"Behave!" commanded Laura, shaking the smaller girl. "You can't scare us that way."
"Nothing more ferocious inhabits these woods than a Teddy-bear," laughed Jess Morse.
"Then it was a Teddy bear I saw in that tree," declared Bobby, pointing. "And it was a live one."
The girls--some of them, at least--drew together. "What did you see, Clara?" demanded Nellie Agnew.
There certainly did come to their ears a chattering sound.
"That's no squirrel," announced Otto. "I haf been hunting enough for them alretty."
"No squirrel was ever so noisy as that, Chet," said his sister.
"There! I see it again," cried the quick-eyed Bobby.
"My goodness, gracious me!" gasped Purt, who was craning his neck to see into the tree tops so that the back of his high collar sawed his neck. "I--I thought it looked like a blue-jay."
"Say!" exclaimed Lance. "You're looking in the wrong direction."
"It's a monkey!" cried Dora Lockwood, at that moment.
"It's Tony Allegretto's monkey," added her twin.
Some of the others caught sight of the animal then. It was truly the large monkey the friends had seen only the week before at the amusement park at the other end of the island.
"I hope he has," Dorothy Lockwood said. "That Italian didn't treat him kindly. What was his name?"
"Let's see if he will come down to us," suggested Laura, crossing the hollow.
"Now, keep back, the rest of you," commanded Lance. "If anybody can get the little beast, Laura can do it."
"Sure!" chuckled Bobby. "Mother Wit can charm either boys, or monkeys--and right out of the trees!"
But they gave way to Mother Wit and she went alone to the foot of the tree in which Bébé was swinging. He chattered when she came near, and swung upright on the branch. But he did not appear to be much afraid.
Laura found an apple in her pocket, and she offered it to the monkey, calling to him soothingly. Whether his monkeyship was fond of apples, or not, he was curious, and he began to descend the tree slowly.
He was dressed in a part of his odd Neapolitan suit; but it was torn and bedraggled. A cord was fastened to his collar, but it had become frayed and so was broken. His queer, ugly face was wrinkled into an expression of doubt as he approached Laura, and his little eyes snapped greedily. The apple tempted him.