Footsore and weary, but satisfied and happy, they finished the day of the carnival hike.
“Let’s all help with supper,” suggested Louise, who was off duty on the K. P. (Kitchen Police) for that day. “Then we can all go down to the dock and see the excursion boat go out.”
“We are not hungry, a bit,” replied Cleo, “but I suppose we must try to eat. Come on, girls, all join in this chorus. It will be lovely on the lake this wonderful evening.”
And so it proved to be. Never had the waters of Hocomo taken on a more gorgeous costume. Velvets, satins and silks, in every rainbow hue, were flung in reckless splendor of draperies over the great, soft surface of the water, by a sunset as prodigious as it was profligate.
Among the parties leaving, one little tribe of excursionists stayed until the very last steamer insisted, with its thrill whistle, that they either come aboard or stay behind indefinitely.
“If only we could stay,” murmured one pale-faced girl. She was standing near the Bobbies, who were watching the city children embark.
“Do you like it up here?” questioned Louise. She felt guilt in the banal query.
“Oh, it’s like—Paradise,” said the wistful one. “But we’ll be glad enough if the firemen in the city turn the hose in the gutter to-morrow to make a lake for us.”
Louise sighed. So many children like this one must stay in the city, she knew. Others equally sad and fully as wistful were reluctantly measuring each step of the little dock and gang-plank. How they hated to go back!
“Oh, girls!” whispered Cleo. “Why don’t we try to do something for a little band of that sort?”
“What?” asked Grace.
“We could lend them our camp,” went on Cleo bravely. “We all have cottages here.”
“So we could, and there are two weeks yet before the general schools open,” sang back Grace. “I would just love to let the most needy of a group like that have two weeks at Comalong.”
“So should I,” declared Louise. “Let’s try to do it.”
“There’s the caretaker; get a name and address from her,” suggested Julia hurriedly.
“Better have Mackey do it,” said Corene, who promptly sidled up to the director with the proposition.
“I don’t know,” demurred Miss Mackin in answer, “but it won’t do any harm to have a name and address.” So she in turn stepped up to the director of the excursion party.
The children, she learned, were from a tenement district, and were not technically sick, but oh, how pitifully near it!
As each little victim passed along, the Bobbies’ determination grew.
They would be happy to surrender their beloved camp for such a human cause as this.
One short hour later, around a friendly little campfire, the plans were made. Everything in the camp and the camp included would be turned over to the city troop (they should all be enrolled as Scouts before taking possession), and for the two weeks before school opened these slum children would come back to Paradise.
“You must realize,” explained Miss Mackin, “this will mean at least the complete sacrifice of your bedding. You may take these blankets, and we will ask headquarters to send us bed covering, but the cots——”
“We will donate them to a mercy camp for next year,” spoke up Julia. “I am sure the home folks will all be perfectly satisfied.”
“And it won’t hurt our lovely flag,” reasoned Louise. “Of course we will turn everything except our personal belongings over to the organization, at any rate.”
“Did you expect to make Comalong a regular summer Scout camp?” asked Miss Mackin.
“Surely,” replied Corene. “We were just experimenting at first, but now we know it will be a real practical camp for any amount of summers.”
“In that case,” proposed Miss Mackin, “we will notify headquarters and have inventory taken at once. Are you perfectly sure you want to give up before the end of the month?”
“Positive,” insisted Louise. “I couldn’t enjoy this a week longer and remember that little wistful, woeful-faced girl, who said she hoped the firemen would be allowed to make a gutter-lake in the city for them to-morrow.”
“Indeed, we couldn’t,” chimed in Corene. “And besides, just think what it will mean to give a real fresh air camp donation?”
“Yes, nothing could be better,” assented the director happily. “And as you all can go to your home cottages it doesn’t seem quite so gigantic a sacrifice.”
“But camp is ideal,” murmured Julia, putting one more small log on the dying embers; just enough to keep mosquitoes away.
“Perfect,” joined in Cleo, her voice dropping or dripping with regret.
“That’s the very reason we want to do this—to put a seal of a perfect summer on it all,” declared Corene, who perhaps more than the others felt a really deep responsibility for that camp; from its very inception at the Essveay School, to its fullest day, that just closed on the carnival hike.
So it was all agreed and settled. Camp Comalong was to be turned over to the city children and their Social Service caretakers, by the end of the week.
Somehow it was a little saddening, however, and it was very evident that the Bobbies did not feel like singing the usual woodland Good Night, as they prepared for their sleep in the big canvas cradle under the stars.
“Dreaming!” minds dimly awoke with that vague idea.
“No, someone is calling,” spoke Isabel, as if anyone had spoken before.
They listened. Came a cautious call:
“Girls! Bobbie! Grace!”
“It’s Peg,” exclaimed a chorus, and with that realization each felt just a little bit guilty that the new ideas of the evening before had so obliterated the troubles of Peg from their Scout consideration.
Bare feet instantly pattered on the bare boards. The night light was reached and turned up and the tent flap “unlocked.”
And there was Peg with her Aunt Carrie!
“Oh, do come in,” begged Miss Mackin, anxiously. “What has happened?”
“Nothing,” replied Peg a trifle cynically, “but we were afraid something might happen to these,” she indicated a box she carried and also an armful of what seemed to be rolled cardboard.
Quickly the girls made the night visitors welcome, and with skill acquired from a similar previous experience, they were now preparing to “double bunk.”
Miss Ramsdell (Aunt Carrie) sighed deeply and sank down with very evident relief.
“I insisted that Peggie come down to you,” she explained. “Ever since we got back from the hills yesterday afternoon, mysterious men have been prowling about our cottages,” she explained.
“Perhaps just to frighten us,” added Peg. “At the same time these papers are so precious I was very glad to bring them down, if we don’t upset you too much?”
“We are simply delighted to have you come,” said Corene, sincerely. “And we never could have induced you to if something like this had not happened.”
“But I wanted to come more than you can ever know,” said the girl with the wonderful black eyes and the glossy crow-black hair. “You see, I was guarding daddy’s treasures. When he went there was no one left but me, and I was to finish his life’s work. I have been trying to do it.” Her voice tapered to a whisper, and no one attempted to intrude upon it.
Finally Aunt Carrie, from her grateful quarters, spoke:
“Tell them, dear, about the patent,” she said.
“Let us make you comfortable first,” suggested Cleo, considerately. “Here, Peg, this is where we keep our treasures. Do you want to put yours in here?”
She opened a very small door in a packing case that was hidden beneath extra blankets and some clothing.
“That’s a splendid hiding place,” replied Peg. “One would think it nothing more than a case of supplies. Yes, if I may, I’ll put my things in there.”
First she lifted in the box, that plainly was heavy; then she placed upon it the roll of stiff paper.
“Oh,” she sighed wearily. “I believe if it had not been for Shag I should have lost these long ago.”
“I thought to-night, however,” added Aunt Carrie, “that faithful Shag was in danger of being shot. That is one reason why I urged Peggie to come down.”
“Yes, I felt that way too,” said the girl. “I heard a sniper’s shot long after anyone would have been out hunting.”
“Where is Shag?” asked Julia.
“Just outside our door here,” replied Peg. “He won’t leave until we do.”
“We are glad to have him also,” said Miss Mackin. “We have not felt the need of a watchman with Officer Porter around, but to-night——”
“We could not have ventured over the hill except for the officer’s escort,” said Aunt Carrie. “It was when we heard his whistle we decided to make a dash.”
“Yes, we have been having quite a night of it,” put in Peg with a girlish laugh. “You should have seen us, like a couple of movie ladies, armed to the teeth and posted behind our strongest door! If we had not been in such serious danger I should have thought it a wonderful joke,” and she laughed lightly at the memory.
“Armed to the teeth!” repeated Grace hopefully.
“Yes, indeedy; I had the best and biggest revolver, and auntie held to a shotgun, and when we made sure we were really in danger of being bombed or burglared or something, we just loaded up and stood guard until we heard the officer’s whistle. It seemed ages,” she finished seriously.
“And haven’t you even been to bed?” asked Julia, anxiously.
“Oh, no, indeed. You see, that Leonore began this attack yesterday, after you saw her prowling around,” explained Peg. “Her dad claims a right—a business right to what my dad discovered. That’s why we have had to act so mysterious and live behind bolted doors,” she added. “One glimpse of dad’s drawings would spoil everything for us,” she finished.
“That’s why!” exclaimed Grace; for in the simple statement had been disclosed the mystery of the hermit life of Peg and her Aunt Carrie.
“Yes, my dear brother, Peggie’s father, was confident the machine he invented would bring us great wealth, and besides this he had many land claims about here that he felt would bring valuable ores.”
“And that’s why you went to the hills so often,” burst out Louise. “We wondered and wondered.”
“Yes, that’s why,” agreed Peg.
“You don’t think your robbers would follow you down here?” asked Isabel, not fearfully but rather confidently.
“No, we have covered our tracks,” said Peg. “They might see Shag——”
“Bring him in,” begged Cleo, who loved Shag or any other “nice dog” right next to her companions.
“There isn’t really any danger of them following us,” said Peg. “Besides, we will have a couple of extra watchmen in the woods between now and morning. But I know Shag will just love to come in.”
So it happened the Bobbies had a company of three to billet—when finally Miss Mackin succeeded in inducing everyone “to quiet down and wait until morning” for the telling of the real story of Peg’s fight to establish the rights her father had left her to struggle with.
Daylight was just peeking through the little crack in the tent flap when Grace screamed:
“Oh, my! For goodness’ sake!” she yelled. “Someone, somebody, something, Shag wants to kiss my toesies!”
The self starters sat up and looked around—the other groaned.
Yes, there was Shag trying to make friends with anything that moved, and Grace must have unconsciously moved that foot.
“What do you want, Shag?” she asked.
The big, bushy tail whisked things around rather perilously in the narrow quarters.
“Shag is an early riser,” said Peg, trying to untangle herself from the things that held her on the rim of a cot. “He wants to run off and see what’s going on outdoors.” She patted her dog affectionately, then allowed him to run out, off over the hills to his own quarters.
But the spell was broken. They were awake, those insatiable girls, and ready even now to talk to their visitor.
Grace “whispered,” but the sibilant swish of sounds seemed more resonant than an outspoken address might have.
“Don’t wake Aunt Carrie,” she warned, although she was the alarm clock going off at that very moment.
“Don’t wake Mackey,” giggled Louise, after Mackey had thrown a leaky pine needle pillow at her head.
“And just look at Izzy,” begged Cleo. “She’s soundproof—like our music room at school.”
“Go on, Peg. Tell us about it,” implored Julia. “I dreamed of you and your shotgun all night.”
“I didn’t have a shotgun, that was Auntie,” replied Peg. “Mine was a real up-to-date revolver.”
“Oh, do tell us!” begged Helen, sitting up and shaking her spaniel-like mop of hair. It was bobbed, and curly, and altogether very pretty.
“Did you shoot through the door, or was it through the window?” mumbled Cleo, determined to have some shooting in the landscape.
Peg laughed merrily. Then she stretched without warning Corene, and the effect was accidental. When both girls got up from the floor, one from either side of the extension bed, and when it was finally conceded that everyone was awake and therefore the water-fall whispering was no longer necessary, “conversation was resumed,” according to Grace.
“And we never could have induced you to come, Peg, if something didn’t happen. Yet, from the first we all planned ‘to get you,’” she finished, a tragic note taking care of that final ominous phrase.
“I wanted to come more than you could possibly have wanted me to do so,” said Peg, a trifle seriously. “But you have no idea what a complicated thing it is for a girl to try to do anything really worth while.”
“Oh, yes—we—have!” drawled Julia. “You should see me try to make a fire to cook breakfast on damp mornings.”
“Not that kind of thing, Julia,” warned Grace, fearful that Peg would be diverted from her story.
“And did men really try to break in your cottage?” asked Helen, sensation seething.
“It’s rather a long story,” admitted Peg.
“Go on and tell,” begged Louise. “I don’t think there is anything so comfy and cozy as story telling in bed,” and she gave the blankets a premonitory swish that sent a pair of sneaks flying at her neighbor’s head.
“Of course, we don’t want to intrude—that is, we don’t want to appear curious about your private business,” apologized Cleo, with a painful attempt at politeness.
“I am just too glad to tell someone,” replied Peg. “If you could ever know what it has been to be misjudged by everybody: to have people taunting you and to hear all sorts of foolish things said about you——”
“But people up here admire you—very much,” insisted Grace. “Old Pete, the boatman, told us how you rescued the man from the ice last winter.”
“Oh, that,” replied Peg. “He wasn’t really unconscious, and I had help to get him on Whirlwind. But you know how fine men are. They are generous and good-natured. Not like——”
“Say it, Peg! Not like girls! That is what you are thinking and I just agree with you,” spoke up Julia. “We saw how contemptible those flashy girls were from the very beginning.”
“Because they are the daughters of this man who has been claiming father’s rights,” replied Peg.
Miss Mackin and Aunt Carrie were now talking in an undertone over in their end of the tent, so that the girls were quite free to carry on this disjointed conversation.
“And what happened yesterday after you left the hike picnic?” asked Cleo.
“When I got back to the cottage there was Leonore Fairbanks trying to make friends with Shag. If she could have gotten in the cottage, you see, she hoped to find the drawing and plans for the invention,” explained Peg. “Then parts of the machine also are hidden in our house, and if she could have obtained any single part of that machine the men might have been able to guess at its principle.”
“Oh, that was why you kept folks away from your house, was it?” asked Grace.
“Yes. Daddy charged me to protect all that work of his until I could turn it over to his brother, my Uncle Edward. He has been abroad and I expect to hear any day that his steamer is in New York. What a relief that will be,” she sighed.
“What steamer is he on?” inquired Julia.
“The Tourlander. He was in Egypt when daddy died and could not come until he finished his business there.”
“The Tourlander is the very steamer my Aunt Marie is on,” said Julia, “and it was sighted yesterday. Daddy had a message; mother told me about it when we went for the mail.”
“Sighted! Oh, Aunt Carrie, did you hear? The Tourlander is coming in! It has been sighted!” Peg exclaimed gleefully.
“Really, my dear!” and that message had an electrical effect on Miss Ramsdell. “If Uncle Edward is coming in we must be stirring. How strange it all seems? That I should sleep in a tent again! I have always loved camping, and since Peggie’s mother died we spent quite a lot of time traveling about. You see,” she explained to everyone, “my brother was a geologist, and at one time was employed by the government to sample ores. That was how he came to be interested in these hills. He insisted there were valuable zinc veins up here. Come, Peggie dear, I feel so anxious now. Won’t it be splendid if your Uncle Edward comes just now when things seem to be so critical?”
“We need him, Auntie mine,” replied the girl, who was partially succeeding in freeing herself from the girls who vainly tried to hold her for a fuller story.
“I’ll tell it all to you, every single bit,” she promised. “But we really must hurry back to the log cabin. Suppose we have been bombarded during the night? Then, what would we do for a house and home?”
“Oh, we haven’t told you we are going to give up camp,” exclaimed Grace. “We really haven’t had a chance to tell you anything, Peg.”
“Not when you insisted that I do all the talking,” replied the other. “But why are you going to desert camp?”
“In the interest of humanity,” said Julia, solemnly. “We are going to give it to some children who need it more than we do.”
“Am I included?” asked Peg. She was almost dressed, and some of the girls were hurrying to be ready before she left for the hills.
“You simply can’t go without breakfast,” insisted Miss Mackin. “We will have coffee ready in less than no time——”
“But here is Shag, back,” interrupted Peg. “What is it, boy? What’s going on up there?”
He wagged his tail and “smiled” and flipped his ears. The big collie tried to lead his young mistress to the outdoors, at least he moved that way himself and gave Peg a most appealing look from his big, soft, brown eyes.
“We’re coming,” Peg answered him. “Girls, it is perfectly delightful for us to be at camp and I have been envying you this joy all summer, but if you will excuse us, we are so anxious to get back to our abandoned home——”
“Are you going to leave your valuables in our safe?” asked Louise.
“I would like to—if it wouldn’t worry you too much——”
“Not the least bit. In fact if you leave them we will feel sure of another call, and that’s a big consideration,” declared Corene.
Peg laughed lightly. It was full bright daylight now, and the odor of dewy softness, the breath of things green, permeated camp and grounds surrounding.
“Don’t you want to be introduced to our bucket-brigade washroom?” asked Louise. “Come along; the line forms on this side,” and she dragged Peg out under the runt oak, where a guest basin, turned upside down, made a safe pedestal for a twittering robin. He hopped off politely as the girls tip-toed up.
“That’s our Bobbie Robin,” said Louise. “We have him almost trained to eat from a little table Julia erected for him. We place his breakfast there, and what bird wouldn’t eat a fresh cereal even from a tiny table?”
“Here comes our officer!” exclaimed Peg, as a cracking of leaves gave warning of approaching footsteps.
“Good morning!” called out the man in blue. “All safe and sound down here?”
“Perfectly,” replied Peg. “Anything new on the hill?”
“Not just this morning, but we had some trouble last night,” said the officer. “You were right about the prowlers. We found a couple of railroaders hiding behind your barn.”
“Are the horses safe?” This query showed Peg’s new alarm.
“We made sure of that. I put Tim Morgan right in the cosy little room there, and Tim was grateful for the bunk. Also, no one could come near those horses with him on the scene.”
“I must hurry back,” said Peg to Louise. Others of the girls were now moving about.
“No need for worry,” assured the officer. “These railroad men are the sort that walk the tracks, you know. They must have been hired to look over your place, but they’re busy looking out of a very small window about now,” and he waved his stick in the direction of Longleigh, where the little country lock-up was situated.
Aunt Carrie was now out of the tent and ready to go back to the log cabin. She exchanged questions with the night watchman, and presently she was saying her thanks and her good-byes, also promising to return for a real camp meal just as soon as she and Peg could safely leave the cabin.
“If my uncle comes I shall be as free as your Bobbie Robin,” said Peg. “I intend to turn everything over to him; and what a joy that will be!”
“Then you could come down here and help us wind up camp?” asked Cleo eagerly.
“I suppose I could if——”
“You must, my dear,” insisted Miss Ramsdell. “You really must take a holiday.”
“But I am somewhat disappointed,” said Peg, she was looking over the mist-veiled hills. “I hoped to have been able to follow out dear dad’s advice——” She stopped suddenly, then shook herself free from the detaining arms, and promised again to come back to campfire that very night.
“And tell us all about your blockade?” said Helen.
“You mean stockade, Nellie,” said Cleo. “But it is all the same in the glow of the campfire where all good stories get their magic touch.”
“Good-bye!”
“Good-bye!”
And then the guests from the hilltop left.
For a few minutes the Bobbies stood, a little disappointed, but still expectant.
“I should be afraid to go back to that place,” remarked Isabel.
“The officer is going to unlock and search first,” said Cleo. “I wouldn’t mind going along to see the fun.”
“Just imagine those two people standing ready with guns!” exclaimed Julia.
“I wouldn’t care to trust myself with a tempting little gun,” confessed Louise. “I have always thought what a temptation it must be to pull a trigger.”
“Like our Fourth of July pistols; so have I,” admitted Isabel.
“Girls, do you realize it is almost time for colors?” asked Miss Mackin. “Suppose we sing a cheery ‘Good Morning’ to get our brains cleared up from all the excitement?”
Then the birds in tree and bush flew off, jealous of their woodland rights, for the Bobbies really could sing, at least sweetly.
The colors were flying and a scent of coffee floated generously about, when two men on horseback came galloping along and drew rein at the foot of Comalong hill.
“Hey, there, sissy!” called one, rudely. “Do you know where Peg is? The girl from the log cabin?”
“Don’t answer,” warned Miss Mackin quickly. “If they want information, that is not the way to seek it,” and she turned the girls back to the breakfast table where the “K. P.’s” were already busy serving.
The next moment the riders galloped off, and the Scouts suspected correctly that one of the men was Francis Fairbanks.
How things had changed! The new day stood out independent of its past and future. Peg had actually spent the night in the Bobbies’ camp, and her treasure was now hidden in their packing-case safe.
Also, dear Camp Comalong was fading away, or was it looming up large as a proposed Samaritan camp?
Breakfast was not finished when Benny came pumping along on his wheel.
“Folks got word about your aunt, Julia,” he began after a very informal greeting, “and I came over to tell you your mother wants you to come home sure, day after to-morrow.”
“I’m going to, Ben,” replied Julia. “My Aunt Marie is bringing me something from Paris. I’ll be on hand to welcome her, never fear,” said the blonde girl archly.
“We are going to give up camp, Ben,” announced his own sister, Grace. “Won’t you have a bun, or something else to eat?” she invited the boy, who stood with hands in pockets, plainly admiring the camp life freedom before him.
“Going to give up?” he almost shouted. “Then can we fellows have it?”
“Oh, Ben, perhaps you boys could have it after the next two weeks, but for that time we are going to sacrifice it for some very needy city children, who only get a breath of real air when they come up on an excursion,” explained Grace.
“Oh, a fresh air camp!” Benny’s voice fell in disappointment.
“Not just that kind,” continued the sister, “but we saw some poor, little pale faces the other day, and we just couldn’t stand their longing for a few days in the real country. So we are all going back to our cottages, and going to give up the Comalong for two weeks before school opens.”
“Then where would we fellows come in? Two weeks before school——”
“Our schools don’t open till later,” explained Louise, “and you know, Benny, September is the most beautiful month to camp,” she placated.
“Every month is good enough,” insisted the boy, “but of course, if you’ve promised.” He was evidently not fired with the same sort of philanthropy that inspired the girls.
“Come on, Benny, try our camp-made Johnny-cake,” urged Louise. “Just think, we bake that right on top of that stone oven.”
“I don’t want to think of it,” growled the real boy. “I know what we Boy Scouts could do with this outfit.”
“Poor Ben,” and Grace threw an arm around the brown-haired little fellow. “Never mind. I’m coming home and I’ll make you as much fudge as every boy in your crowd will want to eat—at one sitting,” she qualified.
He was finally induced to sample the Johnny-cake, but when he left there was a defiance in his manner, akin to recklessness.
“I don’t care, anyhow,” he prevaricated. “We’re going to camp up on the hills next week,” he flung back, jerking his wheel up in the air to start, as if it had been a pony with its bit too tight.
“A busy day approach—eth,” warned Corene. “We must have our trial swim this morning, you know.”
“Yes, and we have to go for the mail. It’s my turn and yours, Weasy,” said Cleo.
“And I’ve got to go around to all the cottages and give warning we are going to break camp, I suppose,” said Julia. “I know the mothers will be glad to get the news, although they may not admit it.”
“And I’m going to take a run up to Peg’s and see if she is all right,” declared Corene. “Maybe now that she won’t go over the hills looking for that lost claim, she may take time to have a civilized swim with us.”
“She may; but then again she may not,” interposed Cleo. “Don’t you remember she said there was something she was disappointed about not being finished?”
“Yes; we couldn’t get all the story, there were so many interruptions,” said Corene. “But wasn’t she a wonderful girl to work so hard to follow out her father’s ambitions?”
“Yes, like a big, strong boy, she has been going up those hills daily. She didn’t say just what she was looking for, did she?” asked Julia.
“Zinc mine, wasn’t it?” suggested Louise.
“Something about ores,” added Julia. “You know her Aunt Carrie said Mr. Ramsdell used to be a government geologist.”
“Yes,” agreed Louise, vaguely. Geology meant stones, they all knew, and as for the ores—well, it didn’t seem to be gold and to the indifferent ones no other metal seemed to suggest sensational developments just then.
An hour later they were in the lake, trying out their contest stunts. Corene did not succeed in inducing Peg to accompany them, as the excitement around the log cabin was still in evidence. Even the officer sort of “hung ’round,” to “keep an eye on things,” and when Corene made her flying trip up there she found Peg so busy that good sense forbade the Scout delaying her.
The swim over, next came the delivery of all those homemade messages. Hither and thither scouted the Scouts, until lunch time was pointed out by the faithful little sun dial, and that was not a point to be overlooked.
Only two days remained now until the week would be closed. Then would come the excitement of breaking camp.
Miss Mackin had already notified headquarters of the Bobolinks’ determination, and to-day a visitor was expected to take inventory.
It was all delightfully thrilling. In spite of the natural regret that accompanied this sacrifice, there was also that joy of satisfaction that always comes with the doing of a real heroic act. Every girl-Bobbie of them felt it her own personal privilege to invite those city youngsters out to Lake Hocomo, and likewise each felt the elation of “doing a big thing.”
“I wonder when Peg will come back for her valuables?” mused Grace. They were “slicking” up the grounds for the day’s inspection—someone always came by and looked in on pleasant mornings.
As if the expressed thought had ticked off a message, scarcely had Grace uttered it than Peg and Shag came racing over the hills.
“Here she comes!” sang out the impetuous Helen.
“Oh, say, girls!” Peg called on ahead of herself. “Don’t you want to come up and see my cabin?”
“Do we?” The enthusiasm of Cleo’s tone was pure compliment.
“Just wait until we get these papers in the incinerator,” panted Julia. “We will all be off duty then and glad to go up to your cabin.”
Everyone felt that way, which was evinced by the unusual haste made in the slicking-up process.
Peg looked like a different girl! She had discarded the mountaineer’s costume and wore a simple white dress. The effect was startling. All that severity of outline had vanished. Even the slick black hair seemed to turn up just a little—perhaps with the heat or was it from excitement?
The girls were surprised but hid the fact completely. With a word to Miss Mackin—who like the others was hurrying, although her task was to finish a very pretty basket for her mother—they all raced off with Peg and Shag. The big dog was frantic with delight. It was very evident he had taken a real liking to the little Scouts.
“You will have to overlook some things,” warned Peg, as they neared the bungalow, “for although auntie is a crackerjack housekeeper she has me to battle against.”
Awe, the concomitant of enthusiasm, possessed the girls as they stood on the threshold of that mystery house. As Peg ushered them in, however, each expressed surprise.
“What a duck of a room!” cried Grace.
“Isn’t it?” agreed Corene.
They were surveying a very quaintly arranged room, indeed. The low beamed ceilings were of natural rough cedar, the field-stone fireplace stood out like a primitive shrine, and on the floors were the most wonderful Indian rugs.
“We brought those rugs from the West,” Peg explained, noting the girls’ admiration. “But I want to show you—my studio.”
She unlocked a door and ushered the visitors into a very long darkened room. When all were within, she swung the door back, shot a bolt and switched on lights.
“Oh, a shop!” exclaimed Isabel.
“That’s just what it is,” answered Peg. “This was dad’s shop and I have been tinkering here since he left it to me. I miss him dreadfully, for dad and I were great pals,” she said bravely.
“And this is the machinery you have been guarding?” said Louise, just daring to put one finger on a long piece of steel that did not go off following the contact.
“Yes,” said Peg. “You see, even now I would not leave that door unlocked, and we have never kept a servant since dad started this invention. It is a machine for drilling rock; it will pick up certain kinds of minerals and is most valuable because it can be worked without steam power. Dad had not quite finished it, but he was positive of its value, and a single look at the simple mechanism, he warned me, would easily betray its principle to any skilled mechanic. That is why the windows are boarded. See,” she went to a window and raised a shade, “I can get light from those slanted boards,” she explained, “but no one could possibly see into this room. We have a tank that makes our own gas. Daddy was very ingenious,” she finished, coming back to the machine from which she had taken a heavy blanket covering.
The Scouts looked about, bewildered. What could a girl do, really, with iron and steel, and leather belts!
“And how did your father get these parts made?” asked Julia. She knew something of machinery, as her own father was a manufacturer.
“Dad made the patterns, in wood, you know, then he had them cast in the city. He assembled the parts himself, of course. I have never allowed an eye to rest on this,” she declared, “for to me it is all something sacred. When Uncle Edward comes he will only have to finish the negotiations with the patent office and ship them this model. It is not so big—that is one of its great attractions.” She seemed to fondle the queer-looking machine, which was, as she said, not very large; it could all be put in a crate the size of a packing case.
“And men came last night to break in just to see this?” It was incredible, Louise thought.
“Yes, but there is more than the machine you see,” said Peg. “There are the drawings, and samples of ore and—other things. I have those in your safe you know,” finished Peg.
“It is dear of you to trust us with all this——” began Julia.
“I wanted to do it, you have been so splendid to me,” declared the black-haired girl. “And I must have seemed so—bitter!”
“No, just mysterious, and that made you fascinating,” declared Grace, giving Peg a counterfeit hug.
“But how did you do any of this sort of work?” pressed Corene, still looking at the formidable machine.
“I have a hand drill, and every single day I spend some time just as dad did, collecting specimens. You see, I am looking for zinc.”
“What does it look like?” asked Cleo.
“It is a little, bluish white vein. I have pieces in my box. I’ll show them to you perhaps this evening,” offered Peg.
“And two men called up to the tent just after you left this morning,” remarked Cleo. “They yelled ‘sissy’ and we didn’t answer them.”
“Were they riding?” asked Peg.
“Yes. Two big capitalistic looking gents,” said Corene. She was still fascinated with the ore drill, for Corene had a manual training turn of mind.
“Mr. Fairbanks and his New York partner,” explained Peg. “They came up here with all sorts of threats, if I didn’t let them see dad’s papers. But when I told them the Tourlander was coming in port—as you told me, you know—they didn’t seem quite so—fierce. Big men like Fairbanks are always cowards,” declared Peg, with a pardonable sneer.
“Did they see your guns?” joked Louise, looking about for a possible glimpse of the weapons.
“Didn’t get a chance. I just met them outside the hedge, and they didn’t even leave their horses.”
A long low bench stood under the window with the inverted blind. One by one the girls slid into place on it, like a band of little kindergartners.
“I have always longed to see a real factory,” ventured Cleo. “I should love to hear your buzz, Peg.”
The “manager” stepped over to a small machine and pressed her foot upon it. The buzz promptly responded.
“Oh, let me try it! What will it do?” exclaimed Corene from the admiring group now surrounding the buzzer.
“It will grind anything. See, it is run by a motor,” explained Peg.
“Wonder would it cut Corene’s hair, nice and even,” teased Cleo. “I’ve heard that very self same tune in barber shops.”
“But where do you get your electricity from?” pressed Julia, the intelligent.
“There are a few poles in the hills and dad had one tapped for his own use,” replied Peg. “You know the big hotel is wired.”
“If we had known it we might have had a pole tapped for Comalong use,” put in Grace, facetiously. “I’ve had an awful time doing my hair at the beach-tree dressing table. Just think what a spot-light would have done for us.”
Corene was grinding the point of her belt buckle on the revolving emery wheel; Cleo was examining some outlines and drawings tacked to a drawing board, while the attention of Louise was riveted upon a line of tools set in graduated order upon a convenient shelf, as neatly placed as the kitchen knives, spoons and ladles in her mother’s orderly pantry at home.
“Peg,” said Corene, trying the buckle’s point in her blouse, “couldn’t we open a little factory here and sharpen knives and forks for the campers? We might fix umbrellas too. I’ve seen the grind men do it at this sort of buzzer.”
Peg laughed happily at the girl’s humor. “You don’t know how good it seems to hear real, human words in this room again,” she said after an emphatic pause. “Auntie has been so afraid of everything that I suppose I’ve inhaled the air of fear, unconsciously.”
“I think Corey’s idea perfectly spiffing,” added Cleo. She was looking for something to sharpen on the wheel.
“You mean spoofing, Clee,” insisted Grace. “If you will read trash why don’t you do it with a pad and pencil?”
“But all joking aside, girls, can’t you imagine what all this really means? I think Peg is the bravest girl we have ever met,” Corene declared heartily.
“Oh, much,” added Grace, with a side step not indicated in the factory recreational programme. “Can’t we do something to testify to our esteem? You know, the little ‘token of’ business.”
“Kindly keep your skirts away from my wheel,” ordered Corene, still grinding, “or you may get a most unexpected ‘token of’ around the ankles.”
“Your dad was a wonderful draftsman, Peg,” commented Cleo, with her newly trained eye tracing the intricacies of the drawing board. “I never could learn to follow such fine lines and measurements.”
“They wouldn’t look well on your nut-bowl or your candle-sticks, Clee,” remarked Louise. “Better stick to the school designs; they’re simpler.”
“This is all very lovely, and more absorbing than the mechanical display at the State fair,” put in Julia, “but you know, girls, Peg hasn’t really hired us yet.”
A tap at the door interrupted.
“Peg,” called Miss Ramsdell. “Here’s a message.”
Quickly opening the door, the girl accepted from the aunt the yellow paper, but there was no need to read its simple statement, for the joyous face of Aunt Carrie gave out the good tidings. Still Peg read aloud:
“Arrive to-morrow (Saturday), will go at once to you at Lake Hocomo.
“Edward Ramsdell.”
“Joy! Joy!” Peg cried. “Really coming, oh, girls! Now I can have some fun helping you break camp! Isn’t it splendid!”
“That’s a promise, remember, positively,” insisted Julia, as they prepared to leave. “Bring Miss Ramsdell and Shag. Remember, we expect you pos—i—tive—ly.”
Then the door was locked from the outside, on the precious invention of Peg’s departed father.