The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery; Or, The Christmas Adventure at Carver House

ated a moment, and then, picking out a conspicuous spot under a glaring arc light, deposited her suitcase on t

rushing madly up and down before the panting train in search of friends and relatives. Katherine was engulfed in a tidal wave of rapturous greeting

Katherine's face and in its place there came a look of puzzled wonder. What had happened? Why wasn't Nyoda there to meet her? Was there some mistake? Wasn't this Oakwood? Had she gotten off at the wrong station, she thought in sudden panic. No, there was the sign beside the door of the green boarded station; its gilded letters gleamed down reassuringly at her. Katherine stood on one foo

was certain of that. She had run out to the mail box at ten o'clock at night es

ing on a glass door opposite. The telephone! Goose! Why hadn't she thought of that before? Of course there w

nd made a frantic effort to recall it. No use; it was a fruitless endeavor. Where that name used to be in her mind there was now a blank space, empty and echoless as the original void. It was too ridiculous! Katherine gave a little stamp of vexation. It was not the first time a

she gave it up in disgust and stalked out of the station.

in an asylum, and it would serve you right if they did. You aren't fit to be out without a guardian. A

aded along with Nyoda's name. "I'll walk until I come to a house on the top of a hill," she decided, "and find it that way. There can't be many hous

guessed that she was a stranger in a strange town and hadn't any idea where she was going. There was such an air of confidence and capability abou

ike a kitten in a heap of leaves. To be on a hill Nyoda must be on the outskirts of the town. She inquired of a pa

stmas stillness hovered over the peaceful little town, as though it lay hushed and breathless in anticipation of the coming of the Holy Babe. Low in the eastern sky burned the brilliant evening star, bright as that other Star in the East which guided the shepherds on that far-off Christmas night. Katherine felt the spell

town of

l we see

eep and dre

nt stars

ne suddenly realize that she was ravenously hungry. She had had nothing to eat since an early lunch on the train. "I hope I get there before supper's over," she thought, and quickened her pace again. Not that she wouldn't get

he was walking along between wide, open spaces, gleaming white in the starlight, with only an occasional low cottage to break the landscape. The walk was steeply uphill now, and loo

ered before her at the top of the steep incline, its irregular outlines standing sharply defined against the luminous sky. Katherine charged up the remainder of the hill at top speed, slipping and falling in the icy path several times in her eagerness, but finally landing intact, though flushed and panting, upon its slippery summit, and stood still to behold this wonderful house that Nyoda lived in, whose charm

da's house before which she stood on this lonely hilltop. It was some other house and it was absolutely empty. Not only was it untenanted, but it had the look of a house that has stood so for

venously hungry, she was unutterably cross at herself. She scowled at the dark house with its spectral, frosty windows, and m

ird as the extreme alternative in case she neither found the right hill nor succeeded in remembering Nyoda's name before bedtime, when suddenly something occurred which sent a chill of ice into her blood and left her standing petrified in her one-legged pose, like a frozen stork. From the dark and empty house before her came the sound of a song, ringing clear and distinct through the frosty air. It was the voice of a woman, or a girl. Beginning softly, the tone swelled out in volume till it seemed to Katherine's ears to fill the whole house and to come pouring ou

dn't be starving yet. She was tremendously hungry, but there was still a fairly safe margin between her and the last stages. Somehow the thought of hunger, and the idea of food, commonplace, familiar victuals which

's your 'spicuity? Vacant houses don't sing by themselves. When empty houses start singing they aren't empty. Besides, no ghost could sing like that. A voice like

ed and trembled, but they held her and she went on over the sagging porch to the door, which lay in deep shadow at the one side. She felt about for a bell or knocker, and then she discovered that the door stood open. She could hear the voice plainly, singing so

ivered from head to foot. She felt chilled through, and fairly ached to get inside a house; anywhere to be in out of the cold. She rapped a third time. St

wn voice fills her ears. I'm going in and find her. I'll apologize for walking in on her so un

n a moment a tiny circle of light was boring valiantly into the gloom. By its gleam Katherine saw that she stood in a long hall. Upon her left was a succession of doors, all closed; upon her right a staircase curved upward into the blackness above. Idly she turned her flashlight on the staircase and noticed that the post was of beautifully carved mahogany. The polish was gone, but it must have been handsome

or a burglar, coming in that way and looking around with a flashlight. Katherine suddenly felt apprehensive. Suppose he wouldn't believe he

es. At the sound of her voice the man gave a startled jump, backed away from the banister, ran down the stairs two steps at