The coffee that stood on the still warm electric stove proved a valuable aid in restoring the stunned Lottie. She had not been struck; her nerves had simply given out, and she had collapsed.
Finally she opened her eyes.
“I’m all right now,” she said faintly, and it was evident the shock had dulled her terror, at least.
“Just lie still,” whispered Cora, encouragingly. “The storm will soon be over.”
“The storm?” Lottie repeated. Then she closed her eyes again, but this time it was only exhaustion, not faintness.
The other girls had been roused to activity by Lottie’s condition. They could now see a rift in the clouds, and one after another hurried to say that the storm was breaking, and it was not so bad; that boats could be seen, and perhaps they would soon sight land.
But those at the wheels of the boats knew how little they could do in the way of steering. Every time the wheel was turned one way the force of the rollers would wash it completely around. In fact they were making absolutely no progress, and might almost as well have allowed the powerless craft to submit to the fury of the waters.
Cora realized this, as did the boys, but the other girls, except perhaps Bess, felt more secure as the sound of the motor indicated motion. The clouds were lifting, but the force of the storm seemed to be coming in from sea, and had little to do with the appearance of the sky.
“Oh, if help would only come!” Cora whispered to Bess. “I’m afraid another and worse storm is gathering!”
“Don’t give up,” replied the girl, her own face gray in the mist and spray that covered the deck even under the awnings.
“I—see—something bobbing up and down over there!” Cora continued. “See! It is—a big, strong boat, perhaps a lifeboat!”
“Let us hope so,” answered Bess, fervently.
Not one word could Cora exchange with Jack, he was too far from her to hear her voice. The Dixie was still near enough to be sighted, but how the boys managed to keep her so was as remarkable to themselves as to those on the Chelton.
“That’s a boat, all right,” said Bess with more vigor in her voice, “and it looks like one from the life-saving station.”
Cora peered anxiously in the direction of the speck that played upon the waves.
“Hey!” yelled Jack, “there comes Denny!”
“Denny!” repeated Cora wonderingly.
“Oh, there’s Freda!” called Belle, jumping up from the bottom of the boat and promptly falling back again.
“It’s Freda and Denny, and someone else?” asked Bess, breathlessly. “Oh, what a mercy!”
“It’s a boy,” declared Kent. “See the rain-hat and slicker?”
“Yes, and see Freda’s hair floating out from under that rubber hat!” insisted Bess. “Oh, I know it’s Freda, and I can see Denny plainly!”
The boat was coming nearer. On the crest of a roller it fairly soared towards them. Then Cora saw it was Denny and Freda, with another man whom they did not know.
“Head up into it!” came a voice from the dory, for even in a storm Denny knew how to make his voice carry over the water.
Jack heard, and swung the wheel toward the left. That would put them “into the storm,” instead of on the edge of it.
At that moment the Dixie shot past and dashed right up to the dory.
“Here,” called Jack, “can you make it to get in here?” This was called to those in Denny’s boat.
“Not now!” shouted back the man. “Keep close!”
The roar of the storm increased. Just as Cora had predicted, the new squall was worse than the first. For some moments all three boats tossed and tumbled as if they had neither master nor man, but it was the Chelton that righted herself first.
By an ungiven signal the three boats got into line. The dory was directly in the center and the two motor boats served to shield it from the waves that lashed them on either side.
“Quick! Freda!” yelled Cora, grasping the line Denny tossed to her. “You can climb in! We can hold it tight!”
Like a sprite, the girl in the yellow slicker and rubber hat made for the highest end of the boat, measured her distance to the Chelton, and while Kent and Cora strained to hold the rope steady, sprang.
It was not the distance, which was but a few feet, but the uncertainty of the boats’ motion that made the leap perilous. But Freda landed safely in the Chelton.
“None too soon!” gasped Cora, pressing her arms around the wet oilskin coat. “See where they have gotten to now!”
The boats had drifted apart again. The girls clung to Freda as if she had really brought them safely to shore, instead of adding her own weight to their burden, but it was the message from land that reassured them.
“Isn’t it dreadful!” moaned Lottie, still trembling from her collapse.
“No!” replied Freda, cheerfully. “It isn’t so bad out there. But we knew what it was on this bar, and could tell by the wind just about where you were drifting. If Jack will let me take the wheel I will follow Denny’s orders and ride into it. Then we can go around the island—and see a blue sky!”
“Blue sky!” came the exclamation from the girls in unison.
“Certainly. But I must have the wheel, Jack.”
Having satisfied them that she could run the boat, Freda changed places with Jack, while Cora let her brother take up her watch beside Kent. Then Cora went to the steering wheel with Freda.
“Don’t be afraid,” the latter said. “I have ridden out worse storms than this with Denny. They have a way of turning things upside down, but you are all right as long as you can keep well on top.”
She was driving directly into the smother. The girls shut their eyes, and it must be admitted that more than one put their fingers in their ears, for indeed the roar was deafening.
“There are Denny and the man getting into the Dixie!” breathed Cora. “Oh, I am so glad, for it must have been dreadful to row that boat.”
“It was no joke, but Denny likes hard work,” Freda answered. “Now here is where we ride it out!”
Every bit of power was turned on and with one well directed plunge the Chelton was shot through what seemed to be a “comber” as if she had been a submarine.
“Oh!” gasped Cora. Freda dropped into the “V” space at the base of the wheel. Still, she did not take her hands from the spokes. It was a serious moment. What if the boat could not ride those waves? The time it took to get out of the harder waves could not be estimated by the hands of a clock or watch; but in gasping breaths, thumping hearts, pale faces and fears—for boys as well as for girls—it must have been a long, long time.
Finally Freda stood up.
“There!” she exclaimed. “What did I tell you?”
“Sky!” they all shouted, clapping their hands like children.
“And—it—took a girl—to—do it!” exclaimed Jack, who would not have been blamed for hugging Freda had the opportunity offered. Instead, however, he made his way back to the wheel and allowed Freda and Cora a chance to look at their blistered hands, for both girls had been tugging at the spokes.
“Who would believe a storm would end like that?” said Belle, with the relief that comes so quickly upon intense strain.
“We have got to keep in out of the rain for a while,” Cora cautioned. “There are enough water-loaded clouds over there yet to dampen our enthusiasm.”
This proved to be true, for torrents of rain followed in the wake of the vanishing thunder clouds.
But the wind had ceased, and the waves soon quieted. With more than a sigh of relief the Chelton girls and boys fell into the course made now by the Dixie, for in that boat Denny Shane was at the wheel.
A more delightful scene than Crystal Bay presented, two hours after the squall, could scarcely be imagined. To the motor girls it was particularly effective, as may easily be imagined. Coming back around the island the Dixie picked up the lost canoe, so this left nothing to be worried over in the record of adventure.
“How do you feel, Lottie?” Cora asked, when all had landed safely and stood looking over the waters that could be so deceptive.
“Oh, I am all right, really,” answered Lottie, a little ashamed that she should have allowed herself to give way.
“But be careful,” cautioned Cora. “Take it easy for the rest of the day, at least. It doesn’t do to try too much.”
“Grandmother!” Lottie answered, with an affectionate squeeze of Cora’s arm. “What about you? Who did all the engineering in the storm? And who is still ‘on deck’ giving orders?”
“Oh, I am strong,” replied Cora, though strong as she was the last few hours had told in the paler tint of her cheeks.
The return of the storm-stricken ones attracted crowds of bungalowers and campers to the beach; for, of course, craft of all sorts had been caught in the gale. The center of interest, however, was the Chelton, for that boat had already gained a reputation at Crystal Bay.
Not one person came in from the bay in dry clothes; in fact, many were drenched, and naturally the girls showed the effects of the storm more conspicuously than did the boys. Bess happened to be the one “who got the worst of it,” among the motor girls—perhaps because there was more of her for the waves to hit.
“You are certainly a beauty,” commented Belle, who had been more fortunate in dodging the water. “You look like a swimming lesson in the first stage.”
“I feel as if I needed artificial respiration,” replied Bess, good-humoredly, “but I want to forget it all—all but this. Isn’t this wonderful?”
“Almost enough to make up for the danger,” Belle returned. “But wasn’t Freda splendid? What good training she must have had to be able to manage that boat. No one else except Cora could have done it, and she was unfamiliar with the tricks of the bay. I do feel so sorry for Freda and her mother!” This last was said with a wistful sigh, for all the members of the Mote were now much attached to the motherly Mrs. Lewis.
“Cora must have known those men were going to put the ‘for sale’ sign on the cottage, when she hurried so to get Freda and her mother over to our place the other night,” went on Bess. “I knew there was something more important than merely taking care of us.”
“Oh, of course, that’s just like Cora. Fancy Mrs. Lewis never hearing a word about it. If she had been in the house when they tacked that sign on——”
“It must be perfectly awful to lose everything that way; to feel it is all an injustice, yet not to be able to prove one’s own claim,” said Belle. “Tricky business men are worse to watch than spiteful girls, and we always thought they were about all that we could handle. There’s Ted and Jean. Just look at their boat!”
Among the last of the storm-bound ones to “enter port” were Ted and Jean, members of “Camp All Alone.” They certainly presented a sorry spectacle, as they came up to the dock.
“How do you feel?” asked Lottie, who was down near the water’s edge, in spite of Cora’s admonition.
“I feel like playing a spaghetti obligato on a big hot bowl of soup,” replied Jean. “That would be the song to reach my heart.”
“The sun is clucking, girls,” announced Walter. “She may set at any time. Is there aught to eat at the Mote? Let us thither. We intended to go to the store before tea.”
“After giving you your lunch!” exclaimed Cora, in surprise.
“But, don’t you see, that is why we didn’t get to the store. You are really liable for our suppers. Don’t you think so, fellows?” he asked.
“Not only liable, but accountable,” added Ed. “Of course we will go home and dress. I wonder what on earth the squall did to headquarters?” he asked, suddenly realizing that the camp had had need of secure moorings during the last two hours.
“Let’s look,” suggested Dray, who had now moored the Dixie securely, while Jack and Cora had attended to the Chelton.
“Oh, you ought to see your tent,” sang out a little fellow, who wore little beside a shirt and bathing trunks. He had been out in the squall and had, very likely, enjoyed it immensely.
“What’s the matter with it?” inquired Jack.
“Oh, it’s all flippy-floppy,” replied the urchin. “But some lady saw it goin’ and she tied it back to the stakes.”
“Mrs. Lewis, likely,” suggested Cora. “I hope she did not go out in that down-pour to tie the tents.”
“I rather hope she did,” admitted her brother. “I had some things in that tent not warranted rainproof. Hey, fellows!” he called to the other members of Camp Couldn’t. “Hurry up. Our tent was struck, they say.”
At the word the crowd from the beach ran helter-skelter through the woods toward the camp colony. Surely there was enough excitement around Crystal Bay that afternoon to last for some time, and there was every prospect now of new adventures developing.
“Any tents down?” asked Dainty, as he puffed along.
“Thinking of spilled grub?” queried Walter. “Nothing doing. We have a salvage corps department to our housewives’ league, you know, and they are bound to protect the members from bandits. So you may just run along and see what is going on at the Cattle.”
The storm had played havoc in the woods. Pine branches had scratched deep furrows in the white sand paths, beautiful bushes of blooming mountain laurel and mountain pinks were shorn of every bloom, and the wild roses were scattered like pink butterflies on the catch leaves of shrubs.
The first camp to be met by the boys was Camp Hyphen. This was quite a pretentious establishment with a smaller tent adjunct. The adjunct stood for the hyphen, and it now lay in a heap like a discarded potato sack, its store of supplies settled uncertainly in nearby bushes.
“My, and they had just joined the League,” wailed Jack. “I suppose we will all have to put up for the reinforcements.”
“We are not an insurance company,” Ed objected. “Why should we make good for a storm?”
“Because we have a calamity clause. You had better look up your rules and regulations, young man. The last time I saw them they were pasted with a daub of good family flour on our back door.”
“Thank goodness the rain will have suspended our constitution,” Ed replied. “That back door never could have gone dry through the torrent. Don’t you remember how the small showers doused it?”
“We do,” Walter answered, “and as we have the only written rules, that same fact of the back door may stand us in well.”
“Pikers!” Jack called them with a laugh. “But will you observe the Hys! They are going to rebuild!”
A hyphenated name seemed the worst of luck for this camp, for there was no strong pole or cast iron bar to hold the two tents together, and the “hy” was merely a strip of ground that gave extra play to the wind. The smaller tent was now being dragged from the bed of wet sand into which it had partly buried itself, and the campers were struggling heroically to get it back to its pegs.
“Too bad!” called Walter, sympathetically.
“Worse than that,” replied one fellow, who looked as if he might have been shipwrecked.
“But we are insured—in the league, you know,” shouted another member of the demolished camp. “We are coming up for supper.”
“You are?” returned Dray. “Say, fellows,” to his own camp company, “the best thing we can do is to take what stuff we find left and hide up at the Mote. Those fellows will come down on us and won’t believe about the washed-away constitution. Who on earth put that indemnity clause in, anyhow?”
“Oh, Clem did. He’s studying engineering, and I suppose he is lonesome for his math. We ought to make him pay the assessment. But I agree with Dray,” continued Walter. “We ought to ‘beat it’ up to the Mote, quick. There are other tents flopping around, and everybody will be good and hungry, you can be sure.”
“Queer how old Denny made for his shack as soon as we got in,” Ed remarked. “I wonder if he thought that would be demolished?”
“No, not likely,” Jack said, “but the old fellow was pretty wet and played out. He’s plucky, all right, and I don’t believe we would be in yet but for him and Freda. But he is old, just the same, and only his pluck keeps him up to it. I would like to have been more decent to him, but he won’t give one a chance. We must fix it up some way, though.”
“We sure must,” agreed the others.
“There’s another,” announced Jack, as a perfectly flat tent almost blocked their way. This was evidently deserted, for not a boy was to be seen, either lamenting or trying to right the canvas.
“Funny,” commented Ed. “They must have gone to the hotel.”
“Hotel!” exclaimed Jack. “Why, they borrowed a pint of our kerosene this morning. They may have gone to jail.”
“Let’s run,” suggested Ed. “This funeral march is getting on my nerves. Besides, I am anxious to see the Couldn’t.”
In a few minutes the boys sighted their own tent. It looked all right.
“Thank goodness!” breathed Dray, fervently. “I really couldn’t stand any more nerve-racking experiences.”
“We look intact,” said Walter. “I wonder if my dress suit is still unwrinkled.”
“Your overalls?” asked Jack, mimicking Walter’s tone of voice. “Oh, I am sure they are perfectly all right, for I saw them in the wood box just before we left.”
“Brute!” responded Walter. “But I say! What’s that? We are inhabited!”
Sounds of voices issued from inside the tent. Jack dashed ahead and raised the flap.
“Robbers! Thieves! Police!” he yelled, then he had to dodge something.
“We are here for our rights,” sang out a strong voice. “We demand our insurance!”
“Seems to me the demand is rather violent,” replied Ed, as the Couldn’ts saw what was going on. The entire tent was filled with boys from the wrecked camps, and they were making away with practically everything in the line of eatables they could lay their hands on.
“Clear out!” ordered Dray, “or we will call the police. What sort of way is this to keep law and order?”
“The only way,” replied Hal, a boy from the “Mist.” “We couldn’t even keep up in starvation, but with something to sustain us we might be able to keep the law. As a matter of fact, it was civic pride that compelled us to come in here and eat.”
There was no help for it now, the Couldn’ts had been robbed. Even their party paper napkins were being made into balls.
“Isn’t it awful!” moaned Jack, falling into the one dry spot on the sandy floor. “And we were the real benefactors of this ranch. That’s the way goodness is repaid in this hard, cruel world.”
Nobody noticed the sermon—everyone was too busy looking for food. Finally Walter and Ed, after a private conference with Dray and Jack, decided to give to the unfortunates all the food they possessed, “in order to avert worse damage to their property.”
“But we are dining out,” Ed put in, “and it’s only fair that you should take the provender home. We want to wash our little faces, you know. We dine with ladies.”
“Oh, we will pay it all back,” declared Clem, who was scooping up empty boxes in the hope of being agreeably disappointed in their contents as compared with their weight.
“Yes—you—will!” mocked Jack, “when we can skate on the sand of the desert. But hustle. There’s not another scrap around. Land that oil can, Ted. It’s empty.”
After considerable urging, ordering and coaxing, the Couldn’ts rid themselves of their uninvited guests, and were once again in possession of their own tents.
“Did the girls invite us?” asked Dray. “I hate to intrude.”
“They did not,” replied Jack, “and we are not going to intrude. We are just going over to thank Mrs. Lewis for saving this camp from destruction. She hammered down those stakes. Look at them!” he ordered. “Ed, did you ever wield a hammer as truthfully as that?”
“Of course we can get supper for everyone,” declared Mrs. Lewis, cordially, when Cora spoke of the determination of the boys to come down upon the Mote for tea. “We have plenty of food.”
“You are a wonder, Mrs. Lewis,” declared Cora. “You always have a full larder. I don’t see where it comes from, for you don’t even use up the budget.”
“It’s a matter of experience,” answered Mrs. Lewis. “When one has to do things, my dear, one learns how. I am so glad we have macaroni cooked. Boys love big, steaming dishes.”
Cora gave a sigh of relief. What a blessing Mrs. Lewis had proven to be! After finding themselves shut out of their house by a trick of the land agents she and her daughter had taken up a permanent residence in the girls’ camp. Freda, in spite of all opposition, had installed herself as “maid.” She insisted on waiting on the table, and attending to rooms, and helping her mother generally, although the girls wanted her to be one of them. Everyone declared that her mother, with her wonderful management and activity, more than made up for Freda being a visitor at the Mote.
Freda seemed happier now than when she shared the little cottage with her mother, but this was easily understood. Under the new arrangement Mrs. Lewis was earning an honest and comfortable living, and Freda was more than willing to assist her in every way possible. Before, they had lived in constant dread of the land agents putting them out of their home. Even the fact that the sign “For Sale” had been placed on the cottage did not seem so unbearable, for the girls and boys had insisted that that was only a “scare” on the part of the land agents, and that while the town constable would not interfere to the extent of taking down the sign, he had promised to investigate the rights of those who put it up.
But town constables are slow and timid when strangers, with big-brimmed hats, and plenty of cigars, come from the city, and order papers signed at so much per sign—for the constable.
The boys had come, and the supper was almost ready. Lottie looked as pretty and as well as ever, for she had dressed in a chic pink frock, and with a pink snood binding her brow looked as fresh as though she had just come from the hands of a beauty specialist. After all, such vigorous treatment and baths of spray as the girls had encountered all that afternoon amounted to just that—beauty treatment; and Lottie was not the only one whose cheeks glowed, and in whose eyes shone the light that comes only from youth and health.
The rumpus that always followed the boys’ arrival was in full sway, Jack and Ed chasing Bess around the bungalow to make her give up an imaginary lost scarf pin, while Dray and Walter contented themselves with the less violent exercise of rocking on the front porch, where the other girls were scattered. They certainly were “scattered,” for there was so much to tell and hear of the afternoon’s adventure that each girl chose her own listener and her own corner.
Everyone seemed deeply absorbed in this when Freda appeared at the door with the warning bell. That meant that in five minutes the tea bell would ring—only it was going to be dinner to-night.
“That sounds fine,” Dray told Freda, who in her blue linen sailor suit looked quite as well as the young ladies who put in most of their time “leisuring.” “Our Belle is not nearly as aristocratic as that.”
“I hope dinner will bear out the reputation,” Freda replied, a bit shyly, for Dray was somewhat of a stranger to her.
“Dinner will make that reputation immortal,” Jack declared, as he and Ed gave up their chase and joined the others on the porch. “But hello! Here comes Denny! And he has no pipe! Something surely is wrong.”
Everyone ceased chattering as Denny Shane appeared on the tan bark path.
“Hello, there, Denny!” called Jack, getting up from his porch chair. “What’s up?”
“A-plenty,” answered Denny with a sweep of his cap that took everyone in the greeting. “Where’s the Widder Lewis?”
“Oh, what’s the matter, Denny?” asked Freda, aghast. “Can’t you tell me first? You know how weak mother is.”
“’Tis nothing bad,” replied Denny, as he sat down on the bottom step of the porch, in spite of all invitations to come up and have a chair. He settled his cap more securely on his gray head. “I just want to—tell her something.”
“But what?” insisted Freda, who now sat beside the old sailor on the step. “I know all about the business, you know.”
“Do come in, Denny,” pleaded Cora. “It will be easier to talk in the living room. We young folks can go into the dining room and start our dinner while you settle it all quietly among yourselves.”
“Thank you, Miss,” Denny replied, promptly accepting Cora’s invitation. “That will be the best way, I guess.”
Famished as everyone seemed to be, the visit of Denny somewhat shifted the interest from appetites, and curiosity strayed from the dining room toward the living room.
“What can have happened?” whispered Belle to Marita. “Denny looks positively—angry.”
“Doesn’t he?” Marita replied. “I suppose it is something about Freda’s property; don’t you think so?”
“Likely.”
The voices from the other room, that had been subdued, now rose in tones of surprise. Freda and her mother were both trying to talk at the same time, evidently.
Cora was serving the dinner and endeavoring not to spoil it. The boys were too hungry and too glad to eat to allow any interruption to interfere with their pleasure, but the girls were prone to whisper, and even to listen when a voice penetrated the room.
“It was them!” they heard Denny exclaim, “and I’ll have the law on them!”
Then Freda said something like: “Can’t be sure!”
“Sure as me name’s Dinny Shane!” exclaimed the old man. “Who else would have tied up little Brian, the dog that was never tied before in his life! Sure I’d like to ’a caught them at it,” and he brought his fist down hard on something.
The boys and girls exchanged glances.
“Something doing,” ventured Jack. “I’ll bet Denny has seen the witches.”
“No—banshees,” corrected Ed. “Witches aren’t ripe this time of year. But Cora, don’t let us keep you. Really, Walter would love to take your place up head there, when you have finished.”
Cora was anxious to join in the conversation with Freda and her mother, Freda having whispered to her that they would like to have her do so as soon as the dinner was over.
“Then I will be excused,” she said, “although I hope you won’t hurry.”
“Don’t be alarmed,” said Walter. “It’s very bad to eat in a hurry.”
“I’ll serve,” proposed Bess, “I know just how much everyone has had, and how much more they ought to have. Dray, you cannot have another bit of pudding.”
Dray was stretching far out for the dish. He did love apple slump. And Mrs. Lewis knew just the right amount of cinnamon to season with.
A hush followed Cora’s entrance to the living room. Not a single word or exclamation escaped through the Summer hangings that hid the narrow door.
“Do you think it’s a conspiracy?” remarked Walter. “I’m glad we had dinner first. I had no idea that a hurricane went straight to the hunger zone like that.”
“You would be a star to go up North,” commented Ed. “Just fancy carrying stuff in your pockets and starving because the exact latitude for grub had not been reached—wow!”
“I would insist upon being made chairman of the latitude committee,” replied Walter, “and my moves would be swift and certain.”
The door opened and Freda entered. She was not exactly all smiles, but the serious look on her face was not deep enough to cause comment.
“I came to fetch your coffee,” she announced, cheerfully. “You must think we are planning to dynamite something,” she added.
“Oh, worse than that,” replied Dray, getting one more spoonful of slump on the sly. “We thought you were taking a negative vote on the coffee. Nerves, at night, you know.”
“Let me help you,” insisted Belle. “I am almost stiff from sitting, or maybe it is from the way I wasn’t sitting in the bottom of the boat.”
“Very likely,” affirmed Jack. “I would not be surprised if we had to come around in the morning with nippers to get the kinks out. I see one forming, right now, in Lottie’s cheek.”
“We will be stiff, I am sure,” added Bess, “although our muscles ought to be in good form.”
“When you have finished,” Freda whispered to Belle, “we want to give Denny something.”
“Of course,” Belle replied. “How selfish we are, sitting here ‘gabbing,’ and neither you nor your mother has had supper yet. I’ll serve coffee at once.”
“Don’t hurry,” Freda said. “We have time enough.”
Everyone, however, seemed to guess at once that they should make room for the next “table,” and the coffee was swallowed, hastily.
“What is it?” Lottie ventured to ask Freda. “We are just dying of curiosity. What has happened?”
“Oh, I can’t tell you now,” Freda answered, evasively. “I guess everyone knew we were shipwrecked this afternoon.”
Cora appeared at the door. “May we come to eat now?” she asked. “I have only succeeded in making Denny stay with the understanding that we won’t keep him long. He is anxious to get back to his cabin.”
“I am that,” said Denny, following Cora into the dining room. “Can’t tell what’ll happen now.”
“Then something did happen,” Bess said aside, to Marita. “I can’t imagine what.”
“Now you must eat a good meal,” Mrs. Lewis insisted to Denny. “I remember well how you always loved macaroni and cheese.”
“And I remember well how you fixed it up,” answered Denny, gallantly. “This is a bit like the old days; isn’t it? When I used to eat you out of house and home, when Len would fetch me into your house to tempt me appetite,” and he chuckled at the recollection. “Freddie, you were only a tot then, but you could climb on my knee right smart. I guess you were always a romp.” This last was plainly intended as a compliment, for Denny smiled at Freda as she handed him his steaming coffee.
If the young folks thought that by special attention to Denny and his wants at the table they might get an inkling of the mystery that had so excited the old man they were disappointed, for he never betrayed a word of it, and only an occasional absent look in his sober gray eyes betokened anything unusual.
He scarcely took time to swallow the tempting food, however, when he jumped up and declared he could not stay another minute, although Cora, Freda, and Mrs. Lewis urged him to remain.
“I must run—I really must,” he insisted, “and mind what I tell you,” to Freda and Cora, “look out for yourselves!”
“We didn’t want to make a fuss over it before the boys,” Cora explained to a number of the girls, who, next morning, were seated about the bungalow side porch, trying to get in a few stitches of embroidery. “They would be sure to go straight at those land fellows, and we think—Denny and all of us—that the best way to do is to watch them carefully for a while.”
“But what happened?” demanded Lottie, impatiently.
“We don’t know exactly what, but it appears that while Denny was out, fishing us in, someone entered his shack and ransacked it.”
“Burglars! What for? In that hut!” exclaimed Belle.
“We don’t know that, either,” continued Cora. “We can only surmise. They must have been after something that was neither money nor table silver.” She laughed a little at the idea of anyone trying to rob the humble cabin of a fisherman. “The little terrier is never tied up and never troubles anybody, but it seems he did object to the intrusion, for he has a cut on one leg, made, possibly, by a heavy shoe, and when Denny found him he was tied tight to a hook in the woodshed. Denny will never forgive whoever tied Brian.”
“But did the thieves take anything?” Bess wanted to know.
“Not a thing. Of course there was nothing an ordinary thief would have any use for; but it looks as if they were searching for something in particular, for everything was turned inside out. Every strip of carpet was pulled up and loose boards in the floor pried away. It really is too bad for Denny. He will have a lot of trouble getting things in order again, and you know he is neat, for a lone fisherman.”
“Isn’t that outrageous!” exclaimed Belle. “I think, Cora, we should have told the boys and had them make a charge against whoever may be guilty. They will be ransacking here next.”
“Oh, goodness! I hope not,” cried Marita. “I think we should have police protection.”
“And have officers ringing our door bell all hours of the night because someone forgot to turn out the dining room light, or the side window was found unlocked,” said Cora. “They have very few officers here, I should imagine, and if we really gave them something to do they might insist on doing it.”
“Tell us more about it,” begged Marita, who was naturally fascinated with the “scary” part.
“I only know that his shack was entered and all but torn down,” said Cora. “As to who did it, or why it was done, we can only surmise. But don’t talk too much about it. We want to keep it quiet.”
“Why?” demanded Marita.
“Because by letting other people talk about it we may be able to trace the perpetrators. We could easily find out who knew it had happened, in that way.”
“Oh, I see,” Marita answered vaguely, although her tone did not indicate comprehension. “Freda and Mrs. Lewis are going out; aren’t they?” This question implied “why” also.
“Yes,” Cora answered again. “They have some business to attend to. I told them not to hurry back for lunch—we would attend to it. We really need the exercise.”
“But I am going canoeing directly after lunch,” Lottie objected.
“After lunch?” repeated Belle. “This will be before lunch—the getting ready.”
“Oh, you know what I mean,” Lottie grumbled. “It makes one’s hands so horrid to handle cooking things.”
“Were you going to paddle?” asked Cora, innocently.
“I was going to try,” admitted Lottie.
“Then your hands will be in better shape from some active work,” Cora added, mischievously. “It is awful to try to paddle with soft hands.”
“Oh, I guess mine are not any too soft,” Lottie retorted, a bit abashed that she should have fallen into the trap.
“Where are you going, Lottie?” asked Marita. “You know it is only safe to canoe near the shore. The water can be very rough sometimes.”
“I don’t think you ought to go in a canoe until you can swim,” said Cora. “You know a canoe is the most uncertain of craft, except that it is absolutely certain to upset if you draw a breath in, when you should send a breath out. Jack says a canoe is more than human, but I won’t shock your ears by saying what he thinks it is.”
“I am sure there is no danger when one sits still,” Lottie insisted, “but if you don’t want me to go, Cora——”
“Of course I want you to go, and have a nice time,” Cora explained, “but I don’t want you to upset. You should wear a bathing suit and be ready to swim in case of a spill.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that!” exclaimed Lottie, rather shocked. “I am going with Clem.”
“Well, I hope Clem will put you in the very bottom of the boat, and not trust to a seat. Even a big cushion is wobbly,” finished Cora. “Now, young ladies, are you ready for a tramp? We have to walk to the old village this morning to shop, unless you want to go to the dock and take Frank’s ferry. He will take us across for ten cents each, and we need things to eat.”
“Oh, do let us walk,” begged Bess. “I haven’t seen half the things that grow around here.”
“Do you grow around here?” asked Belle, maliciously, inferring that the desired walk was needed to “reduce.” A withering look was the answer she received from her twin sister. Just the same the walk was decided upon, and a little later the wintergreen path was alive with voices. It was one of the delights of Summer to tramp and ramble; and in spite of the joys of motor boating the girls were not slow to appreciate the pleasures of dry land decked in various shades of foliage green and floral tints.
The mountain laurel was at its best—that little tasselled thing we call “pfingster,” but which looks quite aristocratic enough to belong to the orchid family, made bouquets of itself in every appropriate spot, while the glorious rhododendrons put forth a display sufficiently beautiful and courageous to last all Summer.
“Oh, my, look at the style!” Lottie exclaimed as a party of young folks appeared before them. They were evidently coming from the Cliff Hotel, and made the most of that fact.
“There’s Hilda Hastings!” Cora said, in surprise. “I didn’t know she was down here.”
A remarkably pretty girl, light-haired and wearing lilac shades, with a parasol that reflected that becoming tint, was Hilda. She evidently saw, and recognized Cora just as the latter spied her.
“Cora Kimball!” cried Hilda, in the delighted way that usually marks a meeting with a home friend in the midst of vacation time. “Where did you come from?”
“Oh, Hilda!” answered Cora, advancing to meet the girl who almost ran to greet her, “I am so glad to see you. We are stopping at our own little bunk—the Motely Mote—on Pine Shade Way. And where do you put up?”
Introductions followed, and girls from the Mote were plainly delighted to meet the others from a fashionable hotel. The meeting also resulted in a general invitation from the Cliff girls to the Motes to attend a hop to be given the next evening at the hotel.
“And do bring every boy you can scrape up,” Hilda enjoined. “We shall be sure to need them.”
“What dress?” asked Lottie the Vain.
“Linen or lace, doesn’t matter in the least,” declared a young girl whom they called Madge. “We will wear whatever we fall into for dinner.”
“All right,” answered Lottie for all, fluttering at the prospect of a real hotel hop. “We will wear whatever we may find pressable—we have the awfullest time with wrinkles down here.”
“Don’t mind them,” answered Hilda. “Wrinkled clothes are a seaside fad, you know. If you have none you will be suspected of being the Press Club Trust. That’s a clothing club—not literary.”
With other pleasantries the two sets parted, but not until all sorts of invitations to come and visit had been extended and accepted.
“What nice girls,” the timid Marita remarked as the fashionable ones turned into the lane. “Isn’t Hilda pretty? Are they from Chelton?”
“She is and they are,” answered Cora. “But I do not see how we are going to that hop. The boys were going to take us out in a sail boat, you know.”
“Oh, I would be frightened to death in a sail boat,” objected Lottie.
“And perfectly safe in a canoe,” observed Belle. “Charlotte, that is scarcely understandable.”
“Well,” said Lottie, turning a deeper shade of pink, “I am afraid of that big pole in a sail boat. It looks as if it would sweep one’s head off every time it veers around.”
“Just duck,” advised Belle. “It’s a great teacher of the proper mode of ducking; and that is not to be despised, Lottie, whether one has to duck harsh words, or big poles. But I want to go sailing. I can’t see what fun there is in going into a stuffy hotel on a beautiful moonlight evening when we can go out on the water and see something.”
“Don’t you think we would see something in the Cliff ball room?” challenged Lottie.
“Peace!” called Cora, good-naturedly. “It looks as if we might have to take a vote on the question. But I can’t say that the boys would be willing to accept a negative answer.”
“Oh, won’t they come?” Lottie asked in surprise.
“I don’t believe they will forego the sail,” replied Cora. “However, we won’t decide until we ask them. If they want to postpone the water sport we may take in the hop.”
This was looked upon as a reasonable solution of the problem, and while some of the girls hoped for the sail, perhaps an equal number wished to go to the dance.
It was a delightful morning, and the woods were fairly alive with young folk. It seemed there could be very few mothers or chaperones at Crystal Bay, for even in marketing hours it was always the girls with baskets, or the boys with huge paper bags, who were encountered. On benches along the beach, to be sure, “elders” might be found sunning themselves and ruining their fading sight with alleged art embroideries, but in the matter of housekeeping it was youth that prevailed at the bay.
It was a long walk to the general store at the point, but there was a resting place there, and if one wanted to tarry and felt like dancing, a very accommodating young man sat near the piano ready to play at the shortest notice. Belle and Lottie usually took a twirl while Bess and Cora did the shopping, but to-day having walked instead of coming by motor boat they sank into a seat at the water’s edge and watched others try the newest steps.
Around the drug counter a number of men were engaged in earnest conversation with the salesman. Belle needed cold cream and was waiting her turn to tell the clerk so.
“We just about have it,” said one man to the man behind the counter. “There is no question about the legal right; it is only a matter of a lost document. We may get along without it, but we understood you were a life-long resident, knew the people, and thought perhaps you could tell us something about it. Of course we don’t want anyone’s time for nothing.”
The clerk scratched his head and looked over his glasses. The scale was tipping with white stuff and a customer was waiting.
“That may be so,” he replied, slowly, “but I should think, young fellow, that them folks themselves would know more about their own business than anyone else. Why don’t you go to them?”
“Do you think for a moment that anyone is going to do themselves out of house and home like that?” asked the taller man, angrily.
“Oh, that’s the game; is it? Well, see here! Do you think for one moment that I, Bill Sparks, am going to do a poor widow out of house and home to suit you!”
He had raised his voice to angry tones, a remarkable thing for Bill to do in business hours, but those around who heard had no blame for him. The strangers left without taking up their cigars or paying for them. Bill looked after them quizzically.
“That’s the way to answer that sort,” he remarked to no one in particular. “Too many of them speculators around the bay, lately. Cold cream?” he inquired of Bess.
Cora had seen the men, although she was in the grocery department, and when Bess told her what she had overheard she looked troubled.
“We must not put that off another day,” she told Bess. “I am convinced that those men are dishonest, for why should they go sneaking around that way? Why not ask for information from the proper persons?”
Scarcely had she spoken than Mrs. Lewis and Freda appeared in the doorway that led from the boat landing. Freda’s face was flushed, and Mrs. Lewis’s was pale.
“What is it?” Cora asked, hurrying up to them.
“They have started a mill dam across the creek,” replied Freda. “If they turn that water into use for mill purposes the whole shore of the bay will be ruined!”
“Don’t go so fast, daughter,” urged Mrs. Lewis. “We can stop them; we must get a lawyer at once.”
“Of course,” answered Cora, “I think they call it an injunction, or restraining papers. Who is your lawyer, Mrs. Lewis?”
“We haven’t any,” Freda replied for her mother. “We were told if we engaged counsel they would eat up the whole thing. Oh, isn’t it dreadful!” and the brave Freda was on the verge of tears.
“I’ll see Jack at once,” declared Cora, “and if there are not trustworthy lawyers here we will fetch our own down from Chelton. The senior member of the firm would do anything reasonable for our family, and when mother is away she leaves Jack and me full discretion. Let us hurry back before the boys get out on the water. Bess, call Belle and Lottie.”
The look of relief that spread over the widow’s face was a more eloquent form of thanks than words could have been, so without further delay they all hurried to the motor boat in which Mrs. Lewis and Freda had come over. It was from a bay front hotel and had come over for the eleven o’clock mail.
The boy at the wheel started up as soon as all were seated, and as the launch was a good-sized one the trip across the bay was both comfortable and enjoyable. Of course Belle and Lottie wanted to know more than they could be told about the coming of Freda and Mrs. Lewis, so they had to content themselves with a word and a look from Cora.
The boys were at the landing as the boat came in. This was exactly what Cora had wished for.