THE ATTEMPTED RESCUE
"I will go back to the shanty boat with you now, Phil," volunteered
Madge when Phyllis returned to her chums, carrying the pathetic scrap
of paper. "We have the food you brought in the basket, which we can
eat for luncheon. Lillian and Nellie can row over to the houseboat to
tell Miss Jenny Ann that we mean to spend the day here. Then, perhaps,
they will row back for us this afternoon."
"I don't think we ought to leave you and Phil alone on this island,"
remonstrated Eleanor, "especially when you won't have a boat. If
anything should happen, there would be no chance of your getting away."
"I'll tell you what to do, Nellie," suggested Phil. "Suppose you and
Lillian go home and then send our boat over to us immediately. The
farmer boy will bring it for us. He can tow it and then row back in
his own skiff. Ask him to anchor our boat in this same place. Madge
and I will come home as soon as we find out whether there is anything
we can do for poor Mollie."
Lillian and Eleanor were reluctant to leave their two friends. But
there seemed nothing else to be done. The thought of their chaperon's
anxiety at last persuaded them to go, and they departed after promising
to send the boat over immediately they reached the "Merry Maid."
"What do you think we had better do, Phil?" asked Madge as the other
two girls rowed out of sight.
Phil frowned and shook her head. "I haven't the faintest idea, Madge;
I am afraid we are too late to do anything. That dreadful Mike has
already taken his daughter away. I believe she wrote us several days
ago, when she first heard what they meant to do with her. But I can't
understand why her father wishes to put her in an asylum. She is much
too useful to them. She does nearly all the washing and cooking on
that miserable old shanty boat."
"I do wish we had some money," declared Madge thoughtfully. "I believe
Mike would do anything for money. If we could only take care of
Mollie, perhaps her father would let us have her. But you and I are as
poor as church mice, Phil. Isn't it horrid?"
"I don't believe the man would give his daughter to us if we merely
offered to take care of her. She is too useful to him. But he might
let her come with us if we could pay him a great deal of money besides.
At least, if we offered him a bribe he might be influenced to tell us
where poor Mollie is. However, there is no use in talking about money.
We'll have to do the best we can without it," finished Phil.
The two friends were walking disconsolately along the shore of the
island. Neither one of them was anxious to return to the shanty boat
for another interview with the slatternly woman who presided over it.
"Phil," Madge's eyes brightened, "if we need any money to help this
girl, I feel sure Mrs. Curtis will be glad to give it to us. She is
rich and generous, and Tom says she dearly loves to do things for those
who are in need. I should not mind in the least asking her help. She
is very fond of young girls."
"She is very fond of you, at any rate," returned Phyllis, with a
smothered sigh. "Sometimes I feel as though she wanted to take you
away from us for keeps."
Madge laughed. "What nonsense, Phil. Why should she wish to take me
away for 'keeps'?"
But Phyllis did not reply to the little captain's laughing question.
"Let's not go around to the shanty boat the way we did this morning.
Let us go back the opposite way, and then we shall have encircled the
whole island," planned Madge. "If Mollie is hidden anywhere, we might
happen to discover her."
The loneliness of their walk affected both Madge and Phyllis. There
were no houses on the island. It was visited in the autumn for duck
shooting, and in the summer was used as a camping ground for a few
fisher folk. The girls passed only one man in their entire journey.
He was lying under a tree, fast asleep. A hat covered his face. As
the two friends hurried by they did not seek to discover who the man
was. He was a rough-looking fellow, and they preferred not to awaken
him.
This time the deck of the shanty boat was deserted. It was noon. The
other members of the small shanty colony must have been out on the
water, for there was no one in sight.
The girls stood staring irresolutely at the boat. "I suppose the woman
is indoors fixing the luncheon. I can see the smoke coming through the
smokestack," declared Phil. "Shall we call to her, or just march
boldly aboard her old boat?"
"I don't know," hesitated Madge. "I don't believe we ought to mention
Mollie's note. We might get the child into more trouble."
Phyllis shook her head. "Well, then, you decide upon something. You
always plan things better than I do. I think we had better say that we
have come back to inquire of Captain Mike how long he expects Mollie to
be away. Then we can insist on waiting until his sailboat returns."
The two girls strode bravely up the single, rickety board that served
as the gangplank of the shanty boat. At their first step on the dock a
yellow dog rushed to the door of the dirty kitchen and set up a furious
barking. Behind him stood the menacing figure of the woman whom Madge
and Phil had seen a short time before. About her torn skirts were
clustered three or four stupid-looking, tow-headed children. It was
impossible for Phil to conceive how beautiful Mollie could be a member
of such a family. Yet the unfortunate girl had told Phyllis that she
had known no other than the hard, joyless life she had always led.
It was Madge who opened the conversation this time. To her
disappointment she received no different answer to her inquiries than
had Phil. "Moll was gone." The woman did not know where she had gone
and she didn't care. But she wasn't coming back. Further, Mollie's
step-mother did not see what business Phil and Madge had in coming to
ask about her.
"We are going to wait to talk to your husband," announced Phil with
quiet decision.
"You git off my boat in a hurry," the woman snarled angrily. "You can
stay on the island all day if you like, but you can't hang around here.
Mike won't be home before night, and he ain't goin' to tell you nothin'
then. You'll find the beach pretty comfortable; it's so nice and
shady." The woman grinned maliciously.
The two girls sat down on the stretch of hot sand near the water. They
were doggedly determined to wait as long as possible for Mike Muldoon's
return. Mollie's pathetic appeal had touched Madge as deeply as it had
Phil, and they were both resolved to help the child if they could.
The hours dragged by on leaden wings. Madge's head ached violently.
Phil was beginning to think longingly of the basket of food which she
had left in the tent and wondering if it would do for her to go after
it while Madge stayed on guard. As she sat deliberating as to what
course of action would be the wisest, a sudden commotion arose among
the children playing on the deck of the shanty boat. The dog began to
bark furiously. "Mammy, here comes Pap," the oldest child cried.
The tired girls could see that a sailboat was being anchored near the
shore. A few moments later Mike, who insisted on being called
"Captain," got into a skiff and rowed toward the land.
Madge sprang to her feet and ran down to the edge of the water. She
wished to attract Mike's attention before he went aboard his own shanty
boat. To think with her was to act. She realized that she must speak
to the man before his wife could tell him the nature of their errand.
If Mike Muldoon learned their real design, he might shut himself inside
his shanty and refuse to talk to them.
[Illustration: The girls ran down to the water's edge.]
Mike rowed toward his callers, who were anxiously waiting for him. As
his boat scraped the shore his wife shrieked at him, "Come here fust,
Mike! Don't you be goin' talkin' to the likes of them before I tells
you somethin'."
She was too late. Captain Mike had already turned to Madge. He
supposed the girls had come to engage his sailboat.
Captain Madge decided to try diplomacy. She did not wish to make the
sailor angry. She hoped she might persuade him to do what they wished.
"We have not come to rent your sailboat today, Captain Mike," she
announced cheerfully, "we are coming for that another time. What we
wish now is to ask you what has become of your pretty daughter? We
have crossed all the way over to the island to make her a call. And
now we can't find her. We wish to make friends with her, if you don't
mind."
"Moll can't make friends with nobody," Mike answered suspiciously, his
skin turning a mottled red under its coat of tan. "I told you Moll was
foolish."
"Yes, I know," answered Phil unwisely. "That is why we are so sorry
for her."
Mike scowled darkly. "You ain't got no cause to be sorry for the gal.
Who told you she was treated mean? Nobody don't hurt her. But you
can't see her. She is sick."
"Why, your wife told us she had gone away!" exclaimed Phil impetuously.
She could have cried with regret the next moment, for she realized how
foolish she had been.
"So she has gone away," Mike muttered, "and she is sick. I ain't no
liar and my wife ain't neither."
"When will she come back, Captain Mike?" asked Madge in a friendly
tone, hoping the title of "captain" would soften the surly sailor.
"She's not comin' back," the man replied impatiently. "I've got to go
to my dinner, and I ain't goin' to answer no more questions. Don't you
come foolin' around this way any more; my old woman don't like it. I
warn you for your good."
Phil was tired of deceit. She knew Mike had not told them the truth.
"Captain Mike," she demanded coolly, "have you put your daughter in an
asylum? If you have, I think you have been both inhuman and cruel.
Mollie is not crazy. If you will tell us where she is we will look
after her, and she need not bother you any more." She raised her dark
eyes and gazed defiantly at the angry sailor, who shook his great red
fist full in her face.
"You'll take a man's own daughter away from him, will you?" he raged.
"What makes you so interested in my gal? And who told you Moll was
shut up with a lot of crazies? My Moll is going to be married; she has
gone away to git her weddin' clothes."
He laughed tantalizingly into the girls' faces as though well pleased
with his own joke.
"Mollie married?" Phil exclaimed in horror. "Why, she----" Then Phil
stopped herself and inquired, with an innocent expression of interest,
"Whom did you say Mollie was going to marry?"
"She is going to marry Bill Barnes, a friend of mine," retorted the
sailor sarcastically, his heavy shoulders shaking with savage
amusement. "He ain't much to look at. It's kind of a case of Beauty
and the Beast with him and my Moll. But she's powerful fond of him."
"Mike!" a shrill voice screamed from the shanty boat kitchen, "come
along in here."
Mike glared at his questioners, his face set in savage lines. "Don't
never come here agin," he growled. "If you do, I ain't sayin' what
will happen to you." Turning abruptly he strode toward his boat,
leaving the girls standing where he had first met them.
There was nothing for Madge and Phil to do but to return once more to
their own boat. "O Madge! it is too dreadful!" exclaimed Phil in a
husky voice. "I understand now what poor Mollie meant. She said there
was one thing she would never do, no matter how cruel her father might
he with her. Of course, she knew they were going to try to force her
to marry some frightful looking fisherman. We simply must try to find
her and save her. It is a wicked shame!"
"Don't be so wretched, Phil," comforted Madge, though she felt equally
miserable. "You are right; we must find out how to save poor, pretty
Mollie. I can't think what we ought to do, just this minute, but we
must do our best. Now I think we shall have to go home and talk things
over with Miss Jenny Ann and the girls. We will come back to-morrow,
prepared to make a fight to save Mollie. Surely she can't be married
by that time."
The two friends stopped by the tent for their basket of food and sat
down just outside it under a tree to eat their luncheon. Neither of
them noticed that they had seated themselves with their backs to the
water, and they were so interested in talking of Mollie that they gave
no thought to the outgoing tide. By rising they could see their boat
drawn up on the shore, where, as arranged with Lillian and Eleanor, it
had been left by the farm boy. What they failed to notice, however,
was the distance it lay from the water line, and they also had
forgotten that it was time for the going out of the tide.
As they sat quietly eating their luncheon the sound of running feet was
borne to their ears. Nearer and nearer they came. Then round the
curve of the beach darted the object of their morning's search. With a
wild cry she flung herself upon Phil. "You said you would help me,"
she moaned. "Oh, help me now." Little rivulets of water ran from her
ragged clothing. The pupils of her dark blue eyes were distended with
fear. Her dress was torn across her shoulder and an ugly bruise showed
through it. There was a long, red welt on her cheek that looked as
though it had been made with a whip, and another across one forearm.
Madge and Phyllis rushed toward the frightened girl. Phil put her arm
protectingly about Mollie while Madge stood on guard. Resolution and
defiance looked out from their young faces. They were not afraid of
poor Mollie's captors. They would fight for her.
"How did you come to us? Where have you been?" questioned Phil.
Five minutes had passed and no one had appeared. "Sit down here,
Mollie. We won't let any one hurt you."
"I was hidden in the shanty boat, locked in a dark closet," faltered
Mollie, casting a terrified glance about her. "I heard you ask for me,
but I could not come out. The woman is more cruel to me than the man.
She would have killed me. But when my father came home he was so angry
because you had been to see me that he beat me and said I must marry
Bill to-morrow, before you could come back to help me. Oh, he is
horrible! I won't marry him! I'll die first! I crawled through a
porthole in the boat when I heard what they said. I dropped into the
water and swam and swam until I could land on the beach out of sight of
my father's boat. Then I ran until I found you. But they will try to
find me. They may be looking for me now. Tell me, tell me what I must
do?"
"Don't be frightened," soothed Madge. "They can't force you to marry
Bill or any one else against your will. Phil and I will take care of
you. Come with us. We are going over to our houseboat now. Your
father need not know what has become of you. Hurry!" Madge was
listening intently for sounds announcing the coming of Mollie's
pursuers. So far the girls were safe. A moment more and they would be
in their rowboat.
Linking their arms within Mollie's her rescuers hurried her along.
Straight to the water's edge they ran, then a cry of consternation went
up from the two girls.
"O Madge! what shall we do? We forgot all about the tide," mourned
Phil. "It has gone out, and now we'll have to drag our heavy boat half
a mile through the sand to the water or else wait until the tide runs
in again before we can get away from the island."