bathing place.

"Well, conditions are not as bad as they might be," said Miss Ladd, as
she took hold to assist at hauling the line out of the water. "We have
the stakes and the rope and can put them back into place."

"Would you mind telling us what has happened?"

These words drew the attention of the Camp Fire Girls away from the
object discovered in the water and to the speaker, who was one of the
older of the urbanely clad summer resorters from the Graham cottage.

"Someone has been guilty of some very malicious mischief," Miss Ladd
replied. "We had roped in a bathing place after examining it and finding
it safe for those who are not good swimmers, and you see what has been
done with our work. The stakes were pulled up and the rope hidden in the
water. Fortunately we have just discovered the rope."

"Isn't that mean!" said the younger girl, whom the campers surmised
correctly to be Olga Graham.

"Mean is no name for it," the other Graham girl declared vengefully.
"Haven't you any idea who did it?"

"None that is very tangible," Miss Ladd replied. "There was a mysterious
prowler near our camp last evening, but we didn't catch sight of him. He
threw a heavy stone into our bonfire and knocked the sparks and embers
in every direction, but he kept himself hidden. A little later we heard
a hideous call in the timbers, which we were pretty sure was intended to
frighten us."

"That's strange," commented the older of the visitors.

"Maybe it's the ghost," suggested Olga with a faint smile.

"Ghost!" repeated several of the Camp Fire Girls in unison.

"I was just joking," the younger Graham girl explained hurriedly.

"Why did you suggest a ghost even as a joke?" inquired Katherine. The
utterance of the word ghost, together with the probability that there
was a neighborhood story behind it, forced upon her imagination an
irrational explanation of the strange occurrences of the last evening.

"Oh, I didn't mean anything by it," Olga reassured, but her words seemed
to come with a slightly forced unnaturalness. "But there has been some
talk about a ghost around here, you know."

"Did anybody ever see it?" asked Hazel Edwards.

"Not that I know of," avowed Olga. "Of course, I don't believe in such
things, but, then, you never can tell. It might be a half-witted person,
and I'm sure I don't know which I'd rather meet after dark--a ghost or a
crazy man."

"Is there a crazy man running loose around here?" Ernestine