THE PROWLER
So sure had Mollie been that she had heard a sound like somebody
creeping stealthily through the woods that for a long time she was
uncomfortable and nervous, though she strove to hide her uneasiness
from Grace.
After the first scare, they had combed the woods thoroughly in the
direction of the noise that Mollie thought she had heard, but had found
nothing--and no one.
“Funny how a person’s ears can play strange tricks sometimes,” said
Mollie, as, their morning’s work done, they wandered down toward the
little brook. “I could have sworn I heard a heavy body crashing through
the brush. And yet I couldn’t have heard it at all. After this,” she
added with chagrin, “I’ll never dare laugh at Amy again.”
They reached the brook and lay down lazily on the carpet of thick moss
which lined its banks while Grace invitingly opened the box of fudge.
There was about half of it still left, and so they set to work with a
will, the remaining pieces disappearing like snow before the sun.
Gradually the peace of the place communicated itself to them and
Mollie’s scare disappeared into the background of their contentment.
“I wonder,” said Grace, after a dreamy interval when she had watched
the water of the brook splashing merrily over the stones in its path,
“what became of that little old woman who did so much embroidery for
the Woman’s Exchange? I wonder if she’s all alone somewhere, sick,
maybe, or too old and feeble to work any more.”
“I hope she’s not,” replied Mollie, adding with a laugh: “It would be
much pleasanter to think that perhaps she has come into a fortune, or
something, and so doesn’t have to work for a living any more.”
“Well,” sighed Grace, “as long as we’re not apt ever to hear of the
old soul again, we might as well take the cheery view. Have some more
fudge?”
“Is this all you have?” asked Mollie, looking anxiously at the fast
dwindling supply. “My, I never tasted such delicious candy in my life.”
“I would have bought another box if you girls hadn’t been in such an
awful hurry. Now you see what you get.”
“Well,” said Mollie, philosophically, “give me another piece, anyway.
We might as well enjoy it while it lasts.”
After a while they thought it might be a good idea to wander around a
bit and see just what kind of country surrounded their camp.
“We need the hike, too,” Mollie added. “I shouldn’t wonder if we’d be
sick, eating all that fudge.”
“I’ll be with you in a minute,” said Grace, and hurried back toward the
camp, leaving Mollie to stand looking after her in surprise.
“Now what’s she after?” was her thought, and a moment later she found
out.
Grace reappeared through the trees, stuffing something into the pocket
of her coat which Mollie recognized as Betty’s toy pistol.
“Oh, Gracie, ’tis to laugh!” she chuckled, as they started on their
hike. “What do you expect to kill with that thing? A couple of rabbits
for supper, maybe?”
“Oh, keep still,” said Grace, feeling a bit sheepish. “If I like to
lug the thing along what difference does it make to you? I wish,”
longingly, “that Betty and Amy were back.”
“That’s only the tenth time you’ve wished that same wish in the last
two hours,” scoffed Mollie. “And you might just as well stop wishing
till this time to-morrow morning, anyway. I don’t expect them back a
minute before then.”
Grace was silent for some time while they both trudged through the
woods, climbing bowlders that got in their way, crashing through heavy
underbrush, with now and then a stop to catch their breath and enjoy
the beauty of the wild woodland about them.
It was during one of these rest periods that Grace again spoke of what
was in her thoughts.
“I wonder if the boys will surely come up over the week-end,” she said,
pulling a piece of tall grass and chewing it reflectively. “It would be
just like them to have too much work to do.”
“I guess they’ll all be here--all but Allen, anyway,” was Mollie’s
reassuring reply. “He may be kept on that case he’s trying to
straighten out.”
“That one about the stubborn old boy and his will?” said Grace,
wrinkling her pretty forehead in an attempt to bring back the details
of the case. “I remember Allen acted pretty mysteriously about it. I
only hope he won’t be silly enough to let work interfere with pleasure.”
“That’s just what he will do, being Allen,” replied Mollie, promptly.
“That’s one of the things that makes him most popular--he sticks close
to a job till it is finished right. And I suppose he won’t think he
can take a vacation till he has straightened out the case of this old
man’s will to his satisfaction.”
The girls went on again for a short distance but then, finding
themselves confronted by a veritable fence of intertwined vines and
brambles, decided they had gone far enough and turned back toward camp.
After a lunch which tasted like nectar and ambrosia to them, they were
at a loss what to do with themselves and finally decided to go fishing.
“Since we didn’t have sense enough to bring regular fishing tackle,”
grumbled Mollie, as she carefully picked out two supple young branches
which had fallen to the ground, “we’ll have to fish the way the farmer
boy does at the old swimming pool.”
“We haven’t even got an old swimming pool or fishing hole, or whatever
it is we need,” said Grace. “I imagine that’s even more important than
the tackle we use.”
“Oh, well, we’ll find one, a hole I mean,” promised Mollie. “There must
be a deep spot in that brook somewhere, and all we have to do is to
follow it to find out.”
“Sounds easy,” agreed Grace, adding, as she laughingly held aloft her
branch with the string attached to it: “Now that we have our bent pins
firmly in position, shall we go?”
“You bet,” said Mollie gayly. “Mark my words, we’ll come back with
enough fish to last us a week.”
But alas for her high hopes. They caught not one fish, though they
spent a cramped motionless afternoon on the banks of as pretty and
promising a fishing pool as one would ever want to see.
“I guess,” said Grace, with an attempt at persiflage as they returned
wearily to camp, “Betty’s fake pistol would have done as much damage as
our fishing lines, Mollie.”
“Couldn’t have done much less,” agreed Mollie, adding with a chuckle:
“Lucky we didn’t depend on that fish for our dinner.”
“In that case, Betty and Amy would have found only our starved remains
when they returned,” said Grace, adding eagerly, as their improvised
tent came in view: “I say, how about a can of pork and beans to-night?”
“Perfectly topping, perfectly topping, old thing,” returned Mollie, in
her best English manner. “An inspiration, that. No other word would fit
it, truly.”
And then they giggled and went merrily about the preparation of the
“inspiration.” Later they built another campfire and sat beside it for
a long time. They did not acknowledge to each other how reluctant they
were to “turn in” that night.
For although they had carefully refrained from speaking of the scare
Mollie had given them early that morning, they had not forgotten it and
the night shadows made them uneasy.
However, as even a campfire can lose some of its charm if gazed upon
too long, the girls finally found their eyes closing from weariness. A
day like this spent entirely in the open always made them very tired,
and at last the moment came when they could not put off the business of
“turning in” for another second.
“The tent will seem pretty large for the two of us,” said Grace as, a
few moments later, they rolled themselves in their blankets.
“Shouldn’t wonder if we’d rattle around some,” agreed Mollie. “But
it’ll be nice to have plenty of room anyway.”
Strange that, lying there quiet, waiting for sleep to come, the girls
heard so many more noises than they had heard on the night before.
It seemed to them that the entire woodland was alive with flutterings
and queer crunchings and snapping of twigs, and once Grace even raised
herself on her elbow, so sure was she that something was sniffing about
the door of their tent.
But there was nothing there, and at Mollie’s impatient command she lay
down again. Her fingers stole under the edge of the blanket where she
had hidden something. It was Betty’s toy pistol!
Toward the middle of the night Grace’s eyes sprang wide open as though
she had touched a spring. The moment before she had been heavily
asleep, now she was as wide awake as though she had never slept at all.
What was it that sent terrified chills chasing up and down her spine?
Was it the rhythmic patter-patter of rain on the tautly stretched
tarpaulin? That would be enough to wake her surely.
But no, that was not all. She had heard a noise, a peculiar, shuffling
noise that had penetrated even through her sleep, a noise like some man
or animal circling the tent.
At first it seemed almost impossible for her to move. She felt as
though she were in the grip of a nightmare where she had no control
whatever over her muscles. She tried to call to Mollie, but her voice
died in a weak little gasp in her throat.
By a great effort she finally succeeded in dragging herself to a
sitting position. Then she waited, her hand at her throat, her eyes
striving to pierce the gloom behind the smoldering embers of the fire.
She saw nothing, heard nothing but the rhythmic drip-drip of the rain.
The night seemed suddenly and curiously still as though, like her, it
were holding its breath to listen.
Then the silence was broken by Mollie’s voice, soft and husky with
sleep.
“What in the world----” she began, but Grace caught her arm in a tight
grip.
“Listen!” she commanded.
Wondering, Mollie obeyed and then suddenly she too was sitting upright,
her body rigid. For once again came that shuffling sound like a heavy
body stealthily encircling the tent.