The Girl Scouts at Bellaire Part 8

"h.e.l.lo, girls!" came back Mary's response. "I'd love to go--if----"

As Cleo at least expected, there was someone in the background watching Mary, but the a.s.surance in Mary's voice, that of a new note of courage, further emboldened Cleo. "Oh come on, Mary," she urged. "We will just row you around here if you like. Jump in!" Cleo insisted, while Mary, now clinging to the side of the boat with one hand, depended on the other to keep her light skirts clear of the water.

"Oh, I am so glad you came," she said. "I did not know just what to do. I thought I might see some of the boys who would help me. Is this your mother?" She stopped suddenly, and stared at the astonished Jennie.

"No, this is Jennie, our friend, our manager," Cleo replied kindly.

"But she is just as safe as a mother; you need not fear to speak before her. How can we help you?"

"Janos came to-day," Mary almost whispered, "and I am so afraid of him now. He knows I have friends. He saw you in the cave, but I did not know you were there during the storm." She was speaking quickly, fearfully, in fact, and had no chance to observe the changes working through Jennie's quizzical expression. "And he knows where you live----"

"Was it he who came to our house this afternoon?" asked Madaline.

"Does he wear an auto duster?"

"Yes, that is Janos. And now he wants to get us all away again. O dear! poor granddaddy! I know he is sick, but he thinks he is all right," and the child almost sobbed in her helplessness.

"But is someone watching you now? Is Reda over there?" asked Cleo, indicating the willow banks.

"No, I ran down and said I was going to find my basket I left somewhere before the storm. But they surely will come soon."

"If you are afraid, child," spoke up Jennie, "just you come along with us. We can get a car in the village and I will take you home myself."

Four pair of grateful eyes sent their thanks to Jennie. Mary touched her hand as it rested on the side of the boat.

"Oh, that is so good of you. But--Janos and Reda are not like Americans, they are from the tropics, you know, and different. Oh, we are so miserable and unhappy!" Tears now glistened in the heavy lashes that fringed her dark eyes, and no one seemed to know just what to say next. Cleo was first to recover herself.

"If you could possibly come with us to the landing we might make some excuse for picking you up, and Jennie could go home with you. We might all go. I'll tell you!" a sudden inspiration breaking in on the difficult situation. "Jump in. We will row back as quickly as we can and send the boys over to Bailey's for a big car. Then we will all drive up the mountain with you. We will have the man for protection, and if your old Reda is not good-natured we will not let you stay there to-night. Would your grandfather care? Might he allow you to spend a night with us?"

All the hidden and suppressed hopes in that strangely veiled countenance seemed to burst through now, and Mary's expression, from one of almost impenetrable gloom, a.s.sumed a strange light--perhaps borrowed from the sunset.

"Oh, it is too good to be true!" she sighed. "Someone at last is not afraid to help me!"

CHAPTER IX

THE SECRET SPRING

That settled it. Before Mary realized her position she was sitting securely in the broad seat at the stern of the gliding boat, with Madaline's arm around her, while her delighted fingers trailed through the water, and her almost frightened gaze was fastened on Jennie's face.

"You are a real woman," she surprised her friends by declaring. "Do you know I have not seen anyone like you to talk to since Loved One went away. She was my mother," the child said solemnly.

"When did she die?" Jennie ventured.

"When I was eleven. I am thirteen now."

"And where did you live then?" pressed Cleo, feeling the time was opportune for obtaining something of Mary's history.

"Oh, very, very far away, on an island off Central America," came the surprising answer.

"Do your relatives live there?" inquired Grace, gently.

"No, they all died with the fever, that is, Loved One did, and daddy was lost at sea. Reda thinks I had it, and she says I must not do things like other girls or it will come back and kill me, but I don't believe her now. Since I have known you girls I feel so much stronger and wiser," she finished quaintly, with a significant toss of her head.

"The idea of telling you you were sick, and scaring you into it,"

indignantly spoke Jennie, in whom an instant dislike for the sinister Reda had taken root. "A good way to make a child sick, I should say.

But what right has she over you? Is she a relative?"

"A relative?" and Mary almost laughed. "No, indeed. Nothing but an old nurse, and not my real nurse either. You see, when granddaddy--as I call him--had to leave the tropics, we had to take the first steamer to get away, and I had no one to care for me after Loved One went, so we just had to accept Reda. Then Janos is her brother, I guess, or some sort of relative, and I could get along with her if he would stay away. I can't tell you the whole story, for it is granddaddy's secret, and I have promised him I would never, never tell anyone why we are up here in the mountains, and why I can't use my own name!"

Again that veil dropped over the soft dark eyes. No one felt like speaking then, for they noticed the girl swallowing hard to choke back the sorrow that threatened to overcome her.

"Well, here we are almost in." It was Jennie who broke the silence, as the boat, now out in the broad open lake, became one of the many turning in at nightfall. "And there are the boys waiting to land us.

You don't suppose, Mary, that old woman will make trouble for you?"

This with a show of anxiety at the rather difficult position the party now found themselves in.

"No, I am not a bit alarmed. They may think I have got lost, or I might have fallen in the water. Perhaps she and Janos would be glad if I never came back. Then they would have granddaddy all to themselves, and I suppose they would torture him to find out his secret. Oh!

dear!" she sighed, "if it were not for him I believe I would just run away."

"You must never think of that," Jennie counseled, "unless of course those foreigners torment you. Cleo, you tell Andy to charge the car to your uncle, Mr. Dunbar, and be sure to say we are in a hurry."

Arrangements were made so promptly Mary was almost bewildered. Another wonder had suddenly come into the life of the timid little girl. She was actually riding in an automobile. How magical is the power of true friends!

"It's just like my dream," she said navely. "I dreamed last night I had a ride in an airs.h.i.+p, and I haven't been in an automobile since we came to Bellaire."

"When was that?" asked Madaline, who kept very close to Mary as if considering the stranger her own especial charge.

"About four months ago--in winter," Mary replied. "First we stopped in a city, then Janos brought us out here."

Cleo wanted to ask why Mary always gathered flowers and roots, but conscious that many personal questions were more necessary than these, she felt those less important must wait for another time.

"Oh, see!" suddenly exclaimed Mary. "There go Janos and Reda looking for me! Now we can all go in and be talking to granddaddy when they come back. Isn't that fortunate!"

Everyone thought so, for, in spite of all their scout courage, the girls were not especially anxious to run headlong into the arms of two foreigners, who would undoubtedly be angry. The prospect of meeting a benevolent old grandfather was much more comfortable to speculate upon.

"Turn in here," Mary told the driver, and her friends noticed a certain dignity in her command, usually found only among those accustomed to give orders. "There's grandie," she called. "See, he is coming to meet us. Drive slowly, he is not strong on his limbs."

The man they approached was not old, but very tall, stooped and distinguished looking. As the car drew up he threw back his shoulders and stood like some figure posed in defiance. "Granddaddy, here I am!"

called Mary, attempting to climb out; "were you frightened about me?"

"Mary! Mary!" he exclaimed. "What does it mean?" and each word sounded like a low moan.

Plainly he was trying to figure out what had happened that the child should return with strangers. Likely he had feared an accident.

"It only means, Grandie, that we have friends, and you are not to refuse them. Let us hurry in before Reda returns. Can your man wait?"

she asked Jennie.

"Not very long, I'm afraid," Jennie replied. "We too have folks who may be anxious about us. But we will be glad to meet your grandfather." How the girls blessed her for this!