said Betty, as they rejoined Amy and Grace and started off toward home.
"Afterwards if everybody's willing we will hunt this strange beast that
jumps out from porches and leaps into rivers just for the fun of the
thing. But just now, Billy Billette, you are going home."

But Mollie had been more severely shocked than she was willing to admit by
her experience, and it was some time before the girls visited the falls or
the river again. Meanwhile they contented themselves with exploring the
country about the lodge, taking short trips in the cars and wondering
whether the boys would really be home before the summer was over.

Their days were not altogether happy, however, for the thought of that
weird thing prowling around in the woods and ready, for all they knew, to
spring out at them at every turn, refused to be banished from their minds.

Then, too, they thought a great deal about poor Professor Dempsey and the
little ruined cottage in the woods. Somehow, they had an uneasy feeling
that if they had gone to him at the very first minute they had heard of
his trouble they might have helped him. Whereas, they had waited and--he
had fled.

For a while the idea of a dip in the swimming pool was naturally not very
attractive to Mollie, but at last there came a day when she herself
suggested it and the girls enthusiastically seconded the motion.

More than the prospect of a good time, was the hope, unexpressed, that
they might see again that strange thing which Amy and Mollie had only
glimpsed the time before. Perhaps, they thought, if the mysterious thing
were faced in the open and in broad daylight, it might prove to be no
mystery at all but something ordinary and commonplace enough to do away