“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.”