CHAPTER XIII—THE HAUNTED HOUSE
Every girl had brought a box of luncheon, and besides, somebody had “toted” two huge pots for chocolate and the little individual cups they all carried made sufficient drinking vessels. Mary O’Rourke, with the help of Laura and another girl who knew something about wood-lore, built a campfire, while two other girls climbed down to the road and followed it across the brook on the stepping-stones and up the hill to the nearest farmhouse for milk. There was a spring of clear water in the hillside at the edge of the plateau.
The red sun dropped behind the forest-clad hills upon the distant shore of Lake Luna. They could see the rippling water sparkle in the last rays of the sun. A white sail was set in this background of red and purple glory, like a single, flashing diamond. The birds were winging homeward to their nests in the hills behind the girls’ camp.
“What a quiet, soothing picture,” sighed one of the seniors.
“It might be altogether too quiet up here after dark if there weren’t such a bunch of us,” said Josephine Morse. “Ugh!”
“The haunted house, eh?” suggested Laura.
“Don’t say a word! I bet there are ghosts in it,” declared another girl, with a shiver.
“I’ll guarantee there are rats in it,” laughed Laura.
“You’re so brave!” exclaimed Jess, with scorn. “But you wouldn’t want to go into that house even in the daytime.”
“I don’t like rats,” admitted her chum.