“About last night,” Betty prompted, still at a loss.

“You haven’t forgotten, have you?” she asked, incredulously.  “That—­ thing—­ on the porch.”

“Oh!” they said, and a shadow fell over their bright faces.

“Why, yes,” said Betty, slowly, adding as though she could not quite explain the phenomenon herself:  “I suppose we did forget all about it.”

“Or if we didn’t, we should have,” said Mollie, ungrammatically but decidedly.  “Come on, girls, we aren’t going to let any silly old thing like that frighten us out of a good time.”

“It seems,” said Grace thoughtfully, while Amy still held back, “almost as if we had dreamed the whole thing.  The memory of it is so vague—­ and indistinct.”

“Well, it isn’t vague to me—­ or indistinct either,” said Amy, feeling rather abused because the girls did not seem to share her feelings.  “I hardly slept all night long just thinking about it.”

“Oh, Amy Blackford!” said Grace accusingly, while Mollie and Betty turned twinkling eyes upon her.  “If that isn’t the biggest one I ever heard.  Why, I woke up once or twice in the night and each time I found you almost snoring.”

“Oh, I did not,” protested Amy, flushing indignantly, but here Mollie and Betty stepped laughingly into the fray and peremptorily put an end to it.

“Let’s not fight about it,” said Betty, when she could make herself heard.  “We don’t care whether Amy snored or not.  What we want to know is this:  Who is coming with us for a look at the falls?”

“Now you’re talking, Little Captain,” said Mollie approvingly.  “All in favor please say Aye.”

Amy still showed some inclination to hold back, but Mollie and Betty each took an arm and hurried her willy-nilly with them into the woods.

“You had better take the lead, Mollie,” Betty suggested after they had gone some little distance along the path.  “I can manage Amy alone now, I guess.  She seems pretty well tamed.”

“Tamed, but scared to death,” Amy came back, with a wry smile.  “Really, Betty,” she turned to look at the Little Captain closely, “aren’t you the least little bit nervous about what happened last night?”

“No, I don’t think I am now,” said Betty, adding candidly, “I must say I was last night though—­ just frightened to death.  It seemed so awfully uncanny—­ coming upon that thing in the dark after what we had gone through with that bandit.  But then,” she added more lightly, “everything seems so much worse in the dark, you know.”.

“Yes,” said Amy slowly and looking very serious.  “That all may be very true.  But I think that as long as we are sure we didn’t dream it last night and that the skulking thing really dodged out from the corner of our porch that we ought to be on our guard against it.  And how,” she finished most reasonably, “can we be on our guard in the woods?”

Betty was at a loss to know just how to answer such a question.  By this time Mollie and Grace were some little distance ahead of them and Amy’s nervousness was beginning to communicate itself to her against her will.