"Why didn't you bring him along?" asked John Ellison. "I wanted you all to come."
"Arthur's off down town, and Joe's gone to the camp with Tim Reardon," explained the eldest of the Warren brothers. "Tim and Joe'll be sky-larking around somewhere later. They're great on Hallowe'en night, you know. They've got a supply of cabbage-stumps to deliver at the doors."
And thus the talk drifted to Hallowe'en, the night when, if old romances could only be believed, there are witches and evil spirits abroad, alive to all sorts of pranks and mischief.
In the midst of which, and most timely, there came suddenly a sharp tap at one of the windows. They paused and turned quickly in that direction. James Ellison sprang to the window and peered out.
"Nothing there," he said; "one of those big beetles, I guess, attracted by the light."
They fell to eating again, when presently another smart rap at the window startled them.
John Ellison laughed. "It's some of fat old Benny's nonsense," he said. "He wouldn't come in, because you city chaps were coming. He's rigged a tick-tack; I can see the string of it. Wait a minute and I'll just steal 'round the other door and catch him at it. You fellows go on eating, and don't pay any attention. I'll catch him."
They resumed the feast; and again the sharp rap sounded upon the window pane, caused by the clicking of a heavy nail—suspended from the window sash by a pin and string, and yanked by somebody at the end of a longer string attached—swinging in against the glass.
There came a yell of surprise shortly; and, in a moment, there appeared John Ellison clutching the culprit by the collar. Which culprit, to their astonishment, proved to be, not Benny Ellison but Young Joe.
"Here he is," laughed John Ellison, dragging in his prisoner. "What'll we do with him?"