“Who said we would look for them in daylight,” returned Jack. “We can go to the mill to-morrow afternoon, and wait until it gets dark. We can take our lunch with us.” “That sounds good,” declared Phil. “I’m in on that.” “Well, if you want to do it that way, I’m willing,” assented Blake. “Probably all we’ll find, though, is some tramp sleeping in the shack. Very well, we’ll lay the ghost to-morrow.” “And we won’t tell the girls about it until we solve the mystery,” added Phil. “That’s what,” added Jack. But the next day it rained, so they postponed their ghost-hunting expedition. There was nothing much to do, though, so in the afternoon the boys donned old garments, and went over to the Point, through the drizzle, for some supplies, shopping for the girls at the same time. Natalie’s ankle was better, it was reported, and the following day she could hobble about a bit. “But I’m going to sit still and do bead work for a while,” she said when the boys came to call, and she showed where, on a hand loom, she was working a Camp Fire device for a bead head-band—her emblem of a pine tree being made in a conventional design. The other girls were also busy. “Then you’re not going to the mill again?” asked Jack. “No, indeed!” Late that afternoon, giving out some excuse to the girls not to see them that evening, the three chums, having packed a basket of lunch, with some candles for light, some bags to use for cushions, set off for the old mill. They intended to pass the night there to prove or disprove that any one—whether of this earth or some other—was in the ancient structure. CHAPTER XXVIII THE BOYS ARE PUZZLED “It’s a spooky old sort of a place all right,” remarked Blake. “It sure is,” agreed Phil. “And it’s going to be uncommon uncomfortable before morning,” declared Jack. “Want to back out?” asked Phil, pausing in the act of arranging some bags which they had brought to stretch out on. “Back out? Not on your life!” cried Jack. “We’d never hear the last of it if the girls found it out.” “They needn’t know,” suggested Blake. “Not that I’m anxious to quit, but I thought perhaps——” “Say, if those girls were smart enough to find Bear Pond and the Gypsy camp they’d find out about us coming here and then backing out,” declared Jack. “No, we’ve got to stick now, whether we want to or not. Let’s make the best of it.” The boys had brought their things into the old mill, the reputed mystery of which they intended to solve. Though what that mystery was, beyond Old Hanson having declared he had listened to strange noises of late, was more than the boys could tell. The face Natalie thought she saw did not particularly interest them, for, on talking it over, they had decided that it might have been a pigeon, or a bat, flying about in the old loft of the mill. And the creature might have passed close to the broken window as Natalie looked up.