dids and
the occasional ripple of water on the lake shore. A poet might have
breathed a sigh of delightful awe. Well, the girls were pleasureably
impressed with scene and the sounds, if they were not exactly delighted,
and the awe was coming.

It came without warning and was before them very suddenly. It was in the
form of a man in a long, white robe, long white hair and whiskers, the
latter reaching almost to his waist. He stalked, stiffly, unemotionally
out of the darkness south of the camp and across the open space within
thirty feet of the fire, where sat the startled, chill-thrilled group of
girls, speechless with something akin to fear and momentarily powerless
to shake off the spell that held them as rigid as statues.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A BUMP ON THE HEAD.

Suddenly Helen Nash's memory served her so well that she regained
control of her wits with a shock. Here is what she remembered:

"I don't want them to scare you with a ghost"--these words uttered by
little Glen just before his warning speech was interrupted by the
appearance of Addie Graham at the girls' camp.

That recollection was enough for Helen. There was nothing tenuous,
elusively subtle, or impenetrably mysterious any longer about the
ghostly apparition. Little Glen had something very clear and definite in
his mind when he made that remark.

Her muscles having relaxed from their rigid strain of superstitious
suspense, Helen reached for the "ammunition sling" that she had placed
beside her and drew therefrom one of the catapults they had made in the
afternoon, also a pebble about the size of a marble, and fitted the
latter in the pocket of the weapon. Then she drew back the pocket and
the pebble, stretching the rubber bands as far as she could extend them,
and took careful aim.

Helen had practiced with this weapon a good deal in the last two or
three hours and acquired considerable proficiency for so short a period
of experience. Moreover, she was skilled in amateur archery and could
pull a bow with a strong right arm. This experience, together with a
general systematic athletic training at school, rendered her
particularly well adapted for her present undertaking.

The other girls, under the spell of awe-fascination which had seized and
held Helen before it was broken by a sudden jog of her memory, knew
nothing of what was going on in their midst until they heard the snap of
the rubber bands. And doubtless it would have taken them co