The six boys who were preparing to spend the night at the tea-house stopped at Harris’s early after supper on the day selected for their adventure. All the girls except those who were on their vacations were waiting on the porch to see them.  
“Tell us what you are taking!” begged Marjorie, as they came up on the porch.
 
“Well, let’s see,” said John. “Not a whole lot—a blanket apiece—”
 
“Oh, I don’t mean that kind of things!” interrupted Marjorie. “I mean interesting things!”
 
“Oh—well, a revolver apiece, flash-lights, cigarettes, matches, and so . By the way, is anybody going to get us any breakfast tomorrow morning?”
 
“We’ll all be down early,” said Lily. “I for one don’t expect to sleep a !”
 
“Just watch her!” laughed Marjorie.
 
“Well, I hope we do get a little excitement out of it,” remarked . “I’ll certainly be disappointed if nothing more happens to us than to those cops.”
 
“Jack, you oughtn’t to talk that way,” Daisy, who in reality was as worried as Lily and Doris. “Suppose something awful does happen!”
 
“Suppose we see spirits, like Anna!” remarked Jack. “And make you girls with ouija boards and go to seances in darkened rooms—”
 
“At least it would be thrilling,” remarked Ethel. “But I never will believe anything till I see for myself.”
 
“Your turn’s coming, Ethel,” said Marjorie. “You and I are going to spend a night there soon.”
 
“Oh, please don’t!” begged Lily; but both girls laughed at her.
 
The boys stayed until ten o’clock, and Marjorie and Ethel told all the gruesome, ghostly stories they could think of; but without any effect whatever, for the boys went off as cheerful as ever and as light-hearted.
 
It was a still night. A full moon, which seemed to be suspended in an inanimate sky, made the road before them easily distinguishable in the darkness. There was something in the appearance of the moon, and even the sky looked strange. The boys commented upon it. But they could not make up their minds that it was a feeling of suppressed excitement within them, and not the moon and the sky, which made them feel that something was about to happen.
 
“I’ll bet it rains tomorrow,” remarked John. “Maybe tonight. Look at those clouds up there—hardly moving. It’s sultry, too; not a leaf stirring.”
 
“Guess you’re right,” Jack. “Once we get inside the house, let it come, say I; and the spirits can bring their umbrellas with them. ! but it’s hot!”
 
“You speak the truth,” said Bill Warner, who was rather . “Let’s walk a little slower; the ghosts will wait.”
 
“Yes; this blanket of mine is getting unwieldy.”
 
“Let’s take our coats off,” suggested Dick. “We’re not likely to meet any one between here and the tea-house at this time of night.”
 
They followed his suggestion, and walked along in silence for awhile, with their hats in their hands and their jackets across their arms. Then Pierce Ellison said:
 
“Too bad we didn’t come in your tea-pot, Hadley.”
 
“Too much noise,” replied John. “I don’t know what all of your opinions are about this mystery, but it’s mine that it’s a human agency. Have any of you fellows anything in the back of your heads that you haven’t spoken of—for fear of alarming the girls, or any other reason? It might give us a clue, you know. Something to work on.”
 
“Not a glimmer,” answered someone.
 
“I agree with Hadley,” said Jack. “What was the cause of those three deaths in close succession in the Scott family? Pure coincidence. Then there’s the stories of the horse and the stray dog. They may be coincidence, too; yet, I confess it seems funny that they happened as they did. But this business of Anna is different. I, for one, believe that something actually happened to the girl; but I can’t guess what. She’s too herself to know much about it.”
 
“So do I,” agreed John. “I believe her; I had a talk with Anna. Her eyes looked right when she told me about it. And she showed me great black and blue marks on her arms, that could only have been made by strong hands—human hands! I believe her.”
 
“Yes; but Marjorie has an idea that she was galavanting around somewheres.”
 
“I don’t think,” said John, “that it is so much that Marjorie believes that herself as it is that she wants the others to believe it. Marjorie’s one thought is to remove suspicion from the tea-house.”
 
Jack, who was walking next to John, glanced hastily at him, surprised at this insight into the mind of his sister.
 
“I hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted. “Well, we’re here, fellows. Let’s get into the house as quietly and as quickly as possible. I’ll go first with the key.”
 
They paused in the road and looked over the hedge.
 
The tea-house lay silent in the moonlight, which emphasized the roof and chimneys and was reflected in the upper windows, but left the lower part in shadow.
 
They passed swiftly into the house, and without making a light, entered the rest-room and tossed their blankets into a corner. Their footsteps and voices sounded strangely in the closed house. John turned on his pocket flash and examined the rooms downstairs. everything remained as the girls had left it. He tried all the windows and doors, and found them locked; then returned to the others.
 
“While you fellows make yourselves comfortable, I’ll step outside and take a look around,” he said. “If you hear me around, don’t take me for a ghost.”
 
Outside, he found the atmosphere hot and oppressive. He walked beneath the trees, looking about him. Around at the back, everything seemed right enough; the stable was a deep black shadow, barely distinguishable beneath the low-hanging branches of intervening trees. John strolled around to the rose , where the air was heavy with an odor of sweetness from the blooms, and stood for a minute considering whether it would be advisable for him to sit there while he smoked a cigarette. The others would miss him, and would probably come searching for him. He against it, turned, and went in.
 
The boys had spread several of the army blankets upon the floor, and were lying flat on their backs side by side, telling each other the most harrowing tales they had ever read or heard of. This Jack discovered when he almost fell over them; for in the darkness he could not see the forms. They were so absorbed in a story Eugene Schofield was telling that they failed to take notice of his return, except to make room for him as he felt his way among them and stretched himself upon the blankets. John smiled to himself as he listened to the hushed, tense voice of the narrator, and realized that, boylike, they were working themselves up to a fine pitch of excitement for spending the night in such a place.
 
“That was a corker!” commented one, as Eugene finished his story amid of approval from the other boys. “Did they ever find out what became of him?”
 
“Say, fellows,” interrupted Jack, “it’s as close as the deuce in here. Let’s have some air.”
 
The boy nearest the windows opened them. Then someone else commenced another story. John listened for awhile, watching the glow of Jack’s cigarette, until a feeling of , which he was unable to cast off, came over him, and he slept.
 
He dreamed that he was pursued. He knew that he was dreaming, for he could still hear the of the boys’ voices, very far off. He could not have explained what it was that was after him; it was formless, indescribable. And yet it seemed to have form, too, or at least bulk; and as he fled it seemed to roll after him with an overwhelming presence. He could feel himself escaping, as if into a narrow which became smaller and smaller, while he too diminished in size; yet all the while the presence was after him, and he could feel, rather than see, a mass like a great ball, which appeared to grow larger and more overpowering as it approached. As it was attempting to itself into the entrance of the cavern, oppressing him horribly, he woke up.
 
He knew that a door had blown shut, and that the noise had wakened him. A strong wind which of rain was blowing in through the open windows, and it chilled him. He got up and closed the windows, and going over to the fire-place, tossed in some chips and set a match to them thinking it would be more cheerful to have even a tiny fire. As the chips caught, the dim light showed the boys lying in the middle of the floor, several of them asleep, and the rest still listening to ghost stories. John lay down again and watched the shadows, cast by the fire, about on the ceiling. But the effect upon him was like hypnotism, and he could feel himself again sinking into , when a faint noise outside brought him suddenly to his feet, wide awake. He stood there, alert and listening. The others seemed not to have noticed anything, except his sudden rising, and looked up at him inquiringly. John merely placed a finger to his lips, and listened. He could now hear distinctly the steps of someone approaching up the driveway. They were coming toward the house. Who could it be, he wondered. Not one of the girls, at this time of the night? No, it was a man’s firm tread. An officer, who had noticed their light from the road, and was coming to investigate? What a fool he was to have made a light! These thoughts flashed through his mind with lightning rapidity.
 
“Don’t move!” he commanded. “Someone is coming!”
 
They waited, with .
 
The heavy tread sounded upon the porch; there was an instant’s pause, and then came a knocking at the screen door.
 
John strode across the room, shot back the heavy bolt, and opened the door.
 
“I saw your light,” said a rough voice, apologetically.
 
“Well, what do you want?” demanded John, sharply; for he noticed that the man was trying to look past him, into the room beyond.
 
“I want to know whether Bill Smith lives here,” said the rough voice, a little louder than before.
 
“No,” answered John; “he doesn’t.”
 
“He don’t? Well, he lives around here somewheres, and I thought it was here.”
 
In the dim light John could just make out, beneath a slouch hat, that the man had a large nose and a heavy moustache. He also that his breath smelled strongly of liquor.
 
“I’m very sorry. I don’t know anyone of that name,” repeated John—“as common as the name is,” he added, as an afterthought.
 
He could see that the man was grinning as he turned away.
 
“All right!” he called out over his shoulder. “Sorry I troubled you fellows!”
 
John watched the retreating figure pass out of the drive. When he reached the road, the man paused for a moment, looked back towards the house, then up and down the road, and finally walked away.
 
John stood at the open door for several minutes, waiting to see whether the man would return. When he turned back into the room his brows were together and he was thinking hard.
 
“Now I wonder what he really wanted?” he asked.
 
“Wanted? You heard what he said, didn’t you?” said Bill Warner. “He wanted Bill Smith.”
 
“Bah!” exploded Jack. “The first name on the tip of his tongue—Bill Smith! He wanted to see what was going on in here, most likely.”
 
“I’m an not to have followed that fellow,” announced John. “Of course, he might have wanted Bill Smith; but there was something about the look of him that made me doubt it, even while he was there.”
 
“What did he look like?”
 
“Oh, a stage . Big nose and moustache—and a funny grin. But I couldn’t see much through the screen door.”
 
“A tramp?” suggested one.
 
John shook his head.
 
“Too well dressed—or ‘dressed up,’ if you know what I mean. More like a rough-neck.”
 
“Then what the deuce could he want............