The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge
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Laura Lee Hope >> The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge
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The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge
or
The Hermit of Moonlight Falls
by Laura Lee Hope, 1921
_________________________________________________________________
CHAPTER I
JUST FUN
"Did you ever see a more wonderful day?"
The four Outdoor Girls, in Mollie Billette's touring car and with
Mollie herself at the wheel, were at the present moment rushing wildly
over a dusty country road at the rate of thirty miles an hour.
Grace Ford was sitting in front with Mollie, while Betty Nelson and
Amy Blackford "sprawled," to use Mollie's sarcastic and slightly
exaggerated description, "all over the tonneau."
"You look as if you had never done a real day's work in your life,"
said Mollie, with a disapproving glance over her shoulder at the girls
in the tonneau.
"We never have," returned quiet Amy, with a grin.
"And we are proud of it," added Betty, as she defiantly settled her
feet still more comfortably on the foot rail. "Why should we be
energetic when it is so much easier to be lazy?"
"There the proper spirit speaks," applauded Grace Ford from the front.
"I think I shall have to change places with you, Betty. It's far too
exciting up here with Mollie. She insists upon staging near collisions
every few feet-- thus keeping me awake!"
"Great heavens!" cried Mollie, pressing an impatient foot upon the
accelerator to which the great car responded with an eager purring,
"did any one ever give us the mistaken title of Outdoor Girls, I
wonder? They should have called us the Rip Van Winkle club, instead."
"Now she's getting sour-castic," commented Grace lazily. "Have some
candy, honey, and sweeten up."
She passed the ever-present box of delicacies over to Mollie, to which
overture the young driver responded with so indignant a stare that
Grace quickly withdrew the box, tucked it behind her, and strove to
look unconscious.
"Please, ma'am, I didn't mean to do it," she said meekly.
"Well, don't do it again, that's all," returned Mollie,
uncompromisingly, her eyes once more on the road ahead. "I've eaten so
many chocolates this week that I've had indigestion and mother
threatened to cut down my allowance."
"Goodness, it's my allowance that suffers," retorted Grace, ruefully,
"since it is my candy that you eat."
"Stop quarreling, girls, and answer my question," said Betty, sitting
up straight and regarding delightedly a vista of flying hills and
woodland greenery. "I asked you a few minutes ago if you had ever seen
so wonderful a day?"
"Yes, plenty of 'em," returned Mollie, as she took a sharp curve on
two wheels. "If you weren't too lazy to notice anything, Betty Nelson,
you would see that there is a storm coming up. Look at those clouds
over there in the east."
"Oh, you're a kill-joy!" cried Betty, cocking an optimistic eye up at
the sky. "It's only one teeny little cloud anyway, and who cares for
clouds when the boys are coming home?"
Both Amy and Grace felt a breathless little tug at their hearts at the
joyful challenge in Betty's words, but Mollie, with a perverseness
that was sometimes characteristic of her, refused to be too happy.
"Who says they're coming home?" she asked. "Now you're only guessing."
"Guessing!" cried Betty indignantly. "What do you mean-- guessing? The
war is over, isn't it?"
"Yes; and has been for quite a while," Mollie responded dryly. "But
that doesn't say that the boys are coming home right away----"
"We don't care about the right away," interrupted Amy, with a quiet
happiness in her face that made Betty hug her impulsively. "We can
wait patiently, now that we know they are safe."
"It's all right for you to talk about patience, Amy," retorted Mollie,
throttling her engine and sliding at breakneck speed down a long hill
without the thought of using a brake. A brake to Mollie meant
something to be used at the last minute when she couldn't think of
anything else to do. "You're an angel, but I'm not--"
"No, indeed!" said Grace, so emphatically that the girls in the
tonneau chuckled and Mollie looked at her threateningly.
"For goodness' sake, don't waste time looking at me," Grace pleaded,
as they bounced into a hole in the road and out again, fairly jouncing
the breath from the girls' bodies. "Keep your eyes on the road, Mollie
dear, We're not ready to die yet."
"Well, look out, or you may-- ready or not," threatened Mollie darkly,
as the car skidded around another precipitous turn and the girls saw
with relief a long stretch of flat road before them.
"Just the same the boys must be coming home before very long," said
Amy, quietly returning to the subject. "And when they do come we'll
have to give them some sort of big party or something, girls."
"Of course we will," said Grace, munching contentedly on a chocolate.
"Something that will make the people in Deepdale sit up and take
notice."
"We-el-- I don't know," objected Betty thoughtfully. "They say that
the few soldier boys who have come home object to any sort of fuss
being made over them. They seem to want to forget everything that has
happened 'over there,' and any sort of celebration brings the whole
thing vividly before them again."
"Yes, that's true, too," Mollie agreed. "I remember our doctor telling
mother that if people only wouldn't try to force confidences from the
boys and would try to keep all thought of the awful things they had
been through out of their minds, there would be fewer cases of nervous
breakdowns."
"Pop!" said Grace, snapping her finger resignedly. "There go all our
hopes of a good time, Amy. When the boys come home all we shall be
allowed to do will be to smooth their fevered brows and hold their
hands
"Well, we might do worse things even than that," said Betty, with a
light laugh, and Mollie shot her a malicious glance.
"Just watch Betty objecting to that," she said wickedly. "Before we
know it she will be sighing that Allen has only one fevered brow to
smooth!"
Amy and Grace looked at Betty mischievously-- at Betty who could not
for the life of her look as unconcerned as she would have liked.
"Don't be so foolish," she said hastily, at which the girls only
laughed the more.
"Never mind, honey," said Amy, putting an arm fondly about her chum.
"I guess we will all be crazy with joy to get the boys home again,"
"Well, you needn't think you can hold hands with Will and smooth his
fevered brow all the time," said Grace unexpectedly. "Because I really
have some share in him myself, you know. Remember, mine was one of the
three pictures he kept under his pillow."
Readers of previous volumes in this series may recall that joyful
letter written to Betty not so long ago in which Sergeant Allen
Washburn-- now Lieutenant Allen Washburn-- had spoken of the three
pictures which Will Ford had kept under his pillow during his long
convalescence in one of the army hospitals over there. These readers
may also remember that one of the pictures was of the boy's mother,
another of his sister, Grace, and the third of shy little Amy
Blackford, who now was blushing so furiously at the mere mention of
it.
"How about poor Frank and Roy?" asked Mollie, mentioning the other two
boys who made up the quartette of the girls' boy chums. "Who will
attend to their fevered brows?"
"Oh, you and Grace can take turns at that," said Betty, lightly
adding, with a little sigh: "Try as we can, Amy and I never know quite
how to pair you four off. We can't for the life of us find out which
of you likes Frank best and which inclines to Roy."
"That's right, kid-- keep 'em guessing," said Mollie slangily, as she
turned on power and challenged a steep grade. "Grace and I believe in
scattering our favors-- as 'twere. See that hill just ahead of us?
What do you bet I make it without changing gears?"
"If you make it without changing our looks, I'll be happy," said Grace
ruefully, as they bumped and rumbled to the top of the steep grade.
"Look out, Mollie!" she added suddenly, indicating a big pile of
brushwood that jutted out almost into the center of the road. "For
goodness' sake, slow down!"
But Mollie did more than slow down. She stopped-- and with such
suddenness that the girls were all but thrown out of the car and Betty
bumped her nose on the seat in front.
They had scarcely regained their poise when they were startled by a
shrill cry from Amy.
"Girls!" she almost screamed, clutching Betty's arm in a grip that
hurt, "look at that tree. It's going to fall! Oh, we'll be killed!"
The girls followed the direction of her pointing finger and looks of
horror sprang to their eyes. Slowly, its descent retarded somewhat by
the branches of other trees, a towering giant of the forest tottered
and crashed its destructive way downward. And they were directly in
its path!
CHAPTER II
THE FALLING TREE
For a moment the Outdoor Girls sat fascinated, paralyzed, without the
power to move a muscle. Then suddenly Grace seemed galvanized to
action, She leaned toward Mollie, grasping the steering wheel of the
motionless car frantically.
"For heaven's sake, Mollie, get out of the way! Start the car!" she
screamed.
"I can't!" Mollie answered, tight-lipped. "Something's wrong. The
motor's dead."
But with Grace's scream, Betty had come to her senses and had
scrambled out of the car, dragging the still paralyzed Amy after her.
"Grace, get out! Mollie, are you crazy?" she shouted wildly. "You'll
be killed----"
Automatically Grace started to clamber to the road, but Mollie still
fussed with brakes and levers, her lips in a tight line, her eyes
blazing.
"Something's wrong-- but I'll get her started," she muttered over and
over to herself while Betty raged at her from the road.
"Get out! get out!" fumed the Little Captain, "Jump, or I'll come
after you and we'll both be killed. Mollie!"
Luckily for Mollie's suicidal stubbornness, the great tree had been
halted far a moment in its downward plunge by some particularly heavy
foliage and branches, but the girls could see that it was only a
matter of seconds until the giant should tear itself loose and come
plunging down upon them.
And still Mollie fumbled with levers in a vain and foolish attempt to
save her beloved car at the risk of her own life.
Betty had just jumped upon the running board in a wild attempt to drag
her chum from the car when suddenly help came to them from an
unexpected quarter.
An elderly man came running from the woods, evidently attracted by
their excited cries. He gave one look at the toppling tree, even now
tearing itself loose from the impeding branches, another at the
machine with the two girls still in it, and then, with a speed and
decision which seemed to belie his age, went to the rescue.
"Come-- help me push!" he cried to Amy and Grace, who were still
standing dumbly in the middle of the road. A moment later he had
thrown himself with all his might against the machine, striving to
push it out of the path of the falling tree.
In an instant of time the girls had added their strength to his and
the automobile was moving slowly down the road. Luckily the car was on
a down grade or they never could have managed it. As it was, there was
just time to got out of the way when the great tree came crashing
down, its outermost branches just brushing Amy's skirt. The giant had
fallen on the very spot where the car had been only a moment before!
"Girls," breathed Betty, with a shaky little attempt at a laugh, "I
guess we've never in our lives been nearer death than we were just
then."
And while the girls are marveling at their almost miraculous escape
from a terrible death, time will be taken to introduce the Outdoor
Girls to those readers who have not yet met them and also to review
briefly a few of the exciting and interesting adventures they have had
up to the time of this present narrative.
There were four of them, Betty Nelson, or the "Little Captain" as the
girls often called her because she had such a decided talent for
knowing just the right thing to do at just the right moment, was
eighteen, dark-haired and dark-eyed. She had a fund of vitality and
more than her share of sense and good judgment-- all of which went
toward making her what she was, the most popular girl in Deepdale.
Grace Ford, tall, slender and willowy, was almost the same age as
Betty, but that fact and her love of the outdoors were the only things
she had in common with the "Little Captain." Her father, James Ford,
was a lawyer, and her mother, Mrs. Margaret Ford, a rather dressy lady
who spent a good deal of her time at clubs, was quite a figure in the
society of Deepdale. However, all through the war Mrs. Ford had worked
with an untiring enthusiasm for the "cause," a fact which had made her
many more friends than her social popularity could ever have done.
Next in the little quartette came Mollie Billette. Mollie was
seventeen, French-American, and impulsive, with a quick temper that
made more trouble for herself than for any one else. She and Betty
were alike in their splendid vigor and vitality. Mollie, or "Billy" as
she was sometimes called by her chums, had a very lovely widowed
mother and an extremely mischievous young brother and sister, Paul and
Dora (nicknamed "Dodo"), who were twins and six. Although the twins
were pretty nearly always in trouble, they were really adorable
children, whom everybody loved.
Amy Blackford, shy, sweet, pretty, completed the quartette. There had
been a mystery about her past which had recently been cleared up, and
it may have been this mystery that caused the girls to treat her with
a little more consideration and gentleness than they did each other.
Her guardian was a broker in the city who knew very little of the past
except through letters.
The four boys who were close chums of the girls and had added to the
interest and excitement of more than one of their adventures were
Allen Washburn, who was very much interested in Betty, and in whom
Betty was very much interested; Will Ford, Grace's brother, who had
carried Amy Blackford's picture all through the war; Frank Haley, Will
Ford's closest chum, and Roy Anderson who had not much distinction of
any kind except that he was "lots of fun" and a chum of the other
three boys.
In the first volume of this series the girls went on a camping and
tramping tour, tramping for miles over the country and meeting with
many adventures on the way.
Later they had more fun at Rainbow Lake, in a motor car, in a winter
camp, in Florida, at Ocean View, then at Pine Island where the girls
and boys together had cleared up a mystery surrounding a gypsy cave.
Later the girls and boys found themselves caught in the meshes of the
great war, as many hundreds of thousands of others had been. The boys
responded eagerly to the bugle call, and the girls, too, were eager
for Army service and finally went to a hostess house at Camp Liberty.
Though the girls had never worked harder in their lives, they found
that the task had a stirringly romantic side as well.
Then in the volume directly preceding this, entitled "The Outdoor
Girls at Bluff Point" the girls had had perhaps the most exciting
adventure of all.
The Hostess House at Camp Liberty having burnt down, the chums found
themselves forced to take a much-needed, although not entirely
welcome, vacation and had decided to spend it at a romantic spot near
the ocean called Bluff Point. The cottage on the bluff had been loaned
to the girls by Grace's patriotic Aunt Mary, who declared that she
owed something to the chums for having worked so hard for the good old
Stars and Stripes. Mrs. Ford, worn out with war work, had gone with
the girls to chaperon them.
Bad tidings at first threatened to overwhelm the chums. The Fords
received word that Will was seriously wounded "somewhere in France,"
and later Mollie received a telegram from her mother saying that the
twins, Dodo and Paul, had disappeared. Still later, while everything
was at its blackest, Betty read Allen Washburn's name among the
missing. However, everything cleared up later when the twins, who had
been kidnapped, were recovered and their kidnapper sent to justice.
Still later Allen proved that the report that he had been missing was
an error by writing to Betty himself and in the letter he also spoke
of Will Ford and the fact that he was getting over his wound
splendidly. Of course there had been great rejoicing and the vacation
had proved a happy one after all.
And now, at the time of this story, the war was over and the first
regiments of soldiers had arrived from the other side and the girls
were expecting a joyful reunion with the boys at any time.
They had not yet made definite plans for the summer and were just in
the position of waiting for something to happen when something had
happened with a vengeance-- but not at all the kind of something which
the four girls had expected.
"I think you are right, my dear," said the man who had saved the lives
of at least two of the girls, rubbing his hands fussily together and
peering out of small, near-sighted eyes, first at the tree and then at
the girls. "It was a close call-- a very close call. I declare, it was
very nearly the closest call I ever saw!"
For the first time the girls really looked at him. He was a rather
small man, slenderly built, with long sensitive hands and a very bald
head, in the center of which a tuft of hair stood comically upright.
These characteristics, coupled to the squinting eyes, gave the man a
very odd appearance.
He was so queer a figure standing there in the center of the road that
the girls found themselves staring unduly. Realizing something of
this, Betty jumped down from the running board where she was still
standing and held out her hand to the little man, thanking him in a
voice that still trembled a little for the great service he had done
them. The other girls followed suit and so overwhelmed their rescuer
that he seemed quite embarrassed and looked around nervously as if for
some means of escape.
Betty, seeing his embarrassment, was about to take pity upon him when
something happened that they had not bargained for. It began to rain,
not gently, but in a deluge, taking the girls completely by surprise.
Instinctively they turned toward the car, but Mollie suddenly began to
laugh in a half-hysterical manner.
"This is what I call fun," she said. "Engine dead, caught in the rain,
and I've even left the side curtains at home! I guess we're in for it,
girls."
CHAPTER III
THE QUEER LITTLE MAN
While the girls stood looking wildly at each other their unknown
rescuer seemed suddenly galvanized to action.
"This won't do at all!" he cried, raising both hands to his bald head
which was by this time very wet and more shiny than ever. "You will
get your death of cold, young ladies, you surely will. You must come
with me. Here, right along this path I have a cottage--" All the time
he was talking he was hustling them fussily ahead of him, for all the
world like some old hen with a brood of chickens.
The girls, not knowing what else to do and being in rather a
bewildered frame of mind, allowed themselves to be hustled. The rain
was sheeting down in a terrific cloud burst, so that their clothes
clung to them damply and they began to shiver.
They circled the fallen tree which had so nearly been their undoing,
and a moment later found themselves upon a narrow footpath which
seemed to lead into the very heart of the woods.
"I wonder where he is taking us," whispered Grace in Betty's ear.
"Maybe he's a murderer or something."
In spite of her discomfort, Betty giggled.
"Did you ever see a murderer with a bald head like that?" she asked.
It seemed to the girls as if the path must be at least a mile long,
but just as they were despairing of ever reaching the end of it, they
came out into a partially cleared space and through the trees caught a
glimpse of something that looked like a house.
Their new acquaintance, who up to this time had been bringing up the
rear, now took the lead and led them over tangled underbrush, stones
and foot-bruising rocks, to his strange little dwelling.
"It's a house, it's a house!" cried Grace thankfully, as they hurried
after the little man. "I guess somebody will have to wring me out when
we get inside. I'm soaked through!"
"Goodness, why don't you tell us something we don't know?" grumbled
Mollie, but nobody was listening to her. They had reached the house
and the man had swung the door open hospitably.
"Step inside, step inside, do," he urged with a nervous gesture that
reminded the girls once more of the proverbial hen. "You will find it
dry at least, and I will have a fire for you in a hurry. Just a moment
till I get some wood-- just a moment----"
And while he rambled on, suiting his words with quick nervous action,
the girls crowded inside the cottage and looked about them curiously.
The room they had entered was large and scrupulously neat. At first
glance it seemed a queer combination of hunting lodge and museum of
natural history. The rough clapboards and beams of the ceiling and
walls had never been plastered, and this very crudity seemed somehow
to give the room an air of warmth and homelikeness that was very
inviting.
Hung on the walls were several fairly large skins of animals, a gun or
two, and over the huge open fireplace, which very nearly covered one
end of the room, hung the magnificent head of a buck.
On the wall opposite the fireplace was a set of rudely-erected
shelves, one beneath the other, and these shelves were covered with
specimens of butterflies, beetles and other bugs of every size and
description. That the specimens had been mounted by an expert even an
inexperienced eye could see.
The girls, who had been regarding the oddities of the room with
growing interest, were brought back to a realization of the discomfort
of wet clothes by the owner of the place himself.
The latter had brought firewood from somewhere, and, with the aid of
half a dozen matches, had succeeded in getting a fairly good blaze.
Then with a smile of satisfaction he turned to the girls, rubbing his
hands together genially.
"Come nearer to the fire-- come closer-- do," he urged in his quick
nervous way. "I am sure you are chilled through-- quite chilled
through. I will bring chairs." He stopped abruptly and looked about
him with an embarrassed air, his gaze coming to rest on the only chair
which adorned the room.
Betty, seeing his confusion, was trying to think of something helpful
to say, when the little man suddenly found a way out of his quandary.
"Ah, I have it!" he cried, seizing enthusiastically upon a long bench
that stood on one side of the room. "Four can sit upon this quite
easily, I am sure. A happy thought-- a very happy thought--" and he
pulled and tugged at the bench until he succeeded in moving it close
to the fire,
Afterward it occurred to the girls that they might have helped him,
for it was a very heavy bench and he was rather a frail old man. But
at the time they were too interested in this unusual place and their
rather extraordinary host, to think of anything very rational.
However, they seated themselves dutifully in a row upon the bench,
"for all the world like an orphan asylum out for an airing," as Mollie
said later, and gratefully stretched out their sodden shoes to the
blaze.
They were cold and they were wet and they were fast becoming very
hungry, all of which might have been expected to form a very good
reason why they should have been miserable, But they weren't
miserable-- not at all. To the Outdoor Girls the thrill of an
adventure always more than counterbalanced the possible discomforts
attending it.
Their host started to draw up the one chair in the room, hesitated a
moment then, as though he had just thought of something, turned and
darted through the door, closing it with a little click behind him.
For the space of half a second, the girls looked after him. Then they
looked at each other. Then they drew a long breath and let loose the
flood of curious questions which had been struggling for expression
for the past twenty minute
"Well, isn't this a lark?" cried Mollie, her eyes dancing. "Half an
hour ago we were awfully bored, and now look at us."
"Yes, look at us," said Grace with a little sniff. "I'm sure we're not
very much to look at right now with our hair wet, and our clothes--"
"Oh, for goodness' sake, who cares about such things?" cried Betty
gaily. "I think this is a darling place and I'm having the time of my
life. I wonder who he is?"
"He seemed kind of scared just now, didn't he!" chuckled Mollie,
feeling her shoe to see if it was drying out any. "It was funny the
way he bolted out of the room."
"Poor old dear-- no wonder he was scared," commented Grace, as she
took off her hat and tried to do something with her hopelessly
bedraggled locks. "The way we look we're enough to scare anybody. Oh,
dear, hasn't any one a comb?"
"Why, of course, we carry a complete beauty parlor outfit just for
your benefit, dear," giggled Mollie. "The rest of us don't need it
though. We are too beautiful naturally."
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