Part 22 (1/2)

”I can't think what caused it.”

”That noise you mean?”

”Yes. Wasn't it queer?”

”Oh, not so very. At home we wouldn't give it a second thought.”

”Yes,” agreed Belle, ”but there are so many ways of explaining noises in town, and so few ways up here. I wonder if that is the beginning of the surprises, Cora?”

”If it is they aren't so unpleasant. Noise never hurt any one.”

So they said nothing to the others about the little disturbance in the night, and the only remark the others made, having any reference to it, was that of Walter's about thunder.

”It must have been thunder,” Cora said, ”for if the noise had been in our bungalow the boys couldn't have heard it in theirs.”

”I don't see how they could,” Belle agreed.

”But, all the same, I'm going to have some way of calling to Jack and the others without screaming our lungs out,” declared Cora. ”It's only right to be able to summon them if we want them. One of us might become ill, and they'd have to go for the doctor. I'd rather call Jack than Mr.

Floyd.”

Cora spoke to her brother that afternoon.

”We should have some sort of speaking tube,” he a.s.sented. ”I might rig up one of the string telephones we used to make with tin baking powder boxes that served both as transmitter and receiver.”

”Can you do it?” asked Cora.

”I guess so.”

”I know something better than that,” Paul put in. ”There's a toy telephone that comes now, made of string, but the baking powder boxes are replaced by wooden cylinders with parchment tightly stretched over one end. You can hear quite well with them.”

”Where can we get it?” asked Cora.

”I have one,” Paul said. ”I bought it just before we left to come up here, intending to give it to a kid cousin of mine, but I forgot to mail it. You can use that if you like.”

”Just the thing!” exclaimed Jack. ”The dear girls can't get along without us after all; can they?”

”Oh, don't flatter yourself that we're as fond of you as all that,”

laughed Belle. ”But we do like to have you within call-especially up here.”

”Why, have you seen any suspicious characters lurking around?” asked Walter.

”Nary a lurk,” responded Cora. ”We're just getting ready for emergencies.”

The toy telephone was strung that day from the girls' bungalow to that of the boys', and it worked quite well. As simple as it was, and it scarcely could have been more simple, talk could be plainly heard over it. The string took up the vibrations imparted to the parchment by the voice, and transmitted them across s.p.a.ce to the other end of the line.

Of course the string had to be tight, and it must not touch anything in its course, or the vibrations would have been interfered with. But s.p.a.ce was what they had most of in Camp Surprise.

”To my mind the camp isn't living up to its name,” declared Paul, after the telephone had been put up and tested, the boys sending any number of foolish messages over the string. ”No, sir! There hasn't been a surprise worth talking about,” went on Paul. ”Why doesn't something happen?”

”Give it time,” suggested Jack.