groans as of a
soul in mortal agony. Something had happened to the twins!

"Girls! Girls!" she cried, forgetting for the moment her own sorry
state. "What is the matter? Twins!"

Sepulchral silence! And Connie knew that this was the dreadful Skull
and Bones. Her teeth chattered as she stood there, irresolute in the
intense and throbbing darkness.

"It's only the twins," she assured herself over and over, and began
fumbling with the latch of the barn door,--but her fingers were stiff
and cold. Suddenly from directly above her, there came the hideous
clanking of iron chains. Connie had read ghost stories, and she knew
the significance of clanking chains, but she stood her ground in spite
of the almost irresistible impulse to fly. After the clanking, the
loud and clamorous peal of a bell rang out.

"It's that old cow bell they found in the field," she whispered
practically, but found it none the less horrifying.

Finally she stepped into the blackness of the barn, found the ladder
leading to the haymow and began slowly climbing. But her own weight
seemed a tremendous thing, and she had difficulty in raising herself
from step to step. She comforted herself with the reflection that at
the top were the twins,--company and triumph hand in hand. But when
she reached the top, and peered around her, she found little
comfort,--and no desirable company?

A small barrel draped in black stood in the center of the mow, and on
it a lighted candle gave out a feeble flickering ray which emphasized
the darkness around it. On either side of the black-draped barrel
stood a motionless figure, clothed in somber black. On the head of one
was a skull,--not a really skull, just a pasteboard imitation, but it
was just as awful to Connie. On the head of the other were crossbones.

"Kneel," commanded the hoarse voice of Skull, in which Connie could
faintly distinguish the tone of Lark.

She knelt,--an abject quivering neophyte.

"Hear the will of Skull and Crossbones," chanted Crossbones in a shrill
monotone.

Then Skull took up the strain once more. "Skull and Crossbones, great
in mercy and in condescension, has listened graciously to the prayer of
Constance, the Seeker. Hear the will of the Great Spirit! If the
Seeker will, for the length of two weeks, submit herself to the will of
Skull and Crossbones, she shall be admitted into the Ancient and
Honorable Order. If the Seeker accepts this condition, she must bow
h