THE HOUSE OF WONDER.

"Ferral!" cried Matt in trepidation.

"Aye, aye!" answered the voice of Ferral.

"Hurt?"

"Not a bit of it, matey. Strike me lucky, though, if I didn't have a tight squeak of it. The lamp-chimney was smashed and the light put out. If the bullet had gone a few inches lower, the lamp itself would have been knocked into smithereens and I'd have been fair covered with blazing oil. That flare-up proves the skulkers are still aboard." He lifted his voice. "Ahoy, there, you pirates! What're you running afoul o' me like that for? I've a right here, being Dick Ferral, of the old Billy Ruffian. Mr. Lawton's my uncle."

Silence fell with the last word. There were no sounds in the house, apart from the quiet, sharp breathing of the three boys. Outside the faint night wind soughed through the trees, making a sort of moan that was hard on the nerves.

Carl went groping for Matt, giving a grunt of satisfaction when he reached him and took a firm hold of his coat-tails.

"Ve pedder go py der vinder vonce again," suggested Carl, catching his breath, "make some shneaks py der pubble und ged apsent mit ourselufs. Ven pulleds come ad you from der tark it vas pedder dot you ain'd aroundt. Somepody don'd vant us here."

"I'm here because it's my duty," said Ferral, still in the hall, "and by the same token I've got to stay here and overhaul the whole blooming layout—but it ain't right to ring you in on such a rough deal. You and the Dutchman can up anchor and bear away, Matt, and I'll still be mighty obliged for your bowsing me off that piece of wall, and sorry, too, you couldn't be treated better under my uncle's roof."

"You're not going to cut loose from us like that, Ferral," replied Matt. "We'll stay with you till this queer affair straightens out more to your liking."

"But the danger——"

"Well, we've faced music of that kind before."

"Bully for you, old ship!" cried Ferral heartily. "I'll never forget it, either. Now, sink me, I'm going through this cabin from bulkhead to bulkhead, and if I can lay hands on that deacon-faced Sercomb, he'll tell me the why of this or I'll wring his neck for him."

Matt stepped resolutely into the hall and ranged himself at Ferral's side. Ferral was drawing a match over the wall. The gleam of light would make targets of the boys for their unseen enemies, but there would have to be light if the investigation was to be thorough.

No shot came.

"Either we've got the swabs on the run," muttered Ferral, "or I'm a point off. The lamp's out of commission, so I'll leave it here on the floor. We've got to find another."

"Be jeerful, be jeerful," mumbled Carl. "Efen dough ve ged shot fuller oof holes as some bepper-poxes it vas pedder dot ve be jeerful."

"Right-o," answered Ferral, moving off along the hall. "Only two rooms on this floor," he added, looking around; "we'll go into the other and try for a lamp we can use."

The door of the second room opened off the hall directly opposite the door of the first. The boys stepped in and found themselves in a bedroom. There was a rack of books on the wall, a trunk—open and contents scattered—carpet torn up and bed disarranged.

"Looks like a hurricane had bounced in here," remarked Ferral.

"Here's a candle," said Matt, and lifted the candlestick from the table and held it for Ferral to touch the match to the wick.

When the candle was alight, Ferral stepped to the table and looked at a portrait swinging from the wall. It was the portrait of a gray-haired man. A broad ribbon crossed his breast and the insignia of some order hung against it. In spite of the surrounding perils, Ferral took off his hat.

"Uncle Jack," he murmured, his voice vibrant with feeling. "The warmest corner of my heart is set aside for his memory, mates. I wish I'd done more for his comfort when he was alive."

He turned away abruptly.

"But we can't lose time here. What have you got there, Matt?"

Matt had seen a sword swinging from the wall. Drawing the blade from its scabbard, he was holding it in his hand.

"I'd thought of borrowing this," said he, "until we see what's ahead."

"That's a regular jim-hickey of an idea!"

With one hand Ferral twitched at a lanyard about his neck and brought out a dirk.

"I might as well carry this, too," he added.

"Und vat vill I do some fighding mit?" asked Carl anxiously. "I don'd got anyt'ing more as a chack-knife."

"You stay behind and act as rear-guard, Carl," said Matt. "Dick and I will go ahead."

With sword and dirk in readiness for instant use, Matt and Ferral forged along the short hall to the stairs, peering carefully around them as they went. They did not see anything of their enemies and could not hear a sound apart from the noise they made themselves.

The flickering gleams of the candle showed a number of rich furnishings in the lower hall. The first story consisted of three rooms, parlor, library and kitchen. The parlor covered one side of the house, and was divided by a passage from the two rooms on the other side.

But in none of the rooms, nor the hall, was any of their lurking foes to be seen!

"Dis vas der plamedest t'ing vat efer habbened!" whispered Carl. "A rekular vonder-house! Noises, und lights, und pulleds, und nopody aroundt."

"Wait," warned Ferral, making for an open door that evidently led into the cellar, "we haven't looked through the hold yet. We'll go down and get closer to bilge-water! I warrant you we'll stir up the rats."

They descended a short flight of stairs into a rock-walled cellar. The cellar covered the entire lower part of the house, and was so high as to leave plenty of head-room.

On a shelf were a number of cobwebbed bottles, and in one corner was a bin of potatoes—but there were no enemies in the cellar.

"Shiver me!" muttered Ferral, peering dazedly at Matt through the flickering gleams of the candle. "How do you account for this?"

"The four people who were here," returned Matt, "must have got out while we were in your uncle's room. If they have gone to the barn and tampered with the Red Flier——"

This startling thought turned Motor Matt to the right about, and he raced back to the first floor. Carl and Ferral followed him swiftly.

There were only two outside doors to the house, one leading from the kitchen, and the other from the front hall.

Investigation showed that both of these doors were bolted on the inside.

All the lower windows were also securely fastened.

Ferral dropped down in a chair in the front hall and drew his hand across his forehead.

"I'll be box-hauled if I can twig this layout, at all!" he muttered. "Those fellows couldn't get out and leave those doors and windows locked on the inside."

"And they couldn't have got past us on the stairs and got out the way we came in," added Matt, equally nonplused. "We looked carefully as we came down from the upper floor, and the rascals must have been driven ahead of us. I'm knocked all of a heap, and that's a fact."

Carl cantered forward.

"Der shpooks vas blaying viggle-vaggle mit us," he averred in a stage whisper. "Led us say goot-by, bards, und shkin oudt. It vas pedder so, yah, so helup me."

"Are you getting cold feet, matey?" queried Ferral.

"I peen colt all ofer," admitted Carl, "efer since dot shpook pubble vented off indo nodding righdt vile ve look. Den der man-shpook meldet oudt, und dese oder shpooks faded. Yah, you bed my life, ve vill go oop in shmoke ourselufs oof ve shtay here long."

"Carl does a lot of foolish talking, Dick," spoke up Matt, "but he's as game as a hornet, for all that. Don't pay any attention to his spook talk. I saw a lantern in the kitchen, and a padlock and key lying on a shelf. While you two are trying to solve this riddle, I'm going out to the barn and get a lock and key on the Red Flier. I can't afford to let anything happen to that machine."

"I vill go mit you, Matt," said Carl.

"You stay here with Dick," Matt answered. "I'll not be gone more than a minute."

Hurrying into the kitchen he lighted the lantern; then, with the padlock and key in his pocket and the sword in his hand, he unbolted the kitchen door and made his way to the barn.

He listened intently as he went, but there was no sound in the gloomy grove save the hooting of an owl.

He found the Red Flier just as he and Carl had left it, and an examination of the barn proved that no one had taken refuge there. After putting the bolt upon the door and locking it—he already had the spark-plug in his pocket—he felt easier, and returned unmolested to the house.

While he was gone, Ferral and Carl had lighted a large lamp in the parlor and drawn the shades at the windows. They were seated comfortably in easy chairs, eating sandwiches of dried beef and bread.

"There's your snack, mate," cried Ferral, pointing to a plate on the table. "Better get on the outside of it. We may have a lively time, and it's just as well to prepare ourselves for whatever is going to happen."

Carl, now that the tension had eased a trifle and food was in sight, was feeling better.

"I guess ve got der whole ranch py ourselufs," he beamed, his mouth half-full of sandwich. "Ve schared dem odder fellers avay. Oof dey shday avay undil ve clear oudt, dot's all vat I ask."

"Who were the lubbers, and how did they slip their cables?" queried Ferral. "That's the point that's got me hooked. Do you think that white car, and that man we saw in the road, had anything to do with the swabs who were in here?"

Before Matt could answer, a rap fell on the front door and its echoes ran through the house. Carl jumped up in a panic.

"Blitzen and dunder!" he cried chokingly, struggling with his last mouthful of sandwich and peering wildly at Matt and Dick, "dere's somet'ing else! Schust ven ve ged easy in our mindts, bang goes der front door! Now vat?"

"We'll see what," returned Ferral grimly, getting to his feet and starting for the hall.

Matt followed him, sword in hand, and ready for any emergency that might present itself.