A SPRAINED ANKLE
“Now look here, sis!” exclaimed Jack, purposely cross. “This is all
nonsense! Natalie isn’t drowned any more than you are! Don’t be silly!”
“I’m not!” she retorted, brought somewhat to herself by his manner of
speaking. “But isn’t the boat gone?”
“Of course it is,” he admitted, “and it may be that Nat is in it. But
that’s a long way from saying she is drowned. Nat knows how to manage a
boat.”
“Then why doesn’t she come home?” asked Alice.
“There _you_ go!” cried her brother. “You girls are all alike—bound to
look on the dark side.”
“Well,” tearfully protested Alice, “can you show us a bright side?”
“Of course!” exclaimed Blake. “She may have met some friends, and gone
to supper with them. They may have picked her up in their launch.”
“But Natalie wouldn’t go without sending some word to us,” objected Mrs.
Bonnell.
“Maybe she did send word, and the person forgot to bring it,” said Jack.
“I’ve had that happen to me lots of times. She’ll be found all right,
you see.”
“Oh, of course I don’t believe anything serious could happen to her,”
said Mrs. Bonnell, “only—well, it is getting late,” and she looked
across the dark lake, and a little shiver of nervous fear made her
tremble.
“Besides, Natalie doesn’t know any one up here who has a launch, and
with whom she would go to supper,” went on Mabel.
“Now, it’s your turn to throw cold water,” objected her brother. “How do
you know whom Nat might have met since she’s been up here? You girls
aren’t always together, and she may have met some young fellow, and not
wanted to tell you about him,” and he looked over at Blake, and nudged
Phil.
“That’s right,” chimed in the latter.
“Oh, nonsense!” exclaimed his sister. “Natalie wouldn’t do such a thing
as that. Oh, but what can we do?”
“Hadn’t we better notify some one—some of the constables—and have him
get up a searching party?”
“Say, those constables aren’t worth their salt,” declared Jack. “They
couldn’t find a lost cow, let alone a pretty girl. Why, they couldn’t
even find the Gypsy camp, and that was plain enough after you girls got
on the trail. The constables are no good!”
“Then what can we do?” asked Mabel. “We must do something to find her.
It’s awful to stand around this way and do nothing!” and she stamped her
foot in troubled vexation.
“I’ll get those young fellows at the other camp,” said Phil. “Then we’ll
start some of them out in the boat, and the rest of us will search
through the woods again.”
“I guess that plan is as good as any,” agreed Mrs. Bonnell. “Poor
Natalie! I wonder what possessed her to go off by herself?”
“Maybe she got some clue to the lost Gypsy girl?” suggested Jack.
“Oh, you boys!” exclaimed the Guardian. “You are always thinking of
clues and trails! Be reasonable.”
“Well, Nat had some good cause for going off, I’ll say that much,”
declared Phil, and Blake nodded in assent.
“Go get those other fellows,” suggested Jack. “I’ll bail out a boat, one
of ours has sprung a leak.”
“Why not take the launch?” asked Blake.
“Something’s the matter with the carburetor again,” replied Jack. “They
might get stuck out in the middle of the lake.”
“That’s a peach of a boat!” murmured Blake. “If we come up here again
next year we’ll have our own. This one is out of order half the time.
The fellow who hired it to us ought to give us a rebate.”
“If we don’t find that missing canoe of his he’ll take so much of our
money that we’ll have to walk home,” added Phil.
“Well, we’ll have a good search in the morning,” said Jack. “Now then,
let’s get busy after Natalie.”
While the girls stood about, well-nigh distracted, and not knowing what
to do, save to talk in shivery whispers, and to speculate on what might
have happened to their Camp Fire chum, Phil hurried off to where the
other boys had their tent. He was soon heard returning with them.
They readily agreed to join in the search, and some of them prepared to
set off in one of the larger rowboats, with Phil, while the others got
more lanterns and prepared for another tramp through the woods.
The boat was just about to be pushed off from the little improvised
dock, when the sound of oars out on the lake was heard, the echo coming
distinctly over the water, and through the still darkness.
“Hark!” exclaimed Mabel.
“Some one is coming,” added Marie.
“Maybe with—news,” faltered Alice.
Then came a hail.
“Wo-he-lo! Dogwood!”
“It’s Natalie!” chorused her chums, while Blake raised his voice in a
gladsome shout:
“Natalie! Where have you been? Are you all right?”
“All right, yes, of course. Reuben is bringing me home.”
“Reuben?” Blake questioned quickly.
“That’s the milk-and-farm boy,” said Alice in a low voice.
“Oh, yes.”
“Hurry, Natalie!” called Mrs. Bonnell. “What happened to you? What kept
you? Where were you? We were just going in search of you.”
“I’m all right,” answered the voice from out in the darkness, and then
the rescuers could see a faint glimmer of light in a moving boat. “I
sprained my ankle, and I couldn’t walk. Reuben came along and found me,
and brought me home in his boat. We’ll be there in a minute.”
“Busted part of the blade off one of my oars,” explained the country
lad. “That’s why it took us so long. The boat wouldn’t go straight.”
The boys and girls crowded down to the edge of the water and waited
anxiously. Now they could discern the approaching boat more clearly. In
a little while it grated on the pebbles of the beach, and by the light
of the lanterns with which the second searching party had been about to
start out, they could see the missing girl resting on some blankets in
the bottom of the craft.
“Oh, Natalie!” cried Mrs. Bonnell. “We’ve been so worried about you!”
“I know it, dear Guardie, but I couldn’t help it. I fell and sprained my
ankle.”
“Where?”
“In the haunted mill.”
“The haunted mill!” cried Alice. “Were you there, Natalie Fuller?”
“I was. Oh, Blake, my dear, don’t try to lift me out until I straighten
my foot! Oh!” and she shrank back with pain, for Blake had gotten into
the boat and was endeavoring to lift her out.
“Give me a hand here, you fellows,” he ordered somewhat roughly, but
they knew how he felt.
“No, no, Blake, really!” begged Natalie after a moment. “If you wait I
can get up by myself, and then, if you let me lean on your shoulder I
can manage to hobble to the tent, I think. It isn’t so bad, really.”
He watched her carefully as she got in position. Then as she bore a
slight weight on the sprained ankle he saw her sway. The next moment he
had caught her in his arms.
“She’s fainted!” he exclaimed. “I’ll carry her up to the tent,” and he
took her out on shore and hurried toward the canvas shelter.