“Dear Martha:“Your letter came to me this morning and I would be quick to reserve rooms for yourself and the girls at one of the Palm Beach hotels, except that I have a better plan. How would you like to spend three weeks in a real southern mansion? There is such a house on the estate I recently bought.“It is a curiously beautiful house, built after the Spanish style of architecture, with an inner court and many balconies. The agent from whom I purchased it informs me that it was formerly the property of an elderly Spaniard, Manuel de Fereda. After his death, several months ago, the property descended to his granddaughter, who was anxious to sell it.“It is completely furnished, much in the fashion of houses I saw when in Mexico. The girls will rave over it and I am very anxious that they shall spend their holiday in it. It is not many miles from Palm Beach and I have found a good Indian guide who will take us on the Everglades expedition which Patsy has set her mind on making.“Of course, if you prefer Palm Beach for the girls, then so be it. If you come to Las Golondrinas (The Swallows), that is the name of theold house, you will not need to bring so many trunks, as you will see very little of society, except when you make an occasional trip to the Beach. I can secure a good car for your use while here which Patsy can drive to her heart’s content.“Let me know at once what you think of my plan. If you decide immediately to take it up, wire me and I will be on the lookout for you. I believe you will enjoy this little adventure as much as I shall. I know now what Patsy will say. As the girls are to have only three weeks’ vacation, better arrange to start as soon as possible.“Affectionately,“Robert.”
“Dear Martha:
“Your letter came to me this morning and I would be quick to reserve rooms for yourself and the girls at one of the Palm Beach hotels, except that I have a better plan. How would you like to spend three weeks in a real southern mansion? There is such a house on the estate I recently bought.
“It is a curiously beautiful house, built after the Spanish style of architecture, with an inner court and many balconies. The agent from whom I purchased it informs me that it was formerly the property of an elderly Spaniard, Manuel de Fereda. After his death, several months ago, the property descended to his granddaughter, who was anxious to sell it.
“It is completely furnished, much in the fashion of houses I saw when in Mexico. The girls will rave over it and I am very anxious that they shall spend their holiday in it. It is not many miles from Palm Beach and I have found a good Indian guide who will take us on the Everglades expedition which Patsy has set her mind on making.
“Of course, if you prefer Palm Beach for the girls, then so be it. If you come to Las Golondrinas (The Swallows), that is the name of theold house, you will not need to bring so many trunks, as you will see very little of society, except when you make an occasional trip to the Beach. I can secure a good car for your use while here which Patsy can drive to her heart’s content.
“Let me know at once what you think of my plan. If you decide immediately to take it up, wire me and I will be on the lookout for you. I believe you will enjoy this little adventure as much as I shall. I know now what Patsy will say. As the girls are to have only three weeks’ vacation, better arrange to start as soon as possible.
“Affectionately,
“Robert.”
“Aunt Martha, the Wayfarers are the luckiest girls in the whole world,” was Patsy’s solemn assertion as she looked up from the letter. “First they go through a fire and come out as safely as can be. Next they get six weeks’ vacation. After that, Daddy plays good fairy, and finds them a wonderful palace in the land of flowers. All they have to do is to hurry up and take possession.Whenare we going to start for Florida?”
“As soon as we can make ready,” was the prompt reply. “Since your father seems very anxious for us to take this trip, I feel that we ought not disappoint him. I dare say we may find this old house he describes somewhat interesting.”
This calm statement filled Patsy with inward amusement. She knew it to be an indirect admission that her aunt was as anxious as she to carry out the plan her father had made for them.
“We won’t need a lot of new gowns,” argued Patsy. “We all have evening frocks and plenty of wash dresses from last summer. We can wear our corduroy suits and high boots to tramp around in. We ought to have some of those Palm Beach hats the stores are showing, and new white shoes, and a few other things. It isn’t as if we were going to stay at a large hotel. We’ll be away from society and living outdoors most of the time. This is Friday. I think we ought to start south not later than next Wednesday morning. We can’t afford to use up more than one of our precious weeks in getting ready and going down to Las—Las——What’s the name of our new home?”
Patsy hastily consulted her father’s letter.
“Las Gol-on-drinas,” she pronounced slowly.“I suppose that’s not the way to pronounce it. I’ll have to ask Mab about it. She’s taking Spanish this year. It’s very necessary to know how to say the name of our new southern home,” she added with a chuckle. “Won’t the girls be surprised when they hear about this splendid plan of Father’s? Have you spoken to Mrs. Perry about it yet, Auntie?”
“No, my dear. You must remember that I received Miss Osgood’s letter, refusing my request at the same time that I received your father’s letter. They arrived in the first mail this morning. I intended writing Robert this evening, explaining that it would be impossible for us to go to Florida. Then I read about the fire in the paper and it completely upset my nerves. I will call on the Perrys to-morrow morning to talk things over. We must also call on Mrs. Forbes.”
“Bee isn’t sure that her mother will let her accept another trip from us,” confided Patsy. “That’s the only thing I worried about after I knew we were to have the six weeks’ vacation. She said she was sure her mother wouldn’t feel right about letting us pay her expenses at a fashionable resort like Palm Beach. But it’s all different now. Mrs. Forbes can’t very well refuseto let Bee accept an invitation to a house party, can she? You must make her see it in that light, Aunt Martha, or she won’t let Bee go with us. She’s awfully proud, you know. We simply must have Bee along. I wouldn’t care much about the trip if she had to stay at home.”
“Beatrice will go with us,” assured Miss Martha in a tone that indicated the intention to have her own way in the matter. Patsy knew from long experience that her dignified aunt was a person not to be easily overruled, and rejoiced accordingly.
“I told Bee that I knew you could fix things beautifully with her mother,” she declared happily. “We’re going to have a wonderful time in that quaint old house. Wouldn’t it be great if it were haunted, or had some kind of a mystery about it? I’ve read lots of queer stories about those old southern mansions.”
“Now, Patsy,” Miss Martha made an attempt at looking extremely severe, “once and for all you may put such foolish notions out of your head. That affair of the missing will at Wilderness Lodge was, of course, quite remarkable. Nevertheless, it was very annoying in many respects.”
Miss Martha had not forgotten her enforcedhike over hill and dale on the memorable afternoon when John, the rascally chauffeur, had set her down in an unfamiliar territory and left her to return to the Lodge as best she might.
“We are going down South for recreation. Bear that in mind,” she continued. “The majority of these tales about haunted houses down there originate with the negroes, who are very ignorant and superstitious. There is no such thing as ahauntedhouse. I have never yet met a person who had actuallyseena ghost. Undoubtedly we shall hear a number of such silly tales while we are in Florida. I am told that the natives are very fond of relating such yarns. You girls may listen to them if you like, but you must not take them seriously. You are not apt ever again to run into another mystery like that of Wilderness Lodge.”
“No wonder the Spaniards named this beautiful land ‘Florida’!” rapturously exclaimed Beatrice Forbes. “I never dreamed itcouldbe quite so wonderful as this.”
“I suppose when first they saw it, they must have felt about it as we do now,” returned Eleanor. “According to history they landed here on Easter Sunday. We’re seeing Florida at about the same time of year as they first saw it. It’s almost as wonderful to us as it was to them. Not quite, of course, because they underwent all sorts of hardships before they landed here. So they must have thought it like Heaven.”
Exactly one week had elapsed since the Wayfarers had arrived in Morton with the pleasing prospect ahead of them of a six weeks’ vacation. Three days of hurried preparation had followed. Then had come the long, rather tiresome railwayjourney to Florida. They had arrived at Palm Beach late in the afternoon of the sixth day, had been met by Mr. Carroll and had spent the night at one of Palm Beach’s most fashionable hotels.
Weary from the long railway trip, the travelers had resisted the lure of a water fête, to be given that evening on Lake Worth, and retired early.
“I can secure a boat, if you girls are anxious to take in the fête,” Mr. Carroll had informed his flock at dinner that evening. “This fête will be nothing very remarkable, however. Later on, I understand, a big Venetian fête is to be given. Why not wait and go to that? We can easily run up to the Beach in the car from Las Golondrinas. I would suggest going to bed in good season to-night. Then we can make an early start in the morning for our new home.”
This program being approved by all, the Wayfarers had dutifully settled down early for the night. It was now a little after ten o’clock on the following morning and the big touring car, driven by Mr. Carroll, was bowling due south over a palm-lined country road, toward its objective, Las Golondrinas.
It was a particularly balmy morning, even for southern Florida, where a perpetual state of fineweather may be expected to hold sway during the winter months. Southward under tall palms, past villa after villa, embowered in gorgeously colored, flowering vines, the touring car glided with its load of enthusiastic beauty-worshippers.
Seated between Miss Martha and Eleanor in the tonneau of the machine, Beatrice was perhaps the most ardent worshipper of them all. Love of Nature was almost a religion with her. She was a true child of the great outdoors.
“It’s so beautiful it makes me feel almost like crying,” she confided to her companions as she drew in a deep breath of the exquisitely scented morning air. “It’s so different from the Adirondacks. Up there I felt exhilarated; as though I’d like to stand up and sing an anthem to the mountains. But all this fragrance and color and sunlight and warm, sweet air makes me feel—well—sentimental,” finished Bee rather timidly.
“It seems more like an enchanted land out of a fairy-tale than a real one,” mused Eleanor. “No wonder the birds begin to fly south the minute it grows chilly up north. They know what’s waiting for them down here.”
“That’s more than we know,” smiled Beatrice, her brown eyes dreamy. “We’re explorers, once more, setting foot in a strange, new country.Something perfectly amazing may be waiting for us just around the corner.”
“I hope it won’t be a horrid big snake,” shuddered practical Mabel, who sat opposite the trio on one of the small seats. “There are plenty of poisonous snakes down here, you know. Moccasins and diamond-back rattlers, coral snakes and a good many other varieties that aren’t poisonous, but horrible, just the same.”
“Why break the spell by mentioning anything so disagreeable as snakes, Mab?” asked Eleanor reproachfully. “I’d forgotten that there were such hateful, wriggly things. How do you happen to be so well up on the snakology of Florida?”
“There’s no such word as snakology,” retorted Mabel. “You meanherpetology.”
“Snakology’s a fine word, even if old Noah Webster did forget to put it in the dictionary,” laughed Eleanor. “Isn’t it, Miss Martha?”
“I can’t say that I specially admire any word pertaining to snakes,” dryly answered Miss Carroll. “While we are on the subject, however, I may as well say that nothing can induce me to go on any wild expeditions into these swamps down here. I daresay these jungles are full of poisonous snakes. I greatly doubt the advisabilityof allowing you girls to trail around in such dangerous places.”
“Oh, we’ll be all right with a real Indian guide to show us the way,” declared Beatrice confidently. “White Heron is the name of our Indian guide. Mr. Carroll was telling me about him last night. He is a Seminole and a great hunter.”
“I have no confidence in Indians,” disparaged Miss Martha. “I sincerely hope Robert is not mistaken in this one. I shall have to see him for myself in order to judge whether he is a fit person to act as guide on this foolhardy expedition that Patsy is so set on making.”
This dampening assertion warned the trio of girls that it was high time to discuss something else. They remembered Patsy’s difficulties of the previous summer in wringing a reluctant permission from Miss Martha to go camping in the mountains. Now it seemed she had again posted herself on the wrong side of the fence. It therefore behooved them to drop the subject where it stood, leaving the winning over of Miss Martha to wily Patsy and her father.
Seated beside her father, who, knowing the road to Las Golondrinas, was driving the car, Patsy was keeping up a running fire of delightedexclamation over the tropical beauty of the country through which they were passing.
“I’m so glad you bought this splendid place, Dad,” she rattled along in her quick, eager fashion. “After I’m through college maybe we can come down to Florida and spend a whole winter.”
“I had that idea in mind when I bought it,” returned her father. “It will take considerable time to put Las Golondrinas in good condition again. Old Fereda let it run down. There are some fine orange groves on the estate, but they need attention. The house is in good condition. It’s one of those old-timers and solidly built. The grounds were in bad shape, though. I’ve had a gang of darkies working on them ever since I bought the place. They’re a lazy lot. Still they’ve done quite a little toward getting the lawns smooth again and thinning the trees and shrubs.”
“Who was this Manuel de Fereda, anyway?” questioned Patsy curiously. “I know he was Spanish and died, and that’s all.”
“I know very little about him, my dear. Mr. Haynes, the agent who sold me the property, had never seen him. In fact, had never heard of him until Fereda’s granddaughter put the place in his hands for sale. She told Haynes that her grandfatherwas crazy. Haynes said she seemed very anxious to get rid of the property and get away from it.”
“There’s just enough about the whole thing to arouse one’s curiosity,” sighed Patsy. “I’d love to know more about this queer, crazy old Spaniard. Maybe we’ll meet some people living near the estate who will be able to tell us more about him.”
“Oh, you’ll probably run across someone who knows the history of the Feredas,” lightly assured her father. “Neither the old mammy I engaged as cook, nor the two maids can help you out, though. They come from Miami and know no one in the vicinity. I’m still hunting for a good, trustworthy man for general work. We shall need one while we’re here, to run errands, see to the horses and make himself useful.”
“You must have worked awfully hard to get things ready for us, Dad.”
Patsy slipped an affectionately grateful hand into her father’s arm.
“I could have done better if I had known from the start that you were really coming,” he returned. “I had to hustle around considerably. At least you’re here now and your aunt can be depended upon to do the rest. I hope she willget along nicely with her darkie help. They’re usually as hard to manage as a lot of unruly children.”
“Oh, she will,” predicted Patsy. “She always makes everybody except Patsy do as she says. Patsy likes to have her own way, you know.”
“So I’ve understood,” smiled Mr. Carroll. “Patsy usually gets it, too, I’m sorry to say.”
“You’re not a bit sorry and you know it,” flatly contradicted Patsy. “You’d hate to have me for a daughter if I were a meek, quiet Patsy who never had an opinion of her own.”
“I can’t imagine such a thing,” laughed her father. “I’m so used to being bullied by a certain self-willed young person that I rather like it.”
“You’re a dear,” gaily approved Patsy. “I don’t ever really bully you, you know. I just tell you what you have to do and then you go and do it. That’s not bullying, is it?”
“Not in our family,” satirically assured Mr. Carroll.
Whereupon they both laughed.
Meanwhile, as they continued to talk in the half-jesting, intimate fashion of two persons who thoroughly understand each other, the big black car ate up the miles that lay between Palm Beach and Las Golondrinas. As the party drew nearertheir destination the highly ornamental villas which had lined both sides of the road began to grow fewer and farther apart. They saw less of color and riotous bloom and more of the vivid but monotonous green of the tropics.
They turned at last from the main highway and due east into a white sandy road which ran through a natural park of stately green pines. Under the shadow of the pines the car continued for a mile or so, then broke out into the open and the sunlight again.
“Oh, look!”
Half rising in the seat, Patsy pointed. Ahead of them and dazzlingly blue in the morning sunshine lay the sea.
“How near is our new home to the ocean, Dad?” she asked eagerly.
“There it is yonder.”
Taking a hand briefly from the wheel, Mr. Carroll indicated a point some distance ahead and to the right where the red-tiled roof of a house showed in patches among the wealth of surrounding greenery.
“Why, it’s only a little way from the sea!” Patsy cried out. “Not more than half a mile, I should judge.”
“About three quarters,” corrected her father.“The bathing beach is excellent and there’s an old boathouse, too.”
“Are there any boats?” was the quick question.
“A couple of dinghys. Both leaky. I gave them to one of my black fellows. Old Fereda was evidently not a sea dog. The boathouse was full of odds and ends of rubbish. I had it cleared up and repainted inside and out. It will make you a good bath house. It’s a trim looking little shack now.”
Presently rounding a curve in the white, ribbon-like road, the travelers found themselves again riding southward. To their left, picturesque masses of jungle sloped down to the ocean below.
Soon to their right, however, a high iron fence appeared, running parallel with the road. It formed the eastern boundary of Las Golondrinas. Behind it lay the estate itself, stretching levelly toward the red-roofed house in the distance. Long neglected by its former owner, the once carefully kept lawns and hedges had put forth rank, jungle-like growth. Broad-fronded palms and palmettos drooped graceful leaves over seemingly impenetrable thickets of tangled green. Bush and hedge, once carefully pruned, nowflung forth riotous untamed masses of gorgeous bloom.
“It looks more like a wilderness than a private estate,” was Patsy’s opinion as her quick eyes roved from point to point in passing.
“It looked a good deal more like a jungle a few weeks ago,” returned Mr. Carroll. “Wait until you pass the gates; then you’ll begin to notice a difference. The improvements my black boys have made don’t show from the road.”
For a distance of half a mile, the car continued on the sandy highway. At last Mr. Carroll brought it to a stop before the tall, wrought-iron gates of the main entrance to the estate. Springing from the automobile, he went forward to open them.
“Every man his own gate-opener,” he called out jovially. “Drive ahead, Patsy girl.”
Patsy had already slipped into the driver’s seat, hands on the wheel. Immediately her father called out, she drove the machine slowly forward and through the now wide-open gateway.
“Do let me drive the rest of the way, Dad,” she implored as Mr. Carroll regained the car.
“All right. Follow this trail wherever it goes and you’ll finally bring up at the house,” was the good-humored injunction.
By “trail” Mr. Carroll meant the drive, which, flanked by hedges of perfumed oleander, wound through the grounds, describing a sweeping curve as it approached the quaint, grayish-white building that had for generations sheltered the Feredas. A little beyond the house and to its rear, they glimpsed rank upon rank of orange trees, on which golden fruit and creamy blossoms hung together amongst the glossy green of foliage.
A light land breeze, freighted with the fragrance of many flowers, blew softly upon the Wayfarers. Its scented sweetness filled them with fresh delight and appreciation of their new home.
Patsy brought the car to a stop on the drive, directly in front of an arched doorway, situated at the center of the facade. Before the travelers had time to step out of the automobile the massive double doors were swung open by a stout, turbaned mammy, the true southern type of negro, fast vanishing from the latter day, modernized South. Her fat, black face radiant with good will, she showed two rows of strong white teeth in a broad smile. Beside her stood two young colored girls who stared rather shyly at the newcomers.
“I done see yoh comin’, Massa Carroll!” sheexclaimed. “I see yoh way down de road. So I done tell Celia an’ Em’ly here, y’all come along now, right smart, an’ show Massa Carroll’s folks yoh got some manners.’”
“Thank you, Mammy Luce,” gallantly responded Mr. Carroll, his blue eyes twinkling with amusement. Whereupon he gravely presented the gratified old servant to his “folks.” A courtesy which she acknowledged with an even greater display of teeth and many bobbing bows.
Headed by Mr. Carroll, the travelers stepped over the threshold of Las Golondrinas and into the coolness of a short stone passageway which ended in the patio or square stone court, common to houses of Spanish architecture.
In the center of the court a fountain sent up graceful sprays of water, which fell sparkling into the ancient stone bowl built to receive the silvery deluge. Above the court on three sides ranged the inevitable balconies. Looking far upward one glimpsed, through the square opening, a patch of blue sunlit sky.
“Welcome to Las Golondrinas, girls! It’s rather different from anything you’ve ever seen before, now isn’t it?”
Mr. Carroll addressed the question to his flock in general, who had stopped in the center of thecourt to take stock of their new environment.
“It’s positively romantic!” declared Patsy fervently. “I feel as though I’d stepped into the middle of an old Spanish tale. I’m sure Las Golondrinas must have a wonderful history of its own. When you stop to remember how many different Feredas have lived here, you can’t help feeling that a lot of interesting, perhaps tragic things may have happened to them. I only wish I knew more about them.”
“Let the poor dead and gone Feredas rest in peace, Patsy,” laughingly admonished Eleanor. “We came down here to enjoy ourselves, not to dig up the tragic history of a lot of Spanish Dons and Donnas.”
“A very sensible remark, Eleanor,” broke in Miss Martha emphatically. “There is no reason that I can see why you, Patsy, should immediately jump to the conclusion that this old house has a tragic history. It’s pure nonsense, and I don’t approve of your filling your head with such ideas. I dare say the history of these Feredas contains nothing either startling or tragic. Don’t let such ridiculous notions influence you to spend what ought to be a pleasant period of relaxation in trying to conjure up a mystery that never existed.”
“Now, Auntie, you know perfectly well that if we happened to stumble upon something simply amazing in this curious old house, you’d be just as excited over it as any of us,” gaily declared Patsy.
“‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’” loftily quoted Miss Martha, refusing to commit herself. “It will take something very amazing indeed to impress me.”
“The time has come, O Wayfarers, to think of many things,” gaily declaimed Patsy, bursting into the somber, high-ceilinged, dark-paneled sitting-room where Miss Martha, Beatrice, Mabel and Eleanor sat around a massive mahogany table, busily engaged in writing letters.
“Go away, Patsy,” laughingly admonished Mabel, pen suspended in mid-air over her note paper. “You’re a disturber. You’ve made me forget what I was going to write next. If you won’t be a letter-writer, don’t be a nuisance.”
“I can’t be what I never have been and could never possibly become,” retorted Patsy. “I’ll promise to keep quiet, though, if you’ll all hustle and finish your letters. I’m dying to go over to the orange groves and it’s no fun going alone. Any old person will do for company.”
“Then wewon’tdo,” emphasized Beatrice. “We are very distinguished persons who don’t belong in the ‘any old’ class.”
“Glad you told me,” chuckled Patsy. “I’ll give you ten minutes to wind up your letters. If you’re not done then—well—I’ll give you ten more. I am always considerate. I’m going to leave you now, but I shall return. I’ll come buzzing around again, like a pestiferous fly, in exactly ten minutes by my wrist watch. I’m only going as far as the gallery to pay my respects to the dead and gone Feredas.”
With this announcement Patsy turned and strolled from the room. The gallery to which she referred was in the nature of a short corridor, extending between the second-floor sitting-room and ending at the corridor on which were situated sleeping rooms which the Wayfarers occupied. It had evidently served as a picture gallery for several generations of Feredas. Its walls were lined with a heterogeneous collection of oil paintings, largely landscape and studies in still life. At least half of one side of it, however, was devoted strictly to portraits. It was before this particular section that Patsy halted.
Two days had elapsed since the Wayfarers had made port at Las Golondrinas. On the eveningof their arrival, a storm had come up, bursting over the old house in all its tropical fury. Following it, rain had set in and for two days had continued to fall in a steady, discouraging downpour that made out-door excursions impossible for the time being.
Now, on the third morning since their arrival, the sun again shone gloriously, in skies of cerulean blue, and the air was heavy with the sweetness of rain-washed blossoms. It was an ideal morning to spend out of doors, and Patsy was impatient to start on an exploring tour of the estate.
During the two days in which the Wayfarers had been kept indoors by the rain, they had become thoroughly acquainted with the old house. They had wandered about it from cellar to roof, marveling at its utter unlikeness to any other house in which they had ever set foot. Its somber, spacious rooms with their highly polished floors and queer, elaborately carved, foreign-looking furniture of a by-gone period, evoked volleys of wondering comment and speculation. The cool patio with its silver-spraying fountain, the long windows opening out onto picturesque balconies and the dim stone corridors, all held for them the very acme of romance. It was like beingset down in a world which they had known only in fiction.
Each girl had found some one particular object on which to fix her special admiration. Eleanor went into ecstasies over a huge, carved-leather chest that stood in the sitting-room. Beatrice was enthusiastic over a heavy mahogany book-case filled with old Spanish volumes, bound in boards and parchment. She loudly deplored her inability to read Spanish and announced her intention of tackling the fascinating volumes with the aid of a Spanish-English dictionary which Mabel had brought along. Mabel was vastly impressed by a high, frowning old desk with many drawers and pigeon-holes. She was perfectly sure, she declared, that it must contain a secret drawer, and in consequence spent the great part of an afternoon in an unavailing hunt for it.
Patsy found unending delight in the portrait section of the picture gallery. The dark-eyed, tight-lipped men and women who stared down at her from the wall filled her with an intense curiosity regarding who they were and how long it had been since they had lived and played their parts in the history of the Feredas.
Undoubtedly they were all Feredas. Of unmistakably Spanish cast of countenance, theybore a decided family resemblance to one another. The difference in the style of dress worn by the pictured folk proclaimed them to be of many generations. How far removed from the present day, she did not know. She was of the opinion that some of them must have lived at least two hundred years ago. She was very sure that one portrait, that of a man, must have been painted even earlier than that.
It was this portrait in particular which most fascinated her. Hung in the center of the section and framed in tarnished gilt, it depicted the full length figure of a Spanish cavalier. Patsy thought he might easily have been one of the intrepid, Latin adventurers who accompanied Ponce de Leon on his unsuccessful quest into Florida for the fabled Fountain of Youth.
As a gallant of long ago, the man in the picture instantly arrested her attention. The thin, sinister face above the high Spanish ruff repelled her, however. The bright, bird-like eyes, the long, aquiline nose and the narrow lips, touched with a mocking smile, combined to make a countenance of such intense cruelty as filled her with a curious sense of terror. It was as if the sharp, black eyes followed her, as she moved along from picture to picture. There was a peculiar, life-like qualityabout the painting which gave her the uncomfortable feeling that the sinister cavalier might step down from the canvas at any moment.
Nevertheless she could not refrain from stopping to look at him every time she passed through the corridor. She was convinced that he must have been the first Fereda who landed in the New World and that he had a record which might well match his malevolently smiling face. It piqued her not a little to reflect, that, who he was and what he had been would in all probability ever remain a mystery to her.
Strolling into the corridor that morning to study again the provoking object of her curiosity, Patsy wondered how the granddaughter of old Manuel de Fereda could ever have been content to turn over the contents of Las Golondrinas to strangers. She wondered what had become of her. She was undoubtedly the only one who knew the identity of the painted cavalier. Patsy decided that she would ask her father to write Mr. Haynes, the agent, from whom he had purchased the property, asking him for Eulalie Fereda’s address. Once she had obtained it, Patsy fully intended to write to the Spanish girl for information concerning the painted cavalier.
Wrapped in meditation, she did not hear Beatrice’slight approaching footsteps until her friend had traversed half of the corridor.
“Oh, Bee!” she hailed, as the latter paused beside her. “I’m going to try to get Eulalie Fereda’s address from Mr. Haynes, and then write her about this picture. It seems queer that she allowed all these portraits of her family to be sold with the house, now doesn’t it? I certainly shouldn’t care to see the pictures of my respected ancestors pass into the hands of strangers.”
“Perhaps she’d lived here so long with her grandfather that she’d grown tired of him and all the rest of the Fereda tribe,” hazarded Bee. “Imagine how lonely it would be for a young girl in this gloomy old house. Itisgloomy, you know. We don’t mind it because there are a crowd of us. It all seems just quaint and romantic to us.”
“All except Auntie,” reminded Patsy, smiling. “She says that the whole house ought to be done over from top to bottom and that she intends to come down here next fall and see to it herself. I think she only half means it, though. She likes it the way it is, just as much as we do, but she won’t admit it. Aunt Martha has a real love for the romantic, but she tries hard not to let any one know it.”
“The furniture in this house must be reallyvaluable,” Bee said seriously. “Most of it is antique. Goodness knows how old that desk in the sitting-room is; and that carved-leather chest and the book-case. Why, those books alone must be worth a good deal. A book collector would rave over them. I wish I knew something about rare volumes and first editions. If I were your father I’d send for an expert and have the collection valued.”
“I’ll tell him about it,” nodded Patsy. “Only he won’t bother to do it while we’re here. He’s more interested in having the grounds put in order than anything else. He says the orange groves are not worth much because they’ve been neglected for so long. With care, he thinks they’ll do better next year. We’ve come down here too late for the real fruit season, you know. We should have been here in January or February for that. Anyway, he didn’t buy this place as a money-making venture. He thought it would be a nice winter home for us.”
“I’m lucky to have the chance to see it,” congratulated Beatrice. “If ever I become a writer, I shall put Las Golondrinas into a story. That’s a pretty name; Las Golondrinas.”
“Isn’t it, though. I suppose it was named on account of the tree swallows,” mused Patsy.“Dad says there are flocks of them here. They have blue backs and white breasts. I’m sure I saw some this morning. Oh, dear! I wish the girls would hurry. I want to start out and see the sights. Come on. Let’s remind them that time is flying.”
Catching Bee by the hand, Patsy pulled her, a willing captive, toward the sitting-room.
“Time’s up and more than up!” she announced, poking her auburn head into the big room.
“I’m ready,” responded Eleanor, rising from her chair.
“So am I—in another minute.”
Hastily addressing an envelope to her mother, Mabel tucked her letter into it, sealed and stamped it.
“There!” she ejaculated as she laid it on the little pile of letters which represented the fruits of the morning’s labor. “That’s off my mind.”
“What about you, Auntie?” questioned Patsy, noting that her dignified relative was still engaged in letter-writing. “Don’t you want to join the explorers?”
“You girls can get along very well without me,” placidly returned Miss Carroll. “I am not through with my writing. Besides, I don’t feel inclined to go exploring this morning. I warnall of you to be careful where you set foot. This old place may be infested with snakes.”
“Oh, we’ll be careful. We’ll each carry a good stout stick,” assured Beatrice. “That’s the way tourists do in the tropics, you know. On some of the South Sea Islands, I’ve read that tourists always carry what they call ‘snake sticks’ when they go calling. At night the coolies go ahead of a calling party and beat the long grass aside.”
“Very fine, Bee. I hereby appoint you chief grass-beater of the realm,” teased Mabel.
“I decline the high office,” retorted Bee. “Every Wayfarer will have to do her own bit of trail beating. As I amverybrave, I don’t mind walking ahead, though.”
“I will walk with you, Bee,” graciously offered Patsy. “Woe be to the wriggly, jiggly sarpint that crosses our path.”
In this light strain the four girls left Miss Martha to her writing and sallied forth from the coolness of the old house into the bright sunlight.
“Where shall we go first?” queried Patsy, as they paused on the drive in front of the house. “Shall we get acquainted with our numerous acres of front yard, or shall we make a bee-line for the orange groves?”
“Let’s do the groves first,” suggested Eleanor. “I’m awfully anxious to get close to real orange trees with real oranges growing on them.”
“Come on, then.”
Seizing Beatrice by the arm, Patsy piloted her around a corner of the house, Mabel and Eleanor following.
Crossing a comparatively smooth bit of lawn, at the rear of the house, the Wayfarers halted by common consent before proceeding further. Between them and the orange groves lay a wide stretch of ground, fairly overrun with tangled bush and vine. Magnificent live oak, cedar and palmetto trees, spread their noble branches over thickets of bright bloom and living green. It was extremely picturesque, but “very snaky,” as Mabel declared with a little shudder.
“There’s a darkie over yonder, clipping away that thicket!” Eleanor pointed to where an ancient, bare-footed, overalled African, wearing a huge, tattered straw hat, was industriously cutting away at a thick patch of sprawling green growth.
“Hey, there, Uncle!” called out undignified Patsy. “Come here a minute, please.”
The old man straightened up at the hail and looked rather blankly about him. Catching sightof the group of white-clad girls, he ambled slowly toward them through the long grass.
“Mornin’, young ladies,” he saluted, pulling off his ragged headgear and disclosing a thick crop of snow-white wool. “Ah reckin mebbe yoh wants Uncle Jemmy t’ tell yoh suthin’?”
“Yes, we do, Uncle,” beamed Patsy. “We wish you’d show us a path to the orange groves, if there is one. We’d like to have some good, stout sticks, too, in case we see any snakes. Aren’t you afraid to walk around in that jungle in your bare feet?”
“Laws, Missie, I’se used toh it, I is. Th’ ain’t no snaikes round heah what mounts toh much. I done see a big black snaike this mohnin’, but that fella ain’t out toh do me no damage. He am a useful snaike, he am.”
“We’ll be just as well satisfied not to meet his snakeship, even if he is so useful,” muttered Eleanor in Patsy’s ear.
“Ef yoh all young ladies’ll come along now, I’se gwine toh show yoh the way toh git toh the orange groves,” continued Uncle Jemmy. “There am a path ovah heah.”
So saying, the old man took the lead and trotted along the clipped lawn where it skirted the high grass for a distance of perhaps twentyyards. The girls followed him, single file, every pair of bright eyes intent on trying to catch a glimpse of the path.
Pausing at last, Uncle Jemmy proceeded to lop off several low-growing branches from a nearby tree. These he deftly stripped clear of twigs and foliage and, trimming them smooth with a huge, sharp-bladed pocket knife, presented one to each of the four explorers.
“Heah am yoh snaike sticks, young ladies,” he declared, showing a vast expanse of white teeth in a genial grin. “Now I’se gwine to take yoh a little furder an’ yoh’ll see de path.”
A few steps and they came abreast of a giant oak tree and here the path began, a narrow trail, but beaten hard by the passing of countless feet.
“Yoh jes’ follow de path whereber he goes and yoh-all gwine come af’er while toh de groves,” he directed.
“Thank you, Uncle Jemmy.” Patsy nodded radiant thanks. Seized by a sudden thought she asked: “Do you live around here?”
“No, Missie. I comes from Tampa, I does. Soon’s I git through this job foh Massa Carroll I gwine toh git right back toh Tampa again. It am de bes’ place fo’ Uncle Jemmy.”
“Oh!” Patsy’s face fell. Then she tried again.“Do any of these boys working with you live around here?”
“No, Missie. They done come from Miami. We am all strangahs heah.”
“I see. Thank you ever so much for helping us.”
With a kindly nod to the old man, Patsy turned to her chums who had stood listening in silence to the questions she had asked.
“Are you ready for the great adventure?” she queried. “Come along, then. One, two, three and away we go, Indian fashion!”
Bidding a smiling good-bye to Uncle Jemmy, who had now turned to go, the three girls filed into the trail behind their energetic leader. And thus the Wayfarers started off on what really was the beginning of a greater adventure than they dreamed.
Greatly to their relief, the Wayfarers were not called upon to do battle with their stout snake sticks. For a quarter of a mile they followed the narrow path. It wound in and out of the tall, coarse grass and around wide-spreading trees and ragged clumps of bushes. At length they reached the point for which they had been aiming.
“It’s simply splendiferous!” exclaimed Eleanor, as the quartette halted well inside the first grove to breathe in the fragrance of orange blossoms and feast their eyes on the beauty of the tropical scene spread out before them.
“Why, it isn’t just an orange grove!” Beatrice cried out. “Look, girls! There arelemonson that tree over yonder!”
“Yes, and see the tangerines!” Patsy pointed out. “Those stiff, funny bushes there have kumquatson them. And I do believe—yes, sir—that ragged old tree there is a banana tree. This is what I call a mixed-up old grove. I supposed oranges grew in one grove and lemons in another, etc., etc.”
“I guess we don’t know very much about it,” laughed Eleanor. “We’ll have to get busy and learn what’s what and why. Let’s walk on through this grove and see what’s in the next one. There seems to be a pretty good path down through it.”
Amid many admiring exclamations, the Wayfarers strolled on, seeing new wonders with every step they took. The brown, woody litter which covered the ground under the trees was plentifully starred with the white of fallen blossoms. To quote Mabel, “Why, we’re actually walking on flowers!”
Late in the season as it was they found considerable fruit growing within easy reach of their hands. Eager to avail themselves of the pleasure of “actually picking oranges from the trees,” the girls gathered a modest quantity of oranges and tangerines.
Warned by Mr. Carroll always to be on the watch for spiders, scorpions and wood-ticks before sitting down on the ground, Beatrice andPatsy energetically swept a place clear with a huge fallen palmetto leaf, and the four seated themselves on the dry, clean-swept space to enjoy their spoils.
All of them had yet to become adepts in the art of out-door orange eating as it is done in Florida. In consequence, they had a very delightful but exceedingly messy feast. Picking oranges at random also resulted in their finding some of the fruit sour enough to set their teeth on edge. These they promptly flung from them and went on to others more palatable.
“No more oranges for me this morning,” finally declared Eleanor, pitching the half-eaten one in her hand across the grove. “I’m soaked in juice from head to foot. Look at my skirt.”
“I’ve had enough.” Bee sprang to her feet, drying her hands on her handkerchief. “We ought to pick a few oranges to take to Miss Martha.”
“Let’s get them when we come back,” proposed Patsy. “What’s the use in lugging them around with us. I want to walk all the way through these groves to the end of the estate. Dad says it’s not more than a mile from the house to the west end of Las Golondrinas.”
“All right. Lead on, my dear Miss Carroll,”agreed Bee with a low bow. “Be sure you know where you’re going, though.”
“I know just as much about where I’m going as you do,” merrily flung back Patsy over her shoulder.
Headed by their intrepid leader, the little procession once more took the trail, wandering happily along under the scented sweetness of the orange trees. Overhead, bright-plumaged birds flew about among the gently stirring foliage. Huge golden and black butterflies fluttered past them. Among the white and gold of blossom, bees hummed a deep, steady song as they pursued their endless task of honey-gathering.
On and on they went, passing through one grove after another until they glimpsed ahead the high, wrought-iron fence which shut in the estate on all four sides. Reaching it, they could look through to a small grassy open space beyond. Behind it rose a natural grove of tall palms. Set down fairly in the middle of the grove was a squat, weather-stained cottage of grayish stone.
“Oh, see that funny little house!” was Mabel’s interested exclamation. “I wonder whom it belongs to!”
“Let’s go over and pay it a visit,” instantly proposed Patsy. “Perhaps someone lives therewho can tell us about old Manuel Fereda and Eulalie, his granddaughter. It doesn’t look as though darkies lived there. Their houses are mostly tumble-down wooden shacks. Still it may be deserted. Anyway, we might as well go over and take a look at it.”
“How are we going to get out of here?” asked Eleanor. “I don’t see a gate.”
“There must be one somewhere along the west end,” declared Bee. “Let’s start here and follow the fence. Maybe we’ll come to one.”
“We’d better walk north through the grove then. There’s no path close to the fence and that grass is too high and jungly looking to suit me,” demurred Eleanor.
Traveling northward through the grove, their eyes fixed on the fence in the hope of spying a gate, the explorers walked some distance, but saw no sign of one. Finally retracing their steps to their starting point, they headed south and eventually discovered, not a gate, but a gap in the fence where the lower part of several iron palings had been broken away, leaving an aperture large enough for a man to crawl through.
“This means us,” called Patsy and ran toward it.
Energetically beating down the grass under itwith the stick she carried, she stooped and scrambled through to the other side, emitting a little whoop of triumph as she stood erect.
One by one her three companions followed suit until the four girls were standing on the grassy clearing, which, a few rods farther on, merged levelly into the grove of palms surrounding the low stone cottage.
From the point at which they now halted they could obtain only a side view of it among the trees.
“Judging from the big cobweb on one of those windows, I should say no one lives there,” commented Eleanor.
“Itdoeslook deserted. Let’s go around to the front of it. Then we can tell more about it,” suggested Patsy.
Crossing the grassy space, the quartette entered the shady grove. A few steps brought them abreast of the front of the cottage.
“The door’s wide open! I wonder——”
Patsy broke off abruptly, her gray eyes focussing themselves upon the open doorway. In it had suddenly appeared a woman, so tall that her head missed but a little of touching the top of the rather low aperture. For an instant she stood there, motionless, staring or rather glaring at heruninvited visitors out of a pair of wild black eyes. The Wayfarers were staring equally hard at her, fascinated by this strange apparition.
What they saw was a fierce, swarthy countenance, broad and deeply lined. The woman’s massive head was crowned by a mop of snow-white hair that stood out in a brush above her terrifying features. A beak-like nose, a mouth that was merely a hard line set above a long, pointed chin, gave her the exact look of the proverbial old witch. Over the shoulders of a shapeless, grayish dress, which fell in straight ugly folds to her feet, she wore a bright scarlet shawl. It merely accentuated the witch-like effect.
In sinister silence she took the one stone step to the ground and began to move slowly forward toward the group of girls, a deep scowl drawing her bushy white brows together until they met.
“She’s crazy!” came from Mabel, in a terrified whisper. “Let’s run.”
“I willnot,” muttered Patsy. “I’m going to speak to her.”
Stepping boldly forward to meet the advancing figure, Patsy smiled winningly, and said: “Good-morning.”
“What you want?” demanded a harsh voice.
Ignoring Patsy’s polite salutation, the fearsomeold woman continued to advance, halting within four or five feet of the group of girls.
“Oh, we were just taking a walk,” Patsy brightly assured. “We saw this cottage and thought we’d like to see who lived here. We——”
“Where you live?” sharply cut in the woman.
“We are staying at Las Golondrinas. My father owns the property now. I am Patricia Carroll and these three girls are my chums,” amiably explained Patsy. “We are anxious to find someone who can tell us something about the Feredas. We are looking for——”
“You will never find!” was the shrieking interruption. “It is not for you, white-faced thieves!Madre de Dios!Old Camillo has hidden it too well. Away with you! Go, and return no more!”
This tempestuous invitation to begone was accompanied by a wild waving of the woman’s long arms. The gold hoop rings in her ears shook and swayed as she wagged a menacing head at the intruders.
“Just a minute and we will go.”
Undismayed by the unexpected burst of fury on the part of the disagreeable old woman, Patsy stood her ground unflinchingly. There was an angry sparkle in her gray eyes, however, and hervoice quivered with resentment as she continued hotly:
“I want you distinctly to understand that we arenotthieves, even though we happen to be trespassers. When we saw this cottage we thought it might belong to some one who had lived here a long time and had been well acquainted with Manuel Fereda and his granddaughter, Eulalie——”
“Eulalie! Ah-h!Ingrata!May she never rest! May the spirit of old Camillo give her no peace!”
Here the strange, fierce old creature broke into a torrent of Spanish, her voice gathering shrillness with every word. She appeared to have forgotten the presence of the Wayfarers and directed her tirade at the absent Eulalie, who was evidently very much in her bad graces.
“Come on. Let her rave. She surely is crazy. She may try to hurt us,” murmured Eleanor in Patsy’s ear.
“All right. Come on, girls.”
Tucking her arm in Eleanor’s, Patsy turned abruptly away from the ancient belligerent who was still waving her arms and sputtering unintelligibly.
Without a word the quartette hurried out ofthe palm grove, across the grassy space and made safe port on their own territory, through the gap in the fence. This accomplished, curiosity impelled each girl to peer through the palings for a last glimpse at the tempestuous cottager.
She had not been too busy anathematizing the unlucky Eulalie to be unaware of the hasty retreat of her unwelcome visitors. She had now stopped flapping her arms and was bending far forward, her fierce old eyes directed to where the Wayfarers had taken prudent refuge. Noting that they were watching her, she shook a fist savagely at them, threw up both arms menacingly as though imploring some unseen force to visit vengeance upon them, and bolted for the cottage.
“Nowwhodo you supposesheis?” broke from Bee, as the old woman disappeared.
“Ask me something easier,” shrugged Patsy. “She’s a regular old witch, isn’t she? Dad must know who she is. Funny he never said anything about her to us. Suppose we trot back to the house and watch for him. He promised, you know, at breakfast, to be back from Palm Beach in time for luncheon so as to take us down to the boathouse this afternoon. He had a business appointment with a man at the Beach. That’s why he hurried away so fast this morning.”
Suiting the action to the word, the Wayfarers started back through the orange groves, discussing with animation the little adventure with which they had recently met.
“That woman was Spanish, of course,” declaredBeatrice. “Could you understand her, Mab, when she trailed off into Spanish, all of a sudden? She said ‘ingrata.’ I caught that much. What does it mean?”
“It means ‘the ungrateful one,’” Mabel answered. “I couldn’t understand much of what she said. I caught the words, ‘Camillo, Manuel, Eulalie,’ and something about a spirit torturing somebody—Eulalie, I suppose she meant. ‘Madre de Dios’ means ‘Mother of God,’ or ‘Holy Mother.’ It’s a very common form of expression among the Mexicans. I believe this woman is a Mexican.”
“We know who Eulalie is. By Manuel she must have meant the Manuel Fereda who died just a little while ago,” said Bee reflectively. “But who in the world is or was old Camillo? And what did he hide? What made her call us ‘white-faced thieves’? What is it that we’ll never find? Will somebody please answer these simple questions?”
“Answer them yourself,” challenged Patsy gaily. “We’ll be delighted to have you do it. You know you are fond of puzzling things out.”
“It sounds—well——” Bee laughed, hesitated, then added: “Mysterious.”
“Exactly,” warmly concurred Patsy. “We’veactually stumbled upon something mysterious the very first thing. I knew, all the time, that we were going to find something queer about this old place.”
“I don’t think there’s anything very mysterious about a tousle-headed old crazy woman,” sniffed Mabel. “She certainly didn’t act like a sane person. Maybe she had delusions or something of the sort.”
“Perhapshername is Camillo,” suggested Bee, her mind still occupied with trying to figure out to whom the name belonged.
“No.” Mabel shook her head. “Camillo is aman’sname, not a woman’s. She might have meant her husband or her brother. Goodness knows whom she meant. I tell you, she’s a lunatic and that’s all there is to it. If we hadn’t been armed with four big sticks she might have laid hands on us.”
“Well, Uncle Jemmy’s snake sticks were some protection, anyhow,” laughed Eleanor. “I’m going to keep mine and lug it around with me wherever I go. I may——”
A wild shriek from Mabel left the sentence unfinished. Walking a pace or two ahead of the others, Mabel had almost stumbled upon a huge black snake, coiled in a sunny spot between thetrees. Quite as much startled as she, the big, harmless reptile uncoiled his shining black folds in a hurry and slid for cover.
“Oh!” she gasped. “Did youseehim? He was a whopper! And I almost stepped on him! He might have bitten me.”
“Black snakes don’t bite, you goose,” reassured intrepid Patsy. “He was probably more scared at the yell you gave than you were to see him. He must be the same one Uncle Jemmy saw this morning.”
“Maybe he’s been raised a pet,” giggled Eleanor. “We may get to know him well enough to speak to when we fall over him coiled up on various parts of the estate. If you ever get really well acquainted with him, Mab, you can apologize to him for yelling in his ears.”
“First find his ears,” jeered Mabel, who had sufficiently recovered from the scare to retaliate.
“Our second adventure,” commented Beatrice. “Wonder what the next will be.”
“Nothing more weird or exciting than luncheon, I guess,” said Patsy. “There! We forgot to pick those oranges we were going to take to Auntie.”
“Let’s go back and get them,” proposed Eleanor.
“Oh, never mind. I dare say there are plenty of oranges at the house,” returned Patsy. “Auntie won’t mind. We’ll go down to the grove to-morrow and pick a whole basketful for her.”
By this time the Wayfarers were nearing the house. Rounding a corner of the building they spied Mr. Carroll some distance down the drive. He was sitting in his car engaged in conversation with a white man who stood beside it. Both men were too far away from the girls for them to be able to make out plainly the stranger’s features. They could tell little about him save that he was tall, slim, dark and roughly dressed.
“That must be the new man,” instantly surmised Patsy.
Pausing, she shaded her eyes with one hand, to shut out the glaring sunlight, and stared curiously at the stranger.
“Can’t tell much about him,” she remarked. “There; he’s started down the drive. Now we’ll find out from Dad who he is.”
The stranger, having turned away, Mr. Carroll had started the car and was coming slowly up the drive. Sighting the group of white-clad girls he waved to them.
“Hello, children!” he saluted, as he stopped the car within a few feet of them. “Where have youbeen spending the morning? Want to ride up to the house?”
“No, thank you,” was the answering chorus, as the girls gathered about the automobile.
“We’ve been exploring, Dad,” informed Patsy. “Is that the new man? I mean the one you were just talking to.”
“Yes. I met him at the gate. He had been up to the house looking for me. His name is Crespo; Carlos Crespo. He’s a Mexican. He tells me he used to work for old Fereda. That he was practically brought up on the estate.”
“Then he’s the very man we want!” exclaimed Beatrice eagerly. “He’ll be able to tell us about the Feredas.”
“I doubt your getting much information from him,” returned Mr. Carroll. “He seems to be a taciturn fellow. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t very favorably impressed by him. He acted sulky, it seemed to me. I’m going to give him a trial, because it’s so hard to get a white man for the job. I can’t afford to let this one slip without giving him a chance. If I find him balky, and ungracious to your aunt and you girls, I’ll let him go. He says he knows nothing about automobiles, but a great deal about horses.”
“Oh, well, we don’t want him as chauffeur,anyway,” declared Patsy. “You and I can do all the driving. He’ll be handy when we go on our trip into the jungle. He can attend to the horses. Very likely, when he gets used to us, he’ll be fairly amiable. He can’t be any more snippy and disobliging than John was last summer while we were at Wilderness Lodge. He was positivelyhatefulto us. Of course, that was all on account of his loyalty to that horrid Rupert Grandin. If this Carlos man proves honest and dependable, we sha’n’t mind if he sulks at first. He’ll probably get over it as he comes to know us better. We had an adventure this morning, Dad.”
Patsy straightway left the subject of the new man and plunged into a colorful account of their meeting with the strange old woman.
“Do you know who she is, Mr. Carroll? Did you ever see her?” questioned Mabel eagerly.
“No.” Mr. Carroll shook his head. “She must be the woman one of my colored boys was trying to tell me about the other day. He described the cottage you’ve just mentioned and said a ‘voodoo’ woman lived there who was ‘a heap sight crazy.’ He claimed he saw her out in her yard late one night ‘making spells.’ I didn’t pay much attention to him, for these darkies are full of superstitions and weird yarns.”
“We’ll ask Carlos about her,” decided Patsy. “That makes two things we’re going to quiz him about; the ‘voodoo’ lady and the Feredas. When is he to begin working for you, Dad?”
“He’ll be back this afternoon. I’m going to set him to work at clearing up the stable. It’s a regular rubbish shack. I’ll give him a gang of black boys to help him. I’m anxious to have it put in trim as soon as possible. To-morrow I must go over to the stock farm and see about getting some horses for our use while here. I’ll take Carlos with me and then we’ll see how much he knows about horses.”
“We’d better be moving along. We promised Miss Martha to be back in plenty of time for luncheon,” reminded Mabel.
“I’ll see you girls at the house,” Mr. Carroll said. “I’m going to take the car to the garage. We’ll hardly need it this afternoon. The Wayfarers are such famous hikers, they’ll scorn riding to the beach,” he slyly added.
“Of course we are famous hikers. Certainly we intend to walk to the beach,” sturdily concurred Patsy.
“Scatter then, and give me the road,” playfully ordered her father.
Moving briskly out of the way of the big machine,the chums followed it up the drive at a leisurely pace.
“Well have to change our gowns before luncheon.”
Eleanor ruefully inspected her crumpled white linen skirt, plentifully stained with orange juice.
The others agreeing, they quickened their pace and reaching the house hurriedly ascended to their rooms to make the desired change. As usual Mabel and Eleanor were rooming together. Patsy and Bee shared a large airy room next to that occupied by the two Perry girls. Miss Martha roomed in lonely state in a huge, high-ceilinged chamber across the corridor from the rooms of her flock.
“I don’t care whether or not this Carlos man acts sulky,” confided Patsy to Bee when the two girls were by themselves in their own room. “I’m going to beam on him like a real Cheshire cat. He’ll be so impressed by my vast amiability that he’ll be telling me all about the Feredas before you can say Jack Robinson. I’m awfully interested in this queer family and I simply must satisfy my curiosity. Do you really believe, Bee, that thereisa mystery about them?”
“I don’t know whether there’s any mystery about the Feredas themselves,” Bee said slowly.“That old woman may or may not be crazy. I was watching her closely all the time we stood there. At first she was just suspicious of us as being strangers. It was your saying that we were living at Las Golondrinas and that your father owned the property that made her so furious. She had some strong reason of her own for being so upset at hearing that.”
“Maybe she used to be a servant in the Fereda family and on that account can’t bear to see strangers living here in their place,” Patsy hazarded.
“I thought of that, too. It would account for her tirade against Eulalie. I believe there’s more to it than that, though, else why should she call us thieves and go on as she did?”
Bee reflectively repeated the question she had earlier propounded.
“That’s precisely what we are going to find out,” Patsy said with determination.
“But you know what your aunt said,” Bee dubiously reminded.
“Don’t you worry about Auntie,” smiled Patsy. “When we tell her at luncheon about our adventure she’ll probably say we had no business to trespass. You let me do the talking. I sha’n’t mention the word ‘mystery.’ I’ll justinnocently ask her what she thinks the old witch woman could have meant. She’ll be interested, even if she pretends that she isn’t. Last summer, at Wilderness Lodge, she was as anxious as we for the missing will to be found. If there is truly a mystery about Las Golondrinas, Aunt Martha will soon be on the trail of it with the Wayfarers. Take my word for it.”