The Lass of the Silver Sword

“Douglas, that’s going to sail like a dream!”

“Like a nightmare!” Douglas corrected. He was busy with wood and canvas over a model of an air-ship, to the building of which he had been devoting his leisure moments.

“You’re going to turn out an inventor—I know you are!” said optimistic Jean. “Some day you’ll build an air-ship that’ll beat all the others they’ve ever made, and make your fortune!”

“Oh, sure! Some day! Some thirtieth of February!” said Douglas.

“Thirtieth of February!” repeated Jean. “Oh, pshaw! there isn’t any. Well, I know something you could do now, anyway. Why don’t you make little toy air-ships just like this one? I’m sure they’d sell like everything.”

“That’s an idee!” said Douglas.

“Oh, do it, Douglas!” begged Jean. “I’m sure you could earn lots of money. You might make enough to pay your way right through school. You might start a regular fad for toy air-ships! Do try!”

“I wonder if I could make a hit with this sort of thing,” said Douglas. “It would help me out a good bit.”

“You’ll earn enough here this summer to get to school this year, won’t you?”

“I can get to night school all right.”

“Night school! Why, what’ll you have to do that for?”

“Because I’ll have to work through the day,” he replied. “I can get a place in a store easy enough, and pay my board that way.”

“How much will your board cost?” asked Jean.

“Oh, about a hundred.”

“Fury! But you’re saving up six dollars a week here, you told me. And you’ll be here till—?”

“Till September fifteenth,” said Douglas. “I’ll have sixty-six dollars by that time.”

“Why, that isn’t much more than half your board! But there are the twenty-five Court gave you for your canoe.”

“I had to use that to pay back a man in Algonquin. He lent me twenty-five after Father died,—when I was coming here.”

“Oh, Douglas, it’ll be just horrid for you to go to night school and work all day in a store! You’ll kill yourself!”

“I wouldn’t be good for much if I wasn’t tough enough for that,” answered Douglas.

“I’m going to ask Father to help him, when he comes on,” thought Jean, as Douglas ran off in answer to a call to launch a canoe. “But oh, dear, that won’t be till October, and it’s so long to wait!”

A letter from Jean’s parents was due, and it arrived the next morning and sent her darting through the camp to find Carol. “Carolie, I’m going to have a canoe of my own!” she cried.

“Jean! not really! How perfect!” exclaimed Carol.

“Yes! It’s a birthday present ahead of time! Father says he knows I’d rather have a canoe than anything else, so he’s giving me my present now instead of in October. He’s sent word to Mr. McLean,—that’s his partner here,—to send me thirty-five dollars to buy one. Now you’ll have the Hist-oh-Hist, and I shall have my canoe, and we can go out together. Isn’t it the loveliest thing that ever happened!”

“I should think it was! He’s a daddy worth having!” said Carol. “You deserve a canoe—you’ve worked so hard learning to paddle, and you do it so splendidly now. Let’s get Cecily and Douglas to go with us over to Crystal Lake, and we’ll pick out a beauty for you.”

“I do hope Mr. McLean’ll hurry up and send the money,” said Jean. “I want to have all the time I can to paddle my own canoe! Oh, my daddy’s such an old darling! I must write to him this minute!” And setting off at her usual whirlwind pace she ran pell-mell into Douglas’s air-ship, which lay on the ground awaiting its builder. Happily no damage was done, but when she had smoothed the crumpled sail, she went on slowly, with a thoughtful wrinkle in her forehead.

When the afternoon’s mail brought her the expected check Jean surprised her friends by her quiet way of receiving her birthday gift.

* * *

A deer-jacking excursion was planned for that evening, and the Hamiltons and several guides were to come with skiffs and lanterns to take the Huairarwee campers out on the bloodless hunt. Night fell; the stars began to twinkle between clouds that promised showers before morning, and while the other girls were having an impromptu dance in the bungalow, Jean ran down to the beach on an errand of her own. Presently a small sun shining out in the gloom, and a manly baritone, a boyish treble and a sweet contralto, singing “Here’s to good old Yale” announced that Court and Rose, with one of the Talcott boys, were rowing toward Huairarwee with a jack-lantern at their bow.

“Land ho! Hello, Jean!” called Ted, turning the lantern light upon the solitary figure standing like a sentinel on Camp-fire Rock. Jean ran down to the landing.

“Well, the deer are all ready for us,” said Court as he stepped ashore and helped his sister out. “I’ve rounded up all the crack herds in the Adirondacks, and they’re waiting for us over at Lonesome Pond, with their company smiles on.”

“I’ll go and tell the girls we’re here,” said Rose, starting up the path toward the camp.

Ted busied himself tying the boat, and Jean seized the opportunity to whisper to Court, “I want to speak to you about something. It’s a secret. I can’t tell anybody but you.”

“Whew, that’s a compliment!” said Court: “I feel my head expanding.”

A second sun shone out over the dark water, and they heard a whistle like a screech owl’s cry.

“Oh, that’s Douglas!” said Jean. “Come into the boat-house quick—he mustn’t hear for the world!”

“The plot thickens! I’m getting excited,” remarked Court. “Ted, I have something to see Jean about. You stay here and patrol the coast.” He hurried with the eager girl into the safe retreat of the boat-house.

“We’re all right here,” said he. “Go ahead! I’ll be an oyster.”

“I don’t want to tell Carol till I’ve done it, because I’m afraid she’ll stop me off, and I do want to help him!” began Jean.

“First rate policy! Do what you want first, and ask advice afterwards—that’s my way!” said Court. “Him means Tony Harrel, of course.”

“No indeed! It’s Douglas!” laughed Jean. “He isn’t earning half enough! He’ll have only sixty-six dollars saved when his work’s over this summer, and his board in the city is going to cost him a hundred; so he says he’ll have to work in a store next winter, and just go to night school.”

“Yes, I know,” said Court. “He’s going to find it pretty up-hill work, I’m afraid.”

“But if he gets thirty-five more,” Jean went on, “that’ll be one hundred and one dollars, and then he can pay his board and go to day school, and won’t have to work. And I’m sure he ought to get ten dollars for his air-ship—it’s such a beauty. That’ll help to buy him some new clothes.”

“That sounds like good arithmetic,” Court assented. “But as to the air-ship business, why, as we say, he’d better not take an inventory of his gallinaceous fowls till they’ve passed the egg-shell stage! And where are the thirty-five coming from?”

“Here they are!” said Jean triumphantly, holding out the precious check. “It’s my birthday present. Father meant me to buy a canoe, but I know he’ll let me spend it any way I like. So won’t you please take it and get it cashed and give Douglas the money, without telling him where it comes from? He won’t take it if I give it to him. Will you, please?”

Her earnest, pleading look would have made it hard to refuse her anything. Court looked down at her with a new expression in his merry face. But he hesitated. “Jean, you ought not to,” he said. “It’s too much, and it’s your birthday present. You mustn’t give it away like that. We’ll find some way to set Douglas on his feet without spoiling your birthday. He’s got to rough it, anyhow. It’ll make a man of him.”

“It’ll spoil my birthday if I don’t do it,” Jean declared. “Please, Court! I thought you’d help me, because you bought his canoe, and you’re all the time doing things for people. Mrs. Brook says so.”

“Oh, my great-aunt’s going to foot all my bills, you know,” said Court. “Jean, you’re a trump to want to do it, but you ought not to, really. Your father wants you to have the canoe, and you want it like everything, too, I know you do! Douglas wouldn’t have you spend your money on him for a good deal!”

“But he won’t know it’s my money! And I don’t want a canoe half as much as I want to help him, really and truly and honestly! I’m going to give the money to Douglas anyway—only I don’t know how I can do it unless you’ll help me.”

Court looked at her with an odd smile. “Hasn’t that pin something to do with it?” he asked, laying a finger on the sword Caritas. Jean nodded with an answering smile.

“All right. I’ll do it,” said Court. “And I’ll tell Douglas your great-aunt sent it. Shall I?”

“I’m afraid he’d guess, then,” laughed Jean.

“Well, suppose we don’t give it to him till the fall. He won’t need it till then, and you’ll be safe out of the way by that time, so he can’t give it back!”

“That’s a fine idea!” said Jean, delighted. “But please take the check now and keep it for me, won’t you? The girls will just try to make me buy the canoe if I keep it.”

“All right. I’ll give you a receipt for it. You’ll have to endorse it, though. Here’s my fountain pen. Write your name across there.”

Jean wrote her name on the back of the check. “Thank you ever so much!” she said gratefully. “I’m so glad you’ll help me.”

Her confederate gave her a brotherly pat on the shoulder. “Jean, I’m proud to know you!” He took the slim little hand in his big strong one and shook it heartily. “But we’ll have to come out of hiding now, if we don’t want to be caught!”

“You won’t tell a soul, will you?” Jean asked.

“Mum’s the word!”

They stole out of their covert in the nick of time. Douglas had landed already. Jack was putting in to port; the rest of the guideboats were following in his wake; and the Huairarwee girls were hurrying down to the dock.

“You come with Rose and me, won’t you, Carol?” asked Court. “We’ve got to keep Toddles in order, and we need consolation.”

“Toddles! Is that his new name for you, Ted?” exclaimed Carol. “I wouldn’t allow such an insult if I were you! I’ll come with pleasure and console Ted! I’m sure he needs it the most.”

“Dandy dark night for it, isn’t it?” said Douglas to Jean. “We can get close up to the deer. They won’t see us at all. You come in my boat and work the lantern!”

“I’d love to!” cried Jean.

“Say! Who’s coming with me?” called Jack.

“Betty and I,” replied Cecily.

“I’m going to manage the jack!” said Betty.

“Which? me or the lantern?” Jack inquired.

“Both of you!” giggled Betty.

“Frances,” said Fräulein Bunsen, “Dr. Hamilton says you are to go in his ship. Now promise me dat you and Bob vill not play tricks.”

The flotilla was soon under way, and there was something delightfully eerie in gliding through the gloom with the hush of night over lake and forest, except where the weird hoot of an owl pierced the stillness.

“Did I ever tell you about the fawn I fished out of Lake Algonquin?” asked Douglas.

“No. Tell me!” said Jean eagerly.

“It was last April. I found a doe trying to teach her little fawn to swim. He was a poor, weak little fellow, and the water was snappy cold. He was out way up to his neck, and so freezing he couldn’t get back. He was nearly drowned!”

“Poor little darling! What a mean old mother to make him go bathing in April!” cried Jean indignantly.

“She was a kind of a Spartan mother, wasn’t she?” said Douglas. “Well, I reached over and fished him out and rubbed him and dried him, and if that doe didn’t stand there watching me, as pleased as Punch! Then they trotted off into the woods.”

“Why didn’t you take them both home and keep them for pets?” asked Jean. “Oh, I hope some fawns’ll go swimming to-night!”

Sky and water were black by the time they reached the extreme end of the lake, some five miles from camp. Then came a march over the “carry,” the men hauling the boats over the short spongy trail, to re-embark on the inky waters of Lonesome Pond. In another half hour they were nearing the place where the deer were accustomed to come down to drink, undisturbed by the blaze of camp-fires or the sound of human voices.

“I feel as if we were Pilgrim Fathers escaping from the Indians!” whispered Jean. The searchlight lanterns had been fastened to the bows of the boats, and she never tired of turning hers from side to side, lighting up the black water, now on the right, now on the left.

“There’s a doe with two fawns!” Douglas whispered.

“Where?” asked Jean under her breath.

“Right ahead there!”

She flashed her jack forward. There, with their feet in the ripples, stood the doe and her twin fawns. Dazzled by the strange light, the wild mother and her children waited motionless, as if the lantern were Medusa’s head and had turned them into stone. Their smooth coats looked white as snow as the light shone upon them, and Jean wished that they would stay spell-bound, that she might stroke the pretty heads of those bewitching babies. But any sign betraying the human beings behind that blinding glare would have sent the trio bounding back into the depths of the woods; and the canoe passed on, leaving the doe and fawns to wonder at the next lantern, which was Betty’s.

A two-year-old buck—a most graceful young prince of the forest—gazed fascinated at their light, a half mile further on; and as many as six deer, in all, rewarded their search before they finally turned homeward.

Thunder was growling as the party came skimming back toward Huairarwee, and a pelting shower broke over them just as the girls reached their tents. Once safe under the canvas, there was no temptation to step out again into the rain; but Carol, as she turned to put out her light, saw an envelope—pierced through with the point of an umbrella—intrude itself under her tent-flap. Opening it, she read:

Presently an envelope came riding into Jean’s tent on an umbrella tip, and the note that she found in it said: