CHAPTER XXII
UNSEEN VISITORS
UNSEEN VISITORS
UNSEEN VISITORS
The girls clung to one another, after their first few frightened screams of dismay, and then Mrs. Bonnell exclaimed:
“Oh, Natalie! How could you? To frighten us so!”
“I didn’t mean to. But really I did see something at the window.”
“Probably a rag fluttering in the wind,” spoke Alice.
“Maybe,” assented Natalie, with a nervous glance at the broken casement. “And yet do fluttering rags have dark eyes, that look hopelessly at you?”
“Did you see that?” demanded Mabel.
“I—I think I did.”
“I guess Nat’s been reading too many novels,” was Marie’s opinion.
“I have not! There isn’t a thing up here to read anyhow, if I wanted to. I was thinking of sending for a few. But Ididsee a face at that window,” and Natalie shook her pretty head vigorously to emphasize her words. “It was just as you spoke,” she went on, addressing Old Hanson.
“I wouldn’t be at all s’prised,” he admitted. “I’m sure there’s a hant here, and that’s why I’m movin’. I wouldn’t stay here another night.”
“Tell us more about it,” urged Mrs. Bonnell. “Maybe it can all be explained by natural causes. I never heard of a ghost yet, that couldn’t.”
“This ’un can’t!” declared the old hermit. “Sech groans an’ cries, an’ goin’s on! An’ cold winds sweeping over you ’fore you know what’s up.”
“Maybe you left a door open?” suggested Marie.
“No’m, I never do that. It’s the ghost—that’s what ’tis. Th’ mill is haunted. I’ve allers heard ’twas, but I never believed it until lately. Now, I’m goin’ to quit!”
The girls and the Guardian gathered closer together and watched the preparations to move on the part of Old Hanson. He had most of his household goods out of the shack next to the mill now. As he went back for something one of the horses started slightly.
“There it is! There it is!” suddenly cried the old hermit from within the shack. “It jest brushed past me! I felt a cold hand on the back of my neck! Oh, I’m a goner! I’m doomed. It’s the call of fate!”
“Whoa there!” called the farm hand to the restless steeds, that had jumped nervously at the sound of the old man’s weird scream.
“Come on!” cried Natalie. “I’ve had enough of this. I won’t sleep a wink to-night. Come on, girls!”
“Yes, it’s—getting late,” added Marie. “We must get back to camp.”
“Not to mention staying here after dark,” added Mabel. “Oh! Perhaps it’s silly, but I don’t like it. Are you sure you saw something, Nat?”
“Of course I did. I don’t know what it was, but it looked like a face— Oh, don’t let’s talk about it,” she begged.
Mr. Rossmore had rushed from the shack with the last few of his household goods. He threw them into the wagon.
“Go on!” he cried to the farm hand. “Drive away from here as fast as you can. I don’t ever want to see the place again. It near had me that time.”
“What was it?” demanded Mrs. Bonnell.
“The hant, sure. Oh, what a place!” and leaping up on the wagon seat he called to the horses which seemed glad enough to leave the eerie place.
“Come on, girls!” cried Natalie, as the wagon rattled off down the road. “We must get back to camp.”
“Before dark,” added Mabel.
“My! but we’ve had a full day!” declared Alice. “But we found the Gypsy camp.”
“And a lot of good it did us,” said Marie. “We didn’t locate the girl we wanted.”
“Oh, the police can do that,” said Mrs. Bonnell. “We’ll tell them where the camp is, and the constables can look after the suspects.”
With a last glance at the old mill, which seemed silent and deserted enough now, and a parting look at the disappearing wagon, the Camp Fire Girls made their way to where they had left their boats. Soon they were rowing over the peaceful lake, which the setting sun was painting in hues of vermillion, olive and yellow.
“Isn’t it beautiful,” said Natalie softly, as she hummed a few strains of “The Land of the Sky-blue Water.” “Beautiful!”
“And to think of the old mill and—” began Marie.
“Don’t,” suggested Alice. “Let’s enjoy the sunset.”
Silently they rowed onward, their faces to the glorious colors in the west.
“Wo-he-lo! Wo-he-lo!” suddenly called Marie, as they neared the shore. “Wo-he-lo!”
“What is it? Who is it?” asked Mabel.
“The boys. There they are on shore, waiting for us,” and she waved her hand.
Over the water came floating the echo of the call of the Camp Fire Girls:
“Wo-he-lo!”
“Work—health—love!” murmured Natalie. “What a wonderful combination for—girls.”
“And the greatest of these is—love,” softly quoted Alice.
“I’m thinking of that poor Gypsy girl,” murmured Natalie. “She perhaps had plenty of work—but I wonder how much of—love? Did she have any?”
“She had health, at any rate,” observed Mabel, as she pulled on her left oar to change the course of the craft.
“Of course—if she was anything like the other girls in the camp,” admitted Natalie. “But perhaps she has been driven away—maybe the rest of the tribe found she had been—been taking things, and drove her away. She may have taken her health with her, but very little of love, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, no doubt some of those Gypsy lads, with their beautifully white teeth, are in love with her,” suggested Mabel.
“That isn’t the only kind of love there is,” said Natalie softly.
“Oh, my! How romantic we’re getting!” cried Alice. “I declare, that haunted mill must have affected all of us.”
“Let’s forget it,” suggested Mrs. Bonnell. “I wonder what the boys want? They seem a bit excited.”
The three chums were hurrying down to the water’s edge and, as the boats approached, Blake hailed the girls.
“Where have you been?” he demanded.
“Out for a row,” evaded Marie.
“Were you over to our camp?” asked Jack.
“Your camp? No,” answered his sister. “What do you mean?”
“Why some one has been there and about cleaned us out of grub. We thought maybe you girls had borrowed some.”
“Indeed not,” answered Marie. “We are just getting back. We’ve been to Bear Pond again. But, girls!” she exclaimed, “if the boys have had unseen visitors, perhaps we have too. Let’s look,” and, springing from the boat she hurried up to the tents.