But though Cora and Belle agreed to drop the matter of the unexplained
noise, they could not dismiss it from their minds. Several times that
day Cora would notice Belle in a brown study, and on taxing her with it
would be met with the statement:
"I can't think what caused it."
"That noise you mean?"
"Yes. Wasn't it queer?"
"Oh, not so very. At home we wouldn't give it a second thought."
"Yes," agreed Belle, "but there are so many ways of explaining noises in
town, and so few ways up here. I wonder if that is the beginning of the
surprises, Cora?"
"If it is they aren't so unpleasant. Noise never hurt any one."
So they said nothing to the others about the little disturbance in the
night, and the only remark the others made, having any reference to it,
was that of Walter's about thunder.
"It must have been thunder," Cora said, "for if the noise had been in
our bungalow the boys couldn't have heard it in theirs."
"I don't see how they could," Belle agreed.
"But, all the same, I'm going to have some way of calling to Jack and
the others without screaming our lungs out," declared Cora. "It's only
right to be able to summon them if we want them. One of us might become
ill, and they'd have to go for the doctor. I'd rather call Jack than Mr.
Floyd."
Cora spoke to her brother that afternoon.
"We should have some sort of speaking tube," he assented. "I might rig
up one of the string telephones we used to make with tin baking powder
boxes that served both as transmitter and receiver."
"Can you do it?" asked Cora.
"I guess so."
"I know something better than that," Paul put in. "There's a toy
telephone that comes now, made of string, but the baking powder boxes
are replaced by wooden cylinders with parchment tightly stretched over
one end. You can hear quite well with them."
"Where can we get it?" asked Cora.
"I have one," Paul said. "I bought it just before we left to come up
here, intending to give it to a kid cousin of mine, but I forgot to mail
it. You can use that if you like."
"Just the thing!" exclaimed Jack. "The dear girls can't get along
without us after all; can they?"
"Oh, don't flatter yourself that we're as fond of you as all that,"
laughed Belle. "But we do like to have you within call--especially up
here."
"Why, have you seen any suspicious characters lurking around?" asked
Walter.
"Nary a lurk," responded Cora. "We're just getting ready for
emergencies."
The toy telephone was strung that day from the girls' bungalow to that
of the boys', and it worked quite well. As simple as it was, and it
scarcely could have been more simple, talk could be plainly heard over
it. The string took up the vibrations imparted to the parchment by the
voice, and transmitted them across space to the other end of the line.
Of course the string had to be tight, and it must not touch anything in
its course, or the vibrations would have been interfered with. But space
was what they had most of in Camp Surprise.
"To my mind the camp isn't living up to its name," declared Paul, after
the telephone had been put up and tested, the boys sending any number of
foolish messages over the string. "No, sir! There hasn't been a surprise
worth talking about," went on Paul. "Why doesn't something happen?"
"Give it time," suggested Jack.
"Perhaps that noise was the start," said Cora to Belle when they were
alone.
"Perhaps."
The trip down to the hotel had given the young folks the information
that there were dances twice a week, the Saturday night "hop" being
quite an event. They were cordially invited to attend, and the first
Saturday night in camp they took advantage of the chance.
The crowd was not large, but, as Walter said, it was "nice and
comfortable," and the girls and boys thoroughly enjoyed the dance. The
hotel proprietor introduced them to some other young folks and, as was
voted by Jack and his chums afterward, "a large and glorious time was
had by all."
"What a splendid moon!" cried Belle, as she walked along with Jack on
the way home. "It's a shame to go to bed."
"Let's don't!" proposed Paul. "Let's go down where we left the motor
boat and have a ride."
"Let's don't!" cried Cora. "Walk over that rough mountain road at this
hour of the night? I guess not!"
"But look at the moon!" begged Paul. "The glorious moon!"
"You've been looking at it too long already," was Cora's retort. "I
guess you're looney."
And so, laughing and joking, they walked on.
"This is how it goes!" said Belle suddenly, seemingly apropos of nothing
at all, and, at the same time she began to step backward and forward in
a peculiar manner in the road.
"What in the world----" began Hazel.
"That new Cortez step the girl in pink was doing with that nice man
dancer," Belle explained. "I've been puzzling over it. I hoped he would
ask me to dance, but he didn't."
"Say, I like that!" cried Walter. "Didn't I ask you?"
"Yes, but you can't do that step. I remember now how it went. I was
watching that couple. It's a rocking step forward, then one back, step
back with the left, draw the right and go forward again with the left,
see!"
She executed it there in the road, her shadow, cast by the moon, bobbing
curiously back and forth.
"It is pretty," agreed Cora. "How does it go?"
Belle and she took a dancing position and Cora had soon acquired the new
Cortez step.
"Now you've got me doing it!" cried Jack. "Come on, Hazel, I'll show
you."
"He doesn't even know himself," derided Cora.
"You watch!" challenged Jack.
"Why, he can do it," said Belle, as she looked at Jack and Hazel. For
Hazel was a natural dancer and, it developed, she, too, had been
watching the girl in the pink dress.
"Well, here we are," said Bess, as they reached their bungalow. "I'm
tired."
"Is that all you're going to say, after we took you to the dance?"
demanded Walter.
"Don't we get asked in to have some cake and chocolate?" questioned
Jack.
"Shall we?" queried Cora.
"Please do!" urged Paul.
And they did.
The plans for the next day included a long walk up the mountain to a
place where it was said a wonderful view could be had. They were to take
their lunch and stay all day, for they could not get back to the
bungalow by noon.
"All aboard!" cried Jack, as he and his two chums called for the girls,
crossing the rustic bridge at the foot of the fall. "All aboard!"
They started off merrily together, talking and laughing. Walter had been
down to get the early morning mail, and there was a letter from Cora's
mother, which said, among other things, that the police had some clews
to the men who took the automobile.
"Good!" cried Jack, when Cora read out this. "What's the rest of it?"
"Well, it seems that some more bogus tickets have been disposed of in
places around Chelton, and the men who sold them are described as the
same two who sold the coupons in the tea room. The police seem to think
there is a good chance of getting them."
"They didn't see them have your car; did they, Cora?" asked Hazel.
"No such luck, I suppose. But mother doesn't mention that."
The view was voted all that had been said of it, and after admiring it
for some time, preparations were made to eat lunch.
"Let's sit down here," proposed Cora, pointing to a grassy spot in the
shade of a big sycamore tree. "Boys, spread the cloth and unpack the
baskets. Oh, what a curious root!" she cried, stooping over toward
something near a stone.
"Look out!" suddenly cried Paul, pulling Cora back so sharply that she
nearly toppled over. The next moment Paul caught up a stone and threw it
with all his force at the spotted root. There was an angry hiss.
"Narrow escape for you, Cora," said Paul, a trifle pale. "That was a
copperhead snake!" and he pointed to the writhing, dying reptile. His
stone had struck it fairly.