"I was not frightened," explained Dorothy, "but I heard you call. Perhaps
we had better go. It is almost dark."

"But I would first rate like to bag that owl," said Nat. "I believe I
could teach a bird like that to talk English."

"It certainly said some thing," his brother added. "Well, I suppose we
will have to please the ladies and turn out," he finished. Then Dorothy
and Nat climbed back into the car, and the pretty Christmas tree was left
behind with the other queer things in Tanglewood Park.




CHAPTER VIII

A MAGAZINE GHOST


That evening the boys had no end of fun teasing the girls. That Dorothy
and Tavia should have been so easily frightened, that Tavia should have
"turned turtle," as Ned put it, and that Dorothy "should have run under
fire," and left the coveted tree behind, seemed to the boys beyond
explanation.

Listening to their telling of the affair, Major Dale became interested,
and soon discovered that the old Mayberry Mansion, in Tanglewood Park, was
none other than the former home of a veteran of the war, who had been in
the same regiment with the major.