But the time dragged on and the boys became silent, glancing restlessly up the mountain side. Ted, looking at his watch, saw that it was eleven o’clock.
“A good two hours since they went away,” he thought, somewhat anxiously. “Oh, well, I suppose time seems longer when you are waiting for something than it does if you aren’t. If we only knew what was going on we’d feel better.”
He tried to keep the conversation brisk but the boys would not react. They were visibly oppressed, and they showed in their dogged silence that they were uneasy. Although none of them believed for a moment in anything ghostly, they found the vague stories of the camp a distinct hindrance to their peace of mind and the feeling of depression was heavy upon all of them. Ted wondered if there was not something that they might do to ward off the feelings which gripped them off, and he was thinking busily along this line when a sound reached their ears.
It was a low-pitched moaning and it seemed to come from a point above their camp, in the pine thicket which covered the knoll there.
They looked in the direction of the sound, their blood chilling under its influence. It was weird and mournful, and the icy shivers ran up and down the spine of more than one of the young boys. Ted was not in a comfortable state of mind himself, but he knew that something had to be done about it. He leaped to his feet.
“Come on, we’ve got to see if anyone is hurt up there!” he called, reaching for his lantern. The other boys followed him closely and he passed around the tents and ran rapidly up the incline toward the pine clump. The groaning had ceased as soon as they had started for the place from which the disturbing sounds had come.
They arrived in the grove in a group, the lanterns flashing generous beams around them, but there was no one to be seen. Thinking that someone might be concealed in the bushes they thrust their lights in there and looked closely, but there was no sign of a living person, and as only a living being could produce the sound which had startled them so profoundly, they half expected to see someone who had been injured in some manner. But although they searched the grove they could not find a trace of anyone.
“That’s funny,” commented Ted, now more annoyed than frightened. “The groans came from here, didn’t they?”
“Sure they did,” was the ready response.
“Well, the groaner has moved somewhere else,” said Ted, half angry and half jokingly. “We won’t even be able to find any footprints, because there is such a carpet of pine needles that a print wouldn’t show. Confound this whole business, I——”