Dorothy Dale's Camping Days Part 14

CHAPTER XI

WHEN THE BOYS CAME

Dorothy had always loved her cousins, Ned and Nat, but when they arrived at the camp, the day after Tavia's disappearance, she fancied she had never before fully appreciated them. They came in the _Firebird_, their automobile, and declared that they would camp out in the open Maine woods, cook in the open, make soups of lily bulbs, stirred with the aromatic boughs of the spruce, and otherwise conform to all the glorious hards.h.i.+ps peculiar to the pioneers--according to the stories told by said pioneers.

But the absence of Tavia put a damper on everything.

"We have got to start out and trace her," Jack Markin told Ned and Nat. "It is inconceivable where she could have gone to."

"We certainly shall start out at once," declared Nat, who was always Tavia's champion, to say nothing of his being her special friend and admirer. "I have known her to do risky things before, but this is the utmost."

"I never saw such a girl," growled Ned. "Just when a fellow expects to have a first-rate time, she puts up something that knocks it out."

Dorothy was disconsolate. Her eyes showed the result of a sleepless night, and her usually pink cheeks were quite pale.

"She would never stay away of her own accord over night," she sighed, "whatever she might do during the day."

"Now, Doro, dear," consoled Cologne, "you must not look at it that way. It is perfectly surprising what may happen, in a perfectly safe way, after one has found out, while before that time such things seem utterly impossible. Haven't we had lots of that at Glenwood?"

"Yes, things do happen that seem anything but likely," Dorothy admitted. "And I do hope that such will be the case this time. I wish we knew!"

"We had a great time in Dalton," said Nat, "the day we went over to see the old place--your old place, Dorothy. The major asked us to go in to look after a leak in the roof, and just as we went into the old plumbing shop we heard a racket. It seems that a fellow named Mortimer Morrison, a stage-struck chap, played a part on the local stage, and while delivering his lines he gave his audience a treat--the real thing in tragics. He went crazy--wild, stark, staring mad! He was an escaped sanitariumite--he got out, found the stage at Dalton, and was having a gay old time when the----" Nat suddenly stopped. "What's the matter, coz?" he asked.

Dorothy was sitting on the rustic bench, at the side of the old corn crib, and she went pale as her cousin told the story. Cologne was beside her, and, as Nat asked what the matter was, Cologne grasped Dorothy's trembling hand.

"What, Dorothy?"

"Why the--man! That man! He is the one who saved the team--the one who wrote the letter to Tavia. I found a part of it. She never told me, but it blew open at--my very feet. And that name was on the piece of paper!"

"Tavia know that--loon!" Ned exclaimed.

"We all knew him--if he is the same one," declared Cologne, for Dorothy was too agitated to speak. "We happened to get in trouble with a hay wagon, and an old team of horses, and he helped us out. Come to think of it he did act queer!"

"And he is around here--now?" asked Nat.

"Yes, I saw some one the other day whom I am sure could be no one else. He had the most peculiar walk. Did you see him in Dalton, Nat?"

"I was just going to tell you that while we were in the plumbing shop a fellow sauntered by. He wore a hat--like a cowboy, and otherwise looked queer. Well, when the plumber sighted him he rushed to the 'phone and called up the only officer in Dalton--Tavia's father, and told him the lunatic was just sauntering down the road. But from last accounts he was still sauntering--the squire didn't overhaul him."

"And likely he was just wise enough to get far away," commented Ned.

"Now why on earth would Tavia have anything to do with a specimen of that kind?"

"It would be impossible to guess to what trick he might resort in order to get Tavia to meet him, or to even become interested in his stage schemes. You know Tavia has a very pardonable weakness for anything theatrical," said Dorothy.

"All Tavia's weaknesses are pardonable, as far as you are concerned, coz," ventured Ned.

"But the hunt," interrupted Jack. "We had better get at it. The girl we malign may actually----" He looked at Dorothy and so left the surmise unsaid.

An hour later Ned and Nat, with Jack and Claud, started out in the _Firebird_, it having been decided that it would be best for all the boys to go together in the auto, as they could then cover any amount of ground, and not have to worry about Dorothy and Cologne. The two girls went their way in the cart, old Jeff, the horse, being looked upon as quite a competent guide.

It was really the first good opportunity that Dorothy had had to see the glories of the Maine woods, but what were they to her to-day? What mattered the long lines of spruce, the dainty larch, or the tangled arbor-vitae, to her now?

To all Cologne's enthusiastic efforts to point out these beauties, as well as to distract Dorothy, she only answered with the most vague acquiescence.

"If we don't find her to-day----" she faltered.

"But we shall," insisted Cologne. "I feel it! Tavia will be back at camp for supper!"

"Are we far from camp now?" asked Dorothy, looking along the fir-lined road to the wilderness beyond.

"No, we are only just around the bend. Would you like to get out and walk? I think I hear the honk of the _Firebird_."

"I believe I would like to walk," said Dorothy. "I have such a--stagnant feeling. The walk in this air ought to dispel it."

"Suppose we tie Jeff up here, and let him graze, while I go over to that camp"--indicating a white speck between the trees--"and then I may inquire if any one has seen a girl like Tavia pa.s.s up Oldtown way?"

"And I might take the other direction, and ask at those camps. I see quite a colony over that way," said Dorothy.

"And we will both meet here in----"

"An hour," finished Dorothy. "If we are to search, there is no sense in running back and forth--so long as we can keep our directions straight."

"And you are sure you won't get lost?" asked Cologne, with a smile.

"Perhaps losses are like accidents--they come in groups."

"Oh, I have a compa.s.s on my watch guard. Let me see," and after consulting the instrument, she faced north. "I will go due west and come back due east. I surely can't get lost if I follow that."

"Now, Doro, don't go too near the edge of anything. I never saw such edgy-edges as they are up here in Maine. Looks to me as if this part of the world was made last, with the jumping-off places for the men who did the making."

"For the jump back into--eternity? Quite an idea, Cologne," said Dorothy, as the two girls prepared to part.

"Good-bye, Jeff," called Dorothy. "Eat a good meal. We may not get back to camp for lunch," and she patted the old horse.

"Pity we didn't fetch some 'standwiches,'" shouted Cologne, who was already making her way through the thickets that carpeted the path.

"If you find any dwarf cherries bring me some, Dorothy."

"Wild strawberries will do me," responded Dorothy, as she, too, got away from the tree where Jeff was tied. "I don't fancy either of us will die of hunger!"

"Not in the Maine woods!" Cologne predicted.

Then they lost sight of each other.

Only Jeff was left to mark the spot from which they started.