"Then what was it?" demanded Nat.
"Never in my born days did I hear anything like it. It was awful!" gasped Sladder. "Listen! Is there anything skulking 'round over there?"
With trembling hands, Musgrove lighted a pine-knot, and, advancing toward the thicket, held it high above his head. The other boys followed closely.
A flaring circle of light slowly danced along over the snow. Bright beams glanced from tree to tree, queer-shaped shadows flitted about, but the hissing, sputtering flames revealed nothing but gaunt trees and underbrush.
"This is the strangest thing yet," declared Bob Somers.
"What kind of a place have we struck, I wonder?" put in Dick Travers. "First we are snowballed by somebody who isn't anybody, and now we get the life scared out of us by an animal that isn't an animal. What do you think about it, Chubby?"
Dave considered. "To tell the truth, Dick, I don't know what to think," he answered, slowly.
"I don't like this—don't, for a fact," declared Musgrove. "I ain't afraid of no animals, or humans either. But take my word on it, there's something funny going on around this place."
All breathed easier as time went on, and there came no repetition of the cries.
The boys had all returned to the camp-fire, but Bob at length exclaimed, "Who has the sand to go out with me and take another look around?—H'm," he added, as he glanced in the direction of the lake and waved his hand toward a starlike point which glimmered faintly in the distance, "there's a light in the cabin."