“Things like that can be arranged,” replied Mary Louise, thinking of David McCall’s accusation. “That tramp, for instance, might have been bribed.”
“Well, I’m sure he wouldn’t want to. Now, if it were that man Frazier’s place, the Royal Hotel, I mean, it would be possible. You know what Cliff said about the way he’s losing money. The hotel is practically empty, except for the Hunters and their friends.”
“Maybe it will give Mr. Frazier an idea,” remarked Mary Louise, “and his hotel be the next to burn!”
“You seem to feel sure that something is coming next!”
“I’m afraid so. And I only hope it won’t be our bungalow!”
Mary Louise sighed and closed her notebook.
“It’s much more difficult than that mystery at Dark Cedars,” she said. “Because there you had only one place to watch. If I knew which cottage would be the next to burn, I could hide there and spy. But Shady Nook’s a mile long, and I can’t be everywhere.”
“No,” agreed Jane. “And you don’t like to stay home from all the parties just on a chance that there will be a fire. Has it occurred to you, Mary Lou, that both fires started when everybody from Shady Nook was off on a party?”
“Yes, it has. That’s why it seems like a planned crime to me—not just an accident. As if the criminal picked his time carefully.”
The familiar “chug-chug” of a motorboat interrupted the girls’ discussion. Clifford Hunter shut off his engine and threw the rope around the Gays’ dock.
“Hello, girls!” he called, with his usual grin. “I haven’t had time to work up any new card tricks, but I hope I’ll be welcome just the same.”
“Oh, we have more serious things to think about than tricks,” responded Mary Louise.
“You mean that now you have to turn in and do the cooking since Flicks’ Inn is gone?”
“I really hadn’t thought of that,” answered Mary Louise. “Though of course we shall have to do that very thing. We aren’t rich enough to eat at the Royal Hotel.”
“It’s not so steep, considering the service you get. Maybe Frazier will lower his prices, for he sure needs the business. But, of course, you have a large family. It would be kind of expensive.”
“Where can we buy food?” inquired Jane. So far, the Gays’ breakfasts had consisted of supplies they brought along with them, with the addition of milk, butter, and eggs from a farmer who stopped daily at Flicks’.
“There’s a store over at Four Corners,” replied her chum, naming the nearest village—about five miles away. “We usually drive over once a week for supplies. I suppose I better go in now and ask Mother how soon she wants me to go.”
“Be my guests tonight at the Royal for dinner,” suggested Cliff. “Then you won’t have to bother about buying stuff.”
“Thanks, Cliff, but there are too many of us. Besides, I’d have to go to the store anyway. We’ll need things for lunch. You know how hungry we are when we come out from swimming.”
“By the way,” asked Jane, “where is David McCall staying? And the other people who were boarding at Flicks’?”
“They’re all over at the hotel,” answered Cliff. “Makes the place seem quite lively. Frazier’s stepping around at a great rate, looking pleased as Punch.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Mary Louise significantly, and she wrote another name into her notebook.
She ran inside the cottage and five minutes later returned with her mother’s list of groceries and the keys to the car.
“I’m going over to Four Corners now, Jane,” she announced. “Will you come with me or play around with Cliff?”
Her chum stood up.
“I’ll go with you,” she said. “If you’ll excuse me, Cliff.”
The young man made a face.
“Jane only likes me for my card tricks,” he whined. “If I can’t amuse her, I’m no use.”
Both girls burst out laughing.
“Work up a new one while we’re gone,” advised Jane. “And we’ll see you in swimming.”
“I told Mother we girls would take every other day at the housekeeping,” said Mary Louise as she backed the car out of the garage and onto the road behind the cottages. “That will give her a chance to get some rest from cooking—some vacation. You don’t mind, do you, Jane?”
“Course I don’t mind!” replied her chum. “Maybe the family will, though!”
“Don’t you believe it! We’re swell cooks, if I do say it myself.”
She drove the car along past the backs of the cottages, turning at the road beyond Ditmars in the direction of the little village of Four Corners—a place not much bigger than its name implied. It was a still, hot day; all the vegetation looked parched and dried, and the road was thick with dust.
“I wish it would rain,” remarked Mary Louise. “If we should have another fire, it might spread so that it would wipe out all of Shady Nook.”
“Oh, let’s forget fires for a while,” urged Jane. “You’re getting positively morbid on the subject!... Is this the grocery?” she asked as her companion stopped in front of a big wooden house. “It looks more like a dry-goods store to me. All those aprons and overalls hanging around.”
“It’s a country store,” explained the other girl. “Wait till you see the inside! They have everything—even shoes. And the storekeeper looks over his glasses just the way they always do in plays.”
The girls jumped out of the car and ran inside. Jane found the place just as Mary Louise had described it: a typical country store of the old-fashioned variety.
“Hello, Mr. Eberhardt! How are you this summer?” asked Mary Louise.
“Fine, Miss Gay—fine. You’re lookin’ well, too. But I hear you had some excitement over to Shady Nook. A bad fire, they tell me. Can you figure out how it happened?”
“No, we can’t,” replied the girl. “You see, everybody was away at the time—at a picnic on the little island down the river.”
“Looks like spite to me,” observed the storekeeper. “Bet Lemuel Adams or his good-fer-nuthin’ son done it!”
“Lemuel Adams?” repeated Mary Louise. “Who is he? Any relation to Hattie Adams, who always waited on the table at Flicks’ Inn?”
“Yep—he’s her father. You ought to know him. He’s a farmer who lives up that hill, ’bout a couple of miles from Shady Nook. Well, he used to own all this ground around here, but he sold it cheap to a man named Hunter. The one who started the settlement at Shady Nook.”
“Yes, I knew him,” said Mary Louise. “He was Clifford Hunter’s father. But he died not long ago.”
“So I heard. Anyhow, this man Hunter got fancy prices for his building lots, and naterally old Lem Adams got sore. Always complainin’ how poor he is and how rich old Hunter got on his land. Reckon it got under his skin, and mebbe he decided to take revenge.”
“Oh!”
Mary Louise wanted to write the name of Lemuel Adams into her notebook then and there, but she didn’t like to. Should she add Hattie’s name too? Had the girl taken any part in the plot?
“What sort of looking man is Mr. Adams?” she inquired, thinking of the “tramp” whom the boys had mentioned seeing in the woods.
“Old man—with white hair. Has a bad leg—rheumatism, I reckon. He walks with a limp,” explained the storekeeper.
Mary Louise sighed: this couldn’t be the same person, then, for the boys would surely have noticed a limp.
“Here’s my list,” she said, handing her mother’s paper to Mr. Eberhardt. “Do you think you have all those things?”
“If I ain’t, I can get ’em fer you,” was the cheerful reply.
The girls wandered idly about the store while they waited for their order to be filled. Jane had a wonderful time examining the queer articles on display and laughing at the ready-made dresses. At last, however, a boy carried their supplies to the car, and Mary Louise asked for the bill.
“Nine dollars and sixty-two cents,” announced Mr. Eberhardt, with a grin. “You folks sure must like to eat!”
“We do,” agreed Mary Louise. “I suppose this will mean more business for you. Or did the Flicks buy groceries from you anyhow?”
“No, they didn’t. They got most of their stuff from the city.... Yes, in a way it’s a streak of luck fer me. The old sayin’, you know—that it’s an ill wind that brings nobody luck!... Yes, I’ll have to be stockin’ up.”
Mary Louise and Jane followed the boy to the car and drove away. As soon as they were safely out of hearing, Mary Louise said significantly, “Two more suspects for my notebook!”
“Two?” repeated Jane. “You mean Lemuel Adams and his son?”
“I wasn’t thinking of the son,” replied Mary Louise, “Though, of course, he’s a possibility. No, I was thinking of Mr. Eberhardt, the storekeeper.”
“The storekeeper! Now, Mary Lou, your ideas are running wild. Next thing you’ll be suspecting me!”
“Maybe I do,” laughed her chum. “No, but seriously—if Dad is working on a murder case, he always finds out immediately who profited by the victim’s death. That supplies a motive for the crime. Well, it’s the same with a fire. Didn’t this storekeeper profit—by getting extra business—because Flicks’ burned down?”
“Yes, he did,” admitted the other girl. “But, on the other hand, it didn’t do him a bit of good for the Hunters’ bungalow to be destroyed.”
“No, of course not. But, then, that may have been an accident.”
“Yet this Lemuel Adams might have been responsible for both fires. He seems a lot guiltier to me. If he hated Mr. Hunter particularly, he’d naturally burn his cottage first. Then he’d go about destroying all the rest of Shady Nook.”
“Your reasoning sounds good to me, Jane,” approved Mary Louise, her brown eyes sparkling with excitement. “And we’ve got to make a call on Mr. Adams right away. This very afternoon!”
“Not me,” said Jane. “I’m going canoeing with Cliff Hunter.”
Mary Louise looked disappointed.
“Suppose Watson had told Sherlock Holmes that he had a date with a girl and couldn’t go on an investigation with him when he was needed?”
“Watson was only a man in a book who didn’t make dates. I’m a real girl who’s full of life. I came up here for some fun, not just to be an old character in a detective story! And besides, Mary Lou, you have a date too. I heard you promise David McCall you’d go canoeing with him today.”
“I’m mad at David,” objected Mary Louise. “He certainly made me furious last night.”
“What did he do?”
Mary Louise frowned, but she did not tell Jane what the young man had said about Cliff Hunter. No use getting her chum all excited, so she merely shrugged her shoulders.
“Oh, just some remarks he made,” she replied. “But I really had forgotten all about the date. When did I promise him?”
“Yesterday afternoon, before I went off with Cliff. Oh, come on, Mary Lou! Go along with us. Let’s pack a supper—it’ll be easy with all that food we brought back from the store. Maybe your mother and Freckles will go along.”
“No, I really can’t, Jane. I don’t want to be rude to you—you are my guest, I know—but honest, this is important. That I go see old Mr. Adams, I mean. If he has made up his mind to burn down the entire settlement at Shady Nook, our cottage will be included. I’ve just got to do something to save it—and everybody else’s. You know—Dad’s counting on me!”
“Yes, I understand how you feel, Mary Lou. But you may be all wrong—these two fires may just have been accidents—and then you’ll be wasting your perfectly good vacation for nothing.”
“Oh, but I’m having fun! There’s nothing I love better than a mystery. Only this one does scare me a little, because we may actually be involved in it.”
“Well, you do whatever you want,” Jane told her. “Just regard me as one of the family, and I’ll go my own way. I know everybody here now, and I’m having a grand time. Only don’t forget you have David McCall to reckon with about breaking that date!”
They drove up to the back door of the cottage, and Freckles, who had returned home by this time, helped carry in the boxes. Mary Louise asked him how he had made out with the Flicks.
“Not so good,” was the reply. “He’s sore as anything. Still believes we had something to do with starting the fire, though he admits he doesn’t think we did it on purpose. They’re going away today.”
“Oh, that’s too bad!” exclaimed Mary Louise. “I was hoping they would build some kind of shack and continue to serve meals.”
“Nope, they’re not going to. They’ve decided to go right back to Albany, where they live in the winter.”
“Where are they now?” demanded Mary Louise. She realized that she must hurry if she meant to interview them before they left Shady Nook.
“Mr. Flick’s on his lot, and Mrs. Flick is over at the Partridges’. They stayed there all night, you know, Sis.”
As soon as the supplies from the store were carefully stored away, the two girls walked over to the spot where the Flicks’ Inn had stood. The charred remains were pitiful to see; the fire had been much harder on the Flicks than the Hunters’ disaster had been for them, because the innkeeper and his wife were poor. And what they made in the summer went a long way toward supporting them all the year round. Mary Louise felt sorry for them, but nevertheless she resented their laying the blame upon her brother.
The girls found Mr. Flick standing under a tree talking to some men in overalls—working men, whom Mary Lou remembered seeing from time to time around the hotel across the river.
“May I talk with you for a moment, Mr. Flick?” inquired Mary Louise, as the former turned around and spoke to her.
“Yes, of course, Mary Louise,” he replied. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“You really don’t think the boys are responsible, do you, Mr. Flick?” she asked directly, when he joined the girls.
“I don’t know what to think,” replied the man. “It may have been an accident. That one servant girl we have is awfully careless.”
“Which one?”
“Hattie Adams. The one who waits on your table and washes the dishes.”
“Hattie Adams!” repeated Mary Louise. “Lemuel Adams’ daughter!”
“Yes. And Tom Adams’ sister.” He lowered his voice. “That’s Tom over there—remember him?—he does odd jobs for both me and Frazier sometimes.”
Mary Louise nodded and glanced at the young man. He was a big fellow with a somewhat sullen expression. He looked something like Hattie.
“How do you know Lem Adams?” inquired Mr. Flick.
“I don’t,” replied Mary Louise quietly. “But the storekeeper over at Four Corners told me about him. How he used to own all this land and sold it cheap to Mr. Hunter. So he thinks maybe Mr. Adams is burning the cottages to spite the Hunters.”
“But Hunter is dead!” objected Mr. Flick. “And it doesn’t spite the Hunters one bit, because they are fully insured. That’s the worst of it for me. My insurance only covers my mortgage—which Cliff Hunter happens to hold. I’m as good as wiped out.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Mary Louise sympathetically.
“Not half as sorry as I am.” He scowled. “And when I get to Albany I’m going to hunt up a lawyer. If those Smith kids did it, their parents can pay for the damage!”
“Oh, but they didn’t!” protested Mary Louise.
“It’s too bad if your brother was in it too. But if he was, he ought to be punished—though I blame that Robby Smith as the ringleader. Boys like those aren’t safe to have around. They don’t have anybody to control them. They ought to be locked behind the walls of a reform school.”
There was nothing Mary Louise could say: the man was far too wrought up to listen to reason. So she and Jane merely nodded goodbye and turned away.
They stopped at the Partridges’ cottage to see Mrs. Flick and found her much calmer.
“I blame the Adams girl,” she said. “Hattie’s so careless! And she was the last one at the inn. I never should have left her alone. But my other waitresses wanted to get back to their hometown, and they left early—before we did. So I can’t lay the blame on them.”
“You really don’t think the boys did it, do you, Mrs. Flick?” inquired Mary Louise anxiously.
“No, I don’t,” was the reassuring reply, “even if my husband does!”
“Thank goodness for that!” exclaimed the girl in relief. “Well, I’m going to call on the Adams family this afternoon and find out all I can. I’ll pump Hattie, and old Mr. Adams too.”
“Good luck to you, my dear!” concluded Mrs. Flick.
Jane went off early after lunch in Cliff Hunter’s canoe, and Mary Louise sat on the porch waiting for David McCall. She was still angry at him for the way he had accused Cliff to her the night before, but a promise is a promise, and she meant to see him. If she had had a chance to go swimming that morning, she might have tried to break the date.
He came along about half-past two, smiling shyly, as if he were not quite sure how he stood with Mary Louise.
“You’re not still mad at me, Mary Lou, are you?” he asked, looking straight into her eyes.
“Yes, I am,” replied the girl. “I’m disappointed that a boy with your brains can’t reason more intelligently. The finest detective in the world wouldn’t be sure that one certain person was guilty of a crime until he had made some investigations.”
“But it’s so obvious, Mary Lou! Hunter holds a big mortgage on one place and big fire insurance on another. He can’t sell either of them, and he needs the money. So he sets them both on fire and collects that way! What could be simpler?”
“There are lots of other people, besides Cliff, who profited from those two fires. In fact,” concluded Mary Louise, “the thing that worries me is that there are so many suspects. It’s terribly confusing.”
David opened his eyes wide in amazement.
“I don’t see who——” he began.
“Oh, don’t you!” snapped the girl. “Then just listen to this bunch of names!” She opened her notebook and read him the list:
“‘Horace Ditmar, Lemuel Adams, Eberhardt’—the storekeeper—‘Frazier, a tramp the boys saw in the woods, and a queer-looking woman.’ Not to mention the boys, because I really don’t think they did it.”
David shook his head. “All possible, of course, but not any of them probable. Of course, I understand you have reasons for suspecting Ditmar, and I admit he is a queer cuss. Still, I don’t think he’d do a thing like that. But tell me why you suspect men like Adams—I suppose he’s the farmer, isn’t he?—and Frazier and Eberhardt. Sounds silly to me.”
“Frazier and Eberhardt both gained something by the fires: more business. And Dad always tells me to hunt for motives.”
“They didn’t get enough business to go to all that trouble,” remarked David.
“I’m not so sure. Then, the storekeeper told me that Lemuel Adams felt spiteful towards the Hunters because they made so much money out of his land. So Adams may be doing it for revenge.”
“Hardly likely, when the fires actually put money into the Hunters’ pockets.”
“Well, I don’t know. Anyway, I’m going to do my best to find out who did it—to clear Freckles, for one reason, and to prevent our own bungalow from burning down, for another.”
“You needn’t worry about your bungalow,” said David stubbornly. “Cliff Hunter hasn’t any mortgage on it.”
Mary Louise gave him a scornful look. She stood up.
“I can’t go canoeing with you, David,” she announced. “I’m driving over to Adams’ farm. You can come along with me if you want to,” she added grudgingly.
The young man looked disappointed.
“You are mean, Mary Lou,” he said. “My vacation’s nearly over.”
“I’m being a lot nicer to you than you deserve,” she replied. “Letting you in on all the thrills of solving a real mystery.... Well, are you coming or not?”
“Sure I’m coming,” he muttered disconsolately. But he gazed longingly at the river and wished it were a canoe, and not a car, in which they were to spend the afternoon.
Remembering the farmhouse where Hattie Adams had said she lived, Mary Louise turned off the drive beyond Shady Nook into a dirt road which wound around to the top of a hill. She was going slowly—in second gear—when a strange-looking creature in a gray dress darted out from the bushes into the direct path of the car. With a gasp of horror, Mary Louise ground down her brakes, missing the woman by only a couple of inches.
“What did you do that for?” shouted David.
The woman looked up and smiled innocently at the two young people in the car. Her eyes were vacant and expressionless; her gray hair hung about her face in tangled curls, tied with a faded blue ribbon, in a childish fashion. And under her arm she lugged an immense china pitcher—the kind that is used in the country for carrying water to the bedrooms. She was indeed a strange-looking person—probably the same woman the boys had noticed on the road the night before.
“You better move out of the way!” called David.
The woman wagged her head confidently: evidently she had no idea of the danger she had just escaped.
“I’m looking for well water,” she said. “Well water to put out the dreadful fires.”
“Fires?” repeated Mary Louise sharply.
“Yes, fires. The Lord said in His holy Book that He would burn down the cities of pleasure because of the sins of the people. But I am sorry for the little children. I must help put out the fires with pure water from a well. I am Rebecca—at the well!”
Mary Louise was horror-stricken. This woman might indeed be the “firebug” whom she and Jane had considered as a possibility. Although she seemed to want to put fires out, perhaps she lighted them first for that very purpose.
“I’m sorry, but we don’t know where there is a well,” she replied. “But tell us where you live, Rebecca. We’ll take you home.”
The woman shook her head.
“No, no, I can’t go home. I must find water. There will be a fire tonight, and I must be ready to put it out. I must go.”
“Where will the fire be tonight?” demanded Mary Louise apprehensively.
“I don’t know. One of those wicked cottages, where the people go about half clad, and where they dance and feast until past midnight. I can’t tell you upon which the Lord’s anger will descend, but I know it will come. I know it. I must get water—pure water. I can’t have innocent children burned to death.”
“But who are you?” repeated Mary Louise.
“I am Rebecca. And I am going to meet my bridegroom at the well. My Isaac!” Her eyes gleamed with happiness as she trotted off down the hill, carrying that ridiculous pitcher in her hand.
David and Mary Louise sat still, looking at each other in speechless wonder, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry at the poor deluded woman.
“But she seems happy,” remarked David. “So I guess we needn’t pity her.”
“She’s like that bride in the Dickens book,” said Mary Louise. “The woman who was deserted on her wedding day and wore her wedding dress all the rest of her life, expecting her bridegroom to come back. Remember? That always gave me the creeps.”
“But this woman is happier. She’s sure she’s going to meet her Isaac at a well.” He laughed. “No, I think we’re more to be pitied than she is. For if she goes around setting fire to people’s places——”
“She ought to be locked up! Yet that seems a shame, if she does happen to be harmless.” Mary Louise stepped on the starter. “Well, let’s go on up to the Adams’. Maybe they can tell us who she is.”
They continued on up the hill to the farm and left the car at the entrance to the front yard, just outside the picket fence. The Adams place was a neat-looking frame house, painted white, and pleasant to look at. A big porch surrounded it on all sides, and here they saw Hattie Adams, seated in a rocking chair, sewing. She waved to Mary Louise.
“Hello, folks!” she called genially. “Come on up! Any news?”
“No, we haven’t,” replied Mary Louise as she sat down. “But I did want to ask you what you knew about the fire, Hattie, because Mr. Flick is sort of blaming my brother and the other small boys, and I know they didn’t start it. So will you tell us when you left Flicks’—and all you know about it?”
Hattie nodded solemnly.
“Well, let me see,” she began. “We had supper at half-past five last night, didn’t we? And everybody was through eatin’ about quarter to seven. Even Mis’ Flick. The other two hired girls helped me wash some of the dishes, and then Mr. Flick drove ’em over to the Junction. He come back for Mis’ Flick about half-past seven, I reckon. They put the car away and went to the picnic in a boat. I was just finishin’ washin’ dishes.”
“Did you see the boys or anybody around at all?” questioned Mary Louise.
“Nary a soul. Everybody went to the picnic, as far as I know. I expected to go home, get fixed up, and get my brother Tom to row me over. But he wasn’t anywhere around when I got back, and I didn’t feel like gettin’ the boat and goin’ all by myself, so I just stayed home with Dad. I never knew a thing about the fire till I went over this mornin’ as usual to work at Flicks’.”
“Your brother—or your father—didn’t know anything about it, either?”
“Dad didn’t. I don’t know about Tom. I didn’t see him. He was off milkin’ the cows when I got up, and I left before he come in for his breakfast. I usually get it and set it on the table and then run down to Flicks’ quick as I can. But Mis’ Flick never cares if I don’t get there early, because we haven’t many people for breakfast.”
“And that’s all you know?”
“Yes. Except what I heard this mornin’ at Shady Nook—same as you heard.”
Mary Louise sighed. She didn’t feel as if she were making any progress. She wanted to ask more about Hattie’s father—Lemuel Adams—but she didn’t know how. And about this brother Tom, too. If he had been away from the farm last night, maybe he was responsible for setting the inn on fire.
Instead, however, she inquired about the strange creature who wandered about the countryside with her big pitcher under her arm.
“Do you know a woman with gray hair who calls herself Rebecca, Hattie?” she asked. “We almost ran over her half a mile down the road. She stepped right in front of our car.”
The other girl laughed.
“Rather!” she said. “Rebecca’s my sister. She’s never been right. But she’s perfectly harmless, so we let her wander about as she wants. She wouldn’t hurt a kitten.”
“But do you think she could be setting the places on fire?”
“No,” replied Hattie positively. “Rebecca’s afraid of fires. She always wants to put ’em out. No, I wouldn’t blame her.”
Mary Louise sighed and stood up.
“I certainly wish we could find out what is the cause before anything else happens,” she said.
“I wouldn’t worry about it if I was you,” returned Hattie. “They can’t do anything to your brother without proof.... It’s lots worse for me. I’ve lost my job. And so has my brother Tom. He used to pick up a lot of work at odd times for Mr. Flick.”
Mary Louise stared in surprise; she had never thought of this angle of it. Here were two people who actually lost out by the fire! Surely this fact proclaimed the innocence of the entire Adams family, with the possible exception of Rebecca.
“Did you need the work, Hattie?” she asked, gazing around at the big farm land that stretched out on all sides of the house.
“Oh, we won’t starve without it! But it meant spendin’ money for Tom and me. And extra clothes. Besides, I liked it. It’s awful dull livin’ on a farm with only the chores to do. I’d go to the city and get a job if there was any. But I know there ain’t.”
“Maybe Mr. Frazier will give you a job at the Royal Hotel,” suggested Mary Louise. “Now that he has more business. Because I understand that most of the Shady Nook people are going to eat there.”
Hattie wrinkled her nose.
“I hate that guy. But I suppose I will ask him—it’s better than nuthin’. Tom goes every other day with butter and eggs and milk, so it would be easy to get there.”
“Well, good luck to you!” was Mary Louise’s parting hope. “We’ll be getting on. I’d like a swim this afternoon.”
David McCall’s eyes brightened. They were going to have some fun, after all!
“We’ll get into our suits and go out in the canoe,” said Mary Louise as she directed the car towards Shady Nook. “Maybe we can find Jane and Cliff and all go in together.”
The young man sighed: always this Clifford Hunter had to share his good times!
But it was better than nothing, and later on, when the couple found not only Jane and Cliff, but the Robinson boys and the Reed twins, he had to admit that his afternoon had turned out pleasantly after all.
“Freckles,” said Mary Louise at supper that evening, “will you lend us your tent tonight? Jane and I want to sleep outside.”
Jane raised her eyebrows. She couldn’t remember expressing any such desire. But she said nothing: she wanted to see what Mary Louise was up to now. For her chum must have some purpose in the request: something to do with the mystery of the fires. It couldn’t be just a desire for fresh air!
“I suppose so,” agreed her brother. “But you know my cot isn’t very wide.”
“Oh, we’ll manage all right,” returned Mary Louise. “And thank you very much.”
It was not until after supper, while the girls were waiting for their boy-friends to come, that Jane had a chance to ask Mary Louise why she wanted to sleep outdoors tonight.
“I want to sleep in my clothing, Jane,” was the surprising reply. “Remember the scout motto, ‘Be prepared’? That’s ours for tonight.”
“Prepared for what?”
“For a fire. I think there’s going to be one. I’m only hoping that it won’t be our cottage. But you never can tell.”
“What makes you think there will be one tonight?” demanded Jane.
“From something I learned this afternoon from that Adams family. You remember hearing Freckles describing a queer creature he saw last night on his way home from the woods? Well, we almost ran over her this afternoon! With her pitcher, looking for well water! ‘To put out the fires which the Lord sends upon the wicked’ were her words.”
Jane giggled.
“You think we’re as wicked as that, Mary Lou?” she asked.
“You know I don’t believe that, Jane.”
“Then what do you believe? Why do you think that there will be another fire?”
“I think that either this crazy woman sets the cottages on fire herself, believing that she is appointed by the Lord, or else that somebody she knows is doing it, and she has inside information somehow.”
“More likely she’s just prattling,” remarked Jane.
“I hope so. But, anyhow, I want to be prepared to jump up at the first sign of smoke. I’m going to rig up a hose with the river, so that I can put it out if it does happen around our cottage.”
“You sound almost as crazy as the old lady, Mary Lou! Next thing you’ll be taking your pitcher out for river water!”
“Now, Jane, be yourself! You’ll sleep out with me, won’t you?”
“I suppose so. But let’s keep Silky with us, in case one of those gypsies comes along and grabs you, the way she did at Dark Cedars.”
“There aren’t any gypsies anywhere around here,” Mary Louise assured her.
“No, but there’s a tramp. Freckles saw him. And a crazy woman. And from the way Mr. Flick was carrying on this morning, he’ll soon be crazy.”
“He’s gone to Albany. And the crazy woman is harmless. But you’re wise about Silky: he will protect us from any tramps that might show up.”
To Mary Louise’s delight, Mrs. Gay raised no objection to the plan. After all, her daughter had often slept outdoors before. So, after a pleasant evening of games and dancing at the Reeds’ cottage, the two girls went out to the tent.
“You forgot your pajamas, Mary Louise!” called Mrs. Gay as she fixed up the girls’ room for Freckles.
“Oh, of course,” replied her daughter. No need to alarm her mother by telling her that they intended to sleep in their clothing.
They took off their shoes, changed into sweaters and skirts, and climbed into the cot. Silky lay down on the rug beside it.
“It is close quarters,” whispered Jane. “But nothing like that could keep me awake.”
“Me either,” returned Mary Louise, with a yawn.
Five minutes later they were both sound asleep, entirely forgetful of fires or danger. But their rest was short. About one o’clock Mary Louise was awakened by a soft growl from Silky. Instantly she sat up and peered out into the darkness. It was utterly black at the opening of the tent, for the night was starless, and the trees closed out all view of the sky. Yet she perceived something light—something white—coming towards her. For one wild moment a terrible thought took possession of her imagination: Was this indeed the angel of wrath, coming to destroy their house—as that queer woman had predicted?
But, no: common sense came to her rescue and assured Mary Louise things like that didn’t happen nowadays. There must be some other explanation. It must be——
A horrible inane laugh burst upon the silence of the night, wakening Jane with a cry of terror on her lips. A long arm reached through the opening of the tent, touching the girls’ cot, snatching at their feet. Then another laugh, followed by hysterical sobbing.
Mary Louise reached for the flashlight underneath her pillow. But she was calm now; she was sure of the identity of the intruder. It must be the crazy woman.
She flashed the light into the creature’s face, and the woman gasped in fear.
“Don’t harm me! Please!” she begged. “I’m the Lord’s messenger. To tell you that the Smith’s house is on fire. There are little children to be rescued. Go! Run! I’ll follow as soon as I can fill my pitcher.”
Jane and Mary Louise looked at each other in wonder. Was what she said the truth, or only a figment of her crazy brain?
But they did not dare take a chance. As the poor woman said, there were children at Smiths’ big house on the hill: three children, two boys and a little girl, with only servants to look after them. And servants, unlike parents, too often think of their own safety first.
“We’ll go right away, Rebecca,” Mary Louise assured her as she stepped into her pumps. “We’re all ready.”
Taking only their flashlight for protection, she and Jane ran off as fast as they could go, with Silky faithfully following them.
As soon as they had passed the ruins of Flicks’ Inn, they could see the smoke rising from the hill beyond. There could be no doubt about it. Rebecca was right: the Smiths’ house was on fire.
The girls redoubled their pace and tore up the hill. As they came nearer they saw the flames and heard wild shouts of excitement. Then they met the Smith boys and several of the servants racing madly about.
“How did it start?” demanded Mary Louise breathlessly as she almost bumped into Robby Smith.
“Don’t know. In the back, somehow. That’s all wood, you know.”
“Can they save it?”
“Doin’ our best. All us men are working!” He stuck out his chest proudly, evidently enjoying the adventure immensely. Money was never a thing to the Smith boys.
“Where’s your sister?” demanded Mary Louise.
“Around somewhere. Everybody got out safe.”
“With her nurse?” inquired Jane.
“No. Nurse took the canoe across to the Royal—to phone to Four Corners for the fire engine.”
“Then we better hunt up little Ethel and take care of her,” asserted Mary Louise. The child was only four—anything might happen to her.
Flames were rising upward from behind the house, lighting up the scene vividly, showing the chauffeur, the gardener, and two maids desperately pouring water from buckets and pails. But Mary Louise did not see little Ethel.
“Ethel! Ethel!” she cried wildly, raising her voice above the shouts of the men. “Where are you?”
“Here me is!” came a plaintive reply, and a tiny head leaned out of a second-story window. “I comed up for my dolly!”
A cold chill of horror crept over Mary Louise as she realized the dreadful peril of the child. But without a thought for her own danger she dashed through the front door and up the wide, smoke-filled staircase.
“Come to the steps, Ethel!” she shrieked, her throat choking with smoke. “Come here—I’ll get you.”
“Tan’t. Too smoky,” replied the little girl, beginning to sob.
Mary Louise took one desperate leap and dashed through the upstairs hall to the nursery. Grabbing the child in her arms she groped her way back to the head of the stairs.
She never knew how she reached the bottom of those steps. With her hand on the railing and her eyes tightly closed, she somehow made her slow progress. All she could remember was Jane’s voice at the door as she lifted the child from her arms. Then darkness—choking for breath—silence, and blessed unconsciousness!
When Mary Louise finally came to, Rebecca was giving her water out of her huge pitcher and patting her shoulder gently.
“Speak, Mary Lou!” cried Jane frantically. “Oh, say you’re still alive!”
“I’m all right,” replied her chum, managing a smile. “And little Ethel?”