ost was visited, first by one, and then another, until without
arranging to do so, the whole party had again assembled.

"What shall we do about it?" asked Grace. "No use allowing any one to
get away with five pairs of pumps and stockings."

"Besides a flash light and my bag," inserted Elizabeth.

"I guess we will have to put a sign on the post office," suggested Cleo.

This was met with a howl of ridicule.

"Can you imagine everybody devouring a neat little sign that stated five
pairs of stockings----?" Grace asked.

"Oh, don't," begged Helen. "Let's do without them and wear sneaks. If we
all set in to wearing them folks will think they are the very latest
thing in footgear," she said pompously.

"Look what I dug up," Cleo exclaimed, displaying a rather disfigured
pair of tennis shoes. "Jerry decorated them last summer, when he was
trying out some new water colors. See that emblem there?" pointing to
something like a wish-bone design. "Well, that's his frat emblem," she
told her companions.

"Then it's decided we let the shoes go, and all our poor luck with
them," said Isabel. "But I do feel rather mournful about my pretty
buckles."

"Let's hie to the bungalow, and talk over our delayed plans to further
invade Luna Land," called out Louise, poised on a treacherous sand heap.
"I'm just dying for another try at that mystery."

In the conclave it was decided to ask Neal for a ride in his lovely new
motor boat.

"That will be the safest way to go," said Louise, "as it would afford
the quickest chance of getting away."

"Nothing to be afraid of," Cleo said disdainfully.

"How do we know?" argued Isabel. "Just because no bears jumped out at us
is not proof there were none up the trees."

"Bears don't climb the trees," retorted Elizabeth.

"Well, _we_ might have to and it's just the same," insisted Isabel.

"Do you know," said Cleo. "I wouldn't be surprised if some little child
over there is playing Peter Pan!"

"That's nothing. Every child plays Peter Pan," cut in Margaret. "Didn't
you tell us Mary Dunbar went up a tree at Bellaire?"

"Yes, but I mean a child who is living out the character, if that
explains it more clearly," said Cleo.

"Nothing startling about that either," commented Helen, who admitted she
was fairly "sizzling" for a mystery.

"Maybe Bentley wrote those signs," said Julia.

"Bentley!" exclaimed Grace. "That big boy wrote 'Take me to mama'!
Julia, Julia, Julia! Are you as far gone