Mrs. Dunbar was busy in New York, taking an active part in an art convention, nevertheless she made a flying trip out to Cragsnook that afternoon, to make sure her young guests were happy and well. Being real girls and therefore pardonably human, in telling their adventure, the scouts did not enlarge on their meeting with Maid Mary; in fact the detail involving the displeasure of Reda, the old nurse, was quite lightly passed over in their account of the day as made to the hostess.
Mrs. Dunbar enjoyed the joke perpetrated by Madaline, in her suspicion of a possible goat farm being tucked away in the mountains, thence Maid Mary and the pompous Reda were wont to lug the roots; at the same time she felt unequal to a better guess at the puzzle, for it was now conspicuously clear that roots, all kinds of roots, were being gathered continuously by the little girl and her picturesque attendant.
The three visitors and Mrs. Dunbar were enjoying a refreshing west wind on the square porch, outside the library window, for their confab, and in their summer uniforms the girls made a picture not wasted on the artistic eye of Audrey Harris Dunbar.
"I can truthfully report," she remarked, smiling graciously and betraying considerable of her own good looks, "that you three little girls are already much improved by your visit. I have to make out a blanket statement, as we say in club work, when we make one report cover a number of items, and I would just like to illustrate that statement with a color picture of you girls. You are positively rosy."
The compliment was plainly merited, for Madaline and, Grace had taken on a generous coating of tan and color, and even Cleo's usually pale face was prettily suffused with a shell-pink glow, which brightened her gray eyes, and enhanced the attractive effect of a face all but plain, too keenly intelligent to be overlooked in beauty.
"We all feel better for getting back in service," Cleo replied to her aunt's favorable criticism. "I guess even vacation needs a little duty to keep the play part happily outlined."
"Yes, little niece, you show your daddy's wisdom there, and of course that means you are very like me," with a swoop of her graceful arm coming up to the breast in mock dramatic fashion. "I always knew brother Kimball and I were very much alike, and now I am positive. Of course Kim aimed to be practical, and he has succeeded, while I—just slosh around in my paints. But really, children, I must be off again to that convention. I suppose we will plan to make interior decorations in mural designs around the Capitol dome, to give neighborly effect to our friends in Mars or Saturn or even Venus. Now be good," and she embraced all three with her affectionate smile, "go hunting if you like, but better take Lucille or Lalia along. They are older, you know, and should be wiser, although you have quite astonished me with your applied good sense thus far. I shall send a be-ee-u-tiful report to Flosston. You know, of course, the factory is moving headquarters to New York, and all your families may tour this way eventually. By-by! I hate to go, but I can't let the other ladies do all the gold work on the Capitol."
Sheer admiration silenced the girls for some moments after her departure. Audrey Dunbar seemed like a breath of the refreshing west wind herself, and it was not to be wondered at that her guests should appreciate her generous hospitality and personal attention.
"Shall we have to take Lucille and Lalia?" It was Grace who put the gloomy question.
"I don't know," faltered Cleo. "You see, we don't really know what we may fall into on the other side of the mountain."
"Maybe bandits and caves—and—things," suggested Madaline, characteristically.
"There might be caves, natural ones, I mean," Cleo remarked, "but I don't fancy we would run into any real live bandits, Mally Mack and Jack Hagan seem to monopolize that title in Bellaire, and you know what perfectly little gallants they both are. But we have to live up to our reputation, I suppose, and be wise. It might be wisest to take the big girls along. When, do you suppose, will we ever be classed as big girls?" she almost grumbled.
"Then suppose I run over and see if they can go," Grace proposed, showing her impatience to be on the trail. "A shower might come up and then we couldn't go until to-morrow."
"All right," agreed Cleo. "I'll address the postals while you run over. I see you have both written letters home on your cards."
"And I am going into the garden with Jennie," declared Madaline. "You won't really mind, Cleo, if I don't go along?"
"No, indeed, Madie dear. You just suit your sweet self, and have a good time. That's the very best way for us all to be sure of enjoying ourselves. But look out for pinching beetles in the vines. They bite, you know."
When Grace returned with Lalia, the three, including Cleo, lost little time to taking up the mountain trail towards the Twin Chestnuts, indicated by Maid Mary as marking the spot where she and her mysterious grandfather, as well as the picturesque Reda, occupied some sort of cottage—just what kind even Lalia did not pretend to know.
"We rarely go into Second Mountain," she explained as they started off, "except for dogwood berries in the fall. We do go then in classes from school, for the hills are perfectly beautiful with the red dogwood and the dark blue 'bread and butter' vines. The berries make lovely decorations. And the milk weed pods, too—I have some still from last year."
"It must be glorious in autumn," Cleo answered. "If mother and father get back from their tour in time we might take a house out here, instead of a New York apartment."
"Let's cut through the golf links, then we will be up near the mountain house and we can stop in the observatory. Have you taken in the view yet?" asked Lalia.
"No, but we would love to," answered Cleo. "Auntie told us we should take her field glasses for it though."
"It would be better to look through the glasses, of course, but even with the naked eye you get a wonderful view. What's the matter, Grace? Getting too warm?"
Grace had taken off her neckerchief, and was carrying her hat, and puffing audibly.
"Yes, I am warm. Your mountains are lovely to look at, but a little hard to tread even for us True Treds. Either that or we are going to have a shower!" surmised Grace.
"Both!" declared Lalia, "just look at that cloud! It's swooping down like a big black blanket. Now we have got to hurry. We must get to the mountain house or we will be drenched. There's no other possible shelter."
"Away up there?" inquired Cleo, pointing to the hotel on top of the hill. "I don't believe we can ever get there before your blanket dumps its contents. See, it threatens to burst now!"
At that moment a vivid flash of lightning cut from one black hill in the clouds and buried itself behind another. As if piercing the fathomless blanket and renting holes in its inky cover, a downpour of rain broke through, and even before reaching the earth it could now be seen descending in a heavy mist at the hill top.
"There we are!" shouted Lalia, "and here we are—all dressed up and no place to duck! We can't reach the Mountain House. Let's make for that rock! It may afford some shelter."
Without thought of dissent Cleo and Grace followed their leader through the now pouring shower. The rain seemed almost solid, its sheets were so dense in the downfall, and the terrific peals of thunder, that echoed and rolled over the hills, gave such monstrous volumes of sound as only the big canyons between solid rocks emit. It seemed the stones themselves would be torn out from their pits in the frightful vibrations.
Already thoroughly drenched, the girls in scout uniform seemed scarcely better off than Lalia in her pretty gingham, the summer weight khaki of the skirts, and the soisette blouses shedding the heavy rain more readily, only because of the uniform straight lines and absence of frilly pockets to catch the "buckets'" spill. As for hats—the girls were utilizing these as shields, holding them at ever-swerving angles, to keep the blinding rain out of their eyes.
The big black rock with torrents of water how gushing down its furrows and rills, was reached at last and to the delight of the wayfarers it did offer shelter.
"Why, just see here!" exclaimed Grace, the first to reach port, "here is a cave. We said there ought to be caves in these mountains. And we can all fit in out of the storm. Isn't this wonderful?"
"Port haven in our story, surely," quoth Lalia, "I thought I knew these parts, but I never before discovered these Monte Cristo apartments. Shall we ring for the janitor?"
"Pray do not," replied Cleo, swishing her reservoir hat around to empty its contents. "Let us woo the wooseys undisturbed. I should like to dump the mud out of my boots!"
The rain on the uncovered rocks was still splashing, and a strong wind howling through the trees added to the din. Only at close range could the girls make their voices intelligible. But it was so good to be within shelter. Welcome indeed is any port in a storm.
"There must be more dugouts in this rock," Cleo said, attempting to survey the curved bowlder that formed a huge support for the cedars growing from its top, in a great swerving hedge, clear up into Second Mountain.
"But one is enough for us," Grace reminded her. Then a sound penetrated the now ceasing roar of the torrent. Voices surely, somewhere!
"Hark!" All three girls uttered the exclamation simultaneously.
"It's at the other side!" whispered Cleo, "and it's a woman's voice."
They listened, scarcely breathing.
"That's Mary!" suddenly exclaimed Grace, in the same subdued voice. "I know it is."
They waited a few seconds, listening. The first voice was now answered by another. It was plainly that of the old woman Reda, for the queer, rapid flow of language was not English.
"Reda!" whispered Cleo. "Is that Spanish?"
"Who's Reda?" repeated Lalia.
"The queer old woman with the little girl Mary," replied Cleo. "Are you afraid of her?"
"No," answered Lalia with something of a sneer. "I guess we three could manage her if we had to. Shall we peek?"
"Listen!" commanded Cleo.
Came a small voice through the jagged rocks: "But I will not, Reda, I am not asleep. I saw other girls just like me, and I know I have not the sleeping fever. You always try to make me afraid!" This was Mary.
The angered tones of the old woman that followed this mild outburst of defiance could not be understood except through their accents and emphasis, for the dialect was part Spanish and part West Indian, such as might be used by natives of Central America.
"She's awfully mad!" warned Grace. "We better stay hiding!"
The other girls apparently held the same view of the situation, for while keeping necks craned and ears attentive to the intermittent voices, all were careful not to allow so much as the edge of a skirt to flutter out from behind the hiding rock.
"I do not believe grandpa has it at all," came the decided tones of Mary's round voice. "It is lost forever, and we shall never find it. And next time Janos comes I shall tell him I will not stay here. I am not a baby, and I feel strong and able—to—to go!" she finished, throwing a dramatic quiver into these last words, thereby proving the intensity of her emotion.
Almost a shriek from the old woman followed the declaration, and for a few seconds the girls felt as if something dreadful might happen to the child. Then, like some wild, reckless creature, the girl Mary was seen to dash out from her shelter in the rock, unmindful of the rain still falling, and before the eavesdroppers realized it, she was speeding down the hill, the long braids dangling over her shoulders, and her perpetual white dress soon climbing like a veritable swaddling cloth about her lithe form.
As if delighted with the play of the rain drops, she would toss up her face to defy them as she ran; then flop her arms up and down in a flying motion, not really unlike a wild mountain bird.
While the girls watched spellbound, they saw presently the old woman trudge along after her, still muttering the unintelligible gibberish, easily translatable into wrath and fury, whatever its peculiar language.
"Can we go now?" ventured Cleo.
"It's almost stopped raining," replied Lalia, and as they left the cave a sense of disappointment threw its shadow over all three.
They could not go to the Twin Chestnuts that afternoon, but they felt more positive than ever that Maid Mary was in danger, and their enforced delay in her rescue only served to heighten its purpose.
After explaining to Lalia as much as seemed due in point of politeness, the three girls stopped to arrange their disordered attire in the path, before taking the main thoroughfare through the village. As they adjusted their hats and straightened skirts, they were suddenly conscious of being watched—had that feeling of eyes questioning them.
All three turned suddenly as if answering a voice. As they did so they faced a man—actually confronted him, almost brushing against him.
"Oh!" exclaimed Grace involuntarily.
"Pardon, miss," spoke the man in a distinctly foreign accent, "but were you not with the child, the Maid Mary? Have you seen her to-day? Yes? No?"
Cleo was the first to realize the possible significance of this seemingly inoffensive query, and her look to the other girls signaled them to be cautious.
"We have only been in the mountain, and were caught in the shower," she replied evasively, "and it does not seem to be all over yet so we must hurry. Come on, girls!" she called, and when the foreigner asked the next question he had the echo of his own voice for an answer.
"Now, you see, we will have more trouble to reach her. That man knew we were in the cave, and he also knew Mary and old Reda were behind the next rock. He must have followed us all the way down the hill!" This was Cleo's almost breathless pronouncement, made directly she and Grace reached the porch of the cottage. Lalia had declined their invitation to rest a few minutes before getting into more comfortable attire, so she was not in the conference.
"You could see he was related to the old woman," replied Grace. "His eyes and that kinky hair made him look so much like her."
"They are surely natives of the same country," commented Cleo, "but they may not be related to each other. Oh, I'm so disappointed; I felt sure we could get to the girl's house this afternoon. And did you hear her courage voiced in that decided threat? That she would go away, and that it, whatever it was, is lost forever? Could they be holding Mary for ransom?"
"Kidnapped, do you mean?" gasped Grace.
"I don't know what I do mean, but I sort of wish Uncle Guy were home. If we run into too much danger he would surely know how to rescue us," concluded Cleo.
"Don't let's tell Madaline. She might be too nervous, and I guess she and Jennie had a fine time planting their lettuce after the shower," said Grace quietly.
"Oh, did you get caught in the shower?" anxiously asked Madaline with trowel in hand, and beautifully decked out in one of Mrs. Dunbar's artist's smocks, somewhat bedaubed with paint. "We were alarmed. The lightning struck a tree over in the orchard."
"But it couldn't strike us, for we were buried in a beautiful cave, and if we had only known what a perfectly fine little bandit hang-out we were going to discover, we would have brought our hike packs along. Sorry you missed it all, Madie," said Cleo affectionately.
"But we had a visitor," announced Madaline. "He came just after you left, and he asked so many questions, Jennie sent me out with an excuse to get Michael. He said he was looking for a place to board, but we knew better. He was looking for information," she declared. "We transplanted a whole bed of tomatoes though. Don't I bear evidence of the applied arts in my smock and with the aroma of the green vines proclaiming me—the man with the rake?" she finished grandly.
"A lovely little speech, Madaline. You are a very artistic farmer," Cleo complimented. "And I hope your tomatoes tomate beautifully. But tell us about your visitor?"
"Oh, he wore a yellow duster, like an automobile coat and——"
"That's the man we saw!" Grace interrupted, forgetting in her excitement the plan of keeping their adventure from Madaline.
"Yes, he went toward Second Mountain," continued Madaline, unsuspiciously, "and Jennie told Michael to be sure and let Shep loose, so he would know we had a big dog around. Jennie doesn't like Shep to run through her garden, of course, but she said it would be a good thing to have that man know we were guarded."
"Yes," answered Cleo, exchanging glances with Grace. "It's a good thing to have a dog in a big forest like this. Aunt Audrey home?"
"Nope," replied Madaline. "Come on, let's dress, Jennie promised to go to the Lake with us after dinner."
"Oh, goody, goody," exclaimed Cleo. "Come on, Grace. I feel like an escaped eel in these togs. We had a good time in our old scout uniforms, didn't we? Nothing like it in a good drenching downpour," and she spread out her khaki skirt at each hip in imitation pannier effect, although the effect was rather slippery, to say the least.
It was while Madaline was washing, Cleo and Grace made opportunity to exchange opinions on the strange visitor.
"Do you suppose he is following us?" asked Grace. "If so, don't you think we had better tell Jennie?"
"I shouldn't like to," demurred Cleo, "because you know that would surely put the kibosh on our hikes. If Aunt Audrey were home I feel certain she would allow us our liberty, conditionally, of course. Pshaw! I wish the horrid man had kept away. Isn't it mean!"
Madaline appeared, rosy and shining, from the lavatory; evidently her gardening experience had been both enjoyable and profitable.
Garbed in pretty dainty frocks, and carrying gorgeously brilliant sweaters, the trio, with Jennie as chaperon, raced off to the lake directly after dinner. The evening was delightfully clear and cool after the shower, and the promise of a row out through the willow-bound water was sufficient lure to banish from their minds all thoughts of the suspicious man and the threatening old woman.
A group of boys down on the little pavilion was found to include Andy and Mally Mack, as well as Jack Hagan, and very generously they offered to give the girls a boat ride.
"Anything from a tug to a canoe!" proffered Andy, "and you may row, sail or paddle."
"That's lovely," acknowledged Cleo, "but we promised to take a big flat boat so Jennie may come this time," she smiled gratefully. "We would love a canoe ride, some evening when Aunt Audrey is home."
Doing the next best thing to taking part in the sail, that of providing the big flat bottom boat for the party, the boys promptly rowed up to the clear end of the float and assisted Jennie to embark. Of course the girls hopped in, disdaining so much as the kind hand Andy offered them, and with a united push they were sent out into the pool, that now in sunset looked like "a rummage sail [Transcriber's note: sale?] in a paint shop," as Grace described the brilliantly lighted waters.
Regretful glances were sent after that "big flat bottom boat," but women like Jennie had to be humored, and even good natured boys realized this.
Grace and Cleo rowed up the stream. Many pleasure craft were afloat, and the visitors already knew a number of Bellaire girls and boys who called pleasant greetings.
The lake, wide at the basin, narrowed off into a tiny stream as it followed the course, tracing its origin in the mountain springs. Willows thick as a tasseled hedge hid the banks, and teased the boat as the girls ducked and dipped their way, determined to go to the end, or till they touched bottom.
"It will be almost dark in that dense thicket," Jennie warned them, "and you know we are a good mile from nowhere."
"Oh, just a little farther," begged Cleo; "we want to say we went to the very end."
"Very well," agreed Jennie, who was plainly enjoying the delightful sail in the colorful twilight.
"Look!" exclaimed Grace suddenly. "There's someone in wading! Oh! see, it's our little Mary."
"Sure enough," followed Cleo. "How can she be away down here so late?Let's call."
"No, wait till we are a little nearer," suggested Grace, thinking quickly, a call meant for Mary might also be heard by someone else. "We can row almost up to her."
Pulling their oars with a firm stroke it took but a few minutes to come within speaking distance of the girl, who now, seeing the approaching boat, was standing knee deep in a golden path of water.
"Who is she?" asked Jennie, gazing intently at the odd figure, for as ever Mary wore white, and her heavy braids fell into the big pocket made of her up-turned skirt. She looked like some elfin sprite painted in pastels, with all the soft greens of foliage, and the wonderfully mellow tints of crimsoned gold shed from the sunset, surrounding the picture and forming an inimitable background.
"Oh, that's our little friend Mary," Cleo replied to Jennie's question. "She's lovely, and Aunt Audrey knows about her." This last of course was said to assure Jennie of the propriety of her charges making friends with the girl in wading.
"Mary! Mary!" called Grace. "Come on for a sail! We have room!"
It was typical of Grace to do a thing like that—to call out the invitation without consulting anyone, or considering possible consequences.
"Hello, girls!" came back Mary's response. "I'd love to go—if——"
As Cleo at least expected, there was someone in the background watching Mary, but the assurance in Mary's voice, that of a new note of courage, further emboldened Cleo. "Oh come on, Mary," she urged. "We will just row you around here if you like. Jump in!" Cleo insisted, while Mary, now clinging to the side of the boat with one hand, depended on the other to keep her light skirts clear of the water.
"Oh, I am so glad you came," she said. "I did not know just what to do. I thought I might see some of the boys who would help me. Is this your mother?" She stopped suddenly, and stared at the astonished Jennie.
"No, this is Jennie, our friend, our manager," Cleo replied kindly. "But she is just as safe as a mother; you need not fear to speak before her. How can we help you?"
"Janos came to-day," Mary almost whispered, "and I am so afraid of him now. He knows I have friends. He saw you in the cave, but I did not know you were there during the storm." She was speaking quickly, fearfully, in fact, and had no chance to observe the changes working through Jennie's quizzical expression. "And he knows where you live——"
"Was it he who came to our house this afternoon?" asked Madaline."Does he wear an auto duster?"
"Yes, that is Janos. And now he wants to get us all away again. O dear! poor granddaddy! I know he is sick, but he thinks he is all right," and the child almost sobbed in her helplessness.
"But is someone watching you now? Is Reda over there?" asked Cleo, indicating the willow banks.
"No, I ran down and said I was going to find my basket I left somewhere before the storm. But they surely will come soon."
"If you are afraid, child," spoke up Jennie, "just you come along with us. We can get a car in the village and I will take you home myself."
Four pair of grateful eyes sent their thanks to Jennie. Mary touched her hand as it rested on the side of the boat.
"Oh, that is so good of you. But—Janos and Reda are not like Americans, they are from the tropics, you know, and different. Oh, we are so miserable and unhappy!" Tears now glistened in the heavy lashes that fringed her dark eyes, and no one seemed to know just what to say next. Cleo was first to recover herself.
"If you could possibly come with us to the landing we might make some excuse for picking you up, and Jennie could go home with you. We might all go. I'll tell you!" a sudden inspiration breaking in on the difficult situation. "Jump in. We will row back as quickly as we can and send the boys over to Bailey's for a big car. Then we will all drive up the mountain with you. We will have the man for protection, and if your old Reda is not good-natured we will not let you stay there to-night. Would your grandfather care? Might he allow you to spend a night with us?"
All the hidden and suppressed hopes in that strangely veiled countenance seemed to burst through now, and Mary's expression, from one of almost impenetrable gloom, assumed a strange light—perhaps borrowed from the sunset.
"Oh, it is too good to be true!" she sighed. "Someone at last is not afraid to help me!"
That settled it. Before Mary realized her position she was sitting securely in the broad seat at the stern of the gliding boat, with Madaline's arm around her, while her delighted fingers trailed through the water, and her almost frightened gaze was fastened on Jennie's face.
"You are a real woman," she surprised her friends by declaring. "Do you know I have not seen anyone like you to talk to since Loved One went away. She was my mother," the child said solemnly.
"When did she die?" Jennie ventured.
"When I was eleven. I am thirteen now."
"And where did you live then?" pressed Cleo, feeling the time was opportune for obtaining something of Mary's history.
"Oh, very, very far away, on an island off Central America," came the surprising answer.
"Do your relatives live there?" inquired Grace, gently.
"No, they all died with the fever, that is, Loved One did, and daddy was lost at sea. Reda thinks I had it, and she says I must not do things like other girls or it will come back and kill me, but I don't believe her now. Since I have known you girls I feel so much stronger and wiser," she finished quaintly, with a significant toss of her head.
"The idea of telling you you were sick, and scaring you into it,"indignantly spoke Jennie, in whom an instant dislike for the sinisterReda had taken root. "A good way to make a child sick, I should say.But what right has she over you? Is she a relative?"
"A relative?" and Mary almost laughed. "No, indeed. Nothing but an old nurse, and not my real nurse either. You see, when granddaddy—as I call him—had to leave the tropics, we had to take the first steamer to get away, and I had no one to care for me after Loved One went, so we just had to accept Reda. Then Janos is her brother, I guess, or some sort of relative, and I could get along with her if he would stay away. I can't tell you the whole story, for it is granddaddy's secret, and I have promised him I would never, never tell anyone why we are up here in the mountains, and why I can't use my own name!"
Again that veil dropped over the soft dark eyes. No one felt like speaking then, for they noticed the girl swallowing hard to choke back the sorrow that threatened to overcome her.
"Well, here we are almost in." It was Jennie who broke the silence, as the boat, now out in the broad open lake, became one of the many turning in at nightfall. "And there are the boys waiting to land us. You don't suppose, Mary, that old woman will make trouble for you?" This with a show of anxiety at the rather difficult position the party now found themselves in.
"No, I am not a bit alarmed. They may think I have got lost, or I might have fallen in the water. Perhaps she and Janos would be glad if I never came back. Then they would have granddaddy all to themselves, and I suppose they would torture him to find out his secret. Oh! dear!" she sighed, "if it were not for him I believe I would just run away."
"You must never think of that," Jennie counseled, "unless of course those foreigners torment you. Cleo, you tell Andy to charge the car to your uncle, Mr. Dunbar, and be sure to say we are in a hurry."
Arrangements were made so promptly Mary was almost bewildered. Another wonder had suddenly come into the life of the timid little girl. She was actually riding in an automobile. How magical is the power of true friends!
"It's just like my dream," she said naïvely. "I dreamed last night I had a ride in an airship, and I haven't been in an automobile since we came to Bellaire."
"When was that?" asked Madaline, who kept very close to Mary as if considering the stranger her own especial charge.
"About four months ago—in winter," Mary replied. "First we stopped in a city, then Janos brought us out here."
Cleo wanted to ask why Mary always gathered flowers and roots, but conscious that many personal questions were more necessary than these, she felt those less important must wait for another time.
"Oh, see!" suddenly exclaimed Mary. "There go Janos and Reda looking for me! Now we can all go in and be talking to granddaddy when they come back. Isn't that fortunate!"
Everyone thought so, for, in spite of all their scout courage, the girls were not especially anxious to run headlong into the arms of two foreigners, who would undoubtedly be angry. The prospect of meeting a benevolent old grandfather was much more comfortable to speculate upon.
"Turn in here," Mary told the driver, and her friends noticed a certain dignity in her command, usually found only among those accustomed to give orders. "There's grandie," she called. "See, he is coming to meet us. Drive slowly, he is not strong on his limbs."
The man they approached was not old, but very tall, stooped and distinguished looking. As the car drew up he threw back his shoulders and stood like some figure posed in defiance. "Granddaddy, here I am!" called Mary, attempting to climb out; "were you frightened about me?"
"Mary! Mary!" he exclaimed. "What does it mean?" and each word sounded like a low moan.
Plainly he was trying to figure out what had happened that the child should return with strangers. Likely he had feared an accident.
"It only means, Grandie, that we have friends, and you are not to refuse them. Let us hurry in before Reda returns. Can your man wait?" she asked Jennie.
"Not very long, I'm afraid," Jennie replied. "We too have folks who may be anxious about us. But we will be glad to meet your grandfather." How the girls blessed her for this!
"Call him professor. Everyone does," Mary managed to say as they alighted.
"Come in, welcome!" announced the man, turning to the foot path that outlined the drive leading to the house.
It was a queer party that left the auto and silently followed Mary and the professor up to the artistic cottage, that stood almost hidden in tall, heavy chestnut trees. In spite of the general loss of this sort of tree, those sheltering the terra cottage bungalow were especially healthy and majestic, as could be seen even in the fast descending nightfall.
Mary rushed on ahead and touched the electric light button inside the door, then she threw open the portal, quite like an experienced little hostess.
"This is the Imlay studio," remarked Jennie, who was the only one in the party familiar with Bellaire. "I thought it was closed when he died so suddenly."
"Did he die here?" asked the man Mary called Grandie, a note of alarm in his voice.
"Oh no, he was abroad and did not return," replied Jennie. It was evident this information brought relief to the questioner, for under the light that shone from the spray of brass lanterns his face perceptibly softened.
Somehow all the mysterious influence which had seemed to surround Mary at their first meeting with her was now oppressively noticeable within that house. It was scantily furnished with what remained of artist Imlay's belongings, but the air of suspicion usually associated with old, abandoned places seemed to fairly seethe through the air. Even Jennie felt it, and to the scout girls, more vividly conscious always of any antagonism, the surroundings were actually uncanny.
"Won't you sit down?" said Mary, observing the almost rigid attitude of her callers. But each politely declined to share the seat offered on the handsome low divan. Grace noticed its carvings looked rather ferocious, while Madaline clung to Jennie, without any pretense of apology. Cleo was now peering at something behind the stained glass door that separated the long living room from that adjoining. It was not exactly a light, yet it passed back and forth and threw weird shadows through the glass. She was wondering if the people kept any other servant than Reda, who was surely not in the house at the time.
Scuffling about aimlessly, the professor suddenly dropped wearily into a big oaken chair, and as Mary turned toward him she too caught sight of the shadows now flickering through the leaded glass, with sinister effect and creepy significance. It might be the shaded glow of a small flash light.
"Grandie!" Mary gasped. "Who are they? Did Janos bring—anyone? Oh, don't move! It may be a trap!"
"Mary, Mary!" he moaned, "must I leave you!" and choking sobs shook the man so convulsively that Jennie dashed across the room and put her hand on the trembling form.
"Sir!" she spoke almost in a whisper. "You must not fear any harm from those wild people. We know they are trying to injure you, but the little girls have found a way to help. We have a man and a car at the door," she said close to his ear. "Can't you and the child leave this horrible place at once?" She spoke quickly, in muffled tones.
"Oh, if we only could!" Mary sobbed. "Grandie dear, you are falling ill! What have they done to you? I heard Janos threaten Reda!"
The figure in the chair was now sagging into a helpless heap. Cleo and Grace, quick to sense the necessity for prompt action, had both hurried to the door to call the driver from the car. Even Madaline forgot her own timidity, and seeing a switch button for what she thought to be lights, she crossed to the corner and quickly pressed a tiny button. As she did so she felt something like a wire with a spool attached, and almost unconsciously she gave the spool a yank. Instantly a flood of light of marvelous brilliancy engulfed the room.
"Oh!" Madaline screamed, shocked by the glare and a queer sizzling noise that hissed through the room. Jennie covered her eyes and clung to a chair, but Mary jumped to her feet and stood staring silently at the leaded glass door.
"Don't move!" she ordered.
There was a sudden crash, the sound of splintering glass, and then the room fell again into the sullen light reflected only from the group of hanging brass lanterns, the artistic shades for the regulation electric lights.
"They are gone!" breathed Mary. "Oh, what a miracle that was! You touched the wire—that sent a current all about them! Grandie!" She threw her arms about the shaking form, "you and I would never have thought of that. Are you safe? Our friends have saved us!"
And Madaline in her fear had actually touched off that alarm!
"Why!" she stammered, recovering herself and springing over to the side of Cleo and Grace, who had reëntered the room. "How did I do that?"
"You touched the secret spring," said Mary. "Even I would have been afraid to do it, for it is so highly charged. But you see our—enemies got the shock, and we only saw the light. How—merciful to think they have gone!"
The very last to recover her composure was Jennie. Woman-like, she had courage enough to face the possibility of caring temporarily for a sick man, but the sudden manifestation of light and the unexplained racket and noise that followed were too much for the good-natured Jennie's nerves. She was now "going to pieces," and the girls found more to do for her than they did to care for Mary and the professor.
"Come on, Jennie," begged Cleo, "just get in the car and we will all hurry out of here as fast as we can. You and Professor Benson take the back seat, and we will all pile in as best we can. I could ride on the tool box if I had to."
"Oh, yes, do come away," Jennie managed to say between gasps of "oh dear me" and "gracious sakes alive." But she was following advice, and was soon being assisted to the back seat by Tom, the driver, who never for a moment lost the set hack-man's look, in spite of all the excitement. "Whatever will Mrs. Dunbar say to all this," further wailed Jennie.
"Don't you worry! Aunt Audrey will be glad we were able to help, and that you were with us," declared Cleo. "Mary says it will be all right to take her grandfather to the private sanitarium, the one we passed along the mountain. Tom knows all about it, and thinks it is almost like a hotel, specially for sick people. Then Mary is coming home with us," declared Cleo delightedly. "Isn't that too lovely?"
Everyone agreed it was, this being evinced by the display of alacrity with which the party were all hurried in the car. Mary had managed to put together somehow a grip filled with the most necessary things for her grandfather. This she directed Tom to take care of, while in her own hands she carried a deep, woven basket, heavy with some articles surely too weighty and compact to be clothing.
Finally "embarked," as Grace called it, they were just turning out into the roadway when Reda appeared alone. Seeing the car she stopped stock still in her tracks, so that Tom was obliged to jam on the brakes or run her down. He did not shift his gears and execute the change of speed without uttering the usual man's grumble, and no one could blame him for this.
"Reda!" called Mary, "we are going out with some friends. You lock up and take care of things. Go on now," she told Tom. "We don't want to hear what she thinks about it."
It was well they did not hear, for a more surprised and excited old woman than the self-same Reda it would not have been difficult to imagine. She gurgled, choked, gulped and stuttered in the foreign dialect, which only the professor and Mary could have understood.
Last seen she was going toward the Imlay studio, that was, and the house of terrors, as it had that evening proved to be for the young visitors at Bellaire.
But the evening was now delightfully changed, and just as her association with the girls had noticeably stimulated and enlivened Mary, so the meeting with the very much alive party had an encouraging effect on Professor Benson. He was now sufficiently recovered to sit up and talk with Mary, and seemed very much relieved to be saved from a bad night in the studio. He insisted he could walk unassisted when Tom drew up to Crow's Nest Retreat, and as he imparted a volume of mysterious instructions and warnings to Mary, besides offering the most profuse attestation of thanks to his rescuers, no one would have imagined him other than a man suffering from a slight nervous attack.
Mary went to the door of the sanitarium with him, and her friends discreetly allowed these two a few moments to themselves.
"Isn't it too wonderful!" breathed Grace as they passed from hearing.
"To think we are going to have Mary with us to-night," added Cleo with a gust of anticipation.
"Can she sleep with me?" asked Madaline. "My bed is the largest."
"Whatever Aunt Audrey says, of course," Cleo felt obliged to answer.
Tom and Mary were returning, and although it was fully dark now, asMary stepped again in the car the girls realized she had been crying.
"I have never been away from him before since Loved One asked him to care for me," she explained, "but I feel somehow different now. I do believe I was going to grow black and suspicious, like Reda, when you met me."
"No wonder," Jennie almost snapped. "I'm not what could be called a nervous woman, but this evening has been more than I would like to run into again. Not that I am not very glad to have been along, though I didn't help much, with my own fussing," she felt obliged to add, for Cleo had pinched her arm and Grace unbuttoned her sweater, in an attempt to give the cue not to hurt Mary's feelings.
"Will everything be all right at your cottage, Mary?" asked Cleo, kindly.
"It will have to be for to-night," she replied. "But granddaddy has such precious belongings I will have to attend to things early to-morrow morning. He is dreadfully worried about leaving things, of course, but Janos has gone, and those others——" Her hands went up in a gesture of consternation, and the girls withheld their questions as to who the others were, and what could have been the nature of the mysterious happening in the back room of Imlay Studio.
All this time Mary was guarding the hand-made basket with jealous care, keeping it on her lap, and steadying it with arms as the car rumbled down the mountain road.
They were now within sight of Cragsnook and Jennie shifted about in evident relief.
"Here comes Shep!" exclaimed Madaline, as the big, shaggy dog rushed out from the heather-edged driveway.
"And there is Aunt Audrey," added Cleo. "I'm so glad she's home."
At the sight of another stranger Madaline could feel Mary shrink back, and the faint sigh that escaped her lips was noticed by Grace as well.
"You will love Aunt Audrey," said Grace in Mary's ear. "She is only aunt to Cleo, but we all call her Aunt Audrey, and she's just lovely." This in the most reassuring tones.
"Oh, yes," Mary answered, conscious her tremor of timidity had been noticed. "She looks so—so like my own Loved One as I remember her. I was thinking I may make a lot of mistakes, but you will excuse them?"
The round of chuckles, and the merry twitters given her in lieu of formal opinions, restored her sinking spirits somewhat, but each of the three attentive, sympathetic girls keenly realized Mary's discomfiture.
"Well, well!" exclaimed Mrs. Dunbar as they drew in. "Whatever became of you all? If Mally Mack had not met me at the station, and told me you were going for a mountain drive, I should have been a little bit worried."
"We brought you company, Aunt Audrey," Cleo answered, before Jennie had a chance to offer any explanation. "This is Mary Benson, you know. The little girl we met when we first came to Bellaire."
"Oh, yes. How do you do, Mary?" Mrs. Dunbar greeted the now really frightened little girl. "It's so lovely to have you come and visit my little ones. You see, they thought three would be really a crowd, and that they would never grow lonely for home, but I have noticed the tell-tale signs lately. Now, a real visitor will be the very best thing to effect a cure," and she was urging Mary into the house, quite as if her presence were indispensable for the evening's happiness.
The big, soft, dark eyes set so deep in the olive skin, just tinted now with a trace of excitement's color, gazed up into Mrs. Dunbar's face with all the yearning and longing of a lonely, forsaken child.
"Thank you," Mary managed to articulate, but the effort was mingled with a little choking sob.
Jennie drew Mrs. Dunbar into the library while the girls proceeded to the living room.
"Such a time as we have had," she exclaimed, "and I can't say it was all my fault. You see those children were so determined to help that poor friendless child that I just had to go along, or let them go alone, and I was sure you would not want that, Mrs. Dunbar."
"Hush!" putting a finger on her lip and a smile with it. "It is perfectly all right. I have known the children were on the trail of the poor little dear, and I'm just glad they rescued her, to-night especially. I saw three men running for the train I got off, and Mally Mack told me one was a Turk the officers are after! Don't say anything about it, but I know one of these was the man who meets the Indian woman, she who cares for Mary."
"Indian?" repeated Jennie. "Is she that?"
"Likely that—or part negro. I am sure she is from some Central American territory. I have used her type in painting. But come on. Let us give the children a little spread. Phone for some cream, and we will soon have them all happy enough to forget their fright. I know they are just dying to tell me all about it."
No mistake about that. Even the presence of Mary did not appease the children's eagerness to take Mrs. Dunbar into their exciting secret, if a matter known to so large a number can be classified as a secret or even a mystery.
In the rooms above the oak lined hall the girls could now be heard welcoming Mary, with all the natural excitement of her peculiar situation. Grace wanted her to try on her pale green organdie, because it would go so beautifully with her topaz eyes. Madaline insisted her baby blue was much more attractive, as one of Mrs. Dunbar's pictures showed a girl with brown braids gowned in heavenly blue, while Cleo offered her choicest frock, the coral pink with all the dinglely-danglely pink rose-buds dropping around the tunic. But Mary shook her head, and declined all the kindly offered finery.
"You see," she exclaimed, her eyes fairly glaring in unrestricted admiration at the gorgeous display of clothes, "I have to wear white. Reda says if I do not I shall get the fever and die as Loved One did."
"Oh, how perfectly ridiculous!" exclaimed Cleo. Then, fearing Mary would take offense, she hastened to add: "I am sure Reda is simply superstitious. I have known a child who wore white until she was seven, because her mother favored that as a sort of prayer, a consecration, and of course that was all right when its meaning was sincere, but to wear white to ward off a fever looks uncanny, foolish. Can't you put on a color if you choose?" and the beautiful pink dress threw a covetous glow up into Mary's classic face.
"Oh, of course I could," she demurred, "but——"
"But we wouldn't ask you to," and Cleo gave the sign for returning the pretty gowns to their respective closets, by putting the pink voile on its white silk hanger. "White is lovely, and it becomes you beautifully. Don't you think so, girls?"
They did, of course, and when just then Jennie called them to the dining-room for the spread, so delightful on any summer evening, Mary seemed to forget the terrors of that hour, when Professor Benson so barely escaped the trap that had been set for him at the Imlay Studio.
It was while Jennie served a dainty sherbet—an extra, considering ice cream and cake were a sufficiently delightful treat—that Cleo slipped out into the library where Mrs. Dunbar was writing letters. Grace and Madaline were outdoing each other in entertaining the guest, and altogether the evening was one of enjoyment, especially for Mary. Her eyes were now almost as bright as those of the girls who surrounded her, and had Reda been able to see her, she surely could not have honestly warned her against "being like other girls." Only that occasional shadow of fear that crossed her face, blotting the life out of her eyes, and glazing them with the ice of terror, did actually mark her as being "different." Even now this fear flitted into her gaze, and with it her slim, brown hands were seen to grasp tightly any object within their reach.
Cleo retold to her aunt that part of the evening's experience which Jennie had begun, but it was concerning the professor and his unprepared retreat to the Sanitarium that she particularly asked advice.
"Do you suppose he will be very anxious about Mary?" asked Cleo. "He does not know us, and when we left him he still seemed dazed from the fright."
"We might call Crow's Nest on the telephone and ask how he is," suggested Mrs. Dunbar. "I think we should do so. Do you want to ask Mary about it?"
Cleo bit her lip in serious consideration. For a little girl she was rather wise, as her aunt had before acknowledged.
"You see, Auntie," she finally said, "we three are trained Girl Scouts. Every day we renew our pledges to help others, and every evening we make a sort of survey of the day to be sure we are not allowing our delightful vacation to monopolize all our interests. We say, you know, that happiness was born a twin, and we know from experience we have lots better times when we share happiness with someone who needs it."
"Wonderful wisdom for such a little girl," replied the aunt with an embracing smile, absolutely devoid of ridicule, but plainly illumined with appreciation. "I know about your wonderful scout activities, and I have not so soon forgotten how you won your bronze cross——"
"Oh, I don't mean to attach any glory to myself," Cleo interrupted, somewhat embarrassed at the turn in the conversation.
"I understand, dear. You just want to be perfectly sure you are doing all you can for the case of Mary, as that has come your way in scouting?"
"Yes, that is our vacation case, we are sure, so of course I just had to insist on Jennie coming with us to-night. I am afraid she was awfully frightened."
"She was, but maybe you can convert her to your ranks. At any rate she was astonished at the way you carried things through. Now, about Mary. Shall we speak to her about phoning the Sanitarium?"
"I guess we had better not mention it to her until we find out if he is all right. If he were very ill do you think we need tell her to-night?" Cleo asked.
"You are right, Tody," the aunt replied, using the pet name given Cleo by her mother on special occasions. "Just go out with the others and shut the door while I phone."
There was no possibility of Mrs. Dunbar's voice being heard over the din of merry-making in the dining-room, for just then Grace was making a speech, and Madaline was applauding, while Cleo quickly fell in with the fun, by parading around the room with a table candle in each hand, and an upturned fruit basket on her head.
Mary sat back on the window seat, spellbound. Being a real girl in spite of her peculiarities, she would occasionally burst into the most musical ripple of laughter, then suddenly check herself, as if fearful of violating some obligation to be sad or melancholy.
Presently Mrs. Dunbar appeared at the door to suggest bed time, and when she gave no message to Mary from her telephone call Cleo surmised the news was not what they had hoped for. Passing by her aunt in the hall, Mrs. Dunbar whispered, "Sleeping," and Cleo knew Mary might take alarm at that report, for the dread fever she so often mentioned was always termed the "sleeping fever." But it was bed time and in the delicious process of undressing and donning gowns or pajamas the girls enjoyed the usual pranks that are ever unusual, and seem different every time they are indulged in. There were pillow fights, parades, sponge splashes, ghost dances, and other stunts "too numerous to mention," but it must be recorded that it required the combined persuasion of Jennie, with her two funny pig tails hanging over her voluminous night dress, and Mrs. Dunbar in the most fragile of negligees to induce the girls to turn out lights, and finally get settled for the night.
It had been possible to decide with whom Mary should sleep. Each bed would have held her in addition to its usual occupant, but on drawing straws the lot fell to Madaline, who had coveted it from the first, as her bed was really of double size.
"Mine is the only big, full grown straw!" declared Madaline proudly, waving the whisk that had been plucked from Jennie's broom, "and now, ladies, we bid you a fond farewell. Come on, Mary."
The exit was quite dramatic in character, for Madaline accidentally tripped over a fur rug, and was spilled rather rudely all over the hall floor, but a little thing like that had no effect on the delighted Madaline, who rather expected Mary would unfold her confidence once in the quiet of their own room.
"I hope dear Grandie is all right," Mary sort of sighed as they each took to their own side of the big roomy bed. "I have never been away from him before."
"Oh, he will have the very best of attention at that retreat," Madaline declared, although she knew absolutely nothing of the place. "Has he money with him?" she ventured.
"Oh, yes. He always has his check book and his deposits are all in a good New York bank," returned Mary without offense, realizing the question was plainly one made out of simple kindness.
She had donned the white night dress, the girls reasoned she would prefer it to the colored crêpe pajamas, and Madaline, watching her shake out all the glory usually bound in those two heavy braids of chestnut hair, was lost in admiration.
"However did your hair grow so beautifully long and thick?" she inquired, lifting the cloak of many tresses in both her hands.
"Loved One had wonderful hair," replied Mary, "and I guess hot countries are supposed to be best for the growth also," she added. Then, as if unhappy thoughts would torment her, she sighed a little.
"Are you lonely?" Madaline asked gently.
"Oh no," brightening up with a correct sense of politeness. "I was just thinking how Reda blames my hair for what she thinks is a symptom of the fever. You know her people have such tight kinky hair, they cannot understand ours. Those who do grow longer hair are of a different race, and they have that very straight, stiff Indian kind. But daddy told Grandie mine should never be cut, so Reda didn't dare to cut it, as she has often wanted to. Madaline," Mary suddenly exclaimed, a certain timid appeal in her voice, "did you notice the little basket I brought with me?"
"Oh yes, where did you put it?" eagerly inquired the girl on the other side of the bed.
"I put it out on a little porch I saw back of the dining-room. Do you think it will be all right?"
"Oh, yes, but why did you set it outside?"
"It's better in the air," replied Mary, and Madaline had not the courage to ask if "it" were alive, and why it should need air. Instead she hurried her preparation, and both were soon ready, so the light was snapped out. Madaline thrilled as she recalled what happened when she touched the button of another light a few hours earlier.
In less than an hour every tousled head was buried deep in its fragrant pillow, and even we are not permitted to "tap the tank of dreams." Surely a girl scout and her visitor may dream her own dreams; why should outsiders pry into their secrets?
Mrs. Dunbar, however, had not retired as early as did her young guests. In fact she phoned again to the Sanitarium to find out, if possible, how Professor Benson seemed, then whether his sleep was natural, his respiration normal, and to obtain such other information as might indicate the man's condition.
Word came back over the wire that his sleep did not seem natural, although he showed no fever, but he called constantly for protection, as if in fear of someone harming him. Mrs. Dunbar gave orders that everything possible be done for his comfort, and she promised to call the next day personally to look after him. As everyone in Bellaire knew Mrs. Guy Dunbar, her wishes were sure to be respected, and no doubt her interest obtained for the sick man all possible "special attention."
A little later even the lights in the study and Mrs. Dunbar's room were extinguished, and the tranquillity of slumber fell softly over the sloped roof of Cragsnook.
It must have been past midnight—no one had at the moment any thought of time—when something aroused the household!
Cleo jumped out of bed and rushed to her aunt's door! Mrs. Dunbar heard her step, and the door was opened when she reached it.
"Oh, what was that?" gasped Cleo.
"I don't know, but it sounded like a cry! Listen!"
A low, moaning wail, almost like wind through the attic chimney, sounded again.
"There! That's someone calling," replied Mrs. Dunbar. She snatched a small revolver from under her pillow, threw on a dressing gown, stuck her feet into her slippers, all at the same moment. Cleo threw around her own shoulders a cape she found over a chair and both were ready now to investigate.
Down the hall pattering feet told of the other girls' alarm.
"Oh, Cleo," begged Grace, "where are you? What is that dreadful noise?"
"Come in," answered Mrs. Dunbar, "and just don't be too alarmed. I am able to fight anything that groans that way. Come along, Cleo. You're not afraid, are you?"
"I would be if I stood still and listened to that," replied the little scout. "Here, girls, get some weapon. These old swords are all right," springing to a chair and bringing down from their hanging place at the hall door two glittering Turkish blades. "You won't have to use them, but it's best to be armed," insisted Cleo. "Where's Mary?"
"Oh, I forgot all about her!" gasped Madaline.
"We must look for her," said Mrs. Dunbar promptly, and leading the way, she, with the revolver, Cleo, Grace and Madaline with swords, and also carrying an East Indian spear each, they made their way down the hall to Madaline's room.
Cleo pushed open the door.
The bed was empty!
"She's gone!" exclaimed Cleo excitedly.
"And the screen is out of the window. Look!" cried Grace.
Beyond the bed the low latticed window was flung wide open, its screen lay where it had fallen, and the pretty draperies were almost torn from their hangings.
"Oh!" gasped Madaline. "Someone has stolen her!"
But Mrs. Dunbar thoughtfully shook her head.