Page:Dave Porter and his Rivals.djvu/233

Rh "Well, what was it?" demanded Roger, sternly.

"It was about a party, if you must know. I dreamt I took a girl, and we had a nice time dancing and playing games. There weren't any shoes in it," and poor Shadow got redder than ever.

Dave looked the box over with care. It was a common pasteboard box, with nothing on it in the way of writing or advertising.

"This certainly is a mystery," he said, slowly. "First the shoes disappear, and now they come back. I give it up."

"Somebody has been playing a trick on us!" declared Roger. "The question is, who?"

"I don't know of anybody who would do such a thing, excepting it was Nat Poole," declared Ben.

"Well, there is no use of taxing Nat with it," declared Dave. "For he would deny it point-blank, unless you could prove it against him."

The boys talked the affair over until it was time to go down to breakfast, but they could reach no conclusion regarding the mystery.

"Maybe it will never be explained," said Buster.

"Well, even so, I am glad to get my shoes and slippers back," lisped Polly Vane.

A few days after the restoration of the foot coverings there came a thaw and then a sudden