home, and after they had put the machines in the garage they went into the house. They found their father, Fenton Hardy, in his den just off the library. He was never too busy to talk to his sons, and when they came in he put down the papers he was studying and leaned back in his chair.
"Well, what have you two been up to to-day?" he inquired, smiling.
"We've had a real adventure, this time, dad," Frank told him. "We were out to the old Polucca place with some of the fellows."
"That's the haunted house, isn't it? See any ghosts?"
The boys looked at one another. "No, we didn't see any ghosts, exactly," said Joe. "But—"
"You don't mean to tell me you heard some!" Fenton Hardy threw back his head and laughed with delight.
"You may laugh; but some mighty queer things happened out there," insisted Joe.
Whereupon the brothers told their father of the strange experiences at the deserted farmhouse. But Mr. Hardy refused to take them seriously.
"Some of your school chums playing a joke on you," he said, dismissing the affair. "They'll be laughing their heads off about it right now."
