The other girls crowded around then and wanted to know what had happened. Laura pinched Liz and said:
“She dropped those plates. Guess we won’t make her pay for the broken ones, girls. Go on, now. I’ll finish helping Liz wipe them.”
So the matter of the “ha’nt” did not become public property just then. In fact, Mother Wit talked so seriously to the maid-of-all-work that she hoped the “ha’nt” had been laid, before they sought their cots that night.
But in the morning there was a most surprising sequel to the incident. The larder had been robbed!
“It can’t be,” said Laura, who heard of the trouble first of all when she popped out of the sleeping tent. Lizzie Bean had awakened Mrs. Morse and that lady—bundled in a blanket-robe—had come to the cook-tent to see.
“I ain’t never walked in my sleep yet—and 115 knowed it,” stated Lizzie, with conviction. “And there’s the things missin’––”
The remainder of the big ham, a strip of bacon, coffee, sugar, syrup, canned milk, and half a sack of flour were among the things which had disappeared.
While the three stood there, amazed, Bobby came. “Bet it was those boys,” said she. “Playing a joke on us. They’re over here somewhere.”
The sun was just rising, and its early beams shone on the camp across the lake. Laura ran for the binoculars and examined the boys’ camp. Both powerboats were there, and the five canoes. The boys were all disporting themselves in the water—Laura could count the six.
“If they did it,” she said, “they got back to their camp very early.”