Cora laughed melodiously. Belle and Bess looked at her with just a shade
of indignation in their eyes.
"I didn't think you'd be such--such, well, I won't say cowards," Cora
voiced, when the gale of merriment had passed. "But I think, Belle, that
you would rise above the occasion, even if Bess----"
"Now what is there she can do that I can't?" demanded the plump twin
truculently. "I guess if it's a question of bravery, I'm as willing as
she is to go to Camp Surprise."
"I thought you'd be," Cora observed.
"But is it a question of bravery?" asked Belle.
"What else?" her sister demanded.
"Well, from the way in which Cora told it, I should think it would need
some members of the Society for Psychic Research to get to the bottom of
all those queer manifestations. Cora Kimball!" Belle suddenly exclaimed,
sitting up in her chair. "You haven't been hoaxing us; have you? This
isn't a joke; is it? I mean all those things really did happen; didn't
they?"
"My! what a lot of questions to set off at once," objected Cora. "But I
can answer them all by saying that I have given the story to you just as
it came to me. As far as I know, it's no joke, and the way the furniture
behaved, or rather, was made to act, is strictly true."
"And you are still going to Camp Surprise?" asked Bess.
"Certainly. Why not?"
"Well--er--that is---- Oh! of course I know there's no such thing as a
ghost," said Belle. "But, at the same time, even if those things
happened by human agencies--as naturally they did--it might make it very
unpleasant for us up there."
"Nonsense!" cried Cora. "It will make it all the more interesting. Think
of the fun we can have, organizing ghost-detecting parties, sitting up
until all hours of the night, daring the boys to sit with us. And then,
after all, finding out it is only the tricks of some alleged fun-loving
person, or perhaps boys of the neighborhood."
"Do you really think so, Cora?" Belle asked.
"Why, yes."
"I don't know," murmured Bess, thoughtfully.
"Come! Where has all the bravery of the Motor Girls vanished to?"
demanded Cora with a silvery laugh. "We didn't act thus timidly when we
solved the secret of the red oar on Crystal Bay. And perhaps----"
"Cora's right!" interrupted Belle.
"She generally is," contributed Bess.
"There's a secret here, and we will solve it!" her sister went on. "I
didn't look at it that way before, but I see it now. We mustn't be
driven away, or kept from going just because of these rumors. We'll go
to Camp Surprise and surprise those who are making such a fuss there. I
wonder some one hasn't done it long ago."
"Just what I was about to remark," came from Cora. "I'm glad to see that
your natural courage has come back. I thought it would. We haven't been
together on various quests for nothing. Now we'll prove ourselves true
Motor Girls, and get at the bottom of these surprising happenings. You
won't back out?"
"Never!" affirmed Bess.
"Cross my heart!" laughed her sister, with the old, familiar, childish
gesture of emphasizing a statement.
"Then it's all settled. Now let's go home. Jack and Walter said they
were going over to Meadport to-day to see if any word had been received
there of my missing auto. They may have returned with some news."
"Why was Meadport regarded so favorably?" asked Bess.
"Well, a constable there sent word to our police that there had been a
number of petty robberies committed in the neighborhood. A number of
thefts would take place in one night, and so far apart that the only
probable theory was that the thieves used an auto. Jack thought my dear
car might be used for such base purposes, so he and Wally went over
there to-day."
"Let us hope they have good news," said Belle, as with her sister and
Cora she entered the Robinson automobile and headed back for Cheerful
Chelton.
"Nothing doing," announced Jack, as his sister and her chums came in
sight of the Kimball home, and saw him with Walter, sitting on the
broad, shady piazza. "Absolutely nothing transpiring, as the poet
saith."
"College hasn't improved your slang any," observed Bess.
"No, I guess I'll have to take a P. G. course to accomplish that. I am a
bit rusty. Wally, suppose you give them a sample."
"Spare us," murmured Cora. "Was there really no news, Jack?"
"Not an atom, or even a molecule. Which is smaller, Wally? I forget."
"Same here. Anyhow they hadn't caught those Meadport thieves, so whether
they have your auto or not, Cora, my dear, remains yet to be proved."
The young people talked on, the conversation reverting naturally to Camp
Surprise.
"What do you think it all means, Jack?" asked Bess.
"Kids playing tricks," declared Jack tersely. "So it didn't scare you
girls out from going?"
"Of course not!" declared Bess indignantly. A look passed from her to
Cora, from Cora to Belle--and that was all.
"That's right!" chimed in Walter. "Don't let a little thing like that
scare you away. We'll get at the bottom of this mystery."
"When do you plan to go?" asked Cora of her brother.
"As soon as Wally can get his new suit that he's ordered from that nobby
tailor."
"Don't you believe him," cried Walter, thumping his chum on the back.
"I'm as ready as he is. He's waiting for one of those sport shirts----"
"Go on! I wouldn't wear one!"
"Well, make up your minds, and we'll all go together," urged Cora. "We
can go up in the motor boat as far as possible, and take buckboards the
rest of the way. We'd like to have you boys on hand when we begin the
investigation of Camp Surprise."
"Oh, ho! Afraid?" laughed Walter. "I thought there was a mouse in the
woodpile somewhere, Jack, my boy!"
"Nothing of the sort!" came from Cora. "Besides, you're thinking of the
mouse and the lion. It is an African gentleman of color who makes the
woodpile his habitation."
"That's right," admitted Walter. "I never was very good at dates
anyhow."
"Fig paste is more to your liking. Have a chocolate," urged Bess.
"We want you along to bear testimony when we have routed out the
mischief-makers," said Cora, after the laughter had subsided. "Your
bungalow is near ours, and we can call to you to come and hold the
disturbers when we capture them."
"Is that what you're going to do?" asked Jack.
"Certainly," returned Belle, as if the girls had never hesitated.
"Well, it would be a pity to disappoint you," Walter declared. "We'll go
when they do, Jack. But--whisper--they'll be more than a week yet. I know
girls."
"You only _think_ you do," mocked Cora. "We'll be ready before you are."
Then they began to talk seriously and plan for their summer outing. It
was not the first time they had been away together, the boys and girls
often going to the same resort and occupying adjacent bungalows or
cottages. In this way they divided such work as there was, and
multiplied the possible good times.
Mrs. Kimball was to go to the Thousand Islands with her sister, which
left Jack and Cora free to do as they pleased. Mr. and Mrs. Robinson
would, as usual, occupy their seashore cottage, but Bess and Belle would
not join them there until later in the season, going first to Camp
Surprise with Cora.
"Well, now it's all settled," declared Cora, after a season of talk.
"We'll go to Camp Surprise two weeks from to-day. I'll tell mother, and
have her write to Mrs. Floyd to have everything in readiness."
"Even the ghosts?" demanded Walter.
"Even the ghosts," agreed Cora, accepting the implied challenge.
"Good!" cried Jack.
A few days after this the three girls, all of whom belonged to a church
home mission society, went to take some medicine and food to an old
woman who was one that the society looked after. This dependent lived
some distance out of Cheerful Chelton, and the Robinson twins brought
their car in which to carry the baskets of food.
They had done their little errand of mercy and on the way back Cora
proposed that they stop at Ye Olde Spinning Wheel for some tea or ice
cream, as the girls preferred.
They had the place practically to themselves, as it was not the hour
when most motorists stopped for refreshments. Cora and her chums spoke
to the manager, and noticed that she seemed a bit downcast.
"What is the matter?" asked Cora.
"Oh, it's something that happened last night. You know I told you I had
two tickets for the opera. My friend gave me the money to get them, and
I bought them off the two young fellows who were here one day last
week."
"Yes, it was the time my auto was taken," Cora said.
"Of course! I ought to have remembered. Well, I bought two tickets for
the opera from those men at a reduced price."
"And couldn't your friend go with you?" asked Belle sympathetically.
"Oh, yes. He came for me all right. But when we went to go in they
wouldn't let us."
"Who wouldn't let you, those two young men?" asked Cora eagerly.
"No, I only wish it had been the young men. I'd have had 'em arrested.
But the doorkeeper would not let me and my friend in on those tickets."
"Why not?" asked Bess.
"Because he said they were counterfeit. And after my friend had given me
his good money for them. I was that angry I could have cried!
Counterfeit tickets! What do you know about that?"