"Now, just stop!" insisted the girl. "If you had gone through the scare before, as I did, perhaps you would not be so merry."
Dorothy and Nat came toward the car. They had heard the shriek, and could not understand it. The tree still stood on its frozen mound and was likely to remain there, for one more night, at least.
"I was not frightened," explained Dorothy, "but I heard you call. Perhaps we had better go. It is almost dark."
"But I would first rate like to bag that owl," said Nat. "I believe I could teach a bird like that to talk English."
"It certainly said some thing," his brother added. "Well, I suppose we will have to please the ladies and turn out," he finished. Then Dorothy and Nat climbed back into the car, and the pretty Christmas tree was left behind with the other queer things in Tanglewood Park.
CHAPTER VIII
A MAGAZINE GHOST
That evening the boys had no end of fun teasing the girls. That Dorothy and Tavia should have been so easily frightened, that Tavia should have "turned turtle," as Ned put it, and that Dorothy "should have run under fire," and left the coveted tree behind, seemed to the boys beyond explanation.
Listening to their telling of the affair, Major Dale became interested, and soon discovered that the old Mayberry Mansion, in Tanglewood Park, was none other than the former home of a veteran of the war, who had been in the same regiment with the major.