CAUGHT IN A STAMPEDE
"Good-bye, Madge, dear!" sighed Eleanor mournfully.
"Say 'au revoir,' but not 'good-bye,' sweet Coz," sang Madge lightly.
She was strapping her school satchel across her back like a knapsack.
The girls were attired in their shortest, darkest gowns, and ready for
the road.
Miss Jenny Ann hovered near, her face very white and her eyes swollen.
"I feel I am very wrong in letting you girls attempt it alone," she
protested. "To think that I should have been overtaken with an attack
of influenza just as we were about to cross the island is too awful!
Don't you think you had better wait until I am well enough to go with
you?"
Madge shook her bronze head firmly; Phil's black head followed suit.
"My dear Miss Jenny Ann," protested Madge, "the men Phil saw may have
come onto this island simply to stay only a day or so. Unless we go in
search of them at once, they may escape us altogether."
"Don't let anybody worry about us," Phil urged. "Madge and I will be as
right as right can be. Suppose we find the island so large that we can
not get to the other side and back in one day, what's the difference?
We will hang our hammock in a tree and sleep like the birds of the
air."
With a solemn face, that she tried to make smiling, Eleanor extracted a
pale blue ribbon from her pocket and tied it around Madge's arm.
Lillian, with set lips, performed the same service for Phil, except
that her ribbon was red.
When the two girls had finished their tasks Madge and Phil dropped to
their knees and kissed the hands of their ladies.
"Behold, Miss Jenny Ann, two true knights!" laughed Madge. "Phil and I
are going out in search of assistance for our ladies, who are held
prisoners by the waves on the shores of a desert island. Don't you
mind; we are going to have a perfectly lovely time."
Madge and Phil were enchanted over the prospect of their adventure.
They had had a long talk with Miss Jenny Ann about the two men whom
Phil had seen in the woods. The houseboat party had reached a united
decision. The men must be found. They must be asked to help the girls
and their chaperon to find their way home again; or, at least, to tell
them how they could manage to communicate with their friends.
Madge, Phil and Miss Jenny Ann decided to make the trip together.
Miss Jenny Ann felt as though she would have liked to be twins. One of
her could then have stayed at home with Lillian and Eleanor, to help
them guard their little home; the other could have gone forth on the
expedition through the woods with the two more venturesome girls.
The five young women presumed that the men whom Phil had seen must have
come ashore within a short time, or else that they lived on the other
side of the island. It was possible that there might be a small
settlement of people somewhere near the farther shore. In any case the
houseboat crew must find out. They must try to get away from their
island before winter came.
Madge and Phyllis had a glorious morning in the woods, one that neither
of them would ever forget.
[Illustration: Madge and Phil Set Forth on Their Expedition.]
The girls set out to travel directly south, guided by Phil's small
compass. They turned aside only when the underbrush was too thick to
allow them to pass through it. Madge had stuck her soft felt hat in her
pocket. She had crowned herself with a wreath of red-brown leaves and
sprays of goldenrod. She looked like a figure from the canvas of a
great artist.
Phil, who was darker than Madge, might easily have passed for a gypsy.
She was deeply tanned by her outdoor life, and her lips were stained
with the nuts and berries that she had eaten in their journey through
the woods.
Madge had not spoken of the scene with Flora Harris in Mrs. Curtis's
dining room since she had landed on the island. Phyllis sometimes
wondered if the cruel impression had faded from her friend's mind, but
she never mentioned the subject to Madge.
That morning, after the two friends had chatted of many things, all at
once Madge grew strangely silent.
"Phil!" she queried abruptly, "do you remember what Flora Harris said
to me the night before our shipwreck?"
"Why, of course," answered Phil in surprise, "I could not forget. But I
hope you have not been letting your mind dwell on such foolishness."
"I have never stopped thinking of it a minute, day or night," returned
Madge quietly. "I don't mean that I have just thought about the insult
to my father. Flora Harris told me that after my father was dismissed
from the Navy in disgrace he went somewhere. She did not speak as
though he had died. Do you know, Phil"--Madge spoke in low, hushed
tones, though there was no one in the woods to hear her--"I have always
thought of my father as dead. I know that Aunt Sue has always led me,
perhaps unconsciously, to think so. But now I can not recall that she
has ever really told me that he was dead. Phil, dear, do you think it
possible that my father is alive?"
Phil was silent. What could she say? If she should agree, saying that
Madge's father might be alive, it was to confess that Captain Morton
had really suffered disgrace. Else why would he have disappeared and
deserted his baby daughter?
"I don't know," was all she managed to falter.
Madge walked on quietly, with her proud little head held high. "If my
father is alive, Phil, I don't care where he is, I shall find him, even
if I have to look the wide world over. I know that he is innocent, but
I can't tell you how I came by the knowledge. It is my secret."
Phil reached for her friend's hand, giving it a warm, firm pressure,
then they walked on in silence.
All morning they had been tramping through woodlands. At noon they came
to the edge of one wood. A clearing stretched ahead of them.
On the edge of this clearing they sat down to their luncheon. While the
two chums were eating they heard the strangest and most peculiar noise
either of them had ever listened to in their lives. It was the tramping
and rushing of many feet, like a charge of cavalry. Once or twice
before, since they had taken up their abode on the island, the girls
had caught a faint, far-off echo of just such a sound. To-day it
sounded much nearer.
"What was that?" demanded Phil quickly, raising her hand.
"It sounds like a cavalry charge," returned Madge, trying to smile,
though feeling vaguely alarmed.
The noise swept nearer, like the rush of the wind. Then it stopped as
abruptly as it had begun.
Neither girl offered to stir from under the tree where they had halted
in order to go on with their pilgrimage. The mystery of the noise that
they had just heard made their adventure seem far more perilous. What
on earth was it? What did it mean?
The atmosphere was clear. The travelers guessed they must have come to
about the center of the island. It was a broad, open plateau, covered
with grasses and wild flowers. Neither of the girls thought of how
curious it was to find the grass cropped as close to its roots as
though it had been cut down by a mowing machine.
Phil was walking slowly ahead. There was an opening through a double
avenue of trees, and Phil wanted to find out whether they could get
through the woods by this cut. For the moment Madge's back was turned
to Phil. She was reaching up for a particularly splendid bunch of
Virginia creeper that clung to a branch over her head.
Like a roll of thunder from a clear sky, or the rumble of heavy
artillery, came the noise that they had heard before. It was indeed the
rushing of many feet and it was coming nearer.
Phil ran toward a low-branched tree. "Climb the tree, Madge!" she
cried.
But Madge only stared intently ahead of her.
Some distance ahead a single dark object made its appearance. It walked
on four feet, had a thick, shaggy mane, and its long black tail swept
the ground in a proud arch. Its coat was rough----
Madge clapped her hands. To Phil's horror her chum started to run
forward, instead of taking refuge in a tree.
"It's only a strange-looking horse!" she cried in relief. Madge had
never in her life seen a horse of which she felt afraid.
At almost the same instant, back of the single horse, which was plainly
the leader of a drove, appeared another, then a dozen, twenty or thirty
more horses. The entire drove was galloping recklessly ahead. It was
the noise of their charge that had indeed sounded like a rush of
cavalry.
The leader of the horses caught sight of Madge. What must it have
thought? A human being had appeared out of nowhere in the midst of its
haunts. The wild horse stopped short for an instant, then gave a long
neigh to its companions. The other horses ceased their charge; they,
too, sniffed the air with the same attitude of surprise and hesitation.
Some of them pawed the ground in front of them.
Phil, from her position in the tree, could see everything that
happened. She thought she was experiencing a nightmare, or else that
she had beheld an apparition which had come out of the pages of her
ancient mythology.
To Phil's amazement, Madge stood still during the brief instant when
the horses hesitated. It was then she might have saved herself, but she
lingered for an instant, then turned to run.
The leader of the drove of horses had made up his mind that he had
nothing to fear from the wood-nymph that had tried to block his path.
He tossed his shaggy head, giving the signal to his company. The entire
troop started on a wild gallop through the avenue of trees. Madge was
directly in front of their charge.
Blind fear overtook her. She ran without seeing where she was going.
She knew she was about to be run down by a stampede of wild horses, and
in her terror she stumbled, then fell headlong. She could hear the
horses galloping straight on. There was no time for her to struggle to
her feet. She lay face downward, expecting each moment to be trampled
to death.
Phyllis took in the whole situation. From her safe vantage in the tree,
even more certainly than Madge, she realized the fate that must soon
overtake her chum.
Phil's tree was only a few yards from the place where Madge had fallen.
Without an instant's hesitation Phyllis Alden dropped to the ground.
She must have made one flying leap, for she landed in front of the
little captain's prostrate body. If Madge were to be trampled to death,
that fate should not come to her alone.
Phil had marvelous presence of mind. What she did she must have done by
instinct. There was no time to think. She saw the flecks of white foam
between the teeth of the horse that was leading the charge. As it bore
down upon her Phyllis lifted up both arms. She gave a wild and
unexpected shout, waving both arms frantically before the horse's face.
The horse paused for the fraction of a moment. Phil waved more
violently than ever, shouting hoarsely and in more commanding tones.
The horse was startled. He looked at Phil with his ears erect and his
eyes restless. Then he deliberately swerved from the path that would
have led straight over the bodies of the two girls, made a sweep to the
right, and thundered on, followed by his drove of wild horses.
From her position, face downward on the ground, Madge had been acutely
conscious of everything that had occurred. She seemed to have seen with
her ears rather than her eyes. She knew that Phil had risked her own
life to save hers, and that Phil's presence of mind had saved them
both.
"It's all right, dear," remarked Phil coolly, when the horses had
passed out of sight. But the hand she reached out to Madge to help lift
her from the ground was trembling.
Once she was on her feet the little captain caught tight hold of Phil's
arm.
"It was real, wasn't it, Phil? We _did_ see a drove of wild horses dash
by us?"
Phil nodded calmly. "It was much too real for a few seconds," she
rejoined. "Now I understand the far-off noise of the tramping of many
feet that we have heard before. These horses must always stay herded
together. When they are weary of grazing they make these wild rushes.
How do you suppose they ever came on this island?"
Madge shook her head. She had no possible guess that she dared to make.
There is a story, which the girls heard long afterward, about this
drove of wild horses, that even at the present time lives on an island
not far from the Chesapeake Bay. Many years ago a Spanish family had
their estate on this now deserted island. When they moved away they
left their horses alone on the island. Forsaken by man, these horses
returned to the wild, free state in which they lived before they were
haltered, harnessed and trained by human beings to become their beasts
of burden.