It was the middle of the afternoon when the Go Ahead boys returned to George’s home. Apparently they had not been cast down by their failure to obtain information concerning the missing car. Indeed, as one of the boys laughingly remarked, George was the only one deeply and personally concerned in the loss and if he did not feel discouraged there certainly was no reason why his friends should be despondent.

On the broad piazza of the old farmhouse the boys sat for a half-hour talking over the experiences of the day. Different suggestions were made as to possible plans that might be adopted in the search for the stolen automobile.

“I’m not thinking so much about the car as I am about what we saw to-day at Morristown,” said Grant thoughtfully. “I feel almost as if I had stepped right back into the eighteenth century.”

“My friend,” said Fred soberly, “that is where you belong. I have often been puzzled to know how to account for some of the strange traits of your peculiar personality. You have hit the nail now squarely on the head. You have been born one hundred and forty years too late. You are a rare old antique.”

The boys laughed as Grant arose from his seat and lifting his diminutive friend bodily from the chair in which he was seated, he dropped him over the rail.

“When you grow up,” he called, “and learn to behave you may come back here.”

“I’m not coming back,” called Fred glibly.

“We’ll try to live through our disappointment,” said Grant.

“You’ll be disappointed all right the next time you see me,” called Fred. Then turning to John he eagerly beckoned to him to follow him.

With a groan John slowly arose from the chair in which he was seated and followed Fred as he led the way around the corner of the house.

“What I want of you,” said Fred when he and his companion could not be seen by the other boys, “is to go with me over to the Meeker House. I think I have found something.”

“Is it the same thing you found last night?” inquired John.

“Not at all. I don’t mind telling you that I have fixed a trap over there.”

“What do you mean, a steel trap?”

“No, no,” said Fred. “I sprinkled some bran last night all around the floor. I filled my pockets with it before we started and while we were in the old house I scattered it on the floors. Now, I want to go over there to find out if—”

“If what?” interrupted John. “Are you trying to feed those spooks on bran?”

“As usual, my friend,” retorted Fred, “you begin at the wrong end. I am not trying to get an impression of their heads, but of their feet. Only, spooks don’t make a deep impression when they step on the floor, and I’m more than suspicious that I’ll find some tracks.”

“I’ll go with you,” said John eagerly. “Wait until I tell the other fellows that we are going away for a while. Are you going to walk, Fred?”

“Yes, I am. I have been riding all day and I want to stretch my muscles.”

Both George and Grant laughed when John told them that he and Fred were going for a walk.

“You’ll walk in one direction,” called George, “but you’ll be running when you come back. I think I’ll take the car and in a half an hour I’ll come over after you. You’ll want to see some of your friends by that time and you will want to see them bad.”

“I don’t want to see them ‘bad,’” retorted John as he turned away. “They are ‘bad’ enough as it is. I want to see them badly.”

Together the two boys walked through the woods and across the lots and by a shorter route than the highway arrived within a half-hour in the yard of the house they were seeking.

“Come around to the kitchen,” said Fred. Almost unconsciously he had lowered his voice and although it was still daylight he was glancing nervously about him when he and John softly opened the rear door and stepped within the kitchen.

The boards of the floor were twisted and uneven. The floor was of pine and George had explained that his father had said that he believed the floor was as old as any part of the house. There were marks of the places where the women of another generation had scrubbed the floor. Doubtless it had been their pride to keep the pine boards clean, just as it is a source of pride to many of their sisters of a later day to be adorned with feathers of various gaudy colors.

Noiselessly the boys advanced and without a word having been spoken began to examine the floor where Fred had scattered the bran the preceding evening. No footprints were found, however, and it was speedily plain that if any one had entered the building since the boys had departed they had not done so by the kitchen door.

Convinced that they were alone in the house, the courage of both boys somewhat revived. Indeed there was something in the sunshine of the summer afternoon and in the not unmusical sounds of the winged grasshoppers in the adjacent orchard that was soothing to the excited boys.

They were about to pass out of the room when John abruptly stopped and whispered, “Look here, Fred. What’s that?” As he spoke he pointed to a small tube which plainly had been fastened recently to the wall. The tube was of tin, about an inch in diameter and extended almost to the ceiling. Through the wall a hole had been made and the boys peered eagerly at the wall in the adjacent room to see whether or not the tube was there also.

“That’s just how it is! That’s good, String!” exclaimed Fred excitedly. “That explains the sound of the voices we heard the other night.”

“I don’t see how it explains it,” said John, somewhat puzzled by the excitement of his companion.

“Why, it’s a speaking tube. You go back to the kitchen and I’ll stay here and we’ll try it.”

The suggestion was quickly adopted and in a brief time both boys were aware that Fred’s conjecture was correct. The strange sounds and the whispers of their names which had been heard frequently whenever they had visited the house after darkness had fallen, now were explained.

“That’s the reason,” said John eagerly, “why George always wants to come around to the kitchen door. Don’t you remember he hasn’t once come in by the front door?”

“That’s right,” responded Fred. “He knows more about what is going on in this old house than he has let on, and all the time he has been pretending that he was puzzled as much as we are by what we have seen and heard. We must think up something so that we can pay him back in his own coin.”

“That’s what we’ll do,” said John eagerly. “What shall it be?”

“Time enough to think about that later,” responded Fred. “What’s that?” he added abruptly.

From within the chimney could be heard the sound as of a man swinging a noisy rattle. There were also sharp noises that sometimes were quite loud and at others were low and soft and yet they were continuously sounding.

“I tell you there’s something in that chimney,” said John.

“I begin to think you’re right,” whispered Fred. “Get down on your knees and look up through the fireplace.”

John obediently stretched his long form upon the floor and peered up through the flue of the open fireplace. As he did so the clatter in the chimney suddenly increased in volume and for a moment John was on the point of hastily withdrawing from the spot.

As he prepared to do so, however, suddenly a little, young bird fell, striking the floor close to John’s head. At the same time there was a renewal of the clatter in the chimney and John hastily withdrew.

To his amazement he found when he arose that Fred was laughing.

“What’s there so funny about it?” demanded John as he tried to brush the accumulated dust from his person.

For a moment Fred was almost unable to control himself, but at last he said, “Oh, Jack, what fools we have been. There we were so scared by the sound of the wings that we heard in this room and the strange noises that came from the chimney that we couldn’t get out of the place fast enough. And now it’s all as plain as daylight.”

“I don’t see it,” said John blankly.

“Well, have a little patience, and in time you’ll see it, Johnny.”

“Why don’t you talk? Why don’t you explain yourself? What are you laughing at?” demanded John, irritated by the manner of his companion.

“Why those sounds we heard were made by chimney-swallows.”

“What is a chimney-swallow?”

“Do you mean to tell me that you have lived to be seventeen years old and don’t know what a chimney-swallow is?”

“They don’t have them in the city where I live.”

“Well,” said Fred, pretending to be discouraged, “I cannot understand how any fellow can live as you have and yet not know that there are some birds called chimney-swallows that live in the chimneys of old or deserted houses. If you should look up there now you could see some nests fastened right to the sides of the chimney. I have never seen the birds, but I’m sure that’s what they are. Whenever we have come into the house we have probably frightened them and they have been flying around the room. They were the spooks that scared us so.”

“Do you suppose George knew about it?” demanded John ruefully.

“Of course he knew it. He has been saving it all up to add to his story of the speaking tube.”

“Well, it’s a comfort to know the old house isn’t haunted anyway.”

“Of course it isn’t haunted. There isn’t anything haunted because there isn’t anything like ghosts or spooks.”

“I’m glad to hear you talk so nicely, Freddie,” said John, who now had recovered from his chagrin. “If I’m not mistaken I’ve heard you talk in a different tone once or twice before when we have been here.”

“That’s all right,” said Fred glibly. “Now we have found out what the spooks are and we’ll show George that we’re not afraid of anything in the old Meeker House.”

The boys were still conversing in whispers, and as Fred made his bold declaration he abruptly stopped and looked anxiously toward the stairway. A sound mysterious and unexpected had been heard in the room directly above them. Both boys were convinced that either others were in the house, or that they had not yet found an explanation for all the mysteries of the old Meeker House.