, and I won't have it wiped up," said Billie
decidedly, at which Ferd had to laugh and the mock war came to a close.

"Say, this is some classy place, what?" said Chet, stopping in front of
the rambling old house and regarding it admiringly. "Have you met with
any ghosts yet, girls?"

"Oh, half a dozen," said Laura indifferently, and he was just about to
ask some more questions when Mrs. Gilligan met them at the door and began
giving instructions.

After that there was nothing to do but obey, and the boys and girls did
not meet again until lunch time. Then they regarded each other across the
table joyfully.

"I say, let's go for a tramp in the woods this afternoon," Ferd
suggested, after he and the other lads had taken a look around the house.
"This is the prettiest, wildest country I've ever seen, and I'd like to
nose about a little."

"But we thought you'd like to see what the attic and cellar look like,"
said Billie. "We had the afternoon all planned."

"Let's do that to-morrow," Ferd begged boyishly. "This is too nice a day
to spend indoors."

So it was decided to go outside and as soon as the dinner dishes were
cleared away--at which the boys assisted without so much as a
grumble--the young folks started out on their tour of discovery.

The girls had spent much of their time in the old house since their
arrival, for they had found an almost inexhaustible supply of strange
corners and unexpected rooms and peculiar ornaments that had
fascinated them.

But to-day, as they felt the warm sunshine on their heads, as the wind
caressed their faces and the scents of the woodland bathed them in
perfume, they were glad they had let the boys have their way and had
decided to spend the glorious afternoon in the open.

"Did you win the tennis singles?" Billie asked of Teddy, as she stopped
to smell a bunch of strange flowers. "I was rooting for you."

"Were you?" asked Teddy eagerly.

"For you--and Chet," she added demurely, and laughed to see his
face fall.

"But did you?" she asked.

"What?"

"Win the tennis singles, silly? Can't you remember a thing two seconds?"

"Why, yes, we did," he answered absently, his gray eyes on
Billie's lovely mischievous face. "In fact, we just ran rings
around them. I guess--"

He stopped short as they came upon the other young people. A couple of
bearded men had come out of the woods and confronted the crowd. Each man
carried a heavy club. They were the fellows who had onc