The schedule for watch tricks was quickly made up. Then all but Dave hastily sought their cots. Darkness was not an hour old when Dave was the only member of the camp awake. Had the high school boys been less healthy and sturdy their hearty suppers might have summoned the nightmare, but they slept on soundly. Dick, however, stretched, gaped, then sprang up when Darry called him. Some of the others, when their turns came, did not respond as readily, and had to be dragged from their cots and stood upright before they were thoroughly awake. It was shortly after one o'clock in the morning when Tom Reade, then on watch, stepped lightly into the tent, passing through the round of the cots, shaking each sleeper in turn. "Those of you who want to listen to something interesting, get up instantly!" Tom exclaimed in a low voice. Three boys drowsily rolled over, going immediately back into sound slumber. Dick and Dave, however, got up, pulling on their shoes. "What's all that racket across the lake?" was Dick's prompt question as he stood in the doorway of the tent. "That comes from the former camp site," chuckled Tom. "Guns!" cried Dave Darrin in amazement. "It sounds like a big fusillade," Dick cried, as he stepped out into the night. "But surely no one can be trying to attack our camp, thinking we are still there," Tom protested. "We don't know any people who are wicked enough to plan an attack upon our camp." "No," Dick agreed. "But this much is sure. There are those who dislike us enough to try to spoil our rest night after night." Dave began to laugh merrily. "I half believe it's Dodge and Bayliss," he remarked quietly. "I don't," Reade objected. "Both of them are too lazy to motor up into the wilderness each night, over such rough roads, all the way from Gridley. No, no! It's someone else, though who it is I can't imagine. If it were the man of the lake mystery, or any of his people, they'd be likely to know that we're on this side of the lake." From the edge of the timber line near by came the sound of a crackling twig, followed by a groan as of a soul in torment. Wheeling like a flash, Tom Reade produced the pocket flash lamp. Staring toward the boys, his face outlined between the close-growing trunks of two spruce trees, were the startling features of a man. "That's he---the Man of the Haunting Face!" came from Tom Reade in a hoarse whisper. "Then we'll get him!" cried Dick Prescott, leaping forward. "Hold the light on him!" CHAPTER XV THE SCREAM THAT STARTED A RACE Yet even as the three boys dashed toward the two spruce trees the light went out. Tom pressed frantically on the spring of the lamp as he ran, but the lamp gave forth a flickering gleam that was little better than no light at all. The long use of the lamp in the cave had weakened the storage battery. "Give us the light!" called Dave, as they reached the tree. "Can't! The battery's on a strike," answered Reade grimly.