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The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge

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




"But we wrote you about spending the summer here," Betty interrupted. "And
we were mourning because you couldn't be at the lodge with us."

"We missed your letters, I guess," said Will. "We sailed very suddenly,
and there is probably a stack of them piled up there at the old service
station."

"We found out where you were all rightie, though," Roy continued. "So we
took the first train out this morning, debarked at the nearest station
south of here, and proceeded to walk the rest of the way. It was thus that
you came upon us."

"You came upon us, you mean," Amy corrected. "We ought to know well
enough, because you nearly gave us heart failure."

Will looked at her as if he wanted to say something but did not quite dare
in public. However, she intercepted the look and with a little panicky
feeling turned her eyes away.

"I imagine," said Grace softly, looking up at Will, "that mother wasn't
glad to see you or anything."

"Not at all," returned Will, a soft light in his eyes as he remembered the
greeting between him and his parents. "I was a little afraid," he added
soberly, "that mother and dad wouldn't like my skipping off like this the
day after I'd got home. But they seemed to understand all right."

"Gee, but this is great," said Frank, stretching contentedly and looking
about the group with happy eyes. "I wonder how many times we've seen this
all in our dreams, fellows. Only we couldn't have imagined it half as
perfect as this."

"It sure is like old times," agreed Roy, adding with a smile as he turned
to their chaperon, who had been quietly enjoying herself: "We even have
Mrs. Irving with us. Gee, it's just like that summer at Pine Island! All
the old crowd together--"

"Except Allen," put in Will, frowning a little. "Gosh, it didn't seem
right at all to leave the old fellow behind. You wouldn't know him," he
added, his face flushing enthusiastically, "I've never seen a fellow
change the way Allen has--for the better."

"Was there so much room for improvement?" asked Betty demurely, and they
looked at her laughingly.

"Nobody would expect you to think so," Will replied, his eyes twinkling,
then added seriously:

"Of course we all know that Allen was the finest kind even before the war,
but, gosh! I wish you could just see how all the fellows love him and how
even his superior officers consult him and seem to value his judgment. I
tell you, I'm glad to have him call me his friend."

"You bet!" exclaimed Frank, nodding soberly.

"Allen sure has come out strong," Roy agreed; and at this glowing praise
of the only absent one Betty felt her heart swell with pride and she
wanted to hug the boys for being so loyal to her Allen. Also, deep down in
her heart, she began to feel a little trepidation about the homecoming of
this hero. Who was she, Betty Nelson, to call this glorious Lieutenant
Allen Washburn, her Allen?

So engrossed was she in these and other absorbing thoughts that it was
some time before she noticed that the conversation had taken another turn.
Also that the boys and girls were becoming rather excited.

"I didn't say it was a ghost," Mollie was declaring hotly. "In fact I have
always thought of a ghost as wearing a sheet and pillow case sort of garb.
And this thing certainly wore nothing of the sort."

"Tell us all about it," said Frank, leaning forward.

"Yes, it sounds as if it might prove interesting," added Roy.

So the girls told them all about it from that first night when they had
been so badly frightened by the "Thing" that had hidden in the shadows of
the porch. The boys listened with scarcely an interruption till they were
through.

"Gosh, I don't like the sound of that at all," said Will, when they had
finished. "It isn't a pleasant thing to have a lunatic roaming the woods
while you girls are all alone here in this place. Could you possibly put
us up for the night?" he asked, turning abruptly to Mrs. Irving.

"Why, there isn't any room," said the latter slowly, frowning a little as
she tried to think up ways and means. "There aren't any extra beds, but
there is a large settee in the living room and a couple of you can sleep
on that. I found plenty of blankets stowed away."

"Fine!" cried Will enthusiastically. "Just the very thing! One of us can
take turns sleeping on the floor. It won't be the first time we've slept
on harder things."

"Goodness, any one would think they were going to stay a month," said
Mollie in dismay.

"No, we won't stay a month," Will went on. "But we are going to stay until
we find out what it is that has been bothering you girls. Do you suppose
we would leave you unprotected here? I should say not!" Grace noticed that
when he said this his glance was first for Amy, and, afterward, for her.

So it was settled. Mrs. Irving went inside to see about getting lunch.
"Though how the boys can find any room for lunch after eating all those
sandwiches, I don't know," Amy had commented wonderingly.

Mrs. Irving had refused absolutely to let any of the girls even so much as
help with this lunch, saying they must stay outside and visit with the
boys on this momentous occasion.

"Since you are convinced that this thing is not a ghost," Will went on,
while appetizing odors began to waft toward them from the open kitchen
windows, "we will take it for granted that it is a man, and a man who has,
presumably, lost his mind."

"A crazy man," murmured Betty. "Worse and worse--and more of it."

"Girls," cried Amy, jumping suddenly to her feet, "I have an idea."

"Impossible!" drawled Grace.

"Why," went on Amy, unheeding Grace's remark and growing visibly more
excited as she talked, "you know, Professor Dempsey went crazy--or at
least we supposed he did--and ran away into the woods. Now since Will
thinks this man is crazy too, why, they may be one and the same--"

"Amy!" cried Mollie, her eyes beginning to shine as she realized the
possibility of what the girl had said. "You are a wonder, child! Why
didn't any of us think of that before?"

"Because it is rather far-fetched and absurd, I suppose," said Grace, the
suggestion of a sneer in her voice bringing a quick flush to Amy's face.

"I don't see that it is so far-fetched--or absurd either," Betty broke in
quietly. "Remember, we are only a little over fifty miles from the place
where Professor Dempsey had his cottage, and it would be easy for him to
wander this far."

Here Frank broke in on behalf of the very much mystified boys.

"Before you stage the hair-pulling contest," he said, "would you mind
telling us poor benighted males what it is all about?"

So the girls told them all about Professor Dempsey, and while they talked
the boys became more and more excited. Finally Will could keep quiet no
longer.

"Say," he asked, leaning forward, "did the two sons of the cracked old
professor happen to bear the names of James and Arnold?"

The girls gaped at him. "Yes," they breathed. "How did you know?"

"Because," said Will, "those very same fellows were in our regiment. In
fact, I was beside Arnold when he was wounded in that last engagement.
Strange thing that James was wounded at the same time."

"Wounded?" repeated Betty, who like all the girls was feeling rather dazed
at this new development. "Then they weren't killed?"

"Not a bit of it," Will replied vehemently. "Why, even their wounds
weren't serious enough to lay them up for long. The last I heard of them
they were coming over on a hospital ship and expected to be here almost as
soon as we were. For all I know, they may have landed by this time."

"Oh," said Amy, still too dazed to take it all in. "Then all this time we
have thought of them as dead, they were alive--"

"Very much so," said Will, with a grin, "and probably kicking too--just
like us!"




Chapter XXI

Out of the Dark



It took the Outdoor Girls a moment or two to digest this rather startling
information. And when it did finally seep into their consciousness, their
first feeling was one of joy for the poor professor whose sons would be
restored to him after all.

But quick on the heels of this thought came another. How could the sons be
restored to their father, if the father were nowhere to be found?

"You say the old chap skipped out, decamped?" Will broke in on their
meditations. "That sort of complicates matters, doesn't it?"

"Rather," agreed Roy, frowning. "It is going to be rather tough on those
fellows, James and Arnold, to come home, expecting to be welcomed by a
rejoicing parent, only to find said parent missing."

"Humph, that's the first time I've thought of the boys' side of it," said
Betty. "We have been too much occupied right along in being sorry for the
poor old professor."

"Well, if you had known the boys, you would have thought of their side of
it all right," said Frank seriously. "They are mighty good scouts, both of
them, and they think a lot of their old dad, too, I can tell you. Why,
many a night"--his voice took on a reminiscent note and the girls felt
once again that they were privileged in having a brief glimpse of the life
"over there"--"when a surprise attack was scheduled for the next morning
or we were waiting for some such manoeuvre from the enemy, Arnold would
talk to me about his dad--that was the time when fellows got chummy, you
know, and got to know each other's souls--and once he gave me a note for
the old chap and asked me to deliver it if I came through and he didn't. I
think I have it about me somewhere." He fumbled about in his pockets while
the girls waited silently.

Presently he drew forth a little slip of paper, muddy and worn and
dust-stained from being carried about for a long, long time in a khaki
pocket.

"He told me," Frank went on, still holding the slip of paper in his hand
but making no attempt to open it, "that his mother had died when he and
Jimmy were young and that since then his dad had been father and mother
both to them and that he had worked himself nearly to death to give them a
chance for the college education that he had had. He said that the one
thing that had always threatened to floor the old boy was when either he
or Jim got mad and threatened to give up school and go to work so as to
take some of the load from the old pater's shoulders. So they were glad,
actually glad, when the war came along and gave them a chance not only to
serve their country and earn some money--even if it was only a miserable
pittance--so that they could send some home to their dad and feel that
they had stopped being a drag upon him. He used to tell me," Frank went
on, for the spell of those old thrilling times was strong upon him again,
"with tears in his eyes--and I'll tell you there was no braver man in all
the American army than Arnold Dempsey; he was good for two Boches any day
--that it would be the happiest moment of his life when he got back to the
old country and announced to his proud and admiring pater that he had come
home to turn the tables; that Jimmy and he were going to make the old
fellow take a rest and do the work themselves for a change. And he asked
me, in case anything did happen to him and Jimmy, to be kind to his dad
and try to make up to him as much as I could. I gave him my promise that
night." Frank looked about the intent group of faces soberly. "In case the
boys had been killed, I would have regarded it as a sacred trust."

Something swelled in the girls' hearts and for; a moment they could not
speak. Then,

"I guess we all love you for that, Frank," said Betty simply. With a
little nod of her head toward the slip of paper he still held, she added:
"What about that--now?"

Frank looked down at the slip of paper for a moment uncomprehendingly, for
his thoughts had been far away.

"Oh, the note," he said. "Why, that was only to be given to his father in
case anything happened, you know. But now that the boys are coming back to
him themselves, I suppose the thing is worthless." He made a motion as
though to tear the note up, but Grace stopped him with a quick
exclamation.

"Don't!" she cried, adding as they all looked at her in surprise: "Don't
you suppose there might be something in it that would give us a clue to
the professor's whereabouts now, perhaps? Don't you think it would be wise
to look, at least?"

But Frank slowly shook his head.

"Arnold Dempsey's message, written to his dad when he thought he might
never see him again, doesn't belong to us," he said decidedly. "The note
was given in trust to me, and since I can't deliver it--or at least, since
there is now no reason for delivering it--the only thing I can honorably
do is this." And very slowly and very decidedly he tore the note into
little bits and threw the pieces among the wild roses at the side of the
porch.

It was the first real glimpse the girls had had of the man who had come
back in the old Frank's place, and with all their hearts they admired him.

Even Grace, who had seemed inclined to pout a little, could not but admit
that the action was splendid in him.

"And now," said Will, "after all that, the boys will come back to find
their dad gone, heaven knows where, dead perhaps--"

"Oh, I wonder if there isn't some way we can follow him and find out at
least what has happened to him?" broke in Amy earnestly. "It seems
dreadful just to sit back and not even try to help."

"I don't see what we can do," said Will judicially, just as Mrs. Irving
appeared in the doorway. "We will postpone the discussion for the present
anyway," he added, in a different tone, rising with alacrity and dusting
off his uniform. "Something tells me that lunch is waiting. Come, let us
eat!"

So ended all serious discussion for that day, and the girls and boys gave
themselves up to the delight of being together again. Only Betty's
thoughts seemed to wander at times and she had to be brought back by
sundry mischievous and significant remarks from the young folks.

Worn out with fun, the young soldiers slept like tops that night in their
improvised beds and rose the next morning professing to feel like "two
year olds" and ready for whatever new fun and adventure the day might
bring them.

And for the first night since their arrival at Wild Rose Lodge the girls
slept soundly without being bothered by the haunting fear of the "Thing"--
at least, so they said.

That day they wandered through the woods together, searching for some sign
of their strange visitor, but found not a trace of anything unusual and
alarming.

"I'm really beginning to believe that you girls have let your imaginations
run away from you," Will remarked, when they sat about the living-room
after a satisfying supper, just luxuriating in idleness.

"Or perhaps the gentleman has been frightened away by our coming," Roy
suggested in a superior tone that made the girls want to throw something
at him. "Perhaps he is afraid of the uniform of the U.S.A."

"He may be afraid of the uniform," sniffed Mollie scathingly. "But he
certainly couldn't be afraid of you."

"Now you don't mean that, you know you don't," laughed Roy, drawing her
down beside him on the couch and holding her there with an iron grip of
his brown fingers. "Say you didn't, like a pretty little girl, and I'll
let you go."

"I won't say any such--" Mollie began, then suddenly her gaze stiffened
into such a stare of wonder, and even alarm, that it made the girls fairly
hold their breath.

"Mollie, what is it?" demanded Roy commandingly.

"Over there!" she shrieked. "At the window, Roy! Do you see it?"




Chapter XXII

Tragedy



There, pressed so close to the pane of the window that the nose was
flattened grotesquely, eyes wildly staring, hair disheveled, was a face
that even in that tense moment the girls recognized--the face of Professor
Dempsey!

It took the boys perhaps a second to fling out of the room, jump down the
steps of the porch and circle the house to the window.

And yet, in that second, the man was gone, leaving no more trace than if
the earth had opened and swallowed him up. For almost an hour the boys
searched the woods about the lodge, refusing to allow the girls to
accompany them, saying truly that they would hamper them more than they
could help.

"You see, I was right after all," Amy stated for at least the tenth time.
"From the moment the idea came to me, I felt almost sure that poor crazy
Professor Dempsey was this thing that was frightening us."

"But did you ever see such an awful face in all your life?" said Mollie,
shuddering at the recollection.

"And the look in his eyes as he stared at Roy," Grace added in a hushed
voice. "I shouldn't wonder if--if we hadn't been there, he might have
murdered him."

"Oh, Gracie, don't!" Amy clapped her hands to her ears. "We are frightened
enough without having you say things like that"

"Suppose," said Mollie, in a sepulchral voice, "he should come back before
the boys do?"

"That's just what I was thinking," said a quiet voice behind them, and
they jumped and cried out in alarm. The next moment they saw it was Mrs.
Irving and felt ashamed of themselves.

"I think you had all better come into the house till the boys come back,"
their chaperon continued. "I shall feel safer when we are behind locked
doors."

The girls shivered, but Mollie protested.

"Suppose anything should happen to the boys?" she asked, but here Mrs.
Irving chose to exercise her authority.

"We will talk about that when we are inside the house," she said very
firmly, and Mollie had nothing else to do but obey.

The girls did breathe a little more freely when the door was locked, but
they found themselves wishing even more ardently that the boys would come
back.

The window against which the horribly distorted face had been pressed
seemed to hold a peculiar fascination for the Outdoor Girls and they found
themselves unable to turn their eyes away from it.

"Oh, I wish the boys would come back," moaned Amy, after a few moments
more had passed in strained silence. "If anything should happen to them
I'm sure I would die."

"Nonsense, Amy," snapped Mollie. "What could one little mad old man do to
three big husky soldier boys?"

The words had hardly been spoken when the sound of voices could be heard
coming toward the house, and a moment later the boys themselves stamped up
on the porch.

"Not a sign of him," said Will in response to the girls' eager questions.
"I don't see how he could have disappeared so completely in such a short
time."

"We all took different directions, too," said Roy, taking a seat on the
couch again and staring fascinatedly at the window. "If all the rest of
you hadn't seen it too, I should certainly think I had been mistaken."

"You weren't mistaken," Mollie assured him grimly. "I can vouch for that."

"Didn't one of you girls call out something about Professor Dempsey?"
asked Frank, abruptly.

"Yes," said Betty, going over to him and putting an excited hand on his
shoulder. "That's the thing that startled us so, Frank. We are sure it was
Professor Dempsey's face. But, still, it was so wild and distorted that we
really wouldn't feel like contradicting any one who told us it wasn't he,"
she added slowly. "Do you understand what I mean?"

Frank nodded, and Will broke in excitedly:

"But the poor old codger's looks would naturally be changed," he argued,
"after he had spent all this time wandering around the woods--out of his
mind at that. I am inclined to think that the girls are right and that it
is really Professor Dempsey."

"If only I could have gotten my hands on him!" mourned Roy. "We wouldn't
have been in any further doubt."

"There is really no doubt, boys. We just want--oh, I don't know what we
want!" exclaimed Mollie, who was excited and unstrung and nervous.

Soon after that they all went to bed, having first decided to make a more
thorough search of the woods in the morning and take the postponed trip to
the head of the falls.

They slept fitfully and were glad when at last they woke to find the sun
shining in their windows. For once Amy and Grace did not have to be coaxed
or wheedled or forced to get out of bed, but dressed quickly and were
ready almost as soon as Mollie and Betty.

"You know I rather hated to leave the boys in that room last night," Betty
confided to Grace, stopping before the mirror for one final little pat of
her hair. "I was afraid that--he--might come back--"

"Oh, Betty, what a horrid idea," said Grace. "Come on, let's see if
everything is all right."

But they found that their fears had been wasted. The boys were in the
kitchen hilariously helping Mrs. Irving get the breakfast to the
accompaniment of continual good-natured scolding from that flushed and
perspiring lady. It was Amy's day to get the breakfast, but, as usual, she
was late in getting down.

"You make a good deal more trouble than you mend," Mrs. Irving was saying
as the girls came to the door, then added relievedly as she caught sight
of them: "For goodness' sake, get these young ruffians out of the kitchen,
my dears, or we'll not have any breakfast until noon."

So amid much fun and nonsense the boys were shooed forth into the bright
sunshine of the out-of-doors, and all the girls fell to to help their
chaperon, not wanting to put the extra work the boys made entirely on
Amy's shoulders.

Breakfast was good, but they ate hurriedly, anxious to get at the business
of the day. They wanted more than they had wanted anything in a very long
time to find Professor Dempsey and tell him the joyful news that his sons
were alive.

"I'm horribly afraid of him at night," Mollie confided, as they started
out at last, "but in the daytime I am only sorry for him."

"Do you think we shall find him, Will?" asked Amy, with a helpless little
look into Will's self-reliant young face. "I do want to so much."

Will looked down at her with an expression that said to any one who would
read it: "I would give you anything in the world you asked for, if I only
could."

But all he really said was: "That remains to be seen. He proved himself a
rather slippery customer last night, and the chase we put up may only
serve to put him on his guard. Crazy people are tricky, you know."

"Goodness," said Grace, looking fearfully over her shoulder. "There is
nothing in the world I am so afraid of as a crazy person."

"That's why she has always been so afraid of me, I suppose," grinned
Mollie.

"Afraid of you," said Grace, her eyebrows raised in mock surprise. "Little
shrimp--who are you?" There followed a characteristic scene that somewhat
lifted the oppression they had all been feeling, and it was not till they
had nearly reached the river at the head of the falls that they became
serious again.

"It was right about here," said Betty soberly, "that we saw him the night
that he started to jump into the river--or I suppose it was the same one,"
she added.

"Let us hope so," said Mollie fervently. "I wouldn't like to think that
there were two lunatics wandering round these woods. One is quite enough."

As they came closer to the river they became more and more conscious that
they were not alone, that some one, hidden in the bushes, was craftily
watching them.

So strong did this feeling finally become that once the boys separated,
thrashing the bushes in all directions. They did not find anything, and
finally continued along the path, a little ashamed of what they thought
was an attack of nerves.

"Phew, this is getting a little hot for me," said Frank, running his hand
through his shock of fair hair. "I don't mind fighting anything in the
open--" He left the sentence unfinished, for at that moment they broke
through the bushes at the river's edge upon a sight that struck them
speechless.

Not twenty yards down the bank stood a ragged scarecrow of a man, so
unkempt, so wild, so abandoned in its crouching attitude as to appear
hardly human.

Before they had time to utter a word or move a muscle, the man threw up
his arms in a gesture indescribably terrible, and with a hoarse shout
disappeared in the swirling waters.

It all happened so quickly that for the space of a dazed second they
wondered if they had really seen it at all. Then they recovered their
powers of motion and rushed to the spot where the man had disappeared.

Though they leaned far out over the water they could see no sign of
anything human, and with a creeping feeling of horror they began to speak
of what had probably already happened.

"It's certain death down there," Roy muttered, as though to himself,
gazing into the rushing river. "The poor old fellow! He has got his, I
guess."

"Look here, fellows, here are some clothes," Will called out suddenly, and
the boys rushed over to where he stood, a tattered old hat and an equally
ragged coat in his hands. "Maybe there will be something in the jacket to
tell us where the poor fellow has been staying and what he has been up
to."

They searched through the coat and finally pulled out a wallet.

"Now if it only has some writing in it," said Mollie breathlessly.

There was a card, and the card bore the words which they expected, yet
dreaded, Arnold Dempsey, Ph. D. But there was nothing else, and suddenly
tears dimmed their eyes and they had to turn away.

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