The Girl Scout Pioneers Part 8

"That's the grove over there! See the big straight tree! That's my tree!" she exclaimed, dragging along the erstwhile brave Benny, who just now showed an inclination to come to a full stop. "Come on, Benny, hold on to me. I'll peek first, from the other big tree back of the ivy stump. Then we can see without being seen."

Like a pair of chipmunks they hopped from tree to tree, being careful to keep well in the shadow of one before risking a new position behind another.

"Just like shadow tag," Benny made chance to whisper. "Gee, Sis, this is some little scouting."

"Better than your Boy Scouts' games, isn't it, Benny?" Grace apologized, for indeed it was no easy matter to inveigle the big boy into a little girl's sport. Benny felt much bigger, and decidedly more mature than Grace--that is, he felt that way.

"Oh, Ben, see!" exclaimed the sister. "There's something flying- over--maybe over a grave!"

"Swell chance he had to--make--his own grave!" in contemptuous tones from Benny.

"Well--it is a red flag, flying over something!" Grace whispered emphatically.

Benny sprang out from his tree and with one hand on the automatic- loaded water pistol, and the other on the lead-loaded pop gun, he confronted the hypothetical grave!

"Come on out, Sis," he invited the frightened Grace. "It isn't no grave. It's just a red handkerchief on a stick."

Glancing furtively in the direction of the road, which ran parallel with the river path, and near enough to it to carry a voice from the woods to the road should emergency demand outcry, Grace stepped very gingerly out from her hiding into the open s.p.a.ce in front of the famous "inhabited" tree.

Yes, there was the red flag! "Wasn't that a signal for war? The flag was a red handkerchief, and it swayed from a stick cut from a variegated birch.

"Oh!" sighed Grace, relief and excitement finding an outlet in that short syllable.

"Look at the signal!" called Benny, now going straight up boldly to the flag of fury. "See, it's a wig-wag, pointing to that big rock. Let's look!" and be followed the pointing stick which, tied to the top of the improvised flagpole plainly meant--due west--to any one who understood the scout wig-wag code. "Here!" shouted Benny, now casting caution to the light winds of murmuring pines.

"Here's more trail. See? It's our secret code of turned over sliver leaves, and it leads to--let's see." Benny was visibly excited and Grace was almost pulling him down from the rock in her eagerness to follow the signs. He turned over a rock which showed loose soil, and dried leaves clinging to its jagged sides. "Here it is, Grace! Sure enough! Here is a letter from your dead tramp.

Maybe he died right after he wrote it," and even the small boy found humor in the queer uncanny situation.

"Take it out by the roadway," suggested Grace, to whom the woods were now a little treacherous. She glared at as many trees as two brown eyes could embrace. "We can read it out under the big maple.

Come on, Benny," she begged, dragging him forth again away from all the woodland mysteries.

CHAPTER VIII

CLUE TO THE MISSING

So many and such exciting sequels are divulged through helpless little letters! How innocently the page of paper carries the silent words, yet how powerful is the influence to cheer or sadden!

Grace had read her mystic letter, but beyond confiding in Benny, whose word of honor in secrecy she had exacted, not one single syllable of that note was to be divulged to any one.

She had hopes that something really wonderful would develop from her remarkable experience, and while she would have liked to tell Madaline and Cleo, she feared antagonistic opinions, and, as it was entirely her own personal secret, and not a matter of girl scout business, or even chums' interest, it seemed decidedly better to keep her own precious counsel.

"I'll tell them all when it happens!" she a.s.sured herself, by no means being certain just what she hoped "would happen."

So the mystic letter was tucked away in the tiny, pink silk vanity bag, which Cleo had given Grace the Christmas before, and in the days following only her starry eyes threatened to betray the interesting fact, that the little Tenderfoot harbored a dark, delicious secret.

Meanwhile Rose had taken her place in the Franklin mill and was being cared for by the benevolent Mrs. Cosgrove as a member of her family.

"It was really providential," Molly told her mother one day at lunch, after having seen for the second time the parents of Dagmar Brodix, "for the family had to leave Pennsylvania, and it would have been very hard for them to take Rose along. It seems Mr.

Brodix would not join the union, and both he and his wife had to be discharged to appease the labor men. Rose, too, would have been ordered out, as the whole family come under the ban imposed on the father."

"Poor folks!" deplored Mrs. Cosgrove. "Those unions won't let anybody think for themselves! Where are they going?"

"Away down east to a big silk mill," replied the daughter. "Mr.

Brodix knew the superintendent in his own country, and got in the shop without a union card. But it is much better for Rose to stay with us until they get settled at least."

"I took such a fancy to that child the moment I set eyes on her!"

Mrs. Cosgrove explained to Molly.

"You always do, Mumsey!" laughed the daughter, "but I entirely agree with you this time. Where is Rose now?"

"Just gone to the post-office. She came in at twelve and finished her dinner in time for a bit of fresh air before going back. How is she getting on in her work?"

"First rate, the forelady reports. Rose is naturally quiet, and as you predict, Mother, it is very important for her to be among new companions. A girl's pretty face is not always a help to her best interests."

"Exactly, Molly. Everybody seems to pick on a pretty girl, while they leave the homely ones to tend their own business. But your dad is much worried about that other damsel who got away. There is no trace of her at all."

"Yes, she made a clear escape. I heard one of the mill detectives making some inquiries. He did not have to question Rose. I gave him our end of it. I am afraid that other girl has gotten herself into more trouble. The detective did not say so outright, but I judged so from his line of questions."

"Your father said as much, but like the detective, our own 'cop'

isn't giving us all the information he holds. I'm glad the mill officials see the value of the girl scout movement. It's the only fair way to reach the girls without forcing them. Let them take a hand in their own interest--I always say."

"The mill men see the wisdom of that. I would not have been engaged as a welfare worker if I had not been a scout lieutenant.

Well, I must run along. We have a meeting in Flosston tonight, and I am going to take Rose with me."

"I would. The girls of the troop have never met her to know her, and, at any rate, their training will check any possible criticism. Good-bye, girl. Better take your umbrella. We will have rain before sunset," and with this word mother and daughter separated for their respective afternoon tasks.

Meanwhile Rose had called at the post-office. Her anxiety concerning the wayward Tessie const.i.tuted the one flaw in her otherwise happy new days. That she could not at once be with her parents was clear and reasonable to the girl, reared in hards.h.i.+p, and accustomed to many personal sacrifices, but that an incriminating letter would surely one day come from Tessie kept her nervously anxious.

Rose had contrived to visit the post-office daily, hoping when the dreaded, yet longed-for, letter would come, she might receive it personally and thus avert possible complications with the Cosgrove family, who had official reasons for wis.h.i.+ng to locate the runaway girl.

With that keenness peculiar to foreigners when a matter vitally concerns them, the Brodix people had readily adopted the more useful name Dixon for their daughter, and today, when Rose inquired for mail, a much-soiled letter addressed to "Rose Dixon, care of Mrs. James Cosgrove," was handed out.

Not risking the publicity of opening the envelope until she was well out of sight of observers, Rose hurried along, and turned an unnecessary corner to seclude herself in a particularly quiet street, there to open and read the letter. Somehow she felt it would contain news of Tessie, and her premonition was correct.

"From mother!" she breathed affectionately, as the much handled little sheet of note paper, with its queer foreign script, lay in her hand. Then she noticed an inclosure. Yes! There was the note from Tessie!

So anxious was Rose to know where Tessie was, she glimpsed through the little note without actually reading one word of it. She was just looking for a clue as to the girl's whereabouts, but to her disappointment none was given! Not one word showed the capital letter at its face, that would have marked the name of any place!

Tessie wrote English well enough to make herself understood, and the brief note was almost explosive in its choice of strong phrases. The "quarter whistle" blew, announcing to Rose the fact that fifteen minutes of the precious noon hour still remained, and as ten would be ample time for her to reach the mill, in the five extra minutes she might read her letters.

Stopping at a little stone wall, which surrounded one of the oldest houses in Franklin, Rose read first the note from Tessie.

As she expected, the "news" was more a compilation of strong slang than an attempt to impart any real information, and although but a short time removed from the acute influence of "chewing-gum English," Rose had already developed a dislike for the more vulgar of such forms of utterance. She read:

"h.e.l.lo, kid! Where are you? Did you break loose from Grandpa? I had some beatin' to do, but I done it and made a get-a-way good 'nough for the movies. Don't ask me where I'm at, for it's a secret. But, say, Kid. Oh, you scout badge! It's a miracle worker-- and better than real coin. I wouldn't give it up for a Liberty Bond. So long! can't tell you just now what my private post-office box is but will later. My folks are cross-eyed looking for me, but all they ever wanted was my pay-envelope, so I should worry about them. Give my love to yourself and if you're not out of jail yet for the love of mola.s.ses, don't be a simp! Get busy!" It was signed "T. W."

And that was all; so like Tessie. Rose sighed audibly, then read her mother's letter and while this was really interesting to the daughter it now seemed tame in comparison, and it really was the letter from Tessie that gave her blue eyes the preoccupied look all that afternoon.