The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills Part 28

"Grab her foot. We'll tow her," commanded Harriet. Suiting the action to the word, she grasped one of Tommy's ankles, and throwing herself on her back began to swim with feet and free arm for the opposite side of the pond.

"Hooray!" cried Jane, making a couple of leaps forward, and getting a firm hold of the other ankle of the now loudly screaming Tommy. "Toot, toot! The tug is going ahead. How do you like being towed, darlin'?"

Tommy's yells indicated that she did not fancy it, especially being towed feet first. Her head went under water almost instantly. Tommy was obliged to help herself or drown. She began working her arms, trying to keep her head above water, but found it awkward swimming that way. She never had tried the feet first style of swimming. No one of the party ever had, except Harriet, who could make very good progress that way.

"Hold your breath, dear," suggested Harriet sweetly. "You will not swallow so much water that way."

"How--how long must I hold it?"

"Not more than five minutes," comforted Crazy Jane.

"Thave----" She did not complete the sentence, because a volume of water rolled into her open mouth.

They had nearly reached the middle of the pond, when Harriet stopped swimming.

"I am afraid we shall have to turn her around. Tommy will persist in opening her mouth. We mustn't drown her," said Harriet.

Jane righted their tow with a jerk.

"Those girls, those girls!" muttered Miss Elting, turning a laughing face to Ja.n.u.s Grubb.

"Well, I swum!" he answered, nodding. "Never saw such a bunch of girls. Are they always like they have been this time?"

"Always," chuckled the guardian. "Usually more so."

"Well, I swum!"

"Will you swim, or will you drown?" demanded Jane of Tommy.

"I'll thwim, I'll thwim," answered Tommy chokingly. "I think you are horrid to treat me tho. I'll be even with you."

Jane started for her. Tommy got into instant action, and how she did swim! Harriet and Jane were much faster swimmers than was Tommy, but they pretended to have difficulty in keeping up with her and lagged behind until their shoulders were even with the kicking feet of the little, lisping girl. Then they began grabbing at her ankles, drawing fresh shouts and protests from Tommy. They teased her all the way to the sh.o.r.e, up which Tommy staggered and ran to Miss Elting for protection.

"Don't make me all wet," objected the guardian, leaping back out of the way.

Tommy sat down and whimpered. Jane and Harriet picked her up, placing her on a seat made of their four hands, and started up the mountainside with their burden.

"We aren't afraid of getting wet, are we, Jane?" laughed Harriet.

"Not this morning, we are not, darlin'," chuckled Jane. But they did not carry Tommy far. She decided that she would walk, fearing they were planning some trick on her. She had no desire to be dumped off on a steep place as Hazel had been. The girls clambered up the mountainside laughing over their mishaps of the morning, and ran bounding into camp far ahead of Miss Elting and the guide. They found Hazel very much excited over something that had occurred in the camp during their absence.

CHAPTER XVIII

FACED BY A FRESH MYSTERY

There were serious expressions on the faces of the Meadow-Brook Girls when Miss Elting and the guide came in. Miss Elting saw at once that something was amiss. She demanded to know what it was.

"Hazel saw something that frightened her," answered Harriet.

"Saw something?" repeated the guardian, looking from one girl to the other.

"Tell it," urged Harriet, nodding to Hazel.

"I was watching for you and the girls when I thought I heard something behind me. I looked around but saw nothing unusual. But I had a feeling that some one was about. I walked to the other end of the camp and back. I saw no one--nothing, I hadn't thought to look up.

Something made me do so just then and I saw it."

"Saw what?" demanded the guardian and the guide in chorus.

"A man."

"You did?" exclaimed Ja.n.u.s. "Where?"

"He was behind those green bushes that you see up there--Oh, he has gone. No need to go up there now, Mr. Grubb." Ja.n.u.s had begun to climb the rocks.

"Yes. Please wait and hear the rest of the story," ordered Miss Elting, who was deeply interested, but apparently undisturbed. "What sort of looking man was he, Hazel?"

"He wore a long, black beard, and--"

"You are positive of this?" interrupted Miss Elting.

"Yes. I saw him plainly. That is, I saw his head and shoulders. The rest of his body was hidden behind the bushes. I was going to cry out, but I knew you couldn't hear me. There was too much noise down there, so I just stood still."

"Did he speak to you?" asked Ja.n.u.s.

"No. I spoke to him. I asked him what he wanted. He did not reply.

Instead, he dodged behind the bushes and ran. I could see, from the movement of the bushes to the right there, that he was getting away very rapidly."

"Did the man wear green goggles?" asked the guide.

"No, sir. He wore no gla.s.ses."

"Of course not. We've got the green goggles," broke in Jane. "But the whiskers! Our enemy wore whiskers, didn't he?"

"What do you make of this, Mr. Grubb?" questioned Miss Elting, eyeing Ja.n.u.s sharply.

"Can't make anything of it. Might be most anybody. A good many persons up in these parts wear whiskers." Ja.n.u.s stroked his own reflectively. "And then again, a good many more do not, so I don't see that his whiskers prove much. Wish I might have seen him. If you don't mind I'll go up there now and see what I can find."

Harriet said she would accompany him and a.s.sist in the search.

"You couldn't recognize in him the man we saw on the station platform at Compton the night of our arrival, could you, Hazel?" asked the guardian.

"Oh, no. I don't believe it was the same person at all."

"Then we are no wiser than before, except that it behooves us to keep our eyes open. If that man has followed us into the mountains we shall hear more of him. Do you find anything up there, Harriet?"

"We find where he has broken down some bushes, but that is all. No footprints. I might possibly pick up his trail, but over the rocks there would be slight chance of running it down."