RANDALL'S ISLAND
"I can't help it, it simply won't roll!" exclaimed Katherine in despair.
"I've tugged and tugged until my fingernails are all broken, and it just
naturally won't turn over!" And Katherine sat down with a discouraged
thud and fanned herself with a hair-brush.
"Well, we'll 'just naturally' have to stop and see what's the matter with
it," said Nyoda soothingly. The Winnebagos were having a contest in
poncho rolling to be in practice for the coming summer's camping trips.
The aim of each one just now was to accomplish this in two minutes. Two
minutes to spread out a poncho, two blankets and enough clothes for an
overnight trip, roll it up into a neat stove-pipe, bend it into a tidy
horseshoe and fasten the ends together with a rope tied in square knots.
The record was held by Medmangi, quiet, neat Medmangi, who, while the
others were working like mad, had serenely completed her task in a minute
and three-quarters.
"She's a regular phenomenay, that woman," said Sahwah, who had thought
she was doing wonders when she straightened up at the end of two minutes
exactly. "She must have four hands, or else she packed with her feet. But
what else could you expect of a girl who's going to be a doctor?"
Poor Katherine, alas, made no time at all that could be recorded in
Nyoda's book. It was only her second attempt at poncho rolling, but it is
doubtful whether it would have been any different if it had been her
hundred and second. She simply was not built for order and speediness. At
the end of ten minutes she still sat beside her pile of belongings, the
poncho askew, the blankets askew on it and hanging over the edge, the
extra middy bundled up into a wrinkled lump and the small articles
sliding off on all sides. She had begun to roll it from the wrong end,
and after one or two turns it absolutely refused to go any farther, in
spite of forceful attempts.
"Here, spread your things out properly, and then it will go," said Nyoda
patiently, picking up the blankets. Out rolled the object which had
obstructed the wheels of progress--an umbrella, which had been tucked
under the blankets lengthwise of the roll. "No wonder it wouldn't roll!"
exclaimed Nyoda, laughing aloud. "Did you expect the umbrella to bend
round and round like a hose? Whatever would you want an umbrella for,
anyway?"
"For rain," answered Katherine with touching simplicity. Nyoda and the
other Winnebagos doubled up in silent mirth. Katherine's inspirations
invariably left them without power of comment.
"Katherine, you're _positively_ hopeless," sighed Gladys affectionately.
"The only safe way is to divide your things up among the other ponchos;
yours would never arrive at a journey's end, anyhow."
"Oh, if I had only been born neat instead of handsome!" said Katherine
plaintively, and then joined heartily in the irresistible laughter that
followed.
"Hush, girls!" said Nyoda. "There's somebody down at the door. Don't you
hear somebody rapping?"
Hinpoha, who was nearest the window, peeped down. "It's a whole bunch of
girls," she reported in an excited whisper. "All strangers. I don't know
any of them. What can they want?"
"Want to see us, probably," said matter-of-fact Sahwah. "Isn't somebody
going down to let them in?"
"The way this place looks!" sighed Nyoda, looking at the floor strewn
with the contents of Katherine's poncho. "Gladys, you and Hinpoha go down
and let them in and detain them downstairs until the rest of us can put
this room in order. It's a disgrace to the Winnebagos."
Gladys and Hinpoha descended the ladder and threw open the door.
"Welcome," they cried, "whoever you are! Welcome to the House of the Open
Door!"
The six strange girls came in. One who was tall and thin and had hair
almost as red as Hinpoha's, stepped forward. "We are members of the
San-Clu Camp Fire," she said. "We have heard quite a bit about you
Winnebagos and thought we would come and call. Is this your famous
Lodge?"
"It certainly is," said Gladys hospitably. "We are delighted to become
acquainted with you. Make yourselves at home. This gymnasium outfit
belongs to a club of boys who share our Lodge, and over there is
Sandhelo's stall. Sandhelo is our pet donkey; you must see him right
away." She led the girls to the stall and kept them there telling about
Sandhelo's exploits until she was sure from the sounds above that the
room was in order. Then she invited them to ascend the ladder.
"The San-Clu Camp Fire have come visiting," she announced, as she stepped
out on the floor.
"All Hail to the San-Clu Camp Fire from the Winnebagos," chanted the
hostess ceremoniously, and seven pairs of hands performed the fire sign.
"San-Clu returns All Hail," responded the guests with no less ceremony.
The newcomers were shown the beauties of the Winnebago Lodge, and it
seemed they would never get done exclaiming over the rugs and skins and
pottery, and most of all, the beds.
"They aren't so terribly hard to make," the Winnebagos assured them
modestly, but at the same time glowing with a feeling of superiority. The
San-Clu girls were plainly older than the Winnebagos; they all wore
dresses down to their ankles and seemed quite grown up, almost enough to
be guardians themselves; yet they did not appear to have won nearly so
many honors as the younger Winnebagos.
During the tour of inspection Nyoda and Gladys held a whispered
consultation in one end of the room. "Nothing here to make a spread
with," said Gladys. "I'll have to hurry out and get something."
"Do," said Nyoda. Gladys nudged Hinpoha and drew her down the ladder and
together they sped after canned shrimp and condensed milk.
"Now, if you'll excuse us a minute," said Nyoda to the San-Clus, "we'll
retire behind our curtains and prepare to do the stunt with which we
always inflict company. Come, girls," she added in a whisper, "the Battle
of Blenheim." And the players retired to array themselves in the
necessary sheets.
Five minutes later the curtains were shoved aside, and the players stood
before the audience. They looked in bewilderment. For seated where they
had left the San-Clu Camp Fire Girls were the Captain, Bottomless Pitt,
the Monkey, Dan Porter, Peter Jenkins and Harry Raymond. The girls had
vanished.
"Why, when did you come in, boys?" asked Nyoda in surprise. "And where
are the girls?"
"What girls?" asked the Captain.
"Why, the San-Clu Camp Fire girls," said Nyoda, "who were visiting us."
"Here they are," said the six boys, rising and speaking together. "We are
the 'San-Clu' Camp Fire Girls. 'San-Clu'--short for Sandwich Club!
Ho-ho-ho, Katherine! You'd know us in a minute with girls' clothes on,
would you!" And from under the rugs and furniture they drew the dresses,
hats, gloves and wigs which the late San-Clus had worn a-calling.
"Oh-h-h, Katherine, we do this to each other!"
The girls sat staring, speechless for a minute, unable to believe that
there really had been no girls there. But the evidence was before their
eyes and it could not be doubted. And they were far too game not to see
that the joke was on them, and laughed just as heartily over it as the
boys did.
"We'll have to have the spread, anyhow, for your benefit," said Nyoda,
taking up the cans of supplies that Hinpoha and Gladys had just brought
in. "You carried that off too splendidly not to be rewarded. We
congratulate you on your ability to act, and confess that we were
completely taken in. Where's Slim?"
"We left him behind the fence," said the Captain, with a start of
recollection. "We didn't dare let him come in with us, because you'd have
recognized him right away."
"Figures never lie, especially stout ones," laughed Nyoda. "Go and bring
him to the spread."
"Are you folks going on a trip?" inquired the Monkey, with his mouth full
of Shrimp Wiggle and his eyes on the ponchos piled in the corner.
"We are, next Saturday," answered Sahwah. "We were just practicing
rolling the ponchos today. Saturday we're going to take the steamer
across the lake to Rock Island. Some friends of Nyoda's have a cottage
there, but they haven't gone up yet and they said we might stay in it all
night if we wanted to. We're coming home on the boat Sunday night."
"Are you going by yourselves?" asked Slim, leaning across the table and
listening to the conversation. He was fishing for an invitation for the
Sandwiches.
"We certainly are going by ourselves," said Sahwah, to his
disappointment. "We haven't been off by ourselves for a long time. We're
going in a lonely place and have a Ceremonial Meeting on the shore of the
lake and tell secrets and do stunts and have a beautiful time. It's
strictly a Winnebago affair--a hen party, you'd call it."
Slim sighed and consoled himself with five pieces of fudge and an apple.
He was one of those boys who like to be around girls all the time. Too
fat to enjoy the more strenuous society of the boys, he preferred to sit
with his gentler friends and dip his hand into the dishes of candy that
they usually had standing around. The fact that they made no end of fun
of him and never took him seriously only increased his desire for them.
And, like the Captain, he delighted to look upon the hair when it was
red. He admired Hinpoha with all his corpulent soul.
The winter and spring months had flown by with swifter wings than the
white-tailed swallow, and the clock of the year was once more striking
June. Saturday found the Winnebagos skimming over the blue waters of the
lake in the big daily excursion boat bound for Rock Island. Nakwisi, of
course, had her spy glass and was carefully scrutinizing the empty
horizon. "Has Katherine come into your range of vision yet?" asked Nyoda,
a trifle anxiously. Katherine had boarded the boat with them safely
enough, for she had been personally conducted from home by the whole six,
but had disappeared within ten minutes after the boat started.
Nakwisi lowered her glass and laughed. "No, I don't see her in the sky,"
she said, "though I shouldn't be very greatly surprised if I did."
And they began a thorough search of the boat from top to bottom and
finally found her hanging over the rail of a gangway, trying to touch the
snowy foam flying in the swirling wake of the paddle wheel. It was the
first time she had ever been on a lake, and she took a perfectly childish
delight in the racing water. Pulled back to safety by Nyoda, she gave an
animated account of her adventures since seeing them last, in the course
of which she had nearsightedly walked into the pilot house and caught
hold of the wheel to steady herself when the boat gave a lurch, and had
been summarily put out by an angry first mate. "I've been everywhere on
the boat except down the smokestack," she concluded triumphantly.
Soon Rock Island appeared as a speck on the horizon in Nakwisi's glass,
then as a long black streak which they could all see, and finally grew by
leaps and bounds into a beautiful wooded island with trees and lawns and
beautiful summer cottages shining in the sunlight. Shouldering their
ponchos, they went ashore, and walked around the point of the island to
the cottage where they were to spend the night. It was close to the
water, where a curving indentation of the shore line made a lovely little
beach. If Sahwah did not make the record at poncho rolling, she left them
all behind in getting into her bathing suit, and five minutes after the
door was unlocked her hands clove the water in a flying dive from the end
of the pier.
Katherine splashed about courageously, trying to swim, and finally
succeeded in propelling herself through the water by a series of jerks
and splashes unlike any stroke ever invented by the mind of man. "This is
too hard on my dellyket constitooshun," she remarked at last, clambering
out and draping her ungainly length around a rock, thereby disclosing the
fact that her bathing suit was minus one sleeve. Katherine regarded the
yawning armhole with mild vexation. "Broke my needle when my suit was all
done but putting in the one sleeve," she remarked serenely, "and there
wasn't time to go out and buy one--I finished the suit at eleven o'clock
last night--so I just pasted that sleeve in with adhesive tape, and it
didn't show a bit. But it must have let go in the water," she finished
plaintively. Nyoda looked at the girls, and the girls looked at Nyoda,
and once more they were dumb.
Tired of swimming, they dressed and explored the island and then sat down
on the big boat dock and dangled their feet over the edge. Soon a tug
came up alongside the pier and the sailor who ran it chanced to be a man
whom Nyoda had met the previous summer on the island. "Hello, Captain
McMichael," she called.
The sunburnt sailor looked up. "Hello, hello," he answered. "What are you
doing up here so early in the season?" When Nyoda had explained that she
had brought the girls up on a sightseeing trip, Captain McMichael
promptly offered to take them for a ride in the tug. "Got to go over to
Jackson's Island and get a lighter of limestone," he said. "I'd have to
set you ashore on Randall's Island while I went over to Jackson's to get
the lighter," he continued, "because you'd get all covered with lime dust
if you stayed in the tug while they were loading, and it's no place for
ladies to go ashore. But Randall's is all right. The quarries there
aren't worked any more and there are only a few summer cottages. But
there are excellent wild strawberries," he finished with a twinkle in his
eye. "I'll call for you on the way back and get you here before dark.
Will you come?"
"Oh, Nyoda, may we?" cried the girls, delighted at the prospect.
"Why, yes," answered Nyoda. "I think that will be a delightful way to
spend the afternoon. I have always wanted to explore Randall's Island; it
looks so interesting from the steamer. We accept your invitation with
pleasure, Captain McMichael."
"Glad to have you," responded the tug master heartily, as he set the
powerful engine throbbing.
"Don't fall overboard," he yelled above the steam exhaust a minute later
as Katherine hung over the stern and trailed her hands in the water.
Nyoda clung to her dress and the rest sang in chorus:
"Sailing, sailing,
Over to Randall's I,
And dear Sister K would fall into the bay
If Nyoda weren't nigh!"
The run to Randall's Island took just fifteen minutes and Katherine
managed to get there without accident, other than upsetting an oil can
into her lap. The wild strawberries were as abundant and as delicious as
Captain McMichael had promised, and it was with sighs of regret that they
finally admitted they could hold no more. Then they scrambled around in
the abandoned limestone quarries until Nyoda, coming face to face with
Katherine, announced it was time to play something else. Katherine had
torn her dress on sharp points until it was nearly a wreck; she had
stepped into a puddle up to her shoetops, her hat brim hung down in a
discouraged loop and her hands and face were scratched with briers.
"If one more thing happens to you, Katherine Adams," said Nyoda sternly,
"you'll have to spend the rest of your life on this island, for you won't
be respectable enough to take home."
"Then I'll be Miss Robinson Crusoe," said Katherine, "and eat up all the
strawberries on the island, and not have to write the class paper. I
believe I'll consider your offer. Our literary member, Migwan, can write
a book about it--_Living on Limestone_, or _The Queen of the Quarry_.
Wouldn't that be a fine sounding title!"
"What is that long stone building way over there?" asked Hinpoha, as they
promenaded decorously over the island beyond the quarries, two of them
arm-in-arm with Katherine, to keep her in the straight and narrow path.
"Looks like a fort," said Sahwah, with immediate interest. "Is it a fort,
Nyoda?"
"I doubt it very much," answered Nyoda. "I never heard of a fort on any
of these islands. Let's go over and investigate."
Katherine hung back, screwing up her face and rolling her eyes like an
old negress. "Don' lead dis child into temptation," she begged. "Feel lak
de climbin' debbil would get into mah feet agin foh sartin sure, ef ah
went near dat pile of stone, an' den good-bye, dress! Only safe way's to
keep dis child far away!"
Her veiled, husky voice made her imitation indescribably droll, and the
girls shouted with laughter. "Never fear, my weak sister," said Gladys,
"we'll all keep you out of danger."
"I can't imagine what this could have been," said Hinpoha, when they had
reached the ruin. "It looks more like a mill than a fort."
"Mill!" exclaimed Sahwah scornfully. "There isn't any wheel, and there
isn't a sign of a stream. Mills are always on streams."
"Maybe this was a windmill," suggested Katherine. "It's windy enough to
set any kind of machinery going," and she started in pursuit of her hat,
which that moment had been whirled from her head by a mischievous zephyr.
The ruin which the girls had found that afternoon was the remains of an
old wine cellar which had been used for storing great quantities of grape
wine in the old days when Randall's Island had been in the heart of the
grape region, before quarrying became the chief industry. Nothing was
left now to tell what valuable stores it had once sheltered, only stones
and crumbling brick walls, overgrown with high weeds and wild vines.
"It's an enchanted castle," said Hinpoha. "A beautiful princess used to
live here, only she got married and moved to--to the big hotel on Rock
Island, and when she left the bad imps came and knocked out the mortar
with their little hammers and it all fell to pieces."
"Oh, wonderful," drawled Katherine. "Let's poke about a bit in the ruins
and see if we can find any of the solid gold toothpicks the princes used
to strew around after a meal."
The ruined wine cellar proved utterly fascinating. They could still see
where it had been divided into rooms; and here and there a thick wall
still stood higher than their heads.
"Hi, what's this?" asked Katherine, as they stood before a doorway
partially filled with débris, behind which a black hole yawned.
"It's a cave," said Sahwah, poking her head forward into the hole like a
turtle. "Let's explore it," she continued, stepping carefully over the
pile of bricks. "Come on," she called over her shoulder; "it's perfectly
wonderful. It's a room, but it's under the hill. Come on in."
"Are there any bats?" asked Gladys, hanging back.
"Nothing but brickbats," came Sahwah's cheerful voice from within.
Gladys and Hinpoha crawled through the opening, and Katherine, with a
resigned, "Goodbye, dress," followed with Nyoda and Nakwisi and Medmangi.
The room was nothing more than an extension of the cellar, built into the
side of the hill, but to them it was filled with romantic possibilities.
"What do you suppose it was?" asked Hinpoha, straining her eyes in the
semi-darkness.
"The dungeon, of course," answered Katherine promptly. "Here's where your
beautiful princess confined the lovers that didn't suit her
fancy--light-haired ones and fat ones, especially. She chained them to
the wall and the rats nibbled their toes."
"Oh-oh-oh!" shrieked Hinpoha, stopping her ears. "Don't say such dreadful
things. I can feel the rats nibbling at my toes this minute."
The walls of this cellar were badly crumbled, and at the farther side the
girls discovered another cave-like opening. This was entirely dark and
they hesitated before going in. Then Nyoda took her pocket flash and
Gladys found hers, and by the combined glimmer of the two the girls found
their way into the farther cave. At first they had to keep the light on
the ground to see where to put their feet and they were all inside before
Nyoda turned her flash on the walls. Then a great cry of amazement burst
from every girl, ending in a breathless gasp. The walls and roof of the
cave seemed to be made of precious stones--pearls, sapphires, emeralds,
amethysts and diamonds. They caught the gleam from the pocket flashes and
twinkled and reflected in a hundred points of dancing light. Great masses
of crystal, faceted like diamonds, hung suspended from the roof almost
touching their heads, seemingly held up by magic.
"Am I dreaming," cried Hinpoha, "or is this Alladin's cave? What is it,
Nyoda? Where are we?"
Nyoda laughed at their open mouths and staring eyes. "Only in one of
Nature's treasure vaults," she said. "This is one of the famous crystal
caves that are found throughout these islands. It's a form of rock
crystal, strontia, I believe some people call it, and I don't doubt but
what it's related to the limestone in the quarries. Take a good look at
it, for some of these crystals are simply marvellous."
Their voices echoed and re-echoed weirdly, as they called to each other,
the sound seeming to roll along the low ceiling. "Look at this mass over
here," cried Sahwah, penetrating deeper into the cave, "it looks like a
man standing against the wall."
"And this one looks like a dog lying down," said Hinpoha, pointing to
another.
Laughing, shouting, exclaiming, they explored the wonders of the cave
until a heavy shock as of something falling, accompanied by a deafening
crash, rooted them to the ground with fright. "What is it? What has
happened?" they asked one another, and made their way back to the
entrance. But the entrance was no longer there. Where it had been there
was a solid wall of stone. Their climbing around among the ruined walls
had sent some of the bricks sliding and these had released a large rock
which had rolled down directly over the opening into the crystal cave.
With desperate force they pushed against the rock, but their sevenfold
strength made no more impression than a fly brushing its wings against
it. With white faces they turned to each other when they realized the
truth. They were imprisoned in the cave!
"The other direction!" cried Sahwah, shaking off her terror and setting
her wits to work. "We may be able to get out the other way." Taking the
flashlight from Gladys, whose trembling fingers threatened to drop it,
she led the way into the gloomy recesses of the cave, whose depths they
had penetrated only a short distance before. They shuddered at the icicle
like crystals, which now seemed like long fingers reaching down to catch
a hold of them, and shrank back from the crystal masses that took the
forms of men and animals. These now seemed like ghosts of creatures that
had been trapped in the cave as they were. For trapped they were. In a
few moments their progress was barred by impassable masses of crystal.
Back again they went to the rock-blocked entrance and beat upon it and
pushed with all their might. All in vain. The rock stood firm as
Gibraltar. They shouted and called and screamed until the echoes clamored
hideously, but no answering call came from the outside. From somewhere,
far in the distance, came the dismal sound of falling water, chilling the
blood in their veins.
Helplessly the girls all turned to Nyoda, asking, "What shall we do?"
Nyoda stood still and tried to face the situation calmly. She held her
flashlight close to the rock and looked carefully all around the edge. At
one side there was a tiny fissure, not more than half an inch wide and
about six inches long, caused by the irregular shape of the rock. Nyoda
regarded this minute opening thoughtfully. "If we could put something
through that opening which would act as a signal, we might attract
somebody's attention who wouldn't be able to hear us calling," she said
at length. "Our voices are so muffled in here they can't carry very far
outside."
"Is there anybody on the island to see it?" asked Gladys doubtfully.
"There are some people here," answered Nyoda, "because the fishermen stay
all the year round. You remember those houses we passed on the other side
of the quarry, where the nets were hanging in the yard?"
"What shall we use for a signal of distress?" asked Gladys. "Not one of
us has a tie or a ribbon on today."
"Use my dress skirt," said Katherine generously. "It's so torn anyway
that it'll never feel the same again, even if it recovers from this
trip." Which was perfectly true. So they tore the wide hem from her
dress, which made a pennant about six feet long. Then Sahwah had a
further inspiration, and, dipping her finger into a dark puddle formed on
the floor by a thin stream of moisture trickling down the wall, she wrote
the word HELP on the strip. Nyoda poked the end through the opening and
shoved the rest out after it, keeping the other end in her hand, and she
could feel by the tugging at the strip that the high wind had caught the
portion outside and was whipping it about.
"Now shout for all you're worth," commanded Nyoda.
Early that Saturday morning the Captain had aroused Slim from his
peaceful slumbers unceremoniously. "Hurry up and come over," he said, in
response to Slim's protesting grunt. "Uncle Theodore's here with his
automobile and he's going to take a run over to Freeport this morning and
he said he would take all the fellows along that were ready at nine
o'clock. Hurry."
Slim needed no second invitation and roused himself immediately, while
the Captain sped to collect the remainder of the Sandwiches, which was
accomplished in short order, as none of the other invitations involved
resurrection. Nine o'clock found them all on the curbstone before the
Captain's house, standing beside Uncle Theodore's big car, waiting for
the word to pile in. The ride to Freeport was accomplished in a few
hours' time and after dinner Uncle Theodore turned the boys loose to see
the town by themselves while he transacted the business which had taken
him thither. Freeport had no attraction outside of its harbor, and
thither the boys betook themselves without delay. Passenger steamers left
every half hour for the various islands nearby; lime boats, tugs and
scows crowded the mouth of the river, and the whole atmosphere breathed
of ships. The boys stood and watched a while and then pined for something
to do.
"Let's hire a launch," suggested the Captain, who felt that it was up to
him to furnish the amusement, inasmuch as he had invited them to come
along, "and go out on the lake."
Launches were readily to be had and soon they were curving around in
great circles through the waves, drenched with the spray, and enjoying it
as only boys can enjoy the sensation of riding in a speed boat.
"Let's go to Rock Island," said Slim, who had not forgotten who else had
planned to go there that day.
"What for?" asked the Captain.
"Oh, nothing," answered Slim, "except that there's a pretty nice aquarium
there, and--and the girls said they were going to be there."
"But we were politely invited to stay home, if I remember rightly," said
Bottomless Pitt. "They're going to have a pow-wow, or something like
that."
"But if we should run into them accidentally they would probably be glad
to see us," persisted Slim. Slim was fond of picnics gotten up by girls
on account of the superior quality of the "grub"; he was especially fond
of Winnebago picnics, because the Winnebagos treated him better than any
other girls he knew, and as mentioned before, he had a decided weakness
for red hair. Hence his ingenuous desire to go to Rock Island. The
Captain, knowing Slim like a book, laughed. But he, too, wished he had
been invited to the picnic, and his reasons coincided in their last item
with Slim's.
"All right," he said, and turned the boat's head toward the green outline
of Rock Island. Half of the distance across the bay the launch wheezed
and stopped dead.
"Pshaw," said Slim disgustedly, when the Captain announced that they had
run out of gasoline. They had come to a stop just off a small rocky
island and with the aid of the one oar the launch boasted the Captain
proceeded to paddle in to shore, in the hope that he could obtain
gasoline there.
"Regular desert island," grunted Slim, as they walked and met no one.
"None of the cottages seem to be occupied."
"Cheer up; we'll find someone," said the Captain. "The fishermen live on
these islands all winter. Look at the limestone quarries over there."
"And the ruined something or other behind them," said the Bottomless
Pitt.
"Let's cut across here," said Slim, who was ever on the lookout for short
cuts. "I see some houses over there."
"And break our necks crawling over those stones," said Monkey. "Not
much."
So they started to follow the path that led around the curve of the
shore. "Wonder if it wouldn't have been better to cut across, anyway,"
said the Captain, when they had gone some distance. "These blooming
little stones are worse to walk on than spikes. Those rocks couldn't have
been much worse." And he stood still and looked thoughtfully back at the
ruined cellar.
"Hi!" he exclaimed suddenly. "What's that?"
"What's what?" asked Slim.
"That white rag flying from the rock over there. It surely wasn't there a
minute ago."
"Probably was, only you didn't see it," said Slim, impatient to go on.
"I'm positive it wasn't," said the Captain. "I'm going over to have a
look at it. When rags start out of rocks there's something in the wind."
And he walked briskly toward it, the rest following. As they drew near
their startled eyes fell on the black letters of the word HELP, traced in
wobbly lines.
"Yay!" shouted the boys at the top of their lungs. "Where are you and
what's the matter?"
Apparently from inside the rock came the feeble echo of a shout: "We're
in the cave! The rock covered the doorway!"
"Wait a minute!" called the Captain in answer, and boylike tried to move
the rock himself. "Lend a hand, fellows," he said, after one shove
against its solid side. They lent all the hands they had, but could not
budge it. "Pull the bricks out from around it," commanded the Captain,
taking charge of the affair like a general, "and look out for your feet
when she lunges over!" They set to work, dislodging the bricks that held
it in, and before long it moved, tottered, grated and finally, with a
great crash, lunged over and rolled down a little slope.
Pale and shaken, the Winnebagos emerged into the light of day. Had the
ghosts of their great grandmothers appeared before them the boys could
not have been more surprised. Questions and answers flew back and forth
thick and fast until the tale of their finding the cave was told.
"And I'll never, never, explore anything again!" finished Hinpoha, in an
emphatic tone.
"Oh, yes, you will," said Gladys; "and so will we all, but the next time
we'll have a company of guides fore and aft."
"Wouldn't it be a better plan," suggested the Captain mildly, "to take us
along with you wherever you go? I notice we generally have to come to the
rescue, anyway."
And the Winnebagos promised to consider the matter.