A VISITOR WHO WAS WELCOME
"Wake up, girls. Put on your bathing suits and jump in." Miss Elting
already was dressed in her blue bathing costume, her hair tucked under
her red rubber bathing cap. "We have just time for a swim before
breakfast. I see the smoke curling up from the campfire already."
"I don't want to thwim; I want to thleep," protested Tommy.
"Get a move, darlin', unless you want to be thrown in," interjected
Jane, who was hurrying into her bathing suit. "Margery, don't tempt us
too far, or we will throw you in, too."
"I am sleepy, too," declared Harriet, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
"I can't imagine what makes me feel so stupid this morning." Then,
remembering, she became silent.
"If you would go to bed with the children and get your regular night's
rest, you wouldn't be so sleepy in the morning," Jane answered with
apparent indifference. Harriet regarded Jane with inquiring eyes. "I
wonder if Jane really suspects that I was out of the cabin in the
night, or whether it was one of her incidental remarks?" she
reflected. "I'll find out before the day is ended."
"Am I right, darlin'?" persisted Jane, with a tantalizing smile.
"Right about what?"
"Being up late?"
"I agree with you," replied Harriet frankly, looking her questioner
straight in the eyes. "I am losing altogether too much sleep of late."
"We didn't lothe any thleep latht night," added Tommy.
"You certainly did not, my dear; nor did Margery nor any of the others
unless it were Crazy Jane," declared Harriet with a mischievous glance
at Jane McCarthy, who refused to be disturbed by it or to be trapped
into any sort of an admission.
"Girls, girls, aren't you coming in?" Miss Elting rose dripping from
the bay and peered into the cabin. "Come in or you'll be too late."
"At once, Miss Elting," called Harriet. "It has taken me some little
time to get awake. I am awake now. Here I come." She ran out of the
cabin and sprang into the water with a shout and a splash, striking
out for the opposite side, nearly a quarter of a mile away. She had
reached the middle of the bay before the guardian caught sight of her
and called to her to return. The Meadow-Brook girl did so, though it
had been her intention to swim all the way across the bay and back.
In the meantime the other girls had begun their swim. Jane was
splashing about in deep water, Hazel doing likewise, while Margery was
swimming in water barely up to her neck. Tommy, on the other hand,
appeared to be afraid to venture out. Every time a ripple would break
about her knees she would scream and run back out of the way.
"'Fraid cat!" jeered Margery. "'Fraid to come in where the water is
deep."
"Yeth, I am," admitted Tommy.
"I told you so, I told you so," shouted Buster. "I always said she was
a 'fraid cat, and now she has shown you that I am right."
"Who is a 'fraid cat?" demanded Miss Elting, pulling herself up on the
beach with her hands.
"I am," answered Tommy, speaking for herself.
"Who says you are?"
"Buthter."
"Margery, I am ashamed of you. You have evidently forgotten that Grace
showed how little she was afraid when she was lost at sea the other
night," chided the guardian.
"Yeth, I'm a 'fraid cat. But I'd rather be a 'fraid cat than a fat
cat!" declared the little, lisping girl with an earnestness that made
them all smile. Harriet came swinging in with long, steady strokes,
the last one landing her on the sand with the greater part of her body
out of the shallow water.
"Why wouldn't you let me go across, Miss Elting?" she asked.
"You would be late for breakfast."
"Oh! I thought you feared I might drown," answered Harriet
whimsically.
"Once is enough," answered Jane. "There goes the fish horn. Hurry,
girls! We are going to be late."
"The fithh horn? Are we going to have fithh for breakfatht?"
questioned Tommy.
"Never mind what, girls. Tuck up your blankets and get busy. Remember,
you must braid your hair before going to breakfast. I don't like to
see you at meals with your hair down; you girls are too old for that."
"Yes, Miss Elting," answered Harriet.
"I gueth I'll cut my hair off. It ith too much trouble to fix it every
morning," decided Grace. "But, Mith Elting, couldn't I fix it the
night before and thleep in it?"
"Certainly not! How can you suggest such a thing?"
Tommy twisted her face out of shape and blinked solemnly at Margery,
whose chin was in the air. They were all hurrying now, for their
morning bath had given them keen appetites. Miss Elting was first to
be ready, then Harriet, but they waited until their companions were
dressed and ready to go.
"The Indian lope to the breakfast tent," announced Miss Elting.
"Forward, go!"
The girls started off at an easy though not particularly graceful
lope, the guardian and the Torch Bearer setting the pace for the rest.
They arrived at the cook tent with faces flushed and eyes sparkling,
with a few moments to spare before the moment for marching in arrived.
The Chief Guardian smiled approvingly.
"Sleeping out on the bay appears to agree with you girls," she said.
"I have no need to ask if you slept well."
"Harriet is the restless one," answered Jane.
Harriet flushed in spite of her self-control; but no special
significance was attached to Jane's remark, for it was seldom that she
was taken seriously.
Harriet, after recovering from her momentary confusion, chuckled and
laughed, very much amused over what had made no impression at all on
her companions.
"I shall ask some of our craftswomen here to build beds for the
cabin," announced the Chief Guardian, as they were sitting down.
"It is not necessary," replied Miss Elting. "Our girls prefer the
bough beds, which they will build during the day."
"And what will our new Torch Bearer do to amuse herself after the
regular duties of the day are done?" questioned Mrs. Livingston. "Will
she take her group for a swim in the Atlantic?"
"Yeth, Harriet and mythelf are going to try to thwim acroth thith
afternoon," Grace informed them.
"Swim across the Atlantic? Mercy me!" answered Mrs. Livingston
laughingly. "That would indeed be an achievement."
"I beg your pardon, but I didn't thay 'acroth the othean'; I meant to
thwim acroth the pond down in the cove yonder. Harriet could thwim
acroth the othean if she withhed to, though," added Tommy.
"You surely have a loyal champion, Miss Burrell," called one of the
guardians from the far end of the table. "Still, we have not heard
what you are going to do to-day. I am quite sure it will be something
worth while?"
"I have about made up my mind to go out in search of buried treasure,"
answered Harriet, with mock gravity. They laughed heartily at this.
Jane regarded her narrowly.
"I wonder what Harriet has in her little head now?" she said under her
breath.
"Why, what do you mean?" asked the Chief Guardian. "Buried treasure
along this little strip of coast? Perhaps, however, you may mean out
on the Shoal Islands."
"No, Mrs. Livingston. Right here in Camp Wau-Wau there is buried
treasure. I don't know whether it is worth anything or not, but there
is a buried treasure here."
The girls uttered exclamations of amazement, for they saw that their
new Torch Bearer was in earnest, that she meant every word she had
uttered about the treasure.
"Now, isn't that perfectly remarkable?" breathed Margery.
"Oh, do tell us about it?" cried the girls.
"Not a word more," answered Harriet. "I give you leave to find it,
though, if you can. Some of you clever trailers see if you can pick up
the trail and follow it to its end. At the end you will find the
buried treasure, unless it has been taken away within a few hours,
which I very much doubt. Now, that is all I am going to tell you about
it."
"Do you really mean that, Harriet?" questioned Grace.
Harriet nodded.
"Why don't you get it yourthelf, then?"
"I may one of these days if the girls fail to find it. I wish to see
if they are good trailers. But we are forgetting to eat breakfast.
Just now I am more in need of breakfast than of buried treasure."
"Yes, girls, please eat your breakfast. We must put the camp to rights
as soon as we finish, for I have an idea that we may have visitors
before the day is done," urged Mrs. Livingston.
The Wau-Wau girls were too much excited over Harriet's words to be
particularly interested in the subject of visitors just then, so they
hurried their breakfast, discussing the new Torch Bearer's veiled
suggestions, eager to have done with the morning meal and the morning
work that they might try to solve this delightful mystery. Harriet was
well satisfied with the excitement she had stirred, though having done
so would rather bar her from carrying out certain plans that she had
had in mind ever since the previous night.
Later in the morning, however, under pretext of wishing to get pine
boughs for her bed, she, with Tommy, strolled off into the woods, but
beyond locating the spot where she had lain when the man stumbled over
her in the darkness she made no progress toward solving the mystery.
Not the slightest trace of the box did she discover. Of course,
Harriet did not hope to find the mysterious box standing in plain
sight, but she could not imagine what they had done with it in so
brief a time. She did not dare make much of a point of searching
about, observing that Tommy was regarding her keenly during the
morning stroll.
With her belt hatchet Harriet selected and cut such boughs as she
desired and placed them in a pile, afterward to be carried out to the
cabin on the Lonesome Bar. Later on they were assisted by the other
Meadow-Brook Girls. They covered the floor of the cabin with the
fragrant green boughs until Tommy declared that it made her "thleepy"
just to smell it. In the meantime, those of their companions who were
not engaged with camp duties were strolling about along the beach near
the camp, discussing what Harriet had told them at breakfast that
morning. It was all right to tell them to pick up the trail, but what
trail was it, and how were they to find it? Even the guardians were
not beyond curiosity in the matter, and they, too, when they thought
themselves unobserved, might have been seen looking eagerly about for
the "trail." All this amused Harriet Burrell very much.
With her group, Harriet was at the cabin arranging the boughs, when
they were summoned to camp by three blasts of the fish horn used for
the various signals employed by Camp Wau-Wau. Something had happened
in camp.
"Thomebody hath found it!" cried Tommy, shooting a quick glance of
inquiry at Harriet Burrell. The latter flushed, then burst out
laughing after a look toward the miniature forest of spindling pines.
"I hope they have. But I may tell you, my dear Tommy, that they
haven't found either the trail or my buried treasure."
"You must know pretty well where it is," said Miss Elting, eyeing
Harriet steadily for a few seconds. "Come, we must not delay answering
that summons."
They did not delay. The Meadow-Brook Girls responded promptly, making
a run for it in good order.
"There's a motor car," shouted Jane, when they came in sight of the
camp. "O darlin's, maybe it is a new car Daddy has sent down for me to
take the place of the one that is drowned."
Jane leaped on ahead of her companions, intent upon reaching the camp.
Harriet sprinted up beside her, almost as much excited as was Crazy
Jane herself.
The two girls easily outdistanced their companions in a very few
moments. It was a race between them to see who should first reach the
camp. Harriet fell behind slightly as her quick eyes made out a figure
sitting in front of the Chief Guardian's tent. The figure was that of
a man and he was conversing with Mrs. Livingston.
Jane uttered a sudden shrill cry. She, too, had discovered the visitor
and recognized him.
"It's Daddy. It's my dear old Daddy!" she screamed, and, forgetful of
the lectures she had received on comporting herself with dignity and
restraint, Crazy Jane threw herself--hurled herself, in fact--into the
arms of Contractor McCarthy. Now, a camp chair is never any too
substantial. The one on which Mr. McCarthy was sitting was no
exception to the rule. It collapsed under the force of Crazy Jane's
projectile-like force. Mr. McCarthy, in attempting to save himself
from going down with it, lurched sideways. In doing so he bumped
heavily against the Chief Guardian, and with a sharp little cry from
the latter, the three went down in a confused heap.