LOST IN THE WOODS
“We certainly are the prize simpletons,” said Amy, in disgust, as she
sank down upon a great rock and looked about her. “Imagine getting lost
in the woods—and at our age, too!”
“I think we must have been going about in circles for the last hour,”
said Nell, wearily. “This looks exactly like the spot we started from.”
“It is, my dear girl,” remarked Darry, disgustedly. “We are getting
nowhere with astonishing rapidity. I am just about ready to call it a
day.”
“You will soon call it a night,” remarked Burd, all his usual
cheerfulness submerged in a deep gloom.
“Oh, stop glooming,” cried Jessie, and there was something in her voice
that made them all look at her hopefully. She was fumbling in her pocket
for something, and their curiosity grew.
“What you got there—a magic charm?” asked Darry.
“Better than that. It’s a compass.”
“A compass!” they cried, and the concerted sigh of relief was audible.
“Why didn’t you tell us you had one?” reproached Amy. “I have three gray
hairs in my head from worry.”
“Forgot I had it,” replied Jessie, as she and Darry studied the compass
face. “I put it in my pocket the last minute thinking we might need it.”
“And, by cracky, you were right!” exclaimed Fol.
After a good deal of figuring and discussion as to the probable
direction of the rangers’ station and Forest Lodge, they concluded that
if they followed the needle of the compass north they must eventually
reach the main trail.
Jessie kept the compass, and the others meekly followed her, thankful
for that instinct of caution that had suggested the compass to her.
It took them some time to recover the ground they had lost, but their
figuring proved to be correct and they came at last to the familiar
rocky trail that led to Forest Lodge.
“Look at that house over there,” said Jessie, suddenly, pointing to a
gray and dilapidated little shack, standing back among the trees. “I
remember noticing it on our way out and thinking it was an unpleasant
looking place.”
“Looks like a fine joint for a murder,” observed Burd, and Amy uttered a
shriek of protest.
“That is a nice thing to say, especially when we are still a long way
from home,” she protested, adding with a shudder, as she glanced at the
gloomy-looking house: “I declare, I am almost afraid to go past the
place.”
“Come, I will protect you,” announced Burd, grinning, and linked an arm
through Amy’s. But Amy was not in a mood to be protected. She jerked her
arm away from Burd and glared indignantly.
“I will go past that place without any help or I won’t go at all,” she
declared, and Burd’s grin grew broader.
“All right, but as you pass, all of you glance in the side window,” he
said, and they looked at him in amazement.
Of course no one meant to obey this command and of course every one did.
It was Amy who first discovered what Burd meant.
“Sheets!” she said, in a bewildered tone. “Lots of sheets hung all over
that room!” And they all drew closer to the hut.
“Just like the morgue,” said Burd. But when Amy turned on him, he
amended quickly: “Maybe it’s a laundry for folks about the lake.”
“Hey, what are you doing around here?” demanded a rough voice, and they
turned, startled to see a man approaching them from the rear of the
house. He was a surly-looking fellow with a week’s growth of beard on
his face. “What are you doing here?” he demanded again. “Don’t you know
this is private ground?”
“We confess to ignorance on that point, stranger,” said Darry, with a
glint of amusement in his eyes. “We were not aware that we were
trespassing.”
“Well, you are!” growled the man, and his manner became more
threatening. “And what’s more, we don’t want no strangers round here.
You get out and stay out. Understand?”
Darry’s hands were clenched in anger and the other two boys were
beginning to show fight, but the girls urged them onward.
“We don’t want any trouble,” said Jessie, urgently, as Darry seemed
inclined to linger and settle with the ruffian then and there. “We don’t
know what kind of people they are.”
“I can guess pretty well what kind they are!”
“But it is getting so late, Darry. Please.”
Reluctantly Darry yielded to her, and they went on, leaving the man
glowering after them unpleasantly.
“Surly ruffian. I would like to get my hands on him.”
“Same here,” growled Burd. “Any one would think we were planning to rob
his house.”
“Looks more as though he were planning to rob ours,” said Amy. “If ever
I saw a villain, that fellow was it.”
“I wonder why he was so anxious to get us away?” mused Jessie. “There
must have been something about that house he was afraid to have us see.”
It was now fast getting dark, and the young folks were almost running
along the narrow rocky trail. Somehow, after their meeting with that
surly fellow outside the shabby, mysterious hut, they wished less than
ever to be overtaken by the dark when they were still far from Forest
Lodge.
More than once Jessie paused, ear tuned to listen, more than half
fearing pursuit, and, hearing nothing but the noises of the forest,
allowed Darry to hurry her on again.
“We are almost there,” he assured her at the last of these uneasy
pauses. “I recognize that great oak we just passed, and back there a
little way I thought I saw the dock.”
“Oh, Darry, I will be so glad when we get home!” panted Jessie, and,
taking her hand to hurry her on, Darry saw that she was trembling.
“Why, I do believe you are frightened,” he said, in quick concern. “What
are you afraid of, Jess?”
“I don’t know,” she gasped, between quick-drawn breaths. “I sort of have
a feeling that something terrible is going to happen. I can’t tell you
what makes me feel that way. It is just silly, I suppose——”
“You are tired,” Darry interrupted, kindly. “Let’s not hurry so fast. We
don’t have to, you know. We could find our way blindfolded from here
on.”
“I would hate to try,” said Jessie, trying to laugh. “Probably we would
end up by walking into the lake. Oh, Darry, where are the others?”
“Right ahead of us. Why, Jess, what is the matter?”
“Darry! Listen! Oh, what is that?”
From the direction of the marsh came a sound, eerie, moaning, rising to
a terrible wail and dying off gradually into a throbbing silence. It
came again and again.
Jessie caught Darry’s hand and ran wildly, blindly, toward the lodge.