“You’re welcome, sure,” the man replied, as he turned away.
“Stop and have some dinner with us,” Kent called, but the man smiled and shook his head.
“Had mine already, thanks to you,” he replied and was soon out of sight.
Barry read his letter while the others were preparing dinner, and his face was a study as he finished it. “No bad news, is there?” Kent asked.
Barry shook his head. “No, but my Dad says we had better come on home. School starts again Tuesday, and he thinks I ought to be home so as to get ready to study for the next term. When he wrote this, he hadn’t received my letter, of course. I suppose we’ll have to go back.”
The others had stopped their preparations for the noon meal and had clustered around. “That means go home tomorrow,” Mac pointed out.
Barry nodded. “Yes, it does. And I think we ought to get up early and make our trip all in the one day, instead of camping out overnight again.”
“It can be done easily enough,” Kent agreed. “Well, I didn’t realize that our time was up so soon. We haven’t solved our mystery, either.”
“That’s exactly what is bothering me,” Barry declared. “We have been here long enough to have the ghost or prowler make raps and knocks, and then we have let him slip right out of our fingers. It won’t be easy to tell that to Dad, though I feel sure that he’ll understand that we did the best we could. But it is a big disappointment to me.”
“We really should have had more time on the case,” Tim said. “Maybe something will happen tonight and we can lay hands on the one we want.”