Suddenly, there was a bustle out in the yard and Anthony took his old lantern and walked slowly out to the yard, followed by us. We joked with him about the size of his lantern and Phil related a story, as we walked along, of a Chinese boy who had no oil for his lamp and caught fireflies so that he could read his books.
    “Well”, piped up Ed, “there is a lot of light going to waste in the cow yard. Looking at the cow yard, we saw that it was alight with the flashing fireflies. “The fire-fly is so silly, look where he carries his lantern.”
    Then an argument was started as to the place he should carry it. Suddenly our argument was cut short at the sight of four dark forms standing nearby. Their features were suggested rather than revealed. What a twist our imaginations get when a light is turned on suddenly, revealing a face which the voice does not fit.
    Then the four figures started for the house, one stumbling in the dark. Just then, there was a blood curdling scream from one of the girls so piercing and frantic that we were certain that something terrible was happening. The figures just ahead seemed to be holding her. Phil had rushed forward at his sister’s first scream and suddenly, we heard him shout, “I have him”, but we did not know what “him” referred to. Shaking with fear, I followed the others into the house, Phil was leading the way and when we came in range of the lamp light, I noticed that he had something held tightly in his right hand. He called it a vampire bat, which has also been called the blood sucking bat. It had lighted on Ilene’s thick hair and she had started screaming when she felt it fluttering about on her head.
    Mr. McIntyre had entered the room, carrying Ilene in his arms. She was still sobbing after her experience. What the bat’s intentions had been, they could not tell but Phil’s lucky grab in the dark was timely.
    Then we discovered that the strange figures we had seen out in the yard were Mr. McIntyre and some strangers we had never seen before. He had just returned from the races.
    When the excitement died down, he introduced his two friends to his wife. As young as I was, I did not like the appearance of the strange men and I also noticed that Mrs. McIntyre became somewhat cold towards the strangers, which was foreign to her usual custom. She hurried about to get supper for the men.