_Rescue on Lake Dubar_
Helen stared hard at the place where her friend should have been. Had the
magic of Miss Carver's story been so strong that she was imagining
things? She rubbed her eyes and looked again. There was no mistake.
Margaret had disappeared!
Helen's cry caught the attention of the other members of the class and
Miss Carver stopped her story.
"What's the matter, Helen?" the teacher asked.
"Look," cried Helen dazedly, pointing to the spot where Margaret had been
sitting, "Margaret's gone!"
Miss Carver's eyes widened and she gave a little shudder. Then she smiled
to reassure Helen and the other members of the class.
"Probably Margaret slipped away and is hiding just to add a thrill to my
ghost story. I'll call her."
"Margaret, oh, Margaret!" The teacher's voice rang through the night. She
cupped her hands and called again when there was no response to her first
one. Once more she called but still there was no answer from the massed
maples behind them or the dark waters of the lake.
"This is more than a joke," muttered Ned Burns, the class president.
"We'd better get out and have a look around."
He stepped toward the fire, threw on an armful of fresh, dry sticks, and
the flames leaped higher, throwing their reflection further into the
night.
"We'll take a look into the woods," he told Miss Carver, "and you and the
girls hunt along the lake shore. Margaret might have fallen and hurt
herself."
Miss Carver agreed and the girls gathered around her. There was a queer
tightness in Helen's throat and a tugging at her heart that unnerved
her--a vague, pressing fear that something was decidedly wrong with
Margaret.
The boys disappeared into the shadows of the timber and the girls turned
toward the lake shore.
They had just started their search when Miss Carver made an important
discovery.
"Girls," she cried, "One of the rowboats we rented this afternoon is
missing!"
Helen ran toward the spot, the other girls crowding around her. They
could make out the marks of the boat's keel in the sand and a girl's
footprints.
"Those prints were made by Margaret's shoes," said Helen. "You can see
the marks of the heel plates she has on her oxfords."
"We'll call the boys," said Miss Carver, and Helen thought she detected a
real note of alarm in the teacher's voice although Miss Carver was making
every possible effort to appear calm.
When the boys arrived, Miss Carver told them of their discovery and Ned
Burns took charge of the situation.
"We'll get in the other rowboat," he said, "and start looking for
Margaret. In the meantime, someone must go up to Linder's farmhouse and
telephone town. Margaret's father ought to know she's out on the lake in
the boat. Also call Jim Preston and if he hasn't started down with the
_Liberty_, have him come at once."
"I'll go to the farm," volunteered Helen.
"O. K.," nodded Ned as he selected two other boys to accompany him in the
rowboat. They pushed off the sandy beach, dropped the oars in the locks,
and splashed away into the night.
"Don't you want someone to go to the farmhouse with you?" Miss Carver
asked Helen.
But Helen shook her head and ran up the beach. She didn't want anyone
with her; she wanted to be alone. The other girls didn't realize the
seriousness of the situation. She could understand what Margaret had
done. Realizing that Miss Carver would tell them a first rate thriller of
a ghost story, Margaret had decided to add an extra thrill by
disappearing for a few minutes. But something had gone wrong and she
hadn't been able to get back.
Helen paused and looked over the black, mysterious waters of Lake Dubar.
What secret were they keeping from her? Thoughts of what might have
happened to Margaret brought the queer, choky sobs again and she ran on
toward Linder's where the welcome glow of light showed through the
windows of the farmhouse.
Old Mr. Linder came to the door in answer to Helen's quick, insistent
knocks.
"What's the matter, young Lady?" he asked, peering at her through the
mellow radiance of the kerosene lamp which he held in one hand.
"I'm Helen Blair," she explained, "and one of my classmates has
disappeared from our picnic party down the beach. One of the boats we
rented from you is missing and we're sure Margaret is adrift on the lake
and unable to get back. I'd like to use your telephone to let her father
know and to call Jim Preston."
"Why, certainly," said Mr. Linder, "I don't wonder at your hurry. Come
right in and use the phone. Who did you say the girl was?"
"Margaret Stevens," Helen replied.
"Must be Doctor Stevens' daughter," said the farmer.
"She is," Helen replied, as she reached the telephone in the hallway.
While Helen was ringing for the operator at Rolfe, Mr. Linder stuck his
head in the living room.
"Mother," he said, "Doctor Stevens' daughter is adrift somewhere on the
lake in one of our boats. I'm going down and see if I can help find her."
Mrs. Linder came into the hall and Helen heard her husband telling her
what had happened. Then the Rolfe operator answered and Helen gave her
the number of Doctor Stevens' office.
The doctor answered almost instantly and Helen, phrasing her sentences as
tactfully as possible so as not to unduly alarm the doctor, told him what
had happened.
"Sounds just like Margaret," he snorted. "I'll be right down. Now don't
worry too much, Helen," he added.
"I won't, Doctor Stevens," promised Helen with a shaky attempt at
cheerfulness.
Then she called Jim Preston's home and learned that he had left fifteen
minutes before and should be almost down to Linder's.
"We'll go down to the landing and wait for Jim," said Mr. Linder as he
lighted a lantern he had brought from the kitchen.
"Everything will come out all right," Mrs. Linder assured Helen.
The farmer led the way down to the landing. The wind was freshening
rapidly and Helen saw Mr. Linder anxiously watching the white caps which
were pounding against the sandy beach.
Down the beach their picnic campfire was a red glow and Helen could see
Miss Hughes and the girls huddled around it. The boys who had not
accompanied Ned Burns were walking up and down along the shore.
She turned and looked up the lake. Two lights, one red and one green, the
markers of the _Liberty_, were coming down the lake.
"Jim Preston will be here in another minute," said Mr. Linder, "and with
the searchlight he's got on the _Liberty_ it won't take us long to find
Doctor Stevens' daughter."
Helen nodded miserably as the _Liberty_ slowed down and swung its nose
toward the Linder pier. There was the grinding of the reverse gear as Jim
Preston checked the speed of his boat and left it drift against the pier.
"Don't shut it off, Jim," cried the farmer. "Doc Stevens' daughter is
adrift in the lake in one of my rowboats. We've got to go out and look
for her."
They climbed into the boat and Jim Preston backed the _Liberty_ away from
the pier.
"How did it happen?" he asked Helen. She told him briefly and he shook
his head, as though to say, "too bad, it's getting to be a nasty night on
the lake."
The boatman opened the throttle, the motor roared its response and the
_Liberty_ leaped ahead and down the lake. They ran parallel to the shore
until they were opposite the picnic ground. There Jim Preston slowed
down, got the direction of the wind, and turned the nose of the _Liberty_
toward the open and now wind-tossed lake. He snapped on the switch and a
crackling, blue beam of light cut a path ahead of the boat.
"Keep the searchlight moving," he directed the farmer, who stood up in
the _Liberty_, his hands on the handles of the big, nickel lamp.
The boatman held the _Liberty_ at about one third speed and they moved
almost directly across the lake while Mr. Linder kept the searchlight
swinging in an arc to cover the largest possible area.
A third of the way across they sighted a boat far to their right and Jim
Preston swung the nose of the _Liberty_ around sharply and opened the
throttle. They sliced through the white caps at a pace that drenched them
with the flying spray but they were too intent on reaching the distant
boat to stop and put up the spray boards.
Helen's keen eyes were the first to identify the boat.
"It's the boys," she cried. "They're beckoning us on."
Jim Preston checked the _Liberty_ carefully and nosed alongside the
tossing rowboat.
"No sign of Margaret," admitted Ned Burns, "and the lake's getting too
rough for us to stay out much longer. We've had half a dozen waves break
over us now."
"Better get in with us," advised Preston.
"Hand me the oars," said Mr. Linder, "and we'll let the rowboat drift.
I'll pick it up in the morning."
The boys tossed their oars into the _Liberty_ and scrambled up into the
motorboat.
Jim Preston threw in the clutch and the _Liberty_ leaped ahead to resume
its search for Margaret. Helen's lips were dry and fevered despite the
steady showers of spray and her heart hammered madly. Lake Dubar had
always had a nasty reputation for ugliness in a fresh, sharp wind but
Helen had never before realized its true danger and what a lost and
helpless feeling one could have on it at night, especially when a friend
was missing.
There was no conversation as the _Liberty_ continued across the choppy
expanse of the lake. The searchlight picked up the far shore of the lake
with the waves hammering against the rocks which lined that particular
section. It was a grim, unnerving picture and Helen saw Jim Preston's jaw
harden as he swung the _Liberty_ around the cross back to Linder's side
of the lake.
Back and forth the searchlight swung in its steady, never tiring arc, but
it revealed only the danger of Lake Dubar at night. There was no sign of
Margaret.
They reached the shore from which they had started and turned around for
a third trip across the lake. This time they slapped through the waves at
twenty-five miles an hour and every eye was trained to watch for some
sign of the missing boat and girl.
Helen caught a flash of white just as the searchlight reached the end of
its arc.
"Wait!" she cried. "I saw something far to the right."
Preston slapped the wheel of the _Liberty_ over and the speedboat roared
away in the direction Helen pointed, its questing searchlight combing the
waves.
"There it is again," Helen cried and pointed straight ahead where they
could discern some object half hidden by the waves.
"That's one of my boats," muttered old Mr. Linder as they drew nearer,
"but it doesn't look like there was anyone in it."
"Don't, don't say that!" cried Helen. "There must be someone there.
Margaret must be in it!"
In her heart she knew Mr. Linder was right. The boat was rolling in the
choppy waves and there was no one visible.
"It's half full of water," exclaimed Ned Burns as they drew nearer and
Jim Preston throttled down the _Liberty_ and eased in the clutch.
Helen pushed them aside and stared at the rowboat, fully revealed in the
glaring rays of the searchlight. Tragedy was dancing on the waters of
Lake Dubar that night, threatening to write an indelible chapter on the
hearts of Helen and her classmates for there was no sign of Margaret in
the boat.
"Maybe she shoved the boat out into the lake and hid in the woods," said
Ned Burns.
"She wouldn't do that," protested Helen.
They edged nearer the rowboat, Preston handling the _Liberty_ with care
lest the waves created by the boat's powerful propeller capsize the
smaller boat.
"There's something or someone in the back end," cried Ned Burns, who was
three or four inches taller than anyone else in the boat.
Helen stood on tip-toe.
"It's Margaret," she cried. "Something's wrong. It looks like she's
asleep."
But sleep in a water-logged rowboat in the middle of Lake Dubar was out
of the question and Helen realized instantly that something unusual had
happened to Margaret, something which would explain the whole joke which
had turned out to be such a ghastly nightmare.
Jim Preston eased the _Liberty_ alongside the rowboat and Mr. Linder
reached down and picked Margaret up. There was a dark bruise over her
left eye and her clothes were soaked.
The boatman found an old blanket in one of the lockers and they wrapped
Margaret in it and pillowed her head in Helen's lap.
Margaret's eyes were closed tightly but she was breathing slowly and her
pulse was irregular.
"Hurry," Helen whispered to Jim Preston. "Head for Linder's. Her father
will be there by this time."
The boatman sensed the alarm in Helen's words and he jerked open the
throttle of the _Liberty_ and sent the boat racing through the night. In
less than five minutes they were slowing down for the pier. The lights of
a car were at the shore end of the landing and someone with an electric
torch was awaiting their arrival. It was Doctor Stevens, pacing along the
planks of the landing stage.
"Have you found Margaret?" he cried as the _Liberty_ sidled up to the
pier.
"Got her right here," replied Jim Preston, "but she's got a bad bump on
her head."
Doctor Stevens jumped into the boat and turned his flashlight on
Margaret's face. Helen saw his lips tighten into a thin straight line. He
felt her pulse.
"Run ahead," he told Ned Burns, "and tell Mother Linder to open one of
those spare beds of hers and get me plenty of hot water."
He stooped and picked Margaret up in his arms, carrying her like a baby.
Mr. Linder hurried ahead to light the way.
Helen stopped to talk with Jim Preston for a moment.
"I think you'd better take the class home," she said. "There's nothing
more they can do here."
"Will you go back with them now?" asked the boatman.
"No, I'm going to stay here tonight. I'll phone mother."
Helen turned and ran toward the farmhouse. Inside there was an air of
quiet, suppressed activity.
Doctor Stevens had carried Margaret into the large downstairs bedroom
which Mother Linder reserved for company occasions. Two kerosene lamps on
a table beside the bed gave a rich light which softened the pallor of
Margaret's cheeks.
Doctor Stevens was busy with an injection from a hypodermic needle,
working as though against time. Tragedy had danced on the tips of the
waves a few minutes earlier but how close it came to entering the
farmhouse only Doctor Stevens knew at that hour for Margaret's strength,
sapped by the terrifying experience on the lake, was near the breaking
point and only the injection of a strong heart stimulant saved her life.
Two hours later, hours which had been ages long to Helen as she sat
beside the bed with the doctor, Margaret opened her eyes.
"Don't talk, Marg," begged Helen. "Everything is all right. You're in a
bedroom at the Linders and your father is here with you."
Margaret nodded slightly and closed her eyes. It was another hour before
she moved again and when she did Mother Linder was at hand with a
steaming bowl of chicken broth. The nourishing food plus the hour of calm
sleep had partially restored Margaret's strength and when she had
finished the broth she sat up in bed.
"I've been such a little fool," she said, but her father patted her hand.
"Don't apologize for what's happened," he said. "We're just supremely
happy to have you here," his voice so low that only Margaret and Helen
heard him.
"I thought it would be a good joke to disappear when Miss Carver started
telling the ghost story," explained Margaret. "I got the boat out into
the lake without anyone seeing me and let it drift several hundred feet.
When I tried to put the oars in the locks I stumbled, dropped them
overboard and that's the last I knew, except that for hours I was
falling, falling, falling, and always there was the noise of the waves."
Margaret slipped back into a deep, restful sleep when she had finished
her story. Helen, worn by the hours of tension, slid out of her chair and
onto the floor, and when Doctor Stevens picked her up she was sound
asleep.