oon."

"And see how dark it is--it's getting late. Let's let these other things
go." Jerry's voice, betraying her eagerness to quit the tower room, made
Gyp feel creepier than ever.

Each took a corner of the ghostly envelope and slipped it between the
pages of the Bible.

"There--it's safe enough now. We can take turns carrying it." The girls
hurriedly donned their outer wraps. Then, without one backward glance,
they tiptoed down the narrow stair. But, to their amazement, the panel
at the foot of the stair would not budge. Vainly they shoved, and
pressed their shoulders against the solid oak. Breathless, Gyp sat down
on the Bible.

"_What'll_ we do?"

"We'll have to shout and bring someone--'cause we can't open the other
door."

"Then Old Crow will know our secret," wailed Gyp.

"But we don't want to stay here all _night_!"

Gyp gave one swift, backward glance up the secret stairway to the
haunted tower room.

"No--no! Well, let's shout together."

They shouted and shouted, with all the strength of their young lungs.
But Old Crow, who really was Mr. Albert Crowe, for many years janitor of
Lincoln School, had gone, ten minutes earlier, in his Sunday best, to
attend the annual banquet of the Janitors' Association and his assistant
had made his last rounds of the School, so that the shouts of the girls
echoed and re-echoed vainly through the deserted halls of Highacres.

Jerry leaned, exhausted, against the wall.

"I don't believe it's a bit of use--not a soul can hear us."

"What'll we do?" asked Gyp again--Gyp, who was usually so resourceful.
"If we only hadn't found that old letter we never'd have _thought_ of
ghosts and we wouldn't have minded a bit being shut in the tower room."

Jerry commenced to laugh nervously. "Gyp, maybe you don't _know_ you're
sitting on the Bible!" Gyp sprang up.

"I don't think it's anything to laugh about! Not me, I mean, but--but
having to stay all night--up _there_!"

Jerry started back up the stairway.

"Come on," she encouraged. "_I'm_ not afraid. If there _are_ ghosts I
want to see one." Gyp followed with the Bible. The tower room was
shadowy in the fast-falling twilight. The girls tried to open each of
the small windows; though they rattled busily enough they would not
budge.

Gyp sat down resignedly on the window-seat. "We'll just sit here until
we're rescued. Only--no one will _guess_ where we are."

"I think it's a grand adventure," declared Jerry valiantly