera. “You look so respectable to what you do ordinarily.”

“Just for that you shan’t hold my hand!” declared Paul.

“Don’t come any nearer,” warned Walter. “I think I have a bite. Yes! He’s on!” he cried as the tip of his pole bent, and a moment later he hauled out a flashing beauty.

“Oh, I want to catch one!” cried Cora, who was as ardent a lover of outdoor sports as any of her boy friends.

“You may take my pole,” offered Paul, as Walter unhooked his fish.

“Oh, no, I don’t want to deprive you,” Cora objected.

“I’ll sit near and watch you—have all the fun and let you do the work,” he retorted. And the boys and girls were soon together on the bank.

Luck was fairly good, and presently enough fish had been caught for a “good mess,” as Mr. Floyd observed when he came past.

“We’ll cook them for you,” offered Belle. “Won’t we, girls?”

“Do you know how?” asked Jack.

“Listen to him!” mocked Bess.

As Mr. Floyd and his wife had to go to one of the more distant bungalows, to see about some repairs, and as they would be gone most of the day, Cora and her chums agreed to be the housekeepers and to let the boys share the lunch with them.

“Which isn’t such a concession after all,” Jack said, “seeing as how we caught the fish.”

“I caught one myself,” Cora declared.

“With Paul’s pole, so that doesn’t count,” retorted her brother quickly.

They had a jolly time at lunch and spent the afternoon roaming about the mountainside. The girls took pictures of the fall, which was really a beauty-spot, and some of the prints were afterward enlarged, and they made most charming pictures.

“There’s the hotel,” said Paul, as they came out on a ledge of rock, and looked down in a valley. “That’s where I’m going to have some tango tea.”

“To-night?” asked Jack. “I’m with you if you go.”

“Count me in,” added Walter. “I haven’t had a good dance, not since——”

“The one with me,” cut in Cora, for she and Walter were good partners.

“Right—oh, little one!” he cried. “Shall we all go down to-night?”

The hotel was about a mile from the Mountain View property, and was quite a well-known hostelry, though the season was not yet in full swing.

“Some other night,” suggested Cora. “We haven’t really gotten settled yet, and we don’t know what time Mrs. Floyd will come back. Besides, do they let any others than guests and their friends dance?”

“Oh, I guess so,” said Walter. “We’ll find out. But if you don’t want to go to-night we’ll wait.”

This was agreed to, and the rest of the day was spent on the part of the girls in getting their rooms in order, putting away their dresses and arranging for supper, for they were going to do much of their own work in camp, Mrs. Floyd being more of a chaperon and general manager than housekeeper or cook.

The boys said they would shift for themselves.

“Aren’t you going to get your suppers?” asked Cora of her brother, as she saw him and his two chums going down the road about five o’clock in the afternoon.

“Later,” he answered. “We’re going for the mail now. It gets in about this time, and Walter is expecting a letter.”

“No more than you are!” was the quick retort.

“Bring us all one!” called Bess. “Does the mail really come up here?”

It did, twice a day it developed, coming to the little village of Mountain View, which was about a mile from Camp Surprise.

“Maybe there’ll be some word about your car, Cora,” said her brother.

“That’s too good to hope for, Jack.”

There was a letter for Cora from her mother, but there was no news of the car. And as there were epistles also for Bess, Belle and Hazel, the boys took great credit to themselves for having fulfilled the commands of the girls.

“And we think we ought to be rewarded, too,” said Walter.

“What form ought the reward to take?” Cora asked.

“The form of supper,” was the quick answer. “We don’t feel like pitching in and opening a tin of corned beef just now. Feed us to-night, and we’ll rustle the grub for ourselves after this.”

“Well, in view of the fact that you’ve been so nice to us, we will. Shan’t we, girls?” asked Cora.

“Yes!” came in an unhesitating chorus; and once more the boys ate bounteously with no effort on their part.

Mrs. Floyd and her husband returned about eight o’clock, to find the young people playing games in the big living room, and having a jolly time.

They planned an excursion for the next day, to include a stop at the hotel to ask about dance privileges, and then, this having been arranged for, good nights were said.

Cora, whose room adjoined that of Belle, was awakened some time in the night by a touch on her arm.

“Yes! What is it?” she asked, sitting up quickly, and reaching for the little electric flashlight she always had under her pillow. “Oh, it’s you,” and she revealed Belle’s face. “What’s the matter—are you ill?”

“No, but listen! Did you hear that—that noise?”

CHAPTER XIV—WAS IT THUNDER?

The whole bungalow, too, seemed to be vibrating and delicately trembling from some cause—a deep, low and hardly audible sound that was, in effect, more sensation than noise.

“It’s the waterfall,” said Cora. “Don’t be a goose, Belle!”

“I’m not. It’s a noise. Can’t you hear it above the sound of the water?”

Cora listened more intently.

“Yes, I can,” she reluctantly confessed. “It’s like the rumbling of a wagon going past the house.”

“Yes,” agreed Belle in a whisper. “But it isn’t a wagon. There isn’t any out at this hour, and the noise is in this bungalow, not outside.”

Cora agreed to that, also. She snapped on the switch of her little portable light, so that it would glow without the necessity of holding her finger on the push-button, and then she slipped on her robe, and put her feet in slippers. Belle was similarly attired.

“What are you going to do?” asked Belle.

“Find that noise,” whispered Cora. “But don’t let’s wake up the others. It may be—nothing, and they’d only laugh.”

“It can’t be nothing,” insisted Belle. “There it sounds louder than ever.”

Together they went silently to the door of Cora’s room. But either their movements or the queer noise had awakened Bess in the adjoining apartment.

“Is that you, Cora?” she called.

“Yes. It’s nothing. I’m going to get a drink, Bess. I am,” she added in a whisper to Belle, to justify herself.

“Bring me one,” begged Bess, sleepily.

It was evident that the noise which had alarmed—or if not alarmed, had awakened—Belle, had not disturbed her sister. For as Belle and Cora went toward the door they could both hear and feel the vibration more plainly now.

“What can it be?” asked Belle. “Some one trying to get in?”

“Nonsense!” chided Cora.

“But it sounds like raising a sticking window. Are you going to call Mr. Floyd?”

“I wish he weren’t so far off,” said Cora, pausing undeterminedly in the middle of the room. “He might just as well be in another building as where he is. I don’t like going through that connecting passage. And he and his wife both sleep soundly. She told me so.”

“We ought to have some means of summoning them—or the boys,” continued Belle.

“We can always scream,” Cora remarked.

“Yes, and startle every one. I almost screamed when I heard the noise, and then I thought I’d come in to you.”

“I’m glad you did. Can you hear it now?”

They were out in the hall, and could see the light that was kept aglow in the bath room. Cora switched off her electric.

“I don’t hear it,” affirmed Belle. “The noise has stopped.”

It had, that was certain. The silence of the night outside was broken only by the distant roar of the waterfall, a sound with which by this time the girls had become so familiar that they did not notice it unless they listened especially for it, as the receiver of a wireless message must be tuned to catch the wave impulses of a certain length.

“I can’t hear it,” said Cora, breathing softly, as Belle was doing.

There was no more noise.

“Could it have been distant thunder?” asked Cora, when a minute passed in silence—and a long minute it seemed to the waiting ones.

Belle stepped to the window and looked out and up at the sky.

“The stars are shining,” she said. “If there is a storm it is a distant one, and one that far off wouldn’t sound so near. I don’t believe it was thunder.”

Whatever it was, the sound was not repeated. Together Cora and Belle got a drink in the bath room, and brought one to Bess. Cora called softly to her, but the plump twin had gone to sleep again, without waiting for the water. Cora set it in a chair by the bed and came out of the room as softly as she had gone in.

“No use letting her know about it,” she remarked to Belle. “And we won’t tell anything in the morning, until we hear what the others have to say.”

“All right,” agreed Belle. “I’ll lie with you a while.”

“Yes,” assented Cora. She understood Belle’s feelings.

The two girls talked in whispers, straining their ears for a repetition of the strange noise, but none came, and finally Belle, who was fighting off sleep, announced that she was going to her own room.

Cora and Belle looked significantly at one another across the breakfast table, and Bess remarked:

“Did you hear me knock it over?”

“Knock what over?” asked Cora, wonderingly.

“The glass of water in the chair by my bed. I didn’t know it was there, and just before daylight I awoke, and as I put my arm out of bed I knocked the glass to the floor. I thought sure you must have heard it.”

“No,” Cora replied. “Did you break it?”

Bess shook her head.

“It fell on the rug, but the water splashed in my ties. I’ll have to wear my high shoes until the others dry. Why didn’t you tell me the water was there?”

“You were asleep when I brought it in,” Cora said, “and I felt it was a pity to disturb you.”

“What were you prowling around for?” asked Hazel.

“Oh, just for fun,” Cora said, with another warning look at Belle.

“They didn’t hear anything,” the latter said to Cora when they were alone a little later.

“No, and Mrs. Floyd or her husband didn’t either, for they didn’t say anything.”

“Unless they heard it and don’t want to tell us.”

“Why shouldn’t they tell us?” Cora asked.

“Oh, they might think we’d go away if the queer things begin happening.”

“It wasn’t so very queer—just a noise,” declared Cora.

“Was it just a noise?” asked Belle, suspiciously.

“I don’t know—was it—or—wasn’t it?” Cora questioned.

“I guess we’ll have to let it go that way,” Belle decided. “Here come the boys. Shall we tell them?”

“No—that is, not directly. I’ll see if I can’t find out in an indirect way.”

“All right, I’ll leave it to you.”

After some general talk when the boys had come in, Cora brought the subject around to the waterfall.

“Have you boys gotten used to the noise of it yet?” she asked. “You’re nearer to it than we are. Does it keep you awake now?”

“Can’t anything keep me awake,” yawned Jack. “I don’t get half enough sleep as it is.”

“You certainly slept soundly last night,” said Walter.

“How do you know? Did you stay awake to find out?”

“No, but I heard it thundering, and I called to you that you’d better put your window down, for your room faces the west and most storms come from there this time of the year. You didn’t answer so I concluded you must have been sleeping.”

“I was,” declared Jack. “Thunder, eh? I didn’t hear it.”

“It was only a rumble,” Walter said. “I didn’t stay awake longer myself than to hear that.”

“They heard it, too,” said Belle, when she and Cora had walked off by themselves.

“Yes,” agreed her chum. “But was it thunder?”

“We’re right back where we started,” laughed Belle, “arguing in a circle. Let’s forget it.”

CHAPTER XV—A NARROW ESCAPE

So they said nothing to the others about the little disturbance in the night, and the only remark the others made, having any reference to it, was that of Walter’s about thunder.

“It must have been thunder,” Cora said, “for if the noise had been in our bungalow the boys couldn’t have heard it in theirs.”

“I don’t see how they could,” Belle agreed.

“But, all the same, I’m going to have some way of calling to Jack and the others without screaming our lungs out,” declared Cora. “It’s only right to be able to summon them if we want them. One of us might become ill, and they’d have to go for the doctor. I’d rather call Jack than Mr. Floyd.”

Cora spoke to her brother that afternoon.

“We should have some sort of speaking tube,” he assented. “I might rig up one of the string telephones we used to make with tin baking powder boxes that served both as transmitter and receiver.”

“Can you do it?” asked Cora.

“I guess so.”

“I know something better than that,” Paul put in. “There’s a toy telephone that comes now, made of string, but the baking powder boxes are replaced by wooden cylinders with parchment tightly stretched over one end. You can hear quite well with them.”

“Where can we get it?” asked Cora.

“I have one,” Paul said. “I bought it just before we left to come up here, intending to give it to a kid cousin of mine, but I forgot to mail it. You can use that if you like.”

“Just the thing!” exclaimed Jack. “The dear girls can’t get along without us after all; can they?”

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself that we’re as fond of you as all that,” laughed Belle. “But we do like to have you within call—especially up here.”

“Why, have you seen any suspicious characters lurking around?” asked Walter.

“Nary a lurk,” responded Cora. “We’re just getting ready for emergencies.”

The toy telephone was strung that day from the girls’ bungalow to that of the boys’, and it worked quite well. As simple as it was, and it scarcely could have been more simple, talk could be plainly heard over it. The string took up the vibrations imparted to the parchment by the voice, and transmitted them across space to the other end of the line. Of course the string had to be tight, and it must not touch anything in its course, or the vibrations would have been interfered with. But space was what they had most of in Camp Surprise.

“To my mind the camp isn’t living up to its name,” declared Paul, after the telephone had been put up and tested, the boys sending any number of foolish messages over the string. “No, sir! There hasn’t been a surprise worth talking about,” went on Paul. “Why doesn’t something happen?”

“Give it time,” suggested Jack.

“Perhaps that noise was the start,” said Cora to Belle when they were alone.

“Perhaps.”

The trip down to the hotel had given the young folks the information that there were dances twice a week, the Saturday night “hop” being quite an event. They were cordially invited to attend, and the first Saturday night in camp they took advantage of the chance.

The crowd was not large, but, as Walter said, it was “nice and comfortable,” and the girls and boys thoroughly enjoyed the dance. The hotel proprietor introduced them to some other young folks and, as was voted by Jack and his chums afterward, “a large and glorious time was had by all.”

“What a splendid moon!” cried Belle, as she walked along with Jack on the way home. “It’s a shame to go to bed.”

“Let’s don’t!” proposed Paul. “Let’s go down where we left the motor boat and have a ride.”

“Let’s don’t!” cried Cora. “Walk over that rough mountain road at this hour of the night? I guess not!”

“But look at the moon!” begged Paul. “The glorious moon!”

“You’ve been looking at it too long already,” was Cora’s retort. “I guess you’re looney.”

And so, laughing and joking, they walked on.

“This is how it goes!” said Belle suddenly, seemingly apropos of nothing at all, and, at the same time she began to step backward and forward in a peculiar manner in the road.

“What in the world——” began Hazel.

“That new Cortez step the girl in pink was doing with that nice man dancer,” Belle explained. “I’ve been puzzling over it. I hoped he would ask me to dance, but he didn’t.”

“Say, I like that!” cried Walter. “Didn’t I ask you?”

“Yes, but you can’t do that step. I remember now how it went. I was watching that couple. It’s a rocking step forward, then one back, step back with the left, draw the right and go forward again with the left, see!”

She executed it there in the road, her shadow, cast by the moon, bobbing curiously back and forth.

“It is pretty,” agreed Cora. “How does it go?”

Belle and she took a dancing position and Cora had soon acquired the new Cortez step.

“Now you’ve got me doing it!” cried Jack. “Come on, Hazel, I’ll show you.”

“He doesn’t even know himself,” derided Cora.

“You watch!” challenged Jack.

“Why, he can do it,” said Belle, as she looked at Jack and Hazel. For Hazel was a natural dancer and, it developed, she, too, had been watching the girl in the pink dress.

“Well, here we are,” said Bess, as they reached their bungalow. “I’m tired.”

“Is that all you’re going to say, after we took you to the dance?” demanded Walter.

“Don’t we get asked in to have some cake and chocolate?” questioned Jack.

“Shall we?” queried Cora.

“Please do!” urged Paul.

And they did.

The plans for the next day included a long walk up the mountain to a place where it was said a wonderful view could be had. They were to take their lunch and stay all day, for they could not get back to the bungalow by noon.

“All aboard!” cried Jack, as he and his two chums called for the girls, crossing the rustic bridge at the foot of the fall. “All aboard!”

They started off merrily together, talking and laughing. Walter had been down to get the early morning mail, and there was a letter from Cora’s mother, which said, among other things, that the police had some clews to the men who took the automobile.

“Good!” cried Jack, when Cora read out this. “What’s the rest of it?”

“Well, it seems that some more bogus tickets have been disposed of in places around Chelton, and the men who sold them are described as the same two who sold the coupons in the tea room. The police seem to think there is a good chance of getting them.”

“They didn’t see them have your car; did they, Cora?” asked Hazel.

“No such luck, I suppose. But mother doesn’t mention that.”

The view was voted all that had been said of it, and after admiring it for some time, preparations were made to eat lunch.

“Let’s sit down here,” proposed Cora, pointing to a grassy spot in the shade of a big sycamore tree. “Boys, spread the cloth and unpack the baskets. Oh, what a curious root!” she cried, stooping over toward something near a stone.

“Look out!” suddenly cried Paul, pulling Cora back so sharply that she nearly toppled over. The next moment Paul caught up a stone and threw it with all his force at the spotted root. There was an angry hiss.

“Narrow escape for you, Cora,” said Paul, a trifle pale. “That was a copperhead snake!” and he pointed to the writhing, dying reptile. His stone had struck it fairly.

CHAPTER XVI—LOST

“You have?” cried Paul, in such a queer tone that all save Cora realized that Jack was bluffing for the sake of minimizing the effect on Cora.

Jack made this plain to Paul by winking quickly, and motioning to him to confirm what he had said.

“Oh, yes, that’s right,” Paul went on. “I’d forgotten that the copperheads aren’t poisonous this time of year. You wouldn’t have been much damaged, Cora, if you had been nipped by this fellow,” and with a swift motion of his foot he kicked the still writhing reptile to one side.

“Really?” she asked.

“Really.”

She looked relieved. The faint spell passed and Cora smiled. The color was coming back to her cheeks.

“I’m sorry I acted so,” she said, “but I have a terrible fear of snakes, even harmless ones. I thought this one was a curiously mottled root, and I was going to pick it up. Suppose I had? Oh!”

She shuddered and looked at Paul.

“A miss is as good as a bird in the hand,” he misquoted. “Come on now, let’s eat.”

“Say, old man,” said Jack to Paul, when they were alone a little later, “that snake was a bad chap, wasn’t he?”

Paul nodded in confirmation.

“I thought so,” Jack went on. “Just as well, though, not to let her know, she’s so deadly afraid. There’d have been trouble if she had been bitten?” he questioned.

“Yes,” said Paul, simply. “Of course they’re not sure death, but they’re dangerous enough.”

“I thought so. Shake!”

After the temporary scare of the snake had passed, the picnic party made merry, laughing and talking as they enjoyed the lunch the girls had put up. It was a perfect day, rather warm, but cool enough in the shade, and the mountain air was invigorating. There followed a delightfully lazy time, lying on the grass under the trees when every one had eaten enough.

Then they packed up the rest of the food and walked on, intending to make a circle and return to Camp Surprise late in the afternoon. Now and then they would come to some open space, where the sloping mountain dropped away suddenly, revealing below a vista which made them pause in admiration.

Once they reached a point where they could look down on Mountain View, and, though they could not distinguish their own bungalows, they could see about where they were situated.

Cora stood gazing down, in rather a thoughtful mood. Walter was by her side, and noted her abstraction. He held up the proverbial penny.

Cora shook her head.

“No. I won’t tell,” she said with a smile.

Walter guessed that she was thinking of the snake, but he refrained from saying so. And then Cora, fearing he might put a wrong construction on her words added:

“I was just wondering when they were going to continue.”

“What was going to continue?” he inquired.

“The surprises in our camp. You know——”

“Continue!” he interrupted. “I didn’t know we had had any. I had begun to think it was all a hoax.”

“Oh, no,” cried Cora, impulsively. “There was a——”

She caught herself just in time, for she recalled that she and Belle had agreed not to mention the queer noise.

“Was it a ghost?” asked Walter.

“It wasn’t anything,” Cora hastened to say. “Look, see that curl of smoke. Isn’t it just like a great big ostrich plume? What a hat it would require to carry it! A giant’s hat.”

“Lady giant you mean,” said Walter. “But look here, Cora, you are keeping something from me.”

“Not at all.”

Her manner was light, but Walter was a good guesser.

“Yes, you are!” he insisted. “Something did happen, Cora. Go on, tell a fellow.”

“Nothing really happened, Walter.”

“Then you heard something.”

“How did you know?” she asked with a start.

“I thought I’d catch you. Come now. Own up. You didn’t have that toy telephone strung to our bungalow just on general principles. Did you hear something, Cora?”

She looked around to make sure none of the others were listening. Then she told Walter of the queer noise, enjoining him to secrecy, however.

“So that’s what it was,” he said. “I thought it was thunder myself, but if you heard it in your bungalow it couldn’t have been.”

“And it was in our bungalow,” Cora said. “Seemingly away down in the cellar, or sub-cellar, if they have such a thing.”

“Not as deep as that, I guess, Cora. But it was a queer rumbly noise, though how I could hear it, when it was under your bungalow I can’t imagine.”

“Unless it came from the waterfall.”

“How could it come from the waterfall?” Walter asked.

“I don’t know,” said Cora. “But there might be some sort of hollow rock—blowing stones I believe they are called—and when air is forced into the hollow, by the action of the water, it might give a roaring sound, and vibrate the earth.”

Walter considered a moment.

“It’s worth looking into,” he said. “I won’t say anything, but the first chance I get I’ll have a peep at the fall. I think I can get behind the water curtain.”

“Oh, Walter! don’t take any risks.”

“I won’t, Cora. But come on. The others will wonder what we find to talk about and look at here. Not that I wouldn’t want to stay talking a great deal longer, but, well——”

“I understand,” and she smiled.

“We’re going berrying,” cried Bess, as Walter and Cora came up to join the others. “That is, unless you two want to stand there on the edge of ‘Lovers’ Leap’ and think sad thoughts.”

“Is that place called Lovers’ Leap?” asked Cora.

“Well, it might be if any lovers ever jumped off there. Do you want to go berrying?”

“Surely,” said Cora, and Walter nodded assent.

The berry hunt was not very successful, though a few early ones were found. However, it served as an incentive to call the young folks farther afield and up the mountainside, and they found new beauties of nature at every step.

“This is the nicest place I was ever in,” declared Hazel.

“I like it, too, almost as well as any place we ever picked out for our vacation,” said Belle. “My hair doesn’t get so slimpsy as at the beach.”

“We’re getting beautifully tanned, instead of the lobster-red I always turn at the shore,” said plump Bess.

“Say, hadn’t we better begin to think of turning back?” asked Cora, after a while, when the few berries that had been gathered had been eaten, though Jack begged that they be saved for a pie.

“Yes, it’s getting late,” said Paul, looking at his watch. “And we have a few miles to go.”

“I should say they were a few!” chimed in Walter. “Seven at the least back to Camp Surprise.”

“Don’t say that!” begged Bess. “You’ll have to carry me.”

“All right. We’ll make a litter of poles and drape you over it in the most artistic fashion,” said Paul. “Do you prefer to be carried head or feet first?”

“Feet, of course. Riding backwards always makes me car-ill.”

“It’s down hill, that’s one consolation,” came from Jack. “Well, come on. All ready! Hike!” and he marched off, swinging a long stick he had picked up to use Alpine-stock fashion.

There was a patch of woodland to go through, a fairly good path traversing it. The party of young people went along, talking and laughing, occasionally breaking into song as one or another started a familiar melody.

“Say, Jack,” remarked Cora at length, “aren’t these woods pretty long?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean oughtn’t we to be out of them by this time? Are you sure you’re going the right way?”

“Well, I never was here before,” said Jack, “but I set our course by compass,” and he indicated the little instrument on his watch chain.

“We started to walk due west,” he said, “up the mountain. Now we are going east, as you can see, because the setting sun is at our backs. So we are going toward camp.”

“But we swung off to the right as we came up the mountain,” Cora went on.

“Exactly, a sort of northwest course,” agreed Jack. “And now we are heading southeast, which is exactly the reverse. Look for yourself, Sis.”

He held out the compass, the tiny needle vibrating as the instrument rested in his hand. Cora was enough of a navigator to see that Jack was right.

“Well, the only thing to do is to keep on,” she said. “But I should think, by this time, we’d be somewhere near the camp.”

“Oh, not yet!” declared Jack. “We’ve got miles and miles yet to go!”

“You horrid creature!” cried Bess. “Oh, my feet!”

“This is the best exercise for reducing you could have,” laughed Paul. “Come on, I’ll race you.”

“Run? Never!” wailed the plump one. “I can only hobble.”

They tramped on. The afternoon shadows were lengthening now, and Cora’s face wore a somewhat anxious look. They entered another patch of woodland, and as they emerged into a clearing Cora cried:

“Look at the sun!”

“What’s the matter with it?” Belle demanded. “I think that is a perfectly good sun.”

“But it’s in front of us,” said Cora. “It’s in front of us!”

For a moment the others did not realize what she meant. They stared at the big red ball which was sinking to rest amid a bank of gorgeously colored clouds. Then Jack exclaimed:

“By Jove! you’re right, Sis. The sun should be back of us. We were going east, but we’ve got turned around, and are going west.”

“Unless the sun has changed,” put in Paul, with a laugh, “and is coming up in the morning. We may have been walking all night and didn’t know it.”

“It’s no joke,” said Cora, seriously, as the others laughed. “Jack, we’re lost!”