With a hoarse cry that answered her own, the “Thing” flung back from the water’s edge and disappeared into the darkness!

CHAPTER XVIII

 Surprised

The Outdoor Girls could hardly have told how they got back to the lodge after that, Blindly they stumbled through the underbrush, expecting they knew not what horrible thing, thankful for the moonlight that made it possible for them to hurry.

They did reach home somehow and there they sat until late into the night, trying to find some explanation for the thing they had seen, striving to think up some plan for hunting it down until finally Mrs. Irving sent them to bed.

That did not do very much good, for they lay awake and talked until the first rays of sunlight crept into the windows.  Then they said goodnight and sank into a sleep of exhaustion.

For three days after the episode the girls never went far from the house on foot.  They would take the cars and spin down the open road, but a sort of horror of the supernatural kept them from venturing into the woods again.

But when the fourth day dawned the fright of their moonlight experience had begun to wear off and they were beginning to feel ashamed of their fear.

Having a little of this in her mind, Mollie gave voice to it at the breakfast table.

“I must say,” she began, buttering a piece of bread energetically, “that it isn’t like us Outdoor Girls to let anything scare us into staying near the house.  Why, I declare, I don’t believe there is one of us who would dare poke her nose past that rose bush in front of the porch after sundown.  That’s a pretty state of affairs, isn’t it?”

“Well, you needn’t glare at me as if it were all my fault,” retorted Amy with spirit.  “I’m sure I didn’t wish the horrible old thing on us.”

“I only wish I knew who did,” sighed Grace, adding, with a sudden burst of ferocity:  “I would wring his neck.”

“Suppose somebody suggests something we can do about it,” said Betty reasonably.  “I’m sure that after the other night nobody could blame us for being frightened.”

“No.  But there is one thing I can blame you for,” said Mollie, glaring morosely at her chum.  “And that is for not letting the horrible old thing drown itself when it so very evidently wanted to.  If that had happened all our worries would have been over.”

“Goodness, Mollie, what a horrible idea!” Betty protested.

“I don’t think it was a horrible idea,” Grace put in.  “I think it was just about the finest idea I ever heard of.”

“Yes,” added Amy with a deceptive mildness, “if you hadn’t called out just then, Betty, the whole thing would have been over and the Thing would have been drowned.  And then,” she added plaintively, “we would have been able to enjoy our summer.”

“It really wasn’t any of our business, you know,” Grace finished, moodily.