ate to think about it again," protested Dalzell.

"You'll think about it more than once," retorted Tom. "You won't
be able to help that, I promise you. So go ahead and describe
the face as you saw it."

Dan did so, Tom listening attentively.

"Then that wasn't a case of imagination," Tom declared gravely.
"If we had imagined it, each would have seen a different face.
But the face that you describe, Danny, is the one that I also
saw. Pass back the paddle, please. I want a little exercise."

Tom still had the paddle when he shot the canoe in close to the
camp.

"Any luck?" called Dave, who had already returned with a string
of perch.

"Catch any bass?" was Dick's question.

"Did you even see anything?" laughed Greg Holmes.

"Did we see anything?" groaned Tom, as he sent the canoe's prow
to land.

"Danny looks as though he had been seeing all sorts of things,"
chuckled Hazelton, as Dalzell stepped ashore.

"Don't ask me," gasped Danny Grin, with a shudder.

At this the faces of those who had remained behind sobered instantly.

"You won't eat any supper, if we tell you," Tom declared, as he
came ashore while Dave held the painter of the canoe.

"I'll accept that challenge," laughed Prescott, as Dave and Tom
drew the collapsible canoe up on shore. "Fire away as soon as
you're ready, Mr. Reade."

Perch and potatoes were frying, coffee bubbling and Dick had been
mixing some kind of boiled pudding that he had learned to make
so that it would not cause acute indigestion.

"Better wait until after supper," Reade advised.

"No; we want the story now," Prescott declared firmly.

So Reade told of the strange apparition they had seen, with many
additions to the tale from Danny.

"I decline to shudder," asserted Dave.

"That's just because you've only heard about the face, instead
of seeing it," Tom muttered.

"Dick, what do you make of the whole affair?" asked Greg.

"I only wish I could guess the answer," Prescott made answer solemnly,
"but I can't."

"What are we going to do about it?" asked Tom Reade.

"Let it alone," proposed Harry Hazelton.

"No, we won't," said Dick promptly. "Not unless we have to, just
because of inability to find out anything. Fellows, it's too
late to try to do anything in the darkness to-night. If the man
were drowned, we couldn't help him, anyway. But we'll go over
there to-morrow and try to find out whether there is any other
answer to the riddle."

"You won't