previous night’s experience.

“Oh, how perfectly gorgeous!” sighed Phyllis, thrilled beyond description by the narrative. “Do you suppose it’s haunted? I’ve heard of haunted houses, but never of a haunted bungalow! Now don’t laugh at me,—that’s what Ted and Father do when I speak of such things,” for Leslie could not repress a giggle at this suggestion.

“Phyllis, you know there are no such things as haunted houses—really!” she remonstrated.

“Well, I’m not so sure of it, and anyway, I’ve always longed to come across one! And what other explanation can there be for this thing, anyway? But do me one favor, won’t you, Leslie? Let’s keep this thing to ourselves and do a little investigating on our own account. If I tell Father and Ted and let them know what I think, they’ll simply hoot at me and go and spoil it all by breaking the place open and tramping around it themselves and scaring away any possible ghost there might be. Let’s just see if we can make anything out of it ourselves, will you?”

“Why of course I will,” agreed Leslie heartily. “I wouldn’t dare to let Aunt Marcia know there was anything queer about the place. She’d be scared to death and it would upset all the doctor’s plans for her. I don’t believe in the ghost theory, but I do think there may have been something mysterious about it, and it will be no end of a lark to track it down if we can. But I must be going now.”

“I’m coming with you!” announced the impetuous Phyllis. “I want to go up there right away and do a little looking about myself. I simply can’t wait.”

So they set off together, trudging through the sand at the edge of the ocean, where the walking was easiest. All the way, Leslie was wondering what had become of Rags. It was not often that he deserted her even for five minutes, but she had not seen him since her encounter with Phyllis. It was not till their arrival at Curlew’s Nest that she discovered his whereabouts.

Directly in front of this bungalow’s veranda, and about fifty feet away from it, lay the remains of a huge old tree-trunk, half buried in the sand. Almost under this trunk, only his rear quarters visible, was the form of Rags, digging frantically at a great hole in the wet sand. So deep now was the hole that the dog was more than half buried.

“There’s Rags! He’s after another hermit-crab!” cried Leslie. “I was wondering where he could be.” They both raced up to him and reached him just as he had apparently attained the end of his quest and backed out of the hole.

“Why, what has he got?” exclaimed Phyllis. “That’s no hermit-crab!”

And in truth it was not. For out of the hole the dog was dragging a small burlap sack which plainly contained some heavy article in its folds!

Both girls dashed forward to snatch the dog’s treasure-trove from him. But Rags had apparently made up his mind that, after his arduous labors, he was going to have the privilege of examining his find himself. At any rate, he would not be easily robbed. Seizing the burlap bag in his mouth, he raced to the water’s edge and stood there, guarding his treasure with mock fierceness. Phyllis, being a stranger, he would not even allow to approach him, but growled ominously if she came within ten feet of his vicinity. And when Rags growled, it behooved the stranger to have a care! Leslie he pretended to welcome, but no sooner had she approached near enough to lay her hand on the bag than he seized it triumphantly and raced up the beach.

“Oh, do grab him, somehow!” cried Phyllis, in despair. “He’ll drop the thing in the water and the next breaker will wash it away, and we’ll never know what it was!”

Leslie herself was no less anxious to filch his treasure, but Rags had by now acquired a decidedly frolicsome spirit, and the chase he led them was long and weary. Three times he dropped the bag directly in the path of a breaker, and once it was actually washed out, and the girls groaned in chorus as they saw it flung into the boiling surf. But another wave washed it ashore, only to land it again in the custody of Rags before Leslie could seize it.

Finally, however, he wearied of the sport, and sensing the sad fact that his prize was in no wise edible, he dropped it suddenly to pursue an unsuspecting hermit-crab. The girls fell joyfully upon the long-sought treasure and bore it to the veranda of Curlew’s Nest for further examination.

“What under the sun can it be?” marveled the curious Phyllis. “Something heavy, and all sewed up in a coarse bag like that! It’s as good as a ghost story. Let’s get at it right away.”

They sat down on the wet steps while Leslie unrolled the bag,—not much larger than a big salt-bag,—and tried to tear an opening at the top. But her slender fingers were not equal to the task, so Phyllis undertook it.

“Let me try!” she urged. “I play the piano a great deal and my fingers are very strong.”

And sure enough, it did not take her more than a moment to make an opening and thrust her hand into it. What she found there she drew out and laid in Leslie’s lap, while the two girls gasped simultaneously at the singular object they had discovered.

To begin with, it was encrusted with sand and corroded by the contact of salt air and seawater. But when they had brushed off the sand and polished it as well as they could with the burlap bag, it stood forth in something of its original appearance—a small box or casket of some heavy metal, either bronze or copper, completely covered with elaborate carving. It was about six inches long, three wide, and two in height. It stood on four legs, and, upon examination, the carving proved to be the body of a winged serpent of some kind, completely encircling the box, the head projecting over the front edge where the lock or fastening of the cover would be. The legs of the receptacle were the creature’s claws. The carving was remarkably fine and delicate in workmanship.

“My gracious!” breathed Phyllis. “Did you ever see anything so strange! What can it be?”

“And isn’t it beautiful!” added Leslie. “What can that queer creature be that’s carved on it? Looks to me like the pictures of dragons that we used to have in fairy-story books.”

“That’s just what it is! You’ve hit it! I couldn’t think what it was at first—it’s so wound around the box!” cried Phyllis. “But this thing is certainly a box of some kind, and there must be some opening to it and probably something in it. Let’s try now to get it open.”

But that was easier said than done. Try as they would, they could find no way of opening the casket. The dragon’s head came down over the lock or clasp, and there was no vestige of keyhole or catch or spring. And so intricate was the carving, that there was not even any crack or crevice where the lid fitted down over the body of the box into which they could insert Phyllis’s penknife blade to pry it open by force. The casket and its contents was a baffling mystery, and the wicked looking little dragon seemed to guard the secret with positive glee, so malicious was its expression!

Phyllis at last threw down her knife in disgust and rattled the box impatiently. “Something bumps around in there!” she declared.