“Different? What do you mean?”
“Why,” faltered Sile, “it—it was—was sort of spooky, yeou know. Didn’t saound just like the howlin’ of any real live dog I ever heard.”
“But,” protested Piper, “it had to be a live dog, you know; it couldn’t be anything else.”
“Perhaps,” suggested the other boy, with a touch of mischief, “it was a cougar.”
“This is a fine time to try to crack any stale chestnuts,” flung back Sleuth. “I’d really give something to know just what it was we heard.”
“Perhaps,” returned Crane, confident now that his companion had lost all desire to make an immediate landing on the island, “we might find aout by goin’ ashore and prowlin’ araound in them dark woods. Come on.”
But now it was Sleuth who objected. “There isn’t time, you chump; we’ve got to get back to the camp. Only for that, I’d be willing to——”
He was interrupted again by a repetition of that protracted, mournful howling, which seemed to echo through the black pines and apparently proceeded from a point much nearer than before. The sound of a real flesh-and-blood dog howling mournfully in the night and in a lonely place is enough to give the least superstitious person a creepy feeling, and, with the tragic story of the hermit and his faithful dog fresh in their minds, it was not at all remarkable that the two lads should now feel themselves shivering and find it no simple matter to keep their teeth from chattering.
“The confaounded critter is coming this way!” whispered Sile excitedly.
“We’re pretty near the island, aren’t we?” returned Sleuth. “Let’s be getting along toward camp.”