e to expose him to the men he had watched.

But Frank did not wish to turn back. There was something fascinating as
well as repellent about the woods. Down there was a grave. At the head
of the grave was a stone. On that stone was chiseled:

"Sacred to the Memory of Rawson Denning."

Denning, like Frank Merriwell, had been inquisitive. He had attempted to
solve the mystery of the island, and he had disappeared. Afterward the
grave had been found on the island. No one had dared open that grave to
see if the body of the missing man from Boston lay within.

Frank felt a desire to look at that grave again. He went down toward it,
entering the thick woods. Every step that he advanced seemed to cause
the feeling to grow stronger upon him. The woods were silent and
deserted. It did not seem possible that there could be a thing of life
other than Frank anywhere within them.

All at once, with astonishing suddenness, he came out into the opening
and there before him was the grave, the headstone gleaming gray in the
dim light.

Frank paused. Involuntarily he listened. He had not forgotten how, on
his other visit to the spot, both he and Browning had seemed to hear a
mysterious whisper in the air, had seemed to hear a rustle down in that
grave, as if the murdered man turned restlessly. Without knowing why he
did so, Frank listened again.

"Look!"

He started, for it seemed that he had heard that whisper. He glanced all
around.

Silence in the woods. Not even the rustle of a leaf. How lonely it was!

"Look!"

Again that word, coming from he knew not where.

At what should he look? What did it mean?

Then he told himself that it was all his imagination--he had heard no
whispered word. He advanced toward the grave; he stood beside it.

"Look!"

Was it imagination? This time the whisper sounded amazingly clear and
distinct.

"Look at what?"

In spite of himself, he spoke the words aloud. He did not expect an
answer, and he gasped for breath when it came:

"The stone!"

A quiver ran over Frank Merriwell's body. Of all the mysteries on this
island, the mystery of this black whispering glade in the woods was the
greatest.

He bent forward and looked at the stone. There were fresh chips on the
mound, and at a glance he saw that the name "Rawson Denning" had been
chiseled out. Below it another name had been cut into the stone, so that
the inscription now read:

"Sacred to the Memory of Frank Merriwell."