CHAPTER XX

THERE IS A MYSTERY

"It's a black dog!" ejaculated Amelia Boggs. "I reckon there aren't any canine ghosts; are there, Nan?"

The laugh which followed this sally broke the spell of superstition that had clutched some of the girls. Laughter drove away even the fears of May, Lillie and Grace. Bess swallowed hard and laughed, too; but she pinched Nan's arm as she whispered:

"It was that black thing we saw before in the boathouse, Nan."

"All right. Keep it to yourself," urged her chum.

"What are you two whispering about?" complained May. "You didn't get us down here to try to frighten us to death, did you?"

"We're going to give you all a good time, if you'll let us," laughed Nan, cheerfully. "Come on, girls! If we spend so much time outside the boathouse, somebody will be sure to see us."

"And think we're a whole troop of ghosts," chuckled Laura Polk. "Lead on, Macduff!"

"That's not my middle name, but I'll lead," returned Nan promptly, and this time she succeeded in reaching the side door of the boathouse. She drew forth the electric flashlight and pointed it at the lock, so she could see to insert the key.

"Hurry up!" cried Laura, from the rear. "I'm starved to death right now."

"And it's only ten o'clock," somebody else said. "How can that be?"

"I didn't eat any supper," confessed the red-haired girl, unblushingly. "I knew Nan and Bess would supply something better."

"If it's all here," Nan said, as the door swung open.

"Goodness! don't suggest that any of those goodies have been stolen!" cried another girl.

"Maybe that black dog has been in the pantry," chuckled Bess.

"No laughing matter," Laura said. "Look quick, Nancy, dear."

Nan entered in the lead. She flashed her spot light about the big room. There was the row of ice-cream tubs. One of them had its cover off and some of the ice was scattered on the floor. On the other side of the room were the hampers. The covers had been wrenched off two of them and a raid made upon the food they contained.

"Who's been ahead of us?" cried Nan.

"Goodness--gracious--Agnes!" murmured Amelia Boggs.

"Oh! don't tell me you've been robbed!" was the horrified cry of the red-haired girl.

Nan paid little attention to the rifled ice-cream container. She hurried to the hampers. One had been filled with individual salads, each in its paper box. The other had held chicken and anchovy sandwiches.

Several salad containers lay empty on the floor and more had disappeared entirely--been carried away by the thief, or thieves. At least a couple of dozen sandwiches must have been abstracted.

"Goodness!" wailed Bess, right at her chum's shoulder. "What an appetite!"

"For a ghost, I--should--say!" agreed May Winslow.

But Nan did not feel that the occasion was at all funny. This was downright thievery. And she felt quite sure that she knew who had done it.

"That mean, _mean_ Linda Riggs!" whispered Nan to Bess.

"Do you really think so?" breathed her chum.

"Who else could it be?" returned Nan, with an emphatic nod. But that was all she said at the time. She hurried to light the big lamp and make the girls welcome. At least the discovered raid on the viands served to banish all fear of the boathouse ghost. Ghosts certainly do not have an appetite for chocolate ice-cream, tuna-fish salad, and chicken sandwiches.

"Start the fire--_do_, Amelia," begged Nan. "Set the plates and knives and forks, Bess. Make yourselves at home, girls. Don't be afraid of starving, Laura. There's _loads_ to eat left."

"My mind is relieved by that assurance," said the red-haired girl with a sigh.

Nan had seen to it that each window was curtained and every crevice stopped, so that no light could shine out and play traitor. But the fact that the store of food had been raided disturbed her mind not a little. If Linda Riggs and her chums (for of course the conceited, self-assertive girl did not make the raid alone), played one mean trick, they might another. They might report to some teacher or to Mrs. Cupp, what was going on in the boathouse.

Nan began to realize now that this banquet giving was rather a risky thing. The girls all did it, and it was considered a forgivable offence against Dr. Prescott's rules; but of course the principal desired that the rule against eating after hours should be obeyed, or else she would not have made the regulation.

Nan was rather sorry she had yielded to Bess Harley's suggestion and arranged this banquet. But now being given over heart and hand to the affair, Nan did all she could to make the entertainment a success.

At this distance from the Hall the girls felt free to let their tongues run, and to laugh and chatter to their hearts' content.

"Oh!" cried May Winslow, "this party is lots nicer than any we ever had in our rooms, for here we do not have to set a watch for Mrs. Cupp, or be so careful how we breathe."

"Only we should set a sentinel on guard against ghosts, May," suggested Laura, wickedly. "That should be your job, honey."

"How mean of you!" squealed May. "I had all but forgotten that horrid black thing we saw."

"It is the ghost of some poor old slave your grandfather owned, Winslow," said one girl. "That is, if it really is a black ghost."

"He wouldn't haunt _me_," returned May, who was from Alabama. "I'm not afraid of any negro, alive or dead! Grandfather Mullin was awfully kind to all his people, and they all loved him. They didn't feel themselves slaves. Our own forefathers were held in bondage by the lords and barons over in England, four or five hundred years ago."

"Oh, say! don't start anything like that here," begged Amelia. "We get enough history I should hope, from Mr. Bonner."

"Right-oh!" yawned Laura, lazily. "Let good fellowship flow with that cocoa that already smells so good; and as we set to work upon the more stable viands----"

"Here! Hold on!" cried Bess. "What are 'stable viands'? Oats and corn. One would think we were horses."

Just then Nan made the announcement: "Ladies, supper is served." And at that very moment, as the girls crowded to the table and Amelia began to pour the steaming drink, there came a resounding knock upon the door.

"The ghost!" gasped a number of the girls in awed chorus.

"If it is," said Nan Sherwood, vigorously, as the summons was repeated, "he is in full possession of his health and strength."

"It's something worse than a ghost," agreed Laura Polk, grabbing several sandwiches and enveloping them in the folds of her sweater. "But I vow I shall not be cheated out of all my supper."