“Here’s your ghost. Come and see it, Chet. A glass ghost.”
Frank was pointing to an object embedded between two logs. Chet, his fears laid at rest, emerged from beneath the blankets and came over.
There was a small hole between the logs where the plaster had fallen away. Some one, for some unknown reason, had placed the neck of a bottle in this hole in order to plug it up. On the floor below lay the cork, which had somehow worked its way loose from the bottle neck. The wind, whistling through the glass tube, had created the doleful, fearful sounds the boys had heard.
“Ghosts!” said Frank significantly, as he stepped down, picked up the cork and replaced it in the neck of the bottle.
“I didn’t really think it was a ghost,” murmured Chet lamely.
Then the boys began to laugh. Although they had refused to admit it, all had been puzzled and more or less frightened by the uncanny wailings, and their relief was now expended in shrieks of laughter at their own expense. But the brave Chet, who had even refused to search for the cause of the sound, came in for his full share of ridicule.
The ghost was not heard again that night. But it was another hour before the boys finally fell asleep, snickering to themselves.
CHAPTER X
Stolen Supplies
A complete recital of the boys’ doings on Cabin Island during their first two days would be of small interest to any but themselves. Suffice it to say that they enjoyed themselves just as any other group of boys of the same age would in similar circumstances.
Cabin Island was located in a lonely cove, and, as it was some distance away from Bayport, few ice-boats ever ventured so far down the bay. However, this isolation did not mar the holiday. On the contrary, as Joe expressed it, they could easily imagine that they were having their outing in the remote Canadian wilderness, instead of but a few miles from their own homes.