The Mystery at Bob-White Cave

hooted. “What an imagination!”
    “Are you laughing at me?” Linnie asked.
    “Not a chance,” Mart assured her. “Go ahead; tell us more about the ghost.”
    “Well, when the door opened, Jacob ran out, too. He ran like mad and jumped into the wagon.”
    “Gosh! Was the man you saw Mr. Glendenning?”
    “No, it wasn’t, Mart. The man I saw had a white cloud around his head. Mr. Glendenning seemed to fade out of sight.”
    “He’ll be seen no more,” Mrs. Moore said in a hollow voice.
    “Oh, Mrs. Moore, I keep telling you—”
    “I know, Mr. Belden—that there aren’t any ghosts.
    Wait till Linnie tells you the rest.”
    “Jeepers, is there still more?” Mart asked, finally impressed.
    Trixie’s eyes were as round as saucers and nearly as big. “Go on, Linnie, tell us!”
    “As we turned the bend and looked back, we saw, flat against the wall of that cabin, the pelt of a wildcat!”
    When Linnie finished speaking, even Uncle Andrew had nothing to say. Mrs. Moore placed each knife and fork carefully on the table, all the while nodding her head knowingly. “Spirits,” she said, half to herself. “Spirits at work.”
     

Nothing but Trouble ● 8
     
    NEXT MORNING the clock in the lodge living room showed eight o’clock, eight-thirty, then nine o’clock. “What can be keeping Slim?” Trixie asked.
    “Maybe he has chores to do,” Uncle Andrew said. “There are many hours ahead of you.”
    “Where does he live?” Mart asked.
    “I don’t really know. Back in the woods someplace. Bill Hawkins knows.”
    “I wish he’d show up,” Trixie said. “Other people may be ahead of us, hunting for those specimens. Mayn’t we please go without Slim?”
    “I’d feel much better if I thought he was with you. What do you boys think?”
    “Slim’s a pain in the neck,” Mart said.
    “But is he a competent guide? Do you think you’d be safe in the cave without him?” Uncle Andrew addressed his question to Brian.
    “We know the cave pretty well,” Brian answered. “At least, I think we do. I’d really like to try it with Slim another day, though. I just wish he weren’t such an oddball.”
    “Do you trust him?”
    “Yes, I guess so. Trixie doesn’t, though, and she has a sort of sixth sense about people.”
    “Oh, why, why doesn’t Slim show up, if he has to go with us?” Trixie asked impatiently. “Uncle Andrew, I saw those fish. I know I did. And the stream runs right through a great big room. Nothing could possibly harm us if we went by ourselves. Slim certainly wasn’t any help to us in saving Mr. Glendenning. If we don’t get to the cave soon, Mr. Glendenning will be there ahead of us. I’m sure he’s after the blind fish, too. Don’t you think we could go without Slim?”
    “It won’t be necessary to make that decision today. Slim just rode into the yard.”
    Down at the lake, Trixie’s sharp eyes noticed that the Englishman’s boat had been picked up. “Now, who do you suppose took that boat?” she wondered aloud.
    “Me,” Slim said.
    “When? Why? And why didn’t we hear you going down to the lake?”
    “I took it back last night, and I did it because the man asked me to. And you didn’t hear me because I didn’t think I had to stop and ask your leave to get the boat, Miss Nosy.”
    “That’s enough of that!” Jim warned.
    “Who says so? Want to make somethin’ of it?”
    Jim, who had seen the distressed look on Honey’s face, didn’t reply but shepherded the other Bob-Whites into the flat-bottomed boat and pushed off.
    “It’s pretty queer,” Trixie thought. “Slim is afraid of ghosts, and yet he must have gone to the ghost cabin to see that Englishman. I suppose he offered to take the boat back if the man would pay him. There’s something mysterious going on.”
    She forgot about Slim and his actions, however, as the boys beached the boat and they all went on to the cave. Inside, Bob-White Cave seemed even more wonderful than it had the day before.
    Trixie and Honey swung their large flashlights to all four sides of the room. At the far end, the floor rose in a series of ledges, ending in a flat wall. The wall was an odd shade of brown. It looked as though it might be covered with moth-eaten bearskins.
    “What is it, Brian?” Trixie asked.
    “Bats.Thousands of them. They’re asleep. Gosh!” As Brian threw his light on the wall, it startled the bats, and, without warning, the bits of fur flew round and round. Then, like dive-bombers,