“I hope it won’t cause you folks to leave,” said Mrs. Floyd a bit anxiously. “We’d like you to stay on.”
“And we will!” cried Cora. “We knew that a surprise awaited us when we came here, and we haven’t been disappointed. And, now that it has come, we’re not going to turn cowards and run away. We’ll get to the bottom of this mystery.”
“That’s right!” cried Jack. “Who’s afraid? You aren’t; are you, Hazel?”
“Not if _I_ stay! There, I knew it!” and Jack puffed out his chest. “See what it is to have confidence in a man. Now if the rest of you will act as I do, we’ll soon——”
“Oh, I didn’t say that at all!” cried the blushing Hazel. “I meant I would stay if the _rest_ did.”
“Squelched!” murmured Jack in dejected tones. “Never mind, I’ll lay this ghost yet. Now let’s get things to rights, and then we’ll stay to supper with you girls.”
“Hadn’t you better wait until you’re invited?” asked Cora.
“Oh, do let them stay!” begged Belle. “I—I’m a bit nervous over this.”
“Another manly protector needed,” murmured Paul.
“Let us stay and we’ll help find the ghost,” suggested Walter, and the girls were glad enough to agree, for, truth to tell, they were a bit upset, and even Cora looked over her shoulder nervously as she ascended the stairs.
“Well, they didn’t come up and disturb your bedrooms this time,” said Mrs. Floyd, as she went to the upper story with the girls.
“Do you mean to say they actually have upset the things in the _bedrooms_?” asked Belle.
“Sometimes,” replied the caretaker. “Though that hasn’t happened of late.”
“Oh, dear!” sighed the slim girl. “I did hope we would be safe from them up here.”
“Oh, they never come—that is, things never happen—when any one is in the house,” Mrs. Floyd hastened to add. “It’s always when the place is left to itself.”
“Then the—er—well, call it ghost, for want of a better name,” said Jack—“then the ghost must keep watch to know when we go out.”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Mrs. Floyd. “It’s very annoying, and I do hope you will find out what does it and stop it.”
“We will,” Jack declared. “I’m sure, after all, we’ll find out that it is due to perfectly natural causes.”
“That’s what I believe,” said Walter. “I wonder if it could be an earthquake?”
“Yes,” Walter went on. “You know that queer noise which Cora, Belle and I seem to have heard to the exclusion of you others? Well, that was a sort of rumbling of the earth. It might have been a slight shock, a reaction from a distant quake. Such things have been known to happen. And if there was one there might well be another. If the bungalow shook hard enough the chairs might have been upset as we found them.”