semi-circle and began joyfully to tell the most
blood-curdling ghost stories they knew.

Each girl had to tell some story she had read or heard, or if she was so
unfortunate as never to have read or heard any, was forced to make one
up "out of her own head."

The fun waxed fast and furious, each story being more hair-raising than
the last until it came to Billie's turn.

"But I don't know any ghost stories, and I'm no good at making them up,"
she protested when the girls looked at her expectantly. "I like
adventure stories about treasure hunting and robbers and murderers and
things----"

"Well, that'll do," said Laura joyfully, while the other girls shivered
delightedly and drew close together. "Tell us a murder story, Billie."

Billie was about to open her mouth in protest when Vi suddenly made a
suggestion.

"I've got the very thing," she cried. "Tell the girls about the
'Codfish,' Billie."

"'The codfish'?" they repeated, looking puzzled, while Rose added with a
little yawn: "Yes, do tell us about the codfish, Billie--it sounds so
interesting."

The tone more than the words made Billie angry, but before she had time
to retort the girls broke in, eagerly demanding the story of the
"Codfish."

"We caught one one time on a family fishing trip," said one of the
girls, taking it for granted that this particular codfish was of the
swimming variety, "and we had fried codfish steaks for a week
afterward."

Billie chuckled while Vi and Laura openly giggled.

"But this wasn't that kind of a fish," said Billie. "It was a man."

This was almost too much for the girls, who were beginning to think that
Billie and Laura and Vi had suddenly gone crazy, but Billie hurried on
to explain about the "Codfish," growing more and more interested in her
story as she went on.

As for the girls, well, they simply hung on her words, and when she came
to the part where the thief had dropped her precious trunk in the
roadway they exclaimed so loudly that Caroline had to warn them to be
quiet. By this time the guard at the door had been removed, as there was
little danger of discovery at so late an hour.

"Well," sighed Connie Danvers, when Billie had finished her story, "I
wish something like that would happen to me sometime. It sounds just
like a story book."

"But you should have caught him," Nellie objected. Though Nellie had
heard of Billie's wonderful good fortune in finding the old trunk, she
had never heard the detail