The mackerel bit fiercely, sometimes at the bare hook even, like fish gone crazy. It seemed as though they might go on catching them all day long, for the water was alive with them; but all at once the fish stopped biting as abruptly as they had begun. They still played around the boat, but not a fish would touch a hook. “We may as well put up our lines, boys. They are through biting for this morning,” said Arthur Warren. “Besides, we have more fish now than we know what to do with.” There was no doubt of that. They had caught several hundred of the fish—enough to supply the village. “We’ll make friends with every one in town,” said George Warren. “These are the first mackerel of the season, and we will give away all we cannot use.” “I feel as though I could eat about four now,” said young Joe. “I can eat at least six,” said Henry Burns. “We’ll try you and see,” said Arthur, producing an enormous frying-pan from a locker and a junk of pork from another. “Tom, you’re the boss cook of the crowd. You fry the fish while the rest of us clean up the boat, make things shipshape, and get ready to sail.” “Ay, ay, sir,” said Tom, rolling up his sleeves. “Let’s see, four apiece is how many?” And soon the appetizing odour of the frying fish, mingled with that of the steaming coffee, saluted most temptingly the nostrils of the six hungry boys. It was several hours after this, when the yacht was bowling along in the western bay, near the head of the island, before a fresh southerly breeze, that young Joe said: “I know how we can play a stupendous joke on everybody in the village.” Joe being the youngest of the brothers, and of the party, and it being therefore necessary that he should be occasionally squelched, George merely said: “You don’t think of anything, Joe, but playing jokes.” “All right,” retorted Joe, “seeing you are all so wildly enthusiastic, I’ll just keep it to myself.” “Nonsense, Joe, don’t be huffy,” said Arthur, whose curiosity was aroused. “Tell us what it is, and if it is any good we’ll try it, won’t we, boys?” There being an unanimously affirmative reply, young Joe proceeded. “Well,” said he, “there’s no risk at all about this. You know the old farmhouse on the bluff across the cove? Everybody in the village believes it is haunted. I found that out yesterday, when I was in Cap’n Sam’s store. The house hasn’t been lived in for two years, and not a soul in the village has dared to go near it at night in all that time. If any of them had to stay over there all night, they would sleep out in the woods rather than go into the house. “You see, the house belonged to a man by the name of Randall, Captain Randall, who lived there with his wife. This was a little more than two years ago. He owned a little fishing-smack, in which he went short trips down the coast. One night in a storm he drove in on to the bluff; the smack was pounded to pieces, and he was drowned. His wife died not long after.