“No; you can’t be certain; absolutely certain;” George replied, so positively that Will, who lacked firmness, wavered, and helped George’s cause by saying, “Well, the place has a different look, I believe! But these must be the bones, surely!”
“It looks different, because we generally came in from the south;” Steve returned. “Any boy with two eyes isn’t going to get so far astray in these woods.”
“Well, what if it isn’t the place we think it is?” Will asked.
“Oh, you will have to give in that it’s murder,” Marmaduke said. “I knew it was murder all the time. How do you know that nobody was ever murdered here? You don’t know anything about bones; George is most likely right.”
“Don’t make a fool of yourself again, Marmaduke; let us go home,” Steve growled, and he had taken a step homeward, when a long and doleful cry, followed by a hideous and piercing scream, electrified all the boys.
They conjured up all sorts of horrors, and the bravest turned pale with fright. Suddenly the “glade” became gloomy and awful; bugbears lurked in the shadows; ghost stories flitted through their heads; the “Phantom Ship” loomed before them.
“Don’t talk about murder, boys; I can’t stand it so coolly as you can,” Will entreated, with a quavering voice that told of abject terror.
“Oh, what is the matter?” Steve gasped. “What could yell like that?”
At that instant another shriek, more appalling than the first, rang out, rose and fell in grating discord, and then died away in the distance.