Red, a fast eater, finished ahead of the others and restlessly began to wander about. Soon he was peering into the dusty basement windows of the church.
“What do you see?” Dan inquired curiously.
“Not much of anything ’cept an old furnace.”
“I can see some cooking junk on one of the shelves. Don’t know if it’s a freezer or not—”
Their interest whetted, the other boys gathered up the loose picnic papers and went to join Red. From another window on the opposite side of the building, Dan obtained a much better view of the cluttered basement interior.
“I do see a freezer!” he reported gleefully. “I’m sure of it!”
“Wow, I wish we could have it,” Red declared. “If we could just get down into the basement—say, maybe we can find an unlocked window!”
“Nothing doing,” Dan said with firmness. “Even if we found one, we couldn’t go into the building after Old Terry told us to wait. Cub honor.”
“Oh, I was only talking,” Red answered with a shrug. “I didn’t really intend to go inside.”
Dan’s window offered a fairly clear view of the church basement, so the other boys crowded about to peer down into the pillared room.
“The place has a lot of boxes,” Midge observed. “Some of ’em look as if they’ve been smashed open. I see some tools too. A coal shovel—”
His voice broke on the last named object and an eerie silence came upon all the Cubs. Was it imagination, or had they heard a strange sound—the faint tap-tap-tap of the overhead church bell?
“G-ghosts,” mumbled Chub, his voice choked with fright. In a hushed whisper he added the plea: “Come on, f-fellows, let’s get away from here q-quick!”
Chub’s squeal of fright unnerved the other Cubs for an instant. But they did not give way to panic. Chips grasped the younger boy’s arm, holding him as he would have fled from the church grounds.
“Take it easy,” he advised. “There aren’t any ghosts and we all know it.”
“I-I heard something,” Chub said, half ashamed. “It sounded like a bell tapping.”
The Cubs stood gazing up at the belfry. So far as they could see, the rusty old bell hung absolutely motionless.
“You imagined it,” Red said gruffly. “How could that bell jingle?”
“I thought I heard it tap myself,” Midge said.
“Maybe the wind moved the bell,” Red offered as an explanation. “It’s blowing fairly strong from the direction of the river.”