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diff --git a/38983-8.txt b/38983-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6459b22 --- /dev/null +++ b/38983-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6869 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery, by Hildegard G. Frey + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery + or, The Christmas Adventure at Carver House + +Author: Hildegard G. Frey + +Release Date: February 25, 2012 [EBook #38983] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAMP FIRE GIRLS SOLVE MYSTERY *** + + + + +Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Dave Morgan, J. Ali Harlow +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + The Camp Fire Girls + Solve a Mystery + + + or, THE CHRISTMAS ADVENTURE + at CARVER HOUSE + + By HILDEGARD G. FREY + + AUTHOR OF + The Camp Fire Girls Series + + A. L. BURT COMPANY + Publishers New York + + + + + THE + Camp Fire Girls Series + + A Series of Stories for Camp Fire Girls Endorsed by + the Officials of the Camp Fire Girls Organization + + + By HILDEGARD G. FREY + + + The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods + or, The Winnebago's Go Camping + + The Camp Fire Girls at School + or, The Wohelo Weavers + + The Camp Fire Girls at Onoway House + or, The Magic Garden + + The Camp Fire Girls Go Motoring + or, Along the Road That Leads the Way + + The Camp Fire Girls' Larks and Pranks + or, The House of the Open Door + + The Camp Fire Girls on Ellen's Isle + or, the Trail of the Seven Cedars + + The Camp Fire Girls on the Open Road + or, Glorify Work + + The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit + or, Over The Top With the Winnebago's + + The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery + or, The Christmas Adventures at Carver House + + The Camp Fire Girls at Camp Keewaydin + or, Down Paddles + + + Copyright, 1919 + By A. L. Burt Company + + + THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS SOLVE A MYSTERY + + + + + THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS + SOLVE A MYSTERY + + + + + CHAPTER I + THE EMPTY HOUSE + + +Katherine Adams stepped from the train at Oakwood, glanced expectantly up +and down the station platform, hesitated a moment, and then, picking out +a conspicuous spot under a glaring arc light, deposited her suitcase on +the ground with a thump, mounted guard beside it and patiently waited for +Nyoda to find her in the surging crowd. + +It was two days before Christmas, and travel was heavy. It seemed as +though the entire population of Oakland was either coming home, +departing, or rushing madly up and down before the panting train in +search of friends and relatives. Katherine was engulfed in a tidal wave +of rapturous greetings that rolled over her from every side, as a +coachful of soldiers, home for Christmas, were met and surrounded by the +waiting lines of townspeople. + +Katherine stood still, absorbed in watching the various reunions taking +place around her, while the tidal wave gradually subsided, receding in +the direction of Main Street. The principal stream had already flowed +past her and the crowd was rapidly thinning out when Katherine woke to +the realization that she was still unclaimed. There was no sign of Nyoda. +The expectant smile faded from Katherine's face and in its place there +came a look of puzzled wonder. What had happened? Why wasn't Nyoda there +to meet her? Was there some mistake? Wasn't this Oakwood? Had she gotten +off at the wrong station, she thought in sudden panic. No, there was the +sign beside the door of the green boarded station; its gilded letters +gleamed down reassuringly at her. Katherine stood on one foot and +pondered. Was this the day she was supposed to come? What day was it, +anyway? The thick pad calendar beside the ticket seller's window inside +the station proclaimed it to be the twenty-third. All right so far; she +hadn't mixed up the date, then. She had written Nyoda that she would come +on the twenty-third, on the five-forty-five train. The train had been on +time. Where was Nyoda? + +Katherine was assailed by a sudden doubt. Had she mailed that letter? +Yes, she was certain of that. She had run out to the mail box at ten +o'clock at night especially to mail it. What had gone wrong? Why wasn't +there someone to meet her? + +She looked around at the walls as if expecting them to answer, and her +roving eye caught sight of the lettering on a glass door opposite. The +telephone! Goose! Why hadn't she thought of that before? Of course there +was some mistake responsible for Nyoda's not meeting her, but in a moment +that would be all straightened out. + +She sprang across to the booth and picked up the directory hanging beside +the telephone. Then a queer, bewildered look came into her eyes and she +stood still with the book hanging uncertainly from her fingers. She had +forgotten Nyoda's name! She twisted her brows into a pucker and made a +frantic effort to recall it. No use; it was a fruitless endeavor. Where +that name used to be in her mind there was now a blank space, empty and +echoless as the original void. It was _too_ ridiculous! Katherine gave a +little stamp of vexation. It was not the first time a name had popped out +of her mind at a critical moment. And sometimes--O horror! it didn't come +back again for days. Was there ever anything so utterly absurd as the +plight in which she now found herself? She knew Nyoda's name as well as +her own. M. M. It certainly began with an M. + +After nearly an hour's exasperated wracking of her brains she gave it up +in disgust and stalked out of the station. Not for worlds would she have +confided to anyone her plight. + +"People will think you're an escaped lunatic," she told herself in +terrified wrath. "They might put you in an asylum, and it would serve you +right if they did. You aren't fit to be out without a guardian. After +this you'll have to have your destination written out on a label tied to +your ankle, like a trunk." + +She had one recollection to guide her. The house Nyoda lived in stood on +top of a hill. The name of Carver House and the address on Oak Street had +faded along with Nyoda's name. "I'll walk until I come to a house on the +top of a hill," she decided, "and find it that way. There can't be many +houses on hills in this town, it seems to be all in a valley. Come along, +Katherine, what you haven't got in your head you'll have to have in your +heels." + +No one, seeing the tall, clever looking girl stepping briskly out of the +station and turning up Main Street with a businesslike tread, would have +guessed that she was a stranger in a strange town and hadn't any idea +where she was going. There was such an air of confidence and capability +about Katherine that people would have been more likely to ask her to +help them out of their difficulties than to suspect that she needed help +herself. + +Certainly, Nyoda's house wouldn't be hard to find. Oakwood lay in a +valley, curled up among its sheltering hills like a kitten in a heap of +leaves. To be on a hill Nyoda must be on the outskirts of the town. She +inquired of a passing youngster what part of Oakwood was on a hill and +got the information that Main Street ran up hill at the end. + +She set out blithely in the direction he pointed, enjoying the walk +through the crisp, icy air. A light fall of snow, white as swan's down, +covered the ground and the roofs, and sparkled in the light of the street +lamps in myriads of tiny twinkles. Not many people were abroad, for it +was the supper hour in Oakland. A Christmas stillness hovered over the +peaceful little town, as though it lay hushed and breathless in +anticipation of the coming of the Holy Babe. Low in the eastern sky +burned the brilliant evening star, bright as that other Star in the East +which guided the shepherds on that far-off Christmas night. Katherine +felt the spell of it and gradually her hasty steps became slower and at +times she stood still and looked upon the quiet scene with a feeling of +awe and reverence. "Why, it might be Bethlehem!" she said to herself. +"It's so still and white, and there's the star in the east, too!" Almost +unconsciously she began to repeat under her breath: + + "O little town of Bethlehem, + How still we see thee lie, + Above thy deep and dreamless sleep + The silent stars go by." + +"Only it isn't quite true about the deep and dreamless sleep," she +qualified, her literal-mindedness getting the upper hand of her poetic +feeling, "because they're all inside eating supper." The thought of +supper made Katherine suddenly realize that she was ravenously hungry. +She had had nothing to eat since an early lunch on the train. "I hope I +get there before supper's over," she thought, and quickened her pace +again. Not that she wouldn't get something anyhow, she reflected, but +somehow the idea of coming in just as supper was ready, and sitting down +to a table covered with steaming dishes seized her fancy and warmed her +through with a pleasant glow of expectation. + +"Nearly there!" she said to herself cheerfully. "Here's where Main Street +starts to go uphill." The houses had gradually become farther and farther +apart as she went on, until now she was walking along between wide, open +spaces, gleaming white in the starlight, with only an occasional low +cottage to break the landscape. The walk was steeply uphill now, and +looking back Katherine saw Oakwood curled in its sheltering valley, and +again she thought of a sleek, well fed kitten lying warm and comfortable +and drowsy, at peace with all the world. + +"There aren't any poor people here, I guess," she thought to herself. +"All the houses look so prosperous. There probably aren't any hungry +children crying for bread. I'm the only hungry person in this whole town, +I believe. My, but I _am_ hungry! I could eat a whole house right now, +and a barn for dessert! Thank goodness, there's the top of the hill in +sight, and that must be Nyoda's house." A great dark bulk towered before +her at the top of the steep incline, its irregular outlines standing +sharply defined against the luminous sky. Katherine charged up the +remainder of the hill at top speed, slipping and falling in the icy path +several times in her eagerness, but finally landing intact, though +flushed and panting, upon its slippery summit, and stood still to behold +this wonderful house that Nyoda lived in, whose charms had been the theme +of many an enthusiastic letter from the Winnebagos during the previous +summer. It loomed large and silent before her, its frost covered window +panes shining whitely in the starlight with a faint, ghostly glimmer. No +gleam of light came from any of the doors or windows. The house was still +and dark as a tomb. Katherine stood wide-eyed with disappointment and +perplexity. Nyoda was not at home. + +She clutched at a straw. Nyoda had gone to meet her and missed her; that +was it. But at the same time she felt a doubt rising in her mind which +rapidly grew into a certainty. This was not Nyoda's house before which +she stood on this lonely hilltop. It was some other house and it was +absolutely empty. Not only was it untenanted, but it had the look of a +house that has stood so for years. Even the soft, sparkling mantle of +snow that lay upon it could not hide the sagging porch, the broken steps, +the broken-down fence, the general air of decay which surrounded the +place. + +Katherine emitted a cluck of chagrin. She was puffing like an engine from +her dash up the hill, she was tired out, she was ravenously hungry, she +was unutterably cross at herself. She scowled at the dark house with its +spectral, frosty windows, and made another frantic effort to recall +Nyoda's name, only to be confronted with that baffling blank where the +name once had been. + +With a growing feeling of helplessness she stood on one foot in the snow +in the pose which she always assumed when thinking deeply, and considered +what she should do next. Should she keep on walking and climbing all the +hills until she finally came to the right one; should she go all the way +back to the station and sit there until the name came back to her, or +should she walk boldly up to one of the hospitable looking doors she had +passed, confide her plight and ask to be taken in for the night? +Katherine was trying to decide between the first two, leaving the third +as the extreme alternative in case she neither found the right hill nor +succeeded in remembering Nyoda's name before bedtime, when suddenly +something occurred which sent a chill of ice into her blood and left her +standing petrified in her one-legged pose, like a frozen stork. From the +dark and empty house before her came the sound of a song, ringing clear +and distinct through the frosty air. It was the voice of a woman, or a +girl. Beginning softly, the tone swelled out in volume till it seemed to +Katherine's ears to fill the whole house and to come pouring out of all +the doors and windows. Then it subsided until it came very faintly, like +the merest ghost of a song. Katherine felt the hair rising on her head; +she gave an odd little dry gasp. Wild terror assailed her and she would +have fled, but fear chained her limbs and she could not move hand or +foot. She stood riveted to the spot, staring fascinated at the dark, +untenanted house, which stared back at her with frost veiled, inscrutable +eyes; and all the while from somewhere in its mysterious depths came the +voice, now louder, now fainter, but always distinctly heard. + +A sudden thought struck Katherine. Was she already a victim of +starvation, and was this the delirium which starving people went into? +They generally heard beautiful voices singing. No, that wasn't +possible--she couldn't be starving yet. She was tremendously hungry, but +there was still a fairly safe margin between her and the last stages. +Somehow the thought of hunger, and the idea of food, commonplace, +familiar victuals which it connoted, dissipated the supernatural +atmosphere of the place, and Katherine shook off her terror. The blood +stopped pounding in her ears; her heart began to beat naturally again; +her limbs lost their paralysis. + +"Goose!" she said to herself scornfully. "Flying into a panic at the +sound of a voice singing and thinking it's ghosts! I'm ashamed of you, +Katherine Adams! Where's your 'spicuity? Vacant houses don't sing by +themselves. When empty houses start singing they aren't empty. Besides, +no ghost could sing like that. A voice like that means lungs, and ghosts +don't have lungs. Anybody that's got breath to sing can probably talk and +tell me where the next hill is. I'm going up and ask her." + +She passed through an opening in the tumble-down fence, in which there +was no longer any gate, and went up the uneven, irregular brick walk and +up the broken steps, treading carefully upon each one and half expecting +them to go down under her weight. They creaked and trembled, but they +held her and she went on over the sagging porch to the door, which lay in +deep shadow at the one side. She felt about for a bell or knocker, and +then she discovered that the door stood open. She could hear the voice +plainly, singing somewhere in the house. Failing to find a doorbell she +rapped loudly with her knuckles on the door casing. To her nervous ears +the sound seemed to echo inside the house like thunder, but there was no +pause in the singing, no sound of footsteps coming to the door. + +She rapped again. Still no sign from within. A sportive north wind, +racing up the hill, paused at the top to whirl about in a mad frolic, and +Katherine shivered from head to foot. She felt chilled through, and +fairly ached to get inside a house; anywhere to be in out of the cold. +She rapped a third time. Still the voice sang on as before, paying no +heed to the knock. Katherine grew desperate. Her teeth were chattering in +her head and her feet were going numb. + +"Of course she can't hear me knock when she's singing," thought +Katherine. "The sound of her own voice fills her ears. I'm going in and +find her. I'll apologize for walking in on her so unceremoniously, but +it's the only thing to do. I've got to get in out of the cold pretty +soon." + +Acting upon her resolution she stepped through the open door into the +hall inside and tried to fix the direction from which the voice was +coming. She looked in vain for a glimmer of light under a door to guide +her to the mysterious dweller in this strange establishment. The house +was apparently as dark on the inside as it looked from without. Katherine +opened her handbag and fumbled for her electric flash. In a moment a tiny +circle of light was boring valiantly into the gloom. By its gleam +Katherine saw that she stood in a long hall. Upon her left was a +succession of doors, all closed; upon her right a staircase curved upward +into the blackness above. Idly she turned her flashlight on the staircase +and noticed that the post was of beautifully carved mahogany. The polish +was gone, but it must have been handsome once, must have been--Katherine +gave a great start and nearly dropped her flashlight. Her eyes, traveling +up the mahogany stair rail, encountered those of a man who was leaning +over the banister half way up. His face, in the light of her flash, was +white as a sheet, and he seemed to be staring not so much at her as at +the door behind her, through which she at that moment discovered the +voice to be proceeding. + +Katherine recovered from her surprise and remembered her manners. This +man must live here. She must explain quickly, or he would take her for a +burglar, coming in that way and looking around with a flashlight. +Katherine suddenly felt apprehensive. Suppose he wouldn't believe her +story? It was one thing to go into a house in search of a voice that +wouldn't come to the door; it was another thing to find a man inside. + +She cleared her throat and wet her lips. "Excuse me for coming in like +this--" she began. She got no farther with her apologies. At the sound of +her voice the man gave a startled jump, backed away from the banister, +ran down the stairs two steps at a time and disappeared through the front +door, leaving Katherine standing in the empty hall, open-mouthed with +astonishment. + + + + + CHAPTER II + THE PRINCESS SYLVIA + + +Katherine did not know whether she was more astonished or relieved at the +sudden flight of the man on the stairs. "I suppose I do look pretty +wild," she reflected, "but I didn't suppose my appearance was enough to +make a man run on sight. Well anyhow, he isn't going to trouble me, and +that's some comfort. Now to find the singer." + +There was an open transom over the door before which Katherine stood and +she perceived that the voice came through this. With hand raised to knock +on the door panel she paused in admiration. The song that floated through +the transom had such a gay swing, such an irresistible lilt, that it set +her head awhirl and her blood racing madly through her veins in a wild +May dance. It was as though Spring herself, intoxicated with May dew and +brimming over with all the joy of all the world, were singing. Like +golden drops from a sunlit fountain the gay, glad notes showered down on +her: + + "_Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings,_ + _And Phoebus 'gins arise_ + _His steeds to water at those springs_ + _On chaliced flower that lies;_ + _And winking Mary buds begin_ + _To ope their golden eyes,_ + _With everything that pretty been,_ + _My lady sweet arise!_" + +The voice fell silent, and Katherine came back to herself and knocked on +the door. + +"Come in, my dear Duchess," called a merry voice from behind the door. +There was no mistaking the note of glad welcome. + +Katherine turned the knob and opened the door. Only darkness greeted her +eyes. + +"Where are you?" she asked. + +From somewhere in the room came a sudden exclamation of surprise. + +"Who is it?" demanded the voice which had bidden her enter. "You are not +my lady-in-waiting, the Duchess." + +"I'm afraid I'm not," said Katherine, considerably puzzled at the +salutation she had received. She stood still inside the door trying to +locate her mysterious hostess in the darkness. Her flashlight lay in her +hand, useless, its battery burned out. + +"I'm looking for another house on another hill," she began hurriedly, +speaking into the darkness and feeling as though she had slipped into the +Arabian Nights, "and I got the wrong hill and and now I'm so mixed up I +don't know where to go. I heard you singing and came in to ask if you +could tell me where the other hill is. I knocked before I came in," she +added hastily, "but you didn't come to the door, so I took the liberty of +walking in. I beg your pardon for coming right in that way, but I was so +cold----" + +"You are welcome in our lodge," interrupted the invisible voice with +lofty graciousness. "Do you not know where you have come?" it continued, +in a tone which indicated there was a delicious surprise in store. "This +is the royal hunting lodge, and I am the Princess Sylvia!" + +"Oh-h-h!" said Katherine, too much astonished to say another word. She +did not know how to act when introduced to a princess. + +"Is there anything I can do for your majesty?" she asked politely, +remembering that the other had mentioned a lady-in-waiting that she +seemed to be expecting. + +"Light the lights!" commanded the voice imperiously. + +Katherine took a step forward uncertainly. "Where--" she began. + +"On the table beside you!" continued the voice. + +Katherine put out her hand and came in contact with the edge of a table, +and after groping for a moment found a box of matches. She struck one and +by its flare saw an oil lamp standing on the table beside the matches. +She lit it and looked around the room curiously. She could not see the +owner of the voice at first. The room was large and shadowy and contained +very little furniture. A bare pine table on which the lamp stood; a +couple of kitchen chairs; a cot bed next to the wall; a small stove; a +rocking chair and a sewing machine; these were the objects which the lamp +illuminated. The other end of the room lay in deep shadow. It was from +this shadow that the voice now issued again. + +"Bring the lamp and come here," it commanded. + +Katherine picked up the lamp from the table and advanced toward the +shadowy corner of the room. The darkness fled before her as she advanced +and the corner sprang into light. She saw that the corner was a bay, with +three long windows, in which stood a couch. On the couch was a mountain +whose slopes consisted of vari-colored piecework, and from whose peak +there issued, like an eruption of golden lava, a tangle of bright yellow +curls which framed about a pair of big, shining eyes. The eyes were set +in a face, of course--they had to be--but the face was so white and +emaciated as to be entirely inconspicuous, so Katherine's first +impression consisted entirely of hair and eyes. The eyes were dark brown, +a strange combination with the fair hair, and sparkled with a hundred +little dancing lights, as the girl on the couch--for it was a girl +apparently about fourteen years old--looked up at Katherine with a +roguish smile. + +"You must be Her Grace, the Marchioness St. Denis," she said with an air +of stately courtesy, "of whose presence in our realm we have been +informed. I trust Your Grace is not over fatigued. You will pardon the +informality of our life here," she continued, her brown eyes traveling +around the room and resting somewhat regretfully on the shabby +furnishings. "We take up our residence in the Winter Palace for state +occasions," she went on, "but for our daily life we prefer the simplicity +of our Hunting Lodge. We are less hampered by formal etiquette here." + +Katherine stared in perplexity. Winter Palace? Hunting Lodge? Her Grace +the Marchioness? What was this strange child talking about? Her feeling +of having wakened in the midst of a fairy tale deepened. + +"You can see the Winter Palace from the window here, when there isn't any +frost on it," proceeded the "princess," setting up a volcanic disturbance +inside the patchwork mountain by turning herself inside of it, and she +pointed toward one of the bay windows with a thin white hand. "It's on +top of a high hill and at night it twinkles." + +It came over Katherine in a flash that possibly it was Nyoda's house that +this queer child meant by the "Winter Palace." A big house set on a high +hill---- + +A rippling laugh caused her to look down hastily, and there was the girl +on the couch fairy convulsed with laughter. + +"It's been such fun!" she exclaimed, demolishing the mountain by throwing +the quilt aside with a sudden movement of her arms and disclosing a +slender little body wrapped in a grayish woolen dressing gown. "I never +had anybody from outside to play it with before. I get tired playing it +alone so much, and Aunt Aggie is mostly always too busy to play it with +me. Besides," she said with a regretful sigh, "she has no imagination, +and she forgets most of the really important things. Oh, it was wonderful +when you said, 'Is there anything I can do for you, Your Majesty?' It was +just as real as real!" She laughed with delight at the remembrance. + +Katherine, as much startled by the swift change in her little hostess as +she had been at her strange manner of speech in the beginning, was still +uncertain what to say. "Is it a game?" she asked finally. + +The girl nodded and began to explain, talking as though to an old friend. + +"You see," she began, "not being able to walk, it's so hard to find +anything really thrilling to do." + +"You are lame?" asked Katherine with quick sympathy. It had just come +over her that while the slender arms had been waving incessantly in +animated gestures as the voice chattered gaily on, the limbs under the +dressing gown had not moved. + +The girl nodded in reply to Katherine's question. "Crippled," she +explained. "I was following a horse down the middle of the street trying +to figure out which leg came after which when I slipped and fell and hurt +my spine, and I have never walked since." + +"Oh-h!" said Katherine with a shudder of distress. + +"And so," continued the girl, "to pass away the time while Aunt Aggie was +working I began to pretend that I was a princess and lived in a palace +with my indulgent father, the king, and had a grand court and a great +train of attendants--all dukes and duchesses and counts and things, and a +royal grand duchess for my lady-in-waiting. That one is Aunt Aggie, of +course, and it's great fun to pretend she's the duchess." + +"'My dear Duchess,'" she cried, giving an animated sample of her make +believe, "'what do you say to having our cousin, the Crown Prince, in to +tea!' Then Aunt Aggie always forgets and says, 'Let's see, which one is +the Crown Prince, now?' It's _very_ disconcerting, the way the Grand +Duchess forgets her royal relations!" She giggled infectiously and +Katherine smiled too. + +"What is your real name, Princess Sylvia?" she asked. + +"Sylvia Deane," replied the girl. "Only the princess part is made up. My +name is S-s-ylvia-a." + +Her teeth began to chatter on the last words and she drew the quilt up +around her tightly. Katherine suddenly felt cold, too. Then she became +conscious for the first time that there was no heat in the room. In the +first contrast to the biting wind outside the place had seemed warm, and +with her heavy fur-collared winter coat she had not felt chilly. She +glanced at the stove. It was black and lifeless. + +"The f-f-fire's g-g-gone o-u-t," chattered Sylvia, huddling under the +quilt as a fierce blast rattled the panes in the bay windows. Katherine +felt hot with indignation at the thought of the invalid left all alone in +the cold room. + +"Where is your--lady-in-waiting?" she asked, a trifle sharply. + +"Aunt Aggie's gone to the city," replied Sylvia. "She went at six o'clock +this morning and she was going to back at noon. She hasn't come yet, and +I'm so cold and----" + +She checked herself suddenly and held her head up very stiffly. + +Katherine turned abruptly and made for the stove. It was a small +old-fashioned cook stove, the kind that Katherine had been familiar with +in her childhood on the farm. Beside it in a box were several lumps of +coal and some kindling. She stripped off her gloves and set to work +building a fire. When the stove had begun to radiate heat she lifted +Sylvia, quilt and all, into the rocking chair and drew it up in front of +the fire. + +"And now, if you'll tell me where things are I'll prepare your Majesty's +supper," she said playfully. + +"Thank you, but I'm not hungry," replied Sylvia. + +"I don't see how you can help being," said Katherine wonderingly. "Or +have you had something to eat since your aunt went away?" she added. + +"No," replied Sylvia. + +"Then you must be famished," said Katherine decidedly, "and I'm going to +get you something." + +She moved toward a cupboard on the wall over in a corner of the room +where she conjectured the supplies must be kept. The cupboard had leaded +glass doors, she noticed, and the framework was of mahogany to match the +woodwork of the room. It had probably been designed as a curio cabinet by +the builder of the house. + +"Never mind, I don't want anything to eat," said Sylvia again, in a tone +which was both commanding and pleading. + +"You must," said Katherine firmly, with her hand on the cut glass knob of +the cupboard door. "You're cold because you're hungry." + +She opened the door and investigated the inside. There were some cheap +china dishes and some pots and pans, but no sign of food. She glanced +swiftly around the room, but nowhere else were there any supplies. Then +Katherine understood. Her intuition was slow, but finally it came to her +why Sylvia did not want to admit that she was hungry. There was nothing +to eat in the house. There was a pinched, blue look about Sylvia's face +that Katherine had seen before, in the settlement where she had worked +with Miss Fairlee. She recognized the hunger look. + +Sylvia met her eye with an attempt at lofty unconcern. "Our royal +larder," she remarked, valiantly struggling to maintain her royal +dignity, "is exhausted at present. I must speak to my steward about it." + +Then her air of lofty composure forsook her all at once, and with a +little wailing cry of "Aunt Aggie!" she put her head down on the arm of +the chair and wept, pulling the quilt over her face so that Katherine +could not see her cry. + +Katherine was beside her in an instant, seeking to comfort her, and +struggling with an unwonted desire to cry herself. The thought of the +brave little spirit, shut up alone here in the dark and cold, hungry and +anxious, singing like a lark to keep down her loneliness and anxiety, and +welcoming her chance guest with the gracious air of a princess, moved +Katherine as nothing had ever done before. + +"Tell me all about it," she said, cuddling the golden head close. + +Sylvia struggled manfully to regain her composure, and sat up and dashed +the tears away with an impatient hand. "How dare you cry, and you a +princess?" she said aloud to herself scornfully, with a flash of her +brown eyes, and Katherine caught a glimpse of an indomitable spirit that +no hardship could bow down. + +"'Twas but a momentary weakness," she said to Katherine, with a return of +her royal manner. Katherine felt like saluting. + +"We've been having a hard time since Uncle Joe died," began Sylvia. "He +was sick a long time and it took all the money he had saved. Then Aunt +Aggie got sick after he died and isn't strong enough yet to do hard work. +She makes shirts. There's a shop here that lets her take work home. You +see, she can't leave me." Here Sylvia gave an impatient poke at her +useless limbs. "We came here from Millvale, where we used to live, a +month ago. We couldn't find any place to live, so Aunt Aggie got +permission from the town to come and live in here until we could find a +place. Nobody seems to own this house, that is, nobody knows who owns it, +it's been empty so long. Aunt Aggie sold all her furniture to pay her +debts except her sewing machine and the few things we have here. Aunt +Aggie makes shirts, but her eyes gave out this week and she couldn't do +anything, so there wasn't any pay. Aunt Aggie got credit for a while at +the store, but yesterday they refused her, so we played that we would +keep a fast to-day in honor of our pious grandfather, the king, who +always used to fast for three days before Christmas. Aunt Aggie only had +enough money to go to the city and get glasses from somebody there that +would make them for nothing for her, so she could go on sewing. She went +on the earliest train this morning and expected to get back by noon. I +can't think what's keeping her so late." + +Katherine looked at her watch. It was half past seven. She wondered if +the shops were still open so that she could go out and buy groceries. She +began to draw on her gloves. + +"Don't go away," pleaded Sylvia, catching hold of her hand in alarm. +"Stay here till she comes. Oh, why doesn't she come? I know something's +happened to her. She's never left me alone so long before. Oh, what will +I do if she doesn't come back?" + +Fear seized her with icy hands and her face worked pitifully. "Aunt +Aggie! Aunt Aggie!" she cried aloud in terror. + +Katherine soothed her as best she could, mentioning all the possible +things that could have occurred to delay her in the rush of holiday +travel. Sylvia looked reassured after a bit and Katherine was just on the +point of running out to get some supper for her when there was a sound of +feet on the creaking steps outside. + +"Here she comes now," said Sylvia with a great sigh of relief. + +The footsteps crossed the porch and then stopped. Instead of the sound of +the front door opening as they expected there came a heavy knock. + +"How queer," said Sylvia, "she never knocks. There's no one to let her +in." + +Katherine hastened out to the hall door. A man stood outside. "Does Mrs. +Deane live in this house?" he asked. + +"Yes," said Katherine. + +"I'm Mr. Grossman, the man she works for," he said. Katherine admitted +him. "The girl, is she here?" he asked. Katherine brought him into the +room. Sylvia looked up inquiringly. + +Without greeting or preamble he blurted out, "Your aunty, she's been +hurt. Somebody just telephoned me from such a hospital in the city. She +was run over by a taxicab and her collarbone broke and her head hurt. +She's now by the hospital. She tells them to tell me and I should let you +know." + +He stopped talking and whirled his hat around in his hand as though ill +at ease. + +Sylvia sank back in her chair, dead white, her eyes staring at him with a +curiously intent gaze, as though trying to comprehend the size of the +calamity which had befallen her. + +Tingling with pity, Katherine looked into Sylvia's anguished eyes, and in +the stress of emotion she suddenly remembered Nyoda's name. Sheridan. +Sheridan. Mrs. Andrew Sheridan. Carver House. 241 Oak Street. How could +she ever have forgotten it? + +"What's going to become of me?" cried Sylvia in a terrified voice. + +Mr. Grossman shifted his weight from one foot to the other and scratched +his head reflectively. Then he shrugged his shoulders helplessly. He was +a Russian Jew, living with his numerous family in a few small rooms over +his shop, and what to do with this lame girl who knew not a soul in town +was too much of a problem for him. To his evident relief Katherine came +to the rescue. "I will take care of her," she said briefly. She opened +her handbag and fished for pencil and paper. "Go out and telephone this +person," she directed, after scribbling for a minute, "and give her the +message written down there." + +Mr. Grossman departed, much relieved at being freed from all +responsibility regarding Sylvia, and Katherine sat down beside her little +princess and endeavored to soothe her distress of mind regarding her +aunt. Finally the warmth of the stove made her drowsy and she fell into a +doze with her head on Katherine's shoulder. + +Half an hour later the long blast of an automobile horn woke the echoes +in front of the house. Sylvia half-awakened and murmured sleepily, "Here +come the king's huntsmen." + +Katherine slipped out through the front door and flung herself upon a +fur-coated figure that was coming up the walk, followed by a man. + +"_Nyoda!_" + +"Katherine! What in the world are you doing here?" + +Katherine explained briefly how she came there. + +"But I never received your letter!" cried Nyoda in astonishment. "I +thought you were coming to-morrow with the other girls. Poor Katherine, +to come all alone and then not find anybody to meet you! I'm so sorry! +But it wouldn't be you, Katherine," she finished with a laugh, "if +everything went smoothly. Now tell me the important thing your message +said you wanted to tell me." + +Katherine spoke earnestly for a few minutes, at the end of which Nyoda +nodded emphatically. "Certainly!" she said heartily. + +A minute later Katherine gently roused the sleeping princess. "What is +it, my dear Duchess?" asked Sylvia drowsily. + +"Come, Your Majesty," said Katherine, beginning to wrap the quilt around +her, "make ready for your journey. We leave at once for the Winter +Palace!" + + + + + CHAPTER III + THE SHUTTERED WINDOW + + +"Nyoda, isn't there a secret passage in this house somewhere?" asked +Sahwah eagerly, pausing with the nutcracker held open in her hand. "There +generally was one in these old houses, you know." + +Christmas dinner was just drawing to a close in the big, holly hung +dining room at Carver House, and the merry group of young folks who +composed Nyoda's Christmas house party, too languid after their strenuous +attack upon the turkey and plum pudding to rise from their chairs, +lingered around the table to hear Nyoda tell stories of Carver House, +while the ruddy glow from the big log in the fireplace, dispelled the +gloom of the failing winter afternoon. + +It was a jolly party that gathered around the historical old mahogany +dining table, which had witnessed so many other festivities in the one +hundred and fifty years of its existence. At the head sat Sherry, Nyoda's +soldier husband, still pale and thin from his long illness; and with a +long jagged scar showing through the closely cropped hair on one side of +his head. He had never returned to duty after the wreck in which he had +so nearly lost his life. While he was still in the military hospital to +which he had been removed from the little emergency hospital at St. +Margaret's where the sharp battle for life had been fought and won, there +came that day when the last shot was fired, and when he was ready to +leave the hospital he came home to Carver House to stay. + +Opposite him, at the foot of the table, sat Nyoda, girlish and +enthusiastic as ever, with only an occasional sober light in her +twinkling eyes to tell of the trying year she had passed through. Along +both sides of the table between them were ranged five of the +Winnebagos--Katherine, Sahwah, Migwan, Hinpoha and Gladys, and in among +them, "like weeds among the posies," as the captain laughingly put it, +were Slim and the captain, Slim filled to the bursting point as usual, +and looking more than ever like an overgrown cherub. Across from these +two sat a third youth, so slender and fine featured as to seem almost +frail in comparison with Slim's overflowing stoutness. This was Justice +Dalrymple, Katherine's "Perfesser," now engaged in his experimental work +at Washington, whence Nyoda had invited him up for her Christmas house +party as a surprise for Katherine. + +Agony and Oh-Pshaw, whom Nyoda had also invited to come over to the house +party, were spending the holidays with an aunt in New York and could not +come, much to Sahwah's disappointment, who had not seen them since the +summer before. Veronica was ill at her uncle's home and also could not be +with them. + +Enthroned beside Katherine in a great carved armchair that had come over +from England with the first Carvers, sat Sylvia Deane, looking very much +like a story book princess. With their customary open-heartedness, the +Winnebagos had already made her feel as though she were an old friend of +theirs. The romantic way in which Katherine had found her appealed to +their imaginations and added to their interest in her. Beside that, there +was a fascinating something about her dark eyes and light hair that kept +drawing their eyes to her face as though it were a magnet. There was so +much animation in her voice when she talked that the most commonplace +thing she said seemed extremely diverting. Her eyes had a way of suddenly +lighting up as though a lamp had been kindled inside of her, and when she +talked about other people her voice would take on a perfect mimicry of +their intonations and expressions. + +She showed not the slightest embarrassment at being thus transplanted +into a strange household, so much more splendid than anything she was +accustomed to. She was entirely at her ease in the great house, and acted +as though she had been used to luxurious surroundings all her life. +Katherine was secretly surprised to find her so completely unabashed. She +herself was still prone to make ridiculous blunders in the presence of +strangers, and was still ill at ease when anyone looked critically at +her. + +They were all surprised to learn that Sylvia was eighteen years old, +instead of fourteen as they had all thought when they first saw her. Her +slender, childlike form, and her short, curly hair made her look much +younger than she really was. + +The animated talk that had accompanied the first part of the dinner +gradually died away, as a sense of repleteness and languor succeeded to +eager appetites, and conversation had begun to lag, when Sahwah stirred +it into life again by asking if there was not a secret passage in Carver +House. A ripple of interest went around the table, and all the girls and +boys began to sit up and take notice. + +"Haven't you had enough adventures yet to satisfy you?" asked Sherry +quizzically. "Aren't you content with fishing a lieutenant out of the +Devil's Punch Bowl the last time you were here, that you must begin again +looking for excitement? By the way, where is this young Allison?" + +"Still across," replied Sahwah. "His last letter said he would be there +for six months yet. He's going on into Germany. He isn't a lieutenant any +more. He's a captain." + +"Captain Allison?" asked Justice. "Captain Robert Allison? You don't mean +to say that you know Bob Allison?" + +"Does she know Captain Allison!" echoed Hinpoha. "Who sent her that +spiked helmet, and that piece of marble from Rheims Cathedral and that +French flag with the bullet holes in it, to say nothing of that package +of French chocolates? But, of course, you didn't know," she added, +remembering that Justice had only met Sahwah the day before. + +"Do you know Captain Allison?" asked Sahwah. + +"Best friend I had in college," replied Justice. "He was dreaming of +flying machines then. Bob Allison, the fellow you pulled out of the +water! It seems that all my friends, as well as my family, are going to +get mixed up with you girls. It seems like fate." + +"Wherever the Winnebagos come there's sure to be something doing," said +the captain. "I wonder what the next thing will be. What's this about +secret passages now?" + +"With so much paneling," continued Sahwah, "it seems as if there must be +a hollow panel somewhere that would slide back and reveal a passage +behind it. Isn't there one, Nyoda?" + +"There may be one, for all I know," replied Nyoda, "but I have never +found it if there is. I have never looked for any such thing. It takes +all my time," she proclaimed with a comic-tragic air, "to keep all the +open passages in this place clean, without looking for any more behind +panels." + +"Do you care if we try to find one?" asked Sahwah eagerly. "I just feel +it in my bones that there is one somewhere." + +"Search all you like," replied Nyoda, with an amused laugh. + +"O goody!" exclaimed Sahwah. "Let's begin right away." + +She rose from the table and the rest followed, much taken up with this +new quest, and the search began immediately. Upstairs and downstairs they +tapped, peered, pried and investigated, but without success. One by one +they abandoned the quest and drifted into the library where Nyoda and +Sherry and Sylvia sat in a close group before the fire; Sherry smoking, +Nyoda reading aloud, and Sylvia watching the images in the fire. Sahwah +and the captain were the last to give up, but finally they, too, drifted +in and joined the ranks of the unsuccessful hunters. + +Nyoda paused in her reading and looked up with a smile as Sahwah and the +captain came in. + +"What have you to report, my darling scouts?" she asked gravely. + +"Nothing," replied the captain, rather sheepishly. + +Sahwah rubbed her fingers tenderly. "There are _miles_ of oak paneling in +this house," she remarked wearily, "and I've rapped on every inch of it +with my knuckles, until they're just _pulp_, but not one of those panels +sounded hollow." + +"Poor child!" said Nyoda sympathetically. + +"You should have done the way the captain did," said Slim. "He used his +head to knock with instead of his knuckles; it's harder." + +A scuffle seemed imminent, and was only averted by Sahwah's next remark. +"Nyoda," she asked, "where does that door at the head of the stairs lead +to, the one that is locked? It was locked last summer when we were here, +too." + +"That," replied Nyoda, "is the room Uncle Jasper used as his study. I've +been using it as a sort of store room for furniture. There were a number +of pieces in the house that didn't quite fit in with the rest of the +furniture and I set them in there until I could make up my mind what to +do with them. I didn't want to dispose of them without consulting Sherry, +and as he has been away from home ever since we have lived here until +just now, we have never had time to go over the stuff together. As the +room looks cluttered with those odd pieces in there I have kept it +locked." + +"Your uncle's study!" exclaimed Sahwah. "Oh, I wonder if there wouldn't +be a concealed door in there! It seems such a likely place. Would you +care _very_ much if we went and looked there?" + +Nyoda laughed at Sahwah's eagerness in her quest. "You're a true +Winnebago," she said fondly. "Never leave a stone unturned when you're +looking for anything. I might as well say yes now as later, because I +know you will never rest until you have investigated that room. You're +worse than Bluebeard's wife. I have no objections to your going in if +you'll excuse the disorderly look of the place and the dust that has +undoubtedly collected by this time. I'll get you the key." + +With the prospect of a fresh field for investigation the others revived +their interest in the search and followed Nyoda eagerly as she led the +way upstairs and unlocked the closed door at the head. A faint, musty +odor greeted their nostrils, the close atmosphere of a room which has +been shut up, although the moonlight flooding the place through the long +windows gave it an almost airy appearance. Nyoda found the electric light +button and presently the room was brilliantly lighted from the +chandelier. The Winnebagos trooped in and looked curiously about them at +the queer old desks and tables and cabinets that stood about. Sahwah's +attention was immediately drawn to the window at the far end of the room. +She knew it was a window because it was framed in a mahogany casement +like the other windows in the house, but instead of a pane of glass there +was a dark, opaque space inside the casement. Sahwah ran over to it at +once, and a little exclamation of astonishment escaped her as she +examined it. On the inside of the glass--if there was a pane of glass +there--was a heavy black iron shutter fastened to the casement with great +screws. + +"What did you put up this shutter for, Nyoda?" asked Sahwah wonderingly. + +The others all came crowding over then to exclaim over the iron shutter. + +"I didn't put it up," replied Nyoda. "It was there when I came here." + +"But what's it for?" persisted Sahwah. "Is the window behind it broken?" + +"No, it doesn't seem to be," replied Nyoda. "I looked at it from the +outside." + +"Then what can it be for?" repeated Sahwah. + +"I don't know, I can't imagine," replied Nyoda. A note of wonder was +creeping into her voice. "To tell the truth," she said, "I never thought +anything about it. I noticed that there was an iron shutter over that +window when we first came here, but I was too much taken up with Sherry's +going away then even to wonder about it. The room has been closed up ever +since and I had forgotten all about it. It _does_ seem a queer thing, now +that you call my attention to it. But Uncle Jasper did so many eccentric +things, I'm not surprised at anything he might have done. We'll take the +shutter off in the morning and see if we can discover any reason for +having it there. + +"Now, aren't you going to hunt for the secret passage after I've opened +the door for you?" she said quizzically. "There's still an hour or so +before bedtime; long enough for all of you to complete the destruction of +your knuckles." + +Again the house resounded with the tapping of knuckles against hardwood +paneling, until it sounded as though an army of giant woodpeckers were at +work, but the eager searchers continued to bruise their long suffering +knuckles in vain. The paneling in Uncle Jasper's study was as solid as +the Great Wall of China. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + AN INTERVIEW WITH HERCULES + + +Among the furniture stored in the study was one piece which Nyoda had +pounced upon with an exclamation of joy the night before when she opened +the room to please the Winnebagos. That was an invalid's wheel chair. + +"Just the thing for Sylvia!" she exclaimed delightedly. "She can get +around the house by herself in this. It's a good thing you got curious +about this room, Sahwah dear; I'm afraid I wouldn't have thought of +opening it until spring. I remember now, Uncle Jasper had a paralytic +stroke some months before he died which left him lame, and he went about +in a wheel chair during his last days. This certainly comes in handy +now." + +The morning after Sahwah had discovered the iron shutter Sylvia was set +in the wheel chair and rolled into the study, and the rest came flocking +up to watch Sherry and the boys remove the shutter. It was no easy job, +taking that shutter off, for the screws had rusted in so that it was +almost impossible to turn them. Nyoda gave an exclamation of dismay at +the holes left in the mahogany casement. The Winnebagos were too much +absorbed in the window which was revealed by the removal of the shutter +to pay any attention to the damaged casement. Unlike the other windows in +the room, which were of clear glass, this one was composed of tiny leaded +panes in colors. It was so dirty on the outside that it was impossible to +see what it really was like. Sahwah hastened out and got cleaning rags +and washed it inside and out, standing on the roof of the side porch to +get at it on the outside, because it did not open. When it was clean, and +the bright sun shone through it, the beauty of the window struck them +dumb. + +The leaded panes were wrought into a design of climbing roses, growing +over a little arched gateway, the rich red and green tints of the flowers +and leaves glowing splendid in the mellow light that streamed through it. + +After a moment of breathless silence the Winnebagos found their voices +and broke into admiring cries. Hinpoha promptly went into raptures. + +"Why, you can almost _smell_ those roses, they're so natural! Oh, the +darling archway! Did you ever see anything so beautiful? Don't you just +_long_ to go through it? O why did your uncle ever have that horrible old +shutter put over it?" + +"Maybe he was afraid it would get broken," suggested Gladys. + +"But why would he put the shutter on the inside?" asked Sahwah shrewdly. +"There would be more danger of the window's getting broken from the +outside than from the inside, I should think." + +"There wouldn't be with Slim around," said the captain, and prudently +barricaded himself behind a bookcase in the corner. Slim gave him a +withering glance, but did not deign to follow him and open an attack. He +could not have squeezed in behind the bookcase, so he ignored the thrust. + +"I wonder why he didn't put shutters on the other windows also," said +Katherine. + +"Mercy, I'm glad he didn't!" said Nyoda with a shiver, eyeing the ugly +screw holes in the smooth mahogany casement with housewifely horror at +such marring of beauty. "One set of holes like that is enough. Isn't it +just like a man, though, to put screws into that woodwork! It's time a +woman owned this house. A few more generations of eccentric bachelors and +the place would be ruined." + +"But," said Sahwah musingly, "didn't you tell us once that this house was +the pride of your uncle's heart, and he never would let any children in +for fear they would scratch the floors and furniture?" + +"That's so, too," replied Nyoda. "Uncle Jasper was so fond of this house +that it was a byword among the relations. He loved it as though it were +his own child. How he ever allowed anyone to put screws into that +mahogany casement is a mystery." + +"Don't you think," said Sahwah shrewdly, "that there must have been some +great and important reason for putting up that shutter? A reason that +made him forget all about the holes he was making in the woodwork?" + +A little thrill went through the group; all at once they seemed to feel +that they were standing in the shadow of some mystery. + +"What kind of a man was your uncle Jasper?" asked Sahwah. + +"He was a queer, silent man," replied Nyoda, sitting down on the edge of +a table and rubbing her forehead to aid her recollection. "He was an +author--wrote historical works. I confess I don't know a great deal about +him. I only saw him twice; once when I was a very little girl and once a +few years ago. He never corresponded with any of his relations and never +visited them nor had them come to visit him. Most everybody was afraid of +him; he was so grim and stern looking. He couldn't have been very +sociable here either, for none of the people of Oakwood seemed to have +been in the habit of calling on him. None of those that called on me had +ever been inside the house before. The old man didn't mix with the +neighbors, they said. He seldom went outside the house. No one seems to +know much about him. Of course," she added, "living up here on the hill +he was sort of by himself; there are no near neighbors." + +"Maybe he put up that shutter for protection," suggested Hinpoha. + +"With all the other windows in the house unshuttered?" asked the captain +derisively. "A lot of protection that would be! Besides, do you think the +neighbors were in the habit of shooting pop guns at him?" + +"Well, can you think of any other reason?" retorted Hinpoha. + +"Why don't you ask old Hercules?" suggested Sahwah. "He might know." + +"To be sure!" cried Nyoda, springing down from the table. "Why didn't I +think of Hercules before? Of course he'd know. He was with Uncle Jasper +all his life. I'll call him in and ask him and we'll have the mystery +cleared up in a jiffy. Will one of you boys go out and bring him in?" + +The captain and Justice sprang up simultaneously in answer to her request +and raced for the stable. In a few minutes they were back, bringing old +Hercules with them. Hercules had a somewhat forlorn air about him like +that of a dog without a master. Nyoda said he was grieving for Uncle +Jasper; Sherry said it was the goat he was mourning for. At any rate, he +was a pathetic figure as he hobbled painfully up the stairs one step at a +time on his shaky, stiff old limbs. His eyes brightened a bit as he saw +the door into Uncle Jasper's study standing open, and he looked around +the room with an affectionate gaze as the boys piloted him in. Nyoda saw +his eyes rest on the window from which the shutter had been removed, and +it seemed to her that he gave a start and gazed through the window +apprehensively. + +"Hercules," said Nyoda briskly, "we've just taken this ugly old shutter +off that stained glass window, and we're curious to know why it was put +up. It seems such a pity to have put those great screws into that +mahogany casement. Why did Uncle Jasper put it up?" + +Hercules scratched his head and shifted his corn cob pipe to the other +side of his mouth. "Dat shutter's bin up a good many years, Mis' +'Lizbeth," he quavered. + +"I see it has, from the way the screws were rusted in," replied Nyoda. +"But why was it put up?" + +"Dat shutter's bin dere twenty-five years," reiterated the old man +solemnly, still looking at it in a half-fascinated, half-apprehensive +way. + +"Yes, yes," said Nyoda, trying to control her impatience. "But _why_ has +it been there all this time? Why did Uncle Jasper put it up?" + +Hercules scratched his head again, and replaced his pipe in its original +position. "I disremember, Mis' 'Lizbeth," he said deprecatingly. "It's +bin so long since. My memry's bin powerful bad lately, Mis' 'Lizbeth. +Seems like I caint remember hardly anything. It's de mizry, Mis' +'Lizbeth; it's settled in my memry." He carefully avoided her eyes. + +"Please try to remember!" said Nyoda, trying hard to hold on to her +patience, but morally certain that Hercules was trying to sidestep her +questions. "Think, now. Twenty-five years ago Uncle Jasper put up an iron +shutter to cover the most beautiful window in Carver House. Why did he do +it?" + +Nyoda turned so that she looked right into his face, and her compelling +black eyes held his shifty gaze steady. There was something strangely +magnetic about Nyoda's eyes. People could avoid answering her questions +as long as they did not look into her eyes, but once let her catch your +gaze, and things she wanted to know had a habit of coming out of their +own accord. Hercules seemed to be on the point of speaking; he cleared +his throat nervously and shifted the pipe once more. Nyoda cast a +triumphant glance at Sherry. In that instant Hercules shifted his gaze +from her face and met another pair of eyes, eyes that seemed to look at +him accusingly, and sent a chill running down his spine. These were none +other than the eyes of Uncle Jasper, who, hanging in his frame on the +study wall, seemed to be looking straight at him, in the way that eyes in +pictures have. When Nyoda glanced back at Hercules he was staring +uneasily at Uncle Jasper's picture and there was a guilty look about him +as if he had been caught in a misdemeanor. + +"I 'clare, I cain't remember nothin' 'bout why dat shutter was put up, +Mis' 'Lizbeth," he said earnestly. "Come to think on it now, Marse Jasper +ain't never _told_ me why he want it put up," he continued triumphantly. +"He just say, 'Herc'les, put up dat shutter,' and he ain't ever say why. +I axed him, 'Marse Jasper, what for you puttin' up dat shutter over dat +window?' and he say, 'Herc'les, you put up dat shutter and mind your +business. I ain't tellin' _why_ I wants it put up; I jest wants it put +up, dat's all.' No'm, Mis' 'Lizbeth, I's often wondered myself about dat +shutter, but I never found out nothin'." + +He glanced up at Uncle Jasper's picture as though expecting some token of +approval from the stern, grim face. + +Nyoda saw it was no use trying to get anything out of Hercules. Either he +really did not know anything, or he would not tell. + +"You may go, Hercules," she said. "That's all we wanted of you." + +Hercules looked unaccountably relieved and started for the door. Half way +across the room he turned and looked long through the clear panel of +glass underneath the archway of the gate in the stained glass window. He +stood still, seemingly lost in reverie, and quite oblivious to the group +about him. Finally his lips began to move, and he began to mutter to +himself, and Sahwah's sharp ears caught the sound of the words. + +"Dey's tings," muttered the old man, "dat folks don't _want_ ter look at, +and dey's tings dey _dassent_ look at!" + +Still lost in reverie he shuffled out of the room and hobbled painfully +downstairs. + + + + + CHAPTER V + THE FIRST LINK + + +"What did old Hercules mean?" asked Sahwah in astonishment. "He said, +'Dey's some tings folks don't want ter look at, and dey's tings dey +dassent look at!'" + +"I can't imagine," said Nyoda, thoroughly mystified. "But there's one +thing sure, and that is, Uncle Jasper had some very potent reason for +putting that shutter over that window, and I more than half believe +Hercules knows what it was. Hercules' explanations always become very +fluent when he is not telling the truth. If he really hadn't known +anything about it he probably would have said so simply, in about three +words, and without any hesitation. The elaborate details he went into to +convince me that he knew nothing about it sounds suspicious to me. + +"But I don't believe the exclamation he made when he went out was +intended to deceive me. I think it was the involuntary utterance of what +was in his thoughts. He seemed to be thinking aloud, and was quite +unconscious of our presence. + +"But what a queer thing to say--'Dey's tings people _dassent_ look at!' I +wonder what it was that Uncle Jasper dared not look at? Was it something +he saw through this window? What is there to be seen out of this window, +anyway?" She moved over in front of the window with the others crowding +after her to see, too. + +Uncle Jasper's study was at the back of the house and the windows looked +out upon the wide open meadow which stretched behind Carver Hill, between +the town and the woods. The front of Carver House looked out over the +town. Nearly half a mile to the east of Carver Hill another hill rose +sharply from the town's edge. Upon its top stood another old-fashioned +dwelling. This hill, crowned with its red brick mansion, was framed in +the arch of the gateway in the window like an artist's picture, with +nothing between to obstruct the view. A beautiful picture it was, +certainly, and one which could not possibly have any connection with +Hercules' muttered words. + +"Who lives in that house?" asked Sahwah. + +"I don't know," said Nyoda. "It's way up on the Main Street Hill. I'm not +acquainted with the people in that end of town." + +Sherry got out his binoculars and took a look through the window. +"Nothing but an old house on a hill," he reported, and handed the +binoculars to Sylvia, that she might take a look through them. + +"Why," said Sylvia after peering intently through the glasses for a +minute, "it's the house Aunt Aggie and I live in! What did that old house +have to do with your Uncle Jasper?" she asked wondering. "It's been empty +for many, many years." + +"Oh, wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a romance in your Uncle +Jasper's life?" exclaimed Hinpoha eagerly. "A blighted romance. He never +married, did he?" + +"No, he never married," replied Nyoda. + +"Then I'm sure it's a blighted romance!" said Hinpoha enthusiastically. +"I just know that some deep tragedy darkened the sun of his life and left +him shrouded in gloom forever after!" + +Even Nyoda smiled at Hinpoha's sentimental language, and the rest could +not help laughing out loud. + +"You sound like Lady Imogen, in 'The Lost Heiress,'" said Katherine +derisively. + +"Well, I don't care, you'll have to admit that there are some very +romantic possibilities, anyway," said Hinpoha stoutly. + +"Yes, and some very prosaic ones, too," retorted Katherine. "Uncle Jasper +probably never married because he was a born bachelor, and preferred to +live alone." + +"O Katherine, why are you always taking the joy out of life?" wailed +Hinpoha. "It's lots more fun to think romantic things about people than +dull, stupid, everyday things." + +"I think so too," said Sahwah, unexpectedly coming to the defense of +Hinpoha. "I've been thinking a lot about old Mr. Carver, living alone +here all those years, and I've wondered if there wasn't some reason for +it. Certainly something happened that made him put that shutter up, +that's clear." + +"Well, whatever motive the old man may have had for putting it up, we'll +probably never find it out," said Sherry, gathering up the screws and +screwdriver, "inasmuch as he's dead and it's no use asking Hercules +anything; so we might as well stop puzzling over it. I'll hunt up +something to fill in those screw holes with, Elizabeth, and polish them +over." Sherry, in his matter-of-fact way, had already dismissed the +matter from his mind as not worth bothering over. + +Not so Nyoda and the Winnebagos. The merest hint of a possible mystery +connected with the shutter set them on fire with curiosity and desire to +penetrate into its depths. + +"I wonder," said Nyoda musingly, eyeing the massive desk before her with +a speculative glance, "if Uncle Jasper left any record of the repairs and +improvements which he made to the house while he was the owner. The item +of the shutter might be mentioned, with the reason for putting it up." + +"It might," agreed the Winnebagos. + +Nyoda looked around at the litter of odd pieces of furniture crowding the +room. "Sherry," she said briskly, "make up your mind this minute whether +you want any of that old stuff, because I'm going to clear it out of here +and sell it." + +"A lot of good it would do me to make up my mind to want any of it, if +you've made up your mind to sell it," said Sherry in a comically +plaintive tone. + +"All right," responded Nyoda tranquilly, "I knew you didn't want any of +it. Boys, will you help Sherry carry out those two tables and that high +desk and the chiffonier--all the oak furniture. I'm not keeping anything +but the mahogany. Set it out in the hall; I'll have the furniture man +come and get it to-morrow. + +"There, now the room looks as it did when Uncle Jasper inhabited it," she +remarked when the extra pieces had been cleared out. + +"It certainly was a pleasant room; I don't see how Uncle Jasper could +have maintained such a gloomy disposition as he did, working all day in a +room like this. The very sight of that open field out there makes me want +to run and shout--and that window! Oh, who could look at it all day long +and be crusty and sour?" + +"But he had the shutter over the window," Sahwah reminded her. + +"Yes, he did, the poor man!" said Nyoda in a tone of pity. She whisked +about the room, straightening out rugs and wiping the dust from the +furniture, and soon announced that she was ready to begin investigations. +She looked carefully through the desk first, through old account books +and files of papers and bills, but came upon nothing that touched upon +repairs made to the house. There was a long bookcase running the entire +length of one wall, and she tackled this next, while the Winnebagos sat +around expectantly and Sylvia looked on from her chair, which she could +move herself from place to place, to her infinite delight. + +The boys had gone downstairs with Sherry to hear reminiscences from +"across." All three boys worshipped Sherry like a god. To have been +"across," to have seen actual fighting, to have been cited for bravery, +and finally to have been shipwrecked, were experiences for which the +younger boys would have given their ears, and they treated Sherry with a +deferential respect that actually embarrassed him at times. + +Nyoda opened the bookcase and began taking out the books that crowded the +shelves, opening them one by one and examining their contents. Most of +them were works on history, some of them Uncle Jasper's own; great solid +looking volumes with fine print and dingy leather bindings. Ancient +history, nearly all of them, and nowhere among them anything so modern as +to concern Carver House. + +"What a collection of dry-as-dust works to have for your most intimate +reading matter!" exclaimed Nyoda, making a wry face at the books. "Not a +single book of verse, not a single romance or book of fiction, not the +ghost of a love story! There are plenty of them downstairs in the +library, that belonged to Uncle Jasper's father and mother, who must have +had quite a lively taste in reading, judging from the books down there; +but Hercules told me that Uncle Jasper hadn't opened the cases down there +for twenty-five years. He never read anything but this ancient stuff up +here. + +"He did write one book that had some life in it, though," she continued +musingly. "That was a story of the life of Elizabeth Carver, his great +grandmother, the one whose portrait hangs downstairs over the harp in the +drawing-room. He's got all her various love affairs in it, and it's +anything but dry. I sat up a whole night reading it the time I came +across it in the library down below. But from the date of its publishing, +Uncle Jasper must have been a very young man when he wrote it, probably +before the ancient history spider bit him." + +"And before the shutter went up," added Sahwah. + +"Well," said Nyoda, after she had peeped into nearly every book in the +bookcase, "there doesn't seem to be anything here more modern than the +Fall of Rome, and that's still several seasons behind the affairs of +Carver House. Hello, what's this?" she suddenly exclaimed, holding up a +book she had just picked up, one that had fallen down behind the others +on the shelf. + +It was a fat, ledger-like volume heavily bound in calfskin. There was no +title printed on the back of it and Nyoda opened the cover. Two truly +terrifying figures greeted her eyes, drawn in India ink on the yellowed +page; figures of two pirates with fiercely bristling mustachios, and +brandishing scimitars half as large as themselves. Nyoda quite jumped, +their attitude was so menacing. Under one was printed in red ink, "Tad +the Terror," and under the other "Jasper the Feend." Underneath the two +figures was printed in sprawling capitals: + + DIERY OF JASPER M. CARVER, ESQWIRE + +Nyoda gave a little shriek of laughter and held it up for the Winnebagos +to see. "It must be Uncle Jasper's Diary when he was a boy," she said. +"His youthful idea of a man is a rather bloodthirsty one, according to +the portrait, I must say. I suppose 'Jasper the Feend' is supposed to be +Uncle Jasper. His mustachios bristle more fiercely than the other's, and +his scimitar is longer, so without doubt he was the artist." + +Her eyes ran down the pages following, glancing at the lines of writing, +which, having apparently been done in India ink, were still black, +although the page on which they were written was yellow with age. As she +read, her eyes began to sparkle with interest and enjoyment. + +"O girls," she exclaimed, "this is the best thing I've read in ages. +Sherry and the boys must see it. I have to go and get lunch started now, +but all of you come together after lunch and I'll read it out loud to +you." + +"We'll all help," said Migwan, "and then we'll get through faster," and +the Winnebagos hurried downstairs in Nyoda's wake. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + UNCLE JASPER'S DIARY + + +After lunch the Winnebagos and the boys gathered around Nyoda in Uncle +Jasper's study to hear her read aloud from "The Diery of Jasper M. +Carver, Esqwire." She held the book up that all might see the portraits +of the fearsome pirates, and then turned over to the next page, where the +sprawly, uneven writing began, and started to read. + + "October 7, 1870. Confined to the house through bad behavior while + father and mother have gone to the fair. I wasn't lonesome though + because I had company. A boy ran into the yard chasing a cat and saw me + sticking my head out of the upstairs window and blew a bean shooter at + me and hit me on the chin and I hit him with an apple core and then he + dared me to come out and lick him but I couldn't go out of the house so + I dared him to climb up the porch post and come in the window. He came + and I licked him. He is a new boy in town and his name is Sydney + Phillips, but he wants to be called Tad. He lives up on Harrison Hill. + We are going to be pirates when we grow up. I am going to be Jasper the + Feend and he is going to be Tad the Terror. We swore eternul frendship + and wrote our names in blood on the attic window sill." + +"Oh, how delicious!" cried Sahwah at the end of the first entry. "Your +uncle must have been lots of fun when he was young. What crazy things +boys are, anyway! To start out by fighting each other and end up by +swearing eternal friendship! Go on, Nyoda, what did they do next?" + +Nyoda proceeded. + + "November 10, 1870. Tad and I made a great discovery this afternoon. + There is a secret passage in this house. It is----" + +The concerted shriek of triumph that went up from the Winnebagos forced +Nyoda to pause. + +"I told you there was!" shouted Sahwah above the rest. "Please hurry and +read where it is, I can't wait another minute!" + +Nyoda turned the page and then paused. "The next page is torn out," she +said, holding the book up so they could all see the ragged strip of paper +left hanging in the binding, where the page had been torn out. + +"Oh, what a shame!" The wail rose on every side. + +"Maybe it tells later," said Sahwah hopefully. "Go on, Nyoda." The dairy +continued on a page numbered six. + + "January 4, 1871. Tad and I played pirat to-day. We made a pirat's den + in the secret passage. We are going to hide our chests of money there, + all pieces of eight. We haven't any pieces of eight yet just some red, + white and blue dollars we found in the desk drawer in the library. Tad + thinks maybe they are patriotick curency they used in the Revolushun" + +Nyoda had to wait a minute until Sherry had got done laughing, and then +she proceeded: + + "February 19, 1871. I am in durrance vile, being locked in my room for + a week with nothing to eat but bread and water because I shut Patricia + up in the secret passage and went away and forgot all about her because + there was a fire. I remembered and let her out as soon as I got home + but she had fainted, being a silly girl and afraid of the dark, and she + couldn't scream because we tied a handkerchief over her mouth when we + kidnapped her, being pirats. So now I am in durrance vile and cannot + see any of my family, not even Tad. But he stands behind the hedge and + shoots pieces of candy through my window with the bean shooter and + lightens my durrance vile which is what a sworn frend has to do when + their names are written in blood on the attic window sill." + +Thus the entries in the scrawling, boyish hand covered page after page, +recounting the adventurous and ofttimes seamy career of the two youthful +pirates, through all of which the two stood up for each other stanchly, +and never, never gave each other away, because they were "sworn frends +till deth us do part," and their names were "written in blood on the +attic window sill." + +The entries became farther apart after a while, and the spelling improved +until finally there came this announcement: + + "Tad and I can't be pirates any longer. We are going to college next + week." + +There the India ink ceased and also the illustrations. After that came +page after page of neat entries in faded but still legible blue ink, +telling of the progress through college of the two boys; chronicles of +the joys, the troubles, the triumphs and the escapades of the two +friends, still so inseparable that their names have become a byword among +the students and they go by the nickname of David and Jonathan. When one +of them gets into trouble the other one still does "what a sworn friend +has to do when their names are written in blood on the attic window +sill." The Winnebagos listened with shining eyes while Nyoda read the +tale of this remarkable friendship. + +The dates of the entries moved forward by months; records of scrapes +became fewer and fewer; David and Jonathan had outgrown their colthood +and were beginning to win honors with brain and brawn. Then came the +record of their graduation and return to Oakwood; of "Tad the Terror" +becoming a doctor, of the marriage of Jasper's sister Patricia to a sea +captain; the death of his father and the passing of Carver House into his +possession. + +Later came the account of a delightful year spent abroad with Tad +Phillips, of mountain climbing in the Alps; of browsing among rare old +art treasures in France and Italy; of gay larks in Paris. It was always +he and Tad, he and Tad; still as loyal to each other as in the days when +they wrote their names in blood on the attic window sill. + +After the entry which chronicled Jasper's return to Oakland and settling +down in Carver House with his mother, and his enthusiastic adoption of +literature as a profession, came an item which made the Winnebagos sit up +and listen. It was: + + "June 3, 1885. I have had a new window put into my study on the side + which faces toward's Tad's house on Harrisburg Hill. I had the young + Italian artist, Pusini, who has lately come to New York, come and set + the glass for me. It is a representation of a charming scene I came + across in Italy--an arched gateway covered over with climbing roses. + The window is arranged so that through the arch of the gateway I can + look directly at Tad's house. It gives me inspiration in my work." + +"What a beautiful idea!" said Hinpoha, carried away completely by the +great love of Jasper Carver for his friend, so simply expressed in his +diary. + +"So that was Tad's house, that we are living in!" said Sylvia excitedly. +"I wonder where he is now." + +"Go on reading, Nyoda," said Sahwah, consumed with interest in the tale. +"See if he says anything about the shutter." Nyoda passed on to the next +entry. + + "June 27, 1885. Went to the Academy of Music in Philadelphia to hear + Sylvia Warrington sing. She is the new singer from the South that has + created such a furore. The Virginia Nightingale, they call her. What a + God-gifted woman she is! There never was such a voice as hers. She sang + 'Hark, hark, the lark,' and the whole house rose to its feet. She was + Spring incarnate. Sylvia Warrington! The name itself is music. I cannot + forget her. She is like a lark singing in the desert at dawning." + +A vague remembrance leaped up for an instant in Katherine's mind and died +as it came. + +Nyoda read on through pages that recorded Uncle Jasper's meeting with +Sylvia Warrington; his great and growing love for her; his persistent +wooing, her consenting to marry him; his wild happiness, which found vent +in page after page of rapturous plans for the future. Then came the +announcement of Tad's return from a period of study abroad, and Uncle +Jasper's proud presentation of his bride-to-be. After that Tad's name +appeared in connection with every occasion, still the faithful David to +his beloved Jonathan. + +Then, almost without warning, the great friendship ran on the rocks and +was shattered. For Tad no sooner saw Sylvia Warrington than he too, fell +madly in love with her. A brief and bitter entry told how she finally +broke her engagement to Uncle Jasper and married Tad, and how Uncle +Jasper, beside himself with grief and disappointment, turned against his +friend and hated him with the undying hate that is born of jealousy. With +heavy strokes of the pen that cut the paper he wrote down his +determination to have no more friends and to live to himself thereafter. +Then, in a shaky hand in marked contrast to the fierce strokes just +above, he wrote: "But Sylvia--I love her still. I can't help it." That +shaky handwriting stood as a mute testimonial to his heart's torment, and +Nyoda, reading it after all these years, felt a sympathetic spasm of pain +pass through her own heart at the sight of that wavering entry. + +"It's just like a story in a book!" exclaimed Hinpoha, furtively drying +her eyes, which had overflowed during the reading of the last page. "The +beautiful lady, and the rival lovers, and the disappointed one never +marrying. Oh, it's too romantic for anything! Oh, _please_ hurry and read +what comes next." + +Nyoda turned the page and read the brief entry: + + "I have taken up the study of ancient history as a serious pursuit. In + it I hope to find forgetfulness." + +The eyes of the Winnebagos traveled to the bookcase, and now they knew +why there was nothing there but dull old books in heavy bindings, and why +Uncle Jasper Carver hated love stories. + +The next entry had them all sitting up again. + + "I have had Hercules fasten an iron shutter over the window in my + study--the one through which I can see Tad's house when I sit at my + desk. I cannot bear to look at anything that reminds me of him." + +"There!" shouted all the Winnebagos at once. "_That_ was the reason for +putting up the iron shutter! The mystery is solved!" + +"Poor Uncle Jasper!" said Nyoda pityingly. "What a Spartan he was! How +thoroughly he set about removing every memory of Tad from his mind! Think +of covering up that beautiful pane of glass because he couldn't bear to +look through it at the house of his friend!" She finished reading the +entry: + + "Hercules demurred at covering up the window--he admired it more than + anything else in the house--so to give him a satisfactory reason for + doing so I told him the devil would come in through that gateway some + day and I was putting up the shutter to keep him out. There's one thing + sure; Hercules will never take that shutter down as long as he + lives--he's scared nearly into a Chinaman." + +"So that's why Hercules threw such a fit when we took the shutter off!" +said Sherry. "He thought that now the devil would come in and get him. +Poor, superstitious old nigger!" + +"I wonder if Tad and Sylvia went to live in the house on Harrisburg +Hill," said Sahwah curiously. "He doesn't say whether they did or not." + +"Oh, I wonder if they did!" cried Sylvia, with eager interest. "To think +I've been living in the same house they lived in--if they _did_ live +there," she added. "But how strange it seems to hear them call that place +Harrisburg Hill. It is called Main Street Hill now." + +"I wonder what Tad and Sylvia did after they were married," said Hinpoha, +with romantic curiosity. "Did they stay in Oakwood, or did they go away? +Is there any more, Nyoda?" + +Nyoda was already glancing down the next page, which was written over +with lines in blacker ink, and broader and heavier strokes of the pen, +which seemed somehow to express grim satisfaction on the part of Uncle +Jasper. Grim satisfaction Uncle Jasper must indeed have felt when he +wrote those lines, for misfortune had overtaken the one who had caused +his own anguish of heart. The entry told how Tad had become staff +physician at one of the large army posts in the west. There was an +epidemic of typhoid and quite a few of the men were ill at once, all +requiring the same kind of medicine. Through carelessness in making up a +certain medicine he put in a deadly poison instead of the harmless +ingredient he intended to put in, and a dozen men died of the dose. There +was a tremendous stir about the matter, and the newspapers all over the +country were full of it. He was court-martialed, and though he was +acquitted, the mistake being entirely accidental, the matter had gained +such publicity that his career as a doctor was ruined. He left the army +and fled out of the country, taking Sylvia with him. Some months later +the papers brought the announcement of both their deaths from yellow +fever in Cuba. Again the handwriting began to waver on the last sentence. +"She is dead." In those three little words the Winnebagos seemed to hear +the echo of the breaking of a strong man's heart. There were no more +entries. + +"Isn't it perfectly _thrilling_!" gulped Hinpoha, with eyes overflowing +again. "It's better than any book I ever read! And to think we never +suspected there was anything like that connected with your Uncle Jasper! +There, now, Katherine Adams, what did I tell you? You said he was a born +bachelor, and just look at the romance he had!" + +"He certainly did," said Katherine, in a tone of surrender. + +"That must be why the house we lived in was shut up so long," said Sylvia +musingly. "The man that said we could live in it said that old Mrs. +Phillips had moved away many years ago and had never come back, and +although people knew she was dead, no one had ever come to live in the +house, and nobody in Oakwood knew who owned it. The man said he had heard +from older people in the town that Mrs. Phillips had had a son who was +away from home all the time after he was grown up and who had gotten into +some kind of trouble--he couldn't remember what it was. This must have +been it! How queer it is, that I should first come to live in Tad's +house, and then stay in the house of his friend! I never dreamed, when I +heard that man telling Aunt Aggie about the almost forgotten people that +used to live in the old house, that I should ever hear of them again. +Things have turned out to be _so_ interesting since I came to stay in the +Winter Palace!" she finished up with sparkling eyes. + +Darkness had fallen by the time Nyoda had finished reading Uncle Jasper's +Diary, and she jumped up with a little exclamation as the clock on the +mantel-piece chimed six. The other hours had struck unnoticed. "Mercy!" +she cried, "it's time dinner was on the table, and here we haven't even +begun to get it! I forgot all about dinner, thinking about poor Uncle +Jasper." + +All the rest had forgotten about dinner, too, and the Winnebagos could +not get their minds off the tale they had just heard read. "Poor Uncle +Jasper!" they all said, looking up at his picture, and to their pitying +eyes his face was no longer grim and stern, but only pathetic. + + + + + CHAPTER VII + SYLVIA'S STORY + + +"Katherine Adams, whatever has happened to you?" asked Gladys suddenly, +meeting her under the bright light in the hall that evening after dinner. + +"Why?" asked Katherine, looking startled. "Is there any soot on my face?" + +"No," replied Gladys with a peal of laughter, "I didn't mean anything +like that. I meant that you look different from the way you used to look, +that's all. You've changed since the days when I first knew you. What +have you done to yourself in the last year? You're the same old +Katherine, of course, but you're different, somehow. I noticed it when +you first came to Brownell last fall, but I've been too busy to give it +much thought. But since we've been here I've been watching you and I +can't help noticing the difference. Now stand right there under that +light and let me look at you." + +Katherine laughed good humoredly and stood still dutifully while Gladys +inspected her with appraising eyes that took in all the little +improvements in Katherine's appearance. She was heavier than she used to +be; some of her angles were softened into curves. She now stood erect, +with her head up and her shoulders thrown back, which made her look +several inches taller. Her hair no longer hung about her face in stringy +wisps; the loose ends were curled becomingly around her temples and ears +and held in place with invisible hairpins. She wore a trim worsted dress +of an odd shade of blue, which was just the right shade to go with her +dull blonde hair and with the dark brown of her neat shoes. Her knuckles +were no longer red and rough; her fingernails were manicured; the sagging +spectacles of the old days had given way to intellectual looking nose +glasses with narrow tortoise shell rims. + +"Well, what's the verdict?" asked Katherine, smiling broadly at Gladys. + +"You're wonderful!" said Gladys enthusiastically. "You're actually +stunning! Whoever told you to get that particular shade of blue to bring +out the color of your hair?" + +"Nobody told me," answered Katherine. "I bought it because it was a +bargain." But there was a knowing twinkle in her eyes which gave her dead +away, and Gladys, seeing it, knew that Katherine had at last achieved +that pride of appearance which she had struggled so long to instill into +her. + +"However did you do it?" she murmured. + +"It was your eleven Rules of Neatness that did it," replied Katherine, +laughing, "or was it seven? I forget. But I did do just the things you +told me to do, and it worked. There is no longer any danger of my coming +apart in public! What a trial I used to be to you, though!" she said, +flushing a little at the recollection. "How you ever put up with me I +don't know. How _did_ you stand it, anyway?" + +"Because we loved you, sweet child," replied Gladys fondly, "and because +we all believed the motto, 'While there's life, there's hope.' We knew +you would be a paragon of neatness some day as soon as you got around to +it. You never _could_ think of more than one thing at a time, Katherine +dear!" + +"O my, O my, look at them hugging each other!" exclaimed a teasing voice +from above. Looking up they saw Justice Dalrymple leaning over the +banisters at the head of the stairs. "You never do that to me," he +continued in a plaintive tone. + +Katherine and Gladys merely laughed at him and walked on, arm in arm, and +Justice came down the stairs wringing mock tears out of his handkerchief +and singing mournfully, + + "Forsaken, forsa-ken, + Forsa-a-a-ken a-m I, + Like the bones at a banquet + All men pass me-e-e by!" + +"Do behave yourself, Justice," said Katherine with mock severity. "If you +disgrace me I'll never get you invited anywhere again. Why can't you be +good like the other two boys?" + +"'Cause I'm a Junebug," warbled Justice, to the tune of "I'm a Pilgrim," + + "'Cause I'm a Junebug, + And I'm a beetul, + And I can't be no + Rhinoscerairus, + 'Cause I'm a Junebug, + And I'm a beetul, + I can't be no, + Rhinoscerairus!" + +He advanced into the drawing room, where Katherine now stood alone, and +drew out the last syllable of his absurd song into a long bleating wail +that sent her into convulsions of laughter till the tears rolled down her +cheeks. + + "Tears, idle tears----" + +began Justice, picking up a vase from the table and holding it under her +eyes, and then he stopped, as if struck by a sudden recollection. "I said +that to you once before," he said, "don't you remember? The first time we +really got acquainted with each other. You were standing by the stove, +weeping into the apple sauce." + +"It was pudding," Katherine corrected him, with a little shamefaced laugh +at the remembrance, "huckleberry pudding. And I streaked it all over my +face and you nearly died laughing." + +"Well, you laughed too," Justice defended himself, "and that's how we got +to be friends." + +"That seems ages ago," said Katherine, "and yet it's only a little over a +year. What a year that was!" + +Both stopped their bantering and looked at each other with sober eyes, +each thinking of what the trying year at Spencer had been to them. +Justice's eyes traveled over Katherine, and he, too, noticed that she was +much better looking than when he first knew her. Katherine noticed the +admiration dawning in his eyes and divined his thoughts. After Gladys's +spontaneous outburst of approval she knew beyond any doubt that her +appearance no longer offended the artistic eye. The knowledge gave her a +new confidence in herself, and a thrill of pleasure that she had never +experienced before went through her like an electric shock. At last +people had ceased to look upon her as a cross between a circus and a +lunatic asylum, she told herself exultingly. + +"Well, what are you thinking about?" she asked finally, as Justice +continued silent. + +"I was just thinking," replied Justice gravely, "about the difference in +plumage that different climates bring about." + +"Whatever made you think about birds?" asked Katherine wonderingly. "You +jump from one subject to another like a flea. I don't see how you can +keep your mind on your work long enough to invent anything. By the way, +how is that thingummy of yours going? You're as mum as an oyster about +it." + +"Pretty well," replied Justice. "I'm hampered though, by not having the +right kind of help, and not being able to get some of the things I need." + +Katherine looked at him scrutinizingly. He looked tired and rather worn. +The nonsensical boy had vanished and a man stood in his place, a man with +a heavy responsibility on his shoulders. Justice had that way of changing +all in an instant from a boy to a man. At times he would go frolicking +about the house till you would have sworn he was not a day older than +Slim and the Captain; an instant later he was all gravity, and looked +every day of his twenty-six years. + +Katherine always stood in awe of him whenever that change took place. He +seemed so old and wise and experienced then that she felt hopelessly +ignorant and childish beside him. She liked him best when he seemed like +the other boys. + +"What do you think of my Winnebagos?" she asked him, leading him away +from the subject of his work. He always got old looking when he talked +about it. + +"Greatest bunch of girls I ever saw," he replied heartily. "Never came +across such an accomplished lot in all my life. Each one's more fun than +the next. Hinpoha's a beauty, and Gladys is a dainty fairy, and Sahwah +looks like a brown thrush, and Migwan's a regular Madonna. And, +say--would you mind telling me how you do it, anyway?" + +"Do what?" + +"Stick together like that. I thought girls always squabbled among +themselves. I never thought they could do things together the way you +girls do." + +"Camp Fire Girls can do things together!" Katherine informed him with +emphasis. "You boys think you're the only ones that know anything about +teamwork. Teamwork is our first motto." + +"I guess it must be," admitted Justice. "You certainly are a team." + +The rest of the "team" came in then, Sahwah and Gladys and Hinpoha, all +three arm in arm, and Migwan behind them, pushing Sylvia in her rolling +chair. They settled in a circle before the fireplace, and the talk soon +drifted around to Uncle Jasper and his blighted romance. Indeed, Hinpoha +had done nothing but talk about it all during dinner. Sylvia, too, was +completely taken up with it. + +"I love Sylvia Warrington!" she exclaimed fervently. "I am going to have +her for my Beloved. I'm glad she had black hair. I adore black hair. And +I'm _so_ glad my name is Sylvia, too. I've been pretending that she was +my aunt, and that I was named after her. I've been pretending, too, that +she taught me to sing, 'Hark, hark, the lark!' Now, when I sing it I +always think of her. Wasn't it beautiful, what Uncle Jasper said about +her? 'She is like a lark, singing in the desert at dawning!' Oh, I can +see it all, the desert, and the sun coming up, and the lark soaring up +and singing. I just can't _breathe_, it's so beautiful. And my Beloved is +like that!" + +A radiant dream light came into her eyes, and she seemed suddenly to have +traveled far away from the group by the fire and to be wandering in some +far-off land. + +"Sylvia is a beautiful name," said Katherine. "For whom are you called? +Was your mother's name Sylvia?" It was the first time any of them had +spoken of Sylvia's mother, who they knew must be dead. + +Sylvia's eyes lost their dreaminess and she looked up with a merry smile. + +"I made it up myself," she said. "I don't know what my first real name +was, but when Aunt Aggie got me she named me Aggie, after herself. But +Aggie is such a hopelessly unimaginative sort of name. It doesn't make +you think of a thing when you say it. You might just as well be named +'Empty' as 'Aggie.' Then once we lived in the same house with a lady who +sang, and she used to sing, 'Who is Sylvia?' It was the most _tuneful_ +name I'd ever heard, and I wondered and wondered who Sylvia was. But I +guess the lady never found out, because she kept right on singing, 'Who +is Sylvia?' So one day I said to myself, 'I'll be Sylvia!' Don't you +think it's a _fragrant_ name? When I say it I can see festoons of pink +rosebuds tied with baby ribbon. I made people call me Sylvia, and that's +been my name ever since." + +"Oh, you funny child!" said Nyoda, joining in the general laugh at +Sylvia's tale of her name. + +"But Sylvia," said Sahwah wonderingly, "you said you didn't know what +your _first_ real name was before you came to live with your aunt. Didn't +your aunt know it?" + +"No," replied Sylvia. "You see," she continued, "Aunt Aggie isn't my real +aunt. She adopted me when I was a baby." + +"Oh-h!" said the Winnebagos in surprise. + +"But why do you call her 'aunt'?" asked Sahwah. "Why don't you call her +'mother'?" + +"She never would have it," replied Sylvia. "She always taught me to call +her Aunt Aggie. I don't know why." + +Sylvia moved restlessly in her chair, and from the folds of the loose +dressing gown which she wore a picture tumbled out. Katherine picked it +up and laid it back on her lap. It was a small colored poster sketch of a +red haired girl in a golf cape, which had evidently been the cover design +of a magazine some years ago. + +"Why are you so fond of that poster, Sylvia?" asked Katherine curiously. +"You brought it along with you when you came here, and you keep it with +you all the time." + +Sylvia's tone when she answered was half humorous and half wistful. +"That's my mother," she said. + +"Your mother!" exclaimed Katherine, incredulously. + +"Oh, not my really real mother," Sylvia continued quickly. "I never saw a +picture of her. But Aunt Aggie said my mother had red hair and was most +uncommonly good looking, so I found a picture of a beautiful lady with +red hair and called it my mother. It's better than nothing." The +Winnebagos nodded silently and no one spoke for a moment. + +Then Katherine asked gently, "What else do you know about mother?" + +Sylvia sat up and related the tale told her hundreds of times by Aunt +Aggie, in answer to her eager questioning about her mother. Unconsciously +she used Aunt Aggie's expressions and gestures as she told it. + +"'Me an' Joe was coming on the steam cars from Butler to Philadelphy, and +in back of us sat a young couple with a baby about a month old. The +girl--she wasn't nothing but a girl even though she was a married +woman--was most uncommon good looking. She had bright red hair and big +grey eyes, and she wore a golf cape. Her husband was a big, red faced +feller, homely but real honest lookin'. They weren't either of them +twenty years old. Farmers, I could tell from their talk, and as well as I +could make out, the name on their bag was Mitchell. Well, well, along +between Waterloo and Poland there suddenly come a terrible bump, and then +a smash and a crash, and the next thing I was layin' under the seat and +Joe was trying to pull me out. When I did finally get out the car was +a-layin' over on its side all smashed to bits. Somehow or other when Joe +dug me out from under the seat I had ahold of the little baby that had +been in the seat in back of me. The young man and woman were under the +wreck. They were both killed, but the baby never had a scratch. + +"'Nobody ever found out who the red headed woman and the man were, +because they were all burned up in the wreck, and all their luggage. + +"'I had taken care of the baby, thinkin' I'd keep her until her people +were found, but they were never heard from, so I decided to keep her for +my own. That baby was you, Sylvia.' + +"So that's all I know about my mother and father," finished Sylvia with a +sigh. "But I can think up the most _dazzling_ things about them!" + +"Sylvia," said Katherine, "who was the man I saw on the stairs of your +house the night I came in and found you?" + +Sylvia looked at her in wonder. "What man?" + +"When I came into the hall there was a man leaning over the banisters +about half way up the stairs. When I came in he ran down the stairs and +out of the front door." + +"I can't imagine," said Sylvia. "No man ever came to the house to see us. +I didn't hear anybody come in that day." + +"But the front door stood open when I came up on the porch," said +Katherine. "That hadn't been standing open all day, had it?" + +"No," replied Sylvia, "for Aunt Aggie was always careful about closing it +when she went out." + +"Then he must have opened it," said Katherine. + +"How queer!" said Sylvia. "What do you suppose he could have been doing +there? He never knocked on the inside door." + +"Possibly he thought the house was empty, and went in to get out of the +cold," concluded Katherine. "Then he heard you singing, and it scared +him. He looked frightened out of his wits when I saw him. When I came in +he just ran for his life." Katherine laughed as she remembered her own +dismay at seeing the man and thinking that he was the owner of the house, +when he was only a stray visitor himself and worse frightened than she. +Here she had prepared such an elaborate apology in her mind, and he was +nothing but a tramp! The humor of it struck her forcibly, now that it was +all in the past, and she laughed over it most of the evening. + +About nine o'clock Hercules came shuffling in, suffering from a bad cold, +and asked Nyoda to give him something for it. While Nyoda went upstairs +to the medicine chest Sahwah craftily asked the old man, "Hercules, did +you ever hear of there being a secret passage in this house?" + +Hercules gave a visible start. "Whyfor you ask dat?" he demanded. + +"Oh, for no special reason," said Sahwah casually. "I just thought maybe +there was one and that you might know about it. There always is one in +these old houses, you know." + +"Well, dere ain't in dis!" answered the old man vehemently, and at the +same time looking relieved. "Marse Jasper he always useter say to me, +'Herc'les,' he useter say, 'dere's one good thing about dis house, and +dat is it ain't cluttered up wif no secrut passidges.' Secrut passidges +am powerful unlucky, Mis' Sahwah. Onct I knew a man dat lived in a house +dat had a secrut passidge an' one night de ole debbil got in th'u dat +secrut passidge an' run off wif him! Don' you go huntin' no secrut +passidges, Mis' Sahwah, if you knows what's good fer you. Dey suttinly am +powerful unlucky!" + +Nyoda came down stairs and bore Hercules off to the kitchen, and the +Winnebagos and the boys had their laugh out behind his back. "How _can_ +he tell such fibs in such a truthful sounding way!" remarked Justice. "If +I didn't know about that passage from Uncle Jasper's diary I'd be +inclined to believe every word he said. But I bet the old sinner knows +all about it, just as Uncle Jasper did. Even if he doesn't, how can he +invent such convincing speeches on the part of Uncle Jasper out of the +empty air? He's the most engaging old fibber I ever came across." + +Nyoda came back and bore Sylvia off to bed and then she returned to the +library. "Sherry," she said thoughtfully, leaning her chin in her hand, +"Dr. Crosby was here this morning to return those binoculars he borrowed +the other day, and I talked to him about Sylvia. He said he had once been +called in to treat her for tonsilitis when she lived in Millvale, and had +examined her spine at the time. He said it was a splintered vertebra and +it could be fixed by grafting in a piece of bone. They're doing wonders +now that way. He said Dr. Gilbert, the famous specialist, could perform +an operation that would cure her. He hadn't had a chance to talk it over +with Sylvia's aunt because he had been called away suddenly and when he +returned to town the Deane's were gone. He had no idea what had become of +them. He only made a hasty examination, but he is positive she can be +cured. I know the Deane's can't afford to pay for such an operation, but +Dr. Crosby said he was sure he could persuade Dr. Gilbert to perform it +free, in his clinic. I told Dr. Crosby to bring Dr. Gilbert to Oakwood as +soon as he could. He said he thought it would be possible soon. I thought +as long as we are going to keep Sylvia in our care until her aunt is well +again we might as well have her fixed up in the meantime. I would like to +have the operation over before her aunt knows anything about it, say the +first week of the new year. What do you think?" + +"Whew!" whistled Sherry, looking at his wife in astonishment. The +rapidity with which Nyoda got a project under way was a nine days' wonder +to Sherry, who usually spent more time in deliberating a course of action +than she did in carrying it out. "Go ahead!" was all he could say. + +The Winnebagos gave long exclamations of joy. It had never occurred to +them that anything could be done for Sylvia. + +"Does she know it?" asked Hinpoha. + +"Not yet," replied Nyoda. "I thought we would keep it for a birthday +surprise. Her birthday is the twenty-ninth. I'll have Dr. Gilbert come +that day and let him tell her himself. Don't anybody mention it to her +until then." + +"We won't," promised the Winnebagos, and trooped off to bed, heavy with +their delicious secret. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + THE FOOTPRINTS ON THE STAIRS + + +The Winnebagos woke bright and early the next morning, eager to begin the +search for the secret passage again, but whatever plans they had formed +were driven entirely out of their minds by the appearance of the +footprints on the stairs. Nyoda discovered them first when she raised the +curtains on the stair landing on her way down to bring in the morning +paper. + +The day before, in anticipation of the coming of the men from the second +hand store to remove the discarded furniture from Uncle Jasper's study, +she had improvised a runner to cover the front stairs to keep them from +being scratched. The stretch from the upstairs to the landing she had +covered with a strip of rag carpet, and from the landing down she had +used a length of white canvas. The landing itself was still bare, as she +had not yet found the old rug she intended laying there. + +Now, as she came downstairs, she noticed, on the strip of white canvas +that covered the bottom half of the stairs, three dark red footprints. On +the white background they stood out with startling distinctness. They +began on the third step from the top and appeared on every other step +from then on to the bottom. All three were the prints of a right foot. No +heel marks were visible, only the upper half of the foot. From the +direction which they pointed they were made by a person descending the +stairs, and from their size that person was a man. + +Nyoda's first thought that Sherry had cut his foot and had gone +downstairs, leaving a bloody trail on her stair runner, and full of +concern she immediately sought him. But her search revealed him down in +the basement, coaxing up the furnace, and there was nothing the matter +with his feet. The Captain was with him and he likewise disclaimed a cut +foot. The two of them had come down the back stairs. Nyoda hurried back +upstairs. Justice and Slim were in the upper hall when she came up, just +in the act of coming down. + +"Good morning!" they both called out in cheery greeting. + +"Which one of you has the cut foot?" she asked. + +"Cut foot? Not I," said Justice. + +"Nor I," said Slim. "Did somebody cut his foot?" + +"Look," said Nyoda, pointing to the marks on the lower steps. + +"It must have been your husband, or the Captain," said Justice. "It +wasn't either of us." + +"It wasn't either of them," replied Nyoda. "I asked them. They're down in +the basement fussing with the furnace." + +"It's the print of a foot with a shoe on," said Justice, examining the +marks. + +"Somebody must have gotten into the house last night!" exclaimed Nyoda in +a startled tone. "Sherry," she called, "come up here!" + +Sherry came up from the basement on the run, for he recognized something +out of the ordinary in his wife's tone, and the Captain came hard on his +heels. The girls came running down from above to see what the commotion +was about, and the whole household stood staring at the mysterious +footprints in startled bewilderment. + +"Burglars!" cried Hinpoha with a little shriek. + +"Oh, my silverware!" exclaimed Nyoda in a stricken tone, and raced into +the dining room. She pulled open the sideboard drawers with trembling +hands, expecting to find them ransacked, but nothing was amiss. Every +piece was still in its place. Neither had the sterling silver +candlesticks on top of the sideboard been disturbed. A thorough search +through the house revealed nothing missing. Various gold bracelets and +watches lay in plain sight on dressers, and Hinpoha's gold mesh bag hung +on the back of a chair beside her bed. Sherry reported no money gone. + +Nothing stolen! Who had entered the house then, if not a burglar? The +thing had resolved itself into a mystery, and everyone looked at his +neighbor with puzzled eyes. Breakfast was completely forgotten. + +"What gets me," said Sherry, "is where those footprints started from. By +the way they point, the man was going downstairs, but they begin in the +middle of the stairway. Clearly he didn't start at the top. Do you +suppose he came in through the landing window?" + +He examined the triple window on the landing closely, but soon looked +around with a puzzled expression on his face. + +"The windows are all fastened from the inside," he reported, "and there's +no sign of their having been tampered with. It doesn't look as though +anyone could have come in this way." He examined all the rest of the +windows on the first floor, and found them all latched and their latches +undisturbed. The doors, too, were locked from the inside. The cellar +windows had a heavy screening over them on the outside which could not be +removed without being destroyed, and this screening was everywhere +intact. + +"He must have come in through one of the upstairs windows after all," +said Nyoda. "There were about a dozen open in the various bedrooms. The +window in the room Hinpoha and Gladys sleep in is directly over the front +porch." + +Hinpoha and Gladys gave a simultaneous shriek at the thought of the +mysterious intruder coming through their room while they lay sleeping. + +"But if he came down from upstairs, why aren't the footprints _all_ the +way down, instead of beginning in the middle?" insisted Katherine. "He +_couldn't_ have come down from upstairs; he _must_ have come in through +this window on the landing," she said decidedly, going up to the window +and looking it over sharply for any sign of having been opened, and, by +shaking the wooden framework of the little square panes vigorously, as if +she would shake the truth out of it by force. + +The window, however, still yielded no sign of having been opened, and the +sill outside bore no marks of an instrument. The mystery grew deeper. How +could those footprints have started under the landing window if the feet +that made them did not enter by that window? + +"Maybe he did come from upstairs after all," said Sahwah, whose lively +brain had been working hard on the puzzle, "but his foot didn't begin to +bleed until he was half way down. Maybe he hurt it on the landing." + +"Sat down to trim his toe-nails and cut his toe off, probably," suggested +Justice, and the girls giggled hysterically. + +Striking an attitude in imitation of a story book detective, Justice +began to address the group. "Gentlemen of the jury," he began, "we have +here a mystery which has baffled the brightest minds in the country, but +unraveling it has been the merest child's play to a great detective like +myself. Here are the facts in the case. A man goes down a stairway. The +first half of his descent is shrouded in oblivion; half way down he +begins to leave bloody footprints. There is only one answer, gentlemen; +the one which occurred to me immediately. It is this: Upon reaching the +landing the mysterious descender suddenly remembers that it is the day on +which he annually trims his toe-nails. Being a very methodical man, as I +can detect by the way his feet point when he goes downstairs, he sits +down and does it then and there. But the knife slips and he cuts off his +toe, after which he makes bloody footprints on the rest of the stairs." + +"Justice Dalrymple, you awful boy!" exclaimed Katherine, and then she +laughed with the rest at his absurd explanation of the mystery. + +"Well, can you think up any argument that disproves my theory?" he +retorted calmly. + +"I can," replied the Captain. "If your theory was correct we'd have found +the toe lying on the stairs." + +The girls shrieked and covered their ears with their hands. The Captain +chuckled wickedly, but said no more. + +"I can think up another argument," said Sahwah. "Your man went barefoot +after he cut his toe off, but this one had his shoe on." + +"So he did!" admitted Justice. "Now you've 'done upsot my whole theory!'" + +"But how could his foot bleed through his shoe?" asked Katherine +skeptically. + +"The sole must have been cut through," said Justice. "He probably wore a +rubber-soled shoe, like a sneaker, and stepped on some broken glass that +went right through the sole into his foot. I did the same thing myself +once. It bled through, all right." + +"But what did he step on?" asked Nyoda, puzzled. "There isn't any sign of +broken glass around." + +"I give it up," said Sherry, who could make nothing from the facts before +him and had no imagination to help him supply missing details. "The man +undoubtedly got in through the upstairs window and out the same way. He +was a burglar, only he got scared away before he could steal anything. +Some noise in the house, probably." + +"He must have heard Slim snoring, and thought it was a bombing plane +coming after him," said Justice, and then dodged nimbly as Slim made a +pass at his head with a menacing hand. + +"Whatever he did to his foot fixed him," said Sherry. "He called it a day +when that happened and went off without making a haul. Probably had a pal +outside in a machine." + +"Nyoda," said Sahwah, struck with a sudden thought, "do you think it +could have been Hercules? He might have come in for something in the +night." + +"Of course!" exclaimed Nyoda. "Why didn't I think of that before? +Hercules has a key to the back door. How idiotic of me not to have +guessed before that it was Hercules. Here we stand looking at these +footprints like Robinson Crusoe looking at Friday's, and talking about +burglars, and wracking our brains wondering where he came in, and it must +have been Hercules all the while. He cut his foot and came in to get +something for it, or he came in to get something more for his cold and +cut his foot after he got in. Poor old Hercules! He wouldn't even wake us +up to get help. I'll go right out and find out what happened to him." + +She started for the back door, but before she had reached the kitchen +there was a stamping of feet on the back doorstep, a tapping on the door, +and then Hercules opened it himself and came in, as was his custom. + +"Mawnin', Mis' 'Lizbeth," he quavered genially, smiling a broad, +toothless smile at the sight of her. "Mighty nippy dis mawnin'." He +shivered and stamped his feet on the floor, edging over toward the stove. + +Nyoda looked down at his feet hastily and instantly realized that it was +not he who had left the print on the stairs. The loose, flapping felt +slippers which Hercules invariably wore, bursting out on all sides, would +have left a mark twice the size of the mysterious footprints. Nobody knew +just how big Hercules' feet were. He owned to wearing a size twelve, at +which Sherry openly scoffed. + +"I'll bet a size fifteen could hurt him," he declared. + +The rest also saw at a glance that there was no possibility of Hercules +having made the footprints. + +Hercules, unconscious of the charged atmosphere of the house, looked +around for the breakfast which should be set out for him on the end of +the kitchen table at this hour. + +"You-all overslep'?" he inquired good-temperedly of Nyoda. + +"No, we didn't," replied Nyoda. "We've had a little excitement this +morning and forgot all about breakfast. Somebody got into the house last +night." + +"Burglars?" asked Hercules anxiously. "Did anything get stole?" + +"No," replied Nyoda, "nothing was stolen, but the burglar left some +bloody footprints on the stair runner. We thought at first it might have +been you, coming to get something for your cold, but I see now that it is +impossible for you to have left the footprints. You didn't come into the +house last night, did you?" she finished. + +"No'm," answered Hercules with simple directness. "I done slep' like a +top, Miss' 'Lizbeth. Took dat hot drink you-all gave me to take, an' +never woke up till de sun starts shinin' dis mawnin'. Feelin' better now. +Cold gittin' well. Feelin' mighty hungry." His eye traveled speculatively +toward the stove. + +There was absolutely no doubt about his telling the truth. When Hercules +was trying to conceal something his language was much more eloquent and +flowery. + +"Your breakfast will be ready before long," said Nyoda kindly. Then, as +Hercules hobbled toward the stove she asked solicitously, "Have you a +sore foot, Hercules?" + +"No'm," replied Hercules, "but the mizry in my knees is powerful bad dis +mawnin', Mis' 'Lizbeth. Seems like my old jints is gittin' plumb rusted." +He launched into a detailed description of the various pains caused by +his "mizry," until Nyoda sought refuge in the front part of the house. +She had heard the tale many times before. + +Pretty soon Hercules hobbled in and took a look at the footprints on the +stairs. + +"Powerful sing'ler," he said, scratching his head in a puzzled way. + +Sherry went on to explain all the details for the old man's benefit. "We +thought at first he must have come in through the window on the stair +landing, but that hadn't been touched, so we decided he must have come in +through one of the upstairs windows. It seems queer, though, that the +footprints should have begun under the stair landing, doesn't it?" + +"What's the matter, Hercules, are you sick?" asked Nyoda, looking at the +old man in alarm. For Hercules' eyes were rolling wildly in his head and +his legs threatened to collapse under him. He sat heavily down on a chair +and began to rock to and fro, muttering to himself in a terrified way. +Straining their ears to catch his words, they heard him say: + +"Debbil's a-comin', debbil's a-comin', debbil's a-comin' after old +Herc'les for takin' dat shutter down. Debbil done lef' his footprint fer +a warnin' fer old Herc'les." + +He seemed beside himself with fright. Nyoda and Sherry looked at each +other in perplexity. + +"What's the matter with him?" asked Nyoda, in a tone of concern. + +"Superstitious," replied Sherry reassuringly. "Most negroes believe the +devil is walking around on two legs, waiting to grab them from behind +every fence. You remember Uncle Jasper mentioned in his diary that he +told Jasper if he ever took that shutter down the devil would come in +through the window and get him. Now he thinks it's happened. Don't be +alarmed at him. Get him his breakfast, and that'll give him something +else to think about." + +The Winnebagos hastened to set out his breakfast on the table, but he ate +scarcely anything, and still trembled when he went back to his rooms in +the coach house. + +"Funny old codger!" commented Sherry, looking after him. "He's chuck full +of superstition. If he throws many more such fits, I suppose I'll have to +nail up the old shutter again to keep him from dying of fright." + +"You'll do no such thing!" replied Nyoda. "I'll have no more holes in +that casement. Hercules will be all right again in a day or two. By that +time he'll have a new bogie. + +"Now everybody come to breakfast, and forget all about this miserable +business." + + + + + CHAPTER IX + THE TRIALS OF AN EXPLORER + + +"Oh, tell me again about the time you went camping, and the people +thought you were drowning," begged Sylvia. + +Hinpoha drew up a footstool under her feet, and sank back into a +cushioned chair with a long sigh of contentment. All day long she had +been helping the others search for the secret passage, upstairs and +downstairs, and back upstairs again, until she dropped, panting and +exhausted, into a chair beside Sylvia in the library and declared she +couldn't stand up another minute. The others never thought of stopping. + +"But you aren't fat," she retorted when Sahwah protested against her +dropping out. "You can run up and downstairs like a spider; no wonder you +aren't tired. I'm completely inside." + +"You're what?" + +"Completely inside. Classical English for 'all in.' 'All in' is slang, +and we can't use slang in Nyoda's house, you know." + +Sahwah snorted and returned to the search, which was now centered in +Uncle Jasper's study. + +"Now tell me about your getting rescued," said Sylvia. + +"We were spending the week-end at Sylvan Lake," recounted Hinpoha, "and +there were campers all around. Sahwah and I wanted to get an honor for +upsetting a canoe and righting it again, so we put on our skirts and +middies over our bathing suits and paddled out into deep water. Nyoda was +watching us from the shore. We were going to take the complete +test--upset the canoe, undress in deep water, right the canoe and paddle +back to shore. We got out where the water was over our heads and upset +the canoe with a fine splash. We were just coming up and beginning to +pull off our middies, when we heard a yell from the shore. Two young men +from one of the cottages were tearing down to the beach like mad, +throwing their coats into space as they ran. + +"'Hold on, girls, we'll save you,' they shouted across the water, and +jumped in and swam out toward us. + +"'O look what's coming!' giggled Sahwah. + +"'Oh, won't they be surprised when they see us right the canoe!' I +sputtered as well as I could for laughing. 'Come on, hurry up!' + +"'What a shame to spoil their chance of being heroes,' said Sahwah. 'They +may never have another chance. Let's let them tow us in.' Sahwah went +down under water and did dead man's float and it looked as though she had +gone under. I followed her. But I laughed right out loud under water and +made the bubbles go up in a spout and had to go up for air. The two +fellows were almost up to us. Sahwah threw up her hand and waved it +wildly, and I began to laugh again. + +"'Keep still and be saved like a lady!' Sahwah hissed, and I straightened +out my face just in time. The two fellows took hold of us and towed us to +shore. People were lined up all along, watching, and they cheered and +made a big fuss over those two fellows. We could see Nyoda and Migwan and +Gladys running away with their handkerchiefs stuffed into their mouths. +We lay on the beach awhile, looking awfully limp and scared and after a +while we let somebody help us to our cottage, and you should have heard +the hilarity after we were alone! We laughed for two hours without +stopping. Nyoda insisted that we go and express our grateful thanks to +the two young men for saving our lives, and we managed to keep our faces +straight long enough to do it, but the strain was awful." + +"Oh, what fun!" cried Sylvia, laughing until the tears came, and then +with an irresistible burst of longing she exclaimed, "Oh, if I could only +do things like other girls!" + +"You _are_ going to do things like other girls!" said Hinpoha in the tone +of one who knows a delightful secret. "You're going to walk again; Nyoda +said the doctor said so." + +Sylvia's face went dead white for an instant, and then lighted up with +that wonderful inner radiance that made her seem like a glowing lamp. + +"Am I?" she gasped faintly, catching hold of Hinpoha's arm with tense +fingers. + +"You certainly are," said Hinpoha, in a convincing tone. "Nyoda said you +could be cured. The specialist is coming in a day or two to arrange the +operation. O dear, now I've told it!" she exclaimed. "We were going to +save it for a birthday surprise." + +"Oh-h-h-h!" breathed Sylvia, and sank back in her chair unable to say +another word. Her eyes burned like stars. To walk again! Not to be a +burden to Aunt Aggie! The sudden joy that surged through her nearly +suffocated her. To walk! Perhaps to dance! The desire to dance had always +been so strong in her that it sometimes seemed to her that she must die +if she couldn't dance. All the joy that was coming to her whirled before +her eyes in a wild kaleidoscope of shifting images. + +"Then I can be a Camp Fire Girl!" + +"You're going to be a Winnebago!" + +"Oh-h-h!" + +"You can go camping with us!" + +"Oh-h-h!" + +"You will be a singer, and go on the stage, maybe!" + +"Oh-h-h-h-h-h!" + +"Maybe you'll even----" Hinpoha's sentence was suddenly interrupted by a +mighty uproar from the basement. First came a crash that rocked the +house, followed by a series of lesser thumps and crashes, mingled with +the racket of breaking glass. The Winnebagos, rushing out into the hall +from Uncle Jasper's study, were brushed aside by Sherry and Justice and +the Captain, tearing down the attic stairs. Sherry snatched up his +revolver from his dresser and went down the stairs three at a time, with +the boys close at his heels. + +"The burglars are in the basement!" came from the frightened lips of the +girls as they crept fearfully down the stairs. All felt that the mystery +of the footprints on the stairs was about to be cleared up. + +Sherry opened the cellar door and paused at the top. "Who's down there?" +he called, in a voice of thunder. + +From somewhere below came a dismal wail. "Throw me a plank, somebody, I'm +drowning. There's a tidal wave down here!" + +"It's Slim!" cried Nyoda, recognizing his voice. "What's the matter?" she +called. + +She and Sherry raced down the cellar stairs, with the Winnebagos and the +two boys streaming after. + +They found Slim lying on the floor of the fruit cellar, nearly drowned in +a pool of vinegar which was gushing over him from the wreck of a +two-hundred-gallon barrel lying beside him. Around him and on top of him +lay the debris of a shelf of canned fruit. + +Sherry and the boys rescued him and finally succeeded in convincing him +that he was not fatally injured. The stream of vinegar was diverted into +a nearby drain, and Slim told his tale of woe. + +He had been down in the cellar looking for the secret passage. There was +a place in the stone wall that sounded hollow when he struck it with a +hammer, and he went around to see what was on the other side of that +wall. It was the fruit cellar. While he was poking around in it a big +stone suddenly fell down out of the wall and smashed in the head of the +barrel, which tipped over almost on top of him, and nearly drowned him in +vinegar, while the jars of fruit came down all around him. + +"That loose stone in the wall!" exclaimed Sherry. "I forgot to warn you +boys about it when you were sounding the walls with hammers. It's a +mighty good thing it fell on the barrel and not on you." + +He and Nyoda turned cold at the thought of what might have happened. + +But the sight of Slim, dripping with vinegar and covered with canned +peaches, drove all thoughts of tragedy out of their minds, and the cellar +resounded with peals of helpless laughter for the next twenty minutes. +Justice tried to sweep up the broken glass, but sank weakly into a bin of +potatoes and went from one convulsion into another, until the Captain +finally poured a dipper of water over him to calm him down. + +"O dear," gasped Justice, mopping his face with the end of a potato bag, +"if Uncle Jasper could only have seen what he started with that diary of +his, it would have jolted him clean out of his melancholy!" + + + + + CHAPTER X + THE SECRET PASSAGE + + +"Oh, tell Aunt Aggie I think the Winter Palace is the most wonderful +place in the whole world!" cried Sylvia enthusiastically. "Tell her that +the ladies-in-waiting are the dearest that ever lived, and the three +court jesters are the funniest. Tell her I'm so happy I feel as though I +were going to burst! And be _sure_ and tell her that I'm going to get +well!" + +Sylvia had not been able to conceal her rapture for a minute after +Hinpoha had told her the news the day before. They all knew she knew it, +and when they saw her rapture they did not scold Hinpoha for letting the +cat out of the bag before the time set. To have given her those two extra +days of happiness was worth the sacrifice of their surprise. All morning +she had filled the house with her song and chattered happily of the time +when she would go camping with the Winnebagos. + +"We've made more plans than we can carry out in a hundred years!" she +told Nyoda gleefully. "Oh, _please_ live that long, so you can help us do +all we've planned." Nyoda smiled back into the starry eyes, and promised +faithfully to live forever, if need be, to accommodate her. + +"I'll give Aunt Aggie all your messages," she said now, stopping in the +act of drawing on her gloves to pat the shining head. + +"You're _so_ good to go and see Aunt Aggie!" + +Nyoda patted her on the head again and then started cityward with her big +box of delicacies for Mrs. Deane. With her went Migwan and Gladys and +Hinpoha, who wanted to do some shopping in the city. + +Sahwah and Katherine refused to give up their search for the passage even +for one afternoon. Sahwah had an idea that possibly there was a secret +door in the back of one of the built-in bookcases in the library, and had +Nyoda's permission to take out all the books and look. Justice and Slim +and the Captain had promised to help take out the books. Sylvia was +wheeled into the library where she could watch the proceedings, and the +work of removing the books began. Sherry looked on for a while and then +went out to tinker with the car. + +Section by section they took the books from the cases and examined the +wall behind them, but it was apparently solid. Sahwah and the Captain +worked faithfully, taking out the books and replacing them, but Katherine +would stop to read, and Slim soon fell asleep with his head against the +seat of a chair. Justice spied Slim after a while and began to throw +magazines at him. Slim wakened with an indignant grunt and returned the +volley and then the two engaged in a good-natured wrestling bout. + +"I know a new trick," said Justice. "It's for handling a fellow twice +your size. A Japanese fellow down in Washington taught it to me. Let me +practice it on you, will you? You're the first one I've seen since I +learned it who was so much heavier than I." + +Slim consented amiably enough and Justice proceeded with a series of +operations that rolled his big antagonist around on the floor like a meal +sack. + +"Don't make so much noise, boys!" commanded Katherine, putting a warning +finger to her lips. "Don't you see that Sylvia has fallen asleep? Go on +out into the hall and do your wrestling tricks out there." + +Slim and Justice removed themselves to the hall and continued their +wrestling, and the Captain abandoned the books to watch them and cheer +them on. + +"Bet you can't back him all the way up the stairway!" said the Captain, +as Justice forced Slim up the first step. + +"Bet I can!" replied Justice, and then began a terrific struggle, science +against bulk. Slim fought every inch of the way, but, nevertheless, went +up steadily, step by step. Sahwah and Katherine, drawn by the Captain's +admiring exclamations at Justice's feat, also abandoned the books and +came out to watch. + +Justice got Slim as far as the landing, and there Slim got his arms wound +around the stair post and anchored himself effectively. One step above +the landing was as far as Justice could get him. Justice leaned over him +and tried another trick to break his grip on the post and the two were +see-sawing back and forth when suddenly the Captain gave a yell that made +Justice loosen his hold on Slim and ask in a scared voice, "What's the +matter?" + +"The landing!" gasped the Captain. "Look at the landing!" + +Justice looked, and the others looked, and they all stood speechless with +amazement, for the stair landing was doing something that they had never +in all their born days seen a stair landing do before. It was sliding out +of its place, sliding out over the bottom flight of stairs as smoothly +and silently as though on oiled wheels. The five stood still and blinked +stupidly at the phenomenon, unable to believe their eyes. The landing +came out until there was a gap of about two feet between it and the wall, +and then noiselessly came to a stop. In the opening thus made they could +see the top of an iron ladder set upright against the wall below. + +Sahwah rallied her stunned senses first. "The secret passage!" she cried +triumphantly. + +"Daggers and dirks!" exclaimed the Captain. + +"What made it open up?" asked Katherine curiously. "Where is the spring +that works it?" + +Justice and the Captain shook their heads. + +"The post!" exclaimed Slim, mopping the perspiration from his brow. "I +was pulling at it for dear life when all of a sudden something clicked +inside of it. Then the Captain yelled that the stair landing was coming +out. The spring that works it is in the landing post!" + +Slim reached out and tugged away at the post again, but nothing happened. +Then he got hold of the carved head and began to twist it and it turned +under his hands. There was a click, faint, but audible to the eagerly +listening ears, and the landing began to slide smoothly back into place. +In a moment the opening was closed, and the landing was apparently a +solid piece of carpentry. + +"Whoever invented that was a genius!" exclaimed Justice in admiration. +"And all the while we were trying to find a secret passage through the +walls by tapping on the panels! If it hadn't been for Slim we could have +spent all the rest of our lives looking for it and never would have found +it, for we never in all the wide world would have thought of twisting the +head of that stair post. Slim, you weren't born in vain after all." + +"See if you can make it open up again," said Sahwah. + +Slim twisted the head of the post, and presently there came the now +familiar click and the floor slid out with uncanny quietness. + +"Let's go down!" said the Captain, going to the edge of the opening and +looking in. + +"What's down there?" asked Katherine. + +"Nothing but space," replied the Captain, straining his eyes to peer into +the darkness, "at least that's all I can see from here. Give me your +flashlight, Slim, I'm going down." + +Slim handed him his pocket flash and the Captain began to descend the +ladder. He counted twelve rungs before he felt solid footing under him. +He found himself in a tiny room about six feet square, whose walls and +floor were of stone. The top was open to allow the passage of the ladder. +The Captain figured out that he was standing level with the floor of the +basement and that the space above the opening at the top of the little +room was the space under the stairway. There was a door in the outside +wall, next to the ladder. + +"What's down there?" asked Sahwah from above. + +"Just a little place with a door in it," replied the Captain, retracing +his steps up the ladder. + +"The passage isn't inside the house at all," he reported when he reached +the top. "It's _outside_. There's a door down there that probably opens +into it. I'm going to get my coat and see where the passage leads to." + +"We'll all go with you," said Sahwah, and it was she who went down the +ladder first when the expedition started. + +The Captain came next, carrying a lantern he had found in the kitchen. At +the bottom of the ladder he lit the lantern. The first thing its light +fell upon was a broken glass jar, lying in a corner, and from it there +extended across the floor a bright red stream. Sahwah recoiled when she +saw it, but the Captain stooped over and streaked his finger through it. + +"Paint!" he exclaimed. "Red paint." + +"Oh!" said Sahwah. "It looked just like blood. Why--that's what must have +made the footprints on the stairs! The man must have stepped in this +paint! He came in through this passage!" + +The other three had come down by that time, and they all looked at each +other in dumb astonishment. How clear it all was now! The footprints +beginning under the stair landing--the mystery connected with the +entrance of the intruder--they all fitted together perfectly. + +"The paint's still sticky," said the Captain, examining his finger, which +had a bright red daub on the end. "It must have been spilled there quite +recently." + +"The burglar must have spilled it himself," said Katherine. + +"But how on earth would a burglar know about this secret entrance?" +marveled Sahwah. + +The others were not prepared to answer. + +"Maybe Hercules told somebody," said Justice. + +"But Hercules doesn't seem to know about it himself," said Katherine. + +"He _says_ he doesn't, but I'll bet he does, just the same," said +Justice. + +"Hercules wouldn't tell any burglar about this way of getting into the +house!" Sahwah defended stoutly. "He's as true as steel. If anybody told +the burglar it was somebody beside Hercules." + +"Maybe the burglar discovered the other end of the passage himself, by +accident, just as we did this end," said Slim. + +"Come on," said the Captain impatiently, "let's go and see where that +other end is." + +"Wait a minute, what's this," said Justice, spying a long rope of twisted +copper wire hanging down close beside the ladder. This rope came through +the opening above them; that was as far as their eyes could follow it. +Its beginning was somewhere up in the space under the stairs. + +"Pull it and see what happens," said Slim. + +"I bet it works the slide opening from below here," said Justice. He gave +it a vigorous pull and they heard the same click that had followed the +twisting of the stair post. In a moment the light that had come down +through the opening vanished, and they knew that the landing had gone +back into position. Another pull at the rope and it opened up again. + +"Pretty slick," commented Justice. "It works two ways, both coming and +going. A fellow on the inside could get out, and a fellow on the outside +could get in, without the people in the house knowing anything about it." + +"Are you coming now?" asked the Captain. "I'm going to start." + +He opened the door in the outer wall as he spoke. It swung inward, +crowding them in the narrow space in which they stood. A rush of cold air +greeted them. The Captain held the lantern in front of him and peered out +into the darkness. + +"There are some steps down," he said. + +He stepped over the threshold and led the way. Six steps down brought +them to the floor of a rock-lined passage, a natural tunnel through the +hill. + +"Carver Hill must be a regular stone quarry," said Justice. "All the +cellar walls of Carver House are made of slabs of stone like this, and so +is the foundation." + +"There are big stones cropping out all over the hill," said the Captain. +"It's a regular granite monument. What a jolly tunnel this is!" + +"And what a gorgeous way of escape!" remarked Justice admiringly. + +"But what need would there be of an underground way of escape?" asked +Katherine wonderingly. "What were the people escaping from?" + +"This house was built in the days of the Colonies," replied Justice +sagely, "and the Carvers were patriots. That probably put them in a +pretty tight position once in a while. No doubt they concealed American +soldiers in their home at times. This passage was probably built as a +means of entrance and escape when things got too hot up above. British +troops may have been quartered in the house, or watching the outside. +What a peach of a way this was to evade them!" he exclaimed in a burst of +admiration. + +"I wish I'd lived in those times," he went on, with envy in his tone. +"They didn't keep fellows out of the army on account of their throats +then. What fun a soldier must have had, getting in and out of this house, +right under the nose of the British! Suppose they suspected he was in the +house and came in to search for him? He'd just turn the post on the +stairs, and click! the landing would slide open and down the ladder he'd +go and out through this passage. The enemy would never discover where he +went in a million years." + +"Come on, let's see where this passage comes out," urged the Captain, and +started ahead with the lantern. + +The passage sloped steeply downward, with frequent turns and twists. + +"We're going down the hill," said the Captain. + +"Whoever heard of going down the _inside_ of a hill," said Sahwah. + +"It's like going through that passage under Niagara Falls," said Slim, +"only it's not quite so wet." + +After another sharp turn and a steep drop they came out in a good-sized +chamber whose walls, floor and ceiling were all of rock. + +"It's a cave!" shouted the Captain, and his voice echoed and re-echoed +weirdly, until the place seemed to be filled with dozens of voices. A +cold draught played upon them from somewhere, and, although they all had +on sweaters and caps, they shivered in the chilly atmosphere. There was +no glimmer of light anywhere to indicate an opening to the outside. + +The light of the lantern fell upon a wooden bench and a rough table, both +painted bright red. On the table stood two tall bottles, thickly covered +with dust, and between them was a grinning human skull with two cross +bones behind it. Katherine and Sahwah involuntarily jumped and shrieked +when they saw it. + +"Somebody died down here!" gasped Sahwah. + +"Nonsense!" said Justice. "It was Uncle Jasper playing pirate. See, +there's his chest over there." + +Against the rocky wall stood a large wooden chest, likewise painted +bright red, with a huge black skull and cross bones done on its lid. + +"That must be Uncle Jasper's 'Dead Man's Chest,' that he mentions in his +diary," said Sahwah. "Of course, this is the pirates' den where he and +Tad played." + +The five looked around them with interest at this playroom of the two +boys of long ago, its treasures living on after they were both dead and +gone. Truly the den was a place to inspire terror in the heart of a +luckless captive. Skulls and cross bones were painted all over the rocky +walls, grinning reflections of the one on the table. Sahwah and Katherine +clung to each other and peered nervously over each other's shoulders into +the darkness beyond the radius of the lantern light. + +"What a peach of a pirate's cave!" exclaimed the Captain +enthusiastically. "Captain Kidd himself couldn't have had a better one. +It seems as if any minute we'll hear a voice muttering, 'Pieces of eight, +pieces of eight.'" He picked up one of the bottles from the table and set +it down again with a resounding bang. + + "'Fifteen men on a dead man's chest, + Yo! ho! ho! And a bottle of rum!'" + +he shouted in a fierce voice which the echoes gave back from all around. +"This must have been the life!" + +"Those must have been the bottles from which they drank the molasses and +water that they used for rum," said Katherine. "What fun it must have +been!" + +"I wish I'd known Uncle Jasper Carver when he was a boy," sighed the +Captain. "He must have been no end of a chap, and Tad, too." + +"Let's have a look at what's in the chest," said Justice. + +He raised up the heavy oak lid and the Captain held the lantern down +while they all crowded around to see. One by one he lifted out the +pirates' treasures and held them up; wooden swords, several tomahawks, a +white flag with a skull and cross bones done on it in India ink, a +stuffed alligator, a ship's compass, a section of a hawser, a heavy iron +chain, deeply rusted, a pocket telescope, a brass dagger, a pair of bows +and a number of real flint-headed arrows, and a box of loose arrow heads +which the Captain seized eagerly. + +"Glory! what wouldn't I have given for a bunch of real Indian arrow heads +when I was a kid," he said enviously. + +"They look like Delawares," said Justice knowingly, pawing them over. + +"How can you tell?" asked the Captain. + +Justice explained the characteristics of the dreaded weapon of the +Lenni-Lenape. + +Slim and the Captain could not dispute him because they didn't know +anything about arrow heads, so they listened to him in respectful +silence. + +"They must have had fun, those two," sighed the Captain enviously. "I +thought _I_ had fun when I was a kid, but Uncle Jasper Carver had it all +over me with this cave and secret passage of his." + +Slim and Justice echoed his envious sigh. In their minds' eye they too +had traveled back with Uncle Jasper to his lively boyhood and saw a +panorama of delightful plays passing in review, with the secret passage +and the pirate's cave as the background. + +The last thing that came out of the chest was a flat stone on which had +been carved the names "Jasper the Feend" and "Tad the Terror," bracketed +together at both ends and surmounted by a wobbly skull and cross bones, +under which was carved the legend, "Frends til Deth." When Sahwah saw it +she could not keep back the tears at the thought of this wonderful boyish +friendship which had endured through thick and thin, and then had ended +so bitterly. To Sahwah the breaking up of a friendship was the most awful +thing that could happen. There were tears in Katherine's eyes, too, and +the three boys looked very solemn as the stone was laid back in the +chest. + +"Now let's go and see where the passage leads on to," said the Captain, +when the treasures of the two youthful pirates had been replaced in the +chest. At a point opposite to the passage by which they had entered the +cave another passage opened, or rather, a continuation of the first one, +for the cave was merely a widening out of this subterranean tunnel. + +"This way out," said the Captain, lighting the way with his lantern. + +"Why, there's a door here!" exclaimed the Captain, when they had gone +some thirty or forty feet into the passage. + +The door was just like the one beside the ladder in Carver House; +tremendously heavy, bound in brass and studded thickly with nails. It had +been painted over with bright red paint, but here and there the paint had +chipped off, showing the metal underneath. It was set into a doorway of +brick and mortar. Over the knob was a curious latch, the like of which +they had never seen. To their joy it snapped back without great +difficulty and they got the door open. + +Several stone steps down, and then they saw they were in a cellar +passage. + +"The passage comes out in another house!" said the Captain. "I wonder +whose?" + +"It must be that old empty brick cottage that stands at the foot of the +hill," said Sahwah, who knew the lay of the land from the previous +summer. "We often used to poke around in it and wonder who had lived in +it. In the old days it must have been a place of safety for the American +soldiers. It's at the back of the hill, toward the woods. The soldiers +probably escaped through the woods." + +"Let's go on into the cellar proper and up into the house," said the +Captain, eager to continue his exploration. + +But what he proposed was impossible, for they discovered that the end of +the passage was blocked by a huge stone that had fallen out of the wall. +It filled up the space from the floor to the low ceiling, all but a few +inches at the top and a few inches at the one side, where an irregularity +in its contour did not fit against the straight side of the wall. A very +faint light from the cellar showed through these crevices, and a cold +draught of air played like a thin stream down the backs of their necks. + +"There doesn't seem to be any way of getting out around that rock," said +the Captain. "Can you see any way?" + +They all looked diligently for some way to get over, or around it, or +through it, and soon admitted that it was impossible. + +"How on earth did that fellow ever get in from this end?" asked Justice +in perplexity. "There isn't a ghost of a show of getting through." + +"He _couldn't_ have," said Katherine decidedly, "unless he really _was_ +the devil, as Hercules believed." + +"Or unless the stone fell after he was in," suggested the Captain. + +"But if he came in this way and went out again, how does it happen that +the door here was fastened on the other side?" asked Sahwah. + +"I give it up," said Justice. "I don't believe he came in this way." + +"Maybe he didn't come in through the secret passage at all," said Slim. +"Maybe he _did_ come in through the upstairs window, as we thought at +first." + +"But how about the paint?" objected Sahwah. "He stepped into it and +tracked it down the stairway. He _must_ have come in through this way." + +Just then Katherine reached up to brush her hair out of her eyes, and her +cold hand brushed Slim's neck. He jumped convulsively, lost his footing, +and pitched over against the door, which went shut with a bang. He was up +again immediately, and stretched out his hand to open the door, but it +resisted his attempt. + +"I guess she's stuck," he remarked. Justice and the Captain both lent a +hand, but not a bit would the door budge. They gave it up after a few +minutes, and stared at each other in perplexity. + +"The door's locked!" said Justice in a voice of consternation. + +"The lock must have snapped over from the jar when the door banged," said +Sahwah. + +"I don't see how it could," said Justice skeptically. + +"Oh, yes, it could," replied Sahwah. "The same thing happened to me once +with our back screen door at home. It slammed on my skirt one day, when I +was going out, and the latch latched itself, and there I was, caught like +a mouse in a trap. I couldn't pull my skirt loose and I couldn't unlatch +the door from the outside. There was nobody at home and I had to stand +there a long while before someone came and set me free. Latches _do_ +latch themselves sometimes, and that's what this one has done now!" + +"Well, we're caught like mice in a trap, too," said Justice gloomily. +"With the passage blocked at this end, and the door locked, how are we +going to get out of here?" + +"Break the door down," suggested Sahwah. + +"Easier said than done," replied the Captain. "What are we going to break +it down with? You can't knock down a door like that with your bare +hands." + +Nevertheless they tried it, pounding frantically with their fists, and +kicking the solid panel furiously. + +"No use, we can't break it down," said Slim crossly, nursing his aching +hand. "My knuckles are smashed and my toes are smashed, but there's never +a dent in the door. You'd think the old thing would be rotten down here +in this hole, but it's so covered with paint that it's waterproof. It +isn't wet enough to rot it," he finished unhappily, scowling at the piles +of dust at his feet. + +"We'll have to call until somebody hears us and comes down," said Sahwah. + +"Nobody'll ever hear us down here," said Justice. "We're on the lonesome +side of the hill, remember!" + +Nevertheless they did shout at the tops of their lungs, and called again +and again until their ears ached with the racket their voices made in the +closed-in little place, and their throats ached with the strain. + +"_Nobody can hear us!_" + +The disheartening realization came to them all at last. + +"Do you suppose we'll have to stay down here until we starve to death?" +asked Sahwah in an awe-stricken voice, after a terrified hush had reigned +for several minutes. + +"We'll freeze to death before we starve," said Justice pessimistically, +shivering until his teeth chattered. + +"Nonsense!" said Katherine severely. "We'll get out somehow. Sherry and +Nyoda will find the stair landing open and will come after us," she +finished, and the rest shouted aloud, so great was their relief at the +thought. + +Then Justice struck them cold again with his next words. "No, they won't +find it open, because I closed it several times, but I left it closed. +They'll never find that spring in a million years." + +A groan of disappointment went up at his words and their hearts sank like +lead. + +"We'll get out somehow," repeated Katherine determinedly, after a minute. +"We were shut up in a cave once before, and we got out all right." + +"Yes, but that time Slim and I were on the outside, not on the inside +_with_ you," the Captain reminded her. + +"Yes, and that time it wasn't so cold," said Sahwah, vainly trying to +stop shivering, "and we had eaten so many strawberries that we could have +lasted for days. I'm hungry already." + +"So'm I," said Slim decidedly. "I've been hungry for an hour." + +"You're always hungry," said Justice impatiently. "I guess you'll last as +long as the rest of us, though." + +"Stop talking about 'lasting,'" said Katherine with a shudder of +something besides cold. "You give me the creeps." + +"If we only had something to break the door down with!" sighed Justice. +"It would take a battering ram, though," he finished hopelessly. + +"Too bad Hercules' old goat isn't down here with us," said Sahwah with a +sudden reminiscent giggle. "He could have smashed the door down in no +time with his forehead." + +"But he _isn't_ here, and we are," remarked Slim gloomily. + +"I wish now I'd waked Sylvia up and shown her the stair landing opening," +sighed Katherine regretfully. "She was so sound asleep, though, I +couldn't bear to waken her. If she only knew about it she could send +Sherry after us!" Oh, the tragedy bound up in that little word "if"! + +Then to add to their troubles the lantern began to burn out with a series +of pale flashes, and Slim was so agitated about it that he dropped the +biggest electric flashlight on the floor and put it out of commission. +Katherine's small pocket flash had burned out some time before. That left +only two small flashlights. + +"Put them out," directed Justice, "so they'll last. We can flash them +when we need a light." + +It was much worse, being there in the darkness. Sahwah and Katherine +clung to each other convulsively and the boys instinctively moved nearer +together. Conversation dropped off after a while and it seemed as if the +silence of the tomb hovered over them. No sound came from any direction. + +During another one of these silences, following a desperate outburst of +shouting, a sound burst through the uncanny stillness. It was a slight +sound, but to their strained nerves it was as startling as a cannon shot. +It was merely a faint pat, pat, pat, coming from somewhere. They could +not tell the direction, it was so far off. + +"It's footsteps!" said Sahwah, starting up wildly. + +"No, it's only water dropping," said Justice, cupping his hand over his +ear in an attempt to locate the direction of the sound. "I wonder where +it can be." + +He flashed the light and looked for the dropping water, but failed to +find it. He turned the light out again. Then in the darkness the sound +seemed clearer than before--pat, pat, pat, pat. + +"It's getting louder," said Katherine. + +"It _is_ footsteps!" cried Sahwah positively. "They're coming nearer! +Listen!" + +The tapping noise increased until it became without a doubt the sound of +a footfall drawing nearer along the passage on the other side of the +cave. + +"It's Sherry looking for us; he's found the passage!" shrieked Sahwah, +"or maybe it's Hercules!" + +"Yell, everybody!" commanded Justice, "and let him know where we are." + +They set up a perfectly ear-splitting shout, and as the echoes died away +they heard the snap of the lock on the other side of the door. Slim, who +was nearest, flung himself upon the door handle and in another instant +the door yielded under his hand and swung inward. + +"Sherry!" they shouted, and crowded out into the passage, all talking at +once. + +"Sherry! Sherry! Where are you?" Sahwah called, suddenly aware that no +one had answered them. Justice and the Captain sprang their flashlights +and looked about them in astonishment. There was no one in the passage +beside themselves. + +Who had unfastened the latch and let them out? + +Sahwah and Katherine suddenly gripped each other in terror, while the +cold chills ran down their spines. The same thought of a supernatural +agency had come into the mind of each. Then they both laughed at the +absurdity of it. + +"It couldn't have been a ghost," declared Katherine flatly. "Ghosts don't +make any noise when they walk." + +As fast as they could they ran back through the passage to the door in +the cellar wall, jerked the cable that opened the trap, and came out +through the landing just as Nyoda, arriving home, was taking off her furs +at the foot of the stairs. They never forgot her petrified expression +when she saw them coming up through the floor. + +"We thought it must be nearly midnight!" said Sahwah in amazement, when +they found out that they had never even been missed. They had only been +gone from the house for two hours. + +Sherry came in presently and was as dumbfounded as Nyoda when he saw the +opening in the landing and heard the tale of the Winnebagos and the boys. + +"We thought you had found the passage and were coming to let us out," +said Sahwah, "but it must have been Hercules, after all!" + +"But Hercules was with me all afternoon, helping me overhaul the motor of +the car," said Sherry. "I just left him now." + +"Then--who--unlocked the--door?" cried the five in a bewildered way. + +"Thunder!" suddenly shouted Justice. "It was the same man that made the +footprints on the stairs! He got in through that secret passage, and +what's more, he's down there yet!" + + + + + CHAPTER XI + A CURE FOR RHEUMATISM + + +All wrought up over the idea of the strange midnight visitor still +lurking down in the passage, Nyoda made Sherry and the boys arm +themselves and search the tunnel and the cave thoroughly, but they found +no sign of anyone hidden down there. + +"It must have been a ghost that unlatched the door, after all," said +Justice. "Most likely the ghost of the fellow that put the latch on. He's +probably detailed to look after all the latches he put on doors!--goes +around with the ghost of an oil can and keeps them from squeaking. +Yesterday must have been the date on his monthly tour of inspection. No, +it couldn't have been a spook anyhow," he contradicted himself. "There's +the can of paint and the footprint on the stairs. Ghosts don't leave +footprints. That was real paint. He's a live spook, all right." + +"But where is he now?" asked Nyoda nervously. "I'm afraid to open a table +drawer, for fear he'll step out. Does he fold up like an accordion, I +wonder, or turn into smoke like the Imp in the Bottle? I declare, I'm +getting curious to see him. I'm sorry now I made you barricade the door +down there beside the ladder; I've half a notion to sit on the stairs all +night and see if he won't appear." + +"I know an easier way than that," said Justice gravely. "Just grease the +stairs and then come when you hear him fall. It'll save you the trouble +of sitting up." + +"You might recommend that method to the cat, instead of her watching +beside the mousehole," replied Nyoda, laughing. + +Then she heard a familiar fumbling at the back door. "Here comes +Hercules," she said hastily. "Quick, close up the landing. Don't anybody +mention finding the secret passage to him, or he'll make life miserable +for me from now on, worrying for fear his old friend, the devil, will +come in and carry us all off. Come, get away from the stairway, and don't +act as if anything unusual had happened. + +"What is it, Hercules?" she asked, as the old man shuffled into the +kitchen. "Is your cold worse?" + +"I was jest goin' to ask yer could I have some coffee," said the old man +in a plaintive voice. "I got the mizry so bad it's jest tearin' me ter +pieces, an' when it gits like dat it don' seem like anything'll help it +'xcept drinkin' hot coffee." + +Nyoda smiled at this novel cure for rheumatism, but she replied heartily, +"Why, certainly you may have some coffee, Hercules. Just sit down there +at the kitchen table and I'll get you a cup. There's some left in the +pot; it'll only take a minute to warm it up." + +She heated the coffee and motioned Hercules to a seat at the kitchen +table, but he took the steaming cup and edged toward the door. + +"I'll jest take it out an' drink it gradual," he said. "Never seems ter +help de mizry none 'less I drink it gradual an' keep my feet in hot water +de while. Tanks, Mist' Sher'dan, I don' need no help. I kin git along by +myself." + +Hercules shuffled out to the barn with his cup of hot coffee and Nyoda +waited until he was out of earshot before she laughed aloud. + +"That man certainly is a character!" she exclaimed. "Whoever heard of +curing rheumatism by drinking coffee 'gradual' and holding your feet in +water? I never know what queer notion he's going to have next. I put a +pot of bright red geraniums in his room once to brighten it up and he +promptly brought it back, because, 'Jewraniums am powerful unlucky, Mis' +'Lizbeth. I was plantin' jewraniums dat day de goat got killed.' Poor old +Hercules, he does miss that goat so! He was simply inconsolable at first, +and finally I resigned myself to a life of misery and told him to go and +get himself another goat, but he wouldn't do it. Nothing could take the +place of that fiendish old animal in his affections. I believe he'll +mourn for him all the rest of his life." + +"Let's invite him in for Sylvia's birthday party to-morrow night," +suggested Migwan. "That'll cheer him up and make him forget all about his +'mizry' for a while. Let's find a masquerade costume for him, too, so he +can be one of us." + +Nyoda smiled brightly at Migwan. "Thoughtful child!" she said fondly. +"Always thinking of someone else's pleasure. Certainly we'll ask Hercules +to the party. + +"Now, all you menfolk clear out of this kitchen, or we won't get any +dinner to-night!" + + + + + CHAPTER XII + THE SPIRIT OF A PRINCESS + + +"O Nyoda, it _can't_ be true!" + +Sahwah's anguished wail cut across the stricken silence of the room. + +The eminent surgeon had just made his examination of Sylvia and +pronounced the verdict that had sent all their rosy air castles tumbling +about their ears: "Nothing can be done. An operation would be useless. It +is not a case of a splintered vertebra which could be patched. The nerves +which control the limbs are paralyzed. She will never walk again." + +The last five words fell upon their ears like the tolling of a sorrowful +bell. "She will never walk again." Stunned by the unexpected verdict the +Winnebagos stood mutely about Sylvia in anguished sympathy. + +She lay motionless on the sofa, a white-faced, pitiful little ghost of a +princess; her glad animation gone, her radiance extinguished, her song +stricken upon her lips. + +"O why did you tell me?" she wailed. "Why did you tell me I could be +cured, when I never can? Why didn't you leave me as I was? I was happy +then, because I had never hoped to get well. But since you told me I've +been planning so----" Her voice broke off and she lay back in silent +misery. + +"Now I can never be a Camp Fire Girl!" she cried a moment later, her +grief breaking out afresh. "I can never go camping! I can never help Aunt +Aggie!" All the joyful bubbles her fancy had blown in the last two days +burst one by one before her eyes, each stabbing her with a fresh pang. +"I'll never be any use in the world; I wish I were dead!" she cried +wildly, her rising grief culminating in an outburst of black despair. + +"Oh, yes, you can too be a Camp Fire Girl," said Nyoda soothingly. "You +can do lots of things the other girls can do--and some they can't. There +isn't any part of the Law you can't fulfill. You can Seek Beauty, and +Give Service, and Pursue Knowledge, and Be Trustworthy, and Hold on to +Health, and Glorify Work, and Be Happy! Campfire isn't just a matter of +hikes and meetings. It's a spirit that lives inside of you and makes life +one long series of Joyous Ventures. You can kindle the Torch in your +invalid's chair as well as you could out in the big, busy world, and pass +it on to others." + +"How can I?" asked Sylvia wonderingly. + +"In many ways," answered Nyoda, "but chiefly by being happy yourself. +Even if you never did anything else but be happy, you would be doing a +useful piece of work in the world. Just sing as gayly as you used to, and +everyone who hears you will be brighter and happier for your song. If you +cannot do great deeds yourself, you may inspire others to do them. What +does it matter who does things, as long as they are done? If you have +encouraged someone else to do something big and fine, all on account of +your happy spirit, it is just as well as if you had done the thing +yourself. Did you ever hear the line, + + 'All service ranks the same with God,'? + +"Sylvia, dear, you have the power to make people glad with your song. +That is the way you will pass on the Torch. You already have your symbol; +you chose it when you began to hero-worship Sylvia Warrington, and loved +her because she was like a lark singing in the desert at dawning. That is +the symbol you have taken for yourself--the lark that sings in the +desert. Little Lark-that-sings-in-the-Desert, you will kindle the Torch +with your song! Instead of being a Guide Torchbearer, or a Torchbearer in +Craftsmanship, you will become a Torchbearer in Happiness!" + +With these words of hope and encouragement Nyoda left her sorrowful +little princess to the quiet rest which she needed after the fatiguing +examination by the surgeon. Going into Hinpoha's room she found her lying +face downward on the bed in an agony of remorse, her red curls tumbled +about her shoulders. + +"I told her, I told her," she cried out to Nyoda with burning +self-condemnation. "I couldn't keep my mouth shut till the proper time; I +had to go and tell her two days ahead. If I'd only waited till we were +sure she would never have had her heart set on it so. Oh, I'll never +forgive myself." She beat on the pillow with her clenched fist and +writhed under the lash of her self scorn. For once she was not in tears; +her misery was far deeper than that. "I didn't mean to tell her that day, +Nyoda, I knew you'd asked us to keep it a secret, but it just slipped out +before I thought." + +"Hinpoha, dear," said Nyoda, sitting down on the bed beside her and +speaking seriously, "will it always be like this with you? Will +everything slip out 'before you thought'? Will you never learn to think +before you speak? Will you be forever like a sieve? Must we always +hesitate to speak a private matter out in front of you, because we know +it will be all over the town an hour later? Are you going to be the only +one of the Winnebagos who can't keep a secret?" + +Hinpoha's heart came near to breaking. Those were the severest words +Nyoda had ever spoken to her. Yet Nyoda did not say them severely. Her +tone was gentle, and her hand stroked the dishevelled red curls as she +spoke; but what she said pierced Hinpoha's heart like a knife. A vision +of herself came up as she must seem to others--a rattle brained creature +who couldn't keep anything to herself if her life depended upon it. How +the others must despise her! Now she despised herself! Above all, how +Nyoda must despise her--Nyoda, who always said the right thing at the +right time, and whose tongue never got her into trouble! Nyoda might have +nothing more to do with such a tattle tale! In her anguish she groaned +aloud. + +"Don't you see," went on Nyoda earnestly, "what suffering you bring upon +yourself as well as upon other people by just not thinking? You could +escape all that if you acquired a little discretion." + +"Oh, I'll never tell anything again!" Hinpoha cried vehemently. "I'll +keep my lips tight shut, I'll sew them shut. I won't be like a sieve. You +can tell all the secrets in front of me you like, they'll be safe. Oh, +don't say you'll never tell me any more secrets!" she said pleadingly. +"Just try me and see!" + +"Certainly I'll keep on telling you secrets," said Nyoda, "because I +believe they really will be safe after this." She saw the depth of woe +into which Hinpoha had been plunged and knew that the bitter experience +had taught her a lesson in discretion she would not soon forget. Poor +impulsive, short-sighted Hinpoha! How her tongue was forever tripping her +up, and what agonies of remorse she suffered afterward! + +Hinpoha uncovered one eye and saw Nyoda looking at her with the same +loving, friendly glance as always, and cast herself impulsively upon her +shoulder. "You'll see how discreet I can be!" she murmured humbly. + +Nyoda smiled down at her and held her close for a minute. + +"Listen!" she said. From the room where Sylvia lay there came the sound +of a song. It began falteringly at first and choked off several times, +but went bravely on, gaining in power, until the merry notes filled the +house. The indomitable little spirit had fought its battle with gloom and +come out victorious. + +"The spirit of a princess!" Nyoda exclaimed admiringly. "Sylvia is of the +true blood royal; she knows that the thoroughbred never whimpers; it is +only the low born who cry out when hurt." + +"Gee, listen to that!" exclaimed Slim, sitting in the library with Sherry +and the other two boys, when Sylvia's song rang through the house, brave +and clear. The four looked at each other, and the eyes of each held a +tribute for the brave little singer. Sherry stood up and saluted, as +though in the presence of a superior officer. + +"She ought to have a Distinguished Valor Cross," he said, "for +conspicuous bravery under fire." + +"Pluckiest little kid I ever saw!" declared Slim feelingly, and then blew +a violent blast on his nose. + +"Sing a cheer!" called Sahwah, and the Winnebagos lined up in the hall +outside Sylvia's door and sang to her with a vigor that made the windows +rattle: + + "Oh, Sylvia, here's to you, + Our hearts will e'er be true, + We will never find your equal + Though we search the whole world through!" + + + + + CHAPTER XIII + THE MASQUERADE + + +"I don't suppose we'll have the party now," observed Gladys, after Sylvia +had fallen asleep. "It's a shame. We were going to have such a big time +to-night." + +"Indeed, we _will_ have the party anyhow!" said Nyoda emphatically. +"We'll outdo ourselves to make Sylvia have a hilarious time to-night. The +time to laugh the loudest is when you feel the saddest. Gladys, will you +engineer the candy making? You have your masquerade costume ready, +haven't you? The rest of you will have to hurry to get yours fixed, it's +three o'clock already. There are numerous chests of old clothes up in the +attic; you may take anything you like from them. And that reminds me, I +must go and bring out my old Navajo blanket for--" "Goodness!" she said, +stopping herself just in time, "I almost told who is going to wear it. +Now everybody be good and don't ask me any questions. I have to bring it +down and air it before it can be worn because it's packed away in +mothballs." + +She ran lightly up the stairs, chanting: + + "There was an old chief of the Navajo, + Fell over the wigwam and broke his toe, + And now he is gone where the good Injuns go, + And his blanket is done up in cam-pho-o-or!" + +She trailed out the last word into such a mournful wail that the +Winnebagos shrieked with laughter. + +A few minutes later she came down the stairs with a mystified face. "The +blanket's gone!" she announced. "Stolen. I had it in the lower drawer of +the linen closet off the hall upstairs, all wrapped up in tar paper. The +tar paper's there in the drawer, folded up, with the mothballs lying on +top of it, and the blanket is gone. Did any of you take it out to wear +to-night?" she asked, looking relieved at the thought. + +No one had taken it, however. Slim was the only one who wanted to be an +Indian, and he was waiting for Nyoda to fetch the blanket for him. +Without a doubt it had been stolen. So the midnight visitor had been a +thief after all! But why did he take a blanket and nothing else? It was a +valuable blanket, but the silverware and jewelry in the house were worth +a great deal more. The mystery reared its head again. What manner of man +was this strange visitor? + +"My mother always used to keep her silver wrapped in the blankets in a +clothes closet," said Gladys, "and burglars broke into our house and +found it all. The policeman that papa reported it to said that was a +common place for people to hide valuables and burglars usually searched +through blankets. This burglar must have been looking for valuables in +the blanket, and got scared away before he looked anywhere else, but took +the blanket because it was such a good one." + +"That must have been it," said Nyoda. "I've heard of cases before where +valuables were stolen from their hiding places in blankets and bedding. +Well, we were lucky to get away as we did. + +"Slim, you'll have to be something beside an Indian chief, for I haven't +another Navajo blanket. It's too bad, too, because you had the real bow +and arrows, but cheer up, we'll find something else. The trouble is, +though," she mourned, "we haven't much of anything that will fit you. The +blanket would have solved the problem so nicely." + +"Let him wear the mothballs," suggested Justice. "He can be an African +chief instead of an Indian. A nice string of mothballs would be all----" + +Slim threw a sofa cushion at him and Justice subsided. + +The stolen blanket remained the chief topic of conversation until late in +the afternoon, when Katherine made a discovery which furnished a new +theme. She was up in the attic, hunting something from which to concoct a +masquerade suit, and while rummaging through a trunk came upon a +photograph underneath a pile of clothes. It was the picture of a young +girl dressed in the fashion of a bygone day, with a tremendously long, +full skirt bunched up into an elaborate "polonaise." Above a pair of +softly curved shoulders smiled a face of such witching beauty that +Katherine forgot all about the trunk and its contents and gazed +spellbound at the photograph. In the lower right hand corner was written +in a beautiful, even hand, "_To Jasper, from Sylvia_." + +Katherine flew downstairs to show her find to the others. + +"O how beautiful!" they cried, one after another, as they gazed at the +picture of the girl Uncle Jasper could not forget. The small, piquant +face, in its frame of dark hair, looked up at them from the picture with +a winning, friendly smile, and looking at it the Winnebagos began to feel +the charm of the living Sylvia Warrington, and to fall in love with her +even as Uncle Jasper had done. + +"Take it up to Sylvia," said Migwan. "She'll be delighted to see a +picture of her Beloved." + +Sylvia gazed with rapt fondness at the beautiful young face. +"Isn't--she--lovely?" she said in a hushed voice. "She looks as though +she would be sorry about my being lame, if she knew. May I keep her with +me all the time, Nyoda? She's such a comfort!" + +"Certainly, you may keep the picture with you," said Nyoda, rejoicing +that a new interest had come up just at this time, and left her hugging +the photograph to her bosom. + +Right after supper Nyoda shooed all the rest upstairs to their rooms +while she arrayed Sylvia for the party. In her endeavor to cheer and +divert her she gathered materials with a lavish hand and dressed her like +a real fairy tale princess, in a beautiful white satin dress, and a gold +chain with a diamond locket, and bracelets, and a coronet on her +fine-spun golden hair. The armchair she made into a throne, covered with +a purple velvet portiére; and she spread a square of gilt tapestry over +the footstool. + +The effect, when Sylvia was seated upon the throne, was so gorgeously +royal that Nyoda felt a sudden awe stealing over her, and she could +hardly believe it was the work of her own hands. Sylvia seemed indeed a +real princess. + +"We have on the robes of state to-night," said Sylvia, with a half +hearted return to her once loved game, "for our royal father, the king, +is coming to pay us a visit with all his court." + +Nyoda made her a sweeping curtsey and hurried upstairs to dress herself. +The costumes of all the rest were kept a secret from one another, and no +one was to unmask until the stroke of eleven. She heard stifled giggles +and exclamations coming through the doors of all the rooms as she +proceeded down the hall. + +Crash! went something in one of the rooms and Nyoda paused to +investigate. There stood Slim before a mirror, hopelessly entangled in a +sheet which he was trying to drape around himself. A wild sweep of his +hand had smashed the electric light bulb at the side of the mirror, and +sent the globe flying across the room to shatter itself on the floor. + +"Wait a minute, I'll help you," said Nyoda, coming forward laughing. + +Slim emerged from the sheet very red in the face, deeply abashed at the +damage he had done. + +"I was only trying to grab ahold of the other end," he explained +ruefully, "like this--" He flung out the other hand in a gesture of +illustration, and smash went the globe on the other side of the mirror. + +Nyoda laughed at his horror-stricken countenance, and soothed his +embarrassment while she pinned him into the sheet and pulled over his +head the pillow case which was to act as mask. + +"Just as if you could disguise Slim by masking him!" she thought +mirthfully as she worked. "The more you try to cover him up the worse you +give him away. It's like trying to disguise an elephant." + +She got him finished, and as a precaution against further accidents bade +him sit still in the chair where she placed him until the dinner gong +sounded downstairs; then she hastened on toward her own room. + +"Oh, I forgot about Hercules!" she suddenly exclaimed aloud. "I promised +to get something for him." + +"Migwan's gone down to fix him up," said a voice from one of the rooms in +answer to her exclamation. "She found a costume for him this afternoon, +and she's down in the kitchen now, getting him ready." + +Nyoda breathed a sigh of gratitude for Migwan's habitual thoughtfulness, +and went in to don her own costume. + +Down in the kitchen Migwan was getting Hercules into the suit she had +picked out for him from the trunkfull of masquerade costumes she had +found up in the attic. It was a long monkish habit with a cowl, made of +coarse brown stuff, and it covered him from head to foot. The mask was +made of the same material as the suit, and hung down at least a foot +below his grizzly beard. + +"Sure nobody ain't goin' ter recognize me?" Hercules asked anxiously. + +Migwan's prediction that an invitation to the party would cheer him up +had been fulfilled from the first. Hercules was so tickled that he forgot +his misery entirely. He was in as much of a flutter as a young girl +getting ready for her first ball; he had been in the house half a dozen +times that day anxiously inquiring if the party were surely going to be, +and if there would be a suit for him. + +Migwan put in the last essential pin, and then stepped back to survey the +result of her efforts. "If you keep your feet underneath the gown, not a +soul will know you," she assured him. She had thoughtfully provided a +pair of gloves, so that even if he did put out his hands their color +could not betray him. + +"Of course, you must not talk," she warned him further. + +"Course not, course not," he agreed. "When's all dese here mask comin' +off?" he continued. + +"When the clock strikes eleven we'll all unmask," explained Migwan, "and +then the Princess is going to give the prize to the one that had the best +costume." + +"An' dey's nobody 'xcept me an' you knows I'm wearin' dis suit?" he +inquired for the third time. + +Migwan reassured him, and with a final injunction not to show himself in +the front part of the house until he heard the dinner gong, she sped up +the back stairs to her own belated masking. + +She had barely finished when the sound of the gong rose through the +house, and the stairway was filled with a grotesquely garbed throng +making its way, with stifled exclamations and smothered bursts of +laughter, into the long drawing room where the Princess sat. Migwan +clapped on her mask and sped down after them, getting there just as the +fun commenced. She spied Hercules standing in the corner behind the +Princess's throne, maintaining a religious silence and keeping his feet +carefully out of sight. She kept away from him, fearing that he would +forget himself and speak to her, entirely forgetting that he could not +recognize her under her disguise. + +Sylvia shrieked with amusement at the grotesque figures circling around +her. It was the very first masque party she had ever seen, and she could +not get over the wonder of it. Nyoda smiled mistily behind her mask as +she watched her. How lonely that valiant little spirit must have been all +these years, shut away from the frolics of youth; lonely in spite of the +brave make believe with which she passed away the time! And now the years +stretched out before her in endless sameness; the poor little princess +would never leave her throne. + +Sherry and Justice and the Captain kept Nyoda guessing as to which one +was which, but she soon picked out the one she knew must be Hercules, and +watched him in amusement. She had rather fancied that he would turn out +to be the clown of the party, but he sat still most of the time and kept +his eyes on the Princess. He seemed utterly fascinated by the glitter of +her costume. Even the Punch and Judy show going on in the other end of +the room failed to hold his attention, although the rest of the +spectators were in convulsions of mirth. + +The Princess called on Punch and Judy to do their stunt over and over +again until they were too hoarse to utter another sound. Migwan, who had +been Judy, fled to the kitchen for a drink of water to relieve her aching +throat. She took the opportunity to slip off the hot mask for a moment +and get a breath of fresh air. She was almost suffocated behind the mask. + +Then, while she stood there cooling off, she remembered the big pan of +candy Gladys had set outdoors to harden, and hastened out to bring it in. +Someone was walking across the yard, and as Migwan looked up, startled, +the light which streamed out of the kitchen door fell full upon the black +face of Hercules. Migwan stood still, clutching the pan of candy +mechanically, her eyes wide open with surprise. Hercules stood still too, +and stood staring at her with an expression of dismay. He no longer had +the monk's costume on. + +"How did you get out here?" Migwan asked curiously. "You're inside--at +the party." + +Hercules laughed nervously, and Migwan noticed that his jaw was +trembling. + +"What's the matter, Hercules?" she asked. "What's happened?" + +"Now, missy, missy--" began Hercules, and Migwan could hear his teeth +chatter, while his eyes began to roll strangely in his head. + +"What's the matter, are you sick?" asked Migwan in alarm. + +"Yes'm, dat's it, dat's it," chattered Hercules, finding his voice. "I'm +awful sick. I had to come outside." + +"But I left you sitting in there a minute ago with your suit on," said +Migwan wonderingly, "and you didn't come out after me. Did you go out of +the front door?" + +"Yes'm, dat's it," said Hercules hastily. "I come out de front doah an' +roun' dat way." + +A sudden impulse made Migwan look down the drive, covered with a light +fall of snow and gleaming white in the glare of the street light. + +"But there aren't any footprints in the snow," she said in surprise. +"Your footprints are coming from the barn." A nameless uneasiness filled +her. What was Hercules doing out here? + +"Yes'm," repeated Hercules vacuously, "I came from de barn." + +Migwan stared at him in surprise. Was he out of his mind? + +"Hercules," she began severely, but never finished the sentence, for the +old man swayed, clutched at the empty air, and fell heavily in the snow +at her feet. + + + + + CHAPTER XIV + AN UNINVITED GUEST + + +Migwan ran into the house and burst breathlessly in upon the merrymakers. + +"Nyoda!" she cried in a frightened voice, "Hercules is--" Then she +stopped as though she had seen a ghost, for there sat Hercules in his +monk's costume, just as he had been all evening! + +"What's the matter?" asked Nyoda in alarm, seeing her pale face and +staring eyes. + +Migwan clutched her convulsively. "There's a man outside," she panted, +"that looks just like Hercules, and when I spoke to him he fell down on +the ground!" + +In an instant all was pandemonium. Everybody rushed for the kitchen door +and ran out into the yard, where the figure of a man lay dark upon the +snow. Sherry tore off his mask and flung it away, and bending over the +prostrate man turned his flashlight full on his face. + +"It _is_ Hercules!" he exclaimed in astonishment. + +"Is he dead?" faltered Migwan. + +"No, he's breathing, but he's unconscious," said Sherry. "It's his heart, +I suppose. He's been having spells with it lately. Run into the house, +somebody, and get that leather covered flask in the medicine chest." + +Justice raced in for the flask and Sherry raised Hercules' head from the +ground and poured some of the brandy between his lips. In a few minutes +the old man began to stir and mutter, and Nyoda, holding his wrist, felt +his pulse come up. They carried him to his room in the stable and laid +him down on his bed, and Nyoda found the heart drops which Hercules had +been taking for some time. + +"But where is the one I thought was Hercules--the one with the monk's +suit on?" cried Migwan, after the first fright about Hercules had +subsided. + +Sherry and the boys looked at one another dumfounded. None of them had +known, as Migwan did, that the brown robe and cowl presumably covered +Hercules. They looked about for the brown figure that had moved so +unobtrusively amongst them that evening. It had vanished. + +"He's gone!" shouted Sherry excitedly. "There's something queer going on +here." + +The monk was certainly not in the house any longer, and there were no +footprints in the snow outside the house. + +"Did he fly away?" asked Sherry in perplexity. + +Justice jumped up with a great exclamation. "The secret passage!" he +shouted, "he's gone down the secret passage!" + +They flew back inside the house to the stair landing, half expecting to +find it standing open, but it was closed and looked perfectly natural. +Sherry grasped the post, the landing slid out and the four went down the +ladder. Justice gave a triumphant exclamation when he reached the bottom. +"The barricades are taken down! He did come this way!" + +They hurried through the door into the passage, half expecting to see a +figure flying along ahead of them, but the passage was empty and no sound +of a footfall broke the silence. They searched the place thoroughly, but +nowhere did they find their man hidden. Behind the chest in the cave, +however, Justice pounced upon something with a shout. It was the long +brown costume that had been worn by the monk at the party. + + + + + CHAPTER XV + HERCULES' STORY + + +When Sherry and the boys returned from their fruitless chase Hercules had +regained consciousness, and was telling Nyoda in a shaking voice that he +felt better, but he was still too weak to sit up. + +"Mah time's come, Mis' 'Lizbeth," he said mournfully. "I'se a goner." + +"Nonsense," said Nyoda brightly. "You'll be up and around in the morning. +The doctor that gave you this medicine said you'd have these spells once +in a while, but the heart drops would always bring you round all right." + +"I'se a-goin' dis time," he repeated. "I'se had a token. Dreamed about +runnin' water las' night, an' dat's a sure sign. _Ain't_ no surer sign +den dat anywhere, Mis' 'Lizbeth." + +"Nonsense," said Nyoda again. "You shouldn't believe in signs. Tell us +what happened to-night and that'll make you feel better." + +"Mis' 'Lizbeth," said the old man solemnly, "I'se goin' ter tell de whole +thing. I wasn't goin' ter say nothin' a-tall, but gon' ter die, like I +am, I'se skeered ter go an' not tell you-all." + +He took a sip from the tumbler at his hand and cleared his throat. + +"Mis' 'Lizbeth," he began, "dat weren't no burglar dat git inter de house +dat night. You jus' lissen till I tell you de whole bizness. Dat day +you-all find dem footprints on de stairs I mos' had a fit, 'case I knowed +somebody'd got in th'u de secrut passidge." + +"But you said you didn't know anything about a secret passage," said +Nyoda, in surprise. + +"Mis' 'Lizbeth," said Hercules deprecatingly, evidently urged on to open +confession by the knowledge that death had him by the coat tail, "I +_said_ dat, but it weren't true. Ole Marse Jasper, he say once if I ever +tell about dat secrut passidge de debbel'd come in th'u it an' carry me +off, an' I'se bin skeered even ter say secrut passidge. + +"Dere weren't nobody livin' dat knew about dat secrut passidge, an' when +I sees dem footprints I reckons it mus' be de debbel himself. But +yestidday I sees a man hangin' roun' behin' de barn, an' I axs him what +he wants, an' he sticks up two fingers an' makes a sign dat I uster know +yeahs ago. I looks at de man agin, an' I says, 'Foh de Lawd, am de dead +come ter life?' 'Case it's Marse Jasper's ole frien', Tad Phillips." + +A sharp exclamation of astonishment went around the circle of listeners. + +"He's an ole man, an' his hair's nearly white, but I see it were Marse +Tad, all right. + +"'I hearn you-all was dead,' I says ter him, but Marse Tad, he say no, +people all thought he's dead an' he let 'em think so, 'case he cain't +never meet up wif his ole frien's no more. You see, Mis' 'Lizbeth," he +threw in an explanation, "Marsh Tad he gave some sick folks poison +instead of medicine, an' dey die, an' he go 'way, outen de country, an' +bimeby de papers say he's dead an' his wife's dead. But dey ain't; it's a +mistake, but he don' tell nobody, an' bimeby he come back, him an' his +wife. Dey take another name, an' dey goes to a town whar nobody knows +'em. Bimeby a baby girl gits born an' his wife she dies. + +"Marse Tad he ain't never bin himself since he gave dem folks dat poison; +he cain't fergit it a-tall. It pester him so he cain't work, an' he +cain't sleep, an' he cain't never laugh no more. He give up bein' a +doctor 'case he say he cain't trust himself no more. He get so low in his +mind when his wife die dat he think he'll die too, an' he sends de baby +away to some folks dat wants one. + +"But he don't die; he jest worry along, but he's powerful low in his mind +all de time. He think all de time 'bout dem people he poisoned. Fin'lly +he say he'll go 'way agin; he'll go back ter South America. But before he +goes, he gits ter thinkin' he'd like ter see his chile once. He fin's out +dat de people he sent her to ain't never got her; dat she's with somebody +else, in a place called Millvale, in dis very state. He go to Millvale, +an' he look in th'u de winder, an' he see her. She's the livin' image of +his dead wife, light hair an' dark eyes an' all. + +"He never let her know he's her father, 'case he feel so terrible 'bout +dem folks he poisoned dat he thinks he ain't no good, a-tall, an' mustn't +speak to her. But he's so wild to see her dat he hang aroun' in dat town, +workin' odd jobs, an' at night lookin' in de window where she sits. + +"Den suddenly de folks she's wif up an' move away, an' he cain't see her +no more. He jest cain't stand it. He finds out dat dey come here to +Oakwood, an' he comes too. But he don't know which house she live in and +he cain't find her. He gets to wanderin' around, and one night he comes +to de ole big house he uster live in, way up on Main Street Hill. It's +all dark and tumble down, and he thinks he'll just go in once and look +around. He goes in, and inside he hears a voice singin'. It sounds jest +like his wife's voice. She were a beautiful singer, Mis' 'Lizbeth--de +Virginia nightingale, folks uster call her. He stands dere in dat dark, +empty house, lissenin' ter dat voice and he thinks it's his wife's +sperrit singin' ter him. She's singin' a song she uster sing when she +were young, somethin' about larks." + +Katherine made a convulsive movement, and her heart began to pound +strangely. + +"Den he say a lady come in de front door and he gits scairt and runs +out." + +Katherine's head began to whirl, and she kept silence with an effort. + +"He stand around outside for a while and bimeby an autermobile comes +along and de folks carries a girl out of de house and takes her away. He +sees de girl when dey's bringin' her out, and he knows she's his. He +watches where dat autermobile goes and it comes here." + +The old man paused for a minute and looked around at the group at his +bedside, all hanging spellbound upon his words. + +"Mis' 'Lizbeth," he said dramatically, "little Missy Sylvia am Tad +Phillips' little girl!" + +When the sensation caused by his surprising story had subsided, Hercules +continued: + +"He jest have ter see her before he go 'way, and he remember about de +secrut passidge th'u de hill dat he and Marse Jasper uster play in. He +come th'u in de night an get inter de house, but he cain't find her. He +see dere's people sleepin' in all de spare rooms dat uster be empty, and +he cain't go lookin' round. He left dem footprints on de stairs, Mis' +'Lizbeth; it ain't blood; it's paint. Dey's a ole jar of paint down dere +in de passidge, and he knocks it over and it breaks and he steps inter de +paint." + +"But Hercules," interrupted Sherry, "how did he get into the passage from +the outside? The way is blocked." + +"Dere's another way ter git out," replied Hercules, "before you come to +de doah down dere. I disremember jest how it is, but it comes up th'u de +floah of dat little summerhouse down de hillside. De boys fixed it up +after de other way was blocked. + +"When I find Marse Tad out behind de barn he's feelin' sick, and I +brought him in and put him in my bed." + +A light flashed through Nyoda's mind. "Was that what you wanted the hot +coffee for yesterday?" she asked. + +"Yessum," replied Hercules meekly. Then he continued: + +"Marse Tad he wanter see little missy so bad I promise ter help him. When +you-all gives me dat invite to de party and says I gotter wear a mask I +fixes it up wif Marse Tad to put on de maskrade suit after I get it and +go in and see little missy. While he's inside I stays outside. Den all of +a sudden out come Missy Camphor Girl and sees me and screeches dat she +jest left me inside. I got so scairt I jest nat'chly collapsed. Dat's +all." + +"Your friend Tad ran out through the secret passage and disappeared," +said Sherry. + +"He's gone on de train by dis time," said Hercules, his voice getting +weak again. "He was goin' on de ten-ten. He's goin' ter sail Noo Year's +Day." + +"Whew!" whistled Sherry. "What a drama has been going on right under our +very noses, and we knowing nothing about it! Sylvia the child of Uncle +Jasper's old friend! And by what a narrow chance we came upon her!" + +Into this excitement came Migwan, who had been in the house with Sylvia. + +"Sylvia's sick," she said in a troubled voice to Nyoda. "Her head is hot +and her hands are like ice, and she's been coughing hard for the last +half hour. She couldn't hold her head up for another minute, and I put +her to bed." + +"I was afraid she was going to be sick," said Nyoda. "She been coughing +off and on all day long, and her cheeks were so bright to-night, it +seemed to me she looked feverish. I'm afraid the excitement of the party +was too much for her. Don't anyone breathe a word of what Hercules has +told us just now, she must be kept quiet." + +They all promised. + +In the moment when they stood looking at Hercules and waiting for Nyoda +to start back to the house, Slim suddenly thought of something. + +"If it wasn't a thief that came in, why did he take your blanket?" he +asked. + +Hercules answered, addressing himself to Nyoda. "Marse Tad didn't take +dat blanket, Mis' 'Lizbeth. _I_ took dat blanket. But I didn't steal it. +I jest borried it. Borried it to wrap around Marse Tad. I couldn't ask +you-all fer one, 'case you-all knew I had plenty, and I was skeered you'd +be gettin' 'spicious. I saw you-all puttin' dat ole blanket away in dat +drawer a long time ago, and I thought you-all never used it and would +never know if it was gone fer a day. It ain't hurt a might, Mis' +'Lizbeth, dere it is, over in de corner. How's you-all know it was gone?" +he asked, in comical amazement. + +Nyoda explained, and soothed his agitation about the blanket in a few +words. + +The strain of telling his story had worn him out and he lay back and +began to gasp feebly. + +"Everybody go back to the house," commanded Nyoda, "and let Hercules +rest." + +"I'se a-goin' dis time," murmured the old man. "I'se goin' ter Abram's +bosom. Swing low, sweet chariot, comin' fer to carry me home!" + +"Nonsense!" said Nyoda, "you'll be all right in the morning," but she +called Sherry back and asked him to stay with Hercules the rest of the +night. + +Then she went back to the house and found Sylvia burning with fever and +too hoarse to speak. She applied the usual remedies for a hard cold and +rose from bed to see how she was every hour throughout the night. Morning +brought no improvement, however, and with a worried look on her face +Nyoda went downstairs and telephoned the doctor. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI + A LETTER + + +Sylvia's illness increased during the day; her fever rose rapidly and the +coughing spells grew more violent and more frequent. Nyoda turned +Hercules over to Sherry and Justice and gave Sylvia her whole attention. +No whisper of the exciting news that rocked the family was allowed to +come to her ears for fear of its effect upon the fever. + +"Bronchitis," the doctor had said whom Nyoda had hastily summoned, "watch +out for pneumonia." + +The Winnebagos roamed the house, anxious and excited, talking in low +tones about the amazing turn of events, and listening eagerly for Nyoda +to come out of the sick room. Slim and the Captain shifted uneasily from +one chair to another until Katherine begged them to go out and take a +long walk. + +"You make me nervous, trying so hard to keep quiet," she said to Slim. + +The boys went out. + +Migwan made some lemon jelly for Hercules and Sahwah carried it out to +him. + +"Does he still believe he's dying?" asked Katherine when Sahwah returned +to the house. + +"He's surer than ever," replied Sahwah. "He's making the arrangements for +his funeral. He's sorry now that he didn't join the Knights of Pythias +when he had the chance so he could have had a band." + +"Is he really as sick as that?" asked Hinpoha in a scared voice. + +"Sherry says he isn't," said Sahwah, "but Hercules insists that he won't +live till morning. Sherry's getting sort of anxious about him himself, +Justice told me outside the barn. Sherry said that Hercules believed so +firmly in signs he'd just naturally worry himself to death before long, +if he didn't stop thinking about the 'token' he'd had. People do that +sometimes. Hercules' heart _is_ bad and believing that his end was near +might bring on a fatal spell." + +"Can't we do something to make him stop thinking about it?" asked Migwan. +"Remember the Dark of the Moon Society, Sahwah, that you got up to bring +Katherine out of a fit of the blues that time up on Ellen's Isle?" + +"We can't do anything like that now, though," said Sahwah. "The foolish +things we do wouldn't have any effect upon him at all." + +"I guess you're right," said Migwan with a sigh, after various things had +been suggested and immediately abandoned. "But I wish we could do +something to rouse him from the dumps he's fallen into," she added with a +sigh. "It seems as though we Winnebagos ought to be equal to the +emergency." + +"You might read something to him," said Katherine desperately, after +several minutes of hard thinking had sprouted no ideas. "Read him 'The +Hound of the Baskervilles.' That will gently divert his thoughts. It's +absolutely the biggest thriller that was ever written. Judge Dalrymple +bought it on the train once, when he was going from Milwaukee to some +little town in Wisconsin, and he got so absorbed in it that he never came +to until the train pulled into St. Paul, hundreds of miles beyond his +stop. You might read him one chapter a day and he won't think of dying +before he knows how it is coming out. It'll be a sort of Arabian Nights +performance." + +"Where will I get the book?" asked Migwan. + +"I saw it in one of the cases in the library," replied Katherine. "It +must have belonged to Mr. Carver's housekeeper, for I'm sure he never +owned such a book." + +"All right," said Migwan, "let's take it out and tell Justice to read it +to Hercules." + +Katherine found the book on the library shelf and opened it to a picture +she wanted the girls to see. As she turned the pages a letter fell out +and dropped to the floor. She stopped to pick it up, and could not help +reading the address. It was addressed to Mr. Jasper Carver, Esquire, and +had never been opened. + +"Here's a letter for Uncle Jasper that must have come after he died," +said Katherine, "for it hasn't been opened." Nyoda came into the room +just then, and she handed it to her. + +Nyoda looked at the date. "April 12, 1917," she read. "That's the very +day Uncle Jasper died. This letter must have come while he lay dead in +the house here, and in the confusion somebody put it into that book, +where it has stayed all this while. I opened all the other letters that +came after his death and took care of the matters they concerned. I hope +this isn't a bill--the creditor will think we are poor business people +not to reply." She reached for the letter opener and slit the envelope. + +Inside was a letter, not a bill, written in a cramped, shaky hand upon +coarse notepaper. It was dated from a small town in New York State. Nyoda +carried it over to the window and read it: + + "Mr. Jasper Carver, Esq., + + Oakwood, Pa. + + Dear Sir: + + I take the liberty of writing to you, for you are the only one I can + find a trace of who was a friend of the late Dr. Sidney Phillips. I + found a card with your name and address on the floor of his room after + he left the army post at Ft. Andrews, and to you I am committing the + task of clearing his name from a disgrace which has unjustly been + fastened upon it. He is dead, and the wrong can never be righted to + him, but for the sake of his friends and relatives his memory must not + remain dishonored. + + This letter is at once an explanation and a confession. I was a Captain + of Infantry at Ft. Andrews when Dr. Phillips came there as army + surgeon. There was another officer there, a sneaking, underhand sort of + chap with whom I was having constant trouble. Upon one occasion he + committed a grave breach of military discipline, but managed to throw + the blame upon me and I was deprived of my captain's commission and + reduced to the ranks, besides doing time in the guard house. + + I brooded upon my wrong until I was ready to murder the man who had + brought it upon me. At the time of the typhoid epidemic, matters were + in bad shape at Ft. Andrews. That was before the days of Red Cross + nurses, and many of the boys had to turn in and nurse their comrades. I + was detailed to help Dr. Phillips. The man who had ruined me was down + with the fever. Ever since I had been reduced to the ranks he had + taunted me openly with my disgrace and even as he lay in bed he made + insulting remarks when I brought him his medicine. Finally in a mad + rage I decided to be revenged upon him once and forever. I put a deadly + poison into the dose Dr. Phillips had just mixed for him, slipping it + in while the doctor was out of the room for a moment. I thought the + dose was intended for him alone, but to my horror it was given to a + dozen men, and they all died. + + The whole country became stirred up about it, and such abuse was hurled + at Dr. Phillips as no man ever suffered before. It was supposed that he + had carelessly mistaken the poison for another harmless ingredient. I + dared not confess that it was I who had done it, for in my case it + would mean trial for first degree murder, while with the doctor it was + simply a case of accident, and would blow over in time. + + The doctor left the Post, a broken-down, ruined man, and died of yellow + fever in Cuba not long after. + + I have kept the secret for twenty-five years, suffering tortures of + conscience, but not brave enough to confess. Now, however, I am in the + last stages of a fatal disease and cannot live a week longer. By the + time this reaches you I shall be gone. Take this confession and publish + it to the world, that tardy justice may be done the memory of Dr. + Phillips. He was innocent of the whole thing. May God forgive me! + + George Ingram." + + +The confession was witnessed by two doctors whose signatures appeared +under his. + +"He didn't do it! Tad didn't do it!" + +The amazed cry rang through the library, as the Winnebagos and Nyoda +clutched each other convulsively. + +"We must bring him back!" said Nyoda, and ran out to the barn to Sherry +with the letter in her hand. + +An hour later Sherry and Hercules sat drinking strong, hot coffee at the +kitchen table while Nyoda hastily packed traveling bags for them. +Hercules had forgotten all about dying. When he heard the news in the +letter he sprang from bed and began dressing with greater speed than he +had ever done in his life. The train for New York went in two hours and +he and Sherry must catch it if they hoped to reach the steamer before she +sailed. There was no way of reaching Tad by telegraph. They did not know +what name he was going under, nor the name of the boat on which he was to +sail. The only thing they could do was rush to New York, find out which +boat was sailing for South America on the first, go on board and search +for Tad. Only Hercules would be able to identify him. Hercules rose to +the occasion. + +"We certainly gave Hercules something to make him forget his +superstition," said Katherine, sitting down on the sink to collect her +thoughts after the meteoric flight of the two men from the house. + +"We certainly did," said Migwan, trembling with excitement. + +A racking cough sounded through the house. "Sh, Sylvia's worse," said +Migwan, putting her fingers to her lips. "Don't anybody go near her, or +she'll notice how excited you are. How on earth does Nyoda manage to keep +so calm when she's with her?" + +"If Sylvia should get pneumonia--" began Sahwah, and then chocked over +the dreadful possibility. + +"If they only bring Mr. Phillips back in time," said Katherine, as if +echoing the thing that lay in Sahwah's thoughts. + +"Don't say such dreadful things," said Hinpoha, with starting tears. + +"Maybe they won't be able to find him at all," said Katherine dubiously. + +"They _must_, they _must_," said Sahwah, with dry lips. + +"They _must_," echoed the others, and hardly daring to think, they +entered upon the trying period of waiting. + + + + + CHAPTER XVII + WAITING + + +"How is Sylvia?" Katherine's voice was husky with anxiety. + +Nyoda looked grave over the tray she was carrying down to the kitchen. +"No better yet; a little worse this morning, if anything. Her fever has +gone up one degree during the night and she is coughing more than ever." + +"Is it going to be pneumonia?" asked Katherine steadily, her eyes +searching Nyoda's face. + +"Not if I can help it," replied Nyoda, in a tone of grim determination, +the light of battle sparkling in her eyes. Nevertheless, there was a note +of worry in her voice that struck cold fear into Katherine's heart, +stoutly optimistic as she was. What if Sylvia should die before her +father came back? The other Winnebagos, clustering around Nyoda to hear +the latest news from Sylvia's bedside, stood hushed and solemn. Nyoda set +the tray down on the table and leaned wearily against the door, her eyes +heavy from lack of sleep. Instantly Migwan was at her side, all +solicitude. + +"Go, lie down and sleep awhile, Nyoda," she urged. "You've been up nearly +all night. I can look after Sylvia for a few hours--I know how. Go to bed +now and we'll bring some breakfast up to you, and then you can go to +sleep." Putting her arm around Nyoda she led her upstairs and tucked her +into bed, smoothing the covers over her with gentle, motherly hands, +while the girls below prepared a dainty breakfast tray. + +"Nice--child!" murmured Nyoda, from the depths of her pillow. +"Nice--old--Migwan! Always--taking--care--of--someone!" Her voice trailed +off in a tired whisper, and by the time the breakfast tray arrived she +was sound asleep. + +Sylvia also slept most of the time that Migwan watched beside her, a +fitful slumber broken by many coughing spells and intervals of difficult +breathing. Never had Sylvia seemed so beautiful and so princesslike to +Migwan as when she lay there sleeping in the big four-poster bed, her +shining curls spread out on the pillow and her fever-flushed cheeks +glowing like roses. Lying there so still, with her delicate little white +hand resting on top of the coverlet, she brought to Migwan's mind +Goethe's description of the beautiful, dead Mignon, in whom the vivid +tints of life had been counterfeited by skillful hands. To Migwan's +lively imagination it seemed that Sylvia was another Mignon, this child +of lofty birth and breeding also cast by accident among humble +surroundings, and singing her way into the hearts of people. Would it be +with her as it had been with Mignon; would she never be reunited in life +with her own people? The resemblance between the two lives struck Migwan +as a prophecy and her heart chilled with the conviction that Sylvia was +going to die. Tears stole down her cheek as she saw, in her mind's eye, +the father coming in just too late, and their beautiful, radiant Sylvia +lying cold and still, her joyful song forever hushed. + +Migwan's melancholy mood lasted all morning, even after Nyoda came back +and sent her out of the sick-room, and she sat staring into the library +fire in gloomy silence, quite unlike her busy, cheery self. The day crept +by on leaden feet. The hands of the clock seemed to be suffering from +paralysis; they stayed so long in one spot. Ordinarily clock hands at +Carver House went whirling around their dials like pinwheels, and the +chimes were continually striking the hour. Now each separate minute +seemed to have brought its knitting and come to stay. + +"No word from Sherry and Hercules yet!" sighed Sahwah impatiently, as the +whistles blew half past eleven. + +"Give them a chance," said Katherine, her voice proceeding in muffled +tones from the depths of the music cabinet, which, in order to pass away +the time, she had undertaken to set to rights. + +"They've had plenty of chance by this time to get down on board the +boat," returned Sahwah, getting up from her chair and pacing restlessly +up and down the room. Sahwah was not equipped by nature to bear suspense +calmly; under the stress of inaction she threatened to fly to pieces. + +Katherine looked up with a faint smile from the heaps of sheet music +lying on the floor around her. + +"Come and help me sort this music," she advised mildly, "it'll settle +your mind somewhat, besides giving me a lift. I'm afraid I've bitten off +more than I can chew. This is one grand mess of pieces without covers and +covers without pieces. You might get all the covers in order for me." + +Sahwah gazed without enthusiasm upon the littered floor. "Sort +music--ugh!" she said, with a grimace and a disgusted shrug of her +shoulders. She picked her way to the other end of the library and stood +staring restlessly out of the window. + +It was a dreary, dull day. The Christmas snow had vanished in a thaw, and +a chilly rain beat against the window panes with a dismal, melancholy +sound. The three boys fidgeted from one end of the house to the other, +but could not get up enough steam to go out for a hike. Slim and the +Captain drummed chopsticks on the piano, and Justice tried to keep up +with them on the harp, until Migwan ordered them to be quiet so Sylvia +could sleep, after which they sat in preternatural silence before the +library fire, listlessly turning over the pages of magazines which they +did not even pretend to read. The atmosphere of the house got so on +everybody's nerves that the snapping of a log in the fireplace almost +caused a panic. + +The clock struck twelve, and Migwan, rousing herself from her +preoccupation, went out into the kitchen to prepare lunch, aided by +Gladys and Hinpoha, while Sahwah continued to pace the floor and +Katherine went on nervously fitting covers to pieces and pieces to +covers, her ear ever on the alert for the sound of the telephone bell. +Justice and Slim and the Captain, grown weary of their own company, +trooped out into the kitchen after the girls, declaring _they_ were going +to get lunch, and it was not long before the inevitable reaction had set +in, and pent-up spirits began to find vent in irrepressible hilarity. + +Protests were useless. In vain Migwan flourished her big iron spoon and +ordered them out. Justice calmly took her apron and cap away from her and +announced that _he_ was going to be Chief Cook. Tying the apron around +him wrong side out, and setting the cap backward on his head, he held the +spoon aloft like a Roman short-sword, and striking an attitude in +imitation of Spartacus addressing the Gladiators, he declaimed feelingly: + + "Ye call me _Chef_, and ye do well to call him _Chef_ + Who for seven long years has camped in summertime, + And made his coffee out of rain when there was no spring water handy, + And mixed his biscuits in the wash-basin, + Because the baking-pan no longer was. + + But I was not always thus, an unhired butcher, + A savage _Chef_ of still more savage menus----" + + +The teakettle suddenly boiled over with a loud hissing and sizzling, and +the impassioned orator jumped as though he had been shot; then, +collecting himself, he rushed over and picked the kettle from the stove +and stood holding it in his hand, uncertain what to do with it. + +"Set it down on the back of the stove!" commanded Migwan. "A great cook +you are! Even Slim would know enough to do that!" + +"Thanks for the implied compliment," said Slim stiffly. + +"Slim ought to be Chief Cook," said the Captain. "He's fat. Chief cooks +are always fat." + +"Right you are!" cried Justice, taking off the apron and tying it around +Slim as far as it would go. + +"But I can't cook!" protested Slim. + +"That doesn't make any difference," replied Justice. "You look the part, +and that's all that's needed. Looks are everything, these days." + +He perched the cap rakishly on top of Slim's head and stood off a little +distance to eye the effect critically. + +"Nobody could tell the difference between you and the Chef of the +Waldorf," was his verdict. + +Indeed, Slim, with his full moon face shining out under the cap, and the +apron tied around his extensive waistline, looked just like the pictured +cooks in the spaghetti advertisements. + +"Isn't he the perfect Chef, though?" continued Justice admiringly. "He +must have been born with an iron spoon in his hand, instead of a gold one +in his mouth." Then, turning to Slim and bowing low before him, he +chanted solemnly, "Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena, go forth, beloved of +heaven! All the other cooks will drown themselves in their soup kettles +in despair when they see you coming. All hail the Chief Cook!" + +"But I can't cook!" repeated Slim helplessly. + +"You don't have to," Justice reassured him. "Chief Cooks don't have to +cook; they just direct the others. Behold, we stand ready to obey your +lightest command." + +"All right," said Slim, "suppose you pare the potatoes." + +"Ask me anything but that!" Justice begged him. "I never get the eyes cut +out, and then when they're on my plate they look up at me reproachfully, +like this----" + +Justice screwed up his face and rolled his eyes into a grimace that +convulsed the girls. + +"No, you pare the potatoes, Slim," he continued. "The Chief Cook always +pares the potatoes himself. It's too delicate a job to entrust to a +subordinate." + +Slim had his mouth open to protest, and Sahwah and Katherine, who had +just wandered out into the kitchen, were in a gale of merriment over +Slim's costume, when the doorbell rang and a messengerboy passed in a +telegram. + +They all pressed around eagerly while Katherine read it. It was from +Sherry: + + "South America boat sailed yesterday. Dr. Phillips gone. Can get no + clue. Coming home to-night." + + +A long, tragic "Oh-h-h!" from Hinpoha broke the stricken silence which +had fallen on the group at the reading of the message. + +"Tough luck," said the Captain feelingly, and Justice repeated, "Tough +luck," like an echo. + +The Winnebagos glanced uncertainly toward the stairway and looked at each +other inquiringly. + +"Somebody go up and call Nyoda," said Katherine. + +Just at that moment the door of Sylvia's room opened and Nyoda came +running downstairs with light, swift footsteps, her face wreathed in +smiles. + +"Sylvia's better," she called, before she was halfway down. "The fever +left her while she was sleeping, and her temperature is normal. The +danger of pneumonia is over. I'm so relieved." She skipped down the last +of the stairs like a young girl. + +Then she caught sight of the telegram in Katherine's hand, and sensed the +atmosphere of depression that prevailed in the lower hall. She knew the +truth before a word was spoken, and composed herself to meet it. + +"They were too late?" she said quietly, as she joined the group, and held +out her hand for the bit of yellow paper. + +"Poor Sylvia!" she exclaimed huskily. "She would soon be well enough to +hear the news--and now there is nothing to tell her. If we had only found +that letter a day sooner!" + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII + KATHERINE GOES TO THE CITY + + +"Does anyone want to go in to the city this afternoon?" asked Nyoda, as +they rose from luncheon. It had been a rather silent, dispirited meal, +and quickly gotten over with. "I had planned to go in and take a few +things to Mrs. Deane to-day, but now it will be impossible for me to get +away. Sylvia has been fretting about her aunt and I think someone ought +to go." + +"I'll go," said Katherine readily, her spirits rising at this prospect of +action. The suspense of the morning, ending in such a disappointment, had +begun to react upon her in a fit of the blues. Sahwah and Hinpoha, with +Slim and the Captain, had planned during luncheon to go roller-skating +that afternoon, but as Katherine could not roller-skate the plan held no +attraction for her. Justice had promised Sherry that he would go over the +lighting system on his car while he was away and was planning to spend +the whole afternoon in the garage; Migwan was going to sit with Sylvia to +give Nyoda a chance to rest; and Gladys had a sore throat which made her +disinclined to talk. Taking it by and large, Katherine had anticipated a +rather dismal afternoon, a prospect which was pleasantly altered by +Nyoda's request. + +"You can make the two o'clock train if you start immediately," continued +Nyoda, "and the five-fifteen will bring you back in time for dinner. I +have the things for Mrs. Deane all ready." + +Katherine rose with alacrity and put on her hat and coat. "Any errands +while I am in town?" she asked, hunting for her umbrella in the stair +closet. + +"None that I can think of," replied Nyoda, after wrinkling her brow for a +moment, "unless you want to stop at the jeweller's and get my watch. It's +been there for several weeks, being regulated." + +"All right," said Katherine, writing down the name of the jeweller in her +memorandum book. "You'll notice I'm not trusting my memory this time," +she remarked laughingly. + +"I'll take the five-fifteen train back," she called over her shoulder as +she went out of the front door. + +"Be careful how you hold that package!" Nyoda called warningly after her. +"There's a glass of jelly in it that'll upset!" + +Gingerly holding the package by the string, Katherine picked her way +through the rapidly widening puddles on the sidewalks to the station. By +some miracle of good luck the package was still right side up when she +arrived at the hospital, and she breathed an audible sigh of relief when +it was at last safely out of her hands. + +She found Mrs. Deane a frail, kindly-faced woman, bearing her discomfort +cheerfully, but, nevertheless, lonesome in this strange hospital ward and +very grateful for any attention shown her. Katherine began, as she +described it, to "express her sympathy quietly and in a ladylike manner," +and ended up by delivering her famous "Wimmen's Rights" speech for the +benefit of the whole ward. She finally escaped, after her sixth encore, +and fetched up breathless on the sidewalk, only to discover that she had +left her umbrella behind, and before she retrieved it she had to give her +speech all over again, for the benefit of an old lady who had been asleep +during the first performance. + +There still being three-quarters of an hour before train time after she +had called at the jewellers for Nyoda's watch, Katherine dropped into a +smart little tea-room to while away the intervening moments with a cup of +tea and a dish of her favorite shrimp salad. As she nibbled leisurely at +a dainty round of brown bread and idly watched the throngs coming and +going at the tables around her, a shrill cry of delight suddenly rang out +above the hum of voices and the clatter of dishes. + +"Katherine! Katherine Adams!" + +Katherine looked up to see an animated little figure in a beaver coat and +fur hat coming toward her through the crowd. + +"Katherine Adams!" repeated the voice, "don't you know me?" + +"Why--Veronica! Veronica Lehar!" gasped Katherine in amazement. "What are +you doing here? I thought you were in New York." She caught the little +brown-gloved hands in her own big ones and squeezed them until Veronica +winced. + +"Katherine! Dear old K! How I've missed you!" Veronica cried rapturously, +and drawing her hands from Katherine's grip she flung her arms +impulsively around her neck, regardless of the curious stares of the +onlookers. + +"Let them stare!" she murmured stoutly, seeing Katherine's face flush +with embarrassment as she encountered the quizzical gaze of a keen-eyed +young man at the next table. "If they hadn't seen their beloved K for +nearly two years they'd want to hug her, too." + +She released Katherine after a final squeeze, and stood staring at her +with a puzzled expression on her vivacious face. + +"What's the matter?" asked Katherine wonderingly. "Have I got something +on wrong-side before?" + +"That's just what _is_ the matter," replied Veronica, her bewilderment +also manifesting itself in her tone. "You _haven't_ anything on +wrong-side before. You don't look natural. What has happened to you?" + +"Nothing," replied Katherine, laughing, "and--everything. I've just +learned that clothes _do_ matter, after all." + +"Why, Katherine Adams, you're perfectly stunning!" exclaimed Veronica in +sincere admiration. "That shade of blue in your dress--it was simply +_made_ for you." + +"I just happened to get it by accident," said Katherine deprecatingly, +almost sheepishly, yet thrilled through and through with pleasure at +Veronica's words of appreciation. It was no small triumph to be admired +by Veronica, whose highly artistic nature made her extremely critical of +people's appearance. + +"How I used to make your artistic eye water!" said Katherine laughingly. +"It's a wonder you stood me as well as you did." + +"It was not I who had to 'stand' you, but you who had to 'stand' me," +said Veronica seriously. "In spite of your loose ends you were--what do +you call it? 'all wool and a yard wide,' but I was the original prune." +Veronica, while a perfect master of literary English, still faltered +deliciously over slang phrases. + +Katherine, as usual, steered away from the subject of Veronica's former +attitude toward her. When a thing was over and done with, Katherine +argued, there was no use of dragging it out into the light again. + +"You haven't told me yet how you happen to be here in this tea-room this +afternoon," she said, by way of changing the subject, "when you told us, +over your own signature, that you would have to stay in New York all this +week. What do you mean," she finished with mock gravity, "by deceiving us +so?" + +"I have to play at a concert here in town to-night," explained Veronica. +"It will be necessary for me to be back at the Conservatory to-morrow, +and am returning by a late train to-night. I didn't know about it when I +wrote to Nyoda, or I should have insisted on her coming in for the +concert and bringing all the girls along. It's an emergency case; I'm +just filling in on the program in place of a 'cello soloist who was taken +suddenly ill with influenza. The concert managers sent a hurry call to +Martini last night, asking him to send over the first student who +happened to be handy, and as I happened to be taking a lesson from +Martini at the time, I was the lucky one. I just came over this +afternoon." + +Veronica modestly suppressed the fact that it had been the great Martini +himself who had been urgently requested to play at the concert, but +having a previous engagement, had chosen her, out of the whole +Conservatory, to play in his stead. + +"My aunt is here with me," continued Veronica. "She's over at that table +in the far corner behind that palm. I suppose she is wondering what has +become of me by this time. When I saw you over here I just jumped up and +ran off without a word of explanation. She's probably eaten up my nut +rolls by this time, too; they were just being served when I rushed away. +Come on over and see her." + +Katherine followed Veronica through the crowded room to the far corner, +where, at a little table beneath a softly shaded wall lamp Veronica's +aunt, Mrs. Lehar, sat placidly sipping tea and eating cakes. She did not +recognize Katherine at first, never having seen her otherwise than with +clothes awry and hair tumbling down over her eyes, and Katherine was +secretly amused at the gentle lady's look of astonishment upon being told +who it was. + +"She did eat my rolls, after all," said Veronica to Katherine. "I knew +she would. But I'm glad she did; I am in far too exalted a mood for nut +rolls now. Nothing but nectar and ambrosia will do to celebrate our +meeting. Look and see if there's any nectar and ambrosia on your menu +card, will you, Katherine dear? There doesn't seem to be any on mine." + +"None here, either," reported Katherine, after gravely reading her card +through. + +"Then let's compromise on lobster croquettes," said Veronica. "I never +eat them ordinarily, but I feel as though I could eat a dozen to +celebrate this occasion." + +"Be careful what you eat, now," warned her aunt. "It would be rather +awkward if you were to be taken with an attack of acute indigestion just +when you are due to appear on the platform." + +"Never fear!" laughed Veronica. "I am so transported over meeting +Katherine that nothing could give me indigestion now. What an inspiration +I shall have to play to-night!" + +Then, taking Katherine's hand, she said coaxingly, "You will come and +hear me play, won't you?" + +"I'm afraid I can't," replied Katherine regretfully. "I'm due to go back +on the five-fifteen train." + +"O, but you _must_ come!" cried Veronica pleadingly. "I'll be so +miserable if you don't that I sha'n't be able to play at all. You +wouldn't want me to spoil the concert on your account, would you, +Katherine dear? There is a later train you can go home on just as well, +isn't there?" + +"There is one at ten-forty-five," replied Katherine, consulting the +time-table which she carried in her hand bag. + +"You can hear me play, and make that train, too," said Veronica eagerly. +"My numbers come in the early part of the program, all but one. If you +went out after I had played my first group you could make your train +beautifully. Do telephone Nyoda that you are going to stay over, and have +her send somebody down to meet you at the later train. That Justice +person----" she said mischievously, finishing with an expressive movement +of her eyebrows. + +Katherine finally yielded to her pleading, and telephoned Nyoda that she +was going to stay in town until the ten-forty-five, which so delighted +Veronica that she ordered another croquette all the way around to +celebrate the happy circumstance. + +"_Do_ be careful, dear," warned her aunt a second time. "Those croquettes +are distressingly rich. What _would_ happen if you were to be taken ill +to-night?" + +Veronica smiled serenely. "I'm not going to be taken ill to-night, aunty +dear," she replied. "I'm going to be like Katherine, who can eat forty +lobster croquettes without getting sick." + +"Remember the mixtures we used to cook up in the House of the Open Door?" +she asked, turning to Katherine. "They were lots worse than lobster +croquettes, if the plain truth were known. You wouldn't worry at all, +aunty, dear, if you knew what we used to eat at those spreads without +damaging ourselves!" + +Katherine was completely carried away by Veronica's vivaciousness and +temperamental whimsies. If she had admired the fiery little Hungarian in +the days of the House of the Open Door, she was now absolutely enslaved +by her. To plain, matter-of-fact Katherine, Veronica, with her artistic +temperament, was a creature from another world, inspiring a certain +amount of awed wonder, as well as admiring affection. + +"What are you going to play at the concert to-night?" Katherine asked +respectfully. + +Veronica's eyes began to glow, and she pushed aside her plate, leaving +the second croquette to grow cold while she spoke animatedly upon the +subject that lay ever nearest her heart. + +"I'm going to play a cycle from Nágár, a Roumanian Gypsy composer," she +replied. "One of the pieces is the most wonderful thing; it's called 'The +Whirlwind.' It fairly carries you away with its rush and movement, until +you want to fly, and shout, and go sailing away on the wings of the wind. +Another one is named 'Fata Morgana.' You know that's what people call the +mirage that we can see out on the steppes--the open plains--of Hungary." + +"Yes?" murmured Katherine in a tone of eager interest. She loved to hear +Veronica tell tales of her homeland. + +"Many a time I have seen it," continued Veronica, her eyes sparkling with +a dreamy, far-off light, "a beautiful city standing out clear and fair +against the horizon; and have gone forth to find it, only to see it +vanish into the hot, quivering air, and to find myself lost out on the +wide, lonely steppe." + +Katherine listened, fascinated, while Veronica told stories of the +curious mirage that lured and mocked the dwellers on the lonely steppes +of her native land, and so deep was her absorption that she +absent-mindedly ate up Veronica's croquette while she listened, to the +infinite amusement of Mrs. Lehar. + +"Aren't you going to play any of your own compositions?" asked Katherine, +when Veronica had finished talking about the Nágár cycle. + +"Not as a regular number," replied Veronica, taking up her fork to finish +her croquette, and deciding that she must already have eaten it, since +her plate was empty. "If, by any chance, I should be encored, I shall +play a little piece of my own that I have named 'Fire Dreams,' and +dedicated to the Winnebagos. I wrote it one night after a ceremonial +meeting out in the woods where we danced around the fire and then sat +down in a circle to watch it burn itself away to embers. We all told our +dreams for the future that night, don't you remember? I have woven +everything together in my piece--the tall pines towering up to the sky; +the stars peering through the branches; the wind fiddling through the +leaves, and the river lapping on the stones below; with the firelight +waving and flickering, and coaxing us to tell our dreams. I love to play +it, because it brings back that scene so vividly; that and all the other +beautiful times we had around the camp fire." + +Katherine gazed at Veronica in speechless admiration. With absolutely no +musical ability herself, it seemed to her that anyone who could compose +music was a child of the gods. Veronica smiled back frankly into +Katherine's admiring eyes, and gave her hand a fond squeeze. + +"Now, tell me about Carver House and all the dear people there," she +said, settling herself comfortably in her chair and propping her elbows +on the table. "We still have an hour to spare. Aunty won't mind if we +talk about our own affairs, will you, aunty? Now, Katherine, take a long +breath and begin." + +The hour was up before Katherine was half way through telling the +exciting things that had happened at Carver House in the past week, and +with a sigh Veronica rose from the table and drew on her gloves. + +"Come," she said regretfully, "we'll have to be starting. I have to go +over to the hotel first and get my violin, and the auditorium where I am +to play is some distance out." + +As they stepped from the tea-room into the street Katherine paused to buy +Veronica a huge bunch of violets at a little stand just inside the +entrance of the tall building next door. Not having enough money in her +change-purse to pay for them, she took a roll of bills from a bill-fold +in her inner pocket, and, taking five dollars from the roll, returned it +to its place of safety in the lining of her coat. Lounging against the +glass counter beside her was a slender, long-fingered man, whose gaze +suddenly became concentrated when the roll of bills made its appearance. +Katherine noticed his look of absorbed interest and a little thrill of +uneasiness prickled along her spine. She looked sharply at this +inquisitive stranger, fixing in her mind the details of his appearance. +He wore a long, light-colored overcoat and a visor cap pulled down over +his eyes, which were small and dark, and set close together in his thin, +sallow face, giving him a peculiar, ratlike expression. Katherine +buttoned her coat carefully over the bill-fold and hastily rejoined +Veronica and Mrs. Lehar in the street outside, conscious that the man's +eyes were still upon her and that he had followed her out of the shop. To +her relief, Mrs. Lehar hailed a taxicab, and in a moment more they were +being whirled rapidly away from the scene. + +An hour later Katherine found herself sitting in state in one of the +front boxes of a crowded auditorium, impatiently waiting for the soprano +soloist to finish a lengthy operatic aria and yield her place to +Veronica. The soloist bowed her way out at last, and Veronica, looking +like a very slender little child in contrast to the massive singer, +tripped out on the stage with her violin under her arm, just as she had +always carried it around in the House of the Open Door. + +"She isn't a bit scared!" was Katherine's admiring thought. + +Nodding brightly to the audience, Veronica laid her bow across the +strings with that odd little caressing gesture that Katherine remembered +so well, and began to play her long cycle from memory. + +Strange images flitted through Katherine's brain as she listened; the +lighted stage faded from sight, and in its place there stretched a wide, +grassy plain, shimmering in the sunlight and flecked with racing cloud +shadows, far ahead, gleaming clear against the gray-blue horizon, rose +the white towers and spires of a fair city, which seemed to call to her +in friendly invitation, awakening in her an irresistible longing to +travel toward it and behold its wonders at near hand. But ever as she +approached it receded into the distance, vanishing at last in the +twinkling of an eye, and leaving her alone in the heart of a wild, +desolate moor upon which darkness was swiftly falling. She started in +affright at the long, eerie cry of a nightbird; the deepening shadows +were filled with fearful, unnamable terrors. Her head reeled; the +strength went out from her limbs, and with icy hands pressed tightly over +her eyes to shut out the menacing shadow-shapes, she sank shuddering to +the ground. She was roused by the sound of thunder, and opening her eyes +found the lonely moor vanished, and in its place the brightly lighted +stage, while the thunder which echoed in her ears resolved itself into a +tumult of hand-clapping. + +Katherine rubbed her eyes and sat up straight. "What was that piece she +just played?" she asked in a whisper. + +"That was the 'Fata Morgana,'" replied Mrs. Lehar. + +It was several minutes after ten o'clock when Veronica finished her last +encore, and Katherine, glancing at her watch, hastily reached for her +coat, and leaving a goodnight message for Veronica with Mrs. Lehar, +started from the auditorium. + + + + + CHAPTER XIX + THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF KATHERINE + + +The curious spell of the "Fata Morgana" descended upon Katherine again as +she emerged from the concert hall and made her way through a poorly +lighted side street toward the main avenue where the street cars passed. +The long, waving shadows seemed to clutch at her ankles as she walked; +strange noises sounded in her ears; the trees that bordered the curb left +their places and began to move toward her with a grotesque, circling +motion, while the distant glare of light toward which she was traveling +began to recede until it was a mere twinkling speck, miles away in the +distance. Again her strength forsook her, and with violently trembling +hands she grasped an iron fence railing and clung desperately to keep +herself from falling. The touch of the cold metal sent a little shock +tingling through her; she braced herself and looked steadily at the +spectres crowding about her. The trees had gone back into their places; +the shadows no longer seemed to be crouching ready to spring at her. + +"Silly!" exclaimed Katherine, though her teeth still chattered. + +She let go of the fence and started on; immediately the trees resumed +their fantastic circling, and again her knees threatened to double under +her. Then she realized that it was not the "Fata Morgana" that held her +in thrall, but the extra lobster croquette. The disastrous fate which +Mrs. Lehar had predicted would overtake Veronica had befallen her +instead--she was in the throes of acute indigestion! O, if only she had +not eaten that second croquette! Lobster never agreed with her; she +should have known better than to eat it, especially after she had just +eaten shrimp salad. Why hadn't she had the sense to refuse that second +one? (Katherine was still unaware that she had eaten, not two, but three +of the deadly things, a circumstance which had undoubtedly saved Veronica +from a like fate.) + +She clung dizzily to the fence for a few moments, and then, feeling +somewhat relieved by the cold wind blowing strongly against her face, +struck out once more for the carline. A few steps convinced her that she +could not make it; the world was whirling around her, and her limbs +refused to obey her will. A little farther up the street, where the fence +ended, the arched entrance-way into a church offered a resting-place and +shelter against the high wind and beating rain. Stumbling up the steps, +she sank down on the stone floor, and, pressing her cold hand against her +throbbing temples, leaned weakly against the wall of her little +sanctuary. + +Weariness overcame her and she sank gradually into a doze, from which she +wakened with a start at the sound of a steeple clock chiming. Boom! Boom! +Boom! The clanging tones echoed through the narrow street. Katherine sat +up hastily and stared around her in bewilderment for a moment; then +recollected herself and rose cautiously to her feet. To her infinite +relief she found that her knees no longer had any inclination to knock +together; the feeling of illness had passed. Taking a deep breath, and +setting her hat straight on her head, she walked steadily down the steps +and out upon the street once more. The clock which had wakened her so +rudely was in the steeple just above her and Katherine gave a gasp of +dismay when she saw the time. A quarter to eleven! She should be down at +the station now, taking the ten-forty-five train back to Oakwood. What +had happened? Could she possibly have fallen asleep in that cozy little +entrance way? Why had she not heard the clock strike the half hour? How +worried Nyoda would be when she did not come in on that ten-forty-five +train! she thought in sudden panic. She must hasten down to the station +immediately and telephone Nyoda that she had missed that train, but would +come on the next. + +Was there another train to-night? she wondered, in fresh panic. +Ten-forty-five sounded like the last local. She stopped under a street +light for the purpose of consulting her time-table, and then she made a +discovery which drove the matter of time-tables out of her head entirely, +and brought the weakness back to her knees in full force, namely, the +discovery that she no longer carried her handbag. Her heart almost +stopped beating, for in that handbag was Nyoda's watch--the little +jewelled watch Sherry had given her for an engagement present. Aside from +its intrinsic value, which was considerable, Nyoda cherished that watch +above all her other possessions. + +She must have left the bag in the entrance-way where she had stopped to +rest, Katherine decided, and, forgetting all about the weakness of a half +hour ago, she ran swiftly across the street and up the steps of the +church. She felt over every inch of the floor in the darkness, but the +bag was not there. + +Had she brought it with her out of the auditorium? Yes, because she had +dropped it in the lobby, and in stooping to pick it up had felt the first +touch of that dizzyness which had overpowered her so soon afterward. She +must have lost it in the street. She retraced her steps back to the +concert hall, now dark and deserted, carefully searching all the way. Her +search, however, was unavailing; and with a sinking feeling she realized +that either someone had picked it up, or else she had been deliberately +robbed while she slept; in either event, the bag was gone, and with it +Nyoda's watch. + +It seemed to her that she could never go home and tell Nyoda that it was +lost; she wished the earth would open up and swallow her where she stood, +thus releasing her, at one stroke, from her distressful position. She +bitterly reproached herself for having stayed in town that evening,--if +she had gone home on the five-fifteen train this wouldn't have happened. +Nyoda had given her precious watch into her keeping, trusting her to +bring it back safely, and she had betrayed that trust; had proved herself +unreliable. Nyoda would never trust her with anything valuable again; +would never send her on another errand. True, it was not exactly her +fault that she had lost the bag; but if she had not been foolish enough +to eat all those lobster croquettes after eating shrimp salad she would +not have had any dizzy spell to distract her attention from her +responsibility. + +For fully five minutes she stood still and called herself every hard name +she could think of, and ended up by making an emphatic resolution in +regard to the future attitude toward lobster croquettes. In the meantime, +she decided, she had better notify the police about the watch. A block +ahead of her the green and blue lights of a drug store shone blurred but +unmistakable through the misty atmosphere, and she splashed her way +toward it, only to find on arriving that the place was closed. She walked +several more blocks, searching either for an open drug store where she +could telephone, or a corner policeman, and finding neither. A street +clock pointed to eleven, and from somewhere in the darkness behind her +came the subdued tone of the steeple chime. + +The rain had stopped now, and it was growing colder; the puddles on the +sidewalk began to be filmed over with ice. The wind took on a cutting +edge and came sallying forth in great gusts, shrieking along the +telephone wires and setting the electric arc lights overhead swaying +wildly back and forth, until the rapidly shifting lights and shadows +below gave the street the look of a tossing lake. Now billowing out like +a sail, now wrapping itself determinedly around her ankles, Katherine's +long coat began to make walking a difficult proceeding. Then, without +warning, the arc lights suddenly went out, plunging the world into utter +blackness. With that, Katherine abandoned her intention of searching for +a telephone and decided to get down to her train as fast as she could. +With every other step she went crashing through a thin coating of ice +into a puddle, for in the darkness it was impossible to see where she was +going, and once she tripped over an uneven edge of flagging and went +sprawling on her hands and knees. Thereafter, she felt her way, like a +blind person, with the point of her umbrella. + +It was gradually borne in upon Katherine, as she floundered on through +the puddles, that she was not retracing her steps toward the carline, but +was proceeding in a new and entirely unknown direction. The store fronts +which loomed indistinctly through the darkness were not the same ones she +had passed before; surely those others had not been so shabby and +disreputable looking. But so intense was the blackness of the night that +she could not be sure about anything; she might be on the right track +after all. Undoubtedly the next turn would bring her back to the lighted +drug store, and from that point she could easily locate herself. No green +and blue lights appeared when she turned the next corner, however; as far +as she could see, there was only gloom in the distance. Katherine tried +street after street with no better success; they all led endlessly on +into darkness. She met no one from whom she dared ask the way; for there +was only an occasional passer-by, and he usually looked tipsy. It was +evidently a factory district Katherine had wandered into, for all around +her were great dark buildings with high chimneys, long, dim warehouses, +box cars standing on sidings, silent, gloomy freight sheds; there seemed +to be no end of them anywhere; in all directions they stretched out, like +Banquo's descendents, apparently to the crack of doom. The nightmare of +the "Fata Morgana" had come true, and she was lost in the wilderness of a +strange city. + +For a long time Katherine had not heard the rumble of a street car, and +this phenomenon finally became so noticeable that she realized what must +have happened--the traction power had been cut off as well as the +lighting current. With that realization her last hope of getting down to +the station went glimmering--unless she could get a taxicab. But where +was one to find a taxicab in this district? A faint light gleaming in the +window of a small shop that crouched between two tall factories lured +Katherine on with the hope that here was a telephone, or at least someone +about who could tell her the way. She hastened toward it, but her heart +turned to water within her when she saw that the lettering on the window +pane was Chinese. More than anything else in the whole universe, +Katherine feared a Chinaman; she was so afraid of the little yellow men +that even in broad daylight she could never go by a Chinese laundry +without holding her breath and shuddering. Even the picture of a Chinaman +gave her the creeps. When she discovered that she was in a Chinese +neighborhood after eleven o'clock at night, with the street lamps all +out, a hoarse cry of terror broke involuntarily from her lips, and she +began to run blindly, she knew not where, penetrating deeper and deeper +into that jungle of factories which flanks the railroad on both sides for +miles. + +Out of breath finally, she came to a stop, and for a few moments stood +gasping, with a hand to her side. Not far ahead of her a light from a +building shone across the darkness of the street, and loud sounds of +revelry coming from the direction of the light told her that the place +was a saloon. She stood still for another moment, trying to get up +courage to pass it; decided at last that with Chinamen in the other +direction it was the lesser of two evils, and walked on, praying +fervently that none of the revellers inside would come out at the moment +she was going by. She had hardly gone a few steps when a figure appeared +on the lighted sidewalk in front of the place with a suddenness which +left no doubt of his having come from within. In the bright glare +Katherine recognized the long light coat and visor cap of the man who had +stood beside her that evening in the flower shop where she had purchased +Veronica's violets, and who had looked with such a covetous eye upon the +roll of bills she had taken from her inside coat pocket. The bills were +still there, and it seemed to her now that they made a very telltale +bulge over her right breast. The man was coming toward her; in a few +minutes he would see and recognize her, and then---- + +Katherine darted into an alleyway which opened near her, and on through a +half-open gate in a low, solid wooden fence, and crouching there behind +the fence in the darkness, she waited until the footsteps had gone +past,--creak, creak, creakety-creak, with a rhythmic squeaking of shoes. +Not until the sound had died away completely did she venture forth from +her hiding place, and then she stood perfectly still and looked +cautiously about her in every direction before she made a move to +proceed. With the knowledge that the danger had passed, her feeling of +panic began to leave her, and her native coolness began to assert itself. +She took a careful stock of her situation and tried to think up a way to +escape from her predicament. That she was hopelessly lost in this +wilderness of streets whose names meant nothing to her, even if she had +been able to see the sign boards, she realized full well; instinct warned +her not to betray her situation to anyone she might meet in this +neighborhood--providing she met any one, for the wind seemed to have +blown all pedestrians off the streets; and the lateness of the hour made +it extremely unprobable that she would find a telephone. She stood on one +leg in the storklike attitude which always indicated deep thought with +her, and pondered all the phases of her dilemma with the calm +deliberation which invariably came to her in moments of great stress. +"The only time Katherine is composed," Sahwah had said once, "is when she +is in a pickle." And if Katherine was now in the biggest pickle she had +ever experienced, by the same token her brain had never worked so coolly +and logically before. + +"When lost in the woods," she said to herself, going over in her mind her +knowledge of woodcraft, "the first thing to do is to climb a tree and get +your bearings. That's all right for the woods, but there aren't any trees +here to climb. I might climb a telegraph pole," she thought whimsically, +as her eye fell upon one nearby, "and see if I can locate myself. No, +that wouldn't do, either, for the whole city is dark, and I couldn't see +anything if I did get up. So much for rule number one. + +"Now for rule number two. 'Establish your directions by observing and +reading the signs of nature. Moss always grows on the north side of +trees.' Hm. Trees again, and telegraph poles won't do as substitutes this +time. Moss doesn't grow on the north side of telegraph poles. There isn't +any difference between the north side of a telegraph pole and any +other----" + +Katherine's train of thought was suddenly interrupted by her glance +resting on the pole in question. One side of it, she could see in the +light from the saloon, was glazed with ice where the driving rain had +frozen in the chill wind. That wind was now coming from every +direction--north, south, east and west--at once, and it was therefore +impossible to judge from the whirling gusts which was north; but earlier +in the evening, when the rain was falling, the wind had blown steadily +from the north. Accordingly, the strip of ice on those poles carried the +very same message as the moss on the trees in the woods. Katherine +exclaimed aloud in delight at her discovery. In a twinkling she had her +bearings. + +"North, south, east, west," she said triumphantly, pointing in the four +respective directions. "Not a bad piece of scouting, that. What's the +difference, whether it's moss or ice?--it's the same principle. Talk +about your _pole_ stars! + +"I believe I know approximately where I am," she continued, her brain +keeping up its logical working. "We turned south from B---- Avenue to go +to the Music Hall, I remember hearing Veronica say so; therefore, not yet +having come to B---- Avenue in my wanderings, I must still be on the +south side of it, and by going due north will come to it eventually. The +way is as plain as the nose on your face; just follow the ice on the +telegraph poles. I can feel it in places where it's too dark to see. All +aboard for B---- Avenue!" + +Katherine set off as fast as she could go through the darkness, whistling +in her relief, and confidently keeping her feet pointed toward the north. +As if acting upon the principle that the gods help them who help +themselves, the street lights came on again just at that moment, showing +up the corners and crossings, and making progress very much easier. She +had gone some half dozen blocks, and was once more passing the long row +of gloomy, windowless warehouses which she remembered having seen before, +when it became apparent to her alert senses that she was being followed. +For the last two or three blocks she had heard the sound of a footfall +behind her, turning the same corners she had turned, taking the same +short-cut she had taken through a factory yard, and gradually drawing +nearer. "Creak, creak, creakety-creak!" Through the still night air it +sounded with startling distinctness; the same squeaking footfall that had +passed her ten minutes before, when she had crouched, with wildly beating +heart, behind the fence in the dark alley. Filled with prophetic +apprehension, she turned and looked around, and in the light of a street +lamp several hundred yards behind her saw the figure that had loomed so +large in her fears all evening. It required no second glance to recognize +the long, light overcoat and the visor cap drawn low over the eyes. For +an instant, Katherine's feeling of alarm held her rooted to the spot, +even while she noticed that the man had increased his speed and the +distance between them was rapidly lessening; then the power of locomotion +came back with a rush and she began to run. Her worst fears were +confirmed when she heard the man behind her start to run also. + +Katherine doubled her speed and fled like a deer, slipping wildly over +the icy sidewalk and expecting every minute to fall down, but by some +miracle of good luck managing to retain her balance. Yet, run as she +might, she realized that her pursuer was gaining; the footsteps pounding +along behind her sounded nearer and nearer every minute. Her long coat, +winding about her knees, caused her to slacken speed; her breath began to +give out; she developed an agonizing pain in her side. She knew that the +race was lost; in a moment more she would be overtaken. She had just +summoned breath for a last final spurt when she heard a crash behind her +and the sound of a body falling on the sidewalk; she dashed on without +slackening speed. The next minute she slipped on a sheet of ice in the +middle of a crossing and fell headlong to the ground, just as a taxicab, +coming out of the side street, turned the corner. Katherine heard a +hoarse shout and the jamming of an emergency brake, then, before she had +time to draw breath, the car was on top of her. A blinding light flashed +for a moment in her eyes; her ears were filled with a deafening roar; +then all of a sudden light and sound both ceased to be. + +Hearing came back first with returning consciousness. The roaring noise +no longer sounded in her ears, and from somewhere, a long distance off, +came the sound of a voice speaking. + +"Can't you lift the car? She's pinned underneath the wheels. No, you +can't back up; you'll run over her head. Don't you see it's right behind +that left wheel? Got a jack in your tool box? All right. Here---- +Now----" + +Gradually the weight that was pinning her to the ground was lifted, and +she opened her eyes to find herself beside, and no longer under, the +quivering monster with the hot breath. Three figures were moving about +her in the light of the head-lamps, and now one of them knelt beside her +and laid a hand on her head. + +"She isn't killed," said a voice which sounded strangely familiar in +Katherine's ears, a voice which somehow carried her back to Carver House +and the library fire. + +Carver House. Nyoda. Nyoda would be worried to death because she did not +come home. Poor Nyoda, how sorry she would be about the watch! + +Unconsciously Katherine groaned aloud. + +"She must be pretty badly hurt," continued the voice beside her ear. +"Help me lift her now and we'll get her into the car. A hand under her +shoulders--so. I'll take her head. Easy now." + +Katherine felt herself being lifted from the ground and carried past the +glare of the headlamps. Suddenly there came an explosive exclamation from +one of the rescuers--the one who had done the talking--and the hand that +supported her head trembled violently. + +"Good God! It's _Katherine_." + +Katherine opened her eyes fully and looked up into the dumfounded face of +Sherry. + +"Fo' de lan' sakes!" came an echoing exclamation from beside Sherry, and +the black face of Hercules shone out in the light. + +"Hello Sherry," said Katherine, in a voice which sounded strange in her +own ears. + +"Katherine!" cried Sherry in terrified accents, "are you badly hurt?" + +"I d-o-n-'t k-n-o-w," replied Katherine thickly, through a mouthful of +fur from the collar of her coat. + +"I guess not," she resumed, after Sherry had laid her on the back seat of +the car. "Nothing cracks when I wiggle it. My nose is skinned," she +supplemented a minute later, "and there's a comb sticking straight into +my head. I guess that's all." + +"Oh," breathed Sherry in immeasurable relief. "It's a miracle you weren't +killed. I thought sure you were. It looked as though both front wheels +had gone over you." + +"One went over my hat and the other over the tail of my coat," replied +Katherine cheerfully. "They just missed me by a hair's breadth." + +"Are you sure your head isn't hurt?" Sherry continued anxiously. "You +were unconscious when we lifted the car off of you, you know." + +Katherine solemnly felt her head all over. "There _is_ a bump there--no; +that's my bump of generosity; it belongs there. Anyway, it doesn't hurt +when I press it, so it must be all right," she assured him. "I must have +fainted, I guess, when the car came on top of me. It came so suddenly, +and it made such a terrible noise. You can't think how awful it was." + +"It must have been." A shudder went quivering through Sherry's frame at +the thought of it. "I can't get it out of my mind. I thought those wheels +went right over you. It's nothing short of a miracle that they went on +each side of you instead of over you," he said, repeating the sentiment +he had just uttered a moment before. "It all happened so quickly the +driver didn't have a chance to turn aside. There was no one in sight one +minute, and the next minute we were right on top of you. That driver out +there's so scared he can't stand up on his legs yet." + +"How did you happen to be in that taxicab?" Katherine inquired curiously. + +"We're on our way home," replied Sherry. "We missed the Pennsylvania out +of New York and had to take the Nickel Plate, which meant we had to +change from one station to the other here in Philadelphia. We were going +across in a taxi." + +"So you were too late to catch Dr. Phillips?" said Katherine soberly. + +"Yes," replied Sherry gloomily. "The boat had gone yesterday." + +"How did Hercules stand the disappointment?" asked Katherine, with quick +sympathy. + +"He's pretty badly cut up about it," replied Sherry. "He had quite a bad +spell with his heart on the train. He says he's had a 'token' that he'll +never see Marse Tad, as he calls him, again. I'm afraid he won't, myself. +Even I've got a gloomy hunch that fate has the cards stacked against us +this time. From Hercules' account, I don't think Dr. Phillips will live +to reach South America." + +"How unutterably tragic that would be!" sighed Katherine, beginning to +feel a load of world-sorrow pressing on her heart. What a dismal business +life was, to be sure! + +Sherry interrupted her doleful reverie. "But tell me, Katherine, what, in +the name of all that's fantastic, were you doing here in this +neighborhood at this time of night?" + +Katherine explained briefly, and in her overwrought state, burst into +tears at the mention of the watch. + +"And you say there was a footpad actually following you?" asked Sherry in +consternation. "You were running away from this man when you fell under +the car? Where is he now?" + +Katherine shook her head. "I don't know. He slipped and fell just before +I did, and I don't know what became of him after that." + +Sherry gave a long whistle, and, thrusting his head out of the taxi, gave +a look around. + +"There's a man coming up the street now," he said. "He's limping badly. +Is that the man? He's probably trying to slip away quietly in the +excitement." + +Katherine raised her head and glanced out. "That's the man," she +exclaimed. "He's the same one that followed me. Why, he's coming over +here toward us!" she said, in a tone of surprise. "How queer! Is he going +to hold us all up, I wonder?" + +The man in the light overcoat, limping painfully, crossed the curb and +approached the car standing, temporarily disabled, in the middle of the +street. Sherry thrust out a belligerent face, at the same time looking, +out of the tail of his eye, for his driver and Hercules. Both were out of +sight, kneeling on the ground at the other side of the raised engine +hood. + +The stranger limped up and hesitated before Sherry. Katherine, looking +over Sherry's shoulder, noticing with a start of surprise that the man +had snow white hair. Although the long, light coat and the visor cap were +the same as those she had seen on the man in the flower shop, this was an +entirely different man. His blue eyes were mild and pensive; his whole +bearing was gentle and retiring, and, standing there with the electric +light behind him making a halo of his white hair, he looked like some +little, old, melancholy saint. + +"The young lady that you just picked up," said the stranger in a voice +mellow with old-fashioned courtesy, raising his cap politely. "I have +been following her for some time, trying unsuccessfully to catch up with +her. I saw her drop this bag on the street, some two hours ago, and since +then have been attempting to restore it to her, but have not been able to +reach her. As soon as I saw her drop the bag I picked it up and hurried +after her, but she suddenly disappeared like a conjurer's trick. I walked +around for some time, looking for her, when all of a sudden the street +lights went out, and in the darkness I mistook my way and wandered down +into the factory district, where it was not long before I was hopelessly +lost. The only place that showed any signs of life was a saloon down on a +corner, and, although I have my opinion of those places, sir, I went in +and asked the proprietor the way out of the neighborhood. It was not long +afterward that I saw this same young lady who had dropped the handbag not +far ahead of me in the street, having evidently wandered down there in +the darkness just as I had done. I hurried after her, but she became +frightened and began to run. I ran, too, thinking to overtake her and +explain the reason for my pursuit, but just when I was nearly up to her I +slipped and fell on the sidewalk. I must have lain there stunned for +several minutes, for when things had become clear again I saw this car +standing here and you gentlemen carrying the young lady into it. She is +not badly hurt, I trust? Here is the bag I spoke of." + +He spied Katherine looking over Sherry's shoulder at that moment, and +held out the handbag, again lifting his cap as he did so. + +At sight of the precious bag Katherine gave a shriek of joy, and seizing +it with trembling fingers, looked inside to see if Nyoda's watch was +still there. She almost sobbed with relief when her fingers closed upon +the little velvet case, from which a faint ticking came to reassure her. + +"Then you aren't the man I saw in the flower shop at all!" exclaimed +Katherine, covered with confusion. "When I saw your light coat and that +cap I was sure it was the same." + +The two men laughed heartily. + +"Isn't that just like a woman, though?" said Sherry. "They think that +every man walking on the streets at night is a burglar, as a matter of +course. It never occurs to them that an honest man could possibly have +any business on the street after dark." + +"I'm awfully sorry," said Katherine sheepishly, "but I really was +frightened to death when you began to run after me. You say you have been +following me ever since I dropped the bag? Where did I drop it?" + +"Along by that iron fence on --th Street," answered the old man. + +"That's where I was taken with the dizzy spell," said Katherine. "I must +have dropped it without knowing it when I caught ahold of the fence to +steady myself." + +"But where did you go right after that?" asked the old man curiously. +"You disappeared as suddenly as if the earth had swallowed you. I put up +my umbrella for a few minutes to shield my face from the rain and when I +looked out from behind it you were nowhere in sight." + +"That was where I went into the dark doorway of a church, and sat down to +wait for the dizzy spell to wear off," replied Katherine. "I must have +fallen asleep, for the first thing I knew a clock was striking a quarter +to eleven. When I discovered the bag was gone I ran around like mad +looking for it, and the first thing I knew I was lost, and the lights +were out, and there I was down in those awful factory yards. I saw you +coming out of that saloon and thought you were the man who had watched me +take out some bills out of an inner pocket earlier this evening, and hid +behind a fence until you had gone by." + +"But fate evidently intended that our paths should cross again," resumed +the old man, with the faint flicker of a smile on his pensive +countenance, "for it was not long before you were just ahead of me again. +The lights came on then, and I saw you plainly." + +"And I saw you, and started to run," finished Katherine, joining in +Sherry's burst of laughter. + +Just then Hercules straightened up from the ground and came around the +front of the car. + +"Kin we have yo' pocket flasher, Mist' Sherry?" he asked. + +Then his glance fell upon the stranger standing beside the car. His eyes +started from their sockets; his jaw dropped, and for a moment he stood as +if petrified. Then he gave a great gasp, and with a piercing cry of +"Marse Tad!" he sank upon his knees at the old man's feet. + + + + + CHAPTER XX + THE END OF A PERFECT DAY + + +"Daggers and dirks!" exclaimed Sherry, weakly sitting down on the car +step when it was finally borne in upon him that Katherine's highwayman +was none other than Sylvia's father, Hercules' "Marse Tad," the man for +whom he and Hercules had been futilely fine-combing the earth for the +last twenty-four hours. + +"Am I awake?" he continued, "or is this all an opium dream? First +Katherine, whom we thought at home at Carver House, materializes before +us out of thin air; then Dr. Phillips, whom we thought on a ship bound +for South America. What's happening here to-night, anyway? Is it +witchcraft?" + +"O, Marse Tad," quavered Hercules, still on his knees, "we shore thought +you was gone on dat South Ameriky boat. We bin a-lookin' for you so. +Mist' Sher'dan an' I bin down to N'Yawk all day." + +"You have been looking for me?" asked Dr. Phillips in surprise. + +Hercules, trying to tell the story all at once, became utterly incoherent +in his excitement, and Sherry saw that he would have to step in. And so +there, in the light from the lamps of the disabled taxicab, with the +fitful explosions of the reviving engine drowning out Sherry's speech +every few minutes, Tad Phillips heard the great news that would lift the +crushing load of anguish from his heart, and would turn the world once +more into a place of laughter, and light, and happiness. + +"It was a miracle, my deciding to stay over for the next boat," he +declared solemnly, a few minutes later, after nearly wringing Sherry's +hand off in an effort to express his joy and gratitude. "It was the hand +of Providence, sir, nothing less than the hand of Providence. I had fully +made up my mind to go on that boat yesterday; then for no reason at all I +suddenly decided to wait until next week before sailing." His voice sank +away into a whisper of awe as he repeated, "It was Providence itself, +sir, nothing less than the hand of Providence, that made me change my +mind about sailing yesterday." + +"You may have been inspired by Providence to change your mind about +sailing," rejoined Sherry, "but if it hadn't been for Katherine, here, we +never would have found you, for it never occurred to us that you were +still in Philadelphia. It's all Katherine's doing--her losing that +handbag." + +"But if I hadn't eaten those lobster croquettes and gotten sick I +wouldn't have lost the handbag," said Katherine comically. "It all comes +back to the lobster croquettes. Providence and lobster croquettes! What a +combination to work miracles!" + +It was a rather dishevelled, but altogether triumphant quartet that +arrived at Carver House some few hours later. Katherine's hair had +escaped from its net and hung in straggling wisps over her eyes; her hat +had been so completely crushed by its contact with the wheel of the taxi +that it was unrecognizable as an article of millinery, and hung, a mere +twisted piece of wreckage, in a dejected lump over one ear. Her coat was +plastered with dirt from neck to hem, and her gloves were stiff and +discolored. One eye was closed in a permanent wink by a black smudge that +decorated her forehead and half of her cheek. + +Blissfully unconscious of her startling appearance, she burst into the +library, where the household were waiting to welcome the returned +wanderers. + +"O Katherine," cried all the Winnebagos in chorus when they beheld her, +"now you look natural again!" + +The tale of Katherine's adventure, with its astonishing ending, left them +all staring and breathless. + +"Katherine surely must have been born under a different sign of the +Zodiac than those you see in the ordinary almanacs," said Nyoda. "There +is some special influence of planets guiding her that is denied to +ordinary mortals." + +"Must be the sign of the Lobster, then," laughed Katherine, gratefully +sipping the hot milk Migwan had brought her, and allowing Justice to draw +the hatpins from her hat and remove the battered wreck from her head. + +"How's Sylvia?" asked Sherry. + +"Very much improved," replied Nyoda, "but her heart is still acting +queerly. I don't know how she is going to stand this excitement." + +Dr. Phillips agreed with her that he must not appear before Sylvia too +suddenly, or the shock might be fatal. Impatient as he was for the +recognition to take place, he knew that it would have to be brought about +with caution. There was too much at stake to make a misstep now. Nyoda +must prepare her gradually, first telling her that her father was alive, +and letting her recover from the excitement of that announcement before +breaking the news that he was actually in the house. + +The Winnebagos looked at Dr. Phillips with a surprise which it was +difficult to conceal. This mild-eyed, white-haired gentleman was utterly +different from the picture they had conjured up of the bold intruder who +had so determinedly made his entrance into Carver House. They had +expected to see a grim-faced, resolute-looking man, and Hinpoha confided +afterward that her mental picture had included a pair of pistols sticking +out of his pockets. The early portrait of "Tad the Terror," in Uncle +Jasper's diary, had been slightly misleading in regard to his appearance. + +Nyoda saw Dr. Phillips' eyes fixed, with a sorrowful expression, upon the +portrait of Uncle Jasper above the library fireplace, and she guessed +what bitter pangs the breaking up of that friendship had cost him; +guessed also, that he had held no such bitter feeling against Jasper +Carver as the master of Carver House had held against him, and +understanding the characters of the two men, she saw why it was that +Sylvia Warrington had preferred the one to the other. + +Over by the fireplace, Justice was teasing Katherine unmercifully about +the lobster croquettes, while behind her back the Captain had taken one +of the broken feathers from her hat and was tickling Slim with it, who +had fallen asleep in his chair. The clock on the stairway chimed four. + +An irrepressible attack of yawning seized the whole party, and with one +impulse the Winnebagos began to steal toward the stairway. + +"Well," said Katherine, with a sigh of deep content, as she went wearily +up the stairs leaning on Migwan's shoulder, "well, this is the end of a +perfect day!" + + + + + CHAPTER XXI + FATHER AND DAUGHTER + + +In the morning Sylvia was so much better that Nyoda allowed her to sit up +out of bed, and there, sitting beside the wheel chair which was to be the +throne of the little princess all her life, she told Sylvia the story of +her parentage. For a moment Sylvia sat as if turned to stone; then with a +cry of unbelieving ecstasy, she clasped the picture of Sylvia Warrington +to her heart. + +"My mother!" + +Nyoda stole out softly and left the two of them together. + + * * * * * * * + +Later on in the afternoon there was a lively bustle of preparation in +Sylvia's room. The great carved armchair that had served as throne on the +night of the party had been brought up from the library, and once more +covered with its purple velvet draperies. Sylvia, whose romantic fancy +had seized eagerly upon the immense dramatic possibilities of the +occasion, had insisted upon being arrayed as the princess when her father +should come in to see her. + +"The king is coming! The king is coming!" she exclaimed every few +moments. "Array me in my most splendid robes, for my royal father, the +king, is coming!" + +Thrills of excitement, like little needle pricks, ran up and down her +spine; her whole being seemed alight with some wonderful inner radiance, +that shone through the flesh and transfigured it with unearthly beauty. + +Nyoda brought the fairy-like white dress and draped it about her, playing +the rôle of lady-in-waiting with spirit. Every time she passed before +Sylvia she bowed low; she made the Winnebagos stand up in a line and pass +in the bracelets from hand to hand; she herself brought in the crown on a +cushion, and placed it upon Sylvia's head with much ceremony. + +"Doesn't she look like a real royal princess, though!" Migwan exclaimed +to Hinpoha in the far end of the room. "I feel actually abashed before +her, knowing all the while that it's only playing." + +"O, if she could only have been cured!" Hinpoha sighed in answer. "How +much jollier it would have been!" + +Migwan echoed the sigh. "Life is very strange," she said musingly. +"Things don't always come out the way we want them to." + +"That's so," said Hinpoha, beginning to see a great many sober +possibilities in life which had never before occurred to her. + +An automobile horn sounded outside. "There's Sherry now, bringing Dr. +Phillips back from their ride," said Migwan. "They'll be coming up in a +few minutes." + +The horn sounded again. + +"The royal trumpeter!" cried Sylvia. "Our royal father, the king, +approaches!" + +She settled the crown more firmly upon her head, and sat up very straight +on her throne. Her cheeks glowed like roses; her eyes were like great +stars. Nyoda watched her keenly for any signs of being overcome with +excitement. + +From the hall came the sound of footsteps. + +"His Majesty, the King," said Nyoda, throwing open the door with a +dramatic flourish. + +For a moment Dr. Phillips stood transfixed upon the threshold, overcome +by the scene of splendor within. + +Then he held out his arms to her, forgetting that she was paralyzed. + +"Sylvia--daughter!" + +"Father!" + +Then the amazing thing happened. Sylvia rose to her feet, stepped from +the throne, and ran across the room into her father's arms. + +"It happens sometimes," explained Dr. Phillips a few moments later, when +they had all recovered from their first stupefied amazement. "Some great +shock, and the paralyzed nerves wake to life again. That is what has +taken place here. She is cured." + + + + + CHAPTER XXII + ONE MORE TOAST + + +"To the Christmas Adventure at Carver House!" proposed Katherine, raising +on high her glass of fruit punch. + +New Year's dinner was over, and they all stood in their places around the +table, drinking toast after toast. + +"The Christmas Adventure at Carver House!" echoed the Winnebagos. "The +best adventure we've had yet. Drink her down!" The toast was drunk with a +will. + +Sylvia stood beside her father, her face one big sparkle, while a more +subdued, but equally rapturous, gleam shone from the doctor's eye as he +gazed on the adored child from whom he need never more be separated. The +Captain stood opposite Hinpoha and gave her a long look as he touched her +glass, as if he wished to fix every detail of her in his mind against the +separation that was coming on the morrow; Slim also had his eyes turned +toward Hinpoha as he clicked glasses with Gladys across the table. +Justice gave Katherine's glass a little nudge as he touched it, to +attract her attention, for she had her face turned away from him toward +Sylvia; Sahwah's eye had a far-away look as she matched with Migwan. +Nyoda and Sherry beamed impartially upon them all, and Hercules smacked +his lips over his glass in the corner by himself. Hercules had abandoned +his intention of dying, and announced that he was planning to get himself +another goat, because life was too uneventful for a man of his vigor +without something to fuss over and take up his time. + +"And it all happened because Katherine forgot Nyoda's name!" said Sahwah, +setting her glass down. + +"I wasn't born in vain after all!" laughed Katherine, meeting Justice's +eye bent upon her in a close, quizzical scrutiny. + +"Which goes to prove," said Nyoda, "that everything has its use in this +world, even our shortcomings. Let's celebrate that discovery. We have +drunk to the memory of Uncle Jasper Carver and to the memory of Sylvia +Warrington; we have drunk to the memory of the man who built Carver House +with the secret passage; we have one swallow of punch left. Let's drink +one more toast, not to the _memory_ of Katherine Adams, but to her +_forgettory_!" + +And amid a great shout of laughter the last toast was drunk. + + + THE END + + + + + The Girl Comrade's Series + + + ALL AMERICAN AUTHORS. + ALL COPYRIGHT STORIES. + + +A carefully selected series of books for girls, written by popular +authors. These are charming stories for young girls, well told and full +of interest. Their simplicity, tenderness, healthy, interesting motives, +vigorous action, and character painting will please all girl readers. + + HANDSOME CLOTH BINDING. + PRICE, 60 CENTS. + +A BACHELOR MAID AND HER BROTHER. By I. T. Thurston. + +ALL ABOARD. A Story For Girls. By Fanny E. Newberry. + +ALMOST A GENIUS. A Story For Girls. By Adelaide L. Rouse. + +ANNICE WYNKOOP, Artist. Story of a Country Girl. By Adelaide L. Rouse. + +BUBBLES. A Girl's Story. By Fannie E. Newberry. + +COMRADES. By Fannie E. Newberry. + +DEANE GIRLS, THE. A Home Story. By Adelaide L. Rouse. + +HELEN BEATON, COLLEGE WOMAN. By Adelaide L. Rouse. + +JOYCE'S INVESTMENTS. A Story For Girls. By Fannie E. Newberry. + +MELLICENT RAYMOND. A Story For Girls. By Fannie E. Newberry. + +MISS ASHTON'S NEW PUPIL. A School Girl's Story. By Mrs. S. S. Robbins. + +NOT FOR PROFIT. A Story For Girls. By Fannie E. Newberry. + +ODD ONE, THE. A Story For Girls. By Fannie E. Newberry. + +SARA, A PRINCESS. A Story For Girls. By Fannie E. Newberry. + + +For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the +publishers, A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23d Street, New York + + + + + The Girl Chum's Series + + + ALL AMERICAN AUTHORS. + ALL COPYRIGHT STORIES. + + +A carefully selected series of books for girls, written by popular +authors. These are charming stories for young girls, well told and full +of interest. Their simplicity, tenderness, healthy, interesting motives, +vigorous action, and character painting will please all girl readers. + + HANDSOME CLOTH BINDING. + PRICE, 60 CENTS. + +BENHURST, CLUB, THE. By Howe Benning. + +BERTHA'S SUMMER BOARDERS. By Linnie S. Harris. + +BILLOW PRAIRIE. A Story of Life in the Great West. By Joy Allison. + +DUXBERRY DOINGS. A New England Story. By Caroline B. Le Row. + +FUSSBUDGET'S FOLKS. A Story For Young Girls. By Anna F. Burnham. + +HAPPY DISCIPLINE, A. By Elizabeth Cummings. + +JOLLY TEN, THE; and Their Year of Stories. By Agnes Carr Sage. + +KATIE ROBERTSON. A Girl's Story of Factory Life. By M. E. Winslow. + +LONELY HILL. A Story For Girls. By M. L. Thornton-Wilder. + +MAJORIBANKS. A Girl's Story. By Elvirton Wright. + +MISS CHARITY'S HOUSE. By Howe Benning. + +MISS ELLIOT'S GIRLS. A Story For Young Girls. By Mary Spring Corning. + +MISS MALCOLM'S TEN. A Story For Girls. By Margaret E. Winslow. + +ONE GIRL'S WAY OUT. By Howe Benning. + +PEN'S VENTURE. By Elvirton Wright. + +RUTH PRENTICE. A Story For Girls. By Marian Thorne. + +THREE YEARS AT GLENWOOD. A Story of School Life. By M. E. Winslow. + + +For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the +publishers. A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23d Street, New York + + + + + The Camp Fire Girls Series + + +By HILDEGARD G. FREY. The only series of stories for Camp Fire Girls +endorsed by the officials of the Camp Fire Girls' Organization. + + Handsome Cloth Binding. Price, 60 Cents per Volume. + + +THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS IN THE MAINE WOODS; or, The Winnebagos go Camping. + + This lively Camp Fire group and their Guardian go back to Nature in a + camp in the wilds of Maine and pile up more adventures in one summer + than they have had in all their previous vacations put together. + +THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SCHOOL; or, The Wohelo Weavers. + + How these seven live wire girls strive to infuse into their school + life the spirit of Work, Health and Love and yet manage to get into + more than their share of mischief, is told in this story. + +THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT ONOWAY HOUSE; or, The Magic Garden. + + Migwan is determined to go to college, and not being strong enough to + work indoors earns the money by raising fruits and vegetables. The + Winnebagos all turn a hand to help the cause along and the "goingson" + at Onoway House that summer make the foundation shake with laughter. + +THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS GO MOTORING; or, Along the Road That Leads the Way. + + In which the Winnebagos take a thousand mile auto trip. + +THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS' LARKS AND PRANKS; or, The House of the Open Door. + +THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON ELLEN'S ISLE; or, The Trail of the Seven Cedars. + +THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON THE OPEN ROAD; or, Glorify Work. + +THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS DO THEIR BIT; or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos. + +THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS SOLVE A MYSTERY; or, The Christmas Adventure at + Carver House. + +THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT CAMP KEEWAYDIN; or, Down Paddles. + + +For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the +publishers A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23rd St., New York + + + + + The Blue Grass + Seminary Girls Series + + + By CAROLYN JUDSON BURNETT + + Handsome Cloth Binding + + _Splendid Stories of the Adventures + of a Group of Charming Girls_ + + +THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS' VACATION ADVENTURES; or, Shirley Willing + to the Rescue. + +THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS' CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS; or, A Four Weeks' Tour + with the Glee Club. + +THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS IN THE MOUNTAINS; or, Shirley Willing on a + Mission of Peace. + +THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS ON THE WATER; or, Exciting Adventures on a + Summer's Cruise Through the Panama Canal. + + + + + The Mildred Series + + + By MARTHA FINLEY + + Handsome Cloth Binding + + _A Companion Series to the Famous + "Elsie" Books by the Same Author_ + + +MILDRED KEITH + +MILDRED AT ROSELANDS + +MILDRED AND ELSIE + +MILDRED'S MARRIED LIFE + +MILDRED AT HOME + +MILDRED'S BOYS AND GIRLS + +MILDRED'S NEW DAUGHTER + + +For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the +publishers A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23d Street, New York. + + + + + The AMY E. BLANCHARD Series + + +MISS BLANCHARD has won an enviable reputation as a writer of short +stories for girls. Her books are thoroughly wholesome in every way and +her style is full of charm. The titles described below will be splendid +additions to every girl's library. Handsomely bound in cloth, full +library size. Illustrated by L. J. Bridgman. Price, 60 cents per volume, +postpaid. + + +The Glad Lady. A spirited account of a remarkably pleasant vacation spent + in an unfrequented part of northern Spain. This summer, which promised + at the outset to be very quiet, proved to be exactly the opposite. + Event follows event in rapid succession and the story ends with the + culmination of at least two happy romances. The story throughout is + interwoven with vivid descriptions of real places and people of which + the general public knows very little. These add greatly to the reader's + interest. + +Wit's End. Instilled with life, color and individuality, this story of + true love cannot fail to attract and hold to its happy end the reader's + eager attention. The word pictures are masterly; while the poise of + narrative and description is marvellously preserved. + +A Journey of Joy. A charming story of the travels and adventures of two + young American girls, and an elderly companion in Europe. It is not + only well told, but the amount of information contained will make it a + very valuable addition to the library of any girl who anticipates + making a similar trip. Their many pleasant experiences end in the + culmination of two happy romances, all told in the happiest vein. + +Talbot's Angles. A charming romance, of Southern life. Talbot's Angles is + a beautiful old estate located on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The + death of the owner and the ensuing legal troubles render it necessary + for our heroine, the present owner, to leave the place which has been + in her family for hundreds of years and endeavor to earn her own + living. Another claimant for the property appearing on the scene + complicates matters still more. The untangling of this mixed-up + condition of affairs makes an extremely interesting story. + + +For sale by all booksellers, or sent prepaid on receipt of price by the +publishers A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23d Street, New York + + + + + The Navy Boys Series + + +A series of excellent stories of adventure on sea and land, selected from +the works of popular writers; each volume designed for boys' reading. + + Handsome Cloth Bindings + + + PRICE, 60 CENTS PER VOLUME + + +THE NAVY BOYS IN DEFENCE OF LIBERTY. + + A story of the burning of the British schooner Gaspee in 1772. By + William P. Chipman + +THE NAVY BOYS ON LONG ISLAND SOUND. + + A story of the Whale Boat Navy of 1776. By James Otis. + +THE NAVY BOYS AT THE SIEGE OF HAVANA. + + Being the experience of three boys serving under Israel Putnam in + 1772. By James Otis. + +THE NAVY BOYS WITH GRANT AT VICKSBURG. + + A boy's story of the siege of Vicksburg. By James Otis. + +THE NAVY BOYS' CRUISE WITH PAUL JONES. + + A boy's story of a cruise with the Great Commodore in 1776. By James + Otis. + +THE NAVY BOYS ON LAKE ONTARIO. + + The story of two boys and their adventures in the War of 1812. By + James Otis. + +THE NAVY BOYS' CRUISE ON THE PICKERING. + + A boy's story of privateering in 1780. By James Otis. + +THE NAVY BOYS IN NEW YORK BAY. + + A story of three boys who took command of the schooner "The Laughing + Mary," the first vessel of the American Navy. By James Otis. + +THE NAVY BOYS IN THE TRACK OF THE ENEMY. + + The story of a remarkable cruise with the Sloop of War "Providence" + and the Frigate "Alfred." By William P. Chipman. + +THE NAVY BOYS' DARING CAPTURE. + + The story of how the navy boys helped to capture the British Cutter + "Margaretta," in 1776. By William P. Chipman. + +THE NAVY BOYS' CRUISE TO THE BAHAMAS. + + The adventures of two Yankee Middies with the first cruise of an + American Squadron in 1775. By William P. Chipman. + +THE NAVY BOYS' CRUISE WITH COLUMBUS. + + The adventures of two boys who sailed with the great Admiral in his + discovery of America. By Frederick A. Ober. + + +For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the +publishers, A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23d Street, New York + + + + + The Boy Spies Series + + +These stories are based on important historical events, scenes wherein +boys are prominent characters being selected. They are the romance of +history, vigorously told, with careful fidelity to picturing the home +life, and accurate in every particular. + + Handsome Cloth Bindings + + + PRICE, 60 CENTS PER VOLUME + + +THE BOY SPIES AT THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. + + A story of the part they took in its defence. By William P. Chipman. + +THE BOY SPIES AT THE DEFENCE OF FORT HENRY. + + A boy's story of Wheeling Greek in 1777. By James Otis. + +THE BOY SPIES AT THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. + + A story of two boys at the siege of Boston. By James Otis. + +THE BOY SPIES AT THE SIEGE OF DETROIT. + + A story of two Ohio boys in the War of 1812. By James Otis. + +THE BOY SPIES WITH LAFAYETTE. + + The story of how two boys joined the Continental Army. By James Otis. + +THE BOY SPIES ON CHESAPEAKE BAY. + + The story of two young spies under Commodore Barney. By James Otis. + +THE BOY SPIES WITH THE REGULATORS. + + The story of how the boys assisted the Carolina Patriots to drive the + British from that State. By James Otis. + +THE BOY SPIES WITH THE SWAMP FOX. + + The story of General Marion and his young spies. By James Otis. + +THE BOY SPIES AT YORKTOWN. + + The story of how the spies helped General Lafayette in the Siege of + Yorktown. By James Otis. + +THE BOY SPIES OF PHILADELPHIA. + + The story of how the young spies helped the Continental Army at + Valley Forge. By James Otis. + +THE BOY SPIES OF FORT GRISWOLD. + + The story of the part they took in its brave defence. By William P. + Chipman. + +THE BOY SPIES OF OLD NEW YORK. + + The story of how the young spies prevented the capture of General + Washington. By James Otis. + + +For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the +publishers, A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23d Street, New York + + + + + The Boy Allies + (Registered in the United States Patent Office) + With the Navy + + + By ENSIGN ROBERT L. DRAKE + + + Handsome Cloth Binding, Price 60 Cents per Volume + + +Frank Chadwick and Jack Templeton, young American lads, meet each other +in an unusual way soon after the declaration of war. Circumstances place +them on board the British cruiser "The Sylph" and from there on, they +share adventures with the sailors of the Allies. Ensign Robert L. Drake, +the author, is an experienced naval officer, and he describes admirably +the many exciting adventures of the two boys. + +THE BOY ALLIES ON THE NORTH SEA PATROL; or, Striking the First Blow at + the German Fleet. + +THE BOY ALLIES UNDER TWO FLAGS; or, Sweeping the Enemy from the Seas. + +THE BOY ALLIES WITH THE FLYING SQUADRON; or, The Naval Raiders of the + Great War. + +THE BOY ALLIES WITH THE TERROR OF THE SEA; or, The Last Shot of Submarine + D-16. + +THE BOY ALLIES UNDER THE SEA; or, The Vanishing Submarine. + +THE BOY ALLIES IN THE BALTIC; or, Through Fields of Ice to Aid the Czar. + +THE BOY ALLIES AT JUTLAND; or, The Greatest Naval Battle of History. + +THE BOY ALLIES WITH UNCLE SAM'S CRUISERS; or, Convoying the American Army + Across the Atlantic. + +THE BOY ALLIES WITH THE SUBMARINE D-32; or, The Fall of the Russian + Empire. + +THE BOY ALLIES WITH THE VICTORIOUS FLEETS; or, The Fall of the German + Navy. + + +For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the +publishers A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23rd St., New York + + + + + The Boy Allies With + (Registered in the United States Patent Office) + the Army + + + By CLAIR W. HAYES + + + Handsome Cloth Binding, Price 60 Cents per Volume + + +In this series we follow the fortunes of two American lads unable to +leave Europe after war is declared. They meet the soldiers of the Allies, +and decide to cast their lot with them. Their experiences and escapes are +many, and furnish plenty of the good, healthy action that every boy +loves. + +THE BOY ALLIES AT LIEGE; or, Through Lines of Steel. + +THE BOY ALLIES ON THE FIRING LINE; or, Twelve Days Battle Along the + Marne. + +THE BOY ALLIES WITH THE COSSACKS; or, A Wild Dash Over the Carpathians. + +THE BOY ALLIES IN THE TRENCHES; or, Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne. + +THE BOY ALLIES IN GREAT PERIL; or, With the Italian Army in the Alps. + +THE BOY ALLIES IN THE BALKAN CAMPAIGN; or, The Struggle to Save a Nation. + +THE BOY ALLIES ON THE SOMME; or, Courage and Bravery Rewarded. + +THE BOY ALLIES AT VERDUN; or, Saving France from the Enemy. + +THE BOY ALLIES UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES; or, Leading the American + Troops to the Firing Line. + +THE BOY ALLIES WITH HAIG IN FLANDERS; or, The Fighting Canadians of Vimy + Ridge. + +THE BOY ALLIES WITH PERSHING IN FRANCE; or, Over the Top at Chateau + Thierry. + +THE BOY ALLIES WITH THE GREAT ADVANCE; or, Driving the Enemy Through + France and Belgium. + +THE BOY ALLIES WITH MARSHAL FOCH; or, The Closing Days of the Great World + War. + + +For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the +publishers A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23rd St., New York + + + + + The Boy Scouts Series + + + By HERBERT CARTER + + + Handsome Cloth Binding, Price 60 Cents per Volume + + +THE BOY SCOUTS' FIRST CAMP FIRE; or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol. + +THE BOY SCOUTS IN THE BLUE RIDGE; or, Marooned Among the Moonshiners. + +THE BOY SCOUTS ON THE TRAIL; or, Scouting through the Big Game Country. + +THE BOY SCOUTS IN THE MAIN WOODS; or, The New Test for the Silver Fox + Patrol. + +THE BOY SCOUTS THROUGH THE BIG TIMBER; or, The Search for the Lost + Tenderfoot. + +THE BOY SCOUTS IN THE ROCKIES; or, The Secret of the Hidden Silver Mine. + +THE BOY SCOUTS ON STURGEON ISLAND; or, Marooned Among the Game Fish + Poachers. + +THE BOY SCOUTS DOWN IN DIXIE; or, The Strange Secret of Alligator Swamp. + +THE BOY SCOUTS AT THE BATTLE OF SARATOGA. A story of Burgoyne's defeat in + 1777. + +THE BOY SCOUTS ALONG THE SUSQUEHANNA; or, The Silver Fox Patrol Caught in + a Flood. + +THE BOY SCOUTS ON WAR TRAILS IN BELGIUM; or, Caught Between the Hostile + Armies. + +THE BOY SCOUTS AFOOT IN FRANCE; or, With the Red Cross Corps at the + Marne. + + +For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the +publishers A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23rd St., New York + + + + + Our Young Aeroplane Scout Series + (Registered in the United States Patent Office) + + + By HORACE PORTER + + + Handsome Cloth Binding, Price 60 Cents per Volume + +A series of stories of two American boy aviators in the great European +war zone. The fascinating life in mid-air is thrillingly described. The +boys have many exciting adventures, and the narratives of their numerous +escapes make up a series of wonderfully interesting stories. + +OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM; or, Saving the Fortunes + of the Trouvilles. + +OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS IN GERMANY. + +OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS IN RUSSIA; or, Lost on the Frozen Steppes. + +OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS IN TURKEY; or, Bringing the Light to Yusef. + +OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS IN ENGLAND; or, Twin Stars in the London Sky + Patrol. + +OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS IN ITALY; or, Flying with the War Eagles of + the Alps. + +OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS AT VERDUN; or, Driving Armored Meteors Over + Flaming Battle Fronts. + +OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS IN THE BALKANS; or, Wearing the Red Badge of + Courage. + +OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS IN THE WAR ZONE; or, Serving Uncle Sam In the + Cause of the Allies. + +OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS FIGHTING TO THE FINISH; or, Striking Hard Over + the Sea for the Stars and Stripes. + +OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS AT THE MARNE; or, Harrying the Huns From + Allied Battleplanes. + +OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS IN AT THE VICTORY; or, Speedy High Flyers + Smashing the Hindenburg Line. + + +For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the +publishers A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23rd St., New York + + + + + The Jack Lorimer Series + + + Volumes By WINN STANDISH + + Handsomely Bound in Cloth + Full Library Size -- + + +CAPTAIN JACK LORIMER; or, The Young Athlete of Millvale High. + + Jack Lorimer is a fine example of the all-around American high-school + boy. His fondness for clean, honest sport of all kinds will strike a + chord of sympathy among athletic youths. + +JACK LORIMER'S CHAMPIONS; or, Sports on Land and Lake. + + There is a lively story woven in with the athletic achievements, which + are all right, since the book has been O.K'd by Chadwick, the Nestor + of American sporting journalism. + +JACK LORIMER'S HOLIDAYS; or, Millvale High in Camp. + + It would be well not to put this book into a boy's hands until the + chores are finished, otherwise they might be neglected. + +JACK LORIMER'S SUBSTITUTE; or, The Acting Captain of the Team. + + On the sporting side, the book takes up football, wrestling, + tobogganing. There is a good deal of fun in this book and plenty of + action. + +JACK LORIMER, FRESHMAN; or, From Millvale High to Exmouth. + + Jack and some friends he makes crowd innumerable happenings into an + exciting freshman year at one of the leading Eastern colleges. The + book is typical of the American college boy's life, and there is a + lively story, interwoven with feats on the gridiron, hockey, + basketball and other clean, honest sports for which Jack Lorimer + stands. + + +For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the +publishers A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23d Street, New York + + + + + The Broncho Rider Boys Series + + + By FRANK FOWLER + + +A series of stirring stories for boys, breathing the adventurous spirit +that lives in the wide plains and lofty mountain ranges of the great +West. These tales will delight every lad who loves to read of pleasing +adventure in the open; yet at the same time the most careful parent need +not hesitate to place them in the hands of the boy. + +THE BRONCHO RIDER BOYS WITH FUNSTON AT VERA CRUZ; or, Upholding the Honor + of the Stars and Stripes. + + When trouble breaks out between this country and Mexico, the boys are + eager to join the American troops under General Funston. Their + attempts to reach Vera Cruz are fraught with danger, but after many + difficulties, they manage to reach the trouble zone, where their real + adventures begin. + +THE BRONCHO RIDER BOYS AT KEYSTONE RANCH; or, Three Chums of the Saddle + and Lariat. + + In this story the reader makes the acquaintance of three devoted + chums. The book begins in rapid action, and there is "something + doing" up to the very time you lay it down. + +THE BRONCHO RIDER BOYS DOWN IN ARIZONA; or, A Struggle for the Great + Copper Lode. + + The Broncho Rider Boys find themselves impelled to make a brave fight + against heavy odds, in order to retain possession of a valuable mine + that is claimed by some of their relatives. They meet with numerous + strange and thrilling perils and every wideawake boy will be pleased + to learn now the boys finally managed to outwit their enemies. + +THE BRONCHO RIDER BOYS ALONG THE BORDER; or, The Hidden Treasure of the + Zuni Medicine Man. + + Once more the tried and true comrades of camp and trail are in the + saddle. In the strangest possible way they are drawn into a series of + exciting happenings among the Zuni Indians. Certainly no lad will lay + this book down, save with regret. + +THE BRONCHO RIDER BOYS ON THE WYOMING TRAIL; or, A Mystery of the Prairie + Stampede. + + The three prairie pards finally find a chance to visit the Wyoming + ranch belonging to Adrian, but managed for him by an unscrupulous + relative. Of course, they become entangled in a maze of adventurous + doings while in the Northern cattle country. How the Broncho Rider + Boys carried themselves through this nerve-testing period makes + intensely interesting reading. + +THE BRONCHO RIDER BOYS WITH THE TEXAS RANGERS; or, The Smugglers of the + Rio Grande. + + In this volume, the Broncho Rider Boys get mixed up in the Mexican + troubles, and become acquainted with General Villa. In their efforts + to prevent smuggling across the border, they naturally make many + enemies, but finally succeed in their mission. + + + + + The Boy Chums Series + + + By WILMER M. ELY + +In this series of remarkable stories are described the adventure of two +boys in the great swamps of interior Florida, among the cays off the +Florida coast, and through the Bahama Islands. These are real, live boys, +and their experiences are worth following. + +THE BOY CHUMS IN MYSTERY LAND; or, Charlie West and Walter Hazard among + the Mexicans. + +THE BOY CHUMS ON INDIAN RIVER; or, The Boy Partners of the Schooner + "Orphan." + +THE BOY CHUMS ON HAUNTED ISLAND; or, Hunting for Pearls in the Bahama + Islands. + +THE BOY CHUMS IN THE FOREST; or, Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida + Everglades. + +THE BOY CHUMS' PERILOUS CRUISE; or, Searching for Wreckage on the Florida + Coast. + +THE BOY CHUMS IN THE GULF OF MEXICO; or, A Dangerous Cruise with the + Greek Spongers. + +THE BOY CHUMS CRUISING IN FLORIDA WATERS; or, The Perils and Dangers of + the Fishing Fleet. + +THE BOY CHUMS IN THE FLORIDA JUNGLE; or, Charlie West and Walter Hazard + with the Seminole Indians. + + + + + The Big + Five Motorcycle Boys + Series + + + By RALPH MARLOW + + +It is doubtful whether a more entertaining lot of boys ever before +appeared in a story than the "Big Five," who figure in the pages of these +volumes. From cover to cover the reader will be thrilled and delighted +with the accounts of their many adventures. + +THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS ON THE BATTLE LINE; or, With the Allies in + France. + +THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS AT THE FRONT; or, Carrying Dispatches + Through Belgium. + +THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS UNDER FIRE; or, With the Allies in the War + Zone. + +THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS' SWIFT ROAD CHASE; or, Surprising the Bank + Robbers. + +THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS ON FLORIDA TRAILS; or, Adventures Among the + Saw Palmetto Crackers. + +THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS IN TENNESSEE WILDS; or, The Secret of Walnut + Ridge. + +THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS THROUGH BY WIRELESS; or, A Strange Message + from the Air. + + + + + Transcriber's Notes + + +--Silently corrected palpable typos in spelling and punctuation + +--Harrison Hill becomes Harrisburg Hill in the course of the narrative; + this was not changed + +--Adjusted front matter to give a complete list of the series + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery, by +Hildegard G. 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