She turned to the girls who had come up behind her and were eagerly and half shudderingly peering over her shoulder. “There’s nothing here,” she announced, the relief she felt showing in her voice, “and as there doesn’t seem to be any other room in the place, I suppose we might as well go back.” Echoing her suggestion heartily, the girls started to retrace their steps when a slight sound in the other room made them stop short in a panic. “What was that?” Amy questioned, but Mollie held up her hand impatiently. There came the sound of some one stumbling over something. This was followed by a muttered exclamation. While the girls looked about them wildly for a means of escape Mollie began to laugh hysterically. “We have a visitor,” she announced in a strangled voice. “And he is between us and the only door in the place. Come on, girls, let’s see who it is.” They stepped out into the cluttered living room and came face to face with a young man who seemed more startled at seeing them than they had been at sight of him. “Well, I’ll be jiggered!” he exclaimed, and at sound of the commonplace phrase the girls could have hugged the speaker in relief. Also they felt a rather hysterical desire to laugh long and foolishly. As it was, the stranger stood staring at the girls and the girls at him so long that the funny side of the situation struck Betty and she really did begin to laugh. “We haven’t the slightest idea who you are,” she told the astonished young man. “But I am sure of one thing, and that is that we were never so glad to see any one in all our lives as we are to see you.” CHAPTER X. HURRAH FOR ALLEN The young man stared for a moment longer. Then the humor of the situation seemed to strike him too, and he smiled pleasantly. “It surely is a pleasure to be as welcome as all that,” he said pleasantly, and the girls noticed that he was a well set up young fellow and that he wore his uniform easily, as if he had been used to wearing it for a long, long time. “I am Wesley Travers,” he went on. “I live in a cottage down the road and I came over this way to see if the old professor had come back yet. I saw the door open! came in! and found you.” He smiled again pleasantly and looked as though he considered that he had fallen into rather good luck. But at his mention of the professor Betty had sobered instantly. “Oh, then you know something about Professor Dempsey?” she questioned eagerly. “Please tell us what happened to him,” added Amy breathlessly. “Did he do this?” asked Mollie, with a comprehensive sweep of her hand about the cluttered room.