“BEWARE OF THE SCOTT HOUSE AT NIGHT!” it warned. “IT IS HAUNTED!”
Ethel grabbed again at Marjorie’s arm, as if to draw her forcefully away. But now Marjorie was the braver.
“Take that!” she cried, firing three shots in succession aimlessly into the cellar. “Whoever you are!”
But to both girls’ astonishment, there was no reply. Turning about swiftly, they fled wildly through the hall, and out the door, never stopping until they had reached the gate. There they almost bumped into a car, stationed, with its engine running, across the very entrance.
“Marj! Ethel!” cried two very familiar voices, and the girls fairly dropped into the arms of Jack Wilkinson and John Hadley, who had just descended from the latter’s Ford.
“Tell us! Quick!” demanded John. “Are you hurt?”
“Who was it?” asked Jack. “Who shot?”
“I did,” replied Marjorie. “But I don’t know at whom. But—where were you?”
“We slept here in the Ford all night after we took mother home,” John explained. “The shots awakened us—we were just across the road behind a tree—and so we pulled right over.”
“Do you want us to go in to the house?” asked Jack.