He was interrupted again by a repetition of that protracted, mournful howling, which seemed to echo through the black pines and apparently proceeded from a point much nearer than before. The sound of a real flesh-and-blood dog howling mournfully in the night and in a lonely place is enough to give the least superstitious person a creepy feeling, and, with the tragic story of the hermit and his faithful dog fresh in their minds, it was not at all remarkable that the two lads should now feel themselves shivering and find it no simple matter to keep their teeth from chattering.
“The confaounded critter is coming this way!” whispered Sile excitedly.
“We’re pretty near the island, aren’t we?” returned Sleuth. “Let’s be getting along toward camp.”
With the usual perverseness of human nature, even though he fancied he could feel his hair rising, Crane proposed to linger a while longer.
“If we do,” he said, “mebbe we’ll see something.”
“Lot of good that will do us,” hissed Sleuth. “And there’s a big chance of seeing anything in this darkness, isn’t there? I thought you wanted to get to the camp?”
“And I thought _yeou_ wanted to land on the island. Yeou don’t believe in spooks, yeou know.”
“What’s that got to do with it? Think I want to be chewed up by a hungry, vicious dog? I’m no fool.”
“Mebbe not,” admitted Crane, in a manner not at all intended to soothe the other boy. “Public opinion is sometimes mistaken abaout folks.”
Sleuth dipped his paddle nervously into the water.
“I’m hungry, anyhow,” he declared. “They’ll have supper waiting for us. It will spoil.”
“Look!” sibilated Sile, crouching a bit and lifting his arm to point toward the island. “I can see something! There’s something movin’! See it, Pipe—see it?”
Out from the edge of the pines, faintly discernible through the darkness, came something white which plainly resembled a dog. As both lads stared, motionless, at this thing, it seemed to squat upon its haunches, and, with lifted muzzle, it sent out across the water a repetition of that fearsome howling.
“It’s the spirit of Old Lonely’s dog!” panted Crane. “Sure as shootin’ it is, and we’ve both seen and heard it.”
“See! See!” fluttered Piper in a perfect panic. “There’s something else coming out of the woods! It’s a man!”