Without noise, leaving barely a ripple behind, that head sank from view. It had vanished in an instant before the eyes of the two thoroughly startled high school boys.
"He's drowning now!" gasped Dan, as the head failed to bob up again into view. "Oh, Tom, we must save him!"
"Wait!" said Reade, in a quivering voice. His eyes expressed uncertainty as to how he should act.
"But he's drowning. You see, he hasn't come up again!" Dalzell insisted.
"Drowning—-in water shallow enough for small bushes to grow from the bottom?" demanded Reade. "Of course not! But what does it mean—-and why didn't the fellow speak?"
"Perhaps—-i—-i—-it was a—-dead man," suggested Dalzell.
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," replied Reade. "I—-I almost thought I saw the man's eyelids move."
"I thought so, too," agreed Dan, "but now I'm inclined to believe that we didn't. Wait! I'm going to get close to the bushes."
Dan drove the paddle into the water a few times, bringing the canoe up alongside the bushes, when it was seen that these were standing up from a square framework of wood.
"Now, what do you think of that?" asked Reade in perplexity. "These are freshly cut bushes, that have been fastened to this frame to-day. The frame will float wherever wind or current may take it. I thought this was shallow water. I'll soon know."
Tom had, among his tackle, a line with a sinker attached. He tossed the sinker over the side of the canoe, paying out the line until the sinker touched bottom. Then he pulled the line in again, carefully measuring by his arm as much of the line as was wet.
"Danny," he announced solemnly, "at this point the water is from twenty-seven to thirty feet deep."
"Then that man did drown!" breathed Dalzell, his face as white as chalk.
"Of course he did," Tom agreed, "provided he was alive when we saw him."
"But he had to be alive," protested Dan, "or else he couldn't have nailed the framework together and decorated it with branches from bushes."
"That is, if the man we saw made the frame," propounded Reade in a very solemn voice.
It was a shock to both of them. The whole incident had been uncanny and unreal, but the horror of that haggard, haunting face was still strong upon both of the beholders.
"Tom, we simply must get off our clothes and dive to see what we can do to find that poor fellow," urged Dalzell.
"All right," assented Reade. "I'll do all the diving myself, Danny, if you'll take command and give your orders. Where shall I dive? The bushes have already shifted position. We're floating away from the spot, too. Just where do you want me to make the first dive?"
"I don't know," Dan Dalzell confessed. "The whole affair has given me the creeps, I think."
"I know it has done that to me," smiled Tom unsteadily. "Whew! I'll dream of that face to-night—-all night long! Dan, there seems to be just about one chance in a thousand that that man will reach shore. Let's keep the craft headed to the shore, and watch for some minutes to come. At the same time, if we see a sign of the poor fellow, we'll swim to him, or paddle to him as fast as we know how."
Both boys knew, inwardly, that they would be heartily glad to get away from what seemed plainly to them to be a haunted spot. Yet neither cared to admit his dread to the other. So, talking rather busily, they remained on the spot for fully another ten minutes.
"We won't see anything come out of the water now," Tom asserted at last. "Even if we do, it will be a drowned man."
"I guess we may as well get back to camp," Danny agreed. "Yet it is going to be an awfully creepy night for all of us, with this weird mystery of the lake on our minds."
"Don't paddle yet," begged Tom. "I'll give a hail, and see if that brings any answer."
Raising his voice, Reade shouted lustily:
"Hello, there, friend? Are you safe? Want any help?"
"Anything we can do for you, friend?" bawled Dan Dalzell, in his most resonant tone.
Only the mocking echoes of their own questions came back to them.
"Beat the water with the paddle. Danny," advised Reade after they had waited for some moments. "We've more than a mile to go. Whip up the water. If you get tired, pass the paddle back to me."
"I'm not sorry to get away from that place," breathed Dalzell, after at least a hundred lusty strokes.
"Nor I," confessed Reade. "I'm beginning to get a headache already from trying to figure out what it all meant. Danny, describe that haunting face just as you saw it."
"Ugh! I hate 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 alsosaw. 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 need any supper to-night, anyway," declared Reade, in a tone of grim triumph.
"That is where you lose," Prescott answered quietly. "You'll be hungry, too, Tom, when the food goes on the table."
However, neither Reade nor Danny Grin ate very heartily that evening.Every few moments the haunting face rose before their memories.It proved a dull evening, too, in camp. The sky became overcast.It looked so much like rain that Dick & Co. voted in favor ofretiring early.
First of all, however, the canoe was hauled into the tent for safety. Then, with only one lantern burning dimly, six sturdy but wondering high school boys rolled themselves in their blankets.
Just as five of them were dozing off uneasily Dave Darrin's voice sounded quietly:
"That thing couldn't have been a joke rigged up on us, could it?"
"A joke?" rumbled Reade. "No, sir! That face was real enough to suit the most particular individual. No, sir; that face wasn't a joke, nor did the face look as though the man to whom it belonged had ever heard a joke in all his life."
"Suppose you fellows shut up until the sun is shining again," proposed Danny Grin, who had been fidgeting restlessly in his blanket.
"That's right," agreed Dick blandly. "All ghost stories ought to be told in the broad daylight."
"Just the same——-" Tom began.
"Shut up—-please!" came a chorus of protest.
All was quiet after that. Hours must have passed. All the boys were sleeping at least fairly well when air and earth shook with a mighty explosion.
Instantly six bewildered high school boys leaped to their feet in alarm.
"If that's a thunderstorm," muttered Greg Holmes, barely half awake, "then it's going to be a dandy!"
But Dick seized him by one arm and shook him.
"Come to your senses, Greg! That wasn't thunder."
"No; but what was it?" wondered Dave.
"I'm going to dress and find out," rejoined Dick sturdily. He sat on the edge of his canvas cot and began to pull on his clothing.
BANG! All were awake enough now to appreciate fully the force of this second jarring explosion.
"I wonder if there are any powder works off in this wilderness?" asked Danny Grin.
But Dick, who had now dressed as fully as he intended to do, save for the lacing of his shoes, now came back from the doorway of the tent with the lantern, the wick of which he was turning up.
"No powder mills in this part of the world," he declared. "But, gracious! The explosion seemed big enough."
Tom Reade stepped over to Prescott, whispering in the latter's ear:
"What if this is another chapter in the lake mystery that we struck this afternoon?"
"That's possible," nodded Dick.
"What are you two fellows whispering about?" called Hazelton.
"We're using whispers in case there's anyone else near enough to hear speaking voices," Prescott explained in a low tone.
That was enough to fan the curiosity of the others, who, partially dressed, crowded about Prescott and Reade.
Leaving the lantern in the tent, Dick & Co. gathered in the darkness in the open air.
"What do you make of it, Dick?" Dave asked.
"Just as much as you fellows do—-no more," came the reply.
"If it isn't anything that carries danger to us," proposed Darrin, "we may as well go back and to bed."
"All who are sleepy enough may go back and turn in," Prescott suggested. "I'll stay up and watch for a while."
"So will I," promised Reade.
But it turned out that none of the party wanted to sleep. Even Darrin said he was interested enough in this newest mystery to stay up and try to fathom it.
"Whatever it is," smiled Dick, "it hasn't done us any harm."
"Oh, yes; there has been one casualty, at least," protested Holmes."The explosion has caused a compound fracture in my bump of curiosity."
"There don't seem to be any more explosions," suggested Dick Prescott, after a few moments had passed, and some of the boys were yawning. "Anyone want to turn in?"
No one wished to do so, however.
"If we can't find out anything to-night," murmured Dick, in a low voice, "we'll at least make a strong effort in that direction after breakfast to-morrow morning."
"We have the lake mystery on for after breakfast," urged Hazelton.
"There's probably a connection between the lake mystery and the big explosions," whispered Tom Reade wisely. "Fellows, I've a notion that Danny Grin and I unintentionally bumped into someone else's business of some queer kind. Now the people who are peevish with us are trying to chase us out of these woods. At least, that's my idea."
"It will take something more than noise to chase us," smiled Dick coolly. "Our ear drums are as sound as the next fellow's. Just the same, I wish we might find out something about this mystery. If there's another explosion like that last one, then some of us ought to travel straight in the direction of the noise."
"And run straight into the hard, swift punch that is behind that noise!" muttered Danny Grin, with one of those facial contortions that had earned him his nickname.
"Whoever starts to playing with a boy's curiosity must be ready to abide by the consequences," chuckled Prescott. "Now, if anyone has started something against us, then we'll run the rascal to the earth."
"You don't suppose it's Dodge's work?" whispered Greg.
Before Dick could answer Darrin broke in with an emphatic:
"Not much! The lake mystery affair is one of too large calibre for Bert Dodge's poor, anaemic brain. There's something bigger and smarter than a mere Dodge behind the doings of this night."
"It's one o'clock, fellows," said Dick, after walking over to the lantern for a glimpse at his watch. "Tom, Greg and I will stay up until three o'clock and be ready to jump out together at the first sign of anything happening. The rest of you turn in and get some sleep. We'll call you at three o'clock and then take our turn at the pillow."
"You'll call us, of course, if anything happens?" asked Dave.
"If another powder mill blows up," chuckled Tom, "you won't need to be called. You'll be out here on the jump."
Dave, Dan and Harry thereupon turned in. Knowing that others were on watch the trio in the tent were all sound asleep within five minutes.
Only the sighing of the wind through the trees, the occasional splash of a leaping fish in the lake, and the subdued, musical hum of tiny night insects came to the ears of Dick and his fellow watchers.
Greg was soon yawning. Tom, for want of something better to do, began describing all over again the strange apparition he and Dalzell had seen that afternoon. Greg, finding the "creeps" in Tom's narration to be stronger than the interest, shivered and withdrew to a spot beyond the reach of Tom's whispers.
Not long after Greg, his back propped against a tree trunk, was sound asleep.
Tom liked to talk. Prescott was a good listener, putting in a question now and then.
So at least another hour passed. Then——-
Boo-oom!
That crash was so close at hand that it seemed as though the earth must open.
Tom's first startled glance was at the sky. Then, with a whisking sound, several fragments of something passed over their heads.
"We're being bombarded?" gasped Tom inquiringly.
"This is getting too noisy to be interesting," protested Greg, waking and leaping over to the place where his chums stood.
"I thought you fellows were going to put a stop to that racket!" complained Darry from the tent.
Dick Prescott's whole thought and effort had been centered on the task of placing the location of that latest explosion.
"You fellows look after the camp," Dick called in a low voice to those in the tent. "Come on, Tom and Greg!"
His two chums hurried to overtake him as the young leader rushed off in the darkness. Prescott was traveling up the slope in a direction that ran in an oblique line from the lake front.
"Are you sure it was just exactly in this direction?" whisperedReade, as he reached Dick's side.
"In this direction as nearly as I could judge," Dick affirmed.
For some moments they traveled onward. Then they halted to listen.
"I don't know whether I'm any good at judging distances," Dick whispered, "but it seemed to me that whatever exploded was not much more than three hundred yards from camp."
"About that distance, I should say," Tom agreed.
"Then we've gone about as far as the place of the explosion.Suppose we keep very quiet and listen."
"Ugh!" grunted Greg. "I hope the earth doesn't blow up under our feet."
"Go back to camp, if you're nervous," smiled Dick, but Greg remained where he was.
"I'm going out a little way and prowl," whispered Dick, pointing in the direction he had chosen. "Tom, why don't you travel in about the opposite direction?"
Reade nodded.
"Where shall I go?" asked Greg.
"You had better remain right here," Prescott whispered. "If you should hear either of us yell for help then you could start in the direction of the sound."
"Then I'll get into those bushes," whispered Greg. "When you come back, come straight to the bushes, so I'll know that it's one of my own crowd. If any strangers appear, I'll listen to 'em if they halt near here, or trail them if they try to go past here."
Dick nodded. This seemed about the best that could be done. Of course, back in camp, he had three more good and courageous fellows to draw upon as added forces, but with such strange doings afoot in the night it didn't seem wise to call the others away from the camp. Above all, the camp had to be watched and guarded.
In half an hour Dick returned. He had found nothing to throw light on the puzzle of the night. Tom was back already, having beaten Dick to Greg's hiding place by about two minutes.
"We may as well go back to camp," whispered Greg.
"Not much!" Prescott retorted. "If anyone is trying to do anything to us, then we want to run the mystery down and put an end to it. My idea is that the best thing we can do is to get up to the road, post ourselves at fair intervals and watch to see if anyone should pass."
"Correct!" clicked Reade. "And I think that would have been the best plan in the first instance."
"If the powder-mill explosions are to keep up through the night," hinted Tom, "then there ought to be another one due within a few minutes. In that case our tormentors may be getting ready to plan something now. So let's hike for the road at once."
Dick led the way, all three boys moving as noiselessly as they could. Prescott posted his friends, then chose his own post, so that they were stationed at intervals of about a hundred yards. All had hiding places within plain view of this rough country road.
Now the time dragged again. Strain their ears as they might, none of these young outposts of Dick & Co. could hear a single suspicious sound. They must have remained there all of three quarters of an hour.
Bang! sounded a terrific crash. Tom and Greg, without showing themselves in the road, hurriedly, silently reached their leader.
"Pshaw!" uttered Prescott in disgust. "With all our care we were on the wrong side of camp to be near the explosion. Come along, now, but don't make any noise if you can help it, and don't step out into the road. We'll go straight toward that latest noise. If it takes all summer we're simply bound to find out who is trying to blow up these woods just to scare out a few little rabbits like ourselves!"
Our trio had nearly reached what they judged to be the scene of the latest explosion when Dick suddenly gave a low, sharp "hist," at the same time bending over to the ground while still peering ahead.
Palpitating with excitement, Tom and Greg halted, also looking.
Out of the shadow ahead emerged something only vaguely outlined in the dark. Whether wild animal or human being it would be hard to say there in the darkness. Indeed, the slight sound caused by its progress close to the road had more to do with warning Dick and his friends than anything their eyes saw at first.
"Come on!" whispered Dick, heading suddenly for the road. In a jiffy Tom and Greg were also in hot pursuit, though young Prescott managed to keep somewhat in the lead.
But the object of their pursuit took alarm, too, and gaining the road, flew like the wind.
"Hold on there, you!" challenged Dick. "We want a little conversation with you at once."
At that vocal warning the fugitive put on an even better burst of speed.
"It must be a man!" exclaimed Dick. "He evidently understood me."
"No use for you to try to get away!" shouted Reade. "We intend to get you if we have to chase you all the way to the seaboard."
That was enough to make the fugitive veer suddenly and dart in under the trees. Tom vented an exclamation of disappointment, for he knew the chances were easy for escape in the deep shadows of the forest.
At that instant Dick raised his right hand. In it he held a small stone that he had picked up at the first instant of discovering the presence of the stranger.
Now Dick threw the stone, with the best judgment that he could command in the darkness.
Ahead there went up a cry, as though of pain. Then all three pursuers distinctly heard an angry voice say!
"Hang him! He hit me in the heel!"
If there were any reply to this from a confederate of the injured fugitive neither Dick nor his chums heard it.
After a minute all three stopped at a low uttered order from youngPrescott.
"Hush!" whispered Dick.
"Sh!" confirmed Tom Reade.
As they stood there in the forest not a sound of another human being was audible.
For some five minutes the trio of high school boys stood without stirring from their tracks.
"We've lost the trail," whispered Dick at last. "We could remain here, of course, waiting for more things to happen, but my belief is that daylight would find us still standing here, like so many foiled dummies. We might as well return to camp. What do you think?"
"Yes; we'd better go back to camp," assented Tom.
"I'm agreeable," murmured Greg
So back to camp they went, going by the open road as much of the way as served their purpose.
"There's the camp," muttered Tom, as they caught sight of a light between the trees. "Why the fellows have started a campfire."
"What do you say if we slip up on them and give them something to jump about?" laughed Greg.
"That might work with some people," negatived Dick, "but Darry is there, and he's impulsive. He might half kill us before he discovered his mistake. O-o-o-h, Dave!"
"Hello!" answered Darrin, coming away from the campfire. Then he waited until the trio were close at hand before he went on:
"I judge you didn't have any luck."
"We got close to one of the scamps," muttered Tom, "whom Dick seems to have hit on the heel with a stone, but he slipped away from us under the trees."
"It's only half an hour to dawn," yawned Dave, looking at his watch. "We can turn in, now, I guess, for the rascals must be about through with the guessing match they've put up for us."
"We could turn in now," suggested Danny Grin. "We don't have to go to sleep, you know, but we could lie in our blankets and talk the time away until dawn. The campfire will keep going until after daylight comes on."
That seemed rather a sensible course. Dick nodded, and all hands, after Darry had thrown a few more sticks on the fire, went into the tent, undressed, donned pajamas and slipped in under a single thickness of blanket apiece, and lay there talking.
Yet it proved to be a case of gape and yawn. One after another their eyes closed and more regular breathing started.
Dick Prescott was the last one to drop off. Yet he had barely more than lost himself in slumberland when there came a blast so close at hand that, to the boys, it seemed as though they must have been blown from their cots.
"That was right up toward the road!" panted Dave Darrin, leaping from his cot barefooted and clad only in pajamas. "Don't stop to dress. Come on! Chase 'em!"
"Go as far as you like!" chuckled Dick, stopping to pull on his shoes and fasten them, as did most of the others. Hazelton went only to the doorway of the tent, but Danny Grin followed Darrin, keeping at the latter's heels.
Prescott and Reade were hardly sixty seconds later in heading up the slope toward the road, Greg and Harry remaining at the camp.
As they came out from under the trees and into the road Dick discovered that the first signs of dawn were appearing. In a few minutes more it would be possible to see clearly over a stretch of road more than half a mile in length. Already objects were beginning to take shape. Dave was coming back, followed by Dan. Both were limping slightly, for neither boy was accustomed to traveling barefoot and both had picked up slight stone bruises in their progress.
"Did you sight anything or anyone?" called Dick.
"No," grumbled Darrin, in deep disgust. "The odds are all against us, anyway. The scoundrels know which way they are going; we can only guess at their course."
"One thing looks rather certain, at any rate," yawned Dick, covering his mouth with his hand. "Whoever the unknowns are, they were trying only to bother us. Or, if they were trying to injure us, they were rank amateurs at the destructive game.
"But what was it that blew up, anyway?" queried Dave.
"It sounded like a keg of gunpowder each time," Tom declared. "Yet to carry around five kegs of gunpowder would call for a lot of muscular work."
"I'm going back to camp to put on my shoes," Dave declared.
"So am I," Danny Grin added.
"We'll wait here for you," said Dick. "When you come back there may be light enough for us to look into matters a little."
Dave and Dan returned in a little more than five minutes afterwards.The daylight was now becoming stronger.
"Are Greg and Harry keeping awake?" was Prescott's first question.
"They are," nodded Darrin.
"Then they can be trusted to look after the camp," Dick continued.
"And to look after the canoe," Reade amended.
"Now, we'll explore the woods a bit," Prescott went on. "We know about where we heard the explosions, and we'll look for whatever evidence we can find."
For this purpose each explorer went by himself. Ten minutes later Dave Darrin set up a loud hello. This brought the others to him on the run.
"Give us another call," demanded Dick.
"Here!" called Dave, from the depths of the woods.
Dick went in, followed by Tom and Dan.
"I've found this much," Dave announced, holding up a scorched bit of colored paper. It was such paper as is used for the outer wrapping of fireworks.
Dick took the fragment of paper, reading therefrom the title,"The Sploderite Pyrotechnic Co."
"Nothing but fireworks, after all," ejaculated Danny Grin in great contempt, now that it was broad daylight.
"But I would like to have seen the fireworks before they blew up," retorted Tom Reade. "They were surely the loudest I ever heard. I don't believe anything but the heaviest cannon could make as much noise."
"Whoever touched off fireworks like these," uttered Dave, "didn't care a hang whether or not he set the woods on fire."
"There was no fire danger," Dick rejoined. "The grass and everything in these forests is as green as can be. But let's look about and see if we can't find evidences of the explosion at this point."
"There ought to be a good-sized hole in the ground right under where this piece of fireworks exploded," Tom guessed. "We ought to find, not far from here, some evidences of what explosives can do in ripping up the ground."
"Now I remember that one of the explosions in the night sent something whizzing through the air over our heads."
"Pieces of the pasteboard enclosing the mine, bomb or whatever kind of fireworks it was," Dick suggested. "But let's look for other debris around here."
That single bit of scorched paper, however, was all that any of them could find.
Tom discovered a spot where he thought the ground had been blackened, but Dave thought the blackened appearance due to humus soil, and so nothing came of the argument.
"I think," yawned Dick, "this search will lead to the same result that the others did during the night. About all we can do is to go back to camp."
The sun was up by the time that all six members of Dick & Co. were once more gathered about the remains of their campfire.
"I don't know what you fellows are going to do," yawned Tom Reade."As for me, at present a nap looks better than any shower bathor breakfast that was ever invented. No matter how much objectionI hear, I'm going to get an hour or two more of sleep."
That idea met with rather a hearty reception. Within three minutes all six high school boys were lying between blankets again, composed for sleep.
No more explosions came to disturb their slumbers, which were deep and broken only when at last Dick Prescott called out:
"Fellows, we're regular Rip Van Winkles! It's half-past nine o'clock!"
"And we've that lake mystery to solve today!" uttered Greg Holmes, leaping up.
"Now, I don't know how it is going to hit the rest of you," remarked Tom Reade, as he put down his coffee cup at the end of the hasty breakfast, "but I'll confess that I'm not wholly keen about solving the puzzle of the lake mystery."
"Why not?" challenged Dave in astonishment.
"It's just like this," Tom went on. "Solving human riddles is all right in the daytime, but it's likely to spoil our rest at night. I can't help feeling that last night's Sploderite function was a mark of displeasure over our unwelcome interest in the lake mystery."
"Suppose we grant that," Dick answered, "yet how would last night's rascals expect us to connect the bang concert with Tom and Dan's canoe trip and discovery yesterday afternoon?"
"There's something in that idea," Reade admitted. "The unknowns might hardly expect us to show as much human reasoning power as all that. Yet I'm of the opinion that we'll continue to rest badly at night as long as we continue to feel any unhealthy curiosity about the lake mystery. In other words, my belief is that our interest in the affairs of perfect strangers is regarded by the unknowns as rudeness that must be rebuked."
"I don't care a hang about the lake mystery, anyway," gaped Dan, who was giving forth a series of yawns, his mouth only partially hidden by his right hand.
"There's just one strong point to the other side of the question," Dick argued. "There's a very fair amount of reason to believe that a man may have been drowned late yesterday afternoon, and that Tom and Dan saw him go down for the last time. That probability existing, I believe we are bound, as good citizens, to see if we can find any trace of a drowned man. If we can, then as good citizens it is clearly our further duty to report the matter to the authorities. If we can't find the remains of the drowned man, then I am under the impression that, at the least, Tom and Dan must report to some county officer just what they did see, and the county can then take up the question in any way it pleases. First of all, however, we ought to look for the body of a drowned man."
This view prevailing, Tom and Dan launched the canoe, Dick entering as passenger, while the other two handled the paddles.
Some brisk work took the canoe over, as nearly as Tom could judge, to the spot where the haunting face had been seen so briefly on the afternoon before.
Under the bright morning sun the waters were clear here, though the bottom could not be seen.
"Paddle half a mile up the lake, then down," Dick ordered.
This was done, Prescott and the paddlers keeping a sharp lookout. No body of a drowned man was seen, however, either on the surface or under the water.
"I don't believe anyone was drowned," re marked Dick at last. "There is no wind today, and hardly any such thing as current on this placid water. Whoever the man was, he got ashore."
"That's my belief," agreed Reade.
"Where's that brush arrangement?" asked Dan suddenly. "That frame all trimmed with green boughs."
Nor was this to be seen, either, though an object of that size would have been visible at any point on the water within half a mile.
"The man got ashore, all right, and he took care of the bush-trimmed frame as well," was Prescott's conclusion. "Whoever the man was, whatever happened, I don't believe that anything tragic happened in the water. For that matter, fellows, isn't it possible that, in the gathering gloom, and with the sky somewhat overcast, you were deceived about the ghastly, haunted look in that face? Isn't it likely that the look you thought you saw in the man's face was merely an effect of the unusual light of late yesterday afternoon?"
Tom shook his head emphatically.
"Why don't you ask us," demanded Dan ironically, "if it weren't just imagination on our part that we saw the face at all?"
"I don't doubt your having seen the face," Dick replied. "That wasn't anything that the light supplied."
"Then where is the man?" quizzed Dalzell.
"Safe on shore somewhere, beyond a doubt," Dick answered
"Then the chase takes us ashore, doesn't it?" asked Dan.
"Yes; if we're going to follow up the matter any further," Dick replied.
"We ought to follow it up," Reade insisted.
"Why?" asked Prescott.
"For one thing," smiled Tom, "it will give us something interesting to do."
"Should we find our interest in meddling with other folks' business?" wondered their leader.
"We've a right to, when those people come around and spoil our night's rest for us," Tom retorted.
"It was a bit like a challenge, wasn't it?" Dick laughed.
"Besides," Dan urged, "we certainly saw enough yesterday afternoon to show us that there is something tragic in the air around this sleepy old lake. If anyone is in trouble we ought to try to help that one out of trouble. And there was real, aching trouble in that face if ever I saw evidences of trouble."
"I guess we'll put in part of the day looking into the matter,"Dick assented.
"Where shall we land?" asked Dalzell.
"As nearly as possible opposite the exact spot where you saw the man's head," Prescott made answer.
"Over there where that bent birch shows between the two chestnut trees," announced Reade, pointing with his paddle.
"Pull for that place," Dick ordered.
In a few minutes the canoe was drawn up along the shore so thatDick could step on land.
"You'd better come with me, Tom," said Prescott.
"And I'm the nifty little boat-tender who stays here and dozes in the shade?" asked Danny Grin, with a grimace.
"Are you good and strong this morning?" queried Dick, with a smile.
"Strong enough to walk, anyway," Dan retorted.
"Then perhaps you're strong enough to paddle back across the lake and bring over two more fellows. Then, when you get back here, leave one of the pair here in the canoe, and we will get them to keep it a hundred feet or more off shore. We don't want our craft destroyed. And be sure, Dan, that the fellow who stays behind on the other side of the lake understands that he's to stick right by the camp and watch it for all he's worth."
"I've got my orders," clicked Danny Grin, with a mock salute.
"Then let's see how well you can paddle alone."
Dalzell gave a few swift, strong turns of the paddle that sent the light canvas canoe darting over the water.
"Now, come along," urged Tom. "I'm anxious to get busy this morning."
First of all, the two high school boys walked up the lake shore for some distance, keeping their eyes wide open and all their senses on the alert. Then, returning, they walked for a considerable distance down the shore.
"There are our reinforcements coming," announced Tom, pointing across the lake. "Danny and his load will be here within fifteen minutes."
"We'll wait for the other fellows, before going away from the shore," Dick proposed. "If we started now they wouldn't know where to find us."
Returning to the landing place, Dick silently waved his hat until he caught the attention of Dave Darrin, seated in the bow of the canoe, who answered the signal just as silently.
Presently the craft came up to the shore.
"Who's going to stay in the canoe?" Dick inquired.
"I am," Harry Hazelton declared dolefully. "We drew lots on the other side. Greg drew the shortest twig, so he had to stay at the camp. I got the next shortest twig, so my job is boat-tender."
Dave and Dan stepped ashore. Heaving a sigh, Harry paddled out on the lake some hundred and fifty feet from land.
"Now, how are we going to beat up the country on this fine July morning?" Tom wanted to know.
Dick stood looking at the surrounding ground.
"I think I know as good a plan as any," he announced, after a pause. "Dave, you and I will walk down the lake, using our eyes and ears. Tom and Dan will go in the opposite direction. Each pair will keep along until our watches show that we've been going ten minutes. Then we will walk up the slope a hundred steps and turn toward the centre, meeting probably about the end of the second ten minutes. After that, if we decide to do so, we can go further inland from the lake. If there's a house or hut, or any fellow camping out in this neighborhood we ought to find him without much trouble. What do you fellows say to my plan?"
"It's about as systematic as anything could be," Dave agreed."But what if one pair of us find something?"
"We'll try our best to communicate with the other pair," Dick rejoined. "Suppose, Dave, that you and I run into something interesting and don't want to leave it? Tom and Dan, not meeting us at the appointed place, will know enough to keep right on over our course until they find us."
"That looks plain enough," nodded Reade thoughtfully.
"All right, then," Dick declared. "Now we'll start."
He and Dave started off at a swinging gait. The first time Prescott turned to look behind him Reade and Danny Grin had already vanished.
Dick kept close to the shore, Dave moving in a parallel line a few steps up the slope.
"There isn't any hut, lodge or camp down there," Dave called softly, "or else we'd have seen it from our camp on the other side of the lake."
"I know it," Dick nodded. "What I'm trying to do is to see if I can find any hint, on the shore, of how that fellow landed yesterday, without Tom or Danny catching sight of him. Of course, a very clever swimmer could have gone quite a distance under water. and I want to see if I can find any sign of anything that would have hidden his landing from the fellows in the canoe."
"Oh!" nodded Dave understandingly.
The full ten minutes of searching passed without the slightest trace of a discovery.
"Halt," Dick called up smilingly. "Now, join me, Darry, whileI count off the hundred steps up the slope."
This done, the chums started backward, keeping a course as nearly parallel with the shore as was possible.
"Now, try to be keener than ever," Dick urged, as Dave paced off another twenty steps higher up. "We're in a growth of deeper forest, with a bigger tangle of underbrush and it will be easy enough to overlook something."
The two boys trudged on. They were five minutes on their way back, perhaps, when Dick heard a sudden scrambling in the underbrush not far away. Then Prescott caught sight of a human figure, yet so fleetingly that he could have given no description of it.
"Is that you, Darry?" he called sharply.
But it wasn't, for no answer came back, save for the slight sound of someone going through the brush farther on.
"Dave! Darry!" shouted Prescott. "Here! Quickly!"
Then Dick dashed on in pursuit, calling again and again untilDave came in sight and joined in the chase.
"What was it?" panted Dave, as he came within hailing distance.
"Someone running away from me," Dick explained.
"What did he look like?"
"I didn't have a chance to see. Let's travel hot-foot."
Yet presently Dick halted. Dave stopped beside him.
"We've passed him; he has doubled on us," uttered Darrin in a tone of intense chagrin. "We belong in the primary class in wood lore."
Then, suddenly, they heard a slight noise again. Forward they dashed. Now they came out to a place where the ground was more open. Before the two high school boys rose a great boulder of rock, its front sloping backward, and running up to a height of fifty feet or more. They had already seen this boulder from the water.
"That fellow ran into the open, but he didn't have time to cross it," announced Dick in a tone of conviction, as the pair halted at the foot of the boulder. "He could have gone up this side; there are crevices enough for foothold. But in that case we'd have seen him."
Dave stood plucking absent-mindedly at the leaves of a bush in a clump that grew at the foot of the boulder. Suddenly Dick glanced down, noting that his feet were on boggy ground, though the surrounding soil was firm enough.
"Is there a spring running out of the solid rock?" wondered Dick, reaching out and pulling one of the bushes forward.
Then he gave a sudden shout of discovery:
"Look here, Dave! We're on the track of it! These bushes conceal the mouth of a cave! This is where our fugitive has gone!"
"By Jove!" gasped Dave, also bending back a bush and glaring down, his eyes wide open with interest.
"That's where our man went," Dick whispered.
"Not a doubt of it," Dave assented. "We'll signal the other fellows, and then get him at our leisure."
"Unless there are other openings to this cave," Dick hinted.
"That's so! The fellow may be a quarter of a mile away from here already," Darrin quivered. "Let's not lose any time. I'll go in there first."
Dave was on his knees, quivering with eagerness, dominated by purpose, when Dick grabbed him, hauling him back.
"Let me alone," growled Dave. "Don't interfere with me!"
"But you don't know what you might run into in there, Darry," Prescott insisted firmly. "For one thing, you have no idea how many villains may have their secret home in there."
"Then, what are you going to do?" Darry demanded, looking up.
"I'm going to watch, right here, while you go forward and find Tom and Dan. Bring them here, and then we'll decide what ought to be done."
"That's rather slow," hot-headed Darry objected.
"It is, and a heap safer," Dick contended. "Hot-foot it afterTom and Dan. I'll stay right here and see to it that the mouthof the cave doesn't run away. Start—-at once, Darry, please!Don't let us waste time."
Knowing how stubborn Dick could be when he knew that he was wholly right, Dave lost no time in argument. He sprinted away, and presently Dick heard faint echoes of Darry's signaling, "hoo-hoo!"
A few minutes later the trio came up at a dog trot.
Not one of them spoke, as all had lost their breath in their haste. Tom, now in the lead, dashed up to where Dick stood on guard a few yards away from the bushes.
"Over there," nodded Dick, pointing to the bushes.
Tom and Dan pulled the bushes aside curiously.
"If we're going into that cave we may as well cut the bushes down," murmured Reade, producing a pocket knife. "Any objections, Chief?"
"No," smiled Dick, "and I'm not the Big Chief, either. Cut the bushes down, if you want. Move over, and I'll give you some help."
Within a short time the bushes had been cut down close to the ground, revealing an irregular shaped opening in the cave. This aperture was about three feet high and some five feet in width.
"Did you bring that pocket flash lamp, Tom?" asked Dick suddenly.
"Thank goodness, I did," replied Reade, producing the lamp.
Dick took it and crawled a few feet into the hole.
"There's water all along on the floor here," he called, "but just a dribble. Come in here and you'll find that you can stand up."
It needed no urging to induce the other boys to follow. Then they stood up, in almost complete darkness, save when the flashlight showed them their surroundings.
Some parts of the cave rose to a height of perhaps sixteen feet. Twelve feet was about the average height. From what the boys could see as they moved along, the cave extended for some sixty feet.
"I don't believe there's anyone in here except ourselves," muttered Darry in disgust, peering all around him. "In that case, we are wasting our time in this cave. Phew! How cold it is in here!"
"And well it might be," laughed Dick. "Do you see that mass just ahead of us?"
"What is it?" asked Dan. "Flash the light on it."
"Come over and look at it," Dick went on. "No one could live in this cold place. It is chilling me to the bone, just to stand here. And now you see why that little trickle of water keeps moving out through the mouth of the cave. Fellows, we're in one of nature's icehouses."
"But we're not after ice," Dave protested.
"We won't turn down ice in the wilderness, when we can find it in July," Dick rejoined.
"Not much!" answered practical Tom Reade. "Why, fellows, ice is just what we need at the camp. Let's get a closer look at it and make plans for an ice-box over at the camp."
"But I want to follow that man of mystery," protested Dave.
"Go ahead, David, little giant," Dick laughed. "We won't stop you. But we've lost our man of mystery, anyway, and this cave contains something that we really do want. Tom, you're the mathematician of the party. How much ice is there here?"
"If I could see better I could tell you better," sniffed Reade."Hundreds of tons of it, anyway."
"How did the stuff get here?" asked Dan wonderingly.
Dick was now at the edge of the ice pile, and flashed the light at the roof of the cavern.
"See the rifts in the rock up there?" he asked. "Water must have leaked in here during the heavy winter rains. It was cold water, too. Then, in extra cold spells, such as this country experiences, the water must have frozen. As heat doesn't get in here in warm weather the ice may have been here for generations. Fellows, we may be looking upon ice that was here when George Washington was a boy."
"I've read, somewhere," declared Tom soberly, "that icebergs that float down from the polar regions in spring often represent ice that is at least ten thousand years old. Fellows, some of this very ice may have been here in this cave long, long before Julius Caesar went into the soldiering business!"
That thought had somewhat of an awesome effect upon Dick & Co. The four high school boys felt as though they were in the presence of great antiquity.
"But the practical side of it," declared Tom, "is that we must devise the best way of cutting some of this ice and getting it across the lake to the camp."
"Oh, you can break off enough for making ice water," replied Dave Darrin impatiently, "and take it over in the canoe, though the spring water is cold enough for anybody."
"All of Dave's thoughts are still on the man of mystery," Dick declared, with a chuckle.
"It's much more interesting than standing here figuring on how to get ice that we don't need," retorted Darry.
"Now, as to moving this stuff to the camp," Tom went on, "it seems to me——-"
"Of course," laughed Dick. "It has already struck you that we can fell a few small trees and build a raft on which we can tow a few hundred pounds of ice at a time."
"Oh, pshaw!" fidgeted Dave. "I am anxious to find the man of mystery."
"That isn't anything practical," scoffed Tom Reade, "while in hot weather a good supply of ice is eminently practical."
"You'll think there's a practical side to the man of mystery and his cronies when to-night comes, and there's so much noise about the camp that we miss another night's rest," hinted Darry sagely.
"Humph!" was Tom's greeting to that assertion. "I don't know but you're right."
"Well, we know where the ice is," remarked Dick. "We can get it at our convenience. Darry, we'll follow you in pursuit of your man of mystery. Come out of here, fellows."
Dick led the way out of the cave, flashing the light as he walked.All four blinked when they found themselves out in the sunlight.
"Now, which way are we going, David, little giant?" demanded Tom good-humoredly.
Now that he was put to it, Dave had to confess that he didn't know.
"Let's make a swift, thorough search all around here, and see if we can find any footprints not made by ourselves," Dave suggested rather weakly, at last.
This was done, and faithfully, for, now that they were out in the sunlight again, the interest in the mystery began to return. It grew stronger as they searched. At last, however, after more than an hour of fruitless effort that offered not an atom of promise, even Darry was willing to give it up for the time, at any rate.
"Let's keep on walking along the slope, then," Dick suggested, "until we come in sight of the canoe."
As they walked along they came to a brook that, at this point, was nearly the width of a creek. The water ran noisily down over the stones, save here and there where there were deep pools.
"It's narrow enough, at one point below here, to jump over," Dave volunteered.
"Thank you," replied Dick, "but just at present I'm not for jumping over this brook."
"Well, then, what on earth does interest you?" Dan asked. "This isn't the first time you've seen this stream. You passed it down by the lake, though down there it runs more smoothly."
"I know," Dick nodded. "I remember the fallen tree we used for a bridge, and I'm simply ashamed of myself that I didn't think more about this stream at the time—-but my head was then too full of the lake mystery and the chap with the haunting face. But now——-"
"Well?" demanded Tom impatiently.
"Reade, old fellow," Dick answered solemnly, turning back from peering at one of the quiet pools in the creek, "you're a wonder at black bass fishing, no doubt. My tastes ran to another form of sport. Mr. Morton taught me trout fishing; he lent me his tackle before we started, and I have it over at the camp now. Fellows, I believe, from the looks of things, that this stream is well stocked with trout. At all events, I mean to have a try at it."
"To-morrow?" asked Dave.
"No, siree! This afternoon——just as soon as possible! A little while ago we were talking about ferrying ice over to the camp. Instead, we'll ferry the camp over here, and keep the cave just as it is for our ice-house. Do you fellows know that brook trout make the most delicious eating to be had when the cook knows his business? I do, for Mr. Morton has cooked trout for me in the woods. Besides, brook trout are growing scarce these days. If we can make a good haul, we can get a pretty big price per pound for them! We have ice, now, and we could carry a lot of trout to market on our push cart, on top of enough ice to keep them. Come on! Back to camp! We'll shift it to this side of the lake at once. This crowd can't do better than to work out this trout stream. I know the trout are there! I can smell 'em! Tom, I've got an important job for you!"