Dorothy Dale's Camping Days

"But you won't go?" asked Cologne. "You know the Lamberts are—well—they are a troup of theatrical folks, and no one knows much about them."

"The only profession that hides the ego," broke in Tavia. "Now that is what I call cozy, to get away from the dear old nosey public. I wonder the whole world does not go in for the stage, and get a chance to walk through the streets, and have folks say, 'Isn't she perfectly sweet!' All the while one could be sticking out her tongue, and otherwise enjoying herself—"

"Tavia!" exclaimed Dorothy. "Do talk something akin to common sense if you cannot do better. And don't mix up your pronouns. You keep one bobbing through tenses and pronouns as if the thinker were a jack-in-the-box."

"All the same I would love to go over to that big white house in the cherry trees, and see a dress rehearsal. They play Shakespeare."

The next morning the three girls started to camp in earnest. Tavia insisted that it was her share of work to fetch one pail of water from the spring, because, she said, she had to stoop down so low, and walk so far the effort was equal to Dorothy's dish-washing or Cologne's muffin-making.

"While you do the rest," she said, "I'll just run up, and look over the loft, the boys are out now, and Dorothy won't be afraid I'll forget my manners."

"You come here directly, and set this table for lunch," ordered Dorothy. "We are going out for trout, and will not be in until eating time, so we will get everything ready now."

"All right," answered Tavia, at the same time climbing up the ladder, and making her way to the loft.

"Oh, let her explore," said Cologne. "Then when she gets enough of it she will be satisfied."

"Don't touch any of the old guns up there," called Dorothy, "Jack says there are dangerous."

She was in the opening of the hay loft, lying on the floor with her head over the edge.

"Oh don't" begged Cologne. "Tavia, that is dangerous!"

Her voice was rather strained, Cologne was annoyed. Tavia jumped up, and, with a most unladylike "whoop," ran from one end of the loft to the other, exclaiming at every new found article of interest. Suddenly she stopped.

"Now what do you suppose she is at?" asked Dorothy, as she and Cologne listened.

"Maybe Jack's pipes. I am sure she would be interested in them. He has quite a collection."

"Oh! G-i-r-l-s!" came a shout from the loft. "Come quick! A wild animal!"

The voice left no room for doubt. Tavia did see something.

Cologne and Dorothy dropped their work and scrambled up the ladder.

"Over here!"

Tavia was on all fours, peering behind an old door that lay close to the side timbers of the barn. "Just look! His hair stands up like a porcupine, and his eyes! Oh, my! such eyes!"

"There certainly is something," admitted Cologne.

"It has straight black hair," exclaimed Dorothy, "and it does look fierce!"

"What shall we do?" asked Cologne. "Jack will not be back until night."

"And if we take our eyes off it we run the risk of having it under the bed to-night," said Tavia. "Now if only we could shoot a gun," and she looked at the line of weapons that decorated the side of the loft.

"I can load and fire a gun," declared Dorothy. "Wasn't my father a soldier?"

"Wasn't her father a soldier!" repeated Tavia. "Cologne you hump down there, and keep your eye on the bear, while we get a gun, and load it. Then if it's all the same to you, I'll do down stairs, and out in the back yard until it is all over. I hate murder close by."

"I'll choose my own gun, if you please," said Dorothy, as Tavia was about to hand her an old musket. "I like the vintage of the last century at least."

"Not if I can get a gun I happen to know," said Dorothy. "You may both go out in the back yard if you choose. I must try the rifle first—oh, here is one just like father gave Joe his last birthday. I had a mind to borrow it to come out here to Maine woods, but I never dreamed of getting game right in camp."

"Don't shoot dis niggah!" pleaded Tavia, actually making for the ladder.

Dorothy went over to the open window and put the rifle to her shoulder. She pulled the trigger. There was no discharge. Not satisfied with one trial she worked the rifle until there was positively no possibility of any load being in the weapon.

"There, that's clean," she said. "Now for the cartridge."

Over on the wall hung Jack's ammunition box. Cologne was watching at a safe distance. Tavia had gone downstairs by way of a rope that Jack Markin used for descending. Dorothy put the load in, made sure it was all right, then went over to the beast's hiding place. She crouched down and took aim.

"Do—be—careful, Dorothy."

"There! That fetched him!" exclaimed Dorothy. "I saw him roll over."

"Make sure he is dead before you pull the door away," again cautioned Cologne.

"Dead as a carpet tack," declared Dorothy. "Let's call Tavia and get her to pull him out. She ought to do something in this, our first hunt."

Tavia was called, and being assured that the thing had rolled the death roll, she came up the ladder, and with the aid of a long handled hay rake, she just ventured to touch the strange thing.

"It's dead!"

This was the signal for a series of antics such as Tavia might imagine to be popular in the Figi Islands when some real dainty morsel fell into the camp kettle.

"Oh, let us see what it is!" ordered Cologne. "Maybe we won't have to go trout fishing, it may do for dinner."

"It may, then again it may not," replied Tavia. "But May or Mamie, let's haul her out."

Dorothy put her shoulder to the frame door, back of which the thing was hidden.

"One, two, three!" she shoved it over. "Are you ready?"

But it didn't go, neither did it come.

The girls waited breathlessly.

"Pull him out, Tavia! What's the use standing there with a rake in your hand," said Dorothy.

"I want to make sure he does not revive," she replied, gingerly poking the rake handle a little further under the hidden corner.

"Oh, here," exclaimed Dorothy impatiently. "Let me take that implement and you hold this door. We ought to get the animal out in time for lunch."

They shifted positions. Dorothy jabbed the rake recklessly into the corner. Tavia moaned, and Cologne groaned.

Drag—drag—It was coming out.

"Mercy!" exclaimed Tavia.

"Goodness me!" gasped Cologne.

But Dorothy, who was the only one near the thing, simply dropped the rake and stood aghast—too dumbfounded to utter a syllable!

"What is it?" begged Cologne.

Glancing around to see if she could discern Dorothy or Cologne, Tavia had a sudden thrill of terror.

"I didn't know I had gone so far," she thought, "and that man is coming this way."

Something familiar about the manner in which the stranger advanced toward her attracted her attention.

"Looks like that man! It is he! The fellow who stopped the hay-wagon runaway!"

She was still frightened, but a trifle more at ease, since she recognized the man in the big slouch hat. "Whatever could have brought him here?" she asked herself. The next moment she was glad—glad that Cologne and Dorothy were out of reach.

"Oh, I'm not afraid of him," she thought. "Perhaps he knows I'm here——"

He was almost up to her. Yes, it was he—the same queer smile lurked about his face, and he had that indefinable air—was it attractive, or only different?

"Good morning, Maud Muller," he said doffing that unlimited hat. "I'm so glad to see you alone."

"But not over here. It's all the same. I want to speak to you, and this is the best opportunity I could have wished for."

Tavia unconsciously picked up a stick. She felt queer, and he looked queer, so that altogether it was a very queer proceeding.

"I have news for you," the man resumed. "Is not your name Tavia Travers?"

"Yes."

"Then you must follow my advice closely and you will come into your own. Are you not from the town of Dalton?"

"I am."

"Then I am right, as I was sure I was from the start. Your father is a—is an officer in Dalton?"

"A squire," replied Tavia, bewildered now at his knowledge of her and her family.

"Oh, my!" shuddered Tavia stepping away. "I don't think I can wait now." She was thoroughly frightened. "Couldn't you come down to the camp, and tell me? Then we could talk comfortably. The sun is very hot up here."

"But what I have to say is best said in the open," he answered vaguely. "I prefer this to all spots on earth." He paused and Tavia's first impulse was to run, but then——

"I won't ask you to believe me now," he said, his voice softening, "but if you will come to where I say I can prove my assertion."

"That there is a fortune left to my family? That is too absurd," and Tavia smiled. "Money does not run in our family."

"Exactly. That is why it has to be run into it—put on the track, so to speak. Well, I know what I am talking about. But if you are not interested——"

He turned as if to go. What if it could be true, and Tavia was throwing away the only chance she would ever have of learning the truth?

"Where did you want me to go?" she stammered.

His eyes flashed, and his voice trembled. Tavia thought she had never before seen such glassy eyes, and the way he fastened them on her gave her a most uncomfortable feeling. She even felt compelled to promise what he asked, and she did so.

He sauntered off, leaving the girl's head in a whirl. Who was he, and what did he know about her family?

He was right in his assertions about Dalton, also about her father. Surely there could be no harm in listening to his story, and the stone bridge was not far from camp.

Dorothy and Cologne were just appearing above the hill, Dorothy's yellow head bobbing up like some animated flower.

"Oh, you dreadful girl!" called Cologne. "We thought the gypsies had taken you."

"Harvests!" cried Cologne in delight. "I never knew they were here."

"Neither did I until I found them," replied Tavia foolishly.

"The climb gave you lovely red cheeks; Tavia," said Dorothy. "You ought to take climbing in the next school course."

"No sarcasm now, please, Doro. I don't feel a bit funny."

"But you look it," declared Dorothy, keeping up her teasing manner. "You always look funny when your cheeks get so red—"

"Danger of ignition, I suppose," and Tavia's voice was anything but pleasant. "Oh, there go the Lamberts!" as an auto swished around the road. "I must run away and see them some day—just before we go home, when Cologne won't have time, or heart, to scold."

"You wouldn't!" spoke Cologne. "Mother particularly warned me that we were not to take up with those theatrical folks, and mother is the boss."

"Oh, very well, if you really feel that way about it," and Tavia shrugged her shoulders.

"He's welcome," she replied. "Stagnant good nature doesn't keep well, and I have been keeping mine bottled up ever since you shot that window brush. The shock to my system—" and she imitated the manner of one affected with nerves.

"Yes, it was dreadful on all of us," agreed Dorothy, from whom the change in Tavia's manner could not be hidden. "But you must forget it, and think of the good time we are going to have to-morrow. Think of it! Going out in the real mountains, with real boys for guides! Of course you will have your pick of the boys, Cologne and I must be satisfied with what remains."

Cologne had scarcely spoken since Tavia mentioned the Lamberts, and Dorothy was doing her best to restore good nature and peace to both of her companions. Yet she was greatly annoyed at Tavia's rudeness. Why should she persist in ignoring common courtesy and thus keeping up that Lambert question?

"We must hurry back to the camp with our berries," Cologne at last ventured, "or mother will think some snake has eaten us up."

Tavia gathered up some apples, and the others took their berry baskets. They walked slowly over the hill back to the camp. Jack was waiting for them.

"Say, girls!" he began as they neared the dining room steps, "the boys have a great scheme on for to-morrow. But I am not to tell you about it."

"Isn't that lovely," came from Tavia in rather mocking tones.

"But I am commissioned to tell you," he went on with an arch look at Tavia, "that you are to rest this afternoon for sufficient unto to-morrow is the weariness thereof."

Then they began to prepare lunch, but Tavia remained outside, asking Jack some seemingly foolish questions.

"Don't you worry," Jack suggested. "You will be sure to find out that Tavia has happened to something. She has a faculty for that sort of thing. Let us go off on a day's fun. No use spoiling it all on account of a whim—I am sure it is nothing more."

"She did complain of a headache," Cologne remembered, "and I gave her a little soda. She may have thought it best to hide with the headache rather than to worry us about it."

"We haven't tried the brook," suggested pretty Hazel Hays. "I am always afraid of brooks."

"But Tavia swims like a fish," declared Dorothy. "I would never think of harm coming to her in the water."

"Let's try, at any rate," agreed Jack, who never opposed Hazel. "Although, unless that big frog gobbled her up, I cannot imagine any possible danger."

Every one could joke but Dorothy. To her the situation was beyond that.

"I'll wager we find her up a tree eating apples," lisped Claud. "I never saw a girl so fond of sweet apples as Miss Tavia. She told me so herself."

"Told you, you never saw a girl—now Claud! Don't get excited that way. It's dreadfully hard on your nerves and on your friends."

"But I say, now, Jack——"

"Claud, dear, don't. Save it until we find Tavia, and then say to your heart's content."

Dorothy had run on ahead and was now looking over the little rustic bridge into the frog pond. The water was not deep, but there were plainly footprints along its muddy edge.

"There has been some one here to-day," declared Cologne, "and no one ever comes on our grounds—away up here at any rate."

"They are the footprints of a man," Jack decided. "Did Tavia, by any means, know a man who wore boots size ten?"

"Jolly!" exclaimed Claud. "I have been wishing so much for a chance to know that younger Lamb. She's the very sweetest——"

"Spring lamb?" asked Cologne, teasingly. "Claud, you should never take spring lamb upon the recommendation of a strange butcher. It might turn out to be mutton."

This sally caused Claud to laugh so vigorously, that he held his hand over his watch pocket apprehensively.

Dorothy was looking under the black bridge. The footprints seemed to turn in beneath the culvert, and then they were lost in the deep, dark mud.

Not one, except perhaps Cologne, knew the thoughts that stirred Dorothy so riotously. What if Tavia had gone over to Lamberts, and so would incur the displeasure of their hostess? Or, if she had met that queer man? But she could not have done that! Reckless as she was, she could not be unaware of the danger of doing such a fool-hardy thing as that!

"Neither," replied Jack. "It's Moose on the level. Yes, we may as well explore Trout Trammel—though I doubt if they'll come up even at the sight of those fly colors you wear, Hazel."

"Don't you like this suit? Why it's the very thing—all the way from New York. And just see the navy emblem."

The invitation brought Jack up very close to the sleeve of Hazel's sailor suit. Yes, he liked that emblem, first rate, and he said so, once or twice.

"I vote for a trip to the Lambs," voiced the dainty Claud. "If no one else wants to go I don't mind, in the least, running over and making inquiries."

"Oh, don't run, Claud;" cautioned Jack. "It's dreadful on your watch pocket. Just walk over and give my love to the girl who wears the rainbow around her head. Tell her that I saw her and she will guess the rest."

"Well, if she happens to be out on the lawn, might I ask her to join in this girl-hunt?"

"Oh, you're hunting a lot!" exclaimed Cologne in something like impatience. "Now, Claud, this it no joke! We are out to find our lively-loving, luckless little friend, Tavia."

But lunch time came, and lunch time went by, without any trace or track of Tavia being discovered.

Finally Dorothy broke down, and went to her own room. Cologne followed her, and there, in the secret nook in the big camp farm, the two girls discussed every possible clause of the case, and tried with heroic effort to shed some light on the mystery.

"Was it the Lamberts? Or could it be——"

"Oh, she would never go off with a stranger," declared Dorothy over and over again. "Surely our Tavia has more common sense than that."

"But it is so lonely up here—no," Cologne corrected herself, "you are right, of course, Dorothy. She will be back—just as soon as she feels like coming. That's Tavia!"

But they little knew the danger to which the younger girl had unwittingly exposed herself.

No wonder Tavia could not be found within or without the precincts of the camp.

"I never saw such a girl," growled Ned. "Just when a fellow expects to have a first-rate time, she puts up something that knocks it out."

Dorothy was disconsolate. Her eyes showed the result of a sleepless night, and her usually pink cheeks were quite pale.

"She would never stay away of her own accord over night," she sighed, "whatever she might do during the day."

"Now, Doro, dear," consoled Cologne, "you must not look at it that way. It is perfectly surprising what may happen, in a perfectly safe way, after one has found out, while before that time such things seem utterly impossible. Haven't we had lots of that at Glenwood?"

"Yes, things do happen that seem anything but likely," Dorothy admitted. "And I do hope that such will be the case this time. I wish we knew!"

Dorothy was sitting on the rustic bench, at the side of the old corn crib, and she went pale as her cousin told the story. Cologne was beside her, and, as Nat asked what the matter was, Cologne grasped Dorothy's trembling hand.

"What, Dorothy?"

"Why the—man! That man! He is the one who saved the team—the one who wrote the letter to Tavia. I found a part of it. She never told me, but it blew open at—my very feet. And that name was on the piece of paper!"

"Tavia know that—loon!" Ned exclaimed.

"We all knew him—if he is the same one," declared Cologne, for Dorothy was too agitated to speak. "We happened to get in trouble with a hay wagon, and an old team of horses, and he helped us out. Come to think of it he did act queer!"

"And he is around here—now?" asked Nat.

"I was just going to tell you that while we were in the plumbing shop a fellow sauntered by. He wore a hat—like a cowboy, and otherwise looked queer. Well, when the plumber sighted him he rushed to the 'phone and called up the only officer in Dalton—Tavia's father, and told him the lunatic was just sauntering down the road. But from last accounts he was still sauntering—the squire didn't overhaul him."

"And likely he was just wise enough to get far away," commented Ned. "Now why on earth would Tavia have anything to do with a specimen of that kind?"

"It would be impossible to guess to what trick he might resort in order to get Tavia to meet him, or to even become interested in his stage schemes. You know Tavia has a very pardonable weakness for anything theatrical," said Dorothy.

"All Tavia's weaknesses are pardonable, as far as you are concerned, coz," ventured Ned.

"But the hunt," interrupted Jack. "We had better get at it. The girl we malign may actually——" He looked at Dorothy and so left the surmise unsaid.

It was really the first good opportunity that Dorothy had had to see the glories of the Maine woods, but what were they to her to-day? What mattered the long lines of spruce, the dainty larch, or the tangled arbor-vitae, to her now?

To all Cologne's enthusiastic efforts to point out these beauties, as well as to distract Dorothy, she only answered with the most vague acquiescence.

"If we don't find her to-day——" she faltered.

"But we shall," insisted Cologne. "I feel it! Tavia will be back at camp for supper!"

"Are we far from camp now?" asked Dorothy, looking along the fir-lined road to the wilderness beyond.

"No, we are only just around the bend. Would you like to get out and walk? I think I hear the honk of the Firebird."

"Suppose we tie Jeff up here, and let him graze, while I go over to that camp"—indicating a white speck between the trees—"and then I may inquire if any one has seen a girl like Tavia pass up Oldtown way?"

"And I might take the other direction, and ask at those camps. I see quite a colony over that way," said Dorothy.

"And we will both meet here in——"

"An hour," finished Dorothy. "If we are to search, there is no sense in running back and forth—so long as we can keep our directions straight."

"And you are sure you won't get lost?" asked Cologne, with a smile. "Perhaps losses are like accidents—they come in groups."

"Oh, I have a compass on my watch guard. Let me see," and after consulting the instrument, she faced north. "I will go due west and come back due east. I surely can't get lost if I follow that."

"For the jump back into—eternity? Quite an idea, Cologne," said Dorothy, as the two girls prepared to part.

"Good-bye, Jeff," called Dorothy. "Eat a good meal. We may not get back to camp for lunch," and she patted the old horse.

"Pity we didn't fetch some 'standwiches,'" shouted Cologne, who was already making her way through the thickets that carpeted the path. "If you find any dwarf cherries bring me some, Dorothy."

"Wild strawberries will do me," responded Dorothy, as she, too, got away from the tree where Jeff was tied. "I don't fancy either of us will die of hunger!"

"Not in the Maine woods!" Cologne predicted.

Then they lost sight of each other.

Only Jeff was left to mark the spot from which they started.

Staring wildly at the black water below, she was pitched forward—down, down, down!

Then she thought the water would save her; that it was not rough and sharp like the rocks! She thought she would rest awhile on that soft bed! After that she ceased to think!

Dorothy Dale lay there alone, unconscious!

Trundling along the narrow roadway, old Josiah Hobbs and his wife, Samanthy, rode in their farm wagon. They had been to town with berries and in the back of the covered vehicle the empty crates told quite as plainly as the contented smile on the wrinkled faces of the couple, that berries were in demand that morning, and that the Hobbs' kind had met a ready market.

Near the elbow in the lower road, at the foot of the precipice, where lay so still the form of pretty Dorothy Dale, the old horse slowed up. Mrs. Hobbs saw the girl lying by the water's edge.

"Mercy on us, Josiah!" she cried. "It's a girl!"

"Sure as you live!" replied the old man, giving the reins a jerk. "What can have happened to the little one?"

"Is she?" asked Josiah, hesitating.

"She is," replied the wife. The pair seemed to define each other's meaning in spite of the vagueness of their words.

"But she's awful weakish," whispered the wife. "We got to get her somewhere."

"Samanthy!" and the farmer's voice trembled, "mebby she the gal from the asylum! She that escaped! Let's load her up on the cart and fetch her home."

"You old skinflint! To cal'late on the half-dead girl," and she raised Dorothy's head tenderly. "But all the same she got to get somewhere, and ours is as near as any other house. Here, take hold," she put her arms about the helpless form. "Mercy on us! Lucky if she don't die before we get her there. Make that horse know he's to go. If that whip won't do, yank up a tree and let him have it."

The farmer trembled visibly as he helped put poor Dorothy in the wagon. If she could only have known!

"As sure as you live," whispered Samanthy, "It is that girl from the san—sanitation! I saw her once out with the nurse, and this is her!"

"And there's a reward——"

"Shet up!" she snapped. "Lay still, dearie. You're awful weak and we're taking you home."

"Home!" murmured Dorothy in a dazed way.

"Yes, to mommer and popper!" This from the farmer.

"Shet up, you, Josiah! How do you know she wants to go to them folks! There, dearie, is your head hurt?"

Dorothy only moaned and closed her eyes again.

"Heven't you got a drop of anything? Not even a peppermint? I told you not to eat them all at a gullup," growled the woman. "I never saw the like of you fer gluttonin', Josiah!"

"And I never saw the beat of you fer growlin'. How do you feel, missy?"

"Will—you—shet—up? Josiah Hobbs! Don't you see she's sleepin' like a babe?"

"And do you think it's her? The one from the sanitation?"

"Shet up!"

Mrs. Samanthy Hobbs simply pulled the farmer's long shaggy beard that bobbed up and down, goat fashion. Her "shet-ups" seemed exhausted.

Dorothy heard a little—she could hear the rumble of the wagon, and she could feel the hard, rough, but kind hand of the woman who smoothed her brow in a motherly way. That in itself was enough to make her close her eyes and feel content.

What a power is the hand of woman! Even though it be hardened by the hardest kind of work it has in it the magic stroke of tenderness.

"Now, there," Samanthy would murmur, "soon you will be in bed. Then we will fix you all up nice."

Bed! Dorothy thought she was in bed—it was so much better than the stones, and that black water.

But she was getting her senses and with them came pain. Her head hurt, and the wagon jolted so that she was sore all over.

"We have only a few more trots, then we will be at home," soothed Samanthy. "After that you kin sleep in a feather bed—as soft as your own white hands."

Strange how illness melts the strongest! Dorothy just wanted to rest—to rest—yes, to rest!

At the dingy back door, the old horse stopped. The farmer and his wife almost carried Dorothy in, and the strain made her close her eyes again; made her forget everything.

After much talk between the farmer and his wife, and many contrary directions, Dorothy was finally enveloped in a nightdress that even Tavia in her palmiest days could not have anticipated. It was big, it was broad, it was long, and it was roomy!

But it was sweet and clean, and Dorothy closed her eyes directly after Samanthy Hobbs put to her lips a drink of catnip tea!

"She's the girl from the asylum," whispered the farmer's wife. "Jest keep still and we will git her back all right."