The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale - Laura Lee Hope
CHAPTER XIII
THE MISSING LUNCH
"Oh, but these shoes are so comfortable!"
"I'm glad of that, Grace."
"Though I didn't really delay you much; did I?"
"No, I wasn't complaining," and Betty put a caressing hand on the arm of
her companion.
"We'll be able to make up for lost time now," said Mollie, as she shifted
her little valise from one hand to the other. "Your aunt was certainly
generous in the matter of lunch, Betty," she went on.
"Yes, she said this country air would give us good appetites."
"I'm sure I don't need any," spoke Amy. "I've been hungry ever since
we started."
The four girls were again on the broad highway that was splashed and
spotted with the streaks of the early sun as it slanted through the elms
and maples along the road. They had spent two nights at the home of
Betty's aunt, that lady having insisted on a little longer visit than was
at first planned. She made the girls royally welcome, as did her
husband. Grace's shoes had been sent to her at Rockford, having been
telephoned for.
"But if we stay another day and night here," said Betty, "not that we're
not glad to, Aunt Sallie--why we can't keep up to our schedule in
walking, and we must cover so many miles each day."
"You see it's in the constitution of our club," added Grace. "We can't
violate that."
"Oh, come now!" insisted Mr. Palmer. "You can stay longer just as well as
not. As for walking, why we've got some of the finest walks going, right
around Rockford here. You'd better stay. We don't very often see you,
Betty, and your aunt isn't half talked out yet," and he solemnly winked
over the head of his wife.
"The idea!" she exclaimed. "As if I'd talked half as much as you had."
And so the girls had remained. They had greatly enjoyed the visit. In
anticipation of their coming Mrs. Palmer had prepared "enough for a
regiment of hungry boys," to quote her husband, and had invited a number
of the neighboring young people to meet the members of the Camping and
Tramping Club.
The dainty rooms of the country house, with their quaint, old-fashioned,
striped wall paper, the big four-poster beds, a relic of a by-gone
generation, the mahogany dressers with their shining mirrors, and the
delightful home-like atmosphere--all had combined to make the stay of the
girls most pleasant.
The day after their arrival by carriage they had gone on a long walk,
visiting a picturesque little glen not far from the village, being
accompanied by a number of girls whose acquaintance Betty and her chums
had made. Some of them Betty had met before.
The idea of a walking club was enthusiastically received by the country
girls, and they at once resolved to form one like the organization
started by Betty Nelson. In fact they named it after her, in spite of
her protests.
In the afternoon the girls went for a drive in Mr. Palmer's big
carriage, visiting places of local interest. And in the evening there
was an old-fashioned "surprise party"--a real surprise too, by the way,
for Betty and her chums had never dreamed of it. It was a most
delightful time.
Mr. and Mrs. Palmer had tried to persuade their niece and her chums to
stay still longer, but they were firm in their determination to cover the
two hundred miles--more or less--in the specified time.
So they had started off, and the snatches of conversation with which I
begun this chapter might have been heard as the four walked along the
pleasant country road.
"We've had very good luck so far," said Mollie, as she skipped a few
steps in advance on the greensward. "Not a bit of rain."
"Don't boast!" cautioned Betty. "It will be perfectly terrible if it
rains. We simply can't walk if it does."
"I don't see why not," spoke Mollie, trying to catch Amy in a waltz hug
and whirl her about.
"My, isn't she getting giddy!" mocked Grace.
"I feel so good!" cried Mollie, whose volatile nature seemed fairly
bubbling over on this beautiful day. And indeed it was a day to call
forth all the latent energies of the most phlegmatic person. The very air
tingled with life that the sunshine coaxed into being, and the gentle
wind further fanned it to rapidity of action. "Oh, I do feel so happy!"
cried Mollie.
"I guess we all do," spoke Grace, but even as she said this she could not
refrain from covertly glancing at Amy, over whose face there seemed a
shade of--well, just what it was Grace could not decide. It might have
been disappointment, or perhaps an unsatisfied longing. Clearly the
mystery over her past had made an impression on the character of this
sweet, quiet girl. But for all that she did not inflict her mood on her
chums. She must have become conscious of Grace's quick scrutiny, for with
a laugh she ran to her, and soon the two were bobbing about on the uneven
turf in what they were pleased to term a "dance."
"Your aunt was certainly good to us," murmured Mollie, a little later.
"I'm just dying to see what she has put up for our lunch." For Mrs.
Palmer had insisted, as has been said, on packing one of the little
valises the girls carried with a noon-day meal to be eaten on the road.
Mollie was entrusted with this, her belongings having been divided among
her chums.
"Oh," suddenly cried Grace, a moment later, "I forgot something!"
"You mean you left it at my aunt's house?" asked Betty, coming to a stop
in the road.
"No, I forgot to get some of those lovely chocolates that new drug store
sells. They were delicious. For a country town I never ate better."
"Grace, you are hopeless!" sighed Betty. "Come along, girls, do, or
she'll insist on going back for them. And we must get to Middleville on
time. It won't do to fall back in our schedule any more."
"I sent a postal to my cousin from your aunt's house," said Amy, at
whose relatives the girls were to spend the night. "I told her we surely
would be there."
"And so we will," said Betty. "Gracious, I forgot to mail this card to
Nettie French," and she produced a souvenir card from her pocket.
"Never mind, you can put it in the next post-office we come to,"
suggested Grace. "Oh, dear! I'm so provoked about those chocolates. I'm
positively famished, and I don't suppose it is anywhere near lunch time?"
and she looked at her watch. "No, only ten o'clock," and she sighed.
Laughing at her, the girls stepped on. For a time the road ran
along a pleasant little river, on which a number of canoes and
boats could be seen.
"Oh, for a good row!" exclaimed Mollie.
"We'll have plenty of chances this summer," said Betty. "It has
hardly begun."
"I wonder where we will spend our vacation?" spoke Mollie.
"We'll talk about that later," said Betty. "I hope we can be together,
and somewhere near the water."
"If we only could get a motor boat!" sighed Grace. "Oh, Bet, if no one
claims that five hundred dollars maybe we can get a little launch with
it, and camp at Rainbow Lake."
"I'm only afraid some one will claim it," spoke Betty. "I dropped papa a
card, telling him to send me a line in case a claimant did appear."
"Oh, let's sit down and rest," proposed Mollie, a little later. "There's
a perfect dream of a view from here and it's so cool and shady."
The others were agreeable, so they stopped beneath some big trees in a
grassy spot near the bank of the little stream. Grace took advantage of
the stop to mend a pair of stockings she was carrying with her. It was so
comfortable that they remained nearly an hour and would have stayed
longer only the Little Captain, with a look at her watch, decided that
they must get under way again.
"Now it's noon!" exclaimed Grace, when they had covered two miles after
their rest. "Mollie, open the lunch and let's see what it contains."
There was a startled cry from Mollie. A clasping of her hands, a raising
of her almost tragic eyes, and she exclaimed:
"Oh, girls, forgive me! I forgot the lunch! I left it back there where we
rested in the shade!"
CHAPTER XIV
THE BROKEN RAIL
Dumb amazement held the girls in suspense for a moment. Then came a
chorus of cries.
"Mollie, you never did that!"
"Forgot our lunch!"
"And we're so hungry!"
"Oh, Mollie, how could you?"
"You don't suppose I did it on purpose; do you?" flashed back the guilty
one, as she looked at the three pairs of tragic, half-indignant and
hopeless eyes fastened on her.
"Of course you didn't," returned Betty. "But, oh, Mollie, is it really
gone? Did you leave it there?"
"Well, I haven't it with me, none of you have, and I don't remember
picking it up after we slumped down there in the shade. Consequently I
must have left it there. There's no other solution. It's like one of
those queer problems in geometry, or is it algebra, where things that are
equal to the same thing are equal to each other," and she laughed with
just the hint of hysteria.
"But what are we to do?" demanded Grace. "I am so hungry, and I know
there were chicken sandwiches, and olives, in that lunch. Oh, Mollie!"
"Oh, Mollie!" mocked the negligent one. "If you say that
again--that way--"
Her temper was rising but, by an effort, she conquered it and smiled.
"I am truly sorry," she said. "Girls, I'll do anything to make up for it.
I'll run back and get the lunch--that is, if it is there yet."
"Don't you dare say it isn't!" cried Betty.
"Why can't we all go back?" suggested Amy. "Really it won't delay us so
much--if we walk fast. And that was a nice place to eat. There was a
lovely spring just across the road. I noticed it. We could make tea--"
"Little comforter!" whispered Betty, putting her arms around the other.
"We will all go back. The day is so perfect that there's sure to be a
lovely moon, and we can stop somewhere and telephone to your cousin if we
find we are going to be delayed. She has an auto, I believe you said, and
she might come and get us."
"Stop!" commanded Mollie. "We are a walking club, not a carriage or auto
club. We'll walk."
"Then let's put our principles into practice and start now," proposed
Grace. "We'll have a good incentive in the lunch at the end of this
tramp. Come on!"
There was nothing to do but retrace their steps. True, they might have
stopped at some wayside restaurant, but such places were not frequent,
and such as there were did not seem very inviting. And Aunt Sallie had
certainly put up a most delectable lunch.
The girls reached the spot where they had stopped for a rest, much sooner
than they had deemed it possible. Perhaps they walked faster than usual.
And, as they came in sight of the quiet little grassy spot, Mollie
exclaimed:
"Oh, girls, I see it. Just where I so stupidly left it; near that big
rock. Hurry before someone gets there ahead of us!"
They broke into a run, but a moment later Grace cried:
"Too late! That tramp has it!"
The girls stopped in dismay, as they saw a rather raggedly-dressed man
slink out from the shadow of a tree and pick up the lunch valise. He
stood regarding it curiously.
"Oh, dear!" cried Grace. "And I was so hungry!"
Betty strode forward. There was a look of determination on her face.
She spoke:
"Girls, I'm not going to let that tramp take our lovely lunch. Come on,
and I'll make him give it back!"
"Betty!" cried Amy. "You'd never dare!"
"I wouldn't? Watch me!"
The man was still standing there, looking at the valise as if in doubt
whether or not to open it. Betty with a glance at her chums walked on.
They followed.
"That--that's ours, if you please," said Betty. Her voice was weaker than
she had thought it would be, and quite wobbly, too. Her knees, she
confessed later, were in the same state. But she presented a brave front.
"That--that's our lunch," she added, swallowing a lump in her throat.
The man--he certainly looked like a tramp, as far as his clothes were
concerned, but his face was clean--turned toward the girls with a smile.
"Your lunch!" he exclaimed, and his voice was not unmusical, "how
fortunate!"
He did not say whether it was fortunate for them--or himself.
"We--we forgot it. We left it here," explained Mollie. "That is, I
left it here."
"That is--unfortunate," said the man. "It seems--it seems to be a fairly
substantial lunch," and he moved the bag up and down.
"It ought to be--for four of us," breathed Amy.
"Allow me," spoke the man, and with a bow he handed the missing lunch to
Betty. The girls said afterward that her hand did not tremble a bit as
she accepted it. And then the Little Captain did something most
unexpected.
"Perhaps you are hungry, too," she said, with one of her winning smiles,
a smile that seemed to set her face in a glow of friendliness. "We are
on a tramping tour--I mean a walking tour," she hastily corrected
herself, feeling that perhaps the man would object to the word "tramp."
She went on:
"We are on a walking tour, visiting friends and relatives. We generally
take a lunch at noon."
"Yes, that seems to be the universal custom," agreed the man. "That is,
for some persons," and he smiled, showing his white teeth.
"Are you--are you hungry?" asked Betty, bluntly.
"I am!" He spoke decidedly.
"Then perhaps--I'm sure we have more here than we can eat--and we'll
soon--I mean comparatively soon--be at a friend's house--perhaps--"
She hesitated.
"I would be very glad," and again the man bowed.
Betty opened the little satchel--it was a miniature suitcase--and a
veritable wealth of lunch was disclosed. There were sandwiches without
number, pickles, olives, chunks of cake, creamy cheese--
"Are you sure you can spare it?" asked the man. "I'm sure I don't
want to--"
"Of course we can spare it," put in Mollie, quickly.
"Well then I will admit that I am hungry," spoke the unknown. "I am not
exactly what I seem," he added.
Betty glanced curiously at him.
"Don't be alarmed," he went on quickly. "I am not exactly sailing under
false colors except in a minor way. Now, for instance, you took me for a
tramp; did you not?" He paused and smiled.
"I--I think we did," faltered Mollie.
"And I don't blame you. I have, for the time being, assumed the
habiliments of a knight of the road, for certain purposes of my own. I
am--well, to be frank, I am trying to find something. In order to carry
out my plans I have even begged my way, and, not always successfully.
In fact--"
"You are hungry!" exclaimed Grace, and her chums said she made a move as
though to bring out some chocolates. Grace, later, denied this.
"I am hungry," confessed the tramp--as he evidently preferred to appear.
Betty took out a generous portion of food.
"It is too much," the wayfarer protested.
"Not at all," Betty insisted. "We have a double reason for giving it to
you. First, you are hungry. Second, please accept it as a reward for--"
"For not eating all of your lunch after I found it, I suppose you were
going to say," put in the man, with a smile. "Very well, then I'll
accept," and he bowed, not ungracefully.
He had the good taste--or was it bashfulness--to go over to a little
grove of trees to eat his portion. Grace wanted to take him a cup of
chocolate--which they made instead of tea--but Betty persuaded her not
to. The girls ate their lunch, to be interrupted in the midst of it by
the man who called a good-bye to them as he moved off down the road.
"He's going," remarked Amy. "I wonder if he had enough?"
"I think so," replied Betty. "Now, girls, we must hurry. We have been
delayed, and--"
"I'm so sorry," put in Mollie. "It was my fault, and--"
"Don't think of it, my dear!" begged Grace. "Any of us might have
forgotten the lunch, just as you did."
As they walked past the place which the tramp had selected for his dining
room, Betty saw some papers on the ground. They appeared to be letters,
and, rather idly, she picked them up. She looked into one or two of the
torn envelopes.
"I wouldn't do that," said Grace. "Maybe those are private letters. He
must have forgotten them. I wonder where he has gone? Perhaps we can
catch him--he might need these papers. But I wouldn't read them, Betty."
"They're nothing but advertising circulars," retorted the Little Captain.
"Nothing very private about them. I guess he threw them all away."
She was about to let them fall from her hand, when a bit of paper
fluttered from one envelope. Picking it up Betty was astonished to read
on the torn portion the words:
"_I cannot carry out that deal I arranged with you, because I have had
the misfortune to lose five hundred dollars and I shall have to_--"
There the paper, evidently part of a letter to someone, was torn off.
There were no other words.
"Girls!" cried Betty, "look--see! This letter! That man may be the one
whose money we found! He has written about it--as nearly as I can recall,
the writing is like that in the note pinned to the five hundred dollars.
Oh, we must find that tramp!"
"He wasn't a tramp!" exclaimed Grace.
"No, I don't believe he was, either," admitted Betty. "That's what he
meant when he spoke of his disguise, and looking for something. He's
hunting for his five hundred dollars. Oh, dear! which way did he go?"
"Toward Middleville," returned Amy.
"Then we must hurry up and catch him. We can explain that we have
his money."
"But are you sure it is his?" asked Mollie.
"This looks like it," said Betty, holding out the torn letter.
"But some one else might have lost five hundred dollars,"
protested Grace.
"Come on, we'll find him, and ask him about it, anyhow," suggested
Betty. "Middleville is on our way. Oh, to think how things may turn out!
Hurry, girls!"
They hastily gathered up their belongings and walked on, talking of their
latest adventure.
"He was real nice looking," said Mollie.
"And quite polite," added Amy.
"And do you think he may be traveling around like a tramp, searching for
that bill?" asked Grace.
"It's possible," declared Betty: "Perhaps he couldn't help looking like a
tramp, because if he has lost all his money he can't afford any other
clothes. Oh, I do hope we find him!"
But it was a vain hope. They did not see the man along the road, and
inquiries of several persons they met gave no trace. Nor had he
reached Middleville, as far as could be learned. If he had, no one had
noticed him.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Betty, when they had exhausted all possibilities, "I
did hope that money mystery was going to be solved. Now it's as far off
as ever. But I'll keep this torn piece of letter for evidence. Poor
fellow! He may have built great hopes on that five hundred dollar
bill--then to lose it!"
They went to the house of Amy's cousin in Middleville. There they spent
an enjoyable evening, meeting some friends who had been invited in. Amy
said nothing about the disclosure to her of the strange incident in her
life. Probably, she reflected, her relative already knew it.
Morning saw them on the move again, with Broxton, where a married sister
of Grace lived, as their objective point. The day was cloudy, but it did
not seem that it would rain, at least before night.
And even the frown of the weather did not detract from the happiness
of the chums. They laughed and talked as they walked on, making merry
by the way.
Stopping in a country store to make sure of their route they were
informed that by taking to the railroad track for a short distance they
could save considerable time.
"Then we ought to do it," decided Betty, "for we don't want to get caught
in the rain," and she glanced up at the clouds that were now more
threatening.
They reached the railroad track a short distance out of the little
village, and proceeded down the stretch of rails.
"There's a train in half an hour," a man informed them, "but you'll be
off long before then."
"I hope so," murmured Amy.
They had nearly reached the end of the ballasted way, when Betty, who was
in the lead, came to a sudden halt.
"What is it," asked Mollie, "a snake? Oh, girls!"
"No, not a snake," was the quick answer. "But look! This rail is broken!
It must have cracked when the last train passed. And another one--an
express--is due soon! If it runs over that broken rail it may be wrecked!
Girls, we've got to stop that train!" and she faced her chums resolutely.
CHAPTER XV
"IT'S A BEAR!"
"What can we do?" It was Grace who asked the question. It was Betty, the
Little Captain, who answered it.
"We must stop the train," she said. "We must wave something red at it.
Red always means danger."
"Mollie's tie," exclaimed Amy. Mollie was wearing a bright vermilion
scarf knotted about the collar of her blouse.
"It isn't big enough," decided Betty. "But we must do something. That man
said the train would come along soon. It's an express. A slow train might
not go off the track, as the break is only a small one. But the
express--"
She paused suggestively--apprehensively.
"There's a man!" cried Grace.
"A track-walker!" cried Betty. "Oh, he'll know what to do," and she
darted toward a man just appearing around the curve--a man with a sledge,
and long-handled wrench over his shoulder.
"Hey! Hey!" Betty called. "Come here. There's a broken rail!"
The man broke into a run.
"What's that?" he called. "Got your foot caught in a rail? It's a frog--a
switch that you mean. Take off your shoe!"
"No, we're not caught!" cried Betty, in shrill accent. "The rail
is broken!"
The track-walker was near enough now to hear her correctly. And,
fortunately, he understood, which might have been expected of him,
considering his line of work.
"It's a bad break," he affirmed, as he looked at it, "Sometimes the heat
of the sun will warp a rail, and pull out the very spikes by the roots,
ladies. That's what happened here. Then a train--'twas the local from
Dunkirk--came along and split the rail. 'Tis a wonder Jimmie Flannigan
didn't see it. This is his bit of track, but his wife is sick and I said
I'd come down to meet him with a bite to eat, seein' as how she can't put
up his dinner. 'Tis lucky you saw it in time, ladies."
"But what about the train?" asked Betty.
"Oh, I'll stop that all right. I'll flag it, and Jimmie and me'll put in
a new rail. You'll be noticin' that we have 'em here and there along the
line," and he showed them where, a little distance down the track, there
were a number placed in racks made of posts, so that they might not rust.
From his pocket the track-walker pulled a red flag. It seemed that he
carried it there for just such emergencies. He tied it to his pick
handle, and stuck the latter in the track some distance away from the
broken rail.
"The engineer'll see that," he said, "and stop. Now I'll go get Jimmie
and we'll put in a new rail. You young ladies--why, th' railroad
company'll be very thankful to you. If you was to stop here now, and the
passengers of the train were told of what you found--why, they might even
make up a purse for you. They did that to Mike Malone once, when he
flagged the Century Flier when it was goin' to slip over a broken bridge.
I'll tell 'em how it was, and how you--"
"No--no--we can't stay!" exclaimed Betty. "If you will look after the
broken rail we'll go on. We must get to Broxton."
"Oh, sure, it'll not take the likes of you long to be doin' that,"
complimented the man, with a trace of brogue in his voice. "You look
equal to doin' twice as much."
"Well, we don't want to be caught in the rain," spoke Mollie.
"Ah, 'twill be nothin' more than a sun shower, it will make your
complexions better--not that you need it though," he hastened to add.
"Good luck to you, and many thanks for tellin' me about this broken rail.
'Tis poor Jimmie who'd be blamed for not seein' it, and him with a sick
wife. Good-bye to you!"
The girls, satisfied that the train would be flagged in time, soon left
the track, the last glimpse they had of the workman being as he hurried
off to summon his partner to replace the broken rail.
That he did so was proved a little later, for when the girls were walking
along the road that ran parallel to the railroad line some distance
farther on, the express dashed by at a speed which seemed to indicate
that the engineer was making up for lost time.
Several days later the girls read in a local paper of how the train had
been stopped while two track-walkers fitted a perfect rail in place of
the broken one. And something of themselves was told. For the
track-walker they had met had talked of the young ladies he had met, and
there was much printed speculation about them.
"I'm glad we didn't give our names," said Grace. "Our folks might have
worried if they had read of it."
"But we might have gotten a reward," said Mollie.
"Never mind--we have the five hundred dollars," exclaimed Grace.
"It may already be claimed," spoke Betty.
When they had seen the express go safely by, thankful that they had had a
small share in preventing a possible loss of life, the girls continued on
their way. They stopped for lunch in a little grove of trees, brewing
tea, and partaking of the cake, bread and meat Amy's cousin had provided.
Amy had torn her skirt on a barbed wire fence and the rent was sewed up
beside the road.
The clouds seemed to be gathering more thickly, and with rather
anxious looks at the sky the members of the Camping and Tramping Club
hastened on.