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[Illustration: “Stretched out his arms to bar their way” _Page 142_]
DOROTHY DALE AND HER CHUMS
by
MARGARET PENROSE
Author of “Dorothy Dale: a Girl of To-Day,” “Dorothy
Dale at Glenwood School,” “Dorothy Dale’s
Great Secret,” etc.
Illustrated
New York
Cupples & Leon Company
* * * * * *
THE DOROTHY DALE SERIES
BY MARGARET PENROSE
Cloth. Illustrated. Price per volume, 60 cts., postpaid
DOROTHY DALE: A GIRL OF TO-DAY
DOROTHY DALE AT GLENWOOD SCHOOL
DOROTHY DALE’S GREAT SECRET
DOROTHY DALE AND HER CHUMS
(Other volumes in preparation)
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY NEW YORK
* * * * * *
Copyright, 1909, by
Cupples & Leon Company
DOROTHY DALE AND HER CHUMS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. STOLEN BIRDS 1
II. THE GYPSY GIRL 8
III. DOROTHY AT THE CAMP 21
IV. THE MIDNIGHT ALARM 29
V. AN AWFUL EXPERIENCE 43
VI. “THE GOODS” 59
VII. A STRANGE GIRL 72
VIII. THE RUNAWAY 77
IX. MIETTE 87
X. A RUMPUS 98
XI. “GIRLS AND GIRLS” 104
XII. A GIRL’S MEAN ACT 112
XIII. THE TROUBLES OF MIETTE 120
XIV. DOROTHY TO THE RESCUE 128
XV. A QUEER TRAMP 143
XVI. SURPRISES 152
XVII. DOROTHY’S COURAGE 161
XVIII. TAVIA’S DOUBLE 171
XIX. THE CAPTURE 177
XX. URANIA IN THE TOILS 187
XXI. COMPLICATIONS 197
XXII. SINCERE AFFECTION’S POWER 206
XXIII. THE REAL MIETTE 218
XXIV. THE SEARCH 231
XXV. DOROTHY AND HER CHUMS 243
DOROTHY DALE AND HER CHUMS
CHAPTER I
STOLEN BIRDS
“Of all things, to have that happen just now! Isn’t it too mean!”
sighed Dorothy, perching herself on the high shelf at the side of the
pump, and gazing dejectedly beyond the wire fence into the pigeon loft,
where a few birds posed in real “Oh fair dove, Oh, fond dove!” fashion.
“Mean?” repeated Tavia, who was inside the wire fence, calling live
birds, and looking for dead ones, both of which efforts were proving
failures. “It is awful, Dorothy, such a doings as this. They are gone,
sure enough,” and she crawled through the low gate that was intended as
an emergency exit for chickens or pigeons. “I’d just like to know who
took them,” she finished.
“So would I,” and Dorothy shook her blonde head with a meaning clearer
than mere words might impart. “Yes, I would like to know, and I’ve just
a notion of finding out.”
Tavia reached for the clean little drinking pan that rested on the
shelf at Dorothy’s elbow. She held it under the pump spout while
Dorothy worked the pump handle up and down. Then, with the fresh water
in her hand, Tavia crawled inside the wire enclosure again. A few tame
bantams flew across the yard to the treat. Then the doves left their
perch and joined the party around the pan.
“How lonely they look without the others,” remarked Dorothy, as she,
too, crept through the wire gate. “And I did love the Archangels. I
never saw prettier doves. They always reminded me of real Paradise
birds. No wonder they were called by a heavenly name.”
“And to have taken both pairs!” denounced Tavia. “My favorites were the
fantails--they always made me think of--What do you think?”
“Think? I know.”
“What, then?”
“Why, accordion-pleated automobile coats,” teased Dorothy.
“Of course! With such dainty white lingerie! Wouldn’t Nat and Ned look
swell in such coats!”
“Well, if you insist, Tavia, I shall give you my real opinion--memoirs
of the fantails, as it were. They looked exactly like star chorus
girls. But I was loathe to bring up such thoughts in your presence.
Yet, those birds were the purest white--”
“Oh, how I shall miss them! I just enjoyed coming down here every
morning to see them,” and Tavia very gently picked up two of the doves,
placed one on each of her shoulders, and then proceeded to walk “around
the ring,” doing a trick she called “The Winged Venus.”
But there was very little of the Venus type about Tavia. It was rather
early in the morning, and her hair had as yet only received the “fire
alarm brush,” which meant that Tavia, upon hearing the breakfast
bell, had smuggled her brown hair into a most daring knot, promising
to do it up properly later. But it was at breakfast that Dorothy’s
two cousins, Ned and Nat, told of their loss--that the pigeons had
been stolen during the night. The boys made no attempt to hide either
their anger at the unknown thieves’ act, or their genuine grief at the
loss of their fine birds. Dorothy and Tavia were almost as wrought
up over the affair as were the boys, and, as a matter of fact, very
little breakfast was partaken of by any of the quartette that morning.
So Tavia did not get back to her room to give the “back tap” to the
“fire alarm” hair dressing, and as she now marched around the chicken
yard, with the doves on her shoulders, proclaiming herself to be the
Winged Venus, Dorothy suggested it might be well to do away with the
Psyche knot at the back of her head first, and not get her mythology so
hopelessly mixed.
Over in a grassy corner Dorothy was feeding from her hands the bantams.
She looked like a “living picture,” for a pretty girl feeding chicks
always looks like something else, a page from fairy tales, or a colored
plate from Mother Goose.
Tavia had always complained that Dorothy “didn’t have to do” her hair,
she only had to “undo it,” for the blonde waves had a way of nestling
in very close at night, only to be shaken out the next morning. So
Dorothy’s hair looked pretty, and her simple white gown was smooth, not
wrinkled like Tavia’s, for Dorothy’s dress couldn’t wrinkle, the stuff
was too soft to hold creases. Tavia wore a pink muslin slip--it was
intended to be worn as an underslip, with a thin lace or net covering,
but like other things Tavia had cut her dressing down that morning,
so she wore the slip without the cover. And to add to the “misery,”
the pink slip was a mass of wrinkles--it had been making itself
comfortable in a little lump on Tavia’s bedroom chair all the night,
and so was not quite ready (copying its mistress) to be on parade in
the morning sunlight.
“Here come the boys,” suddenly announced Dorothy, as two youths strode
down the path toward the little enclosure.
“Hello there!” called Ned. “What’s the entrance?”
“Reserved seats fifty cents,” answered Dorothy promptly.
“This way for the side show,” called out Tavia, who still had the birds
on her shoulders.
“I’ve seen worse,” declared Nat, the youth who always saw something to
compliment about Tavia. “Say, Coz”--this to Dorothy--“I think I know
who took the pigeons, and I want your help to bring them to--justice.”
“Oh, she’s just aching to go on the force,” declared Tavia, “shooing”
the doves away, as the news of the thievery was promised. “She thinks
those Archangels will ‘telepath’ to her. They were her pets, you know,
and what on earth (or in heaven) would be the use of being Archangelic
if--well, if in a case of the kind the ‘Archs’ couldn’t make good?”
“She’s only jealous,” declared Dorothy. “Her fantails are sure to fly
away to some other country, and so there is no hope for them. They were
such high-flyers.”
“Nat thinks he’s got the game dead to rights,” remarked Ned, with a sly
wink at Dorothy. “But wait until he tries to land it.”
“Exactly!” announced Nat. “Just wait until I do. There’ll be some
doin’s in Birchland, now, I tell you. And if I can’t get the birds
alive, I’ll get their feathers--for the girls’ hats.”
“Oh, I am going to join the Bird Protection Society this very day,” and
Dorothy shivered. “To think that any one can wear real bird feathers--”
“Now that you know real birds--your Archangels, you can see how it
feels,” commented Nat. “We fellows have the same regard for woodcock
or snipe. But just suppose some one should shoot those pretty pigeons,
and give the feathers to a girl for her hat. She’ll wear them, of
course. They were beautiful birds,” and he walked off toward the cage
where only the day previous he had so admired the birds that were now
strangely missing.
“But who took them?” demanded Tavia.
“Of course, if I knew--”
“Said you did,” pouted Tavia, before Nat had a chance to finish the
sentence.
“Now, did I?”
“Well, you said you thought--”
“And I still think. It’s a habit I have. And, by the way, little girl,”
(Nat always called Tavia “little g-ir-l” when he wanted to tease) “it’s
a great thing to think. Try it some time.”
“Well, if I ever get at it, I’ll begin on you,” and Tavia’s Psyche knot
almost fell over on her left ear in sheer indignation.
“Do. I shall be de-lighted. But to be exact,” and he drew from the
pocket of his sweater two feathers, one white and the other copper
color. “Do you recognize these?” and he held the little quills out to
the girls.
“That white one is from a fantail,” declared Tavia promptly.
“And the other--that is certainly from an Archangel,” exclaimed
Dorothy, taking the pretty bit of fluff in her hand, and examining it
closely.
“Well, I found those--”
“Hush!” whispered Ned. “There’s Urania!”