The Motor Girls in the Mountains or The Gypsy Girl's Secret Part 21

"There's got to be some quick work here, fellows!" cried Jack, a cold perspiration breaking out all over him. "You girls stay right here," he commanded. "Don't stir from this spot. We three fellows will spread out in a semicircle, and beat up the woods in the general direction that Cora started out in. We'll spread out as widely as we can, but we mustn't get so far apart that we can't hear each other shout. We'll keep calling out all the time, so as to keep in touch with each other. If at the end of half an hour we haven't found any trace of her, we'll know that she isn't in this section and we'll hurry back to the girls here. Then we'll raise a hue and cry and get the whole district out searching for her. Come along now and keep your voices going. And keep your eyes open, too. She may have met with an accident. Work, fellows! Work like mad!"

The others needed no urging, for they were wild with fear for Cora's safety.

For the next half-hour they yelled until they were hoa.r.s.e, and covered as much territory as they could. They peered into every bush and thicket.

Not one of them but thought of the ugly monster they had seen in the road that morning. Suppose one of this tribe had attacked the girl who was so dear to all of them? Suppose at that very moment she were lying somewhere helpless and dying?

They looked everywhere in an agony of apprehension, but Cora's wandering feet and her fall down the mountainside had already carried her far beyond sound or sight.

At the appointed time they rejoined the girls.

"No use," announced Jack, in a voice that he tried to keep firm, despite the working of his features. "I'll tell you what we'll do. You stay here, Paul, until further notice. If Cora comes back, you have an easy trail from here to the mill. There's a telephone there, and of course you'd call up Kill Kare at once with the good news. Walter and I will go back with Bess and Belle to the mill. Then Walter can drive the girls to Kill Kare in one of the cars, leave them with Aunt Betty, and bring Joel back with him to the mill. I'll get all the men that I can at the mill to join in the search. Those lumberjacks know the woods thoroughly. Then, too, I'll telephone to all the neighboring towns and camps and call for volunteers. We'll comb these woods all day and all night until we find her."

He and Walter hurried off with the girls, leaving Paul behind. They reached the sawmill in record time, and leaving Jack there to explain the situation and carry out the plans agreed upon, Walter drove the girls home.

It had been thought at first that it would be well to leave Aunt Betty in ignorance of the affair, in order to spare her misery. But on second thought this idea had been dismissed. It would not be fair to her, in a matter of such moment, to treat her as a child, even with the best of motives. Besides it was morally certain that the girls would not be able to conceal their grief from her, no matter how hard they tried.

She was waiting for them as they drove up and greeted them with her usual kindly smile.

"Where are the others?" she inquired. "And what on earth is the matter with you two girls?" she added in quick alarm as she saw their eyes red and swollen with weeping.

"Don't be alarmed, Aunt Betty," said Walter, as lightly as he could. "The girls are a little worried because Cora strayed off a little way into the woods and we haven't found her. But she can't have gone very far, and we'll find her and have her back to Kill Kare in a jiffy. Jack and Paul are looking for her now, and I'm going back to help them."

Aunt Betty gave a frightened exclamation and put her hand to her heart.

"Cora lost!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "And in those awful woods! Oh, why did you let her get away from you? The poor darling girl!"

"We boys ought to be kicked from here to Jericho for letting her out of our sight," said Walter in savage self-reproach. "But the mischief's done now, and we've got to remedy it as best we can. You take care of the girls, Aunt Betty, while I go and hunt up Joel. I'm going to take him back with me."

He hurried away, leaving the three to condole with each other. He was lucky enough to find Joel in the barn, and hastily explained the state of affairs.

The big backwoodsman was thoroughly alarmed. Better than any one else at Kill Kare, he knew the dangers that threatened any tyro that ventured into that wilderness. There had been cases within his own knowledge where hapless wanderers had perished, even while the woods were alive with searching parties.

He put his hunting knife in his belt, grasped his rifle and hurried back with Walter to the sawmill.

Meanwhile, Jack told his story to the foreman, and received his instant sympathy and promise to help. He called for volunteers, and a number of the men who were working in the mill responded promptly. Some of them had already started out when Walter arrived, and others quickly followed.

Baxter too was stirred by the story and came out of his sh.e.l.l of reticence. He volunteered to take charge of the telephoning, leaving Jack to go out with the searching parties.

"I know personally the authorities in the nearest towns," he said, "and they'll be glad to oblige me in this. You're too excited and on edge to stay here, and I don't wonder. You go ahead and look for your sister and leave this to me. Before long I'll have a dozen parties out on the trail."

Jack gladly availed himself of the offer, and, in company with Walter and Joel, hurried with feverish haste up the hillside and plunged into the woods.

CHAPTER XVI HELP FROM THE SKY

It was full day when Cora awoke.

For a moment she looked around her, dazed. Then, as she realized where she was, she sprang from the rope mattress to the floor. All the events of the previous day rushed over her mind like a flood.

She was greatly rested and refreshed, although her muscles ached from contact with the rude mattress on which she had slept.

A sickening sense of her position sought to take possession of her, but she resolutely thrust it back. She would not begin this new day by being a coward.

She looked at her watch, but in the excitement of the day before she had forgotten to wind it, and it had stopped. She set it at a guess, and held it up to her ear a moment before she returned it to its place. Its lively ticking seemed to say: "Cheer up! cheer up! cheer up!"

She threw open the door and stepped outside. The sun had risen and was flooding the wilderness with glory. The cool morning air was delicious with the odor of the pines. She drank it in in great draughts, and it put new life and hope into her.

There was no sign of a stream anywhere near, and her ablutions had to be scanty. She found a little pool of water in a slight depression, and was able to wash her face and hands. She did not dare to drink of the standing water, but its external use refreshed her. Then she thought of breakfast.

It seemed a grim joke to call it that, when her whole food supply consisted of a soup cube and a chocolate tablet. But she hunted around in the vicinity of the cabin, and found some blackberry bushes that were fairly well laden. She picked the berries with great care, for she knew how fond snakes were of such localities, and she had a lively memory of the encounter with the rattlesnake the day before.

The berries and the chocolate tablet furnished her morning meal. It was not a substantial or satisfying one, and it required considerable self-control not to supplement it with the remaining soup cube. But after looking at it longingly, she put it back in her pocket. A time might come when it would be worth a king's ransom to her.

And now that she had eaten, Cora bent all her thoughts on the problem of escape.

What ought she to do? Ought she to leave the cabin that had proved an ark of safety and try once more to find her way through the trackless woods?

Suppose night came on again, and she still found herself not only in the woods but far from the cabin.

Or would it be wiser to stay right where she was until her friends should find her? She knew perfectly well how desperately they were hunting for her. Her heart ached as she realized the agony they were suffering. She could see the wild distress on the features of Jack and the other boys, the tear-stained faces of Bess and Belle. She knew that by this time they would have raised a hue and cry that would set scores of people searching for her. Would they not have as good a chance of finding her where she was as anywhere else in the woods? In fact, would not some of the lumberjacks know of this lonely cabin in the forest, and think perhaps that she had sought refuge there?

To stay where she was meant inaction, the hardest thing in the world for her just then. She would have nothing to do but to think, and she would eat her heart out with anxiety.

On the other hand, she faced the perils of the woods if she left the shelter of the cabin. Bears and panthers roamed the forest in the daytime as well as at night. Lynxes and wildcats, too, though less dangerous, were not to be despised, and there was the ever-present danger of snakes.

While she was pondering the best plan to pursue, she heard the humming of a motor.

She jumped to her feet in wild delight. Could that be the motor of a car with people searching for her? It must be. What else could it be?

But the next instant she realized, with a sinking of the heart, that no car could possibly penetrate those tangled woods.

Still the strident buzz persisted. It was a motor. She was too familiar with the sound to be mistaken.

She sprang to her feet, and as she did so a branch caught in the veil that was wound round her hat. She reached up to disentangle it, and her eyes rested on a tiny spot in the sky that was not a cloud, and that was momentarily growing larger.

Then she understood.

The motor was that of an aeroplane!

She ran to a more open spot where she could get a better view.

The aircraft was flying at a height of perhaps a thousand feet, and was moving at a high rate of speed. Nearer and nearer it came from out of the west, while Cora watched it with fascinated eyes.

Here was something that spoke of the great world that she seemed to have left behind. It was a link that brought her once more, if only for a moment, in contact with civilization.

And up there on a precarious perch, a mere atom in the blue immensity of the sky, was the aviator. How Cora envied him! No forest held _him_ in its iron clutch. He was free as the bird whom he resembled in his flight.