He raised the old iron knocker and beat a startling _rat-a-tat_ in the silence. Presently, as nothing happened, he knocked again. Subsequently, while the thunder pealed once more, he pulled energetically at a crockery bell-knob. Far away, within the house, they heard a bell jangle. But nobody answered. Pud muttered disgustedly and almost yanked the bell-knob out by the roots, but still there were no results. ‘Reckon folks ain’ to home,’ observed Harmon. ‘_Somebody’s_ here,’ said Pud impatiently. ‘Gee, Aunt Sabrina _never_ goes anywhere. It’s funny, though. Let’s try the back.’ So they trooped around the corner and along the farther side, through a shadowed nave formed by two rows of lilacs and syringas, to the back door. It was even more still and eerie here, and when Harmon, slapping a mosquito on a bare leg, said ‘Ha!’ in sudden triumph, the others jumped nervously. There was a square porch at the back, latticed on three sides and screened inside the lattice with mosquito wire. The stout door was closed tightly and locked. There was no bell in sight and so Pud pounded lustily and shouted ‘Aunt Sabrina!’ several times. After waiting a few minutes, they returned to the front of the house, Pud nonplussed, but still insisting that somebody must be at home. ‘Maybe,’ suggested Tim, ‘your aunt’s kind of deaf.’ ‘She isn’t,’ said Pud shortly. ‘Anyway, the girl ought to hear. _Some one_ ought to hear! Gee, you’d think they were all dead!’ ‘Reckon they is,’ remarked Harmon cheerfully. ‘Reckon some one done been here and pirated ’em.’ ‘Shut up,’ said Pud impatiently. ‘If you can’t talk sense, keep still. You fellows wait here and I’ll go over to the next house and ask the lady about it.’ ‘Well, I don’t know,’ answered Tim slowly. ‘Maybe we’d better not bother. If we started right away and got a car, I guess we’d get back to the boat before it rained very hard.’ ‘Ain’ we goin’ eat?’ asked Harmon anxiously. ‘Yes,’ said Pud decidedly. ‘And we’re going to eat right here. Gee, I don’t want to spend the night in that launch if it’s going to rain. And it’s too late to find a place to put the tent up.’ A crash of thunder that shook the ground under them brought a gasp of alarm from Tim. ‘You wait!’ shouted Pud, and set off at top speed across the lawn. The sunlight was gone now and a coppery light filled the world. Overhead dun-colored clouds raced fast, but in the north a great bank of grayish-purple piled higher and higher. A big drop fell on Tim’s hand. Then another splashed on the step. Tim wished very much that he was back home in Millville. Harmon, viewing the impassive front of the big house solemnly, asked helpfully: ‘Mister Tim, you reckon this here house is hanted?’ ‘Yes, I do,’ answered Tim emphatically. ‘I’ll bet it’s full of hants and ghosts and――and everything! And I wish to goodness we’d never come here! I don’t believe Pud’s got any aunt, and, if he has, I hope she chokes!’ ‘Must be awful deaf ol’ lady,’ mused Harmon.