riences. An
old man, Professor Dempsey, by name, who had retired to a little log
cabin in the woods to recover his health, had chanced to do the girls a
very great favor. Of course the girls were grateful to him and were very
much interested when he told them of his two sons who were in the war.
Later, when the girls read of the death of his two sons in the paper,
they went to the old man's lonely cabin in the woods, but found
themselves too late. According to a friendly neighbor, the old man had
become temporarily insane at the terrible news, had wrecked his cabin in
an insane frenzy, and disappeared.

Later, at Wild Rose Lodge, the girls were frightened several times by a
strange apparition lurking in the woods around the lodge and Moonlight
Falls, a beautiful fall of water not far from the cottage where the
girls were staying. Later the boys came home from France and helped the
girls solve the mystery.

And now here was Betty proposing another outing that promised to be more
fun than any the Outdoor Girls had had yet. No wonder that in the clamor
of their excited questions and answers no one heard the telephone
ringing noisily in the hall.

Finally the Nelsons' maid came trudging up the stairs to answer it
herself.

"If I can hear myself think," she grumbled, as she took the receiver
from the hook. "With all them girls a-gabberin' an' a-talkin' at the
top o' their lungs. Hello--I can't hear you--you'll have to talk
louder--you don't know the noise they is in this house. Miss
Betty?--jus' a minute----"

"A gen'leman to speak to you, Miss Betty," she announced a moment later,
looking in on the hilarious girls. "An' le's hope you can hear him
better'n I could, that's all," she grumbled, as Betty pushed by her in
the doorway and gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder.

"Oh, they'll keep quiet now, all right," she said, with a laughing
glance over her shoulder at her chums. "They'll want to hear what I have
to say."

At which taunt the girls started such a dreadful clamor that she really
had all she could do to hear Allen at the other end of the wire. Oh,
yes, it was Allen!

"Sech a noise," grumbled the maid, as she trudged down the steps again.
"I never did see sech wild uns!"

"Hello, hello, Allen," called Betty into the telephone. "The girls are
here and--what's that? At Walnut Street? All right, that will be fine. I
can't talk now. Tell you why later. Yes, we'll be there. Don't be silly.
Good-by!"

Her