The "Thing"
It took the girls a moment to realize the extent of the awful thing that
had happened. Then Betty, obeying her first impulse, raised her hands
above her head as though to dive, but Amy screamed to her to stop.
"You will only be lost too!" she cried frantically. "Look--that flat
stick--the long one--"
Instantly Betty saw what she meant and stooped to pick up a long broken
branch that was lying at her feet. At the same instant Mollie came to the
surface several feet away from the spot where she had fallen and threw her
strength desperately against the rushing might of the river.
Betty ran along the river bank, Amy and Grace at her heels, shouting
encouragement to Mollie as she ran.
"Hold tight!" she cried, adding with fresh dismay as she saw that the girl
was being swept further from the shore: "Over this way, honey. Swim to
your right--to your right--"
Blinded, chilled to the bone with the cold water, her hair in her eyes and
her skirts clinging tight about her legs, Mollie struggled wildly, unable
to hear the shouts of her chums above the ringing in her ears.
It was taking all her strength to hold her own against the rush of the
river--and now she was not even doing that! Slowly, very slowly, she was
being pushed backward; in a little while more she would be sucked
downward, and then--
She closed her eyes, and then, as though the obliteration of one sense
made more clear the other, she heard Betty calling to her above the roar
of the falls.
"Mollie! Mollie!" it came, faint but distinct, "take hold of the stick and
we'll pull you in. Mollie, do you hear me?"
The girl in the water was still struggling hard against the current that
was dragging at her cruelly, and at the sound of Betty's words she shook
the water from her eyes and looked about her dazedly. She had forgotten
the girls.
Then she saw something that sent a tingle of renewed hope through her
tired body. What she saw was a long branch bobbing on the water not two
feet from her outstretched hand, and at the other end of the stick
was--Betty.
With a sigh that was half a sob she struck out for it, reached it, and
clung to it as only the drowning know how to cling.
Then she felt herself being drawn through the water, and once more she
closed her eyes. When she opened them again she was on a warm grassy bank
with Amy chafing one hand, Grace the other, while Betty was busy
unfastening the clothes about her waist.
As Mollie was never under any circumstances expected to act as people
thought she should act, so this occasion was no exception to the rule. She
pushed Amy and Grace aside, glared at Betty, and sat up with a little
jerk.
"For goodness' sake, stop undressing me, Betty Nelson!" she said. "I'm not
dead yet."
"So we see," said Betty, while her eyes lost their anxious expression and
began to twinkle instead. "But you might have been, you know, if we had
left you to yourself."
Mollie looked down at her dripping clothes ruefully and then out at the
rushing water.
"I guess you are right," she said with a little grimace. "It wasn't very
pleasant while it lasted, either. Whew, but that water was cold!" She
shivered involuntarily and Betty sprang to her feet.
"We had better be getting back to the lodge," she said. "You can put on
some dry things, Mollie, and we girls will get you some hot soup. You are
chilled to the bone."
"Nonsense," denied Mollie grumpily. "I'm beginning to feel fine and warm.
Besides," she added, trying to cover a chill that fairly made her teeth
ache, "I want to stay and find out about that thing that got us into all
this fuss."
"Nonsense," Grace put in. Up to this time Grace had been made speechless
by Mollie's sudden recovery. "You are shivering so you can't sit still."
"It makes me cold just to look at you," added Amy.
"Don't be foolish, honey," said Betty impatiently. "You can't sit there
all day in dripping clothes, and besides you will really get cold."
"Humph," grunted Mollie, getting to her feet rather unsteadily and shaking
out her sodden skirts. "I guess this isn't the first time I have taken a
dip in cold water. And besides," she added impatiently: "I don't know
about you girls, but I would like to know just what that thing was that we
saw dart beneath the falls."
"That was what made you fall into the water, wasn't it?" asked Betty, her
forehead wrinkling thoughtfully. "You leaned so far out to see--"
"Yes, yes," Mollie interrupted impatiently, all her curiosity revived.
"That was what made me fall into the water all right. But what I want to
know is--what was it?"
"I don't know," said Betty, shaking her head. "I didn't see it."
"Neither did I," Grace added.
Mollie looked from one to the other of them open-mouthed. Then she turned
to Amy.
"You saw it, didn't you?" she asked. "You screamed, you know."
"Yes," said Amy, nodding her head very solemnly. "And it looked to me a
lot like what we saw last night."
"Thank goodness, you saw it too or the girls would surely think I had been
dreaming or was crazy," said Mollie, with relief. Then she suddenly turned
and started off into the woods. "I'm going all alone to find out what that
was," she told her stupefied chums. "I've got to clear up the mystery
before I'm an hour older."
But this time Mollie found that there was some one stronger than she, and
that was Betty. The Little Captain ran after her and brought her back,
protesting but captive.
"We are going back to the house now and get you something hot to eat,"
said Betty, as they rejoined Amy and Grace and started off toward home.
"Afterwards if everybody's willing we will hunt this strange beast that
jumps out from porches and leaps into rivers just for the fun of the
thing. But just now, Billy Billette, you are going home."
But Mollie had been more severely shocked than she was willing to admit by
her experience, and it was some time before the girls visited the falls or
the river again. Meanwhile they contented themselves with exploring the
country about the lodge, taking short trips in the cars and wondering
whether the boys would really be home before the summer was over.
Their days were not altogether happy, however, for the thought of that
weird thing prowling around in the woods and ready, for all they knew, to
spring out at them at every turn, refused to be banished from their minds.
Then, too, they thought a great deal about poor Professor Dempsey and the
little ruined cottage in the woods. Somehow, they had an uneasy feeling
that if they had gone to him at the very first minute they had heard of
his trouble they might have helped him. Whereas, they had waited and--he
had fled.
For a while the idea of a dip in the swimming pool was naturally not very
attractive to Mollie, but at last there came a day when she herself
suggested it and the girls enthusiastically seconded the motion.
More than the prospect of a good time, was the hope, unexpressed, that
they might see again that strange thing which Amy and Mollie had only
glimpsed the time before. Perhaps, they thought, if the mysterious thing
were faced in the open and in broad daylight, it might prove to be no
mystery at all but something ordinary and commonplace enough to do away
with all their vague and weird imaginings.
But in this expectation they were most completely disappointed. Nothing at
all unusual occurred and although they enjoyed their swim in the warm back
eddy of the pool, they came away disgruntled and with a curious feeling
that they had been cheated out of something.
"I only wish the boys would come," sighed Amy, as they turned in once more
at the lodge.
After that the "Thing" became almost like an obsession with them. They
must find out definitely what it was that was spoiling all their fun. They
began to haunt the river, especially at the foot of the falls, in the hope
of seeing something, anything that would put an end to their curiosity and
uneasiness.
For a long time they had not got up courage enough to visit the place at
night, but at last they became curious enough to brave even that.
"We have simply got to find out something," Mollie whispered to Betty as
on this particular night they stood on the porch and waited for Mrs.
Irving to join them. "We can't go on this way any longer, Betty. Why, I am
getting so nervous I jump if you look at me."
"I know," said Betty soberly. "It really is getting on our nerves too
much. Amy and Grace are feeling it even worse than we are."
"Yes," agreed Mollie grumpily. "Last night was the third night in
succession that Amy got us all out of bed to listen to some fool noise
outside. I'm just about sick of it."
The other three came then and they had no further chance for conversation.
As a matter of fact, they talked surprisingly little on the walk to the
river.
High above them a wonderful full moon sent its silvery light filtering
down through leaves and branches, making of the woods a fairyland.
Somehow, the very beauty of it filled the girls with a strange dread. To
them the patches of moonlight were weird, unreal, the shadowy woods held a
sinister menace.
By the time they had reached the river's edge they were almost ready to
turn and run. But they conquered the impulse and pressed on. Then suddenly
they saw what they had hoped, yet dreaded, to see.
On the opposite bank, staring down into the rapids with a terrible
intentness, stood a man, or something that resembled a man. In one awful,
breath-taking minute they realized that here at last was the "Thing."
As they watched, the hunched-up crouching figure on the opposite bank made
a lumbering movement forward as though about to throw itself into the
water at the foot of the falls.
"Oh!" screamed Betty, the words wrenched from her dry throat. "Don't do
that! You mustn't do that! Go back! For goodness' sake, go back!"
With a hoarse cry that answered her own, the "Thing" flung back from the
water's edge and disappeared into the darkness!