CHAPTER XXI

When Mrs. Dunbar heard the story of the day's adventures, even she showed surprise.

"I hardly know how to excuse myself for allowing you girls to go up there alone," she said, when the scouts had unfolded the exciting story, "except that you always do seem so capable!" Then she laughed and tapped Cleo under the chin. "Of course you would be capable," she added, "when you are related to me."

"Oh, there really wasn't any danger," Grace hurried to say, fearful their wings of adventure might be clipped by the scissors of prudence. "Besides, we had Shep with us, you know."

"Yes, and, Auntie, he acted so queerly," said Cleo. "He found an old yellow handkerchief, and simply insisted on tearing it to shreds. I never saw him hate anything so."

"Yellow handkerchief, did you say?" repeated Mrs. Dunbar, and when Cleo said "yes" the aunt just shook her head understandingly. She knew it was also a yellow handkerchief that Shep dragged in with him the night he received the bullet wound. The two articles must have belonged to the same person. No wonder Shep would hate both!

"But do let me get a look at those wonderful trinkets," said Mrs. Dunbar, when they finally did manage to reach the sitting room and there drop some of the bundles and baskets. "I have never hoard of such a story. To think old Reda had all those hidden away. Of course, you being so young, Mary dear, she may have just intended to keep them till you grew up," she concluded.

This explanation did not seem to satisfy some of her listeners, although Mary was inclined to accept it. Presently Mrs. Dunbar was examining the little cameos, the quaint foreign rings, and lockets—there were a number of lockets. Then Mary offered the photographs for her inspection. The trained eye of the artist lingered on these. Yes, Mary surely was like her pretty mother; and the tall soldierly man! What a pity he had to go so soon from the life of his daughter.

"Makes me think of Guy," Mrs. Dunbar remarked, "with his love of adventure. He must have been of the same temperament, for I am sure I will soon have to pack up my kit and go traveling if I am to be with my own good looking boy," and she gave one of her happy, rippling laughs. Audrey Dunbar was still a girl, and "her boy's" tour through the west had been her first separation from him since their marriage.

"But he will soon be home," she added, as if the girls had been following her thoughts. "Then let us be prepared for more surprises."

"Why?" asked Madaline shyly.

"Oh, because he is a very surprising boy!" declared the young wife, "and when he becomes a scout—Mercy me! what wonderful things will happen! But now I am going down to see your other find—the monkey. Cleo dear, you know my weakness for queer animals, and my love for monkeys often got me in trouble during my hand-organ days. Come along. It will be tea time before we know it."

In the few hours following it was difficult to make sure just which end of Cragsnook was most fascinating. The girls went from one "exhibit" to the other, with seemingly increasing interest, until Mrs. Dunbar finally locked all the valuables in the safe, and Michael, down in his quarters, had rigged up a cage for "Boxer." The girls decided he might be called Boxer because they found him in a box, and also because Michael had already discovered he could use his "fists."

After tea Mary declined an invitation to take a run to the village.She seemed overdone with the day of excitement.

"But you girls go, and bring me some stamps, if you will," she said. "I want to write a whole book to Grandie to-night. It seems the most satisfactory way of talking to him now," she finished.

"But you will see him to-morrow," Cleo reminded her. "Why write?"

"Oh, I like him to get my good morning kiss with his breakfast," responded Mary, "and, besides, I may be able to prepare him for some of the surprises."

So Cleo, Grace and Madaline went off to the village, although reluctant to leave Mary alone. Still, her plea to write letters seemed a request not to be interrupted.

Almost before it could be realized thunder rolled over the mountains. A telephone announced the girls would stay with Lucille and Lalia, whom they had met in town, and that all would return by auto as soon as the shower passed. Mary sat by the low window looking ever the porch. Jennie was busy in the kitchen, and Mrs. Dunbar was in her study, writing to the home-coming boy. The storm came on so suddenly that Mary hurried to close the long French window off the living room, when something like a moan sounded, she thought, under the window!

She listened! Yes, surely that was someone moaning. Stepping through the window out onto the porch, a sheet of rain dashed in her face, blinding her so that, for the moment, she was forced to take refuge behind the swinging hammock.

Flashes of lightning now showed a blackened sky, and the terrifying peals of thunder seemed to swallow every other earthly sound.

"But I am sure I heard a human voice," Mary told herself. "I must see if anyone is about here suffering."

She was minded to attempt to call for Jennie, when again a low, pitiful moan came as an echo to a terrific thunder clap.

"Who is it?" called Mary, but the sound had died down, and was lost in the storm.

"It could not have been Shep," Mary was thinking, "and I can't go inside without finding out what it is. Who is there?" she called, bravely throwing her skirt over her head to ward off the beating rain.

"Mary! Marie, come to Reda!" came a faint reply, and at the sound of the voice, unmistakably that of her old nurse, Mary jumped from the porch, out into the blasting storm, and attempted to follow the direction whence came the sound.

"Reda! Reda! Where are you?" she called frantically. "It is I, Mary. Answer, where are you?" She stopped under a tree to avoid a very deluge that poured down on the path. For a moment she hesitated. What if that letter from New York had been a ruse to trick her into following someone with the idea of helping Reda? But surely that was Reda's cry.

Again she called and called, but no reply came back, and baffled, as well as frightened, she ran to the house, in through the hall, her dripping garment leaving a path of water as she went, until she reached Jennie in the kitchen.

"Oh, Jennie," she gasped, "someone is out in the storm! They called me. I am sure it is my old nurse, Reda! How can we find her in this awful downpour?"

"Out in the storm—who?" asked the maid, astonished at the plight of the girl who stood trembling before her.

"I am sure it is Reda, and she will perish," wailed Mary. "What shallI do?"

"Now don't take on so," commanded Jennie, beginning to realize what it all meant. "Just you wait until a few of these awful claps are over, and we will quickly find anyone who is out there. Just hear that! Mercy! what a dreadful storm! I am so glad the girls did not venture home. I could scarcely get the windows shut when it broke like a cloud-burst."

"Why, what is the matter?" came Mrs. Dunbar's voice from the hall."Jennie, I am sure someone is crying out in the storm," she called.

"Come, we must see who it can be."

"I am afraid it is Reda, my nurse," said Mary, now almost in tears."Oh, do you think she will perish? I was out but could not find her."

Hurried arrangements were made now to summon Michael, and as the storm had somewhat abated it was soon possible to go out with lanterns and search.

Clad in raincoats and rubbers, Mary, Jennie and Mrs. Dunbar went first along the path, toward the gate. Everything seemed quiet, except the late splashes of rain from the trees, and in spite of repeated calls no answer came, and no trace of the storm's victim could be found.

"Nobody about," announced Michael, as if satisfied the search had been futile.

Then a stir in the hedge attracted Mary's attention.

"Listen!" she exclaimed. "Something stirred in here!"

"Fetch the lantern, Michael," commanded Mrs. Dunbar. "I do see the bushes moving."

He brought the light, and swung it into the thick hedge.

"Oh, Reda," cried Mary. "Reda, are you dead!" she screamed, throwing herself down by a huddled figure that lay ominously still in the deep, wet grass.

"Mary, wait," ordered Mrs. Dunbar kindly. "Here, Michael, give me the light so you can lift her. She may be just overcome."

But Mary was on her knees beside the old nurse, whose face, bared to the glare of the lantern, looked so death-like!

"Reda! Reda!" called Mary, pressing her young face down to the shriveled features. "Oh, speak to Mary. It is I, Maid Mary! See, I am with you."

But no sound came from the frozen lips, nor did the wrinkled hands answer Mary's warm grasp.

"She is likely stunned," said Mrs. Dunbar, encouragingly. "Michael, can you carry her?"

"Certainly I can," declared the stalwart man, and shouldering the inert burden, her arms brought over his strong chest, and her limbs fetched around under his own strong arms, he carried the unconscious woman up the steps into Cragsnook.

Speechless with terror, Mary followed, while Mrs. Dunbar led the way with the light, and Jennie had hurried on ahead to make ready, scarcely knowing where the gruesome burden was to be rested.

"On the couch in the library," ordered Mrs. Dunbar, "and, Jennie, telephone at once for Dr. Whitehead. I feel sure she is only stunned. Mary dear, be brave," she continued. "We will surely bring your poor, old nurse back to you," she finished.

But Mary stood like one transfixed, gazing at the helpless figure huddled on the low, leather couch.

Anxious hours at Cragsnook followed that night's storm. Reda, who had been ill in New York, had somehow managed to make her way to Bellaire when she was overtaken by the cloud-burst and stunned from fright of lightning and thunder. But with the skillful work of Dr. Whitehead, assisted by Jennie, Kate Bergen (Michael's cousin who arrived after the shower), Mrs. Dunbar and the girls, the old nurse finally opened her eyes, and showed signs of life.

"Oh, I never knew how much I loved her until I saw her lying so deathlike," Mary murmured, when Mrs. Dunbar insisted the child should leave the bedside of Reda. "If she had died, and I had not found her in time——"

"Now, Mary-love," coaxed Grace, "you know you are a scout, and we never indulge in foolish fancies like that. Just think how fine it is that she has been saved, and think how good Mrs. Dunbar is."

"Oh, I know and think of that constantly," declared Mary. "This house is nothing short of an institution since I came to it," she went on. "And do you know, Cleo," turning to the one girl who had the right there of relationship to Mrs. Dunbar, "it all frightens me when I feel so much at home here, almost as if I too belonged at Cragsnook. It is presuming, and I can't account for that in me. I have always been so timid."

"You are cured, that's why," said Cleo, urging Mary to bed, for it was well past midnight. "A girl scout simply can't be timid, that is a really, truly good as gold scout girl, and we all know you are exactly that. But not one more word to-night. I have been appointed captain and it is my duty to sound taps, or, as Benny Philow or Mally Mack might say, 'douse the glim.' I think that's the cutest expression," and to demonstrate just how "cute" it was she snapped off the lights.

Next day everything was in confusion, and excitement was too weak a word with which to describe the conditions that existed at Cragsnook. Reda had come to with all the strength characteristic of her sturdy race, and nothing but main force kept her from running away. She was frightened to death of the place, of the people around her, and nothing that Mary could say would assure her no harm could come to anyone who was within the hospitality of that generous home. And Reda had explained to Mary it was the jewels she had hidden for the child that had caused her most anxiety. She feared Janos would find them.

The advent of Katie Bergen, Michael's cousin, seemed nothing short of providential, and to her was at once entrusted the care of the obstreperous patient.

"I think, dear Mrs. Dunbar," said Mary rather timidly, "it would really be much better to take Reda back to the studio. Once there she will quiet down, and that may save her from higher fever."

"Perhaps you are right," Mrs. Dunbar agreed; "the doctor says she has been a very sick woman, and her collapse was only natural, considering what she went through. Has she told you why she was so eager to see you?"

"Partly," Mary replied. "You see, she was sort of conscious[Transcriber's note: conscience?] stricken that something would happento me, and she felt obliged to warn me. And she also wanted to give meLoved One's jewels."

"But nothing did happen," blurted out Madaline, keen on the trail of the mystery.

"Oh, do tell us, Mary," begged Grace. "It seems to me we will have so much to find out all at once it will be rather overwhelming if we don't start in."

"Well, you little scouts run along and enjoy your story," suggested Mrs. Dunbar, "and I will see about having Reda sent up to the mountain. I am sure, Mary, you are right. She may be saved a real relapse if we agree with her. And, of course, Katie is going to be your housekeeper. I would envy you if I hadn't such a treasure in Jennie. This is really her house, and I am a guest, it seems to me," and it was hoped by every little girl present that the delicious compliment floated out to Jennie, who was busy in the breakfast room just at that moment.

"Please letmetell you something first," begged Cleo, when the girls were left to themselves. "I am fairly bursting with the news. You know I wrote out the whole story to Uncle Guy. I wanted him to know all about it when he came home and also, ahem"—and the perky little head perked perceptibly—"I may as well admit, girls, I am ambitious to keep the family honors up in the writing line, so I just wrote all this glorious vacation to Uncle Guy, making it just like a summer story. I sent our pictures——"

"Mercy me, Cleo!" interrupted Grace, "I guess you will be a story writer. Just see how you have us all keyed up, and won't tell us what happened. What did your Uncle Guy say?" she demanded.

Cleo laughed triumphantly. "There, I knew I would get you excited——"

"Cleo Harris!" shouted Madaline, almost forgetting the presence of a sick person out on the enclosed side porch, where Reda was being fixed up for her journey over the mountain. "Cleo," repeated Madaline, "you tell us instantly what your Uncle Guy said!"

"Your commands are my pleasures," replied Cleo in mock dramatic emphasis. "There, doesn't that sound like a book? Uncle Guy wrote to me and to Aunt Audrey, and he merely said not to let a single kid escape. That my letter had knocked him silly, and that his cousin, whom he discovered out in the western camp, was coming home with him."

"Who is the cousin?" asked Grace.

"A man, a lovely man, just like Uncle Guy. He was an explorer, or still is, and has been away for some years," she glanced rather anxiously at Mary, but the latter never changed her serious expression. Then Cleo said pointedly, "Mary, your father was an explorer, wasn't he?"

"Yes, he went away in search of orchids," faltered Mary, "and you know he never came back from the sea, when the men took him out to the ocean to cool him in that frightful fever."

"And you left the island with the professor a few days after?" pressedCleo.

"Yes, oh yes. We had to get away. Grandie was getting sick, you know; that is how he lost—his memory."

"Yes," said Cleo, simply, but Grace and Madaline had "seen a light," which Mary still appeared blind to.

Mrs. Dunbar was very busy arranging for the removal of Reda, but in a moment of cessation she was heard talking to Crow's Nest over the phone. She gave orders to the sanitarium that Professor Benson should be brought down to Cragsnook for a ride late that afternoon, as the girls would not go up there that day. Besides, Mrs. Dunbar was declaring, the ride would do him good.

"Oh, won't that be lovely!" and Mary almost danced out of her glumps."Just think of Grandie here!"

"Now, Mary-love, you promised some of Reda's news. Do tell us before something else happens to put off all our delicious mysteries," implored Madaline, quite as if the telling would give the same joy to Mary as the news would furnish to herself.

"What did she want to warn you of?" prompted Grace.

"Oh, Janos and his men. They were coming out here to take all Grandie's orchids away. And they brought the monkey to scare him. He was dreadfully frightened of a monkey once in the tropics, and Janos knew it, so he just planned that awful trick on him——"

"With our lovely little Boxer! How perfectly absurd," exclaimed Grace, at the risk of spoiling all the thrilling story Mary had undertaken to tell them.

"Yes," went on Mary, "and the night you girls came, that first night, you remember?"

"Yes, when I turned on the lights," inserted Madaline.

"That was the night they first planned to scare Grandie's secret from him. They were all three out in that orchid room, just waiting to break in and—oh, I can't say what they were going to do to get Grandie's secret from him." She was now on the verge of sobbing, and the girls had no idea of letting any such thing occur.

"But Madaline turned the tables," Cleo said cheerily, "and she shooed off the—desperate thieves!" and Cleo again reverted to type as a fiction fixer.

"And the really cruel part of it all was," continued Mary, "Grandie did not know and does not know yet what became of the treasure they are all seeking. He lost it with his memory," she said almost in a whisper. "And it was daddy's just as I was his. I was to be given mother's family with the treasure as a peace offering."

"What was it?" asked Cleo. "Can you tell us now, Mary-love?" she asked gently.

"Yes, Grandie said I might tell you now, for he does not fear things as he did before he went to the sanitarium. He has recovered courage, which was simply clogged up in his congested mind. Yes, he said I might tell you now that he lost the most famous orchid in the world, the 'Spiranthes Corale.' That means coral lady tresses. It was in search of that daddy and the expedition went out. Daddy found it. It was almost beyond price. Then Loved One died, dear daddy was stricken, and all the papers and this wonderful bulb were given Grandie. He lost them! Do you wonder he almost went crazy?"

For a few minutes the girls did not speak. It seemed rather disappointing that the whole mystery should center around the bulb of an orchid.

"Oh, I know," exclaimed Cleo presently. "I have read of the famous orchid hunts and the fabulous sums of money offered for the most rare species. Of course that was the sort of expedition your folks were on, Mary-love. And, of course—why, girls, that's just what our newspaper clipping was all about. The one we found wrapped around the old stick in Mary's big clock!"

"Get it! Get it!" cried Madaline, who literally tumbled after Grace, in haste to reach the old bit of newspaper that had been carefully stored away in the scouts' desk, for they had been assigned one general and especial desk in Cragsnook.

"And the precious bulb was never found?" Cleo said to Mary, seeming to embrace her with a look, so filled was her expression with genuine affection.

"No, it has gone, and with it the one hope of Loved One's last word to me, that the famous orchid which was to be given to her mother in this country would unite me with her family, and prove daddy a real explorer."

"And don't you know who her family are?" asked Cleo, unable to suppress her increasing excitement.

"Not exactly, for Grandie begged me not to ask until he had recovered the bulb. He always felt his memory must come back. Now, of course, it is months, and we have given up hope. But I don't care any more, for I have found so many other darling loves in life." She threw her arms around Cleo, and if the latter had ever given in to tears she might have been pardoned a few just then—the kind that come with too much joy.

"Mary!" she said gently, "now I know why Professor Benson once called you the orphan of the orchids, but suppose, suppose your daddy didn't die?" she ventured.

"I have often thought of that," said the child. "But even if he lived he could never find me, for he would think I died with so many others, and I suppose I could not even look for him, until I grow up like Loved One, and go off again to search among the orchids. I wouldn't fear that fever when the goal might mean daddy!"

"We had better tell her," said Mrs. Dunbar to Cleo, an hour later, after Cleo had talked things over with G-race, while she left Madaline to entertain Mary. "As you say, my dear, it does look as if your vacation story is going to have a very happy ending."

Cleo flitted back to her companions. They divined from her manner that the hoped-for good news was to be "thrown on the screen."

"Mary," began Cleo, who had dropped in a safe coil on the rug at Mary's feet, "are you prepared for the very biggest thing in all the world to happen? Can you stand the most astonishing kind of news?" and she managed to secure Mary's hand to give her confidence.

"Oh, yes, Cleo dear, but don't tell me if you are not sure? I have been dreaming such glorious things since—you talked of—daddy!"

"It is just about him, Mary, I want to speak. He may be alive——"

"Oh, how do you know? Who has found him——"

"Don't become too excited now," pleaded Cleo, while Grace and Madaline both closed in affectionately about Mary's chair. "Of course we cannot be too positive, but Uncle Guy has wired he is bringing back—your daddy!"

"Oh!" the sound was a sigh, a gasp, then Mary began to slip down deep into the chair.

"Now, don't you dare faint!" called Madaline, with the magic way she always exercised of averting evil through sheer innocent challenge. "Here, Grace, hold her head while I fetch water," and while Grace attempted to support the head Madaline had been fondling, Mary raised it with a look of unspeakable joy.

"Oh, girls!" she murmured, "how did you do it?"

"Oh, we didn't," disclaimed Cleo. "No girls really could; we just lived up to our laws and rules and inspirations, and all those powers united to bring our happy result. It would be perfectly silly to say girls could do such things."

"But we did all the same," came from Grace, "and it would be sillier to say the rules and the laws and the inspirations did them. Wouldn't it? You wrote the whole story and even sent Mary's picture to your uncle."

"But daddy!" Mary begged. "Tell me, where is he now? How did your uncle find him?"

"Our uncle," corrected Cleo. "I am almost afraid to tell you this part. The girls will say I was in the secret all the time, and I wasn't, truly. Mary—you are my cousin!"

"She is not—no fair!" cried Grace, actually slamming a pillow on Cleo's head. "I warned you long ago not to dare to claim her——" And the thumping of soft pillows supplied the omission of words.

"At least let me tell it," said Madaline in mock scorn. "Be generous enough to give us that much glory. You see, ladies and gentlemen (to an imagined audience), this little girl," slamming Cleo with another pillow, "wrote a letter to her cousin. Her cousin had found his cousin, and his cousin made Mary Cleo's cousin, because Cleo's cousin—was——"

Realizing Mary was not in a mood for such joking, Madaline apologized with a kiss on the softly pinked cheek. "Mary-love," she confessed, "I just did that to ward off tears. Cleo would have disgraced the scouts in another moment."

"We got the most important clew in the old bamboo cane," said Cleo, seriously. "That was literally stuffed with papers, and one was a baptismal certificate, giving your name, Mary, as Marie Hastings Dunbar."

"Dunbar!" repeated Mary, "and the men all called daddy Dunnie. That was his name, Dunbar!"

"Yea, and Aunt Audrey has found out that Constance Hastings, your mother's mother, is in one of the finest hotels in New York now! The Hastings own the most famous orchid collection in this country."

"They are millionaires," began Mary, but her voice was almost scornful.

"Yes, I know. Aunt Audrey has talked with Mrs. Gilmore Hastings over the telephone. She will be apt to take you from us, if you don't hold tight."

"Never! Never! Never!" defied Grace. "She is our Mary—yes, cousin Mary, for isn't Cleo's Aunt Audrey our Aunt Audrey—by vacation scout laws?"

Only the girls that they were could have absorbed so many surprises at a sitting, but such is the nature of nature's best product, and that product is always lively, happy girls!

What happened between that time and next morning would take volumes to relate, but it might as well be admitted that Jennie had to fairly camp out in the hall that night to stop the talking, and it was away past midnight when she succeeded. Even then it would be false to claim that Mary actually slept.

Early in the evening Mrs. Dunbar had very carefully unfolded the story to Professor Benson when he came down over the mountain in the car Mrs. Dunbar had ordered. So that he, too, was somewhat prepared for the astounding surprise. The return of Jayson Dunbar from the mystery of orchid land seemed almost too wonderful, but the Professor admitted he had always hoped Jay would "turn up."

"And every letter I wrote to mother I kept hinting that the glories of Bellaire were actually taking root in my soul," said Cleo, as the girl dressed next morning, almost unconscious of the task they were performing. "Now she will understand the metaphor."

"And Michael is going to give us all a ride up to the studio before breakfast," exclaimed Madaline. "He wants to try the car to make sure it is all right."

"Try it on us," laughed Grace. Nevertheless she was the first one to find the best seat, when the car directly honked at the door.

Reda was beautifully installed in her own room, and pompously accepting the ministrations of Katie Bergen, when the girls found her at the studio. How delightful it all was! Mary was speechless with sheer joy.

"It is perfectly glorious!" she kept exclaiming. "And to think that daddy is coming! How can I believe it after all my dark days!"

"Girls! Let's have one more blissful look in the orchid room!" beggedGrace. "It won't be the same when others come."

Almost like a little procession they wended their way into the conservatory. At the opening of the door they were almost overcome with the perfume of the tropics that burst from the riot of glory there.

They looked from one bloom to another. Mary told them how Professor Benson had made every sort of bulb bloom in the hope of finding the lost treasure, the rarest orchid in the world. Then she explained why she and Reda had gathered queer roots from which the botanist had ground fertilizer, but that all of this had not brought forth the priceless bloom.

They were reluctantly leaving when Madaline and Grace espied Mary's old home-made doll. It was so quaint and queer they both sought to reclaim it at once.

"Just look!" said Madaline. "What a funny old doll!"

"Isn't it jolly," added Grace, whose hand was on the discarded toy just as Madaline picked it up.

"Why, the orchids have taken root in it, Mary," declared Grace. "See, this sprout growing out of the arm!"

"Let me see!" almost cried Mary. "Oh, girls, it is it! It is the lost orchid. Grandie had sewed it up in the doll! Look. See that stem!" She was shouting almost wildly, for there, shooting from the broken arm pit of the queer old hand-made doll was the unmistakable tendril of the long sought for orchid.

"And we both found it at exactly the same minute!" announced Grace when the full value of their discovery dawned upon them. "Cleo found an adorable cousin, and you and I, Madie dear, found the lost orchid!"

Mary held the doll up to the astonished gaze of her companions. To think that tiny green shoot should mean so much! That hidden in the queer doll was a prize, almost beyond price, and for this prize covetous men had followed Mary and her guardian from the tropics!

The girls stood there almost reverently.

And, unconsciously, Mary posed again as the Orphan of the Orchids!

Michael had been off to Crow's Nest for the professor and he was now back with the splendidly improved man, a scholar and a scientist every inch, who stood there in sight of his orchid room.

"Grandie! Grandie!" called Mary, "see, we have found it. You sewed it up in the doll you made me! Don't you remember how you told me never to part with that old rag baby?"

Like a flash it all came back! Yes, when the fever threatened his life he had decided the child could keep her doll free from suspicion, and in this he had sewed the precious orchid bulb.

"Girls! Girls!" he exclaimed, "am I dreaming? And I didn't betray my trust! Dunnie, you may come back to us now; I have saved for you both your darling child and your precious orchid!"

Meanwhile the greatest of great preparations were being completed at Cragsnook. Only the freest use of telegraph had contented Guy Dunbar to stay with the train that bore him and his famous cousin back to civilization.

The train was in. Michael and Shep met it. Boxer had been compelled to stay home though Michael wanted to take him, and all the girls "with Mrs. Dunbar and Professor Benson stood on the porch, under the arch of growing roses that welcomed the comers to Cragsnook.

"Don't get too excited, Mary," begged Madaline, always to be depended upon for breaking too heavy a silence.

"There they come," shouted Cleo, and nothing but a firm hold laid on her very skirts by Mrs. Dunbar kept the impetuous little scout from running out too near the approaching motor.

Folded in her daddy's arms, Mary seemed for a moment miles and miles away. Then she turned to the girls and tried to speak, but she only managed to say:

"Girls, I am wide awake at last."

"Say, Audrey," said Guy Dunbar, after he had embraced his wife and looked about him at the group of girls, "this surely is a real old home week. I always knew you ought to run a boarding school!"

"Or a merry-go-round, Uncle Guy," Cleo supplemented. "This house, withAunt Audrey as leader, has been a regular picnic grounds all Summer."

"And to think I should literally fall over old coz, Jay Dunbar, in a western lumber camp," said jolly Guy Dunbar, thumping his own brilliant head.

Mary and her father (he did look like Guy Dunbar) were too spellbound to notice their surroundings. But as quickly as he could manage it Professor Benson spoke to the wanderer. "It's like the real page in our old log, Dunnie," said the professor, "and your precious Spiranthes Corale has been found. I lost it, but Mary's, friends have recovered it and now you are the famous explorer you set out to become." And he held up the quaint doll with the miraculous green shoot stealing through its arm pit.

"Some little Girl Scouts!" declared Guy Dunbar, leading the way to the house.

"How shall we end it?" asked Cleo. "Mary's daddy is found, the orchid is found, new cousins are found—oh, girls! I have so many wonderful endings for our vacation story we shall have to vote on the fade-out!" she decided, while the girls fell into line for a Scout parade to victory.

And the joys of that wonderful reunion must occupy our own interest in these self-same little girls until we meet them again in the next volume, to be entitled, THE GIRL SCOUTS AT SEA CREST—OR THE WIG WAG RESCUE.


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