CHAPTER XXIII
MYSTIFICATION
MYSTIFICATION
MYSTIFICATION
“Anything missing?” gasped Mrs. Bonnell, as she came up the slope from the lake, whither Natalie had sped in advance.
“Don’t you dare tell us there is!” cried Marie.
“There doesn’t seem to be,” went on the Guardian, whose rather short breath bore to her the unwelcome intelligence that she was getting stout. “I really must exercise more,” she told herself. “I am positively getting indolent, and in camp—of all things!”
“Everything seems to be as we left it,” declared Natalie after a hurried glance around, while Mrs. Bonnell sat down on a board nailed between two trees making a rustic seat.
“They could easily have opened our tent, gone in and tied the flaps back again,” suggested Alice. “Do hurry and look in, Nat!” for breath-of-the-pine-tree was fumbling with the knots of the cords.
“We must learn to tie some of the queer knots the boy scouts have in their manual book,” suggested Mabel.
By this time Natalie had succeeded in loosening the tent-flaps. With the boys gathered in a circle back of them the girls peered into their sleeping and living quarters.
“Everything seems all right,” murmured Natalie.
“Unlock the trunks and make sure,” suggested Alice. “If they have taken my best dress I——”
“You won’t go over to the dance at the Point to-morrow night; will you?” asked Jack.
“Indeed, I’ll not. But don’t suggest such a thing!”
The girls crowded into the tent, and a hurried search disclosed that, so far as they could tell, nothing was missing.
“Though they may have taken all our things to eat,” said Marie. “If they have, we’ll have to depend on you boys.”
“Huh! We’re cleaned out,” exclaimed Phil. “We came to get enough of your stuff for supper.”
“You poor boys!” murmured Mabel.
“This is the first they’ve thought of us,” declared Blake. “They’re so anxious about their own stuff that they didn’t care what had happened to ours.”
“Oh, we did so!” declared Alice. “Only you frightened us, meeting us the way you did.”
“Tell us all about it,” urged Natalie.
“There isn’t anything to tell,” replied Jack. “We had been off fishing, and when we came back we found our pantry pretty well cleaned out. Lucky we didn’t have an awful lot. We had to stock up again to-morrow, anyhow.”
“Let’s go over and take a look, girls,” proposed Marie. “We won’t need to get much for supper. There are some cold beans and——”
“What about us?” came from Jack. “Don’t you s’pose we want to eat?”
“Well, you can come to supper with us,” suggested Mrs. Bonnell. “After that we’ll all go over to the Point in the motor-boat—that is if it runs—and we’ll stock up.”
“Good!” cried Blake. “And we’ll have a dance after it.”
“Then come on!” proposed Alice. “We’ll look for clues, and decide who it is took their things.”
“Ha! Ha! That’s a good one!” jeered Jack. “Look for clues! Why you couldn’t even find your way home from Bear Pond!”
“But we did to-day,” said his sister quietly.
“You did? Were you over there again?”
“We were,” replied Marie.
“You must be fond of the place,” suggested Jack. “What did you find this time—a snake?”
“We located the Gypsy Camp,” said Natalie gently.
“You did?” chorused the boys, all excitement.
“We did,” went on Natalie. “And we’re going to tell the constable about it, and see if he can get back Mabel’s mother’s ring—it was the same band of Gypsies we think.”
“The same band!” cried Jack.
“Yes,” continued Mabel. “There was a Hadee in it, only she was missing. And we had our fortunes told, and there seemed to be some excitement in the camp, and——”
“Don’t tell it all!” exclaimed Mabel. “Leave some for the rest of us. Old Hanson is moving, boys because——”
“He saw a ghost!” broke in Alice.
“He heard it, you mean,” corrected Marie. “Nat was the only one who saw it.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Natalie, doubtfully.
“Say, kindly translate,” begged Blake in a weak voice as he pretended to support himself against Jack. “What does all this mean, anyhow?”
“It’s got me going,” admitted Phil.
“Let me sit down—then please tell it all over again,” pleaded Jack. “Now proceed,” and he took a seat beside Mrs. Bonnell.
Gradually the girls gave a connected story of their trip that afternoon, including their meeting with the man of the old mill.
“And to cap the climax,” finished Natalie, “you boys meet us and say your camp has been looted—is that the proper word?”
“We’ll permit you to use it semi-occasionally,” said Blake, “though I think it is taboo in Camp Fire Girls’ rules.”
“Well, anyhow, let’s go over and see what we can find in the boys’ camp,” suggested Marie.
“After what you have gone through with to-day you can accomplish anything,” declared Blake. “To think of you finding the Gypsy camp at Bear Pond, when, all the while, we had a notion that it was at Mt. Harry.”
“And we’ve been trying to locate it there,” added Phil.
“We know it,” laughed Marie. “That’s why we didn’t tell you where we were going. We wanted to surprise you.”
“And you succeeded beautifully,” put in her brother. “Come on over to our desolate abode. Maybe you can look at the place where the dog biscuits were kept and tell what kind of an ostrich ate them.”
“I have it!” suddenly cried Natalie, while they all prepared to walk to the other camp.
“What—the dog biscuits?” demanded Jack.
“No, but I know who has been at your camp. It’s some of the Gypsies—that’s why they were so excited to-day when we had our fortunes told. They knew we girls were friends of yours, and they thought we had come to spy on them.”
“Well, we hope youarefriends of ours,” spoke Jack, “but as for the Gypsies suspecting that you had come to spy on them, because our camp had been looted, as Nat puts it, why it couldn’t be. They must have known you made an early start, and they didn’t come to our camp—if it was they who did it—until after you had left here. No, you’ve got to think up a better reason than that.”
“Well, I’m sure the Gypsies were at your camp,” insisted Mabel.
“A woman’s reason—because,” laughed Jack.
They were soon at the boys’ camp, and in the gathering dusk the girls were shown where a box containing the provisions had been broken open, and a considerable quantity of supplies taken.
“Did they only take victuals?” asked Mrs. Bonnell.
“I guess so,” answered Phil. “We didn’t look after we found that our grub—I beg your pardon, ladies, I should say our choice viands—were taken,” and he bowed low.
Blake who had gone into the sleeping tent came out with a woeful face.
“It’s gone!” he cried. “It’s gone!”
“What?” demanded Natalie.
“My best silk handkerchief!” cried Blake. “I paid two dollars for it—all the colors of the rainbow, too! Oh, woe is me!”
“Well, if I’m glad of one thing, I’m glad that’s missing!” fairly yelled Jack. “Of all the gaudy Italian opera effects that was the limit! You could hear it halfway across the lake. I couldn’t sleep with it in the same tent. Now, we’ll have some peace!”
“Is it really gone, Blake?” asked Alice.
“It sure is.”
“And I was hoping I’d fall heir to that to make a sash of,” his sister went on. “But it proves one thing.”
“Oh, yes!” Blake exclaimed sarcastically. “As long as we get some proof out of it, no matter whether or not our whole camp is looted—notice that word looted. Well, sis, what is it that’s proved?”
“The Gypsies were here.”
“Huh! We knew that before.”
“But this makes it certain. Gypsies, as you know, are very fond of bright-colored articles—especially to wear. They could not resist your handkerchief.”
“Encyclopædia Britannica—volume Gyp to Jap!” exclaimed Blake. “With marginal notes on colored handkerchiefs and silk weaving in particular. Sis, you’re a wonder! Fellows; bustle around and see what you’ve missed. Maybe she can build up a theory to prove that a fish climbed out of the water and took my handkerchief to make a hammock for the little ones. Is it not mar-vee-li-ous!”
“Horrid thing!” pouted Alice. “I was trying to help you.”
“I think she’s right,” announced Natalie, and, as she was no one’s sister, the boys at once changed their viewpoint.
“Well, there may be something in it,” admitted Blake. “Gypsies sure do like bright-colored things. But why did they stop at my handkerchief? Why didn’t they take some of those rainbow neckties that Phil insists on tearing the atmosphere with; or some of Jack’s——”
“That’ll do old man!” came from the latter quickly. “There are some objects too sacred to mention. Let us have peace.”
“I say let’s have supper,” broke in Marie. “We’re nearly starved. If you boys are coming over with us, come on. We can theorize later.”
“Good idea,” declared Phil. “Lead on—we’ll all follow.”
“Perhaps the ladies have a few more deductions to make,” suggested Jack, politely.
“I think we have discovered enough for one day,” spoke Natalie. “We have been doing all the discovering. Why don’t you boys do some?”
“The action has been entirely too rapid for us,” confessed Blake. “We are willing to let you have a try at the mystificating problem. All we know is that we are hungry, and we have not the wherewithal to eat.”
“Then come on over to our camp,” proposed the Guardian. “Girls—show that you are real members of the Camp Fire tribe. We must feed these hungry warriors.”
“Where are their fish?” asked Alice.
“We didn’t get any,” confessed her brother.
“Feed us this time, and we’ll get up a party for you next week.”
“Wait until I see if we’ve got gasoline enough to run the motor-boat over to the Point and back,” suggested Jack, as he hurried down to the little dock. “Then we’ll dine with you, fair ladies.”
He was seen to come to a halt near the edge of the water.
“What’s the matter?” called Blake.
“More mysteries,” answered Jack. “Our little canoe is gone!”