Larry watched that anchor light until just before the break of day, when he called Sam to come out and take the watch until breakfast time.  The daylight had not yet become pronounced enough to make out objects distinctly, but shortly after Sam took the watch the day broke bright and clear.  The anchor light seemed to fade away and merge into thin air before his very eyes.  He did not stop to reason that this was because the morning light had become stronger than that of the lantern.

Sam blinked and rubbed his eyes.  He could hardly believe what they told him.  He uttered a yell that brought his companions out on the run.

“What’s up?” shouted Billy.

“Everything.  They’ve tricked us!  They’ve gone!” cried Sam.

“They have, I do declare,” added George in a hushed tone.  “When did they go?”

“Just now.  I saw them.”

“You were asleep,” rebuked Billy.

“I wasn’t!  They disappeared!  They went up in thin air.”

Just then they were interrupted by a long, piercing wail that seemed to come from the air above and around them.  The boys gazed into each others faces.

“It’s a banshee’s wail,” whispered Larry.  “Somebody’s going to die.”

CHAPTER XVIII

A FRUITLESS SEARCH

“Don’t be an idiot, Larry,” rebuked If Billy Gordon.  “Don’t you know what that was?”

“Yes.  I told you,” whispered the red-headed boy.

“Pshaw!  It was only a cat bird,” scoffed George Baker.  “Who’s afraid of spooks, anyway?  The fact is that those girls have outwitted us three times.  We have lost the wager.  Now the question is, when did they get away?”

Larry declared that he had never removed his gaze from the anchor light during his whole watch, except when he went to get wood for the campfire.

“There’s only one way out of it,” decided Billy.  “Duck the two of them.  We will be certain to get the right party then.”

“’Nuff said,” nodded George.  The boys grabbed the two lads, and, despite their struggles, managed to throw them into the lake, but in doing so, George and Billy found themselves in the water, also.

This little experience put them in a better frame of mind.  The lads quickly divested themselves of their wet pajamas and put on their clothes.  Breakfast was a hurried meal that morning.  After breakfast they sat down to take counsel among themselves while Sam scraped the dishes then threw them in the lake to be washed by the lake itself.  They decided that either Larry or Sam must have fallen asleep, and that at a time when the girls had moved from their anchorage.

Both lads protested that nothing of the kind had happened.  Sam stuck to his story that the anchor light had faded away and that the “Red Rover” had disappeared all in the same moment.

“What are we going to do about it?” questioned Larry Goheen.