THEIR UNKNOWN JAILER
"Madge Morton, what do you mean sleeping until seven o'clock, the first
morning we are on our houseboat?" cried Phil, poking her head in the
cabin door. "I would have awakened you before now, only Miss Jones
would not let me. Lillian and Eleanor have been waiting for you in
their bathing suits for a long while. Do let's have a salt water
plunge before breakfast."
Springing from her berth, Madge made a dash for her bathing suit, which
she had laid out the night before.
The girls were over the side of the boat in a hurry, swimming about in
the water with gleeful shouts. The odor of frying bacon, which was
presently wafted to their nostrils from the door of the houseboat
kitchen, was something the bathers were too hungry to resist, and with
one accord, they swam toward their boat.
It had been arranged that Miss Jones was to get the breakfast, Lillian
and Eleanor the luncheon, and Phil and Madge, who were the most
ambitious of the cooks, though not the most proficient, were to cook
the dinner.
Madge noticed that Miss Jones looked whiter than usual, but the other
girls saw no difference in their chaperon as they clambered up over the
side of the boat to get ready for breakfast.
"Girls," Miss Jones remarked, as she put down a big plate of corn
muffins before her hungry charges, "Phil accused me once of being
mysterious and never talking about myself. Well, I am going to make a
confession about myself at once."
Madge raised her eyes in surprise. After all, was Miss Jones going to
tell of last night's adventure? But the chaperon was not looking at
her. She was smiling at Phil, Lillian and Eleanor.
"Well, out with it, Miss Jones," laughed Phil. "What is the
confession?"
"It is a foolish one, perhaps. I hate the name of 'Jones.' I have
despised it all my life. There, that is my confession. Won't you
girls please call me something else while we are having our holiday
together? I know Madge can find a name for me." She looked rather
timidly at Madge.
The girl blushed, though she felt vastly relieved at Miss Jones's
confession. "What do you wish us to call you? I saw your initials in
some of your books, 'J. A. Jones,' so we might call you Jenny Ann
Jones, because, when Nellie and I were children, we used to play an old
nursery game: 'We're going to see Miss Jenny Ann Jones, Miss Jenny Ann
Jones, and how is she to-day?'" Madge's explanation ended with a song.
Miss Jones laughed. "My name is worse than Jenny Ann, it is Jemima
Ann."
"It isn't pretty," agreed Phyllis, with a shake of the head. "Girls,
what shall we call our chaperon? And we have never named our
houseboat, either. We have a day's work ahead of us. We must think of
names for both of them."
"Wouldn't 'Miss Ann' do?" Eleanor asked.
"I think Ann is such a pretty name."
"I would rather you had a more individual name for me. I have often
been called Ann."
"You might be the 'Queen of our Ship of Dreams,'" laughed Lillian.
"That sounds altogether too high and mighty," objected Phyllis. "We
ought to have something nice and chummy."
"We might call you 'Gem,' because it is short for Jemima, and in honor
of these corn muffins, which we call 'gems' in our part of the world,"
added Phil. "We'll think of a name yet. Come on, girls, we must get
to work; there is so much to be done. Lillian, you and I must go up to
the farmhouse to get some supplies this morning. Suppose we take a
long walk this afternoon and explore the woods back of us?"
"We will think of the prettiest name we can for you and another for our
houseboat," declared Lillian as the four girls rose from the table to
go about their various tasks; "then we shall make our report to-night."
It was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon when the four churns
started on their walk. Miss Jones did not go with them. She was tired
and wished to sit out on the deck of the boat in the sunshine.
"Be back before dark, children," she called out gayly as the girls
climbed up the little embankment. "Remember, you don't know your way
in this country, as you do at old Harborpoint. I shall be uneasy about
you if you aren't back on time."
There were several scattered farmhouses at the top of the hill that
sloped down to the cove of the bay, but back of the farmlands lay a
long stretch of forest. The ground was covered with a carpet of wild
flowers and a few late violets.
Once the chums were fairly in the heart of the woods they did not meet
another traveler. They seemed to have the forest to themselves. They
had no thought of danger in the quiet woods, and Madge and Eleanor, who
had been brought up in the country, were careful to watch the paths
they followed.
They had been in the woods for an hour or more when Lillian, who was
stooping over a clump of big, purple violets, thought she heard a
peculiar sound resembling light footsteps, Whether there was a human
being or an animal near them she could not tell. The footsteps would
run rapidly and then stop abruptly.
"Phil," called Lillian, "I thought I heard something. Did you? Listen
once more. There, did you hear that?"
Phil listened. "Not a sound, Airy Fairy Lillian. It must have been
your fancy."
But Lillian was not convinced. Several times she believed she heard
the noise again. However, she did not mention it.
As the girls came out of the woods to a little clearing Phil, who was
in the lead, ran forward. "Madge, Eleanor," she called, "come here,
quick! I am sure this must be a regular, old-time log cabin."
Before them the girls saw an old cabin that looked as though it had
been empty for a quarter of a century. It was strongly built of logs,
and the chinks between the logs were filled with mud that had hardened
like plaster. There were no windows in the cabin, except in the eaves.
The heavy door was half open, but it had an old-fashioned wooden latch
on the outside.
"The old cabin looks rather creepy, doesn't it, Madge?" asked Eleanor.
"It is built more securely than our cabins farther down south, too.
This place seems more like a prison."
"It looks interesting. Let's go in to see it." Phil suggested.
The cabin stood in front of a stream of clear water. Close around it
grew a number of dark old cedar trees.
Phil and Madge shoved open the heavy door. Inside, the one large room
looked gray and dark, as the only light came from the two small windows
so far overhead.
"I would rather not go in, Madge," protested Eleanor, hesitating on the
threshold after Lillian had followed the other two girls inside.
"Don't be a baby, Eleanor," scolded Madge. "There is nothing to hurt
you."
Once inside the old house, Eleanor was as much interested as her chums.
There was no furniture in the place, but a few faded pictures were
tacked up on the walls, and the corners of the room were thick with
mysterious and inviting shadows.
As they clustered in a group under an old magazine picture of a darkey
with a fiddle in his hand there was an unexpected sound just outside
the door, and the big room grew suddenly darker.
The four girls turned simultaneously.
The heavy door through which they had entered the cabin, and which was
the only entrance, had been shut fast. At the same instant there was
the sound of a heavy, sliding bolt, then the rush of flying feet.
For the moment no one of the girls realized the seriousness of what had
happened.
"Some one must have locked us in for a joke," declared Phil stoutly.
Madge ran to the door and shook it with all her strength. It was built
of heavy logs, and, though the girls could see the daylight through the
cracks between the timbers, the door showed no sign of opening.
"Don't work so hard, Madge," remonstrated Phil. "Whoever shut us in
will come back in a moment to unfasten the bolt."
The girls waited a long time. No one returned.
"Perhaps the person who closed the door did not know there was any one
in the cabin," suggested Eleanor faintly.
"But we were all talking, Nellie. No one but a deaf person could have
failed to hear us," Lillian insisted.
Eleanor realized the truth of the words.
"Don't be frightened, Nellie," begged Madge remorsefully. "Let's all
push against the door at the same time. I am sure we shall be able to
break the bolt. One, two, three! Now--all together!"
The four girls shoved with all their might, until their arms ached and
their faces perspired from the exertion. Still the old door resisted
them. Perhaps Eleanor was right and the log house had been built as a
prison.
"I think we had better call for help," was Phil's practical suggestion.
"If we all scream together, we ought to make considerable noise. I am
afraid Miss Jones may become worried about us before any one comes to
let us out."
The girls called and called, until their voices were hoarse, but no one
answered them. Each girl remembered that she had not met a single
person in her journey through the woods.
Then the prisoners made a trip around the big room, poking and peering
about to see if there were any other possible method of escape.
"If I could only get up to one of those windows, I could easily break
the bars and try to jump out of it," speculated Madge aloud. "But,
alas, I am not a monkey! I can't climb straight up the side of a wall."
"You shall not try it, either," retorted Eleanor determinedly. "You
would break your neck if you tried to jump from one of those high
windows. Thank goodness, you can't climb up to them!"
"You were the wise one, Nell, and we wouldn't listen to you." Madge
eyed Eleanor mournfully. She had an overwhelming desire to burst into
tears.
"Don't take it so to heart, Madge," comforted her cousin. "Some one is
sure to come this way finally, if we only call long enough."
But the afternoon shadows lengthened and no one came. Gradually the
twilight fell, enveloping the big, bare room in hazy darkness. The
prisoners huddled together with white and weary faces. They thought of
their cosy houseboat with the little lamps lit in the dining room, and
the big lantern hanging in the bow, and of Miss Jones, who by this time
was no doubt anxiously waiting and watching for their return.
It was perhaps eight o'clock, although to the girls it seemed midnight,
when Lillian whispered:
"Girls, I hear some one coming this way. Phil was right; it was a
joke, after all. Whoever locked the door has come back to unlock it."
The girls smiled hopefully. After all, their experience did not amount
to anything. They would be back inside the houseboat in another hour.
The footsteps now sounded plainly just outside the cabin door.
"Won't you please unbar the door for us?" called Phil and Madge in
chorus. "Some one has locked us inside."
An elfish laugh answered them. Or was it the wind? Perhaps they had
heard no one after all. They strained their ears but heard no further
sound. Then the last bit of twilight vanished and night came down in
reality.