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The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge

L >> Laura Lee Hope >> The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge




"Engine is missing," Betty informed her briskly. "Guess I had better have
a look--"

"If you start fussing with bolts and screws now, you can count me out,"
said Mollie, resolutely climbing back into her car. "It is ten o'clock
already, and we won't be home before night if we don't hurry."

"Oh, all right," laughed Betty. "But if the car gives out before we get
back don't blame me, that's all."

"It would give me the greatest of pleasure," said Mollie with a diabolical
chuckle as her machine moved off down the street, "to have everyone in
Deepdale see me towing your poor little flivver through the town."

"Huh," sang back Betty scornfully as the roadster responded eagerly to her
touch, "they will have a great deal better chance of seeing me in the lead
with your great big jumbo tottering feebly at the end of a rope."

They picked up Amy and Grace on the way and were soon flying swiftly down
the road in the direction of Professor Dempsey's tree-surrounded home.

They were in rather good spirits at first, for now that they were really
on the way to doing something, though they were not quite sure what, they
felt relieved and almost gay.

But as the distance shortened between them and their destination, a
strange depression that they could neither explain nor brush away settled
down over them.

Once, Grace, who sat beside the Little Captain in the roadster, sighed
rather dolefully and Betty looked at her out of the corner of her eye.

"Do you feel that way too, Grade?" the latter asked.

"What way?" asked Grace uncertainly. "That sigh, do you mean?"

"Yes," nodded Betty. "You sounded rather mournful and that is exactly the
way I feel. What's the matter with us, anyway? Where are our spirits?"

"I suppose we couldn't expect to feel joyful," said Grace after a little
pause. "We aren't going, so far as I can see, on a very happy errand, you
know."

"But I don't think it is that alone," said Betty, with a shake of her
head. "I feel as if we were going to see something perfectly dreadful--"

"Betty," Grace looked at her in sudden alarm, her eyes wide, "you don't
suppose that the professor could have done anything--anything rash, do
you?"

"You mean--" said Betty, hesitating before the ugly word. "Oh, Grace, you
don't mean--suicide, do you?"

Grace nodded and tried hard not to look as frightened as she felt.

"No, I--I don't think so," said Betty, grasping the wheel with hands that
somehow seemed suddenly weak. "If I thought anything like that had
happened I wouldn't have the courage to go on."

"Well, I don't believe I have--the courage, I mean," said Grace,
irresolutely. "Don't you think we had better go back, Betty? It's so
lonesome here and--and--everything--"

Her voice was rising to something like a wail, and Betty, striving to
throttle her own misgivings, spoke in a voice that was intended to be
reassuring.

"We wouldn't think very much of ourselves if we turned back now," she
said. "And probably we are worrying a great deal about nothing. He didn't
seem like the kind of man who would do a thing like that."

Grace said no more about turning back, and they were silent for the rest
of the way. But instead of lightening, the cloud of depression became
deeper and more foreboding until even the stout Little Captain began,
almost to wish that they had not come.




Chapter IX

A Visitor



When they came to the scene of what was so nearly a terrible accident a
week or so before they found that the big tree which had extended clear
across the road was gone and that the underbrush also had been cleared
away.

They stopped the cars a little the other side of the path that led into
the woods and slowly stepped down into the road.

When they caught sight of each other's faces they began to laugh shakily.

"We certainly look as if we were going on a ghost hunt," Mollie said. At
this Grace uttered a little cry of protest. The thought had struck too
near her own disquieting thoughts to be comfortable.

"For goodness' sake, somebody say something cheerful," she begged. "I've
got to get up my courage some way."

"Well, I haven't any to lend you," grumbled Mollie, as she linked her arm
in Betty's and the two went along toward the path. "I don't like this job
a little bit."

"Don't you think," suggested Amy, holding back a little, "that somebody
ought to stay here and take care of the cars?"

"No, you don't!" said Mollie, catching her by the hand and pulling her
along after them. "If one of us goes we are all going."

"Oh, come along," urged Betty, eager to get the thing over with. "I think
we are all acting like a lot of geese. It might help some if we tried to
remember that we are Outdoor Girls."

This challenge did a great deal toward bolstering up the girls' courage
and they hurried along the path more confidently.

Their pace slowed a bit, however, when they reached the cleared space
where the little cottage stood and they paused for a moment in the shelter
of the trees to discuss what to do next.

"Do you think we had all better go?" asked Grace nervously. "Perhaps the
four of us would frighten him--"

"No, we will all go together," said Betty decidedly. "There is nothing to
be gained by standing here talking about it. Come on, girls."

She started across the cleared space and the girls followed slowly. The
little cottage looked deserted and forlorn and the dreary aspect of it
served to increase the girls' uneasy sense of disaster.

Betty knocked gently on the door which had, upon that other occasion not
so very long ago, been hospitably opened to them. But, though they waited
breathlessly for a response, none came--the house was as silent as a tomb.

"Do it again, Betty. He might be asleep or something." suggested Mollie,
with a glance over her shoulder at the quiet woodland. "Knock harder this
time."

Betty obeyed, but with no better success than the first time. Everything
was as silent as before.

"Isn't there a bell, I wonder?" suggested Amy, wishing ardently that they
were back on the road once more. "Perhaps your knock isn't loud enough for
him to hear."

"We might tap on the window," suggested Grace. "If I use my ring on the
window pane he surely ought to hear that."

She started to suit her action to the words when an exclamation from Betty
made her pause. The latter had tried the door and found to her surprise
that it gave to her touch.

"The door is unlocked," she said. "I don't believe the professor is in
here at all and if he has gone into the woods to hunt his butterflies and
beetles I am sure he wouldn't mind our going inside. What do you think?"

She was about to push the door open, but Grace detained her with a nervous
hand on her arm.

"Oh, I don't think we had better go in, Betty!" she cried. "You know what
we were speaking of in the car. Suppose we should find that he has--that
he has--"

"That he has what?" asked Amy, her eyes wide. "For goodness' sake, what do
you mean, Grace?"

Betty tried to stop her, but Grace hurried on heedlessly.

"He may have committed suicide," she cried, adding, in response to
Mollie's and Amy's cry of horror: "You know he must have been desperate
enough to do anything, poor old man, out here all alone."

At the conviction in Grace's tone, Betty felt her own nerve slipping. She
did not want to go into that silent house any more than the other girls
did. Every instinct in her commanded that she run from the place to the
commonplace safety of the road. She was afraid of what she might find on
the other side of that unlocked door. And yet--

"I'm going in," she cried, and, suiting the action to the word, pushed the
door quickly open and stepped over the threshold.

Emboldened by her example, the other girls followed and stopped short with
a cry of dismay. They had not found what they feared--but something almost
as bad.

The room, which had been so neat and orderly when they had last seen it,
was now the scene of such utter confusion as one might only hope to see
depicted in a cubist's nightmare.

The animal skins which had adorned the walls had been torn down and lay in
a tattered heap upon the floor. The shelves upon which had rested the
professor's botanical specimens had been swept clean and their contents
also were scattered about the floor.

The bench upon which the girls had sat and partaken of the queer little
man's hospitality was overturned and the one chair in the room was upside
down on top of it. The whole room looked as though a cyclone--or a maniac
--had been at work.

The girls stared for a minute and then drew closer together as if seeking
protection from some unseen menace. They had some vague conception of what
had taken place here in this lonely little cottage. The elderly and
already nervous professor, reading the tragedy of his sons' death, all
alone perhaps, with no one to comfort or restrain him, had lost his mind,
temporarily at least, and had found an outlet in ruthlessly destroying
everything which came within reach of his hand.

And if this were so, might he not even now be hiding about somewhere,
watching them, perhaps?

This thought seemed to strike the girls at the same time, for after
peering for a second about the room, they turned and made a concerted dash
for the door.

Once outside the room, in the reassuring sunshine, they turned and looked
at each other sheepishly. Then Betty wheeled about and started for the
door again.

"Betty, you are never going back into that place again?" cried Amy wildly,
holding to her skirt. "I won't let you! Do you hear me? Come back here!"

But Betty had no intention of coming back. She turned and faced the girls
calmly, though inwardly she was trembling.

"Of course I am going back," she said. "Professor Dempsey may be in one of
the other rooms and he may be sick. If nobody will go with me, I'm going
in alone."

Of course the three girls could not let her go in alone, so they trailed
back at her heels into the house, being very careful, however, to leave
the door wide open behind them, in case a hasty retreat became necessary.

Cautiously Betty opened the door at the other end of the room and stepped
into what had evidently been a sort of rough kitchen. Now it was nothing
but a nightmare like the other room, and she shuddered as she looked about
at the desolate confusion.

There was a door at the farther end of this room, and after some
hesitation and an inward struggle Betty crossed hastily to it and flung it
wide open.

What she half expected and feared to find there nobody but Betty herself
ever knew, but whatever it was, she gave a great sigh of relief at not
finding it there. The room was upset, though not quite as badly as the
other two, but there was no sign of human occupancy anywhere.

She turned to the girls who had come up behind her and were eagerly and
half shudderingly peering over her shoulder.

"There's nothing here," she announced, the relief she felt showing in her
voice, "and as there doesn't seem to be any other room in the place, I
suppose we might as well go back."

Echoing her suggestion heartily, me girls started to retrace their steps
when a slight sound in the other room made them stop short in a panic.

"What was that?" Amy questioned, but Mollie held up her hand impatiently.

There came the sound of some one stumbling over something. This was
followed by a muttered exclamation.

While the girls looked about them wildly for a means of escape Mollie
began to laugh hysterically.

"We have a visitor," she announced in a strangled voice. "And he is
between us and the only door in the place. Come on, girls, let's see who
it is."

They stepped out into the cluttered living room and came face to face with
a young man who seemed more startled at seeing them than they had been at
sight of him.

"Well, I'll be jiggered!" he exclaimed, and at sound of the commonplace
phrase the girls could have hugged the speaker in relief. Also they felt a
rather hysterical desire to laugh long and foolishly.

As it was, the stranger stood staring at the girls and the girls at him so
long that the funny side of the situation struck Betty and she really did
begin to laugh.

"We haven't the slightest idea who you are," she told the astonished young
man. "But I am sure of one thing, and that is that we were never so glad
to see any one in all our lives as we are to see you."




Chapter X

Hurrah for Allen



The young man stared for a moment longer. Then the humor of the situation
seemed to strike him too, and he smiled pleasantly.

"It surely is a pleasure to be as welcome as all that," he said
pleasantly, and the girls noticed that he was a well set up young fellow
and that he wore his uniform easily, as if he had been used to wearing it
for a long, long time. "I am Wesley Travers," he went on. "I live in a
cottage down the road and I came over this way to see if the old professor
had come back yet. I saw the door open--came in--and found you."

He smiled again pleasantly and looked as though he considered that he had
fallen into rather good luck. But at his mention of the professor Betty
had sobered instantly.

"Oh, then you know something about Professor Dempsey?" she questioned
eagerly.

"Please tell us what happened to him," added Amy breathlessly.

"Did he do this?" asked Mollie, with a comprehensive sweep of her hand
about the cluttered room.

"I'm afraid he did," answered the young fellow, sobering instantly. "You
see, I just returned from overseas about a week ago and a couple of days
later my dad read in the paper about the death of this queer old man's two
sons. The pater had always been interested in the lonely old boy, so he
sent me over to see if I could do anything for him. I found the place like
this and--the bird had flown. Went dopy I suppose about the bad news and
tore things up a bit."

Though the boy's words were slangy, there was real sympathy in his tone
and the girls liked him the better for it.

"And you haven't heard anything from him since?" asked Betty softly.

"Not a word or a sign," answered the boy, with a shake of his head. "Just
clean cleared out, that's all. Pretty hard luck, I call it. Just at the
end of things too--when he had a right to expect the fellows home. Pretty
tough luck. I wish I could find the poor old duffer and do something for
him."

The girls heartily echoed the wish. Before leaving the place for good,
they looked about the rooms once more for some sign or message that might
give them a clue to the whereabouts of the professor. They found nothing,
however, and finally were forced to give up the search.

As the young people stepped outside once more and closed the door after
them upon the desolate house a great wave of pity swept over Betty.
Somehow it did not seem right to go off like this as though they were
abandoning the old man to his fate. Yet what could they do more than they
had done?

"Girls," she said, a little quiver in her voice, "I would give almost
everything I own to find the poor old professor and help him back to
happiness. If I only could," she added after a pause. "Well," said Wesley
Travers, as he looked admiringly at Betty's flushed, sympathetic little
face, "I imagine if any one could find him and bring him happiness, you
would be that one."

The young soldier accompanied them back to the road. After thanking him
for the information he had given them, the girls climbed into their cars
and headed toward home, leaving Wesley Travers still standing in the road
and looking after them thoughtfully.

"A mighty nice bunch of girls," thought the latter. "Especially the little
brown-haired one. They seemed rather interested in that dotty old
professor too. Lucky fellow to have four girls like that interested in
him!" After this remark he started off toward home.

Luckily for the girls, the next few days were so crowded with preparations
for the trip to Wild Rose Lodge that they had not much time to dwell on
the poor old professor and his misfortunes.

Only at night would they sometimes dream queer dreams in which wild-eyed
men went around smashing everything in sight and a little cottage stood
lonely and desolate and ghostlike amid a silent forest of trees.

After a night like this the girls were always glad to awake and find the
sunshine streaming cheerfully in their windows. And they would throw
themselves with more than usual energy into the activities of the day. Yet
try as they would, they could never quite blot the tragedy from their
minds.

On the afternoon of the day before they were to start for Moonlight Falls,
the girls were gathered in Betty's garage at the back of the house, where
the Little Captain was giving her car one last overhauling to make sure
that it was in perfect condition for the trip. Mollie suddenly espied the
postman coming down the street.

Now the postman was a very popular man with the girls, for the reason that
he brought almost daily some message from the boys on the other side. He
sympathized with the chums so fully in their desire for letters with the
red triangle in one corner that he actually confessed to a guilty feeling
when he had no missive of the sort for them.

So now, as Mollie ran toward him with outstretched hand, he held up to her
delighted gaze not only one letter, but four.

"One for each of you," he said beamingly, as Mollie reached him. "I
thought that probably I would find all four of you at one place, so I kept
the letters together."

"Oh, thanks, it is awfully good of you," said Mollie absent-mindedly, as
she took the welcome letters and hurried with them back to the garage.
"One for each of us, just think of that!" she cried to the questioning
girls. "It looks as if the boys had all written at the same time. Put down
your duster, Betty, for goodness' sake, and read what Alien has to say.
Maybe," she added hopefully, as she ripped her envelope open, "they will
tell us something definite about coming home."

So down the girls sat in the midst of dust cloths and more or less dirt to
find what the boys had written. For a moment only the crackling of paper
broke the silence. Then Grace gave a little joyful cry.

"Will says he is almost sure to be home soon--"

"And he has been made a sergeant," Amy interrupted, or rather added, her
eyes shining with pride. "Just think of that--Will, a sergeant!"

"I was just going to tell them that if you had waited a minute," said
Grace, rather crossly. There was quite a little jealousy between Grace and
Amy over Will. Grace had declared more than once that whereas she had
known her brother all her life, Amy had only known him for a couple of
years--or--or more. Grace loved her brother devotedly and once in a while
she resented Amy's place in his affections.

So now to change the subject and avert a possible quarrel, Mollie jumped
into the breach.

"Listen to this," she said. "Roy and Frank have been made corporals and
Allen--oh, look at Betty blush!" She looked gleefully across at the Little
Captain and Amy and Grace followed her glance.

Betty was not blushing, but she felt as uncomfortable as though she had
been.

"Tell us what Allen says," Mollie dared her wickedly. "Come on, honey--
dare you to."

"You can go on daring all you like," said Betty defiantly. This time she
was blushing--from the fact that she knew she could not, or would not,
tell the girls what Allen had said in his letter. Not for anything in this
world!

"I don't mean what you mean," said Mollie, enjoying her confusion
immensely, while Grace and Amy looked on laughingly. "I just thought that
maybe you would like to be the one to tell us about his promotion."

"His promotion!" cried Amy and Grace together, and Betty looked quite as
bewildered as any of them.

"Mollie, for goodness' sake tell us what you mean," she demanded.

"But didn't he tell you about it, Betty?" Mollie insisted.

"Wait a minute," said the Little Captain as she hastily scanned the pages
of her long letter. Then, down near the end of the last page she found it,
just a little paragraph, put in as though it had been an afterthought.
"Why," cried Betty, her eyes beginning to shine with excitement, "girls,
listen to this. Allen has been promoted. He's an officer now--a
lieutenant! Think of it--leather leggings and all!"

It was too much for the girls. They laughed and cried and hugged each
other and tried to imagine Allen in his new uniform to their hearts'
content, for the young new-made officer was a favorite with them all.

"Goodness," said Amy happily, "I suppose when he gets home he will be
altogether too high-toned to notice common folk like us."

"Oh, I don't know," said Grace happily, adding with a sly little glance at
Betty, "I imagine he will make an exception of one of us at least."

"I wonder," drawled Mollie as she picked up her unfinished letter, "which
one of us you can mean."




Chapter XI

The Hold-Up



The girls were glad that the letters had come from the boys just as they
had, for it helped them to bridge over the tediously long wait till the
next morning.

They read the missives with the little red triangles in the left hand
corner over and over again and--whisper it!--at least two of them slept
with the precious letters under their pillows.

And then--the morning was upon them. It was a beautiful morning too, and
as the girls dressed hurriedly they were glad that they had arranged to
start early. In that way they could take their time and enjoy to the full
the glorious ride to Moonlight Falls. It was only fifty-five miles, but by
driving slowly they could make it seem like twice that.

It was barely half past nine when Betty, having finished breakfast and put
the last finishing touches to her new white hat, ran around to the garage
to get the car out.

Ten minutes later she had drawn up in front of Mollie's house, her ears
still ringing with the hundred and one instructions of her anxious mother,
and was tooting the horn of her little car furiously.

The summons had the desired effect. Mollie came running from the house,
straightening her hat with one hand and lugging a valise in the other
while the twins trailed at her skirts.

"For goodness' sake, let go of me, Paul. Dodo, if you touch that bag
again, I'll spank you. Mother," she wailed, looking back pleadingly over
her shoulder, "won't you please make these little pests go into the
house?"

Whereupon Mrs. Billette suddenly appeared at the door, smiled at Betty,
grabbed Paul with one hand, Dodo with the other, while the twins roared a
protest.

Released, Mollie dropped her bag, sped round to the garage, and in a
moment more was backing the big car round to the road.

The girls had decided to about live in their khaki tramping suits on this
trip, merely packing in a good dress or two to wear on dress-up occasions.
In this way they had to take less luggage and could have more space to
"spread out" as Mollie said.

"Put your grip in here, Betty," Mollie suggested, as she slung her own
grip into the tonneau of the big machine. "There is more room, and Mrs.
Irving said she wouldn't mind in the least being entirely surrounded by
suitcases."

Betty laughed, did as she was bid, and a moment later they were off,
speeding down the road to Grace's house where they were to pick up the
other two girls and Mrs. Irving.

They found the three waiting for them, and it took scarcely any time at
all to add the extra grips to the growing pile in the tonneau of Mollie's
car. Amid great fun, Mrs. Irving, who was rosy-cheeked and matronly and as
jolly as the girls, was wedged into the remaining space, Amy climbed to
the front seat beside Mollie and Grace took her seat with Betty.

They were off! The sting of the wind was in their faces, and the sun beat
warmly down upon them as they rolled along, passing familiar houses, and
sometimes familiar people, to whom they waved, and so on and on till they
left the town behind them and started out on the open road.

"My, this is something like," commented Grace, stretching her feet out
before her for all the world like a lazy, comfortable cat. "I feel awfully
sorry for all the poor people who haven't cars to ride in to-day and Wild
Rose Lodges to visit. By the way, why is it called Wild Rose Lodge,
Betty?"

"Because they say there are lots of wild roses around it, of course,"
Betty responded, her hands resting easily on the wheel, her eyes bright
with the joy of the moment. Grace, stealing a sideways glance at her,
could not help thinking that Betty looked not unlike a wild rose herself.

"You look awfully pretty, honey," she said then, for Grace was always
generous with praise where her friends were concerned. "I would give the
world to have a color like yours."

"Goodness," remarked Betty, turning to look at her chum, her face a little
brighter pink because of the honest compliment, "you have a lovely color--
as you very well know. Mine is too red sometimes."

"Nobody thinks that but you," said Grace, squeezing Betty's hand
affectionately while she dived down in her pocket for some candy. "The
only time I have noticed you get very red," she added, "is when some one
happens to mention a certain young gentleman by the name of Lieutenant
Allen Washburn."

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