"All we need, I guess," answered Sammy. Each of the boys had a good-sized valise. "But what makes you call your place Camp Mystery?" asked the lad. "Your sister didn't say anything about that."

"No, for it's only lately that I've had occasion to call it that. You see——"

But Mr. Jessup was interrupted by a crashing sound in the underbrush at one side of the path, and from the bushes there was shaken down a shower of the light snow that had fallen the night before.

"Look out!" cried Frank, starting back.

"Maybe it's him!" added Bob.

"Don't run!" advised Sammy.

Mr. Jessup stared in surprise at the three lads, but before he could ask them the reason for their strange remarks there burst out from the bushes a fine hunting dog, who ran straight for the man, wagging his tail in delight.

"Oh, so there you are, Maybe!" exclaimed Mr. Jessup. "I was just wondering what had become of you."

[Pg 64]

[Pg 64]

"Is that your dog?" asked Sammy.

"Did he make that noise?" inquired Frank.

"Yes. What did you think it was—a ghost?" Mr. Jessup wanted to know. Once more he looked strangely at the boys.

"We—we thought," began Bob, and then he glanced at Sammy, as if asking him to explain the thoughts of his chums.

"Oh, you thought maybe it was the mystery; is that it?" Mr. Jessup wanted to know. "No, it isn't that. The mystery, if that's what I am to call it, doesn't make that much noise. It's a very quiet sort of a mystery; the one in my camp."

The boys were puzzled. Clearly there was more than one queer thing, to be gotten to the bottom of, on Pine Island.

The dog was frisking about, soon making friends with the boys.

"Quiet now, Maybe," cautioned the hunter. "We can't scare up anything to-day. Down, sir!"

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