put another
damper on their fun by announcing that some one would have to go to town
for more provisions. The boy had failed to come that morning, and their
supply of canned goods was running dangerously low.

"Let's all go," Chet suggested. "We could walk down and ride back."

"But, oh, Chet, it's so frightfully hot," Billie objected. "I'm sure we'd
get sunstroke or something."

"Yes, it's a terribly long walk," added Violet.

"Well, we could wait till toward evening," said Ferd. "It wouldn't be so
scorching then. I admit," he added, taking a slanting squint at the sun,
"that even I am not eager to take a long hike just now."

"But toward evening we'll be preparing supper," objected Laura, and the
boys threw up their hands in despair.

"Well, then we'll just have to go without you," said Teddy. "But it would
be lots more fun if you'd come." This last was said to Billie and for her
ear alone.

That afternoon the girls watched the boys down the road till they
were out of sight, then turned back to the house with a strangely
lonesome feeling.

"You know," said Violet, pausing on the doorstep and looking back at the
girls with a rather sober face, "I have a sort of feeling that
something's going to happen."

"Well, you'd better get rid of it right away," retorted Laura. "We don't
want anything more to happen--especially when the boys are away."

This time Violet proved to be right. Something did happen. It was after
dark, the boys had not yet got back from the village, and the girls were
setting the table in the kitchen--they had never found the courage to eat
in the gloomy dining-room--when Violet set a dish down on the table with
a bang that made the girls start and look at her in surprise.

As for Violet, she was too scared to speak for a moment. Then she
stammered out:

"The strange motor car!" she said, while Billie and Laura stared at her.
"I thought I heard it before--"

"Sh-h," cried Billie, and they listened, hardly daring to breathe.

There was the same strange humming sound that had so startled them on
their first night in the house, only this time, instead of coming from a
distance and passing by, the noise seemed to get louder, then softer,
louder and softer, as if whatever it was were approaching and retreating
at regular intervals.

At that moment Mrs. Gilligan came into the room, and the girls called to
her to listen also.

"That?" she asked, with a little laugh. "Why that's an automobil