_In Which We Make Some Discoveries_
Diogenes, who, for a Polydore, had been quite placid since Ptolemy's
departure, caused a commotion by disappearing the next morning. As he
was possessed of a deep desire to go in the lake and get a little
snake, he had been, when not under strict surveillance, tied to a tree
with enough leeway in the length of rope to allow him to play
comfortably.
By some means he had managed to work himself loose from the rope and
had evidently followed Ptolemy's example. I suggested calling up
Huldah and asking if he had arrived yet, but I met with such chilling
glances from Silvia and Beth that I got busy and organized searching
parties, who reluctantly and lukewarmly engaged in the pursuit. Rob
and I took the shore. After we had walked some little distance, we met
a woman and stopped for inquiry. She said she had seen a child of
about two years, clad in a blue and white striped dress and a big hat,
going over the hill in company with a boy of about eight.
"Are you going on to the hotel?" I asked.
On her replying that she was, I told her to inform them that she had
met me and that the lost child was located.
Rob and I then kept on over the hill, and when we neared the haunted
house, we heard hair-raising sounds.
"If I hadn't been here before," remarked Rob, "I should think that
Sitting Bull had been reincarnated and was reviving the warrior war
whoops."
We paused on the threshold. A human windmill of whirling legs and
arms--Polydore legs and arms--flashed before our eyes.
"Stop!" I thundered.
The flying wheel of arms and legs slacked, ran a few times, then
slowly stopped, and the Polydore quintette assumed normal positions.
"Halloa, stepdaddy!"
A landslide composed of Emerald, Pythagoras, and Demetrius started
toward me. I side-stepped and let Rob receive the charge.
"Line them up now, for attention," I directed Ptolemy. "I have
something to say to you all."
Ptolemy knocked the three terrors up against the wall, and I picked up
Diogenes, who had a bump as big as an egg on his head.
"I told you," said Ptolemy to Pythagoras, "that if you brought Di down
here they'd get on our trail. He wanted to see Di," he explained, "so
he sneaked over there and got him."
"We were wise before today," I informed him. "I saw you all day before
yesterday."
"And I discovered you yesterday," added Rob.
Ptolemy looked rather crestfallen, and then, seeming to consider that
my discovery had been succeeded by inaction, which must mean
non-interference, he heartened up.
"Now," I demanded, "I want you to begin at the time you left the hotel
and tell me everything and why you did it."
"I wasn't having any fun after you two went off camping," he began
lugubriously. "I couldn't hang around women folks all the time. I
wanted boys to play with."
I saw a gleam of sympathy and understanding come into Rob's eyes.
"A harem of hens," he muttered.
"I knew we could all have a grand time here and not be a bother to
mudder, or Huldah or anyone, and it seemed too bad for this nice house
to be empty, and no one anywhere else wanting us."
I felt my first gleam of pity for a Polydore and wiped Diogenes'
dirty, moist face carefully with my handkerchief.
"So I went home and told Huldah I had come after the boys to take them
back with me."
"And told her we had sent for them?" I asked sharply.
He flushed slightly at my tone.
"No; I didn't tell her so. She got that idea herself, and I didn't
tell her different."
"When did you come?"
"I came the same night that you telephoned, and took the train you and
mudder came on. We got to Windy Creek in the morning. We fetched all
our stuff here from home. I bought it."
"Right here," I said, "tell me where you got the money to buy your
stuff and to pay your fare here."
"I cashed father's check."
"I didn't know he left you one."
"He didn't, except the one he gave me to give you for our board. You
told mudder you wouldn't touch it, and it seemed a pity not to have it
working."
Visions of a future Polydore doing the chain and ball step flashed
before my vision.
"And they cashed it for you at the bank?"
"Sure. Father always has me cash his checks for him."
"What amount did you fill in?" I asked enviously.
"One hundred dollars. There's a lot more in the bank, too."
"How did you get your truck here from Windy Creek?" asked Rob.
"We divided it up and each took a bunch and started on foot, and some
people in an automobile, going to the town past here, took us in and
brought us as far as the lane. We've been having a fine time."
"What doing?" asked Rob interestedly.
"Fishing, sailing on a raft, playing in the woods all day and--"
"Playing ghost at night," said Pythagoras with a grin.
"Who made that ghost in the window?" I demanded.
"I did. I rigged up an arm and put it out the window the afternoon I
left, hoping Beth would come down and see it, but we've got a jim
dandy one now."
"That was quite a shapely arm," said Rob. "Where did you learn
sculpturing?"
"Oh, I rigged it up," he said casually.
"What did you bring in the way of supplies?"
"Bacon, crackers, beans, candy, popcorn, gum, peanuts, pickles,
candles, matches, and butter," was the glib inventory.
"You may stay here," I said, "until we go home, but you are not to
stir away from the woods about here and not on any account to come
near the hotel, or let it be known that you are here. And you are to
end this ghost business right off. Now, Di, we'll go home to mudder."
"No!" bawled Di. "Stay with boys. Mudder come here."
At least this was Ptolemy's interpretation of his protest.
I threatened, Rob coaxed, and Ptolemy cuffed, but every time I started
to leave and jerk him after me, he uttered such demoniac yells I was
forced to stop.
"Wish it was night," said Emerald regretfully. "Wouldn't he scare
folks though! How does he get his voice up so high?"
"Poor little Di!" said a voice commiseratingly from the doorway. "Was
Ocean plaguing him?"
Beth gathered the child in her arms, and his howls changed to sobs.
Rob stood petrified with amazement at her appearance.
"Don't want to go," said Diogenes between gulps.
"Needn't go!" promised Beth. "Stay here with me, and we'll have dinner
with the boys and then we'll go home and get some ice cream."
"All yite," agreed the appeased Polydore.
"May Lucien and I stay to dinner, too?" asked Rob humbly.
"No," she replied icily.
"But, Beth," I remonstrated. "Silvia will be worrying about Di. How
can we explain?"
"Silvia has gone to Windy Creek for the day. You see, I met that woman
you sent to the hotel, and she told me she saw Di going over the hill
with a boy, and I suddenly seemed to smell one of your mice, so I sent
the woman on her way, and told Silvia you and Rob had found Diogenes.
Just then some people she knew came along in a car and asked her to go
to Windy Creek. I made her go and told her I'd look after Di."
"You're a brick, Beth!" applauded Ptolemy.
"If you boys will be very careful and not let anyone besides us know
you are here, so mudder will not hear of it, for though she'd like to
see you"--this without a flicker or flinch--"we want her to have a
nice rest. I'll come over every day except tomorrow and bring things
from the hotel store, and bake up cookies and cake for you."
A yell of approval went up.
"Why can't you come tomorrow?" asked the greedy Demetrius.
"Because I've promised to go to the other end of the lake on a picnic.
All the people at the hotel are going."
"I'll come tomorrow and spend the whole day with you," promised Rob.
"We'll have a ride in the sailboat and do all sorts of things."
"Why, aren't you going on that infernal picnic?" I asked.
"No; I'll have all the picnic I want over here. Like Ptolemy I feel
that I want to play with some of my own kind."
Beth looked at him approvingly; then she said a little sarcastically:
"Maybe you'll change your mind--about going on the picnic, I
mean--when you see the new girl who just came to the hotel on the
morning stage. She's a blonde, and not peroxided, either."
"That would certainly drive him down here, or anywhere," I laughed.
"Oh, don't you like blondes?" she asked innocently.
"He doesn't like--" I began, but Ptolemy rudely interrupted with an
elaborate description of a new kind of fishing tackle he had bought.
Then Beth bade Pythagoras build a fire in the cook-stove while she
set the room to rights.
"We'll eat out of doors," she said, "I think it would be more
appetizing."
"How did you get here?" Rob asked her as we were leaving.
"I rowed over."
"May I come over and row you back?" he asked pleadingly.
She hesitated, and then, realizing that she could scarcely manage a
boat and Diogenes at the same time, assented, bidding him not come,
however, until five o'clock.
"She'll have enough of the Polydores by that time," I said to Rob on
our way home.
"Do you know," he said reflectively, "I like Ptolemy. There's the
making of a man in him, if he has only half a chance. I didn't suppose
your sister understood children so well or was so fond of them. She
looked quite the little housewife, too."
"You'd discover a lot of things you don't know, if you'd cultivate the
society of women," I informed him.