“Folsom Duckworth, do you mean there is a possibility you won’t be back to-night?” demanded Nell, in surprise, and Fol looked sheepish.
“Not a chance in the world,” he answered. “What would keep us in a swamp overnight, I would like to know?”
“So would I!” retorted Nell, adding, with a sigh: “You boys do interest me strangely!”
Under protest the girls finally consented to fix a lunch for the three boys. They felt uneasy about this sudden expedition to the swamp and would have dissuaded the boys from undertaking it if they could have done so. However, they knew Darry well enough to be sure there was no changing his mind when it was once made up, and in this case they felt sure that Darry had originated and planned the whole thing.
It was with vague misgivings then, that they watched the boys go off on the narrow path that led toward the swamp.
“I don’t understand it at all,” said Jessie. “The boys act so queerly and seem to have so many secrets from us.”
“Darry must have put them up to this ghost-hunting trip,” said Amy, voicing the thought that had troubled them all. “I caught him talking to Burd and Fol very seriously two or three times, and when they saw me they changed the subject—pronto. Oh, I know them—and I know Darry!”
“I used to think I did too,” said Jessie, plaintively. “But lately he seems like some one else, and so do Burd and Fol. I can’t make them out.”
“I think there is more behind this trip than just the scare we had the other night,” said Nell. “It seems to me the boys have some other reason for braving the horrors of the swamp just now.”
“I tell you what we can do,” suggested Amy, the ever-resourceful. “We can do some investigating on our own account!”