The next morning dawned windy and wet. A heavy northeast gale had whipped the sea into gray, mountainous waves. A fine drizzle beat in one’s face through the slightest opening of door or window. Leslie loved the soft, salt tang of the air, and in spite of her aunt’s rather horrified protests, prepared for a long excursion out of doors.

“Don’t worry about me, Auntie dear!” she laughed gaily. “One can’t possibly catch cold in this mild, beautiful air; and if I get wet, I can always get dry again before any damage is done. Besides, we need some more wood for the fires very, very badly and they say you can simply find heaps of it on the beach after a storm like this. I want some nice fat logs for our open fire, and I see at least a half dozen right down in front of this house. And last but not least, Rags needs some exercise!”

She found a wealth of driftwood at the water’s edge that surpassed her wildest dreams. Again and again she filled her basket and hauled it up to the bungalow, and three times she carried up a large, water-soaked log balanced on her shoulder. But when the supply at last appeared ample, she returned to the beach on another quest. Rather to her surprise, she found that the stormy ocean had cast up many things beside driftwood—articles that in size and variety suggested that there must have been a wreck in the night.

Yet she knew that there had been no wreck, else the coast-guard station, less than a mile away, would have been very busy, and she herself must surely have heard some of the disturbance. No, there had been no wreck, yet all about her lay the wave-sodden flotsam and jetsam of many past disasters. A broken mast stump was imbedded upright in the sand at one spot. In another, a ladder-like pair of stairs, suggesting a ship’s companionway, lay half out of the water. Sundry casks and barrels dotted the beach, some empty, some still untouched. Rusty tins of canned goods, oil, and paint, often intact, intermingled with the debris. Bottles, either empty or full of every conceivable liquid, added to the list; and sprinkled through and around all the rest were broken dishes, shoe-brushes, combs, and other household and personal articles in surprising quantities.

Leslie roamed about among this varied collection, the salt spray in her face, the surging breakers sometimes unexpectedly curling around her rubber boots. There was a new and wonderful fascination to her in examining this ancient wreckage, speculating on the contents of unopened tins, and searching ever farther and farther along the shore for possible treasure-trove of even greater interest or value.

“Why shouldn’t I find a chest of jewels or a barrel full of golden coins or a pocket-book crammed with bills, Rags?” she demanded whimsically of the jubilant dog. “I’m sure something of that kind must go down with every ship, as well as all the rest of this stuff, and why shouldn’t we be lucky enough to find it?”

But Rags was busy investigating the contents of some doubtful-looking tin, and had neither time nor inclination to respond, his own particular quests being quite in another line and far more interesting to him!

So Leslie continued on her own way, absorbed in her own investigations and thoughts. The affair of the previous night was still occupying a large place in her mind. Nothing further had occurred, though she had watched at her window for nearly an hour. Even Rags at length ceased to exhibit signs of uneasiness, and she had gone to bed at last, feeling that she must have been mistaken in imagining anything unusual.

The first thing she had done this morning after leaving the house was to walk around Curlew’s Nest, examining it carefully for any sign of occupation. It was closed and shuttered, as tight as a drum, and she could discern no slightest sign of a human being having been near it for days. But still she could not rid her mind of the impression that there had been something last night out of the ordinary, or Rags would not have behaved as he did. He was not the kind of dog that unnecessarily excited himself about nothing. It was a little bit strange.

“Oh, dear! I beg your pardon! I’m awfully sorry!” exclaimed Leslie, reeling backward from the shock of collision with some one she had unseeingly bumped into as she plowed her way along, her head bent to the wind, her eyes only on the beach at her feet. The person with whom she had collided also recovered a lost balance and turned to looked at her.

Leslie beheld a figure slightly taller than herself, clothed in yellow “slickers” and long rubber boots, a “sou’wester” pulled closely over plump, rosy cheeks and big, inquiring blue eyes. For a moment she could not for the life of her tell whether the figure was man or woman, boy or girl. Then a sudden gust of wind tore the sou’wester aside and a long brown curl escaped and whipped into the blue eyes. It was a girl—very little older than Leslie herself.

“Don’t mention it!” laughed the girl. “I didn’t know there was another soul on the beach beside Father and Ted and myself.”

And then, for the first time, Leslie noticed two other figures standing just beyond, each clad similarly to the girl, and each with fishing-rod in hand and a long line running out into the boiling surf. The girl too held a rod in her hand.

“You just spoiled the loveliest bite I’ve had this morning,” the girl laughed again, “but I’ll forgive you if you’ll tell me who you are and how you come to be out here in this bad weather. It’s quite unusual to see any one on the beach at this season.”

“I’m Leslie Crane, and I’m staying at Rest Haven with my aunt, Miss Crane, who is not well and is trying to recuperate here, according to the doctor’s orders,” responded Leslie, feeling somewhat like an information bureau as she said it.

“Oh, so you’re staying here, are you? How jolly! I’ve never met any one staying here at this season before. I’m Phyllis Kelvin and this is my father and my brother Ted. Father—Miss Leslie Crane! Ted—”

She made the introductions at the top of her voice as the wind and roar of the ocean almost drowned it, and each of the two figures responded politely, keeping one eye all the while on his line.

“We always come down here for three weeks in October, Father and Ted and I, for the fishing,” Phyllis went on to explain. “Father adores fishing and always takes his vacation late down here, so that he can have the fishing in peace and at its best. And Ted and I come to keep him company and keep house for him, incidentally. That’s our bungalow right back there,—‘Fisherman’s Luck.’”

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re going to be here!” sighed Leslie, happily. “I’ve been horribly lonesome! Aunt Marcia does not go out very often and sleeps a great deal, and I absolutely long to talk to some one at times. I don’t know anything much about fishing, but I hope you’ll let me be with you some, if I promise not to talk too much and spoil things!”

“You’re not a bit happier to find some one than I am!” echoed Phyllis. “I love fishing, too, but I’m not so crazy about it as they are, and I’ve often longed for some girl chum down here. We’re going to be the best of friends, I know, and I’ll call on you and your aunt this very afternoon, if you’ll come up to our bungalow now with me and help carry this basket of driftwood. Daddy and Ted won’t move from the beach for the rest of the morning, but I’d like to stop and talk with you. I get tired sooner than they do.”

Leslie agreed joyfully, and together they tugged a heavy basket of wood up to the one other bungalow on the beach beside the one Leslie and her aunt were stopping at—and Curlew’s Nest. She found Fisherman’s Luck a delightful abode, full of the pleasant, intimate touches that could only be imparted by owners who inhabited it themselves most of the time. A roaring fire blazed invitingly in the big open fireplace in the living-room.

“Come, take off your things and stay awhile!” urged Phyllis, and Leslie removed her mackinaw and cap. The two girls sank down in big easy chairs before the fire and laughingly agreeing to drop formality, proceeded as “Phyllis” and “Leslie,” to exchange confidences in true girl fashion.

“I mustn’t stay long,” remarked Leslie. “Aunt Marcia will be missing me and I must go back to see about lunch. But what a delightful bungalow you have! Are you here much of the time?”

“We’re here a good deal in the off seasons—April to June, and September through November. Father, Ted, and I,—but we don’t care for it so much in the summer season when the beach is more crowded with vacation folks and that big hotel farther up the beach is full. We have some cousins who usually take the bungalow for July and August.”

“I never was at the ocean in October before,” sighed Leslie, comfortably, “and it’s perfectly heavenly! We have that dear little bungalow, Rest Haven, but the one right next to it is not occupied.”

“No,” said Phyllis, “and it’s queer, too. I never knew either of them to be occupied at this season before. They are both owned by the Danforths, and they usually shut them both up on September 30 and refuse to open them till the beginning of the next season. How did you come to get one of them, may I ask?”

“Oh, I think Aunt Marcia’s doctor managed it. He happened to know the Danforths personally, and got them to break their rule, as a great favor to him. We appreciate it very much. But do you know,” and here Leslie unconsciously sank her voice, “I saw such a queer thing about that other bungalow late yesterday evening!” And she recounted to her new friend a history of the previous night’s experience.

“Oh, how perfectly gorgeous!” sighed Phyllis, thrilled beyond description by the narrative. “Do you suppose it’s haunted? I’ve heard of haunted houses, but never of a haunted bungalow! Now don’t laugh at me,—that’s what Ted and Father do when I speak of such things,” for Leslie could not repress a giggle at this suggestion.

“Phyllis, you know there are no such things as haunted houses—really!” she remonstrated.

“Well, I’m not so sure of it, and anyway, I’ve always longed to come across one! And what other explanation can there be for this thing, anyway? But do me one favor, won’t you, Leslie? Let’s keep this thing to ourselves and do a little investigating on our own account. If I tell Father and Ted and let them know what I think, they’ll simply hoot at me and go and spoil it all by breaking the place open and tramping around it themselves and scaring away any possible ghost there might be. Let’s just see if we can make anything out of it ourselves, will you?”

“Why of course I will,” agreed Leslie heartily. “I wouldn’t dare to let Aunt Marcia know there was anything queer about the place. She’d be scared to death and it would upset all the doctor’s plans for her. I don’t believe in the ghost theory, but I do think there may have been something mysterious about it, and it will be no end of a lark to track it down if we can. But I must be going now.”

“I’m coming with you!” announced the impetuous Phyllis. “I want to go up there right away and do a little looking about myself. I simply can’t wait.”

So they set off together, trudging through the sand at the edge of the ocean, where the walking was easiest. All the way, Leslie was wondering what had become of Rags. It was not often that he deserted her even for five minutes, but she had not seen him since her encounter with Phyllis. It was not till their arrival at Curlew’s Nest that she discovered his whereabouts.

Directly in front of this bungalow’s veranda, and about fifty feet away from it, lay the remains of a huge old tree-trunk, half buried in the sand. Almost under this trunk, only his rear quarters visible, was the form of Rags, digging frantically at a great hole in the wet sand. So deep now was the hole that the dog was more than half buried.

“There’s Rags! He’s after another hermit-crab!” cried Leslie. “I was wondering where he could be.” They both raced up to him and reached him just as he had apparently attained the end of his quest and backed out of the hole.

“Why, what has he got?” exclaimed Phyllis. “That’s no hermit-crab!”

And in truth it was not. For out of the hole the dog was dragging a small burlap sack which plainly contained some heavy article in its folds!