Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach Part 33

The predicament--if indeed it was one--did not particularly worry her, for she knew that she could find her way back to the road easily enough and that there was no possibility in the world of her becoming really lost.

As she stood reveling in the tropical beauty of the scene and smiling happily to herself, a thought suddenly flashed through her mind that banished the smile from her lips and brought an anxious frown to her brow.

"I've left my bag in the car!" she told herself. "And with all Mrs.

Bragley's papers in it! If I should lose them now, after bringing them safely all this way----"

Action followed swift upon the thought, and she started through the grove in the direction she had come.

"Not so fast! Not so fast!" said a voice beside her, and the next moment a man darted out from the shelter of the trees and stepped directly in her path. He was, as Nan knew the minute she heard his voice, the tall, thin man with the straight line for a mouth, with whom she had had so many unpleasant meetings before. His face showed a desperate expression.

Nan did not scream, although much alarmed. She glanced over her shoulder with a half-formed thought of escape, but the man sprang forward and laid a rough hand on her arm.

"None of that, my little lady," said the sneering voice. "You are not going to get away from us this time until we get what we want. Just a little doc.u.ment or two is all we want. Quick now--hand it over."

"I--I haven't any doc.u.ment!" gasped Nan, adding with a little flare of temper: "If you don't let go of my arm I--I'll scream."

"Oh, no, you won't! Slicker, that's your job."

Before Nan could move a soft, fat hand was pressed over her mouth from behind and she twisted about to find that her second captor was the short, fat man who had been the companion of her more dangerous enemy on the boat.

"Come, we're in a hurry," snapped the latter, and Nan's terrified eyes came back to his. "Will you give 'em to us or do we have to take them?"

Nan shook her head, and with a snort of impatience the man laid rough hands upon her and began to search her clothing for the papers. Then, finding nothing, he turned upon her in a towering rage.

"You're a sly one," he growled between his teeth. "But let me tell you this, you little imp----"

"Easy, Jensen, easy," cautioned the fat man, whose hand still covered Nan's mouth.

"If we don't find those papers within the next forty-eight hours,"

raged the other, not noticing his companion, "you will be mighty sorry.

Something is going to happen to you! Get me?"

"You--you brute!" gasped Nan, as the fat man removed his hand from her mouth.

"It won't do you any good to call names, Miss. You get those papers for us. And don't you dare to hand 'em to any of your friends either. If you do--well, you'll be sorry. We are out for those papers, and we are bound to have 'em."

He pushed Nan from him with such force that she stumbled and fell full length on the ground, where she lay, a bewildered heap of indignant girlhood.

For a moment the tall man looked at her with a cruel smile touching his thin mouth. Then he took his companion by the arm and disappeared through the trees.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He pushed Nan from him with such force that she stumbled and fell. (_See page 216_)]

CHAPTER XXVII

WALTER TO THE RESCUE

A familiar shout roused Nan, and she sat up, pus.h.i.+ng the hair back from her face, and instinctively straightened her dress. She picked up her hat, which had fallen off when she fell, and she pushed this down over her soft hair as she stumbled to her feet.

She answered the familiar hail, and in another moment she saw Walter running toward her, looking very anxious and upset. But when the youth saw her face he stood still, staring at her stupidly.

"Why, Nan!" he cried, "what is it? You--why, you've been crying!"

"W-with rage," said Nan, a sob rising in her throat. "It's those men, Walter. They searched me! Oh, I'll never get over it--never!"

This time she broke down completely and Walter ran to her, putting a protecting arm about her, glancing about him at the same time as if he hoped to see the men who had frightened her and wreak vengeance then and there.

"Searched you! Who?" he demanded; then, before she could speak, he added as though answering his own question: "It was those men, Nan. You told me. Where are they? Quick! Which way did they go?"

But Nan only shook her head and clung to him a little as though she found comfort in his being there.

"You couldn't catch them--they have had too much of a start," she said.

Then, with a shudder of remembrance, she drew herself from Walter's grasp and looked at him wildly. "Walter!" she cried. "There are all our bags in the auto--Mrs. Bragley's papers--and those--those--beasts around loose! Oh--oh----" Before she had finished she had started toward the road on a run with Walter in close pursuit.

They met the rest of the anxious party on the way, but nothing less than an earthquake could have stopped Nan then. She waved to them and Walter shouted something unintelligible as he raced past, and they had nothing else to do but to follow the young lunatics--for that is what they called them.

When Mr. and Mrs. Mason and the girls arrived at the spot where they had left their car they found Walter and Nan sitting on the running board and Nan holding something in her hand which she waved wildly at them.

"They're safe! They're safe!" she called, as Rhoda, Grace and Bess ran up to her and then stopped short at the disheveled picture she made.

"Why, Nan Sherwood!" began Bess, amazed, "what----"

"Why, Nan, you've been crying!" exclaimed Rhoda, running forward and putting a protecting arm about her friend.

"You needn't remind me of it," said Nan with a hysterical little sob. "I may start again."

"But, Nan dear, something very dreadful must have happened to make you cry so," said Mrs. Mason gravely. "We have been worried about you."

Nan told them all about it, with little catches of her breath in between, while her listeners grew more and more agitated and Bess wanted to hire a dozen detectives immediately and give chase.

"So they gave you forty-eight hours, did they?" asked Mr. Mason, his mouth tightening in a grim line. "Well, I'll give them just twenty-four hours before they land in jail. Come on, let us get back to the town. I want to set some wheels in motion."

"But let us look for the rascals ourselves first," pleaded Walter. "They may not have run off as far as you think."

"Well, it won't do any harm to take a look around," said Mr. Mason.

He and his son went back into the orange grove and there spent the best part of half an hour trying to get some trace of Nan's a.s.sailants. They found some footprints and followed these, but presently the marks were lost in crossing a brook.

Some men working in the far end of the orange grove came up and wanted to know what was the matter.

"You ought to get some bloodhounds on their trail," said one when they had told their story. "Nothing like them dogs to trail a man."

"We haven't any bloodhounds and we haven't any time to get them,"

replied Mr. Mason.

"We might offer a reward for their capture," suggested Walter.