CHAPTER III
"NO BOYS!"
Such shouting and such laughing!
There, hidden in the thicket near the spring, were discovered Jack Kimball and Walter Pennington, while the chuckles and other noises emerging from mysterious parts of the wood indicated the presence of human beings, although the sounds had a queer similarity to that made by furry beasts.
"Oh, Clip! Spare me!" called Jack, as Cecilia actually undertook to punish physically the offending young man. "I really did not think you would be scared—in fact, I had an idea you were scare-immune."
"I am," declared the girl; "but the idea of me wasting sympathy! I might have discovered the dead man of all my life-long dreams—had to appear in court, and all the other delightful consequences of finding a man under suspicious circumstances; and there you are not even sick. Jack Kimball, how could you? You might at least have had the politeness to be deadly ill."
Walter crawled out from the thicket.
"I thought I smelled eating," he remarked, "and I suggested that we postpone the wild and woolly until we had investigated."
"Oh, come on," called Cora. "We may as well allow you to move on.—You have actually interrupted the plans for our first official run.'
"Good!" exclaimed Ed Foster, who, with some other young chaps, had collected themselves from the various haunts. "Any boys?"