THE HAUNTED ISLAND.

Luck did not seem to favor the anglers, for, though they paddled along the shores, casting into the shadows, and varied this by trying deeper water, the sun had set before they got a single rise. At last, however, there was a swirl as Crane lightly dropped a “Morning Glory” as far as he could send it from the canoe, and the buzz of the reel made the hearts of both lads jump.

“I’ve got one—by jinks! I’ve got one,” palpitated Sile.

“You haven’t got him yet,” said Sleuth. “He’s hooked, but you can’t be sure of him until we dip him into the canoe.”

“Ginger! see him go,” cried Crane. “He must be a bouncer. Grab the paddle, Pipe, and follow up.”

Having reeled in, Sleuth did as directed, and at the first dip of his blade the boys saw the fish leap clear of the water, with a tremendous slap, as it tried to shake the hook free. With a splash, he fell back and took to running again.

“Shades of the Pilgrim Fathers!” gasped Sleuth in envious admiration. “He’s a monster. He’s the father of them all. Why didn’t I have the luck to hook him?”

“It’s a salmon, and a peach,” fluttered Crane, reeling in as the fish yielded. “Have that net ready, Pipe.”

“No hurry,” returned Sleuth wisely. “Don’t you get the idea that that fellow is going to let us dip him in a hurry. You’ve got your work cut out for you for some time, old man.”

He was quite right about this, for the gamey fish fought like a shark, resorting to all the devices and stratagems of its kind. Time after time the salmon leaped high out of the water, and whenever it did so both boys were filled with apprehension until the tautening of the line again told them that the creature had not broken away. At least twenty minutes were consumed in the delightful, nerve-racking task of playing that fish, and Crane repeatedly brought him close to the canoe, only to have him turn and run with a fresh burst of strength and a persistence that threatened to leave the reel bare of line. At last, however, with the soft twilight thickening, the salmon betrayed unmistakable evidence of weariness. Slowly and resentfully it permitted itself to be brought closer, its efforts to run becoming shorter and weaker. Grasping the bamboo handle of the landing net, Piper awaited the proper moment, ready to dip.

“Work easy, Sile—work easy,” entreated Piper. “Don’t let him fool you. He may be playing possum.”

“Jest yeou be ready to do yeour part of the job,” advised Crane. “That’s all I want of yeou.”

To Sleuth’s credit, he did his part well, and the very first dip of the net secured the salmon, who came out of the water writhing in the meshes and shining beautifully, despite the semi-darkness.

“Bate he weighs five paounds,” exulted the triumphant angler, removing the capture from the net. “Oh, say, Sleuth, what do you think of that! Them fellers that ketched a little mess of brook traout this morning are beat to death.”

Sleuth had nothing to say. He sat there in the bottom of the canoe gazing dejectedly at the beautiful fish, his heart heavy with chagrin because his was not the glory of the capture.

“But there may be others around here,” he suddenly exclaimed. “Perhaps I’ll get the next one.”

“Do you realize that it’s dark and we’re clean over on the side of the lake opposite aour camp?” asked Sile. “It’s too late to fish any more tonight, old feller, and we’d better be hikin’ for Pleasant Point.”

“That’s it!” rasped Sleuth. “That’s the way of it! You don’t want me to catch anything. You want to hustle back with this big fellow, so that you can crow over me.”

“Oh, flumydiddle!” retorted the other boy. “Yeou can see for yourself that it’s gettin’ too dark, and we’ve got a long distance to go. The fellers will be worried abaout us if we don’t git in pretty soon. Yeou’ve got some sense; anyway, we told Granger that you had.”

Piper yielded with poor grace, and when the canoe was headed toward Pleasant Point there was little vigor in his strokes. He had boasted of his skill as an angler, and, returning empty-handed with a companion crowned with victory, he seemed even now in fancy to hear the jibes of the three lads who were waiting at Camp Oakdale.

Crane made no complaint, even though he realized that the canoe was being propelled almost wholly by his paddle; really generous, although inclined to practical jokes, Sile was sorry for Sleuth.

The rekindled fire was blazing on Pleasant Point, and this light guided them. Presently, near at hand and only a short distance away, a wooded island loomed in the darkness.

“Gee!” said Crane in a suppressed voice. “That’s Spirit Island. We’re pretty close.”

“Yah!” Piper flung back. “You’re scared, I’ll bet.”

“No, I ain’t,” denied the other boy stoutly. “I didn’t take no more stock in the ghost part of Granger’s yarn than yeou did, not a bit. Say, if we had time I’d jest as lief land on that island right naow.”

“I dare you!” challenged Sleuth. “Come on.”

“But yeou know we ain’t got time.”

“We can just step ashore for a minute, and then we’ll have the satisfaction of telling the fellows at camp what we did. It won’t take more than a jiffy or two.”

Crane, however, continued to protest, which seemed to make his canoe-mate all the more set upon the project. They had paused a moment in their paddling, and Piper, dipping his blade, swung the frail craft toward the near-by shore, beyond which the dark, gloomy pines could be seen standing thickly a rod or more from the water’s edge.

“I’m going to put my foot on that island tonight,” declared Sleuth. “The rest of you had lots of fun with me last night, but I’ll show you that I ain’t afraid of——”

He stopped suddenly, the paddle upheld and dripping. Seemingly from the midst of the black pines came the long-drawn, mournful howling of a dog, and that sound, so doleful, so eerie, sent a shivering thrill through both lads.

“Great Jehosaphat!” gasped Crane.

“Did you hear it?” whispered Piper.

“Think I’m deef? Course I heard it.”

“It was a dog.”

“Mebbe it was.”

“Of course it was. Don’t you know the howling of a dog when you hear it?”

“I know the howlin’ of any ordinary dog, but somehaow that saounded different to me.”

“Different? What do you mean?”

“Why,” faltered Sile, “it—it was—was sort of spooky, yeou know. Didn’t saound just like the howlin’ of any real live dog I ever heard.”

“But,” protested Piper, “it had to be a live dog, you know; it couldn’t be anything else.”

“Perhaps,” suggested the other boy, with a touch of mischief, “it was a cougar.”

“This is a fine time to try to crack any stale chestnuts,” flung back Sleuth. “I’d really give something to know just what it was we heard.”

“Perhaps,” returned Crane, confident now that his companion had lost all desire to make an immediate landing on the island, “we might find aout by goin’ ashore and prowlin’ araound in them dark woods. Come on.”

But now it was Sleuth who objected. “There isn’t time, you chump; we’ve got to get back to the camp. Only for that, I’d be willing to——”

He was interrupted again by a repetition of that protracted, mournful howling, which seemed to echo through the black pines and apparently proceeded from a point much nearer than before. The sound of a real flesh-and-blood dog howling mournfully in the night and in a lonely place is enough to give the least superstitious person a creepy feeling, and, with the tragic story of the hermit and his faithful dog fresh in their minds, it was not at all remarkable that the two lads should now feel themselves shivering and find it no simple matter to keep their teeth from chattering.

“The confaounded critter is coming this way!” whispered Sile excitedly.

“We’re pretty near the island, aren’t we?” returned Sleuth. “Let’s be getting along toward camp.”

With the usual perverseness of human nature, even though he fancied he could feel his hair rising, Crane proposed to linger a while longer.

“If we do,” he said, “mebbe we’ll see something.”

“Lot of good that will do us,” hissed Sleuth. “And there’s a big chance of seeing anything in this darkness, isn’t there? I thought you wanted to get to the camp?”

“And I thought yeou wanted to land on the island. Yeou don’t believe in spooks, yeou know.”

“What’s that got to do with it? Think I want to be chewed up by a hungry, vicious dog? I’m no fool.”

“Mebbe not,” admitted Crane, in a manner not at all intended to soothe the other boy. “Public opinion is sometimes mistaken abaout folks.”

Sleuth dipped his paddle nervously into the water.

“I’m hungry, anyhow,” he declared. “They’ll have supper waiting for us. It will spoil.”

“Look!” sibilated Sile, crouching a bit and lifting his arm to point toward the island. “I can see something! There’s something movin’! See it, Pipe—see it?”

Out from the edge of the pines, faintly discernible through the darkness, came something white which plainly resembled a dog. As both lads stared, motionless, at this thing, it seemed to squat upon its haunches, and, with lifted muzzle, it sent out across the water a repetition of that fearsome howling.

“It’s the spirit of Old Lonely’s dog!” panted Crane. “Sure as shootin’ it is, and we’ve both seen and heard it.”

“See! See!” fluttered Piper in a perfect panic. “There’s something else coming out of the woods! It’s a man!”

Slowly, like a thing materializing from thin air, a white figure resembling a human being appeared before their staring eyes. It remained standing close to the border of the dark pines, motionless, but seeming to become more and more distinct as they stared at it in stony silence. And now their teeth were chattering, beyond question.

“I guess you’re right, Sleuth,” Crane finally gulped; “that supper will spile if we don’t get to camp as soon as we can.”

With something like frantic haste and vigor they wielded the paddles.