The Outdoor Girls in Florida Part 8

"I think it will be better. Will may do something rash, thinking he is putting through a fine business deal. I don't want him to get into--legal difficulties. It would not look well for my professional reputation," and Mr. Ford forced a laugh to rea.s.sure his wife.

Arrangements for going to Jacksonville were soon made, as he was to leave on the midnight train. In the meanwhile he communicated with the telegraph authorities in the South, telling them of his plans, and asking for any additional information.

All that he could learn was that Will had gone to the address given in his first letter--a private boarding house. He had been there a few days, making friends with the landlady, and finally had gone off with a man who bore a shady reputation in the city. Will had said he was going farther into the interior, and the woman thought she heard something about a lumber camp, or a place where turpentine and other pine-tar products, were obtained.

"Well, do the best you can, Grace, until I come back," said Mr. Ford.

"And look after your mother. Perhaps this will be all right after all."

There were three weary days of waiting, relieved only by brief messages from Mr. Ford, saying that he was doing all he could to find Will. Mrs.

Ford was not told the whole story, save that her son had gone into the interior.

"Oh, I'm sure something must have happened!" exclaimed Grace, when on the fourth day there came a message saying Mr. Ford was on his way back.

"He hasn't Will with him, or he would have said so. Oh, isn't it perfectly terrible!"

"Now, don't worry," advised Betty. "I know that is easy to say, Grace, and hard to do. But try. Even if your father hasn't found Will, perhaps he has some trace of him. He would hardly come back without good reason."

"I suppose not. Oh, aren't boys--terrible!"

"But Will didn't mean to cause all this trouble," spoke Mollie.

"I know. But he has, just the same."

Grace was too miserable even to think of chocolates.

Mr. Ford looked pale and tired when he came home, and his eyes showed loss of sleep.

"Well," he said to Grace, who was surrounded by her three chums, "I didn't find Will. He seems to have made a mess of it."

"How?" asked his sister.

"Well, by getting in with this developing concern. It seems that he signed some sort of contract, agreeing to work for them. He supposed it was clerical or secretary's work, but it turns out that he was deceived.

What he signed was a contract to work in one of the many camps in the wilds of the interior. He may be getting out cypress, or turpentine."

"Couldn't you locate him, Daddy?" asked Grace.

"No, for the firm he signed with operates many camps. I could get very little satisfaction from them. I may have to appeal to the authorities."

"But Will is not of age--they can't hold him even if he did sign a contract to work, especially when they deceived him," declared Grace.

"I know it, my dear," replied her father. "But they have him in their clutches, and possession, as you know, is nine points of the law, and part of the tenth. Where Will is I don't know. Just as the message said, he went off with that smooth talker, and he seems to have disappeared."

"How--how can you find him?" asked Grace.

"I'm going to have your Uncle Isaac trace him. He knows the South better than I, and can work to better advantage. That is why I came back. Uncle Isaac is in New York City now. I am going to telegraph him to come on here and I'll give him the particulars. Then he can hunt for Will. Poor boy! I guess he wishes now that he'd stayed in the mill."

The news was broken to Mrs. Ford as gently as could be, but it nearly prostrated her. Then Uncle Isaac came, and to his credit be it said that he was kinder than his wont. He seemed really sympathetic and did not once say, "I told you so!"

He readily agreed to search for his nephew, and left for the South as soon as he could finish his business.

"I guess our Florida trip is all off," said Grace with a sigh, one evening.

"Not at all," said her father. "I want you girls to go. It may be that you might hear some word of Will."

"Then we will go!" his sister cried. "Oh! I do hope we can find him."

The preparations for the Florida trip went on. Meanwhile nothing was heard from the missing youth, and Uncle Isaac had no success.

Then, most unexpectedly, there came word from the boy himself--indirect word--but news just the same.

It was in the shape of a letter from a Southern planter, who said one of his hands had picked up the enclosed note in a cotton field near a railroad track. It had probably been tossed from a train window, and had laid some time in the field, being rain-soaked. It bore Mr. Ford's address, and so the planter forwarded it. The note was as follows:

"DEAR DAD: I certainly am in trouble. That development business was a fake, and I have literally been kidnapped, with a lot of other young fellows--some colored. They're taking us away to a turpentine swamp to work. I've tried to escape, but it's no use. I appealed for help to the crowd, as did some of the others, but the contractors declared we were a lot of criminals farmed out by the State. And, as a lot of their workers really are convicts, I had no show. I don't know what to do--help me if you can. I don't know where they're taking us, but if I get a chance I'll send word. I'm scribbling this under my hat in the train, and I'm going to toss it out the window. I hope you get it.

"WILL."

CHAPTER VII

OFF FOR FLORIDA

Grace was in tears when her father finished reading Will's pathetic letter. Nor were the eyes of her chums altogether dry, for they all liked Will, who seemed as much a brother to them as he did to his own sister.

"We--we mustn't let mamma know this," announced Grace, when she had regained control of herself. "It would prostrate her."

"Yes, we must keep it from her if we can," agreed Mr. Ford.

"To think of poor Will being in with--with criminals," went on his sister. "It will be a terrible experience for him."

"Perhaps they are not desperate criminals," suggested Amy, as a sort of ray of hope.

"No, I do not believe they are," said Mr. Ford, frankly. "The State would not let contractors hire them if they were. I suppose they are mostly young men who have been guilty of slight violations of the law, and hard work is the best punishment for them. But I certainly am sorry for Will.

"I had no idea that when, to punish him for what was more thoughtlessness than anything else, I sent him South, it would turn out this way. I regret it very much."

"But it wasn't your fault, Daddy," declared Grace. "It just couldn't be helped. But Will is brave--his letter shows that. Oh, can you help him?"

"I certainly shall, daughter," and Mr. Ford put his hand on Grace's head, now bowed in grief. "I will write to Uncle Isaac at once, and have him get in touch with the authorities. They should be able to tell where the different gangs of prisoners have been sent, and by investigating each one we can, by elimination, find Will. Then it will be an easy matter to get him home. And I think he will be very glad to see Deepdale again, in spite of the fact that he wanted to start out for himself to 'make good.' I hope the lesson will not be too hard for him."

"If we could only do something!" exclaimed Betty.

"Yes, girls always seem so--so helpless at a time like this," murmured Mollie. "Oh, I wish I were a--man!"

"Tut--tut!" exclaimed Mr. Ford, with a laugh, something he had seldom indulged in of late. "We couldn't get along without our girls. You can offer sympathy, if nothing else, and often that is something as real as actual service. But I don't agree that you girls are helpless. You have proved in the past that you outdoor la.s.sies can do things, and I would not be surprised in the future if you gave further evidence of it."