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The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge

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




Betty could feel that her face was burning, but she did not care. She was
awfully proud of Allen and desperately fond of him and for the moment she
did not care if the whole world knew about it.

"Isn't it wonderful, Grade?" she cried, her heart pounding joyously.
"About Allen being an officer, I mean. I have to pinch myself several
times a minute to make myself realize that it is really true."

"It surely is great," Grace answered slowly, adding after a moment, while
a faraway expression crept into her eyes, "I don't blame you for being
crazy about him, honey. I could almost be foolish myself. Oh, don't
worry," she went on quickly as Betty turned amazed and rather startled
eyes upon her. "I'm no fonder of Allen than I am of any of the other boys.
I just said that I didn't blame you, that's all."

Betty turned her eyes to the road once more, but in her heart she was
troubled. There had been a note in Grace's voice that she had never heard
before. Could it be possible that she really cared for Allen? But she
pushed the thought from her mind resolutely. If such a thing could have
been possible, she certainly would have discovered it before this. The
mere thought was nonsense of course. And yet she was troubled.

"Have some candy," Grace invited, breaking in upon her thoughts. "You
needn't stick up your nose at it to-day for I bought this fresh from the
store this morning."

"Who said I was going to stick up my nose?" said Betty, helping herself to
a chocolate that looked as if it might contain a nut and thankful for the
break in her not-too-pleasant reflections. "If you will think back just a
little, I think you will admit that I have been guilty very seldom of
sticking up my nose at anything--"

"Except Percy Falconer," finished Grace drolly, and they both laughed
merrily.

"Poor Percy!" said Betty, chewing her candy contentedly. "I suppose he
will hate us more heartily than ever now."

They were running some eight or ten miles from the town along a quiet
stretch of road, never dreaming of danger, when Betty's little racer nosed
around a bend in the road and came smack into it! Not twenty feet ahead of
them a man sprang into the middle of the road and leveled a revolver at
them! In one electrified instant they saw that the fellow wore a mask and
a slouch hat and looked for all the world like a brigand straight out of
some sensational moving picture.

Betty, more surprised at first than alarmed, put on her brakes and came to
a standstill, at the same time putting out a hand to warn the car behind
them.

"Oh, Betty, we are being held up!" moaned Grace, who evidently was
frightened enough for both of them. "For goodness' sake, hold up your
hands. He may shoot."

Still feeling rather dazed with the suddenness of the thing, Betty raised
both hands above her head, at the same time feeling a rather hysterical
desire to laugh. It was so absurd, being held up by a masked stranger in
broad daylight.

Nevertheless, she gave a little gasp of fright as the man waved his big
revolver menacingly and came close to the car. She wished frantically that
he would not point that firearm at her. Suppose it should go off!

"Come on, hand over what you got," the robber demanded in a gruff
threatening voice. "The quicker you move, the better it will be for you."

"Wh--what do you want?" asked Betty, in a weak little voice that did not
sound like her own at all. She had thought of her pocketbook beside her in
the pocket of the car. The purse contained a whole month's allowance. She
was sparring desperately for time--help in some form or other might come
at any moment. But the ruffian in the road was evidently in no frame of
mind to be fooled with.

He waved his revolver once more, eliciting a terrified gurgle from Grace
and commanded roughly that they get out of the car.

"No funny business," he snarled. "Get out!"

Betty was about to obey when she had a brilliant thought. Her pepper gun!
She had bought it the day before from the son of her father's chauffeur,
thinking it was an undesirable plaything for a nine-year-old boy and had
put it, as the most convenient place, in her car. And the pepper gun was
filled--as it should have been--with good red cayenne pepper!




Chapter XII

Sheep!



For a moment Betty hesitated, almost afraid of what she was going to do.
The pepper gun might work, but if she were not quick enough or clever
enough, her little trick might also result in a tragedy.

Her hesitation was only momentary, however, for Betty was a born fighter.
Suddenly she cried out as if in joyful greeting to an unexpected arrival.

"Here they come! here they come!" she called, and in the moment that their
captor turned his startled eyes from her to the road ahead, Betty acted.

She snatched the pepper gun from its hiding place in the car and as the
man once more turned furiously upon her let him have the full contents
directly in the face.

It was a dreadful thing to do. Choking and sputtering, the ruffian dropped
his revolver and raised both fists to his tortured eyes.

"I'll get you for this!" he cried between great sneezes that threatened to
tear him apart. "You just wait--"

But Betty refused to wait. As soon as the fellow had dropped his weapon
she had started the engine, and now she guided the car past the stuttering
robber and raced off down the road.

Mollie, who had only half understood what was going on but who had caught
enough of it to be considerably alarmed did not stop to ask questions, but
sped off down the road after Betty.

It was half a dozen miles farther on that Betty finally slowed the car and
waited for Mollie and the others to catch up with her. Grace, who had been
gradually recovering from her fright, had not yet recovered enough to ask
any questions. She had been too much concerned in putting miles between
them and the scene of their adventure.

As Mollie came up alongside, Betty drew her first free breath.

Of course Mollie and Amy and Mrs. Irving wanted to hear all about it, and
Betty told them what had happened, her account interrupted by hysterical
laughter.

But when she came to the pepper gun, the girls' expression of utter
bewilderment changed to admiration of Betty's quick thought and quicker
action.

"Why, Betty," cried Amy, incredulously, "I don't see how you ever had the
courage to do it. Why, that man might have shot you!"

"He probably would have if I hadn't got him first," said Betty, half-way
between laughter and tears. "It was taking an awfully big chance, but,"
with a flash of spirit, "I wasn't going to sit there calmly and have him
take away all our money. Not if I could help it."

"Betty, I think you were simply wonderful," said Mollie in heart-felt
admiration. "Why, if he had taken our money it would have completely
spoiled our trip."

"How they talk," said Grace hysterically. "Any one would think it was only
the trip that mattered when we might very easily have been killed."

This remark served to bring Mrs. Irving to a realization of the present,
and she suggested that they start on again.

"Not that I am particularly nervous," she hastily added, as the girls
looked at her suspiciously. "Only I will feel just as well when we have
put a dozen miles between us and that highway robber, instead of only half
that. I wish there was a town handy where we could notify the
authorities."

They started on again, and as the miles slid past them they became less
nervous and even began to laugh a little at thought of the robber's
consternation when he received the contents of Betty's pepper gun full in
his face.

"He was probably the most surprised crook ever," commenced Grace with a
chuckle. "He never will get over cursing you, Betty. How did you ever
happen to have it? The pepper gun, I mean," she added curiously.

Betty explained how the gun had come into her possession. "I didn't know,"
she added ruefully, her foot on the accelerator as they sped up a steep
hill, "when I bought it, that it would come in so handy. How much further
do you suppose we have to go?" she asked, changing the subject abruptly.

"Why," said Grace, looking at her wrist watch and realizing suddenly that
she was getting rather hungry, "we have been riding since ten o'clock and
it is now after noon. We must be very nearly there by this time. Goodness,
I hope there will be something to eat around Wild Rose Lodge. I'm getting
famished."

"Mollie's Uncle John said he would attend to that--stocking the cabin with
good things, I mean," said Betty, herself suddenly conscious of a
disturbingly hungry feeling. "He said we would find enough canned things
to last us at least a week."

"Canned things, yes," pouted Grace. "But who in the world wants to live on
canned things? I don't see why we didn't bring a chicken along, at least."

"Well, maybe we can manage to run over one," chuckled Betty, as they
passed a farmhouse and several chickens scuttled squawking across the
road. "Then we can have one good and fresh. For goodness' sake, what is
Mollie tooting that horn for?" she added, as the raucous signal came from
the car behind them, "Has she stopped the car, Grace? Look and see."

"It's stopped deader than a door nail," said Grace, obligingly screwing
about in her seat and fixing on the road behind them a disapproving eye.
"Now what do you suppose can be the trouble this time? If she has had a
blowout or something, I'm not going to help fix the old thing--"

"You couldn't fix the blowout, dear, but you might help with the tire,"
Betty said, with a laugh, as she stopped the roadster and jumped to the
road. "Come on, she seems to be excited about something--"

"Goodness, I hope it isn't another highway robber," said Grace anxiously,
stopping in the middle of the road at the dreadful thought. "I don't see
any, but--"

"You don't see any because there isn't any," Betty assured her,
taking her by the arm and leading her decidedly forward. "You don't
suppose there is a whole Robin Hood's band in this woods, do you?"

Mollie and Amy and Mrs. Irving came running to meet them excitedly--or at
least, Mollie and Amy did the running, while their chaperon followed more
slowly.

"There are blackberries in there, whole bushels and bushels of them!"
Mollie called. "You could see them from the road, and there you girls
passed right by them without even looking."

"Blackberries!" repeated Grace resignedly, as she felt in her pocket to
see if she had any candy left. "Just listen to her speaking of
blackberries when what I'm dying for is a good big steak with onions on
top of it--"

"Stop it," cried Mollie indignantly, while the others felt their mouths
begin to water. "The idea of mentioning steak--But here," she broke off,
seizing Grace's hand and dragging her toward the woods, "come with me and
pick berries if you value your life. Lucky we brought those tin pails
along."

"But why," protested Grace patiently, as she was dragged along, "should we
want to pick berries?"

"To eat," replied Mollie, attacking a bush that was fairly black with the
luscious ripe fruit. "And besides," she added, lowering her voice to a
confidential pitch, "Mrs. Irving said that if she could find some flour
and baking powder in the lodge she would make us a steamed blackberry
pudding for supper."

Grace stared for a moment then, without another word, set to work on the
loaded bush.

"You might have told me that before," she grumbled, her mouth full of
berries. "You always did have a mean disposition, Mollie."

To which Mollie's only reply was a chuckle and a sly wink at Betty, who
was working close at her side.

They worked on happily for a few minutes, then suddenly Amy straightened
up and stood quiet as though she were listening to something.

The girls, whose nerves were still a little on edge from their recent
adventure, demanded to know in no uncertain tones what was the matter with
her.

"N-nothing," Amy answered a little sheepishly. "I thought I heard a little
rustling among the leaves, that's all."

"Probably a breeze coming up," said Betty matter-of-factly, and they went
on with their berry picking.

But it was not long before a second disturbance came, and this time they
all heard it. It was, as Amy had said, a rustling sound. However, it was
louder this time, as though several heavy bodies were pushing through the
underbrush on the other side of the road.

"Perhaps we had better go and see what is making all the noise," said Mrs.
Irving, her light tone successfully hiding an undercurrent of nervousness.
"I guess we have picked enough berries for our pudding, anyway."

The girls picked up their pails and started for the road, Betty in the
lead. But when the latter reached the outer fringe of bushes she started
back, almost treading on Mollie's toes and causing her to drop her pail in
alarm.

"It's sheep!" cried the Little Captain. "Dozens and dozens of them! Come
and look!"




Chapter XIII

The Enemy Routed



Mrs. Irving pushed forward beside Betty, and the girls stared
unbelievingly over her shoulder. Then they saw that she was right.

While they had been picking berries in the woods a flock of sheep had
wandered down to the road from the other direction and had completely
surrounded their two cars.

The big-eyed, innocent looking animals were circling around and around the
machines as if examining them with a sort of ovine interest and curiosity.

But to the girls the sheep had a rather terrifying aspect. There were so
many of them and they had so completely taken possession of their
automobiles! How in the world were they ever to get back their property?

"Goodness!" Grace whispered plaintively in Betty's ear, "I expect they
will try to climb into the cars next. What ever are we going to do?"

"Sh," cautioned Amy fearfully, as some of the flock, attracted by the
noise in the bushes, turned their heads in the direction of it. "Suppose
they should come in here?"

"Well, they are not lions, you goose," said Mollie, coming out of the
trance into which surprise had thrown her. "They are only sheep, and they
couldn't hurt you if they tried."

"Not unless they stampeded," said Betty quietly. "In that case I wouldn't
care to be in the way."

"But we can't stay here all night," Mollie protested impatiently.

"Held up by a lot of silly old sheep," added Grace, still more
uncomfortably conscious of a growing appetite.

"It must be almost two o'clock," added Amy with a sigh.

"Yes, if things keep on this way it will be night before we reach the
lodge," said Mollie, adding with decision, "I vote that we get some sticks
and stones and scat 'em out of the way."

"I think I have a better suggestion than that," put in Mrs. Irving,
speaking for the first time. "I think we had better wait for a short time
before we do anything. The sheep will probably get tired in a little while
and wander off of their own accord."

"Oh, all right," said Mollie, with rather bad grace as she seated herself
on a convenient rock. "But all the time we are waiting for them to be
tired, we will be getting tired ourselves and, goodness, Mrs. Irving, I'm
being starved to death."

At the desperation in her tones the girls had to laugh, though they were
as reluctant to sit with folded hands and wait as she was. Still, Mrs.
Irving was their chaperon and probably knew best.

So with admirable resignation they disposed themselves beside Mollie on
the big rock and settled down to watch for developments.

But after waiting for an everlasting five minutes they decided that there
were to be no developments. The foolish sheep continued to circle lazily
about the cars, nibbling now and then upon the grass by the roadside but
showing not the slightest intention in the world of moving from there for
some time to come.

"Oh, what shall we do?" moaned Grace, moving restlessly on her
uncomfortable seat. "My foot is going to sleep and I'm trying to sit on a
pointed stone or something."

"And it looks as though those crazy sheep were going to stay there all
night," added Betty, herself growing restive at the apparent futility of
waiting for something to happen. "Can't we do something, Mrs. Irving?"

"Wait just a few minutes more," begged the lady, who was afraid of the
sheep, but was reluctant to confess her fear to her young charges. "Look,
there seems to be a movement among them now," she added hopefully, as one
sheep pressed against another and sent it scampering a few feet along the
road. "We won't have to wait much longer, I am sure."

And so, both to break their chaperon's authority, the girls fidgeted and
fumed, getting more impatient and hungrier with every leaden minute that
dragged itself by until almost three-quarters of an hour had passed.

Then, when they began to think that they must scream if they were forced
to wait another minute, their chaperon rose of her own accord and with a
decided movement flicked the dust from her skirt.

"I think we have waited long enough," she hazarded, to which each girl
said a fervent though silent "amen." "I suppose we shall have to follow
Mollie's suggestion and gather sticks and stones. Perhaps we can scare
them away."

"Hooray!" shouted Mollie, jumping to her feet with relief. At the
unexpected sound the sheep in the road started and looked about them
uneasily. "Come on, girls, I'm mad enough to attack Jem single-handed. All
who are with me, say Aye."

"Aye!" they yelled, scurrying about to find sticks and stones.

Betty, flourishing a branch at the frightened flock, yelled: "We are wild,
wild women, old sheep. You had better get out while the going's good. We
eat little fellers like you alive!" and with a whoop of wild spirits she
danced down to the edge of the wood waving her stick wildly about her
head.

Her fun was contagious and, smothering their laughter, the girls waltzed
after her, throwing sticks and stones and all sorts of improvised weapons
into the midst of the now thoroughly frightened flock.

Mrs. Irving strove to caution them, but her voice was lost in the babble,
and for once in her life at least she found herself utterly ignored. With
a little sigh she picked up a stick of her own and followed after the
girls.

For a moment it looked as though the panic stricken sheep would rush
straight for the shouting girls, and in that moment what was little more
than an exciting game to the girls might have turned into a rather
dreadful tragedy.

But, luckily, half a dozen sheep broke through and, led by an old ram,
started down the road and the rest of the flock, as is the habit of sheep,
followed after.

In a moment the entire flock was galloping off down the road with the
excited girls in pursuit. There is no telling how far they might have
followed the sheep had not Betty become suddenly possessed of a grain of
common-sense.

Panting and laughing, she came to a standstill while the girls rushed past
her.

"Come back here!" she cried, her voice choked with laughter. "There's no
use of our being as silly as the sheep. Mrs. Irving will think we have
deserted her."

So reluctantly the girls abandoned the chase and started back to rejoin
their much relieved but slightly dazed chaperon.

"Now if we had only done that an hour ago," said Mollie, as they climbed
back into the machines determined to make up for lost time, "we would have
been that much nearer the lodge and--something to eat."

"Goodness, it will be almost dark when we get there now," wailed Grace, as
she slipped into the seat beside Betty. "And we haven't had anything to
eat since breakfast."

"What with highway robbers and sheep," laughed Betty, as she started the
engine, "we shall be lucky if we get there at all."

"Oh, Betty, if you love me don't mention that awful highwayman again,"
begged Grace, looking uneasily into the shadows of the wood. "I don't want
to have any more thrills like that as long as I live."

"Let's hope we won't," said Betty fervently.

"It's a pity there is no telephone along this road--we could notify the
folks at Deepdale," remarked Mollie.

"Humph, if we did that they might get so scared that they'd send for us to
come home," came from Amy.

"That's so!" came from the other Outdoor Girls quickly.

"Well, as I said before, no more thrills like that for yours truly,"
repeated Grace.

But little did the girls know that in the weeks to follow they would have
more and more startling thrills than they had ever experienced before.




Chapter XIV

Nothing Human



They might have reached Wild Rose Lodge before dusk, in spite of Grace's
gloomy prediction, if everything had gone well then. But it seemed that
the evil genius of bad luck was not yet through with them.

They were scarcely five miles from their destination when, bang! went a
report that made the girls clutch at each other wildly. At first they
jumped to the conclusion that they were being held up again, but close on
the heels of the first thought came the conviction of the truth. Mollie
had had a blowout!

Betty, looking behind, saw the big car stop and brought her own little
roadster to a standstill once more. "There is nothing wrong with our
tires, is there?" she asked of Grace. "Look over your side, Gracie, and
see."

Finding nothing amiss, they jumped out and ran back to Mollie to offer
assistance. Mollie was eyeing the flat tire gloomily and saying things
under her breath that none of the girls could catch. Then as Betty spoke
to her she seemed to come to life and ran around to the back of the
machine.

"Of course you can help," she answered, working to release the extra tire.
"I would like to see you get out of it. Lucky I bought an extra tire
before we started, though I did hope," here she glared at the girls as if
it were all their fault, "that I wouldn't have to use it so soon. We've
had more trouble on this ride than any I can remember. A hold-up, sheep
and--this!"

"Well, there is no use talking about it," Betty reminded her cheerfully.
"The less we talk, the harder we can work and the sooner we shall get
started again."

"Yes, that's all very well," grumbled Mollie, as she fumbled for her
tools; "but you don't know this place as well as I do."

"You talk," said Amy, her eyes widening, "as though there were wild
animals or something in the woods. I didn't know they came as far east as
this."

"They don't, goose," said Mollie grumpily, as she pulled at the tire. "I
didn't say anything about wild animals, did I? Only we have to ride about
two miles through the woods before we get to the lodge and I must say I
didn't want to do that in the dark."

"But there is some sort of road, isn't there?" asked Grace.

Mollie, bending over the lifting jack, shot her a withering glance.

"Of course there's a road," she said shortly. "How else could we expect to
use the cars?"

"It must be a sort of wagon road," suggested Betty as she deftly helped
her chum. "And I don't blame you for not wanting to try it at night,
Mollie. I don't much like the idea myself."

"I believe if we hurry that we can get there before dusk," said Mrs.
Irving confidently, though it might have been noticed that she kept her
eyes rather anxiously on the fast sinking sun.

At last, after what seemed an eternity to the impatient girls, the new
tire had replaced the old one, the old one was safely strapped on the back
of the car, the tools were put away, and they were ready to start once
more.

"Give her plenty of gas this time, Betty," Mollie sung after her as the
Little Captain climbed into her car. "If we can manage to get to the woods
before dark we will be doing good work. Let her go."

With which advice she settled herself behind the wheel of her own car and
they were off once more.

Betty did "give her plenty of gas," the result being that they succeeded
in reaching the wagon road that led into the woods to the lodge just on
the edge of dusk.

However, when they started along the road they were dismayed to find that
what was only dusk outside on the road became almost dark in here, and
Betty had all she could do to keep to the road at all.

"Hadn't you better put on your lights?" Grace suggested uneasily. "We
might run into a ditch or something. Betty, I'm half scared."

For answer Betty switched on the lights and the woods and the road ahead
of them were suddenly flooded with a weird radiance. It brought out
branches and leaves and stones in such sharp contrast to the dark
background that the effect was startling.

"Oh," gasped Grace, "turn them off again, do, Betty. It is positively
ghastly."

"Don't be foolish," said Betty, striving to make her voice sound
matter-of-fact, her eyes glued to the road ahead of them as it twisted and
turned through the woods. "I don't see why lights should make a perfectly
harmless wood look ghastly. And, anyway, I couldn't turn them out now. I
don't believe I could find my way. You don't want me to run into
something, do you?"

"No, of course not," Grace said more firmly, rather ashamed of her fears.
"I didn't mean to act in a silly fashion. But," she turned to Betty
quickly, "that hold-up and all--don't you feel a little queer yourself,
Betty? Tell the truth."

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