e.
"Oh, wasn't it awful? Those groans--the clanking of chains----"

"How do you know they were chains?" challenged Betty.

"Well, they sounded like them, anyhow."

"That's what we thought on Elm Island, and you know how that turned
out."

"Oh, well, yes; but this is different," protested Grace. "These hollow
groans--there they go again!" and she clutched Amy's arm so suddenly
that a cracker and herring sandwich the latter was eating went to the
floor.

Indeed there did sound through the deserted house a queer, groaning
noise, as if some one was in distress. Betty gave voice to this
suggestion, saying:

"Oh, girls, I wonder if any one can be--hurt?"

"Well, I'm not going to look!" cried Grace. "Oh, let's get away from
this terrible place. I'd rather be out in the storm than here!"

"In that rain?" asked Mollie, as they listened to the down-rush of
water. It even drowned the noise of the groans.

"That is only the wind," declared Mrs. Mackson, though she looked over
her shoulder apprehensively. "The wind, moaning down an old chimney, or
in some broken window, and around a corner--I have often heard it that
way."

"You're a comfort, at least," murmured Betty. "But, girls, I really
wonder if it could be anyone in trouble? Someone who took refuge in here
from the storm, as we did, and who, wandering about, fell and got hurt.
That girl, perhaps--the one from the tree----"

She paused, looking about for some support of her theory.

"Nonsense! How could she be here?" asked Mollie.

"Well, it's not very plausible," admitted Betty. "But some one is
certainly in this place."

"Don't say that!" cried Grace.

"Don't be silly," advised Betty. "Why, of course some one is here, or
has been here. Else how would that food get here? That is not ghostly,
at all events. It was very material, and satisfying, and I'm deeply
grateful for it. It stands to reason that some one expected to eat it.

"My theory is that some one, traveling perhaps like ourselves, only
maybe not in an auto, was overtaken by the storm. More provident than we
they had lunch with them, and brought it in here, intending to eat it.
Then some accident happened to them, or----"

"The ghost carried them off," interrupted Mollie, with a glance of
defiance at Grace, who shuddered, and looked behind her.

"Anyhow they're not here now," went on Betty. "And I don't know but that
it is our duty to look for them."

"Never!" breathed Amy.

"At least we can