The Camp Fire Girls at Onoway House Part 7

"Are you going to live on a pillar, like St. Simeon Stylites?" asked Nyoda, curiously, as Migwan mounted the ladder with a basin of water in her hand.

"O come, Nyoda," said Migwan, "don't you know a bird bathtub when you see one?"

"A bathtub, is it?" said Nyoda. "Now I breathe easily again. But why so extremely near the earth?"

Migwan laughed at her chaffing. "You have to put them high up," she explained, "or else the cats get the birds when they are bathing. Mr.

Landsdowne told me how to make it." The other girls wandered out and inspected the drinking fountain-bathtub. Hinpoha closed one eye and looked critically at the outfit.

"Doesn't it strike you as being a little inharmonious?" she asked.

"Black stump, unfinished wood platform, and blue enamel basin."

"Paint the platform and basin dark green," said Sahwah, the practical.

"There is some green paint down cellar, I saw it. Let me paint it. I can do that much for the birds, even if I didn't think of building them a drinking fountain." She sped after the paint and soon transformed the offending articles so that they blended harmoniously with the surroundings.

"It's better now," said Nyoda, thoughtfully, "but it's still crude and unbeautiful. What is wrong?"

"I know," said Hinpoha, the artistic one. "It's too bare. It looks like a hat without any tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. What it needs is vines around it."

"The very thing!" exclaimed Migwan. "I'll plant climbing nasturtiums and train them to go up the pole and wind around the basin, so it will look like a fountain."

"Four heads are better than one," observed Nyoda, as the seeds were planted, "when they are all looking in the same direction."

Just then a young man came up the path from the road. "May I use your telephone?" he asked, courteously raising his hat. He spoke with a slight foreign accent.

"Certainly you may," said Migwan, going with him into the house. She could not help hearing what he said. He called up a number in town and when he had his connection, said, "This is Larue talking. We are going to do it on the Centerville Road. There is a river near." That was all.

He rang off, thanked Migwan politely and walked off down the road. The incident was forgotten for a time.

That afternoon Gladys was coming home in the automobile. At the turn in the road just before you came to Onoway House there was a car stalled.

The driver, a young and pretty woman, was apparently in great perplexity what to do. "Can I help you?" asked Gladys, stopping her machine.

"I don't know what's the matter," said the young woman, "but I can't get the car started. I'm afraid I'll have to be towed to a garage. Do you know of anyone around here who has a team of horses?"

Gladys looked at the starting apparatus of the other car, but it was a different make from hers and she knew nothing about it. "Would you like to have me tow you to our barn?" she asked. "There is a man up the road who fixes automobiles for a great many people who drive through here and I could get him to come over."

The young woman appeared much relieved. "If you would be so kind it would be a great favor," she said, "for I am in haste to-day."

Gladys towed the car to the barn at Onoway House and phoned for the car tinker. The young woman, who introduced herself as Miss Mortimer, was a very pleasant person indeed, and quite won the hearts of the girls. She was delighted with Onoway House, both with the name and the house itself, and asked to be shown all over it, from garret to cellar. "How near that tree is to the window!" she said, as she looked out of the attic window into the branches of the big Balm of Gilead tree that grew beside the house, close to Migwan and Hinpoha's bedroom. It was much higher than the house and its branches drooped down on the roof. "How do you ever move about up here with all this furniture?" asked Miss Mortimer.

"Oh," answered Migwan, "we never come up here."

The barn likewise struck the visitor's fancy, with its big empty lofts, and she fell absolutely in love with the river. The girls took her for a ride on the raft, and she amused herself by sounding the depth of the water with the pole. They could see that she was experienced in handling boats from the way she steered the raft. The girls were so charmed with her that they felt a keen regret when the neighborhood tinker announced that the car was in running shape again.

"I've had a lovely time, girls," said Miss Mortimer, shaking the hand of each in farewell. "I can't thank you enough."

"Come and see us again, if you are ever pa.s.sing this way," said Migwan, cordially.

"You may possibly see me again," said Miss Mortimer, half to herself, as she got into her machine and drove away.

There was no moon that night and the cloud-covered sky hinted at approaching rain, but Sahwah wanted to go out on the river on the raft, so Nyoda and Migwan and Hinpoha and Gladys went with her. It was too dark to play any kind of games and the girls were too tired and breathless from the hot day to sing, so they floated down-stream in lazy silence, watching the shapeless outlines made against the dull sky by the trees and bushes along the banks. On the other side of Farmer Landsdowne's place there was an abandoned farm. The house had stood empty for many years, its cheerless windows brooding in the sunlight and glaring in the moonlight. Just as they did with every other vacant house, the Winnebagos nicknamed this one the Haunted House, and vied with each other in describing the queer noises they had heard issuing from it and the ghosts they had seen walking up and down the porch. As they pa.s.sed this place, gliding silently along the river, they were surprised to see an automobile standing beside the house, at the little side porch, in the shadow of a row of tall trees.

"The ghosts are getting prosperous," whispered Migwan, "they have bought an automobile to do their nightly wandering in. Pretty soon we can't say that ghosts 'walk' any more. Ah, here come the ghosts."

From the side door of the house came two men, who proceeded to lift various boxes from under the seats of the car and carry them into the house. Then they lifted out a small keg, which the girls could not help noticing they handled with greater care than they had the boxes. The wind was blowing toward the river, and the girls distinctly heard one man say to the other, "Be careful now, you know what will happen if we drop this."

"I'm being as careful as I can," answered the second man.

After a few seconds the first one spoke again. "When's Belle coming?"

"She arrived in town to-day," said his partner.

When they had gone into the house this time the machine suddenly drove away, revealing the presence of a third man at the wheel, whom the girls had not noticed before this. The two men stayed in the house.

"What on earth can be happening there?" said Sahwah.

"It certainly does look suspicious," said Nyoda.

They waited there in the shadow of the willows for a long time to see what would happen next, but nothing did. The house stood blank and silent and apparently as empty as ever. Not a glimmer of light was visible anywhere. Sahwah and Nyoda were just on the point of getting into the rowboat, which had been tied on behind the raft, and towing the other girls back home, when their ears caught the sound of a faint splas.h.i.+ng, like the sound made by the dipping of an oar. They were completely hidden from sight either up or down the river, for just at this point a portion of the bank had caved in, and the water filling up the hole had made a deep indentation in the sh.o.r.e line, and into this miniature bay the Tortoise-Crab had been steered. The thick willows along the bank formed a screen between them and the stream above and below. But they could look between the branches and see what was coming up stream, from the direction of the lake. It was a rowboat, containing two persons. The scudding clouds parted at intervals and the moon shone through, and by its fitful light they could see that one of these persons was a woman. When the rowboat was almost directly behind the house it came to a halt, only a few yards from the place where the Winnebagos lay concealed.

"This is the house," said the man.

"I told you the water was deep enough up this far," said the woman, in a tone of satisfaction. Just then the moon shone out for a brief instant, and the Winnebagos looked at each other in surprise. The woman, or rather the girl, in the rowboat was Miss Mortimer, who had been their guest only that day. The next moment she spoke. "We might as well go back now. There isn't anything more we can do. I just wanted to prove to you that it could be towed up the river this far without danger."

"All right, Belle," replied the man, and at the sound of his voice Migwan p.r.i.c.ked up her ears. There was something vaguely familiar about it; something which eluded her at the moment. The rowboat turned in the river and proceeded rapidly down-stream. The Winnebagos returned home, full of excitement and wonder.

The barn at Onoway House stood halfway between the house and the river.

As they landed from the raft and were tying it to the post they saw a man come out of the barn and disappear among the bushes that grew nearby. It was too dark to see him with any degree of distinctness.

Gladys's thought leaped immediately to her car, which was left in the barn. "Somebody's trying to steal the car!" she cried, and they all hastened to the barn. The automobile stood undisturbed in its place.

They made a hasty search with lanterns, but as far as they could see, none of the gardening tools were missing. Satisfied that no damage had been done, they went into the house.

"Probably a tramp," said Mrs. Gardiner, when the facts were told her.

"He evidently thought he would sleep in the barn, and then changed his mind for some reason or other."

Migwan lay awake a long time trying to place the voice of the man in the rowboat. Just as she was sinking off to sleep it came to her. The voice she had heard in the darkness had a slightly foreign accent, and was the voice of the man who had used the telephone that morning.

Sometime during the night Onoway House was wakened by the sounds of a terrific thunder storm. The girls flew around shutting windows. After a few minutes of driving rain against the window panes the sound changed.

It became a sharp clattering. "Hail!" said Sahwah.

"Oh, my young plants!" cried Migwan. "They will be pounded to pieces."

"Cover them with sheets and blankets!" suggested Nyoda. With their accustomed swiftness of action the Winnebagos s.n.a.t.c.hed up everything in the house that was available for the purpose and ran out into the garden, and spread the covers over the beds in a manner which would keep the tender young plants from being pounded to pieces by the hailstones.

Migwan herself ran down to the farthest bed, which was somewhat separated from the others. As she raced to save it from destruction she suddenly ran squarely into someone who was standing in the garden. She had only time to see that it was a man, when, with a m.u.f.fled exclamation of alarm he disappeared into s.p.a.ce. Disappeared is the only word for it.

He did not run, he never reached the cover of the bushes; he simply vanished off the face of the earth. One moment he was and the next moment he was not. Much excited, Migwan ran back to the others and told her story, only to be laughed at and told she was seeing things and had lurking men on the brain. The thing was so queer and uncanny that she began to wonder herself if she had been fully awake at the time, and if she might not possibly have dreamed the whole thing.

The morning dawned fresh and fair after the shower, green and gold with the sun on the garden, and Migwan's delight at finding the tender little plants unharmed, thanks to their timely covering, was inclined to thrust the mysterious goings-on at the empty house the night before into secondary place in her mind. But she was not allowed to forget it, for it was the sole topic of conversation at the breakfast table. Gladys, with her nose buried in the morning paper, suddenly looked up. "Listen to this," she said, and then began to read: "Another dynamite plot unearthed. Society for the purpose of a.s.sa.s.sinating men prominent in affairs and dynamiting large buildings discovered in attempt to blow up the Court House. An attempt to blow up the new Court House was frustrated yesterday when George Brown, one of the custodians, saw a man crouching in the engine room and ordered him out. A search revealed the fact that dynamite had been placed on the floor and attached to a fuse.

On being arrested the man confessed that he was a member of the famous Venoti gang, operating in the various large cities. The man is being held without bail, but the head of the gang, Dante Venoti, is still at large, and so is his wife, Bella, who aids him in all his activities. No clue to their whereabouts can be found."

"Do you suppose," said Gladys, laying the paper down, "that those men we saw last night could belong to that gang? You remember how carefully they carried the keg into the house, as if it contained some explosive.

They couldn't have any business there or they wouldn't have come at night. And they called the woman in the boat 'Belle,' or it might have been 'Bella.'"