FAIR EXPLORERS
Into the pleasant woods the girls went, Betsy, of course, in the lead.
Sometimes there were open places among the trees where they could walk
easily, but, at other times, they came to tangles of bushes that were
very difficult to break through.
Suddenly the leader paused and held up a warning finger. “Hst!” she
whispered in the dramatic way she seemed to enjoy, “I thought I heard
sort of a rustling noise in the bushes over there.”
“It might be snakes—” Barbara began, when Sally uttered a piercing
scream. “I stepped on one! I know I did!” she was screaming
hysterically.
“No, you didn’t. That’s only a big stick. Here, give it to me. I
remember now, in Swiss Family Robinson, when the boys went through dense
underbrush, they pounded the bushes ahead of them to frighten away
snakes and other wild creatures.”
They moved forward, but it was Virginia herself who soon called a halt.
“Girls,” she said in a very low tone, “it may be my imagination but ever
since Betty spoke, I, too, keep hearing a rustling noise back of us. It
stops when we stop, then begins again when we start on.”
“I believe we are being followed,” Betsy turned to say. “I remember how
tigers and things used to trail after the Robinson boys, waiting for a
good chance to spring out and eat them.”
At that Sally just sank right down on a stump and began to cry. Virginia
tried to comfort her. “Dear,” she said, with a pleading look at the
tormentor. “Betsy is just trying to tease. You know, Sally, as well as
we do that there are no tigers near Boston. I ought not to have
mentioned the rustle I heard. I thought it might be a squirrel or some
harmless little wood animal—”
“That we might catch and eat instead of its catching and eating us,”
Babs said cheerily. Then she called the command: “Procession, proceed!”
Virginia, the last in line, looked back when the rustle began again, but
because of the density of the leaves she could not see the little
creature that was indeed following them with bright eyes that never
permitted them to get out of sight.
“How imaginative we are becoming,” Barbara remarked. “That surely ought
to please Miss Torrence.”
“I say, Virg,” Betsy, in the lead, stopped swinging her big stick to
call, “ask me to write a story for your next Manuscript Magazine, will
you? I’ll name it ‘How six shipwrecked girls perished on a deserted
island.’”
“If we’re going to perish,” Sally said dismally, “I guess we won’t be
writing compositions about it.”
They had been climbing the wooded hill which they had seen from the boat
and when they reached a clear place on the summit, they saw far below,
on the other side, a sheltered valley-like depression which had a narrow
opening toward the sea.
“Oh, how picturesque this place it,” Virginia exclaimed. “If I were sure
that some day we would be rescued, I would be glad that we had had an
opportunity to visit this island.”
“Me, too,” Betsy chimed in ungrammatically as she delighted in doing.
Then, as she sank down on the soft mossy ground to rest, she remarked:
“Girls, we started out with the avowed purpose of hunting for the
fortune hidden by Eleanor’s grandfather, Captain Burgess, but, as an
adventure, I do believe even such a search is backed off of the map.”
Eleanor laughed as she leaned against a tree. “It is indeed, especially
since, as I have told you, my grandfather probably wrote that note just
to cause anxiety for those who were left. I am not at all sure that he
ever had a fortune to hide. Of course he owned the fine old place on the
County Road, and mother and her sister Dorinda had every comfort
provided for them, but they were never given any money to spend.”
“If there was a fortune, it would rightfully belong to your mother and
to her sister Dorinda.” Babs lying flat on the ground with her hands
clasped under her head, remarked.
“Yes, of course. I had a boy cousin whom I would so like to see. Mother
is trying hard to locate him. He and I would have a share in the money,
I suppose, if there were any.”
“Whizzle.” Betsy leaped to her feet. “Here it is mid-morning and we
haven’t had a bite to eat since yesterday noon.”
“I’m thirstier than I am hungry,” Barbara remarked, as they began the
descent.
Virginia turned her head to listen and to her unexpressed delight that
strange rustling sound which had suggested that they were being followed
was no longer to be heard.
“After all, it was my imagination,” she had just decided, when there was
a joyful shout from Babs, seconded by one from Betsy. They had scrambled
down into a little dell, which looked especially green and inviting, and
there they had found a spring of clear, cold water.
The older girls were overjoyed at this discovery, for well they knew
that one could live longer without food than without water. One by one
they knelt among the ferns to quench their thirst. Virg made a mental
note of the location of the spring that they might return to it later,
if they so desired.
Even Sally became more optimistic when her thirst was quenched. Betsy
and Babs were running a race down the last gentle slope of the hill, and
so they were quite a distance ahead, when the girls following saw them
stop suddenly, then Betsy dropped to her knees and began examining the
ground.
Leaping up, she beckoned frantically for the others to make haste. It
was plain that the two girls were much excited.
Eager to know the cause of it, the other four started on a run.
“What is it?” Virg called as soon as they were near enough. “What have
you found?”
For answer Betsy pointed at the black wet soil down which water from the
spring trickled. The prints of small bare feet were plainly to be seen.
After examining them for a moment, Virginia exclaimed glowingly, “It is
surely the print of a child’s foot, which means that we were right in
believing that a fisherman lives on this island. Perhaps even now, we
are near his cabin.”
The oldest girl sincerely hoped that the dwellers on the island might be
fisher folk, but well she knew that sometimes smugglers and even outlaws
hid among seldom frequented islands off the coast.
Betsy, delighted to have something to detect, was following the way the
footprints led and soon they beheld before them a sheltering wall of
rocks, and nestled close to it, as though for protection, the oddest
kind of a dwelling. It had been crudely fashioned with small logs laid
one on another, fastened to upright trees at the four corners by stout
reeds that had been procured from some swamp. The roof was thatched with
interwoven branches and a door, similarly constructed, was closed and
fastened. There were no windows to the house and the owner was evidently
away.
“Maybe it was made by savages,” Sally ventured. “There’s a picture
something like it in the big geography on the page that tells about the
South Sea Islands.”
“And there is a crude outdoor open,” Babs pointed, “and right by it are
scooped out stones and big shells as though they were cooking utensils.”
Virginia gazed about for a thoughtful moment, then she said, “I’m almost
inclined to think that whoever lives here has been shipwrecked like
ourselves, and so, of course, he would have to resort to primitive
methods of building and cooking.”
“Look!” Babs clutched Virginia in real terror. “The door of that queer
hut opened a crack. I’m just ever so sure it did, and I know that I saw
eyes peering out at us.”
“What if it’s some shipwrecked sailor who has gone crazy from living so
long alone?” Sally began, frightening herself more than her listeners
with her fancy.
“Sh! The door is opening again.” Betsy walked boldly toward the hut and
then she smiled and nodded as though she were talking to someone, as
indeed she was. “Don’t be afraid of us!” Could the girls believe their
ears. “We won’t hurt you. Come out and get acquainted.” That was what
Betsy was actually saying.
The door again opened, and this time it did not close and out of the
house stepped the queerest little creature imaginable.
“It’s a dwarf,” Sally began, but Virginia was hurrying forward.
“It’s a little child,” she said; and indeed it was. A small girl with a
mat of long tangled hair and a dress made of a burlap bag with openings
that had been haggled in it for arms. Her eyes were dark and very
bright.
“I’m not scared of you,” she said, as she walked toward the girls. “I
saw you long ago when you first came ashore. I was over there looking
for May apples. I followed after you part of the way, then I darted down
here to hoist the flag up there on the rocks. That’s to tell my brother
to come ashore quick. He won’t know what’s happened. He’ll think
something has scared me and so he’ll come in a hurry.”
Virginia decided that the girl was older than she had at first supposed,
and in answer to the question usually put to small children, she
unhesitatingly answered, “I’m eight, going on nine.” Then gleefully,
“Won’t brother be surprised though. He’s catching fish for our dinner.”
She started running toward the shore, then turned to inform them. “Here
he comes now. Oho, Winston! Here’s some girls.”
A small raft had appeared and on it a tall graceful lad was standing.
With a long stout pole he was pushing his craft toward the beach. There
he made it fast, by driving other stout sticks through the two corners
that were high and dry, then taking up a long reed on which fish were
strung, he shouldered a pole and started on a light run toward the
wondering group.