WORTH A FORTUNE
Mr. Mason, by inquiry, had found out that the district known as Sunny
Slopes was about sixty miles from Palm Beach, and the next morning they
set off by motor for the place, Mrs. Mason having declared to her
husband the night before that "it was of no use to put the thing off any
longer. The girl's nerves were all on edge over that queer widow's
mysterious papers. He may not have noticed it, but she had been watching
Nan very closely."
So it came about that a big machine, carrying Mr. and Mrs. Mason, Nan
and Bess and Rhoda, and enough luggage to last them at a hotel for a few
days, and a torpedo-shaped little car bearing Walter and Grace set out
bright and early to make the trip to Sunny Slopes.
Walter had taken it for granted that Nan would ride with him, and had
seemed inclined to sulk when she decidedly refused. For Nan had taken
herself very severely to task when she had reached her room the night
before. She had broken her rule never to go anywhere with Walter unless
the girls were along, and she would never, never do it again. She was
particularly hard on herself to-day--and on poor Walter--because of the
fact that she had enjoyed that dreamlike sail over the moonlight waters
of Lake Worth more than she had ever enjoyed anything before.
So Walter, coming behind the big machine with Grace, sulked, and Grace
scolded because, in his preoccupation, he nearly ran her and himself
into a ditch.
Their route lay over the lake to West Palm Beach and then along a
beautiful highway lined on either side with gorgeous palms.
"I don't wonder the place is called Palm Beach," remarked Rhoda. "I
never dreamed of seeing so many fine palm trees before."
They had made careful inquiries concerning the route, and once the
houses and bungalows were left behind they "hit it up" to a very
respectable rate of speed. The roads, for the most part, were very good,
and the only spots covered where they had to be careful were where there
had been washouts.
"It is certainly a pretty landscape," remarked Grace, as they sped past
one settlement after another. "I don't wonder that you said you'd like
to make sketches, Nan."
"But I haven't made any yet," was Nan's answer, with a slight shrug of
the shoulders.
They reached Sunny Slopes about noon, and decided--at least their
ravenous appetites decided for them--that they had better have something
to eat before they inquired further into the mystery of Mrs. Bragley's
papers.
Nan was the only one who seemed very much excited, and the others did
not notice that the girl scarcely touched her lunch. It seemed an age to
her before the meal was finished and Mr. Mason declared that they were
ready to make their investigations.
Nan and her friends would have been very much surprised had they known
that they were being followed on their trip to Sunny Slopes, yet such
was a fact. The two men who had tried so hard to gain possession of
Sarah Bragley's documents were growing desperate.
"We've got to do something and do it quick," snapped the tall, thin man.
"Do you hear me?"
"I certainly do," growled the other.
"If we fail we won't get a cent of the cash that was promised to us."
"I know that, too," answered the short man, and scowled deeply.
Mr. Mason had once, in his less affluent days, been a real estate broker
himself, and so pooh-poohed his wife's suggestion that he get some one
who knew the country to direct them.
"My dear," he said, "if this Mrs. Bragley has any property around here,
I'll find it."
He had, with Nan's consent, examined the documents the widow had given
her and had seemed, to Nan's eager eyes, to have been considerably
impressed by them.
So now as they crowded out of the restaurant--it was the first one they
had come to, and they had been too hungry to argue about its elegance or
lack of it--and climbed into the cars again, Nan could hardly keep still
in her eagerness to know the truth at once.
They passed down a short business street, and then, making a turn, came
out on a broad country road.
"Sunny Slopes begins about a mile from here," said Mr. Mason. "It covers
quite a bit of territory, I am told. While one end is quite barren, the
other end is excellent for orange growing and is covered with bearing
trees."
"Oh, dear, I hope Mrs. Bragley's end is the orange-growing end!" cried
Nan.
"Don't be too much disappointed if it isn't," said Mrs. Mason kindly.
Suddenly Bess, who had been laughing and talking with Rhoda about school
affairs, gave a little bounce and cried out excitedly:
"Look there! Isn't that an orange grove?"
"It surely is," Mr. Mason called back to her, adding in a voice that
showed his rising excitement: "Your widow's property ought to be
somewhere in here, Nan. I think I'll stop the car and we can go forward
on foot."
"Oh!" said Nan softly, as, a moment later, she jumped out into the road.
"I never saw an orange grove before. Isn't it wonderful!"
"Goodness!" said Bess, as Grace and Walter drew up behind the big car
and ran around and joined them, "it looks as if they had all been drawn
after the same pattern--the trees, I mean. Did you ever see anything so
symmetrical in all your life?"
It was the first time any of them, except the Masons, had been close to
an orange grove, and they all went forward for a closer look at it. The
grove was set quite a way back from the road and seemed to cover many
acres of ground, stretching symmetrically back as far as the eye could
see.
The orange trees were not tall, and were shaped very much like the
little toy trees the children use to build their landscape
gardens--broad at the bottom and tapering up almost to a point at the
top.
From his examination of the documents carried by Nan, Mr. Mason had
jotted down a number of facts and figures. Now the lawyer walked forward
slowly and presently examined a number of stone markers he found set in
the ground. Then he walked to a side road and read the signs thereon. A
smile of satisfaction crossed his face.
Nan, standing close to Mr. Mason, touched his arm timidly.
"Is this Mrs. Bragley's property?" she asked in an awed tone.
"These are most certainly the orange groves mentioned in her documents,"
he said gravely. "How much of it she owns will have to be determined by
an attorney. But I guess," he added, looking down at Nan with a kindly
smile, "that the property she holds here is worth a tidy sum, several
thousand dollars at least. Of course the orange grove itself is worth a
fortune."
"I'm so glad!" cried Nan happily. "I just can't wait to let poor Mrs.
Bragley know about it."
"Well, I must say," said Bess, "that this is the first time I've really
thought those old papers were worth anything, Nan. Perhaps now we can
get rid of them so we won't have any more trouble."
"Then there was a real reason for those men shadowing Nan," said Walter,
adding with an unusually fierce scowl: "If they turn up again, I will
kill them, that's all, even if it lands me in jail."
"My, aren't we dangerous," said Nan, laughing at him.
Nan never afterward knew just how it happened, but some way or other,
among the orange trees, she managed to get separated from the rest of
the party. She was so engrossed with happy thoughts of the success of
her plan to help Mrs. Bragley and so absorbed in imagining the woman's
surprise and joy at the news she was about to receive that it was some
time before she woke up to the fact that she was alone.
The predicament--if indeed it was one--did not particularly worry her,
for she knew that she could find her way back to the road easily enough
and that there was no possibility in the world of her becoming really
lost.
As she stood reveling in the tropical beauty of the scene and smiling
happily to herself, a thought suddenly flashed through her mind that
banished the smile from her lips and brought an anxious frown to her
brow.
"I've left my bag in the car!" she told herself. "And with all Mrs.
Bragley's papers in it! If I should lose them now, after bringing them
safely all this way----"
Action followed swift upon the thought, and she started through the
grove in the direction she had come.
"Not so fast! Not so fast!" said a voice beside her, and the next moment
a man darted out from the shelter of the trees and stepped directly in
her path. He was, as Nan knew the minute she heard his voice, the tall,
thin man with the straight line for a mouth, with whom she had had so
many unpleasant meetings before. His face showed a desperate expression.
Nan did not scream, although much alarmed. She glanced over her shoulder
with a half-formed thought of escape, but the man sprang forward and
laid a rough hand on her arm.
"None of that, my little lady," said the sneering voice. "You are not
going to get away from us this time until we get what we want. Just a
little document or two is all we want. Quick now--hand it over."
"I--I haven't any document!" gasped Nan, adding with a little flare of
temper: "If you don't let go of my arm I--I'll scream."
"Oh, no, you won't! Slicker, that's your job."
Before Nan could move a soft, fat hand was pressed over her mouth from
behind and she twisted about to find that her second captor was the
short, fat man who had been the companion of her more dangerous enemy on
the boat.
"Come, we're in a hurry," snapped the latter, and Nan's terrified eyes
came back to his. "Will you give 'em to us or do we have to take them?"
Nan shook her head, and with a snort of impatience the man laid rough
hands upon her and began to search her clothing for the papers. Then,
finding nothing, he turned upon her in a towering rage.
"You're a sly one," he growled between his teeth. "But let me tell you
this, you little imp----"
"Easy, Jensen, easy," cautioned the fat man, whose hand still covered
Nan's mouth.
"If we don't find those papers within the next forty-eight hours,"
raged the other, not noticing his companion, "you will be mighty sorry.
Something is going to happen to you! Get me?"
"You--you brute!" gasped Nan, as the fat man removed his hand from her
mouth.
"It won't do you any good to call names, Miss. You get those papers for
us. And don't you dare to hand 'em to any of your friends either. If you
do--well, you'll be sorry. We are out for those papers, and we are bound
to have 'em."
He pushed Nan from him with such force that she stumbled and fell full
length on the ground, where she lay, a bewildered heap of indignant
girlhood.
For a moment the tall man looked at her with a cruel smile touching his
thin mouth. Then he took his companion by the arm and disappeared
through the trees.
[Illustration: He pushed Nan from him with such force that she stumbled
and fell. (_See page 216_)]