The Scouts kept to the road until they came to a break in the wall which formed the gateway. Wide open and sagging inward, two massive gates of iron grill-work had rusted and settled upon their hinges until they were firmly imbedded and immovable in the ground. The girls stopped and were examining the intricacy and beauty of the design in the wrought iron-work, when an old woman came hobbling along the road towards them. Doris shivered; in fact, all of the girls trembled in spite of themselves: for the creature, thin, tattered, and old, reminded them of a ghost herself.
"I wouldn't go in there, if I was you girls," she warned them, holding up her bony hand. "There was a strange-lookin' figer there last week or so! Nobody seen her come, and nobody seen her go—only once or twice some of us that lives near-by saw her through the winder. Some said she were a human, out of her mind, some says she were a spirit—only but for the boat she brung with her, and went away in again!"
"The boat!" repeated Marjorie, breathlessly. "Was it a canoe?"
But the old woman shook her head; she did not know any distinction among varieties of boats.
"She must 'a come by the stream at the back of the house, and vanished the same way," muttered the stranger; "but whoever she was, she wan't no good! What with her, and the old ghost that some says shrieks around the house o' nights nobody'd get me inside! I wish you wouldn't go in!"
"Oh, nothing will hurt us," said Miss Phillips, gently. "We want some place that is protected from the wind where we can eat our supper."
"It was Frieda! I know it was Frieda!" cried Marjorie, after the old woman had left them.
"Well, what if it was?" remarked Ruth. "You'll never see your canoe again, so there's no use of your getting so excited."
"Probably not," assented Marjorie, making a desperate effort to calm herself. For Ruth could never understand what the thing meant to her. Nevertheless, she was encouraged to have this much information about the girl.
Close together, and keyed up with excitement, they advanced eagerly along the lane leading to the house, which they could see about a hundred yards away, gray-white through the grove of tall trees which surrounded it. And as they drew nearer their agitation seemed to become intensified, as if they were about to discover—they knew not what!