“What’s that?” she cried.  “I thought I felt—­Dorothy, turn up the light!”

Then, as the fear took greater hold on her, she cried: 

“Oh, help!  There’s a man in the closet!  Run, Doro! run!  Help, somebody!”

Dorothy did not pause to turn up the lights.  She swung around and fled with Tavia, who continued to scream, while Dorothy, too, uttered frightened cries.  There were calls sounding throughout the house—­voices anxiously demanding to know what the matter was.  The girls ran down the front stairs, and then swung around and darted up the rear flight that they might reach the room of the boys without passing the closet which contained something that had frightened them so terribly.

“Oh!” screamed Tavia, pounding on the boys’ door.  “Do come out—­quick!  There’s a man in the big hall closet!  He—­he almost grabbed me!” she panted.

But somehow the boys could not seem to hurry.  Dorothy and Tavia were almost in hysterics before Ned finally opened the door, just as if nothing had happened.  He was fully dressed, and it did seem as if he might have responded more quickly to the frightened summons.

“What did you say?” he asked, as if just awakened from a sound sleep.

“A man—­a man—­in the hall closet—­he nearly grabbed me!” cried Tavia, “I put my arm in—­to hang up my cloak—­I shoved the clothes aside—­then I—­I felt—­something—­terrible.  Then I’m sure I saw—­oh, for pity’s sake get help—­don’t go alone—­he may kill all of us!”

Tavia trembled and seemed about to fall in a faint.

“Oh, come on,” exclaimed Ned as he stepped out into the hall.  “I guess we can manage a little thing like this.  Come on; we’ll see what it is that frightened you.  Likely it was only Tavia’s excited imagination.”

“Oh, please don’t go alone!” pleaded Dorothy, holding her cousin back by the arm.  “I—­I saw—­him—­it—­too.  The awfullest-looking—­”

“Ghost!” finished Ned with a laugh.  “Well, I’m not afraid of anything, from ghosts to—­gillies!”

At this he lightly shook off Dorothy’s detaining hand, and started down the long hall toward the closet.  Nat and the other boys were in the hall now, and in spite of her terror Dorothy noticed that they were all dressed, though it was supposed they had all retired—­especially Roger and Joe, who should have been asleep long ago.

“Now, come on out, whoever you are!” exclaimed Ned as he strode up to the open closet.  “Where is he?” he asked, poking through the garments hanging on the rear hooks.  “Nothing doing here.”

“Then he has hidden himself in some other part of the house,” declared Tavia.

But at this Joe and Roger could hold back their laughter no longer.  The others also joined in.  But Tavia would not be convinced.

“I certainly saw—­him—­it,” she insisted.  “It did not look like anything human!”

“Come and see if it’s here now,” invited Ned, who could not seem to find a trace of whatever it was that had frightened the girls.