CHAPTER IX
AN EXCITED CONSTABLE
AN EXCITED CONSTABLE
AN EXCITED CONSTABLE
“What was that?” whispered Marie.
“Some one is hurt!” murmured Natalie.
Mrs. Bonnell began a search for her useful little ammonia gun, but found she had left it in camp.
“Where was that noise, fellows?” demanded practical Jack. Before any of them could answer him the groan sounded again, louder than before. With a bound Marie was out of the door narrowly missing a fall on the rickety steps. Mabel followed, but Natalie and Alice stood their ground, perhaps because Mrs. Bonnell had grasped each of them by an arm.
“Don’t be silly,” exclaimed Phil. “Probably it’s only a tramp who’s talking in his sleep.”
“A tramp!” gasped Natalie.
“Come out of here!” demanded Alice, getting, ready for a retreat.
“It was upstairs,” said Blake, indicating a flight of rotting steps. “Some one is up there.”
Again the groan sounded, and there was no mistaking it. It did come from above their heads. Then a voice called:
“Is any one there? Help me! I’ve had a fall!”
“It’s old man Hanson!” exclaimed Jack. “He’s up there. Come on, boys!”
He sprang forward. Blake called after him:
“Be careful of those stairs. They look as if they’d come down if you blew on ’em.”
“If they held him to go up, they’ll stand for me,” declared Jack. “Come on!”
“Let’s go outside,” suggested Mrs. Bonnell. “If you need us, boys, you can call us,” she added. “If he is hurt, I know something about first-aid work.”
“We’ll call you if we need you,” replied Blake. “Now let’s have a look.”
Cautiously they went up the shaky stairs, one at a time so as not to put too much of a strain on them. At first it was so dark in the second story that they could see nothing. Then Jack called:
“What’s the matter? Who is it? Are you hurt?”
“It’s me—Hanson Rossmore,” was the halting answer. “I tripped in a hole and sprained my ankle I guess. Can you help me down?”
“I guess so,” answered Jack. “Let’s get a little light on the subject though,” and he opened one of the old solid-wood shutters, that covered the glassless window.
They saw the old hermit, for such he was, lying in the corner of what had evidently been a storeroom of the old mill. He seemed in pain, and one leg was doubled under him.
“How did it happen?” asked Jack, as the boys raised him up.
“Ouch! Oh, my!” he cried, as the weight came on the injured foot. “I can’t step on it.”
“Wait, I’ll get you a stick,” volunteered Blake, hurrying outside.
“Is he—is he dead?” asked Mabel.
“Dead! And him groaning the way he did? Not much!” cried the lad. “It’s only a sprained ankle or something like that. We’ll get him to his shack and he’ll be all right.”
“Poor old man,” murmured Natalie.
With the help of the improvised cane, and with a lad on either side of him, they managed to get Old Hanson down the stairs, though they were in fear lest every step would bring the whole flight down about them, so rickety was it.
“What were you doing up there?” asked Blake, as they led him out of the door, and toward his own little shack.
“Oh, just looking around—looking around,” he murmured. “I used to work in this mill when I was a boy, and it has memories for me—memories—yes memories. Some happy and some sad. I’m an old man!”
They got him to his hut, and then took off his shoe. His left ankle was much swollen, though it appeared to be more of a cut than a sprain that had caused the injury. Under the direction of Mrs. Bonnell they bandaged it with rags they found, wringing them out of hot water, for Blake made a fire in the old stove.
“It’s kind of you—right kind—to bother with an old hulk like me,” went on Old Hanson. “That feels a lot better. I had a daughter once,” he said, looking fixedly at Natalie. “She was like you, in a way. That’s why I was so startled by your face the first time I saw you. But she’s gone—gone.”
“Where?” asked Jack.
“How should I know?” came the rather angry retort. “I don’t know. I only go up in the old mill when I want to think about her. I was there to-day. I stepped in a hole—the old mill is falling apart, just as I am—it’s getting old like me, only I’ll never be as old as that.
“It’s older than the Indians. The Indians were here once. They killed some settlers in the mill. Sometimes in the night I hear cries—cries of——”
“That’ll do!” interrupted Blake a bit sternly, seeing that the old chap was getting on the nerves of the girls who stood outside the shack. “You’ll work into a fever if you’re not careful. Never mind about the past.”
“It’s all I live in,” said the hermit simply. “But I won’t say anything more. I wonder how I’m to get about?”
“It will be all right in a day or so,” said Mrs. Bonnell who had looked at it. “It isn’t a bad cut. Just keep your weight off it. We’ll bring you some food so you won’t have to go out.”
“Thanks,” he murmured, as he lay back in an old chair.
The boys did what they could for him, and then left with the girls in the launch, promising to come back later with food enough to last for several days.
This they did, the Camp Fire Girls insisting on providing their share, for they felt kindly toward the old man, and, as Mabel said, they were pledged to give service, and here was a chance to do it.
With the boys, they also paid him another visit, finding him much improved. He could hobble about, and inside of a week he was able to resume his odd tasks about the lake, for he was hired by a number of the cottagers and campers to look after their places.
Green Lake was beginning to assume life. Many new camps were opened, as well as a number of summer residences. The Camp Fire Girls were delighted with their new life. They got into the swing of living in the open, sleeping in a tent, and dining as they pleased.
“It’s the ideal of the simple life,” declared Marie. “I wonder we never thought of it before.”
“And we all feel so much better,” added Mabel.
They had established a sort of routine, for Mrs. Bonnell realized the necessity of this, and the work, well divided, was not a task at all. Breakfast over they made the camp “slick,” as the boys expressed it, though the lads did not always follow that injunction themselves. Then came a row or a paddle on the lake, for they had hired a canoe, and a row boat. Or perhaps they went out with the boys.
There was the trip to the nearest post-office for mail, or to drop letters home and to friends. Then there was the buying of supplies, though the butcher and grocer, now that the lake shores were better populated, came every day.
Followed next the mid-day meal. Then more pleasures of the woods or water, receiving visitors, or making calls on new acquaintances.
They did not lack for enjoyment in the evenings. Either they went to their brothers’ camp, or the boys, their forces augmented by such of their friends as they condescended to ask, called. Then there were dances over to the “Point”, the place where a cluster of stores were located. Then to bed, with the assurance of a sound sleep in that healthful air. It was an ideal sort of existence.
On occasions they held the regular Council Camp Fires, with all the prescribed ceremonies. There was the lighting of the fire, the singing of the songs and the Indian music;—the song of the “Sky-blue Water.”
Sometimes it rained, and they could only sit in the tent, though when it did not pour too hard they put on their bathing costumes, and went out in the canoe.
“Who’s turn to get dinner to-day?” asked Marie one morning, as they came back from a launch ride, bringing some dainties to supplement the regular camp-fare.
“Mine, I think,” spoke Natalie. “What would you like?”
There were four different kinds of meals ordered, and each one insisted on something different until breath-of-the-pine-tree exclaimed:
“Now I shall have to make up my own bill of fare. All of you go off in the woods, and when it’s ready I’ll give our call.”
“All right, Natalie,” they assented and off they trooped.
Natalie, in her Camp Fire suit, which wonderfully became her, with her dark braids down her back, and with a golden bandeau confining the locks over her broad forehead set about her task.
She was setting the table, giving attention the while to the oil stove, which evinced a propensity to smoke, when she heard the crunch of gravel at the lake shore.
Looking up, expecting to see one of the boys, she beheld a grizzled, stoop-shouldered little man approaching. On the breast of his coat was a shiny nickel star, and as he saw Natalie, looking more than ever like an Indian maid with her coat of tan, he exclaimed:
“I want you!”
“Wh—what?” she gasped, looking about in dismay for a sight of her friends.
“I want you. No foolin’ now. I know you! You’re dressed jest as they said you was. Now you come along with me or it’ll be th’ wuss fer ye! I’m Constable Jackson, I be, an’ I know my duty. I’ve got th’ law with me!” he added, excitedly tapping the star on his coat. “This is th’ law, an’ I want you.”
Natalie shrank back frightened as the man advanced. She thought she had to do with some over-bold tramp, and was about to call for help. Before she could flee, the man sprang to her side. He was about to grasp her by the arm, when he was suddenly whirled to one side, and the welcome voice of Blake Lathrop exclaimed:
“That’ll do you! What do you want, anyhow?” and he stepped in front of Natalie.