The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point Part 21

"And, anyway, pretty nearly everybody in Deepdale knows the twins,"

Grace added.

"Well, then, there are only two or three things left that might have happened," said Mollie, her lips quivering. "It's barely possible they may have wandered off into the woods and gotten lost. In that case somebody will have to hurry up and find them or they will just stay there and s-starve! And that's almost worse than being run over."

"Well, with everybody in Deepdale, civilians as well as police, searching for them," said Betty confidently, "I don't think there is very much chance of their starving to death. If that's the solution, I shouldn't wonder but that they are safe at home now with everybody rejoicing."

Mollie's face brightened a little at this picture, but almost immediately clouded over again.

"But we don't know that," she said. "And until we do, I'm not going to let myself get too happy."

"I wonder," she said suddenly, after the girls had cleared away the lunch and had perched themselves on the porch railing, "just what I ought to do first. Send a telegram to mother, I suppose," answering her own question.

"Yes, I think I would," said Betty, adding, as Mollie got up with characteristic impulsiveness and started for the house: "Do you mind telling us what you are going to say in it--about going home, I mean?"

Mollie paused uncertainly.

"I--I don't just know," she admitted. "One minute I think there's no question but what I ought to go, and the next, I wonder if I wouldn't only be in the way."

"There's another thing to consider," Mrs. Ford put in. "It is almost a certainty that the children will be found in a day or two, perhaps are found already, and in that case you would have all your trip for nothing. I don't like to advise--"

"Oh, please do," Mollie begged, adding with a pathetic little smile: "I feel so awfully lonesome, trying to decide everything all by myself."

"You poor little girl," said the woman tenderly, then fearing lest sympathy would only make the girl feel worse, added hurriedly: "In that case I should most strongly advise that you wait a day or two at least and give things a chance to straighten out. At the end of that time, if they haven't been found and you still think you ought to go, we'll pack up everything and go along with you, of course."

"That's what I'll do then," agreed Mollie, relieved to have the question settled for her. "And now," she added, making for the door once more, "I'm going to get into my street things and wiz down to that station in record time. Who wants to come with me?"

It seemed everybody did, and in a very short time the girls had changed from their bathing suits to their street clothes and were ready for the dash to the station, which was about two miles from their house.

They all climbed into Mollie's car, and the big machine started slowly backward down the steep incline.

"Better hold on," Mollie warned them. "I've never done quite so steep a hill as this backward, and the old boy may balk. Take your time, old man," addressing the car, as it showed a tendency to pick up speed too rapidly. "Of course we're in a hurry, but we don't want to land on our ears. That's the way--gently now. All right--we're off!" as they reached the foot of the hill in safety and swung around into the road. "Now let's see how long it will take you to reach that station."

As a matter of fact, it took scarcely any time at all, for the demon of speed seemed to have taken possession of Mollie, and she drove so recklessly that even the girls, who were used to her daring, were startled.

Yet something about the young driver's straight little back and tightly compressed lips kept them from protesting.

However, the wild ride came to an end without accident, and the girls tumbled out of the machine and on to the station platform. They looked about them, but the only person in sight was an unpromising looking person with a bald head--though he could not have been over thirty-five--beaked nose, and small red-rimmed eyes.

This decidedly unattractive individual lounged against the door of the waiting room and eyed the girls with insolent admiration.

"Anything I can do for you?" he asked, as he saw that they hesitated.

"Always willing to oblige the ladies," he added.

The girls exchanged a glance, then Betty approached the lounger who had the grace to straighten up as she addressed him.

"We want to send a telegram," she explained coldly. "We understood we could send one from here."

"Sure! That's me," he responded with alacrity. "Right this way, ladies."

The girls followed him reluctantly into a little square booth-like place, and Mollie scribbled a telegram on the blank he gave her. Then they hurried out to the machine again. A little way down the road Amy turned and looked back. The fellow had resumed his lounging position and was looking after them with his little red-rimmed eyes.

"Ugh! wasn't he awful?" said Betty, as Mollie rounded a turn in the road on two wheels. "I'm glad we don't have to see him often, he'd give me the nightmare."

But Mollie did not answer. Her mind was once more on the twins, and she was repeating over and over the same old question.

"What has happened--what has happened? What could have happened?"

"Betty," she said aloud, so suddenly that Betty started, "there's just one thing we didn't think of as being a solution. It's strange, too, for it is the most probable solution of all."

"What?" asked Betty anxiously.

"Suppose--" said Mollie, her voice so low that Betty had to bend forward to catch the words. "Suppose they have been kidnapped!"

CHAPTER XVII

JOE BARNES AGAIN

"Well, we've got to do something. There's no use sitting around looking at each other!"

The girls started and looked reproachfully at Mollie.

It was several days after the telegram had come which had so upset them and their plans, and they were sitting dejectedly on the sand at the foot of the bluff trying to read. The attempt had proved a failure, however, and one after another the books had dropped to their laps while they stared disconsolately out over the water.

"What would you suggest?" asked Grace listlessly, in response to Mollie's statement.

"Can't we go in swimming again?" asked Amy mildly.

"No!" Mollie was very positive. "The boy will be coming with the provisions and letters in a little while, and there may be a telegram or something from mother. If there isn't pretty soon, I'll go mad."

"Let's take a walk then," suggested Betty.

But again Mollie would have none of it.

"Too warm," she said.

"Well, I thought you were the one who wanted to do something," said Grace, getting up and shaking the sand from her dress. "I guess the trouble is," she added, "that you don't know what you want."

"Yes I do," said Mollie, while the tears rose to her eyes and she shook them away impatiently. "Only the one thing I want more than anything else I can't get."

"Maybe you forget," said Grace, while her own voice trembled a little, "that I'm very nearly in the same fix."

"No, we don't," cried Betty quickly. "But the only way we can hope to bear the horrible things that are happening to us is to get busy at something and try to occupy our minds."

"It's all very well for you to talk," Mollie retorted, in her nervous state saying something she never would have thought of saying under normal conditions, "but nothing terrible has happened to you yet. Wait till it does. Then maybe it won't be so easy to get your mind off it."