"None of that, now!"
"But I can't tell secrets!" pleaded Dick.
"It isn't a secret at all. It's a good story, and you've got to let it come out. We need a good one to get us started."
All now joined in the demand, but Dick shook his head protestingly.
"Honestly, fellows, it wouldn't be right for me to tell secrets," he insisted.
The inner bar that locked the door by night had been dropped into place ere the boys sat down to supper. But now Harry rose, went over to the door and raised the bar.
"Fellows," he called back, "give Dick Prescott just one more swift chance to tell us what the man on the clubhouse steps said. If he won't, then grab him and fire him out into the night until he knocks on the door and promises to be good."
Tom, Greg and Dave made a laughing bolt for their young leader.
"Some one's pulling the latch-string from outside," reported Harry Hazelton, too startled, for the moment, to let the bar fall. But Tom wheeled like a flash, leaped forward and dropped the bar back into place.
"It's the fellow, or fellows, who have been living here before we came," whispered Dan in a half-scared voice.