"What are you talking about?" Dick insisted.

"I don't know," Dave admitted. "But I've something of a shivery
hunch that perhaps we'd better not open that box."

"What, then? Toss it into the lake?"

"Even that might not be as foolish as it sounds to you," Darry
went on. "How do we know what that box contains!"

"We never will know until we open it," declared Greg impatiently.

"And then we might be mighty sorry that we opened it," Dave continued.

"You think that there is something suspicious about the box?"
queried Prescott.

"Oh, the box looks all right," Dave laughed. "But the contents
might prove more than a disappointment. A real danger, for instance."

"Do you really think so?" Dick mused wonderingly.

"Well, let's not be too rash," Darrin urged. "When I try to think
of the friends who might take the trouble to come away out here
to leave something for us, about the dearest friends I can think
of are---Dodge and Bayliss."

"And what would they leave in the box for us?" pondered Prescott.

"Anything from a nest of rattlesnakes to an infernal machine,"