CHAPTER XIII
Inanswer to Dick’s reassuring call “Here she is!” the Round Robin came running, pale and anxious, to greet Anne. Not a word of reproach did she hear. Only affectionate joy that she was safe.
The girls had re-climbed the mountain as soon as they missed Anne, and had hunted for her up and down, until they saw it was growing late, when they were afraid of being overtaken by the dark. When they returned with the news that Anne was lost, the Camp was in consternation. Dick wanted to start out immediately on search. But Tante made the boy wait to hear what Captain Sackett should advise, after Nelly had told him.
While Anne had her late supper the others gathered round to hear her story. The Twinscould not get close enough to her. But mindful of the tall stranger’s caution, Anne did not mention the hut in the woods, nor say much about the man who had brought her home; though she did mention the cave, at which word Dick pricked up his ears.
Even while Anne was concluding her description of how it felt to be lost alone on the mountain; and while the Twins were still shivering to think how dreadful it would have been to stay out there all night, Captain Sackett came striding up. His wrinkled face was anxious and drawn. He carried a lantern in his hand, evidently prepared to make search through the dark for the lost girl.
“Any news?” he called from a distance, unable to wait. And when they shouted “Found!” he gave a low fervent ejaculation of thanksgiving that went straight to Anne’s heart. “I didn’t know anybody cared so much about me!” she said to herself.
“Nelly’s almost sick,” said the Captain. “She blames herself for having let Anne get lost. For of course, this one’s a tender-foot, though she has lived in these parts longer thanNelly has. The girl oughtn’t to have let Anne stray off. I told her so!” The Cap’n looked unwontedly stern for him.
“Oh, it wasn’t Nelly’s fault,” Anne hastened to say. “It was my own doing. I didn’t follow my leader, but stopped without telling. And that was breaking the Club rule. It was silly of me! I’m sorry.” Anne drooped, very tired and ashamed.
The Captain looked at her kindly. “That’s right,” he said with approval. “Not ashamed to say you’re sorry when it’s your own fault. Well, I’m glad it turned out all right! That saves me a hunt to-night. I’ll hurry back and tell Nelly, so she and Polly won’t be worryin’. And I’ll tell Maguire and Chatto they won’t have to comb the mountain with me after all. You would have had the whole neighborhood busy huntin’ for you, girl!” he said to Anne, grinning affectionately.
“Oh, I shouldn’t think they’d do it forme!” said Anne humbly, remembering how little notice she had ever taken of the people at the Harbor. She didn’t even know the men who belonged to those names.
“Neighbors are neighbors,” said the old man. “Everybody turns to and helps in time of trouble, don’t they? That’s American!”
“Tell Nelly she is a splendid leader,” said Anne shyly, “and I’ll never hang back again on a trail. And please tell her I am coming over to-morrow to see her—and the rabbit.”
Everybody was glad enough to go to bed, tired and frightened as they all had been in various ways. But they did not all go immediately to sleep. After Anne and Beverly were safely tucked into their little cots, the southern girl whispered another story to her tent-mate’s astonished and horrified ears; a tale with which she had decided not to burden the already over-worried Tante until to-morrow.
“Who do you fancy your old man was, Anne?” she drawled. “Because I daresay he was the same man who was hunting the deer, and who so nearly shot me. But how could he be in two places at the same time, on the sea-shore and in the woods? Unless he has the Seven League Boots that Nancy is always talking about.”
“Nearly shot you, Beverly? What do you mean?” Anne who was almost ready for sleep, came wide awake again and sat up in bed with a gasp of horror.
“Why, didn’t anybody tell you-all? It was like this. We were poking down the mountain the second time, pretty tired and discouraged because we couldn’t find you, Anne. It seemed awful to leave you there alone on the mountain, and night coming on. It makes me creep to think of it now! Those dark woods! But what could we do?”
“I was a goose,” said Anne. “How tired you must all be!”
“Well, Nancy was a little ahead,” Beverly went on. “She didn’t seem so tired as the rest of us, and Nelly was close behind her. Nelly had just said ‘We must keep together, girls, for it is growing darker.’ When Norma cried ‘Hark! I hear something!’ You know how sharp her ears are, being a musician? ‘It must be Anne coming!’ I said, and I was pleased. So I ran out to meet you. Something brown was coming, sure enough, justthe color of our khaki suits. It came leaping and crackling the bushes, as if frightened. And then I saw it was a beautiful tawny deer followed by two baby fawns, like long-legged yellow dogs. They were coming straight towards me, the pretty things! But when they spied us they swerved abruptly and bounded away into the underbrush and were out of sight in a minute. We were so surprised that we didn’t move or speak a word. Then all of a sudden Nelly Sackett who was close to me gave a jump right at me and knocked me down on the ground.”
“Why, what did she do that for?” cried Anne.
“Lucky she did!” answered Beverly. “It was the quickest thing you ever saw, and it saved my life. ‘Don’t fire!’ yelled Nelly as she jumped. But in that very same instant there was a rifle-crack. The bullet must have gone right over my head. It hit the tree behind me!”
“Oh, Beverly! Who fired it?”
“I don’t know who he was. But a minutelater a man’s head poked out of the bushes. He had the most wicked, dark face, but he looked frightened enough then. ‘I thought it was a deer,’ he said in a gruff voice with a curious accent. ‘Didn’t mean nothin’.’ And without another word he disappeared.”
“That must have been the shot I heard!” said Anne. “O Beverly, if I had known what it was! How brave Nelly was to save you!”
“That makes another hero in that family,” said Beverly. “They just seem to do the right thing when the time comes, don’t they?”
“Beverly, what did that man look like?” asked Anne thoughtfully.
“He was short and dingy, with a black beard and little bright eyes,” she answered. “He wore a cap and a red shirt. I couldn’t see any more in that quick minute. But I reckon he was some kind of strange foreigner.” Beverly’s voice was growing drowsy, and she drawled more than ever.
“It wasn’t my man!” thought Anne. “I wonder which of them lives in the ‘ha’nted house’? And what is he doing there all byhimself? I wonder what that man meant by ‘Scalawag’? And oh, how glad I am Beverly was not killed!”
With a grateful heart at the end of an eventful day, Anne fell asleep.