The boys said they would shift for themselves.

"Aren't you going to get your suppers?" asked Cora of her brother, as she saw him and his two chums going down the road about five o'clock in the afternoon.

"Later," he answered. "We're going for the mail now. It gets in about this time, and Walter is expecting a letter."

"No more than you are!" was the quick retort.

"Bring us all one!" called Bess. "Does the mail really come up here?"

It did, twice a day it developed, coming to the little village of Mountain View, which was about a mile from Camp Surprise.

"Maybe there'll be some word about your car, Cora," said her brother.

"That's too good to hope for, Jack."

There was a letter for Cora from her mother, but there was no news of the car. And as there were epistles also for Bess, Belle and Hazel, the boys took great credit to themselves for having fulfilled the commands of the girls.

"And we think we ought to be rewarded, too," said Walter.

"What form ought the reward to take?" Cora asked.

"The form of supper," was the quick answer. "We don't feel like pitching in and opening a tin of corned beef just now. Feed us to-night, and we'll rustle the grub for ourselves after this."

"Well, in view of the fact that you've been so nice to us, we will.

Shan't we, girls?" asked Cora.

"Yes!" came in an unhesitating chorus; and once more the boys ate bounteously with no effort on their part.

Mrs. Floyd and her husband returned about eight o'clock, to find the young people playing games in the big living room, and having a jolly time.

They planned an excursion for the next day, to include a stop at the hotel to ask about dance privileges, and then, this having been arranged for, good nights were said.

Cora, whose room adjoined that of Belle, was awakened some time in the night by a touch on her arm.

"Yes! What is it?" she asked, sitting up quickly, and reaching for the little electric flashlight she always had under her pillow. "Oh, it's you," and she revealed Belle's face. "What's the matter-are you ill?"

"No, but listen! Did you hear that-that noise?"

CHAPTER XIV-WAS IT THUNDER?

The silence of Cora's room, into which Belle had tiptoed, was broken only by the accentuated breathing of the two girls.

"I don't hear anything," began Cora. "Are you sure--"

"Listen!" interrupted her chum. "Did you hear it then?"

For a moment Cora was not aware of anything, and then there seemed gradually to come to her a dull, sc.r.a.ping sound. Perhaps it would be more correct to call it a vibration. If you have ever tried to raise a window which fits loosely in the frame sidewise, as compared to the other direction, and have felt it go up in a series of vibrations, you will understand what is meant. The whole room seemed to tremble like the shaking of the window.

The whole bungalow, too, seemed to be vibrating and delicately trembling from some cause-a deep, low and hardly audible sound that was, in effect, more sensation than noise.

"It's the waterfall," said Cora. "Don't be a goose, Belle!"

"I'm not. It's a noise. Can't you hear it above the sound of the water?"

Cora listened more intently.

"Yes, I can," she reluctantly confessed. "It's like the rumbling of a wagon going past the house."

"Yes," agreed Belle in a whisper. "But it isn't a wagon. There isn't any out at this hour, and the noise is in this bungalow, not outside."

Cora agreed to that, also. She snapped on the switch of her little portable light, so that it would glow without the necessity of holding her finger on the push-b.u.t.ton, and then she slipped on her robe, and put her feet in slippers. Belle was similarly attired.

"What are you going to do?" asked Belle.

"Find that noise," whispered Cora. "But don't let's wake up the others.

It may be-nothing, and they'd only laugh."

"It can't be nothing," insisted Belle. "There it sounds louder than ever."

Together they went silently to the door of Cora's room. But either their movements or the queer noise had awakened Bess in the adjoining apartment.

"Is that you, Cora?" she called.

"Yes. It's nothing. I'm going to get a drink, Bess. I am," she added in a whisper to Belle, to justify herself.

"Bring me one," begged Bess, sleepily.

It was evident that the noise which had alarmed-or if not alarmed, had awakened-Belle, had not disturbed her sister. For as Belle and Cora went toward the door they could both hear and feel the vibration more plainly now.

"What can it be?" asked Belle. "Some one trying to get in?"

"Nonsense!" chided Cora.

"But it sounds like raising a sticking window. Are you going to call Mr.

Floyd?"

"I wish he weren't so far off," said Cora, pausing undeterminedly in the middle of the room. "He might just as well be in another building as where he is. I don't like going through that connecting pa.s.sage. And he and his wife both sleep soundly. She told me so."

"We ought to have some means of summoning them-or the boys," continued Belle.

"We can always scream," Cora remarked.

"Yes, and startle every one. I almost screamed when I heard the noise, and then I thought I'd come in to you."