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The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge

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




"Yes," said the Little Captain truthfully. "I feel," she added slowly, as
though searching for words, "I feel as though the woods belonged to
somebody and that we were sort of--sort of--intruding."

"Why, Betty!" said Grace, staring at her, "what a funny thing to say."

"I suppose it is," said Betty, shaking off the illusion with a shrug of
her shoulders. "I am getting foolish in my old age I guess. We shall all
feel better when we get something to eat."

"If we ever do," said Grace gloomily, adding as a sudden turn in the woods
shot them deeper into the gloom of it: "Do be careful, Betty. I feel as
though we were going over a precipice."

But Betty was too busy keeping the road to listen to her.

"Look behind," she directed Grace, "and see if Mollie is following close
to us."

"She is right behind," reported Grace, as two eyes of light shot their
glare in her eyes. "She is following us closer than a poor relation."

Betty giggled at this, and then for a long time--or at least it seemed a
long time to their strained nerves--they went on in silence, following the
winding road wherever it led and getting deeper into the forest with every
moment.

Then suddenly something loomed up dark against the shadows only a few
hundred feet ahead of them, and with a great feeling of thankfulness they
realized that they had reached their destination. Directly ahead of them
stood Wild Rose Lodge. They had arrived!

But just as they were about to break into wild jubilation something
happened that tightened Betty's hand on the wheel and made Grace cry out
with dismay.

Out from the shadow of the lodge a second shadow detached itself, a
hunched up, bulky, fearful shadow that seemed neither beast nor man, but a
combination of both of them.

For a moment, while the girls watched, paralyzed with fright, the thing
seemed about to spring into the path of the moving car. But in another
instant it turned, wheeled, and disappeared into the thick bushes about
the house.

Then and only then did Betty recover presence of mind enough to stop the
car.

"Betty! Betty!" cried Grace in a horrified whisper, grasping Betty's hand
as it clung to the wheel. "What was it? Oh, what was it?"

"I don't know," Betty answered mechanically. "I only know it was
horrible."

Then quite suddenly and without warning Grace broke down and cried.




Chapter XV

Wild Roses



"We will go into the house," Mrs. Irving answered to their concerted cry of
"What shall we do?" "Whatever it was that has frightened us has
disappeared now, and we shall certainly be safer inside the house than out
here. Come on, girls, I have the key."

And so, leaving the cars where they were, the girls approached the house
with shaking knees and hearts that hammered their fear aloud. The Outdoor
Girls were ordinarily afraid of nothing real and human, but to be held up
at the point of a pistol would unnerve almost any one, and the struggle
the girls had made not to give way to their fears at the time had made
them more nervous still. And this thing that had startled them now, added
to what had gone before, seemed a little more than could be borne. It
seemed, in fact, like nothing human.

Mrs. Irving turned the key in the lock, opened the door and stepped inside
the dark place, motioning to the girls to follow her.

Fearfully the chums obeyed and Betty and Mollie pulled out their electric
pocket torches, filling the place with a weird light. Mollie, being
acquainted with the place, naturally took charge of the situation.

"There are matches over there," she said, "and candles over the fireplace.
For goodness' sake, let's get a regular light, folks. Perhaps that will
make us feel more natural."

"So say all of us," echoed Amy. "The dark makes everything worse, when you
are not well acquainted with a place."

Mollie touched a match to the candles, and in the answering flare turned
to face her chums.

"Girls," she said, determinedly, "I don't know how you feel about it, but
I vote that before we do anything else we get something to eat. We all
look like ghosts just now and I'm sure we feel much worse than that. But a
little food makes a monstrous lot of difference."

"You know it does," cried Grace, relaxing into one of the big chairs that
were scattered about the room and covering her face with her hands. "I
think if I don't get something to eat soon, I'll die, that's all."

"Well, we are none of us going to die," said Mrs. Irving vigorously, as
she threw aside her coat and hat. "Show us the way to the kitchen, Mollie,
and if there is anything there to eat, we will get it."

Accordingly Mollie took one of the candles and led the way into a little
room beyond while all the girls but Betty crowded in after her.

For the Little Captain slipped back for a moment and very quietly closed
the door, shutting out definitely the shadow beyond it.

"I suppose it is foolish," she said to herself, "because if there is
anything out there that really wants to get in there are plenty of ways
that it can do it, without coming in through the door. But," and she
turned the key in the lock, "it certainly makes one feel more comfortable
to have the door closed." Then she followed the girls into the other room,
and the sight that met her eyes was certainly more cheering than anything
she could have imagined.

Mollie's Uncle John had surprised them. In the exact center of a table set
for five lay a young pig, roasted whole and browned to a turn! Nor was
this all. The table was littered with covered dishes of all sizes and
descriptions, and as the contents of each one of these dishes was
disclosed, the girls became more and more excited and hilarious.

There was apple sauce in one, salad in another, mashed potatoes that had
become quite cold in another, and a boat of gravy which had also become
quite cold.

"But we don't mind," cried Mollie joyfully, as she took the gravy-boat in
one hand, the dish of potatoes in the other, and ran with them over to a
great stove in one corner of the room. "We need only some matches to have
this blazing hot in a minute. No, not that way, Grace," as the latter
tried to help by lighting the burner. "This isn't a gas stove, you know;
it's an oil stove and you had better look out or you will blow us all up."

It is small wonder if Betty was so dazzled by this joyful scene that she
could neither move nor speak for the space of two seconds or so. Then,
recovering her powers of locomotion, she went over to the table and picked
up a note that, in their excitement, the girls had overlooked.

"See what this says," she called to them, and they looked at her rather
impatiently. Just at that moment the only thing they cared to consider was
food--and more food--and then some more!

But as Betty read they became more interested, and even stopped long
enough to hear her through. It was a brief note. This is what it said.

"My dear young ladies:

"I am a neighbor of Mr. Prendergast," (this was the dressed-up name
of Mollie's Uncle John) "and he axed me to get your dinner ready fer
you. I tried to keep it hot but you wus so long comin' I had to go
home to get dinner fer my old man. Hope things is all right.

"Lizzie Davis."

"So she is the one who has done all this," said Betty, looking around at
the good things with dancing eyes. "I bet she is nice and plump and has
rosy cheeks."

"Lizzie Davis? Lizzie Davis?" repeated Mollie, bringing the steaming gravy
back and plumping the dish triumphantly down on the table. "Rather a funny
name for a fairy godmother, but she sure does know how to cook. Don't
forget the potatoes, Grace. Come on, girls--let's sit down."

So down the girls sat and acted like ravenous pigs--or so Grace described
their conduct afterward. Mrs. Irving set to work carving the delicious
pork, but they could not wait for her.

They seized slices of bread, spread apple sauce and butter on them, and
ate like what they were, four famished girls and one equally famished
chaperon who had been out in the open all day and had had nothing to eat
since morning.

It was some time before they showed any considerable signs of slowing up.
Then Grace put down her fork, leaned back lazily, and called for dessert.
The latter was a huge cherry pie, and before the girls were through with
it there was not enough left to color a robin's egg.

After the pangs of hunger had been satisfied they found to their great
surprise that they were dead tired and sleepy.

"We will get the dishes out of the way and then Mollie can show us where
we sleep," said Betty. "Oh, girls, did you ever in your life taste such a
dinner?"

It was not till the dishes had all been cleared away and Mollie took up
her candle to show them their quarters that the unwelcome thought of the
thing that had so frightened them again crept terrifyingly into their
minds. Try as they would to forget it, they could not.

There were three small sleeping rooms in the lodge, but, small as they
were, they were comfortable and contained beds that seemed the height of
luxury to the tired girls.

Because of the indistinct and flickering candle light the girls could make
out very little of what the rooms really looked like, and they postponed
any close examination until the morning. Back of the lodge was a shed for
the cars.

The bedrooms were all joined by doors, which gave the girls a safe and
sociable feeling. Mrs. Irving, of course, had one room to herself, Betty
and Mollie slept together and Grace and Amy paired off.

They wasted little time in getting ready--Betty and Mollie had appointed
themselves a committee of two to bring in the grips from Mollie's car--and
before long they tasted the exquisite restfulness of comfortable beds
after a long nerve-trying day in the out-of-doors.

"I don't believe I shall close my eyes all night," said Amy with
conviction. "I'm too horribly nervous."

But three minutes later she was sound asleep!

The sun had been up a good two hours before any one stirred in Wild Rose
Lodge. Betty was the first to awake, and in fifteen minutes she had the
rest of the sleepy-eyed and protesting girls up and nearly dressed.

"What's the idea, anyway?" yawned Grace lazily. "I could have slept at
least a good two hours more."

"On a day like this?" sang Betty, breathing in deep breaths of the
wood-scented air. "And isn't this just the dearest room you ever saw?"
she added, wheeling about and regarding the apartment delightedly. They
were in Grace and Amy's room, for, as usual, Mollie and Betty had been
the first dressed and had gone into their churns' room to hurry them up
--if such a thing were possible.

Betty's summing up of the room they were in was indeed well deserved, for
the place was charming. There was a dresser, a bed, and three chairs, and
all of these articles of furniture had been rough-hewed out of logs,
giving the place a delightfully rustic appearance. There was a grass rug
on the floor and in one corner a little table covered with books.

"Isn't it darling?" cried Mollie, following Betty's glance about the
place. "Uncle John built the lodge and made all of the furniture himself,
you know. And he bought the grass rugs from the Indians."

They were still exclaiming about the place when Mrs. Irving called to them
that breakfast was ready. With a whoop of delight they answered the
summons, and a moment later sat themselves down to a most satisfying meal
of omelet and toast and coffee with real cream in it. Also Mrs. Irving set
on the table a yellow-topped pitcher of milk fresh from the cow.

"Our friend, Lizzie Davis, brought it," their chaperon answered with a
smile, in response to the girls' curious questions. "Also some fresh
butter and eggs. I have an idea," she added, as she got up to refill the
butter plate, "that we shall live on the fat of the land while we are
here."

"Lizzie Davis," repeated Betty, pausing in the act of filling her glass
with fresh milk and regarding Mrs. Irving with dancing eyes. "Tell me,
chaperon dear. Didn't she have nice red cheeks, and wasn't she
delightfully plump?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Irving, smiling at Betty's flushed prettiness. "She was
all of that, my dear. I don't believe I ever saw a more cozy looking
person in my life."

"I knew it!" cried Betty triumphantly, adding with a suspicious eye on
Grace: "Hand over that plate of toast, Gracie. You needn't think you can
eat it all up!"

After breakfast they sallied forth to "view the country o'er." They would
have stayed and helped Mrs. Irving clear up, but that good woman declared
that she could do better by herself on this first morning. After she had
become better acquainted with the place they could help her all they
liked. Finally, after some protest, they had to let her have her way.

As they stepped out on the porch, Betty paused and held up her hand for
silence.

"Listen," she said. "That murmuring sound and the splash of water--"

"It's the river and the falls," explained Mollie. "Let's go down and have
a look at them."

But Amy, giving a little gasp of delight, fairly tumbled down the steps
and into a riot of gorgeous pink wild roses. The lodge was fairly
surrounded by them.

"Oh, you darlings!" cried Amy, putting both arms around a bush of the
fragrant flowers as though she would gather in all their beauty at once.
"I never saw anything so wonderful in all my life! Oh, girls, I'm glad I
came!"




Chapter XVI

The Whirlpool



All the spirit and joy of the woods seemed to have entered into the
Outdoor Girls. For the next half hour they romped in the woods and the
beautiful flowers for all the world like little children whose first
glimpse it was of the country.

They took down their hair and made wreaths of wild roses for crowns, and
when, faces flushed with exercise and fun, they had finished, one might
easily have mistaken them for real fairies come to life.

"But I want to see the river," Betty called to them, stopping once more to
listen to the rhythmic sound of splashing water. "Come on, girls. It can't
be more than a few hundred feet away, even though we can't see it for the
bushes. Lead on, Mollie Billette, I wouldst hie me hence."

But when Mollie laughingly obeyed and started into the woods, Amy held
back.

"What's the matter?" Grace asked, turning to her curiously.

"I--I was just thinking," stammered Amy, ashamed of her own weakness,
"about last night."

"About last night," Betty prompted, still at a loss.

"You haven't forgotten, have you?" she asked, incredulously. "That--thing
--on the porch."

"Oh!" they said, and a shadow fell over their bright faces.

"Why, yes," said Betty, slowly, adding as though she could not quite
explain the phenomenon herself: "I suppose we did forget all about it."

"Or if we didn't, we should have," said Mollie, ungrammatically but
decidedly. "Come on, girls, we aren't going to let any silly old thing
like that frighten us out of a good time."

"It seems," said Grace thoughtfully, while Amy still held back, "almost as
if we had dreamed the whole thing. The memory of it is so vague--and
indistinct."

"Well, it isn't vague to me--or indistinct either," said Amy, feeling
rather abused because the girls did not seem to share her feelings. "I
hardly slept all night long just thinking about it"

"Oh, Amy Blackford!" said Grace accusingly, while Mollie and Betty turned
twinkling eyes upon her. "If that isn't the biggest one I ever heard. Why,
I woke up once or twice in the night and each time I found you almost
snoring."

"Oh, I did not," protested Amy, flushing indignantly, but here Mollie and
Betty stepped laughingly into the fray and peremptorily put an end to it.

"Let's not fight about it," said Betty, when she could make herself heard.
"We don't care whether Amy snored or not. What we want to know is this:
Who is coming with us for a look at the falls?"

"Now you're talking, Little Captain," said Mollie approvingly. "All in
favor please say Aye." Amy still showed some inclination to hold back,
but Mollie and Betty each took an arm and hurried her willy-nilly with
them into the woods.

"You had better take the lead, Mollie," Betty suggested after they had
gone some little distance along the path. "I can manage Amy alone now, I
guess. She seems pretty well tamed."

"Tamed, but scared to death," Amy came back, with a wry smile. "Really,
Betty," she turned to look at the Little Captain closely, "aren't you the
least little bit nervous about what happened last night?"

"No, I don't think I am now," said Betty, adding candidly, "I must say I
was last night though--just frightened to death. It seemed so awfully
uncanny--coming upon that thing in the dark after what we had gone through
with that bandit. But then," she added more lightly, "everything seems so
much worse in the dark, you know."

"Yes," said Amy slowly and looking very serious. "That all may be very
true. But I think that as long as we are sure we didn't dream it last
night and that the skulking thing really dodged out from the corner of our
porch that we ought to be on our guard against it. And how," she finished
most reasonably, "can we be on our guard in the woods?"

Betty was at a loss to know just how to answer such a question. By this
time Mollie and Grace were some little distance ahead of them and Amy's
nervousness was beginning to communicate itself to her against her will.

She felt again the creeping sensation that had traveled up and down her
spine at sight of that crouching, sinister figure that had sprung out from
the shadow of the porch.

It had disappeared into the bushes last night, and, for all she knew--and
the thought made her tingle weirdly--it might still be hiding in them,
crouching, ready to spring--

With an effort she shook off the mood and turned to Amy brightly.

"There is no use in our making a mountain out of a mole hill," she said,
plucking a wild rose as they swung by and smelling of its delicious
fragrance. "Last night, I admit, it seemed very terrifying to us, but that
was probably because we couldn't see what it was that frightened us. It
may just have been a large dog or something."

"Humph," sniffed Amy, sceptically, "it must have been a monster dog. Sort
of a ghost hound."

"Goodness, that's going from bad to worse," laughed Betty, as they
rejoined the other girls. "Let's hope it isn't anything like that, Amy
dear. Hello, what are you waiting for?" she hailed the girls cheerfully.
"We almost fell over you."

"Watch your step," cautioned Mollie, adding as she cleared aside some
bushes and motioned Betty to a place beside her: "We've reached the river,
Betty, and a little farther up is the falls. Isn't it beautiful?"

"Oh, it is beautiful," rejoined Betty, a sentiment which Amy heartily
echoed, and for a few minutes they stood there, drinking in the beauty of
the scene, entirely unmindful of the lovely picture they themselves made
with their loosened hair and wreaths of wild flowers.

The river was not very wide, but the water was deep and clear and swift
and the continual swish-swish of its passage over rocks and between
foliage-laden banks made a pleasant, even sound that was deliciously
restful and refreshing.

"Oh, if we could only get down right into the very middle of it and let
those little ripples wash over us forever and forever!" sighed Grace
ecstatically.

"She would a little mermaid be!" sang Betty, as she slipped down to the
very edge of the water and leaned over to catch her reflection in the
bright depths of it. "But honestly, Mollie, isn't there any place in the
river where we can swim?"

"It looks too swift for good swimming to me--" began Grace, but Mollie
stopped her with a mysterious finger to her lips.

"Hush, my pretty one, not a word," said the latter, beginning to pick her
way daintily along the river bank. "Follow me and you will wear diamonds,
or seaweed, or whatever it is that mermaids wear. And don't fall over,
whatever you do," she turned around to caution them. "The river is so
swift here that I don't believe even the strongest swimmer would have a
chance."

Accordingly the girls "watched their step," and for some distance followed
Mollie uncomplainingly. Then, as there seemed no sign of their getting
anywhere, Grace started to protest.

"Say, do you suppose she has any idea where she is going?" the latter
asked of Betty in a tone that was designed to reach Mollie's ear. But
before she could say anything more, Mollie herself swung jubilantly round
upon them.

"Here we are, girls!" she cried. "Now see if you ever saw anything so
pretty in all your lives."

Once more the girls stood spellbound by the natural beauty of the scene.
As they walked they had become more and more conscious of the roaring
noise made by rushing water, and now, ascending a small rise of ground,
they came full upon the majestic beauty of Moonlight Falls.

The falls fell full thirty feet, and at the foot of it the river was
churned into swirling, liquid foam that whirled around and around again in
a sort of mad race and then went rushing off down the river in a shower of
lacy spray.

It was wildly inspiring, exhilarating, and the girls thrilled with a
strange new emotion as they watched. It was so free, so gloriously
unchained!

"There is our swimming pool over there," Mollie said, raising her voice to
make it heard above the roar of the water. "You see there is a sort of
little back eddy below the falls and to one side of it, and right there
we'll find the best swimming of our lives. But," she added, and her voice
was impressively solemn, "heaven help any one of us who gets in the path
of the falls."

"Look!" cried Amy suddenly, her voice ringing out full and clear and
startled above the uproar. "That--thing--over there. It is going into the
falls--no, under them!"

"Where?" cried Mollie eagerly, leaning far forward. "Oh, yes, I see what
you mean. Oh, girls, I'm slipping!" Her voice rose to a terrified wail.
"Betty! Catch me!"

But Betty was too late. She sprang forward just in time to see Mollie
slide down the slippery bank and plunge into the maddened water of the
river!




Chapter XVII

The "Thing"



It took the girls a moment to realize the extent of the awful thing that
had happened. Then Betty, obeying her first impulse, raised her hands
above her head as though to dive, but Amy screamed to her to stop.

"You will only be lost too!" she cried frantically. "Look--that flat
stick--the long one--"

Instantly Betty saw what she meant and stooped to pick up a long broken
branch that was lying at her feet. At the same instant Mollie came to the
surface several feet away from the spot where she had fallen and threw her
strength desperately against the rushing might of the river.

Betty ran along the river bank, Amy and Grace at her heels, shouting
encouragement to Mollie as she ran.

"Hold tight!" she cried, adding with fresh dismay as she saw that the girl
was being swept further from the shore: "Over this way, honey. Swim to
your right--to your right--"

Blinded, chilled to the bone with the cold water, her hair in her eyes and
her skirts clinging tight about her legs, Mollie struggled wildly, unable
to hear the shouts of her chums above the ringing in her ears.

It was taking all her strength to hold her own against the rush of the
river--and now she was not even doing that! Slowly, very slowly, she was
being pushed backward; in a little while more she would be sucked
downward, and then--

She closed her eyes, and then, as though the obliteration of one sense
made more clear the other, she heard Betty calling to her above the roar
of the falls.

"Mollie! Mollie!" it came, faint but distinct, "take hold of the stick and
we'll pull you in. Mollie, do you hear me?"

The girl in the water was still struggling hard against the current that
was dragging at her cruelly, and at the sound of Betty's words she shook
the water from her eyes and looked about her dazedly. She had forgotten
the girls.

Then she saw something that sent a tingle of renewed hope through her
tired body. What she saw was a long branch bobbing on the water not two
feet from her outstretched hand, and at the other end of the stick was--
Betty.

With a sigh that was half a sob she struck out for it, reached it, and
clung to it as only the drowning know how to cling.

Then she felt herself being drawn through the water, and once more she
closed her eyes. When she opened them again she was on a warm grassy bank
with Amy chafing one hand, Grace the other, while Betty was busy
unfastening the clothes about her waist.

As Mollie was never under any circumstances expected to act as people
thought she should act, so this occasion was no exception to the rule. She
pushed Amy and Grace aside, glared at Betty, and sat up with a little
jerk.

"For goodness' sake, stop undressing me, Betty Nelson!" she said. "I'm not
dead yet."

"So we see," said Betty, while her eyes lost their anxious expression and
began to twinkle instead. "But you might have been, you know, if we had
left you to yourself."

Mollie looked down at her dripping clothes ruefully and then out at the
rushing water.

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