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dids and the occasional ripple of water on the lake shore. A poet might have breathed a sigh of delightful awe. Well, the girls were pleasureably impressed with scene and the sounds, if they were not exactly delighted, and the awe was coming. It came without warning and was before them very suddenly. It was in the form of a man in a long, white robe, long white hair and whiskers, the latter reaching almost to his waist. He stalked, stiffly, unemotionally out of the darkness south of the camp and across the open space within thirty feet of the fire, where sat the startled, chill-thrilled group of girls, speechless with something akin to fear and momentarily powerless to shake off the spell that held them as rigid as statues. CHAPTER XXVIII. A BUMP ON THE HEAD. Suddenly Helen Nash's memory served her so well that she regained control of her wits with a shock. Here is what she remembered: "I don't want them to scare you with a ghost"--these words uttered by little Glen just before his warning speech was interrupted by the appearance of Addie Graham at the girls' camp. That recollection was enough for Helen. There was nothing tenuous, elusively subtle, or impenetrably mysterious any longer about the ghostly apparition. Little Glen had something very clear and definite in his mind when he made that remark. Her muscles having relaxed from their rigid strain of superstitious suspense, Helen reached for the "ammunition sling" that she had placed beside her and drew therefrom one of the catapults they had made in the afternoon, also a pebble about the size of a marble, and fitted the latter in the pocket of the weapon. Then she drew back the pocket and the pebble, stretching the rubber bands as far as she could extend them, and took careful aim. Helen had practiced with this weapon a good deal in the last two or three hours and acquired considerable proficiency for so short a period of experience. Moreover, she was skilled in amateur archery and could pull a bow with a strong right arm. This experience, together with a general systematic athletic training at school, rendered her particularly well adapted for her present undertaking. The other girls, under the spell of awe-fascination which had seized and held Helen before it was broken by a sudden jog of her memory, knew nothing of what was going on in their midst until they heard the snap of the rubber bands. And doubtless it would have taken them co
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