Page:Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore.djvu/175

Rh dreams, but as it continued longer and louder, he called to Harry, who slept in the alcove in Bert's room, and together the boys listened, attentively.

"That's the strange bird," declared Harry. "Sure enough it is bringing us a message, as Dinah said," and while the boys took the girl's words in a joke, they really seemed to be coming true.

"Don't light the gas," cautioned Bert, "or that will surely frighten it off. We can get our air guns, and I'll go crawl out on the veranda roof back of it, so as to get it if possible."

All this time the "peck-peck-peck" kept at the window, but just as soon as Bert went out in the hall to make his way through the store-room window to the veranda roof, the pecking ceased. Harry hurried after Bert to tell him the bird was gone, and then together the boys put their heads out of their own window.

But there was not a sound, not even the distant flutter of a bird's wing to tell the boys the messenger had gone.

"Back to bed for us," said Harry, laughing. "I guess that bird is a joker and wants to keep