A STRANGE MEETING
For several days after the "hunt" the girls kept up the joke on
themselves. Time after time they threatened to let Jack, and his
friend Percy, guess the truth, but Tavia, the most to be feared, did
manage to keep the laugh purely feminine.
Dorothy and Cologne were gathering berries this morning, while Tavia
ran off to a spot where she declared she could get the better kind of
fruit, better than any they had yet secured. She turned in back of the
big barn, then ran over behind the ice-house, and then she smelled
apples, ripe apples.
"There are harvest apples around here, somewhere," she told herself.
"I simply must find them."
From tree to tree she scampered along until she was out in the lane
that ran into the next estate.
"That's a road," she was thinking. "And there's a man."
Glancing around to see if she could discern Dorothy or Cologne, Tavia
had a sudden thrill of terror.
"I didn't know I had gone so far," she thought, "and that man is
coming this way."
Something familiar about the manner in which the stranger advanced
toward her attracted her attention.
"Looks like that man! It is he! The fellow who stopped the hay-wagon
runaway!"
She was still frightened, but a trifle more at ease, since she
recognized the man in the big slouch hat. "Whatever could have brought
him here?" she asked herself. The next moment she was glad--glad that
Cologne and Dorothy were out of reach.
"Oh, I'm not afraid of him," she thought. "Perhaps he knows I'm
here----"
He was almost up to her. Yes, it was he--the same queer smile lurked
about his face, and he had that indefinable air--was it attractive, or
only different?
"Good morning, Maud Muller," he said doffing that unlimited hat. "I'm
so glad to see you alone."
"Good morning," answered Tavia, "but I am not alone, I just ran away
from my friends; they are over there."
"But not over here. It's all the same. I want to speak to you, and
this is the best opportunity I could have wished for."
Tavia unconsciously picked up a stick. She felt queer, and he looked
queer, so that altogether it was a very queer proceeding.
"I have news for you," the man resumed. "Is not your name Tavia
Travers?"
"Yes."
"Then you must follow my advice closely and you will come into your
own. Are you not from the town of Dalton?"
"I am."
"Then I am right, as I was sure I was from the start. Your father is
a--is an officer in Dalton?"
"A squire," replied Tavia, bewildered now at his knowledge of her and
her family.
"The same. I want to tell you"--he stepped up uncomfortably near to
her so that his sleeve touched her--"I want to tell you there is a
fortune coming to your family, and I can put you on the track to
secure it. My uncle Abe"--he seemed to chuckle--"knew about it, he
told me, and I had to swear on a Bible covered with blood, that I
would never betray his secret!"
"Oh, my!" shuddered Tavia stepping away. "I don't think I can wait
now." She was thoroughly frightened. "Couldn't you come down to the
camp, and tell me? Then we could talk comfortably. The sun is very hot
up here."
"But what I have to say is best said in the open," he answered
vaguely. "I prefer this to all spots on earth." He paused and Tavia's
first impulse was to run, but then----
"I won't ask you to believe me now," he said, his voice softening,
"but if you will come to where I say I can prove my assertion."
"That there is a fortune left to my family? That is too absurd," and
Tavia smiled. "Money does not run in our family."
"Exactly. That is why it has to be run into it--put on the track, so
to speak. Well, I know what I am talking about. But if you are not
interested----"
He turned as if to go. What if it could be true, and Tavia was
throwing away the only chance she would ever have of learning the
truth?
"Where did you want me to go?" she stammered.
"Meet me at the old stone bridge to-morrow at three, and I will
convince you of the actuality of this wonderful inheritance--this
inheritance which you so long have been deprived of--which you have
been fleeced out of by my scheming Uncle Abe!"
His eyes flashed, and his voice trembled. Tavia thought she had never
before seen such glassy eyes, and the way he fastened them on her gave
her a most uncomfortable feeling. She even felt compelled to promise
what he asked, and she did so.
He sauntered off, leaving the girl's head in a whirl. Who was he, and
what did he know about her family?
He was right in his assertions about Dalton, also about her father.
Surely there could be no harm in listening to his story, and the stone
bridge was not far from camp.
Dorothy and Cologne were just appearing above the hill, Dorothy's
yellow head bobbing up like some animated flower.
"Oh, you dreadful girl!" called Cologne. "We thought the gypsies had
taken you."
"No such luck," answered Tavia, as the two came up to the apple tree.
"But I did find some splendid apples. Help yourselves. I must sit down
for a minute. I've been up the tree--no, up _a_ tree," she finished
with a laugh that neither of her companions understood.
"Harvests!" cried Cologne in delight. "I never knew they were here."
"Neither did I until I found them," replied Tavia foolishly.
"The climb gave you lovely red cheeks; Tavia," said Dorothy. "You
ought to take climbing in the next school course."
"No sarcasm now, please, Doro. I don't feel a bit funny."
"But you look it," declared Dorothy, keeping up her teasing manner.
"You always look funny when your cheeks get so red--"
"Danger of ignition, I suppose," and Tavia's voice was anything but
pleasant. "Oh, there go the Lamberts!" as an auto swished around the
road. "I must run away and see them some day--just before we go home,
when Cologne won't have time, or heart, to scold."
"You wouldn't!" spoke Cologne. "Mother particularly warned me that we
were not to take up with those theatrical folks, and mother is the
boss."
"Oh, very well, if you really feel that way about it," and Tavia
shrugged her shoulders.
Dorothy was shaking a limb of the apple tree. "What ghost have you
seen Tavia?" she asked. "Someone has stolen away all your good
nature."
"He's welcome," she replied. "Stagnant good nature doesn't keep well,
and I have been keeping mine bottled up ever since you shot that
window brush. The shock to my system--" and she imitated the manner of
one affected with nerves.
"Yes, it was dreadful on all of us," agreed Dorothy, from whom the
change in Tavia's manner could not be hidden. "But you must forget it,
and think of the good time we are going to have to-morrow. Think of
it! Going out in the real mountains, with real boys for guides! Of
course you will have your pick of the boys, Cologne and I must be
satisfied with what remains."
Cologne had scarcely spoken since Tavia mentioned the Lamberts, and
Dorothy was doing her best to restore good nature and peace to both of
her companions. Yet she was greatly annoyed at Tavia's rudeness. Why
should she persist in ignoring common courtesy and thus keeping up
that Lambert question?
"We must hurry back to the camp with our berries," Cologne at last
ventured, "or mother will think some snake has eaten us up."
"And I particularly want to try my hand at berry tarts," declared
Dorothy. "I was, at one time, considered quite a 'tarter.'"
Tavia gathered up some apples, and the others took their berry
baskets. They walked slowly over the hill back to the camp. Jack was
waiting for them.
"Say, girls!" he began as they neared the dining room steps, "the boys
have a great scheme on for to-morrow. But I am not to tell you about
it."
"Isn't that lovely," came from Tavia in rather mocking tones.
"But I am commissioned to tell you," he went on with an arch look at
Tavia, "that you are to rest this afternoon for sufficient unto
to-morrow is the weariness thereof."
Then they began to prepare lunch, but Tavia remained outside, asking
Jack some seemingly foolish questions.