
-----File: 001.png---------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: The old man swayed, clutched at the empty air, and
fell heavily in the snow at her feet.        Page 155

The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery]
-----File: 002.png---------------------------------------------------------

The Camp Fire Girls
Solve A Mystery

or, THE CHRISTMAS ADVENTURE
at CARVER HOUSE

By HILDEGARD G. FREY

AUTHOR OF
<sc>The Camp Fire Girls Series</sc>

[Illustration]

A. L. BURT COMPANY

Publishers      New York
-----File: 003.png---------------------------------------------------------

THE

<sc>Camp Fire Girls Series</sc>

A Series of Stories for Camp Fire Girls Endorsed by
the Officials of the Camp Fire Girls Organization

<tb>

By HILDEGARD G. FREY

<tb>

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

<tb>

Copyright, 1919
By A. L. BURT COMPANY

<tb>

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS SOLVE A MYSTERY
-----File: 004.png---------------------------------------------------------




THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS
SOLVE A MYSTERY


CHAPTER I

THE EMPTY HOUSE

<sc>Katherine Adams</sc> 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.
-----File: 005.png---------------------------------------------------------

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
-----File: 006.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>too</i> 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.
-----File: 007.png---------------------------------------------------------

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
-----File: 008.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 009.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 010.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>am</i> 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
-----File: 011.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 012.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 013.png---------------------------------------------------------

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
-----File: 014.png---------------------------------------------------------
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,
-----File: 015.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 016.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 017.png---------------------------------------------------------




CHAPTER II

THE PRINCESS SYLVIA


<sc>Katherine</sc> 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:
-----File: 018.png---------------------------------------------------------

/*
“<i>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</i>!”
*/

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,”
-----File: 019.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 020.png---------------------------------------------------------

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
-----File: 021.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 022.png---------------------------------------------------------
of the bay[**unclear] 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.
-----File: 023.png---------------------------------------------------------

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
-----File: 024.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>very</i> 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
-----File: 025.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 026.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 027.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 028.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 029.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 030.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 031.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.

“<i>Nyoda!</i>”

“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
-----File: 032.png---------------------------------------------------------
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!”
-----File: 033.png---------------------------------------------------------




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
-----File: 034.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 035.png---------------------------------------------------------

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,
-----File: 036.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 037.png---------------------------------------------------------
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?”
-----File: 038.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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.
-----File: 039.png---------------------------------------------------------

“What have you to report, my darling scouts?”
she asked gravely.

“Nothing,” replied the captain, rather sheepishly.

Sahwah rubbed her fingers tenderly. “There are
<i>miles</i> 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 <i>pulp</i>, 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
-----File: 040.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>very</i> 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
-----File: 041.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 042.png---------------------------------------------------------
then even to wonder about it. The room has been
closed up ever since and I had forgotten all about
it. It <i>does</i> 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.
-----File: 043.png---------------------------------------------------------




CHAPTER IV

AN INTERVIEW WITH HERCULES


<sc>Among</sc> 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
-----File: 044.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>smell</i> those roses, they're
so natural! Oh, the darling archway! Did you
ever see anything so beautiful? Don't you just <i>long</i>
to go through it? O why did your uncle ever have
that horrible old shutter put over it?”
-----File: 045.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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
-----File: 046.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 047.png---------------------------------------------------------
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;
-----File: 048.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 049.png---------------------------------------------------------
“But <i>why</i> 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,
-----File: 050.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
<i>told</i> 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' <i>why</i>
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.”
-----File: 051.png---------------------------------------------------------

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 <i>want</i> ter look at, and dey's tings dey <i>dassent</i>
look at!”

Still lost in reverie he shuffled out of the room
and hobbled painfully downstairs.
-----File: 052.png---------------------------------------------------------




CHAPTER V

THE FIRST LINK


“<sc>What</sc> 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.
-----File: 053.png---------------------------------------------------------

“But what a queer thing to say—‘Dey's tings people
<i>dassent</i> 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
-----File: 054.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 055.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.”
-----File: 056.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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.
-----File: 057.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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,
-----File: 058.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 059.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.”
-----File: 060.png---------------------------------------------------------

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.
-----File: 061.png---------------------------------------------------------




CHAPTER VI

UNCLE JASPER'S DIARY


<sc>After</sc> 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.
#/
-----File: 062.png---------------------------------------------------------
/#
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
-----File: 063.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
#/
-----File: 064.png---------------------------------------------------------
/#
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.”
#/
-----File: 065.png---------------------------------------------------------

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
-----File: 066.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 067.png---------------------------------------------------------
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,
-----File: 068.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 069.png---------------------------------------------------------
for anything! Oh, <i>please</i> 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.
“<i>That</i> 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
-----File: 070.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>did</i> 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
-----File: 071.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 072.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>thrilling</i>!” 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
-----File: 073.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
<i>so</i> 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.
-----File: 074.png---------------------------------------------------------




CHAPTER VII

SYLVIA'S STORY


“<sc>Katherine Adams</sc>, 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
-----File: 075.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 076.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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 <i>did</i> 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 <i>could</i> 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!”
*/
-----File: 077.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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
-----File: 078.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 079.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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
-----File: 080.png---------------------------------------------------------
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,
-----File: 081.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>so</i> 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 <i>breathe</i>, 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.
-----File: 082.png---------------------------------------------------------

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 <i>tuneful</i>
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 <i>fragrant</i> 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 <i>first</i> 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.”
-----File: 083.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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
-----File: 084.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 085.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>dazzling</i> 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
-----File: 086.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 087.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 might 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 <i>can</i> 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
-----File: 088.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 089.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 090.png---------------------------------------------------------




CHAPTER VIII

THE FOOTPRINTS ON THE STAIRS


<sc>The</sc> 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
-----File: 091.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 092.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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
-----File: 093.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 094.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>all</i> the way down, instead of beginning
in the middle?” insisted Katherine. “He
<i>couldn't</i> have come down from upstairs; he <i>must</i>
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.”
-----File: 095.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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
-----File: 096.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 097.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 098.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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
-----File: 099.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 100.png---------------------------------------------------------

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.
-----File: 101.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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.”
-----File: 102.png---------------------------------------------------------




CHAPTER IX

THE TRIALS OF AN EXPLORER


“<sc>Oh</sc>, 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.”
-----File: 103.png---------------------------------------------------------

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
-----File: 104.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 107.png---------------------------------------------------------
longing she exclaimed, “Oh, if I could only do things
like other girls!”

“You <i>are</i> 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!”
-----File: 108.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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!”
-----File: 109.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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.”
-----File: 110.png---------------------------------------------------------

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!”
-----File: 111.png---------------------------------------------------------




CHAPTER X

THE SECRET PASSAGE


“<sc>Oh</sc>, 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 <i>sure</i> 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,
<i>please</i> live that long, so you can help us do all we've
-----File: 112.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>so</i> 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
-----File: 113.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 114.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 115.png---------------------------------------------------------

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
-----File: 116.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 117.png---------------------------------------------------------

“The passage isn't inside the house at all,” he
reported when he reached the top. “It's <i>outside</i>.
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
-----File: 118.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>says</i> 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. It's beginning was somewhere
up in the space under the stairs.

“Pull it and see what happens,” said Slim.
-----File: 119.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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.”
-----File: 120.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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
-----File: 121.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>inside</i> 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
-----File: 122.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 123.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 124.png---------------------------------------------------------
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>I</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
“<sc>Jasper the Feend</sc>” and “<sc>Tad the Terror</sc>,”
bracketed together at both ends and surmounted by
a wobbly skull and cross bones, under which was
carved the legend, “<sc>Frends til Deth</sc>.” When
-----File: 125.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 126.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 127.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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 <i>couldn't</i> have,” said Katherine decidedly,
“unless he really <i>was</i> 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 <i>did</i> 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 <i>must</i> 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
-----File: 128.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>do</i> 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
-----File: 129.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.

“<i>Nobody can hear us!</i>”
-----File: 130.png---------------------------------------------------------

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 <i>with</i> you,” the Captain reminded
her.

“Yes, and that time it wasn't so cold,” said Sahwah,
vainly trying to stop shivering, “and we had
-----File: 131.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>isn't</i> 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.
-----File: 132.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 133.png---------------------------------------------------------

“It <i>is</i> 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
-----File: 134.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 135.png---------------------------------------------------------
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!”
-----File: 136.png---------------------------------------------------------




CHAPTER XI

A CURE FOR RHEUMATISM


<sc>All</sc> 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
-----File: 137.png---------------------------------------------------------
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,
-----File: 138.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 139.png---------------------------------------------------------
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!”
-----File: 140.png---------------------------------------------------------




CHAPTER XII

THE SPIRIT OF A PRINCESS


“<sc>O Nyoda</sc>, it <i>can't</i> 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
-----File: 141.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 142.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 143.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 144.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 145.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 146.png---------------------------------------------------------
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!”
*/
-----File: 147.png---------------------------------------------------------




CHAPTER XIII

THE MASQUERADE


“I <sc>DON'T</sc> 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 <i>will</i> 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
-----File: 148.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 149.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 150.png---------------------------------------------------------

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, “<i>To Jasper, from Sylvia</i>.”

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
-----File: 151.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.”
-----File: 152.png---------------------------------------------------------

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
-----File: 153.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 154.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 155.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 156.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.”
-----File: 157.png---------------------------------------------------------

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.”
-----File: 158.png---------------------------------------------------------

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.
-----File: 159.png---------------------------------------------------------




CHAPTER XIV

AN UNINVITED GUEST


<sc>MIGWAN</sc> 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 <i>is</i> Hercules!” he exclaimed in astonishment.

“Is he dead?” faltered Migwan.
-----File: 160.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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.
-----File: 161.png---------------------------------------------------------

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.
-----File: 162.png---------------------------------------------------------




CHAPTER XV

HERCULES' STORY


<sc>When</sc> 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. <i>Ain't</i> 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
-----File: 163.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>said</i>
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.”
-----File: 164.png---------------------------------------------------------

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
-----File: 165.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 166.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 167.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 168.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 169.png---------------------------------------------------------
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>I</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.
-----File: 170.png---------------------------------------------------------

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.
-----File: 171.png---------------------------------------------------------




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.
-----File: 172.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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 <i>is</i> 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,
-----File: 173.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 174.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
#/
-----File: 175.png---------------------------------------------------------
/#
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.
#/
-----File: 176.png---------------------------------------------------------
/#
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.
#/
-----File: 177.png---------------------------------------------------------

/#
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!

/*
<sc>George Ingram.</sc>”
*/
#/

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
-----File: 178.png---------------------------------------------------------
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,”
-----File: 179.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>must</i>, they <i>must</i>,” said Sahwah, with dry
lips.

“They <i>must</i>,” echoed the others, and hardly daring
to think, they entered upon the trying period
of waiting.
-----File: 180.png---------------------------------------------------------




CHAPTER XVII

WAITING


“<sc>HOW</sc> 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
-----File: 181.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 182.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 183.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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
-----File: 184.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>they</i> 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 <i>he</i> 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:
-----File: 185.png---------------------------------------------------------

/*
“Ye call me <i>Chef</i>, and ye do well to call him <i>Chef</i>
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 <i>Chef</i> of still more savage menus——”
*/

<tb>

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.
-----File: 186.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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.”
-----File: 187.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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.
-----File: 188.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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!”
-----File: 189.png---------------------------------------------------------




CHAPTER XVIII

KATHERINE GOES TO THE CITY


“<sc>Does</sc> 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
-----File: 190.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 191.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 192.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>is</i> the matter,” replied Veronica,
her bewilderment also manifesting itself in her tone.
-----File: 193.png---------------------------------------------------------
“You <i>haven't</i> 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 <i>do</i> 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
<i>made</i> 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.
-----File: 194.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 195.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 196.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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 <i>must</i> 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,”
-----File: 197.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.

“<i>Do</i> be careful, dear,” warned her aunt a second
time. “Those croquettes are distressingly rich.
What <i>would</i> 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!”
-----File: 198.png---------------------------------------------------------

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,
-----File: 199.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 200.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.”
-----File: 201.png---------------------------------------------------------

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,
-----File: 202.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 203.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 204.png---------------------------------------------------------




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.
-----File: 205.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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
-----File: 206.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 207.png---------------------------------------------------------

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
-----File: 208.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 209.png---------------------------------------------------------
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,
-----File: 210.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 211.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 212.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 213.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 214.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 215.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>pole</i> 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!”
-----File: 216.png---------------------------------------------------------

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
-----File: 217.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 218.png---------------------------------------------------------
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——[**space]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
-----File: 219.png---------------------------------------------------------
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 <i>Katherine</i>.”

Katherine opened her eyes fully and looked up
into the dumfounded[**typo? dumbfounded] 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
-----File: 220.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
<i>is</i> 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.”
-----File: 221.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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,
-----File: 222.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 223.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 224.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 225.png---------------------------------------------------------
“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
-----File: 226.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.
-----File: 227.png---------------------------------------------------------




CHAPTER XX

THE END OF A PERFECT DAY


“<sc>Daggers</sc> 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
-----File: 228.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 229.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.”
-----File: 230.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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
-----File: 231.png---------------------------------------------------------
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!”
-----File: 232.png---------------------------------------------------------




CHAPTER XXI

FATHER AND DAUGHTER


<sc>In</sc> 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.

<tb>

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.
-----File: 233.png---------------------------------------------------------

“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
-----File: 234.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 235.png---------------------------------------------------------
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.”
-----File: 236.png---------------------------------------------------------




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;
-----File: 237.png---------------------------------------------------------
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
-----File: 238.png---------------------------------------------------------
to the <i>memory</i> of Katherine Adams, but to her <i>forgettory</i>!”

And amid a great shout of laughter the last toast
was drunk.


THE END
-----File: 239.png---------------------------------------------------------
[Blank Page]
-----File: 240.png---------------------------------------------------------




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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.

<tb>

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
-----File: 242.png---------------------------------------------------------





The Camp Fire Girls Series


<b>By HILDEGARD G. FREY.</b> 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.

<tb>

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.

<tb>

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers
<b>A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114–120 East 23rd St., New York</b>
-----File: 243.png---------------------------------------------------------




/*
<sc>The Blue Grass
Seminary Girls Series</sc>
*/

<b>By CAROLYN JUDSON BURNETT</b>

<b>Handsome Cloth Binding</b>

<i>Splendid Stories of the Adventures
of a Group of Charming Girls</i>

<tb>

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.




<sc>The Mildred Series</sc>

<b>By MARTHA FINLEY</b>

Handsome Cloth Binding

/*
<i>A Companion Series to the Famous
“Elsie” Books by the Same Author</i>
*/

<tb>

MILDRED KEITH

MILDRED AT ROSELANDS

MILDRED AND ELSIE

MILDRED'S MARRIED LIFE

MILDRED AT HOME

MILDRED'S BOYS AND GIRLS

MILDRED'S NEW DAUGHTER

<tb>

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers

<b>A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114–120 East 23d Street, New York.</b>
-----File: 244.png---------------------------------------------------------




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. <b>Handsomely bound in cloth, full library size.
Illustrated by L. J. Bridgman. Price, 60 cents per volume, postpaid.</b>

<tb>

<sc>THE GLAD LADY.</sc> 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.


<sc>Wit's End.</sc> 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.


<sc>A Journey of Joy.</sc> 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.

<sc>Talbot's Angles.</sc> 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.

<tb>

For sale by all booksellers, or sent prepaid on receipt of price by the publishers

<b>A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114–120 East 23d Street, New York</b>
-----File: 245.png---------------------------------------------------------




The Navy Boys Series

<tb>

A series of excellent stories of adventure on
sea and land, selected from the works of popular
writers; each volume designed for boys'
reading.

<sc>Handsome Cloth Bindings</sc>

<tb>

PRICE, 60 CENTS PER VOLUME

<tb>

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.

<tb>

<b>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</b>
-----File: 246.png---------------------------------------------------------




The Boy Spies Series

<tb>

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.

<sc>Handsome Cloth Bindings</sc>

<tb>

PRICE, 60 CENTS PER VOLUME

<tb>

/*
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.
*/

<tb>

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
-----File: 247.png---------------------------------------------------------




The Boy Allies

(Registered in the United States Patent Office)

With the Navy

<b>By ENSIGN ROBERT L. DRAKE</b>

<tb>

Handsome Cloth Binding, Price 60 Cents per Volume

<tb>

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.

<tb>

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers

<b>A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114–120 East 23rd St., New York</b>
-----File: 248.png---------------------------------------------------------




The Boy Allies With

(Registered in the United States Patent Office)

the Army

<b>By CLAIR W. HAYES</b>

<tb>

<b>Handsome Cloth Binding, Price 60 Cents per Volume</b>

<tb>

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.

<tb>

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers

<b>A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114–120 East 23rd St., New York</b>
-----File: 249.png---------------------------------------------------------




The Boy Scouts Series

<b>By HERBERT CARTER</b>

<tb>

Handsome Cloth Binding, Price 60 Cents per Volume

<tb>

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.

<tb>

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers

<b>A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114–120 East 23rd St., New York</b>
-----File: 250.png---------------------------------------------------------




Our Young Aeroplane Scout Series

(Registered in the United States Patent Office)

<b>By HORACE PORTER</b>

<tb>

<b>Handsome Cloth Binding, Price 60 Cents per Volume</b>

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.

<tb>

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.

<tb>

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers

<b>A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114–120 East 23rd St., New York</b>
-----File: 251.png---------------------------------------------------------




<sc>The Jack Lorimer Series</sc>

<b>Volumes By WINN STANDISH</b>

Handsomely Bound in Cloth
Full Library Size[**space]—

<tb>

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.

<tb>

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers

<b>A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114–120 East 23d Street, New York</b>
-----File: 252.png---------------------------------------------------------




The Broncho Rider Boys Series

<b>By FRANK FOWLER</b>

<tb>

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.
-----File: 253.png---------------------------------------------------------




The Boy Chums Series

<b>By WILMER M. ELY</b>

<tb>

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.
-----File: 254.png---------------------------------------------------------




/*
The Big
Five Motorcycle Boys
Series
*/

<b>By RALPH MARLOW</b>

<tb>

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.