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“I suggest that we walk around the place,” Barbara, who liked mysteries almost as much as Betsy, suggested.

This they did, but the right side of the house was so bleak as the front had been. Babs was first around the corner and she beckoned to the others. “Look!” she cried. “An old-fashioned cellar door, just the kind my grandfather had. How I adored sliding down it when I was very small. See, this one is covered with ice. Watch me while I return to my childhood sport.”

Laughingly Barbara climbed up to the highest point of the sloping cellar door. Suddenly there was a crash, followed by a frightened cry. Babs had disappeared.

The frightened girls lifted the other half of the sloping door and saw Babs lying in the underground entrance to the cellar. They hurried down damp, slippery steps and lifted her. Almost at once she opened her eyes, “I’m all right,” she said. “I guess this house is rather old and crumbly.” She rose, and, as no bones were broken, Betsy suggested that they take a look about the cellar which lay beyond them, dark, damp and undoubtedly rat infested.