EAGER for the captain's story every scout was on hand promptly at two-thirty. The captain dusted off the wooden settee, and pulled out all his chairs, for the True Treds were meeting as if in council.
"It's about Kitty," he began. "Of course, you have guessed that. But what set me on this course was the way you have made friends with that heedless one. Seems to me you would stick by her in a pinch."
"We surely would, Captain," spoke up Grace, and her voice had in it the ring of the familiar "Aye, aye, sir."
"Well, you see," went on the captain, "she's so queer, no one makes friends with her. But from the furst I was a'watchin' you 'uns, as they say at Old Point, and I was curious to see if she was going to scare you off, as she had done to all the others."
"I guess she tried," Louise could not refrain from interrupting, for the memory of Kitty's throw of the paste board box was still vivid.
"Yes, she tried, and she has told me how she plagued you, but accordin' to Kitty you wouldn't quit."
"Not exactly quitters," ventured Cleo.
From his smile of approval it was plain the captain agreed with every interruption, and they seemed to whet his interest in the story he had undertaken to tell. He continued:
"Just noticin' and watchin' I says to myself, there is the very thing Kitty has always needed; girls, real live, jolly girls; and she ain't never had none."
He expressed himself more pathetically when he fell into the vernacular. "No sir, she ain't never had none," he repeated. "Then along you come, just for the summer, and she tried every blusterin' trick she could make use of to scare you off, to sort of bamboozle you, but you stick, and so, she's sort of givin' in. Especially since you befriended old Pete. That won her sure."
"She told us that she appreciated that," said Cleo. "But it was only fun to drive him to the landing. Of course, he wouldn't hear of us driving around to the Point, from where he could more easily have gone across to the island."
"Now then, thinking all those things over, and puttin' two and two together, as you might say, I've sort of concluded to ask you to do something more. And I almost feel I knowyour answer," pursued the well-trained narrator.
"You surely must know it, Captain," Cleo assured him. "I am acting captain of this troop—the True Tred. I am really only troop leader for the summer, but the girls call me captain, and I can speak for every one here, I know, when I say, we will do our utmost to help you, or to fulfill any trust you may offer."
At this the True Treds arose, and quite seriously gave their salute. So impressed was old Captain Dave, that he also tilted himself out of his tip chair, and likewise saluted. No one smiled—they were now engaged in serious work as True Treds.
"That's fine," he said heartily. "I tell you my boys can't beat that at drillin'. I just wish I could get a girl's team working some day," he complimented. "Wouldn't wonder if you could do as well as some boys.
"But back to Kitty," and his pipe was thoroughly emptied on the little tin plate at his elbow. "You see, the night her poor little mother was swung in from the Alameda with that youngster in her arms, we were too busy to do much but try to keep the freezin' folks alive. She had talked some to the little girl, and she had asked me to look out for the luggage.
"Well, when Mrs. Schulkill dies on the way to the hospital, and her name appears in thelist of those lost, along comes Kitty's relatives, the folks they were comin' to live with. I turned over the luggage and all that sort of stuff we could get off the Alameda before she foundered, but I just made up my mind I'd keep an eye on Kitty. Also, I'd hold on to her papers a bit, 'til these folks really proved they were good friends to the orphan." He shook his head in decision at the memory.
"I've done that," he declared, "and I have the papers. Now, they worry me some. How do I know what'll happen to me? I'm gettin' old, and the seas are pretty rough at times."
He paused, and the girls noticed how gray his face looked, and how haggard and heavily lined.
"This packet of papers was in a tin box," he then explained. "Kitty's mother was comin' home from Holland, and being a widow, she kept all her little belongings with her. I have them in the same little box, and as I have glanced over them I just feel they'll be mighty interestin' when the girl gets sense enough to understand them.
"Now, I've thought of turnin' them over to a lawyer here, but what would that mean? A fee; of course, I have no fee, neither has Kitty. Then, if I trust some one around here, they'll likely go pokin' into them, curious like; and I don't want to do a thing like that to the mother who left her little girl in my arms."
He stroked his beard thoughtfully. The paperswere plainly a considerable responsibility to carry. He looked out over the sea again, and shook his head thoughtfully.
"Are they letters or documents?" asked Cleo.
"Little of both," replied the captain. "And this is my plan. You girls must know some organization that would just take this little responsibility off Dave's shoulders."
"Certainly," spoke up Louise. "The Girl Scouts have a very trustworthy headquarters, and if this particular piece of work was not ours we could very readily place it where it belongs."
"Exactly, just exactly. That's what I've been a-thinkin'," said the Captain.
"There are Children's Aids, Travellers' Aids and all sorts of legal aids for just such purposes," said Margaret, "and if we bring anything confidential to the secretary at our headquarters, you may rest assured it will be placed where it belongs."
"Now, isn't that fine!" exclaimed the old sailor. "But you are not goin' up to the city soon, I take it, and I've just got a notion I'd like them papers put in safer quarters. No tellin' when I may be transferred, and then I wouldn't have time to think of the little tin box. Could one of you take it now, and put it in your family safe?" he asked.
The girls looked at one another speculatively.No one was personally anxious to assume such a responsibility.
"Louise,yourdaddy is a lawyer. He would know all about a thing like that. You take it?" urged Margaret.
After some discussion Louise finally agreed to accept the charge and old Dave shuffled over to his cupboard, procured a rusty tin box, and placed it in the scout's hand.
"There," he said with a sigh of relief. "I'm glad to get rid of that. It was like the little bundle of letters tied with blue ribbon, that we read about in love stories—not much to the world, but a lot to the right girl," he orated.
Louise looked at the box almost reverently. Just as Dave had said "not much to the world but a lot to the right girl," she thought.
"All right, Captain," she said bravely. "I am sure, simple as this is it does mean something, and as you say, Kitty is not yet wise enough to appreciate her mother's letters. So I accept the charge, and you may call upon me to report at any time you choose."
"Now, if I'm sent over to the Hook, I won't have to move quite so much," said Dave with something like a chuckle, for the box was a very small article to worry about in event of an ordinary moving. "Also," he continued, "I'll feel Kitty is in good hands with this sort of—well, sort of claim on your friendship," hestammered. "You see, how wise I am, to link you together this way?"
It had been rather a serious half hour, and the True Treds were not prone to stay concentrated for any prolonged length of time. As it was, Isabel had been counting the blocks in the faded red table cover, and Helen was drawing pictures with a burnt match on the back of a marine magazine.
"Now, I've got some good news, after all the old mildewed stuff," said Captain Dave. "You have been wanting to see our men at drill. What would you say to coming down some morning soon—and—and——Wonder would I be spilling the beans if I told you a secret?" he broke off.
"Trust us to pick them up carefully if you do, Captain," volunteered Cleo.
"Well, here's the news," and he sank lower in his chair, dropped his head deeper on his shoulders, and seemed to assume the most secretive and confidential air. "Listen," he commanded. "The Boy Scouts are to have a wig wag trial. They may have been a little mite jealous of your reputation, or something like that, anyhow, they've fixed it up to do a grand stand stunt, and they've enlisted the Beach Patrol——"
"But we have been begging for that all summer," interrupted Grace immediately on the offensive.
"I recall that, and it's why I am spilling the beans. Why can't you all join in?"
"With the Boy Scouts?" It was Louise who spoke.
"Certainly," Margaret hurried to say. "Why not? They will enter us if we send an application. Oh, goody-good! Louise run right home with the tin box, lock it in the safe and come have a troop meeting," sang out Margaret.
"Don't have to say where you heard the news, do you?" asked the captain with a chuckle.
"Certainly not," declared Cleo. "Besides, we know exactly where we can verify it. Come on, girls. Let's interview the clerk at the landing soda fountain. You remember he told us he was a scout."
They all remembered, and ran thither forewith, as Grace would say.
"To think of the boys planning to outdo us in glory," Cleo reflected. "Well, we had better be busy, True Treds, and get ready to prove our mettle."
It was exciting even to anticipate, and that the Boy Scouts were going to considerable trouble in their preparations now dawned forcibly upon the girls.
"That's what all the wig wag practising has been for," Margaret declared. "I have seen the boys on the beach every morning so early.I'm sure they know the code backwards and forwards."
"Exactly," agreed Louise. "How many brought manuals?"
"I did," replied Julia, but it was a solo.
"Then, we will all have to look over your shoulder, Julia dear," said Cleo. "It would be dreadful if we missed a letter."
"How are we going to get in the contest though? That's what worries me," declared Helen.
"First, find out all about it," advised Cleo practically. "Then, follow the advice of our friend what's-his-name at the landing. Louise, be careful of Kitty's papers," she ordered. "Isn't it lovely to have won the confidence of Captain Dave?"
"Lovelier still to live up to it," replied Louise, in her best oratorical tone, "I would have preferred some one else to take the tin box, but since I have it, I suppose I'll have to sit up nights watching it," she deplored.
"Lucky it's only letters, and not deeds to some monarchy," put in Helen. "But count on all of us, Weasie dear, to stand by you in case of any safe-blowing at midnight."
"I'm so excited about the contest, I can almost forget Kitty and Luna Land," gurgled Margaret. They were running along the lakeside, up to the river landing, with the hope of gaining the boy's confidence over nut sundaes.
"He's there! That's lucky!" Helen said, sighting in the open pavilion, the desired Boy Scout, just in the act of sizzling a soda.
"And he has on a clean apron, a good sign," said Margaret under her breath.
Tables nearest the water and farthest from land (thus most secluded) were chosen, and favorite frappes were smilingly ordered.
"Listen to catch his name," whispered Cleo, but a call for "Tommie" voided the suggestion. Tommie fetched their sundaes in that miraculous way waiters have of carrying cup and saucers heaped up, just as jugglers catch them.
"Been practicin'?" inquired Grace glibly.
"What for?" asked Tommie, whisking histowelover the table.
"Why, for the contest," answered Grace, as if the whole world should know that.
"Oh, yes a little," admitted Tommie, gliding off to a new customer.
"Didn't notice that he waved any program," said Louise.
"Don't give up," Margaret encouraged. "I could manage another sundae."
"So could I if I had the price," said Helen dryly.
Cleo tapped on the table and Tommie sauntered back.
"Say Tommie, you know we are strangers here," she began adroitly, "and don't know a single Girl Scout in town, and we are supposedto keep up our activities. How do we get in the contest?"
"Who told you about it?" he asked, his face betraying the fatal boyish weakness of succumbing to girls' flattering attention.
"Why, folks are talking about it, of course," went on Cleo sweetly. "It promises to be a big event."
"Bet your life," and the secret spring had been tapped. "That will be some event. We wanted to flash a surprise, but you being Girl Scouts, I think you ought to be in it."
"Of course, we should," came a chorus.
"Tell you what I'll do. I'll propose it at to-night's meeting. I saw you girls save the Bentley chap, and I know you're game," he said stoutly, "so I don't see why not."
"Good for you, Tommie!" Helen wanted to cheer. "And when they put you up for office, just let the True Treds know."
"That's right, Tommie," Cleo assured the blushing boy. "We'll see you through."
And why shouldn't they? As Tommie said: "I don't see why not."
"THEY'LL be sure to enjoy the shouting," Julia remarked, "but aside from that, I don't see what interest spectators can possibly work up in a wig wag contest."
"We almost agree with you, Julie," said Grace, "but don't you know everything, including bad weather, is interesting at the beach?"
"All right, scouty, I'm glad of it, for I think it is going to be simply great. And wasn't it splendid to get the sanction of headquarters?"
"Trust Cleo to take care of the official end," replied Grace. "Don't forget to-day is the day, and the pier is the place."
Signs of activity about the life saving station always gathered a crowd, and to-day the appearance of the men in uniform, pulling out the life lines, hoisting the buoys and running the life boat down to the water, drew more than the usual number of spectators.
It was Scout Day and everybody seemed to know it.
The boys having agreed to accept the challenge of the girls, in true scout chivalry, now offered the girls every possible courtesy, even to choice of place at which to stand for the wig wag try out.
It was arranged that Captain Dave's men were to row outside the fish nets, and wait there for their code to be waved to them for a "wreck off the hook." The exactness and quickness with which the message was waved was to be judged by a committee of citizens with the mayor as the honorary leader.
It had all been carefully planned as a summer attraction, and the scouts were to share in honors for their respective troops.
The blare of the firemen's band, affording more blare than music, proclaimed the time had come for a start, and the crack of Mayor Jones' revolver gave the signal for a race through the sand to gain places.
Cleo, Grace, Margaret and Louise won the post for True Treds, they having outdistanced the boys who were led by Tommie Johnson, and who was said to stumble purposely so that the girls might reach the pier first. However that might be, the True Treds liked Tommie, and he seemed to like them "pretty well," as Grace expressed it.
No chance for holding conversation as a contest preliminary, for the four scouts were scattered at regular distances over the fivehundred foot pier, while the boys on the sand, were dotted at similar distances, each armed with the red and white signal flag.
An exhibition of signalling was first presented, and this evoked generous applause from the crowds that jammed the board walk. Naturally the girls from their platform on the pier, "looked the prettiest," but the way they flashed their code did not admit of any self consciousness on the score of looks.
In a brief interval Grace waved to Louise a message in the True Tred secret code, and this was taken up by Cleo and Margaret who relayed it to Helen and Julia in their positions on the beach.
"Grace says 'nervous,'" whispered Helen, "and she is never nervous. I wonder what she means?"
"Just joking, I guess. No, see they are sending 'a,' that's error, of course," replied Julia, holding her own flag up in the interrogatory slant.
But the signal for the second event precluded any possibility of following out the private messages and presently all were again wrapped in attention at the silent waving contest—that language of distance, copied from the trees, and fashioned from the winds.
"Look! Look!" gasped Julia. "Louise is waving danger! What can be the matter."
Frantically the little scout on the extreme endof the pier was spelling "danger," then shooting her flag out to demand "attention."
"Oh, it's some one on the water," whispered Helen, fearful of causing a panic in that crowd.
"And she is signalling the life boat," gasped Julia. "But how far is it away?"
Suddenly Louise was seen to throw her flag high in the air, and dive from the pier!
Shouts, screams, and yells rent the air!
"The boat, the guard, the life line!" the air itself seemed to form the words, but only that speck at the end of the pier could be seen now, bobbing up and down, then—yes—it was a little boat, a canoe! That was what the scout had dived for!
If ever they had occasion to summon and use courage, the scouts, both boys and girls, had need of it now. Along the boardwalk the excitement was so intense as to cause danger of children being trampled on, and in this emergency those Girl Scouts not on the pier helped the Boy Scouts in efforts to prevent disaster.
But it was that tiny spot on the water that held the crowd with a bated breath.
"She must drown! Oh, that lovely girl!" they were gasping.
"Louise won't drown," said Julia, her face white as the muslin in her flag.
"No, Weasiecanswim," Helen assured her, holding her arm very tight, and begging comfort in the embrace.
"And we can't even get near her," moaned Julia, who just then had rescued a very little tot from a plunge down the high steps into the street.
"The line, the boat, they have her!" came another shout, and Julia wanted to sink on her knees.
"Oh, is the boat there? Can you see, Helen?" she begged.
"Yes, yes, it's the life boat, they have come! Didn't it seem an eternity?"
Instantly the accident occurred police officers had roped off the end of the pier to prevent any one rushing in, and now there stood at the steps the formidable ambulance.
"Oh, they must not take her to a hospital," wailed Helen. "Let us get to her, Julia. She will surely be all right in a little while."
"They are bringing them in a life boat," a gentlemen with marine glasses said. He had seen their distress and recognized their uniform.
"Oh, thank you, but how can we get to them?" begged Julia. "If only we could move through this awful crowd."
"I have a police whistle," he said. "I'll just blow it, and when the officer answers I'll explain. Remain quietly where you are."
The magic whistle shrilled its signal, and the crowd fell back, while the motorcycle officer answered. The gentleman quickly explained thesituation, and the two girls climbed to the rear seat of the motor, where they clung, as the officer piloted them through the autos and street crowds up to the pier.
"They're in! They're in!" the people were now shouting. But Julia and Helen were almost afraid to look.
Leaving his motorcycle at the boardwalk, the officer led the girls down on the sands where the life boat had just made shore.
"Who—is—it, with her?" breathed Julia, for they could now see that Louise sat up in the boat and had some one in her arms.
"It's Kitty!" shouted Helen. "She jumped to save Kitty. Oh, Louise, you darling! You brave little True Tred!" she cried. "Let me get to her."
In another moment Julia and Helen were with Cleo and Margaret, who had easily climbed down the pier, and were there when the boat came in. Scarcely speaking, the little group waited for a space to reach the life boat.
Louise, dripping, and sobbing just a little, sat in the skiff—with the seemingly lifeless form of Kitty in her arms. Quickly as landing was made one of the life savers picked up the unconscious girl, and rushed off with her, while another attempted to lift Louise.
"Oh, I'm all right," she protested. "I don't need any help at all."
But Captain Dave was there and he took no such chance.
"Here, my girl," he commanded in a voice of the seas. "Lean on me and come up to the station. Come along," this to the other scouts, "and you young ones keep back there," to the boys.
Louise took a few steps, then faltered. As if expecting this the captain stooped and lifted her in his arms, and it was a sight to remember, to see that old sailor, trudge along through the sands with the little girl scout almost on his broad shoulders.
And the remainder of the True Tred Troop were pressing along at his heels.
"Keep back there, keep away," warned the kind officer to the surging crowd, for the unspoken admiration for the Girl Scouts was now mounting high.
Tommie Johnson was so proud of "his friends" that something like mutiny seemed imminent in the boys' ranks.
"I told you, I told you!" he kept repeating, quite as if he had foretold the entire occurrence, when he only really referred to the courage of the Girl Scouts.
Up in the life saving station guards vied with one another in making hot tea, and giving such administrations as might benefit Louise, while she waited a few moments before being permittedto get in any one of the many cars, offered to take her home.
"But I am really only wet now," she insisted finally, "and I want to get out of this heavy uniform."
Realizing her mother might have heard any of the possible wild rumors, Captain Dave helped her into Cleo's car and very proud indeed, was the old sailor, of the wig wag rescue.
"No surprise to me," he told his men. "Those girls have the grit many a boy might well boast of, and when I saw her drop from that pier I did not have to hold my breath. I knew she'd make it."
"But how did she see that speck of a canoe creep around the pier?" asked Jim Barstow, the oldest member of the crew next to Captain Dave.
"Maybe she felt it," said the captain. "'Taint likely much would happen to Kitty without that little girl feeling it." But his men knew nothing of the trust he was recalling, that might have formed the link of confidence between the scouts and Kitty Scuttle.
Elizabeth, wise little friend, had rushed from the pavilion to the home of Louise, to make sure no report of drowning should reach the ears of the anxious mother.
"It was the most glorious sight," Elizabeth was just insisting when Gerald drew up withthe blue car, and Louise jumped out into her mother's arms.
"Up to the hospital, Jerry," ordered Cleo. "We must see how Kitty is."
Julia and Helen went with Cleo, and it was their uniform, as usual, that served as a pass, admitting them to the hospital.
Kitty had been revived, and was now becoming obstreperous, she insisted on going home, and was loudly declaring her Uncle Pete would die of fright, when he missed her and the canoe.
At the entrance of Cleo and Julia (Helen did not come in) Kitty all but bounced out of the little white bed, and then, when she could get her thin arms around Cleo's neck—then the tears fell.
"That will be good for her," said the nurse very quietly to Julia. "She has been so wrought up, the outburst will relieve the strain."
But how Kitty could cry! And how she did yell! Cleo patted her shoulders and soothed her with every sort of affectionate protestation, but all the girl seemed to want to do was cry, and cry she did for so long a time, the scouts felt more helpless with her than they had in the real critical stage of the emergency.
"You be good, Kitty," said Cleo finally. "And I'll go right up to the landing and shout for Uncle Pete. Then, when he comes over, I'll tell him all about it—that is how you are perfectlyall right," she corrected herself. "If you are very quiet, and good, maybe the nurse will let me in again to tell you what he says."
"And do you think I'm going to stay in this horspittal all night?" protested Kitty. "Don't I know what they did to my mother."
This started another outburst, and seeing the hysterical child was not apt to soon be quieted, the nurse insisted on her swallowing a dose of bromide, and at that juncture the girls quietly stole from the bedside.
Gerald "dropped" Julia at her cottage, then Cleo and Helen were driven to the landing. No need to shout over to the island, for Uncle Pete stood there, on the narrow dock, watching the road with anxious eyes.
It was hard to assure him of Kitty's safety, and only his personal knowledge of the power of the scouts, gleaned from his own experience when they had rescued him some weeks before, did finally allay his fears. "We'll fetch her back, first thing in the morning," they promised, and then they watched the old man pull his oars with a weary stroke, toward the lonely little island, called Luna Land.
THE wig wag contest had furnished enough excitement at Sea Crest to constitute a nine day's wonder. Nothing short of an uncanny power seemed attributed to the Girl Scout, who would risk her own life in a dive from that pier, when she saw a canoe upset beneath. The whole occurrence had been so spectacular that the publicity it provoked was widespread—every one was talking of the wig wag rescue.
"But, Weasie dear," cooed Grace, "what did it feel like to jump? Just tell us that and then we'll let you off."
Louise smiled wanly. Was it possible that any other question could be invented?
"It didn't exactly feel," she replied to Grace, "but I knew I had to do it. I had been watching the little speck of a boat as it took the rollers from the side, and I knew the next would toss it over. Then I saw Kitty—and I didn't think of the distance after that."
"You looked about as big as a fish hawk diving for his dinner," remarked Cleo, "and younipped Kitty just as neatly as a hawk pecks his fish."
"I felt just like that—it is birdlike to dive from such a distance," Louise said, "and cutting through the air, free of everything—is—is wonderful."
"Even with the ocean as a backstop?" asked Helen shivering.
"Nice and soft," Louise said reflectively.
"But however did you hold on to Kitty, and cling to the canoe?" persisted Grace, in spite of the promise to cease questioning.
"I don't know. It was black for awhile, and I just struggled to keep up, and to keep Kitty up. She was too scared to help herself, and she had swallowed a lot of water. I guess I managed to cling to the canoe—Girls, you don't know what you can do until you have to," she finished.
It was still early, but the visit to Kitty at the hospital had to be made early, according to promise. Louise and Margaret were to go, and the other scouts, especially Julia and Grace, were going in the car as far as the village, to be picked up there by the girl's car on the way back.
They found the patient dressed, and being forcibly detained, as the nurse put it. In fact, Kitty had been dressed since day break, and nothing short of force did detain her.
"Good thing you come now," she greetedMargaret. "Oh, there's my life-saver. Hello, McGinty, how's the water to-day? I don't want to test it though," she shook her cropped head, and the girls noticed how much better that hair looked since its salt water shampoo.
"Don't hurry so, Kitty. You have plenty of time. Uncle Pete said he would be over at the landing at ten o'clock, and it's only nine now." Louise told her.
"No matter what time," she retorted, "it's next year to me. This place is haunted sure. I was fishin' with ghosts all night."
"That was your bromide," Margaret assured her. "You were so excited and hysterical you simply had to be quieted down. Do you feel all right?"
"Don't know as I feel at all," Kitty answered, jerking herself up to make sure she had not grown fins. "I never want to read that Jonah story again. But I knew it! I knew it!" and she chewed her lips in repressed bitterness.
"Knew what?" Louise asked.
"That the old monster ocean would try to swallow me," she replied. "Didn't I tell you I would never go on that water after what it done to me? But I did want to see that wig waggin' and I went out because—"
She stopped, and the sharp little black eyes were glistening.
"I know, Kitty. You wanted to see us beatthe boys, didn't you?" asked Louise. "Well, we did it, and maybe if you hadn't—got spilled, I couldn't have won on the signalling. You see, the life boat was out there watching, and they caught my message, and just shot in—lucky for you and me."
"If I knowed Captain Dave's men were out there, I wouldn't have been so scared to death," Kitty said. "But anyhow, I'm goin' home," and she made for the door. "Good-by, nurse, you've been real good to me. I like your cookin' first rate, and I'll fetch you the first mess of clams I dig," she offered.
The nurse was amused and interested. Kitty had given her a new line on patients. From the time her wet clothes had been taken from her, Kitty had threatened to go out on the fire escape in the hospital robe, if they were not returned very early in the morning, and nurse knew very well, she intended to carry out the threat.
There was no bag or luggage to leave with Kitty, neither did she dally in her exit. Rather, she was in the car and waiting, before Margaret and Louise could possibly get down the stairs and reach the sidewalk.
"I love automobiles," said Kitty, as they climbed in, and Leonore touched the starter.
"Wish you would take a longer ride," Margaret remarked. "It would do you good."
"Can't, wish I could," the girl replied a bitwistfully. "Don't know what's happened since I've been away. Hope Bentley was there." Margaret then noticed an anxiety that seemed to make a woman out of the winsome child.
"You're not worrying about Uncle Pete?" asked Louise. "The girl said he was all right last evening."
"Oh no, it isn't Uncle Pete I'm worrying about," replied Kitty. But she did not attempt to explain further, and the girls noticed the omission.
Turning carefully into the little sand road that led to the landing, Leonore slowed down. A boy just stepped from the pavilion.
"Oh, there's Bentley!" shouted Kitty. "Hello, Ben!" she called waving frantically. No wonder she was so delighted, thought her companions. It was almost like coming back from the grave.
"Hello, Kitty," replied Bentley quickly as he could make out the figure in the back seat of the car. His face showed his pleasure. For Kitty to have been snatched from the waves, and then spend the night in the hospital, was really an occurrence.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," she rattled on. The "waits" were addressed one to Bentley and the other to Leonore. "I'm going over with Ben. Got your boat?"
"Yes, come on," called the boy, plainly gladto be of service to the heroine. "Uncle Pete is at the bend. I'll row you down to him."
"Hello, Bentley," Louise called out. "Haven't we had a great time?"
"I should say you had," he answered, cap in hand. "You're the life saver, aren't you?"
"She'sit," sang out Margaret gleefully.
"Oh, say, girls" (now Bentley's bashfulness was threatening him), "did any of you lose a bag?"
For a moment neither Margaret nor Louise remembered Elizabeth's lost bag with the shoes and stockings on the beach. Then it flashed on Margaret—
"Oh, yes with some other things," she stammered. "You know, Louise, Elizabeth left her bag with the things on the beach, moonlight bathing night—"
"Yes, that's so," said Louise. "Why, Bentley? Did you find a bag?"
"No, but I saw one in a shop, and I thought it might belong to some one of you girls. What sort did you lose?"
Neither girl knew much about the lost bag, but Louise thought it might be a blue crochet.
"Yes, that's it," said Bentley. "It has a tassel on it and it's blue. I'll get it for you next time I go over to Jake's," he offered.
"Is it at Jake's?" exclaimed Kitty. "That's where I saw the dandy pumps with buckles on, and the swellest silk stockings. Louise, I'll getthe bag for you, because I'm going over to Jake's to buy some of those things!"
"Oh," exclaimed Louise, in a gale of laughter. "Those are our pumps and stockings. They were taken off from the beach."
"You don't say?" and Kitty's tone allayed any possible suspicion. "That's just like Jake. Buys everything the boys offer, and no questions asked, just like they say in the papers. I tell you, I'll come around when I can," this rather dubiously, "and I'll get you girls, and we'll go and raid Jake. It'll do him good."
When she raced off with Bentley and Leonore turned toward the village the scouts were still shaking with laughter.
"We are to raid Jake's. Remember that," said Margaret.
"But we will surely have to make a contribution to Kitty," said Louise. "She has had her eye on your buckles, Maggie."
"Why didn't you see the patient all the way home?" asked Leonore, when they stopped for the other girls at the Post Office.
"Oh, why didn't we?" reiterated Louise. "Leonore, she lives on forbidden ground. We have had a glimpse of it and hope for more, but we have to bide-a-wee, don't we, Margaret? Get me a quart of those peaches," she called out to Cleo, who seemed spellbound before a fruit stand.
"And I want new apples," ordered Margaret."Don't take any old cold storage stuff. I want new ones, if they do pizen me," she declared.
"How folks stare," whispered Louise. "I'll have to leave off this handy little uniform for a while."
"Not at all," protested Margaret. "We want folks to know who we are. I feel like giving the cheer this very minute."
But the return of the marketers forestalled any such danger. Apples and peaches, and even a big melon, were piled in the car by the boy from the Italian fruit stand, and then Cleo insisted on every one having a soda before going back to Ocean Avenue.
The drug store, where the best soda was served, filled many other civic needs than those of supplying sundaes and prescriptions. It also served as a town information bureau, and just now, while the girls were waiting for their order, a very pompous woman in the spickest, spannest white duck outfit, was asking questions from the prescription clerk.
The girls heard him mention "the Point" and at this they stopped talking to "listen in."
"But I must get my messages as quickly as they are received," said the white duck woman. "It is of the utmost importance."
"Wireless messages have to be relayed," explained the man, "and besides that, we can'talways get a boat over to the place." His voice was vindictive.
"All right, but please be more careful," said the woman. "It is not a matter of money, you know."
"We only have one kind of charge," fired back the clerk rather angrily. "Our boys are paid for their time, and that's all we ask." He turned away to answer the telephone, and the haughty creature left the drug store. As she did she made no excuse for an impertinent survey of the girls, sipping their sodas.
"Know us the next time," said Cleo.
"Surely will," added Louise.
"And getting wireless messages for Luna Land! Now I'm all excited," and Margaret tried to make use of two drug store fans, one in each hand.
"It is flabbergasting," gulped Louise, finishing her soda. "That white duck reminds me of something."
"Of Kitty's nurse," Margaret exclaimed. "I think though, the wireless one has a crackle the hospital brand lacks. Kitty's nurse was quite noiseless."
"That one wasn't, though," declared Julia. "She had enough starch in that outfit to defy even the Sea Crest dampness. Perhaps that was the real idea. Come on, scouts. Do you recall Neal is to take us out in his new launch?"
"And did you hear he is going to call it the Treddie, after us?" added Grace.
"Yes, wanted to make it True Tred, but we told him that was copyrighted," explained Julia.
"Shall we dare ask for a trip to the Point?" inquired Helen. "That was the plan you know; first trip in the new launch."
"We'll see. But come on, do. Leonore, you are a dear, to take us all about, and listen to our prattle," Cleo told the capable driver who had long since finished her soda, and was waiting patiently for the younger girls.
"I like it," she replied with evident sincerity.
"You shall have a box of sunburn cream for that," sang out Louise. "What is your brand? Or would you rather have a talcum?"
Selecting from the bewildering display at the counter of summer toilet articles consumed still more time, until finally, realization that it was really lunch time, the fire bell announcing it, brought them all up sharply.
"Wish we had our slippers and pumps back," said Grace. "These emergency sneaks certainly look the part. When did Kitty say we were to raid Jake's?"
"No definite time was set, as they say about delayed scout meetings," replied Margaret, "but I could use my pretty buckled pumps this very afternoon."
"Wait a minute," Helen called to a news boy."We want a paper!" They always seemed to want something when in town.
"Look! Look!" exclaimed Margaret, securing the sheet while some one else paid the boy. "We are all over the front page. Louise Hart, we will have to appoint a body guard for you, or the people will kidnap you. Just read this!"
"Oh, just listen," insisted Cleo. "It says the Sea Crest Life Savers are going to ask the naval authorities to acknowledge the brave act——"
But Louise had fallen back in a mock faint—The glory of the aftermath was getting a bit too thick for comfort.