The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat Part 27

"And about those ghosts?" questioned Larry.

"A bluff," scoffed George. "You don't believe in ghosts, do you?"

"Well, I don't know. I have heard of such things," admitted Larry solemnly.

"Nonsense. I guess we will elect you to watch the houseboat to-night.

How about it?" demanded George.

"I don't care."

"But don't you dare go to sleep."

"What if I do?"

"You will get a ducking," interjected Sam. "You will get your distinguished head held under water until you're wide awake."

The plan, however, was put into operation soon after their arrival at the camp. They watched the "Red Rover" together until all the lights except the anchor light, had been put out. They knew, by this sign, that the Meadow-Brook Girls had retired for the night. The Tramp Club then went to bed, leaving Larry on guard. All he could see of the "Red Rover"

was the anchor light, the night being very dark and a little hazy. But he never lost sight of this anchor light for more than a few moments at a time. Were the girls to get away without his discovering it he knew what to expect at the hands of his companions. Then again, Larry Goheen prided himself on his keenness. It would be very humiliating to be outwitted by the girls. He, with the rest of the boys fully believed that the girls were planning some trick for that night.

Larry watched that anchor light until just before the break of day, when he called Sam to come out and take the watch until breakfast time. The daylight had not yet become p.r.o.nounced enough to make out objects distinctly, but shortly after Sam took the watch the day broke bright and clear. The anchor light seemed to fade away and merge into thin air before his very eyes. He did not stop to reason that this was because the morning light had become stronger than that of the lantern.

Sam blinked and rubbed his eyes. He could hardly believe what they told him. He uttered a yell that brought his companions out on the run.

"What's up?" shouted Billy.

"Everything. They've tricked us! They've gone!" cried Sam.

"They have, I do declare," added George in a hushed tone. "When did they go?"

"Just now. I saw them."

"You were asleep," rebuked Billy.

"I wasn't! They disappeared! They went up in thin air."

Just then they were interrupted by a long, piercing wail that seemed to come from the air above and around them. The boys gazed into each others faces.

"It's a banshee's wail," whispered Larry. "Somebody's going to die."

CHAPTER XVIII

A FRUITLESS SEARCH

"Don't be an idiot, Larry," rebuked If Billy Gordon. "Don't you know what that was?"

"Yes. I told you," whispered the red-headed boy.

"Pshaw! It was only a cat bird," scoffed George Baker. "Who's afraid of spooks, anyway? The fact is that those girls have outwitted us three times. We have lost the wager. Now the question is, when did they get away?"

Larry declared that he had never removed his gaze from the anchor light during his whole watch, except when he went to get wood for the campfire.

"There's only one way out of it," decided Billy. "Duck the two of them.

We will be certain to get the right party then."

"'Nuff said," nodded George. The boys grabbed the two lads, and, despite their struggles, managed to throw them into the lake, but in doing so, George and Billy found themselves in the water, also.

This little experience put them in a better frame of mind. The lads quickly divested themselves of their wet pajamas and put on their clothes. Breakfast was a hurried meal that morning. After breakfast they sat down to take counsel among themselves while Sam sc.r.a.ped the dishes then threw them in the lake to be washed by the lake itself. They decided that either Larry or Sam must have fallen asleep, and that at a time when the girls had moved from their anchorage.

Both lads protested that nothing of the kind had happened. Sam stuck to his story that the anchor light had faded away and that the "Red Rover"

had disappeared all in the same moment.

"What are we going to do about it?" questioned Larry Goheen.

"We are going to take up a collection for that camera, and then we are going to find them," answered Billy.

"We are going to try, you mean," answered George with a mirthless smile.

"We have tried before--and failed, and now we are obliged to confess that we are beaten for good and all. However let us reason this thing out. The 'Red Rover' couldn't have disappeared, it could have gone only by being towed away. If a launch had towed it, the noise would have awakened us, even though Larry or Sam had been asleep. If the houseboat was towed by the girls, which it undoubtedly was, it can't be far away.

That makes our work easier."

"There is only one flaw in your argument, George," interrupted Billy Gordon. "Granting that they did row away from here, how do you know that at daylight they did not pick up a launch and hike half the length of the lake?"

George shook his head slowly.

"There wouldn't be any fun for them in that. They would want to be on hand, to make faces at us behind our backs."

"You may be right at that." Billy gazed reflectively over the lake. As he gazed his eyes took on an expression of new interest. "What's that out there, fellows?" he demanded.

It was some seconds before they discovered that which had attracted his attention. Then when they did so, they were unable to decide what it was. They were certain that the object had not been there the night before.

"That's right where the 'Red Rover' lay," cried Larry Goheen. "Maybe they have sunk."

The boys with one accord ran for the rowboat. They shoved it off, leaped in and began rowing at top speed toward the object that had attracted their attention. Larry began to grin long before they reached the spot.

They finally pulled up alongside the object and stopped.

The boys regarded it solemnly, then looked into each other's eyes. There followed a shout of laughter.

The object that had been discovered by them was a stick, which had been thrust down into the soft bottom in shallow water. A lantern had been tied to the top of the stick. It was this lantern, at the end of a stick, that Larry Goheen had been watching all night, believing it to be the anchor light of the "Red Rover." It was plain that the girls had known that they were to be watched, and that they had taken the easiest possible way to outwit their friends, by placing the anchor light on a stick and leaving it at the anchorage while the "Red Rover" slipped away un.o.bserved under cover of the darkness.

"Stung!" groaned Sam.

"Worse than that," answered George. "There aren't any words in the language to express what we'd like to say. Wait till I get the lantern."

The lantern was still burning and the chimney was considerably smoked.

George took it aboard and blew out the light. "You didn't see it go out after all, Sam."