Advancing rapidly toward the girls' bungalow, where so many strange
happenings had occurred, and where even now the strange light was
flashing, first at one window, then at another, Cora and her chums--boys
and girls--speculated on what could be the cause.
"Let the boys go first," cautioned Belle. "We don't know what it might
be."
"That's right! Wish the danger on to us!" commented Jack. "But we're not
afraid."
"It's only those mischievous boys," declared Paul. "We'll catch 'em in
the very act now."
"But how did the little rascals get in without our seeing them?" asked
Walter.
"We weren't watching the bungalow very closely," said Paul. "They could
easily have slipped in from the back, around on the forest side. They
watched their chance."
"But what's their game?" asked Jack, as they crossed the rustic bridge
on the run, their footsteps echoing dully on the boards.
"Go easy!" cautioned Walter. "Don't make so much noise, or we'll scare
them away before we have a chance to catch them."
"They can't hear us above the noise of the waterfall," declared Jack.
"But what's their game? That's what I want to know. Why are they
flashing that light about so?"
"There must be two or three of them with lights," said Cora. "For first
I noticed it up in the window of my room, and a second later, certainly
in less time than any human boy could make the trip downstairs, the
light showed from a window in the living room."
"Probably there are three or four of the little rascals," said Walter.
"Come on now, we're almost there."
"Wait here, girls," suggested Cora. "Let the boys go ahead, though after
they catch these mischief-makers I'll feel like giving them a good
shaking myself."
Walter, Paul and Jack advanced toward the bungalow. They went softly up
on the porch, looking sharply for a sign of the light.
"Seems to have gone out," commented Jack in a whisper.
"Yes. They must have heard us and switched it off."
"Probably they've skipped out, too, worse luck!" came from Paul.
Indeed, as they listened, they could hear no sound from the bungalow, at
the door of which they now stood. All was silent and dark within.
"Got a match?" Walter asked.
"Take my flashlight," returned Jack. "It's stronger than Cora's."
The brilliant white beam of light from the electric flash which Jack
handed to Walter illuminated the interior of the living room. And at the
sight which met the gaze of the boys, they could not restrain murmurs of
astonishment.
"Well, would you look at that!"
"Same thing over again!"
"And right under our noses too! They never made a sound!"
"What is it?" called Cora, from where she and her chums stood waiting.
"Did you catch them?"
"Haven't yet," answered Walter, playing the light about the room. "But
the furniture is all upset, just as it was the other day, only more so.
Come on up, girls. I guess there's no danger. The boys have probably
skipped out, though we may get them yet. Jack, you go around to the side
door. Paul, you cover the back. I'll take a run through the bungalow and
stir them up."
Pausing to light a lamp in the living room, Walter ran up the stairs to
the apartments of the girls, while Jack and Paul formed a guard outside
the bungalow. The girls still remained a little distance away, awaiting
developments.
But there were none--at least inside the bungalow. Walter came down
stairs to report that no one was up there.
"But are things upset in our rooms?" asked Bess.
"And is anything taken?" Hazel questioned.
"I didn't stop to look," confessed Walter. "I was just trying to drive
out intruders."
"None came out the door I was watching," declared Jack.
"Nor where I was," said Paul.
"How in the world did they get away so quickly?" asked Walter.
No one could answer him and they all turned their attention to the
living room.
As Walter had said, it was more upset than on the other occasion. Every
chair in the big apartment had been overturned, and in some cases two
were jammed together, the legs interwoven. On a table two chairs had
been piled, while the couch was turned completely upside down, and a
stool perched on top of it, a sofa cushion surmounting that.
Other sofa cushions were tossed about the room, as though the intruders
had been having a pillow fight, and in fact the whole room had that
appearance.
"But nothing seems to have been taken," said Cora, after a look around,
when the furniture had been put to rights.
"Better not be too sure," cautioned Walter. "Wait until you take a look
upstairs. I only glanced around."
"How in the world could they do all this without making a noise?" asked
Paul. "It seems to have been done in a hurry, and boys are rather
clumsy--I know I was. They ought, by rights, to have stumbled all over
themselves, doing this by the light of only a pocket flash. And yet we
heard no racket as we ran up. It was all quiet."
"That's one queer part of it," admitted Walter. "It almost makes one
believe in----"
"Ghosts! Go on and say it," challenged Cora. "You can't scare us."
"Any more than we are frightened now," said Belle.
"Are you frightened?" asked Jack.
"A little," she confessed. "Wouldn't you be--if you were I?"
"I might be," he admitted. "But we'll get at the bottom of this for you,
and catch those youngsters."
"If we only could be sure they were boys," Belle murmured.
"Who else could it be?" asked Jack.
"Ask us something easier," suggested Paul. "Go ahead upstairs, girls,
and see if anything is missing."
This advice was acted upon, and when the place was aglow with lights
Cora and her chums took "an account of stock," as Jack said.
"Well, any of your 'war paint' missing?" he demanded of his sister when
she came down.
"Only a few little trinkets," she said, "ribbons and things like that.
If it were not impossible, I should say girls had a hand in this."
"It isn't impossible," declared Walter. "Girls can do almost anything
nowadays. But it isn't likely. Some boys are just as fond of bright
things as are girls, and probably these youngsters hope to make neckties
of your ribbons."
"Well, what are we going to do about it?" asked Jack, when they had sat
discussing the curious happening for some time.
"What _can_ we do?" Walter demanded.
"I know one thing _I_ am going to do," declared, Belle, "and that is I'm
going home in the morning."
"No!" cried Cora.
"I am if this mystery isn't cleared up. It's getting on my nerves
horribly," and she gave a quick glance over her shoulder as a slight
noise sounded.
"I did that," confessed Hazel, who had dropped a book.
"Don't do it again, my dear," begged Belle.
"Now look here!" cried Cora, "this won't do. We're going to stick it
out. We agreed on that, you know. We're going to find out what this
mystery is."
"That's what I say!" came from Bess.
"I'm willing to stay," declared Hazel.
"Well, since I seem to be in the minority I'll have to give in," sighed
Belle. "I'll stay if you all do, but I really think some one ought to be
in this bungalow with us--one of the boys or----"
"I'll stay here," came from Jack, Walter, and Paul in a trio.
But when Mr. and Mrs. Floyd returned from town, and heard of the strange
happenings, they offered to sleep in a small room opening off the living
apartment.
The night, however, passed without incident, though none of the girls
slept well. Morning seemed to quiet the frayed nerves, and the
happenings of the night before did not seem so mysterious in the glare
of the golden sun.
The season for berries was at its height now, and as many varieties grew
on the mountainside the young campers organized another expedition one
day, about a week after the disturbance in which the light figured. Mrs.
Floyd promised to bake the pies if the boys and girls gathered the
berries.
They planned for an all day stay, taking their lunch, and early in the
afternoon all berry baskets were filled. Then, as there were some
ominous-looking clouds in the west, they decided to start for the
bungalows.
They were about half a mile from Camp Surprise, on a new short cut which
Mr. Floyd had mentioned, when Cora, who was hurrying along in the lead,
slipped on a slight declivity and, to save herself from falling, grasped
a bush.
The bush, however, offered little hold, for it came away in her hand,
and Cora slid on, until she brought up on a level place. She looked
back, to join the others in the laugh at her slight mishap, when her
eyes noted the place from which the bush had pulled away.
"Why look! Look here!" she called to the others. "Here's a regular
cave!"
"A cave?" echoed Jack.
"Yes. There's a big hole which I'd never have seen only the bush became
uprooted. Come here!"
"Come on!" cried Jack. "Let's see where this leads to. It may have
something to do with the mystery."
"What mystery?" asked Bess.
"What mystery? The mystery of Camp Surprise! Maybe the boys hide in this
cave. Come on!"