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[Illustration: THE PICTURESQUE FIGURE STOOD IN THE CENTER.]




THE GIRL SCOUTS AT ROCKY LEDGE

OR

_Nora's Real Vacation_

By LILIAN GARIS

Author of

    "The Girl Scout Pioneers," "The Girl Scouts
    at Bellaire," "The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest,"
    "The Girl Scouts at Camp Comalong," etc.

_ILLUSTRATED_

NEW YORK

CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY




THE GIRL SCOUT SERIES

By LILIAN GARIS

Cloth. 12mo. Frontispiece.

    THE GIRL SCOUT PIONEERS
    Or, Winning the First B. C.

    THE GIRL SCOUTS AT BELLAIRE
    Or, Maid Mary's Awakening

    THE GIRL SCOUTS AT SEA CREST
    Or, The Wig Wag Rescue

    THE GIRL SCOUTS AT CAMP COMALONG
    Or, Peg of Tamarack Hills

    THE GIRL SCOUTS AT ROCKY LEDGE
    Or, Nora's Real Vacation

_Other volumes in preparation_

CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, NEW YORK

Copyright, 1922, by

Cupples & Leon Company

The Girl Scouts at Rocky Ledge

_Printed in U. S. A._




CONTENTS

I. Jim or Jerry: Ted or Elizabeth
II. The Attic
III. A Broken Dream
IV. Transplanted
V. The Woods at Rocky Ledge
VI. A Prince in Hiding
VII. Cap to the Rescue
VIII. The Story Alma Did Not Tell
IX. A Misadventure
X. A Novel Initiation
XI. Too Much Teasing
XII. A Diversion Nobly Earned
XIII. Crawling in the Shadows
XIV. Circumstantial Evidence
XV. Waif of the Wildwoods
XVI. Lady Bountiful Junior
XVII. A Picnic and Otherwise
XVIII. The Little Lord's Confession
XIX. A Deserted Tryst
XX. The Worst Fright of All
XXI. Strange Disclosures
XXII. The Danger Squad in Action
XXIII. Raiding the Attic
XXIV. Fulfillment




THE GIRL SCOUTS AT ROCKY LEDGE




CHAPTER I

JIM OR JERRY: TED OR ELIZABETH


"Do you mind if I call you Jim?"

"Why no--that is----"

"And may I call the lady Aunt Elizabeth?"

"Elizabeth?"

"If you don't mind; I'd love to."

"But the fact is----"

"You see, I have always wanted a man named Jim to protect me, and now
that I've got you I'd love to have you as Jim. Then, I have perfectly
loved the Aunt Elizabeths. They're always so lacy and cameo like." She
stood off and critically inspected the smiling woman in the most modern
of costumes.

"You're really too young," continued the girl, "but you'll grow old soon
I hope, don't you think so?"

"I'm afraid I shall----"

"Then that's that. And I'm glad we are settling things so quickly. Could
I see my attic room now, Aunt Elizabeth?"

"Attic room?"

"Isn't it?"

"Not exactly. We were giving you the yellow room; it's so cheerful and
pretty."

"Well, of course, I don't want to be too particular, and it's lovely of
you, dear Aunt Elizabeth, but all girls taken in are put in attic rooms,
aren't they?"

"Taken in?"

"Yes, sort of adopted you know. The attic always gives the shadowy ghost
business." There was just a hint of disappointment in the child's manner
now.

"We've got a first rate attic room," suggested the man who was tilting
up and down in a heel and toe exercise. "And what do you say, Ted, I
mean Elizabeth," he chuckled, "if we give----"

"Jerry, don't talk nonsense," interrupted the young woman not unkindly
but with some decision. "I am sure she would rather have the pretty----"

"But, please, could I see the attic room?" came rather timidly the very
thread of a voice from the little girl.

"It's ghostly." This from Jerry.

"That would be just perfect. Does the roof slant so it gives you the
nightmare on your chest, you know? And does the moon sort of make faces
in the windows?" Interest was overcoming timidity.

"That may be the trouble," replied the man, with a chuckle. "But I'll
tell you, little girl. Suppose we take the yellow room until you have a
chance to inspect thoroughly. You see your--er--Aunt Elizabeth has had
it all planned and fixed up----"

"Oh yes. Do excuse me for being impolite. You see, I've been thinking
about it so long. The school was lovely, and the teachers all very kind,
but it was sort of a regular kindness, you know, and did not have any of
my dreams coming true in it. Do you dream an awful lot here?"

"Day dreams or night dreams?" asked the man.

"Oh, wake-dreams, of course. The other kind don't mean anything. Just
stickers in your brain sort of pricking, you know. But the wake-dreams
can come true, if you plague them long enough. I guess they get tired
fighting you off and they have to give in and happen. What do you want
to call me?" This was a sudden digression and marked with a complete
flopping down of the talkative child.

"Your name is Nora, isn't it?" replied the young woman who seemed rather
glad to sit down herself. They were on the big square porch and rockers
were plentiful.

"Yes, my name is Nora, and it's pretty good, but hard to rhyme easily.
Then I would rather have you call me the name you have always called
your dream child."

"Mine was Bob," blurted the man, "but Bob wouldn't exactly suit you."

"Oh, yes it would," she jumped up again and left the rocker swaying
wildly. "Bob would be splendid for me. Would it suit you, Aunt
Elizabeth? What was your pet name?"

"I think Nora too pretty to drop. Besides, don't you really think a name
is a part of one's self and ought to be loved and respected?"

"That's just it. I want to--that is, if you don't mind, I want to be the
self I planned, not this one I didn't have anything to say about. It's
just like religion. When we grow up big as I am, we ought to be allowed
to choose." Her manner was even more babyish than her appearance.

"Big as I am!" Jerry repeated this to a rosebush.

As a matter of fact she was not much bigger than a child of eight years
might be, but she claimed a few more birthdays and she looked about as
substantial as a wind flower. Her eyes were blue, her hair light and
fluffy, and she wore such a tiny white slip of a dress, socks and
sandals and a white lace hat! Grown up? She looked just like an
old-fashioned baby.

"Then, shall I be Bobbs?" asked Nora a moment later, with hope in her
voice.

"Ye-e-s, and if--the auntie wants to soften it she can call you
Babette," ventured Jerry. "And now, if the christenings are over,
suppose we go inside and freshen up. Come along Bob, you are going to be
my helper now, aren't you?" Jerry's eyes twinkled with his voice. He
was, plainly, enjoying himself.

"I'd love to help--especially with outdoor work," replied the girl. "And
you measure land, don't you?" she asked.

"Yes, that's about it. In other words I'm a surveyor," explained Jerry.

"And Aunt Elizabeth helps. Isn't that lovely? We won't, any of us, have
old pesky house work to think about. I haven't ever dreamed a dream, not
a single one, about housekeeping. Some one always does that for me, or I
just don't think about it at all and it's all done beautifully," boasted
Nora. "I love your place. It's so romantic," she expanded her arms and
fluffy little skirt to fill the big chair. "I feel, somehow, everything
is going to come true now." Relief toned this statement while she looked
wistfully out of blue eyes, and any one might have easily guessed that
something very dear was included in that word "everything."

The young woman, who was threatened with being made over into an old
Aunt Elizabeth with laces and cameos to boot, gazed intently at the
small personality. She realized it was a personality, a little dreamer,
a big romancer, and a very weird sample of the modern girl,
self-trained.

He who was to become "Jim" on the spot, seemed tickled to death over it
all, and kept snapping his brown eyes, first at the newly named Bobbs
and then his life's partner, until glints of fun-sparks charged the very
air.

"It might be a good idea to put on tags for a day or two," he suggested
playfully. "I would hate to spoil the program by calling Elizabeth here
just Ted."

"Oh, do you think it will be hard? I didn't mean to make trouble, and,
if you say so, I'll just put the dream back again on its peg and let it
stay there. It really doesn't have to come true right now. There are so
many new things to talk about," temporized Nora, considerately.

"I think it would be lots better to try things out for a little while
under our own names," suggested the young woman, eagerly. "And I have
always loved the name Nora, so you see, _my_ dream will be coming true,
at any rate," she smiled.

"Goody--goody! It's all right, then. I'll be Nora, and you'll be Ted,
that's pretty: what does it mean?"

"Theodora," answered the man promptly.

"Then it is prettier than the old-fashioned Elizabeth," agreed the
child. "Really, things are different when you think about them than what
they are when--you run right into them, aren't they?"

"Sure thing, especially water wagons and book agents," joked Jerry.

"And Jerry is lovely, too, just as nice as Jim. I knew a lovely old
tramp dog named Jerry." Again the wistful blue eyes dreamed.

"That's real nice," added the owner of the popular name. "Was
he--gentle?"

"As a lamb. I used to ride on his back!"

"And was he--er--handsome?"

"He had the loveliest ears, all little pleaty wrinkles, and such big,
floppy feet----"

"All right, I'll be content to be his namesake, only don't expect me to
howl when the phonograph plays. I can't undertake to do that," demurred
the affable Jerry.

They all laughed a little at this protest, for Jerry Manton seemed good
natured enough to "howl" if occasion demanded it. Even the moon might
have inspired him "doggerly" so to speak.

Mrs. Manton picked up the little hand satchel that Nora kept at her side
when the other baggage was being disposed of, and gently urged the
little visitor into the Nest, there to settle that other question of
attic or guest room.

The short bright curls bobbed up and down incredulously, as their
surprised owner looked in on the yellow room, a moment later.

"Golden! Perfectly golden!" exclaimed the child. "But, of course, one
could never get the nightmare in this lovely bird cage." She stopped,
apparently reasoning out bird cages, nightmares and ghostly attics. "And
I have simply got to have a strange experience," she scratched her heels
together anxiously. "I just couldn't give that up," she decided.

"But you do think this is a pretty room?" asked the hostess, her own
soft eyes embracing affectionately the golden space before them.

"Glorious!" declared Nora rapturously. "And I'm afraid it has been
rather silly to get set on certain things without really knowing about
them. Dreams are uncertain, after all."

Jerry was just coming up the rustic stairs.

"But the attic is a real spook parlor," he chimed in, "and I've always
loved it myself. I have a corner for my trash, and the sleeping quarters
aren't bad. You see this place was built with government money, and
that's always--well, real money," he finished, significantly.

"But Jerry," again came the opposition from Mrs. Manton, "you know we
have scarcely had time to look that attic over since we came here. It
seems perfectly absurd to let Nora go up there," she paused. "I know
it's clean, for Vita takes a pride in fixing attics, but why----"

"Now Ted," the voice was as soft as a boy's, "why not let our little
girl have her way?"

"I really am not objecting," said the wife with a smile, "I'm just
qualifying."

"But who dares qualify day dreams?" asked the man, with a comical twist
in his voice.

Nora stood on the threshold, uncertainly. "I guess maybe," she pondered,
"we think a lot about dreams when we haven't real things to think about,
like playthings, for real," she finished.

"That's exactly it, dear," said Mrs. Manton, "and day dreams are not
always healthy, either."

"All the same," insisted Jerry, "I'm strong for that attic. It smells
just like the woods after my men have made a good, clean cutting. Come
along, girlie, and let me show it to you."




CHAPTER II

THE ATTIC


"How's this?" asked the man.

"Oh, wonderful! Those beams, they slant just like the story books say,"
declared Nora, ecstatically.

"Good enough to give you the right sort of nightmare, eh? Well, that's
nice. Ted is always after the cobwebs, but I don't let her spoil them if
I'm around. You see, cobwebs have a lot to do in my business."

"Cobwebs?" Nora poked her little head in between two chummy beams. "What
do cobwebs do in surveying?"

"They make a cross line on my object glass. I'll show you when I get
around to it," replied Jerry. "Now see here, here's the secret chest,"
he was opening a big wooden box, "and by a miracle," he continued, "it
does hold clothes, duds, et-cet-tee-ra."

"The people who had this place gave a big party, I believe," explained
Mrs. Ted, "and they left a lot of their costumes here. We have never had
any chance to make use of them," she finished, slapping her hands on the
work apron that partly covered her own mannish costume. Apparently she
disdained the frivolous things.

"But just look!" Nora was almost in the big cedar chest; in fact,
nothing more than a bump of white, ending in two small brown spots that
waggled like sandaled feet, was visible. Presently the curly head
emerged in a cloud of brilliant, spangly stuff, very evidently the
costumes. "Aren't these just wonderful!"

"Oh yes," agreed Jerry, "they're nice and shiny. But just look at this
spook cabinet. Do you know what a spook cabinet is, Nora?"

"No, what?" She dropped the costumes back into the big chest instantly.

"They're just a box of tricks. But this is the box empty. See here,"
Jerry opened, with some difficulty, the long narrow closet that was
built in a corner of the attic room. "I have always wondered why this
had a ventilator at the top----" he began.

"Jerry!" called his wife rather sharply. "Please don't do all the
exploring in one day. Nora must change her things and come down stairs.
She may want something to eat after her journey." Mrs. Ted's tone of
voice was plainly against that cabinet.

"All right, Ted, I'll subside," replied the jolly man. "The fact is----"
he whispered to Nora, "our Ted hates ghosts; and every time I talk about
this here upright coffin, she objects," and he gave one of his boyish
twisted yelps, as if he wanted to yell but didn't dare so gurgled
instead, and it was very plain he said this out of pure mischief;
nevertheless, it did cause the little girl to clench her small fists and
start suddenly.

"Come right down stairs," insisted the hostess imperatively. "I'm very
sure, Nora dear, you will find something more interesting in Vita's cake
box than you could dig out of that dusty hole."

"Vita! What a queer name!" exclaimed Nora, following Mrs. Manton out
from the interesting attic.

"Her whole name is more than that. It's Vittoria, but since she does our
cooking and is both vital and vitaminous, we cut it down to an easy word
implying both," explained Ted. "You see, Nora, we are keen on short
cuts."

The little girl was thinking something like that. In fact, she was so
fascinated with the realities of her visit she had almost lost the last
shred of faith in her picturesque dreams. "If I had ever named a cook,"
she was deciding, "I should surely have given her Susan or Betsy or
maybe Jennie. But Vita means more and makes you think of good victuals."

The open stairs were built winding from the big field stone hearth in
the first room, clear up to the attic chamber, and, as they descended,
Nora looked about the quaint, rustic place in rapturous admiration.
Indeed, no dream of her great life series had ever included this. Gone
with the Jim-Aunt Elizabeth idea was going the rag-rug four-poster plan,
that had seemed almost indelibly outlined on her whimsical picture
plate. She sighed a little, as she felt she should, on the "grave of her
dreams;" but there was Jerry calling from the open door:

"Here you are, Nora! Come and meet Cap."

"Cap! A boy!" she asked excitedly.

"Not the regular kind, but he's some boy just the same." Jerry was
clapping his hands like a boy himself, just as a big shaggy dog bounded
down the path and up the few steps to the square porch.

"Oh, what a beauty! I have always loved a big dog!" exclaimed Nora.
"What's his name?"

"Captain," replied the proud master. "Here Cap, come shake hands with
Nora."

The dog cocked one ear up inquisitively, looked over the small girl with
majestic indifference, walked around her twice and finally flung his
bushy tail out with a swish that fanned Nora's cheek as she bent over to
make friends.

"Isn't he lovely! Just like the picture in my first story book; the big
dog that dragged the lost man out of the snow drifts," said Nora, almost
breathless with delight.

"He is exactly that sort," explained Jerry. "He came from the other side
and was a Captain in the big war."

"Oh," sighed Nora wistfully. "He must know an awful lot."

"He surely does, eh, old boy?" and the big shaggy head was patted
affectionately.

Meanwhile Vita, the Italian woman who held the office of housekeeper,
was depositing a mess of freshly-picked dandelions in a pan on the
kitchen table. She smiled pleasantly at the little stranger, and at a
single glance Nora knew she and Vita were sure to be friends.

"Now, you know us all," announced the hostess. "Vita and Captain
complete the circle."

"Not counting the crow, and the rabbits and the cat and the----"

"The animal kingdom is not included," Ted interrupted her husband. "When
we get to checking up the animals please, after Captain count in
Cyclone."

"Cyclone! A horse?" asked Nora.

"Yes, the horse," answered Jerry. "He can climb trees, crawl through
gullies and swim the river like a bear, according to Ted."

"Well, hardly all of that," qualified the smiling owner of the saddle
horse Cyclone. "But he is a wonderful horse, Nora. I am sure you will
want to ride him."

"Oh, I'd be dreadfully afraid," demurred the girl. "But perhaps----"

"You aren't going to be afraid of anything around here, Bobbie," Jerry
assured the small girl, who looked smaller by contrast to the big man
and the robust, athletic young woman; both perfect models of "America's
best."

Considering the very short time little Nora had been at the Nest, it
appeared much, in the way of acquaintance, had been accomplished.

"If you will just run off, Jerry-boy, and manage to find something to
keep you busy for a half hour or so," begged his wife finally, "perhaps
Nora and I will be able to settle down to the comforts of home."

"Am I not included?" he asked teasingly.

"Sometimes, but just now we need space," replied she, who was
affectionately styled Teddy.

"That being the case----. Come along Cap," and the next moment a very
happy, boyish man and a wildly happy dog went scampering off through the
"flap-jack" path in the clearance. The path was made of selected flat
stones scattered at stepping intervals, and it was Jerry who insisted
they reminded him of Vita's best flap-jacks.

The coming of Nora to the lodge in the wilderness was the result of what
seemed a necessity. The child was the daughter of Theodora Crane's best
friend Naomie Blair, an artist so highly temperamental that, after a
series of nerve episodes, she finally seemed forced to go to Western
mountains and leave little Nora at a select school. The school was
select to the point of isolation, and the teachers had advised Theodora,
who was in charge of Nora, that the child was so nervous, high strung
and fanciful, that the doctors had ordered a complete change of
surroundings.

These characteristics were already showing in Nora's conduct; but with
that understanding of childhood always a part of pure affection for it,
Theodora was pleased, rather than worried, over the prospects ahead.

Nora herself seemed bewildered and fascinated. Her love of "dream
things" was plainly a part of her nature, at the same time she was
quickly learning that only happy realities can make happy dreams.

In the small satchel that Nora clung to was found no suitable change of
anything like practical clothing, in fact her dress was so fussy,
be-ribboned and be-frilled, that Teddy hesitated about offering any of
it to the briars and brambles of the timberland.

"I pick out all my own dresses, you know," the little girl explained.
"Nannie wasn't able to do any shopping so she had the catalogues sent to
me by mail."

"Nannie?"

"That's mother, of course. But she is so little and delicate I could
never think of calling her mother," declared Nora. "She likes Nannie
better."

"You have quite a talent for names or re-names," joked Teddy. "I am
wondering how I should have liked the 'Lizzie' you chose for me."

"Not Lizzie! Elizabeth," in a shocked voice.

"Same lady, I believe. But let's hold on to Ted until we get acquainted
or things may go on end," advised good-natured Mrs. Manners. "Besides,
there's our auto, that's 'Lizzie' to Jerry."

Nora did not ask why. She was in the yellow room, changing, and the blue
roses in the filmy little dress she selected were not bluer than her own
wondering eyes.

"I tell you what would be just the thing for you, dear," said Teddy
suddenly. "You must join the Girl Scouts!"

"Girl Scouts!"

"Yes, you know about them, don't you?"

"I've read about them, but I really never could, Aunt Teddy. I couldn't
be one of those wild, uncultured girls."

A delicious laugh escaped Teddy.

"Wild and uncultured!" she repeated. Then, seeing the pitifully blank
look on Nora's face she dropped the subject. "Here's your closet," she
explained next, opening the door of a built-in wardrobe, "and you better
slip these little pads on the ends of hangers when you put pretty things
on them. You see, we have very few fancy things out here, and these
hangers are cut from our birch trees. I had a visitor last year who was
so afraid of snakes she spent all her time around the lodge, so she made
these pine pads with fancy stocking ends. I have never needed to use
them."

The pads were little cushions of pine needles sewed in silk stocking
ends, with a long open seam along the side. These slipped onto the
hangers and were tied with tapes at the hook. Nora quickly adjusted one
for her dotted swiss dress and another for her pink rose silk. These,
strange to tell, she had carried in her hand bag.

"And here is your dresser," Teddy further introduced. "See what lovely
deep drawers."

"Aren't they? I'd love to put lavender and rosemary in the corners. Do
you--like those perfumes?"

"Well, yes, as perfumes. But I'm so used to the odor of freshly cut
trees I'm afraid my finer taste is disappearing," said the other
quietly.

Into the drawer Nora was placing such an outlay of finery as any young
bride might have boasted of. Selecting from catalogues was only too
evident in the lacy garments, with little ribbons, and tiny rose buds;
pretty in themselves but absurd on the undergarments of a growing child.
Then, there was an ivory set, mirror, comb, brush, etc. As the surprised
Teddy glimpsed the display over a khaki covered shoulder she had
difficulty in choking back a laugh.

"Naomie would be as silly as that," she pondered, silently, reflecting
that the same sort of whims in dress and finery had been a real part of
Naomie Blair's young girlhood.

Nora was placing her pretty things on the big dresser, with skilled
little fingers, and that the fancy, private, exclusive school had helped
to make silly traits even more pronounced in little Nora, was too
evident.

Wisely, however, Mrs. Ted said not a word in opposition. Things must
move slowly, she realized, if the quaint little dreamer was not to be
too rudely shocked out of her fancies.

It was all very exciting even to the placid, well balanced young woman.
To have the daughter of her girlhood friend come into her very arms,
like a little bird battered in the storm of life's uncertainties, with
tired wings falling against the bright window pane of love; then to see
the dreams unfolded with the Jims, Elizabeths, ghosts and attic fancies,
ready to reel off like an actual moving-picture--it was all very
surprising, not to say astonishing, for the sensible, modern Mantons.

But could this same bright-eyed lady have looked into the summer ahead,
and forseen the new fields of fancies that Nora was about to explore,
she might have been still more amazed. Playing mother to a butterfly is
not often a very satisfactory experience, but there was Nora, and if
ever a child needed a mother this little "whimsy" did.

"To think of calling her mother Nannie," reflected Mrs. Manton, "and if
only I could have called such a child 'daughter.'"

Jerry was back from his enforced trip to the lumberland, and his whistle
trickled in the window on a flood of sunshine.

"Oh, let's go down," exclaimed Nora, brushing things hastily into the
dresser drawer and neglecting to tie her sash in an even bow. "I'm so
anxious to see your outdoors, I could easily believe there are fairies
in these thick, tangly woods."

"Our birds and little animal friends are just as interesting as
fairies," remarked Mrs. Ted, "but you must know them and they must know
you."

"How ever could one get acquainted with birds?" asked Nora, stopping a
moment on her way out to answer Jerry's whistle.

"We don't know how, but we know we do," replied Mrs. Ted, giving the
flying window curtain a jerk to let the sun stream in. "Some day I must
tell you about the poor little blue-jay we took in and nursed. He got so
fond of us I could hardly get him to fly away."

"I had a canary once, Nannie sent it for Christmas, but I had to let him
go," said Nora. "He was just breaking his heart in that tiny, little
cage. I never wanted a bird again."

"They are pathetic when caged," agreed Mrs. Manton, "but when out in
their own woods they seem to be the very happiest little creatures of
all creation. Run along," she said, as Nora waited politely. "That
Jerry-boy is getting impatient."

As the child fluttered off, her yellow ringlets dancing and her dainty
little skirts swishing around the half tied ribbon sash, Mrs. Ted smiled
and pondered:

"Another little blue-jay to love; but she will surely want to fly away
in her sky of dreams, and I pity the tired wings when night comes,"
sighed the potential mother.




CHAPTER III

A BROKEN DREAM


It was evening at the Nest, and the quiet settling down on the woodlands
vibrated with a melody, at once silent and musical.

Little Nora fairly trembled with expectation. What would the night
bring? She was determined to sleep in that attic under the big, dark
rafters. As a matter of fact Nora was fascinated with fear; just as one
may stop on a river bridge and feel like jumping in.

"Just pound on the floor, Kitten, if you get scared. We'll run up and
get you, quickly enough," declared Jerry, secretly proud of Nora's
pluck.

"But really, dear," objected Mrs. Ted, "I would rather you would----"

"Now Ted, you know well enough you had a heap of fun the night you and
Jettie slept in the haunted house. Never mind the trouble you made in
the neighborhood, you had your fun," and he clapped his brown hands on
his knee and laughed, until Cap, the big dog, rolled over in his sleep
and grunted inquiringly.

This reminder caused Ted to smile indulgently, and when Nora twined her
warm little arms around the same Teddie's neck, it seemed to the adopted
mother she could not deny her anything--she might sleep on the roof if
the whim occurred to her just then.

While the family, which included Vita and the big tiger cat, besides Cap
and a cage of newly adopted birds, were either talking or listening to
talk, Vita, from the kitchen door, was acting rather queerly. She would
shuffle back and forth, start to speak and hesitate, cough, spill pans
and make other unusual noises, until Ted called out:

"What's the matter, Vita? You seem to be having a lot of trouble."

"Not trouble, just worry," replied the elderly servant in good English,
but strongly accented.

"Worry?" repeated Jerry. "Why Vita, you never worry. What's wrong? Come
in and tell us about it."

At this invitation Vita showed herself in the comfortable sitting room,
towel in hand and head wagging.

"It's like this," she began, "that attic----"

"Oh, that's it, is it? Now don't you go worrying about the attic,"
interrupted Jerry. "If our little girl wants to dream one dream out up
there, why shouldn't she? I like her spirit."

"But when--there's the pretty room----"

"Why Vita!" It was Ted who interrupted this time. "I'm surprised that
you should interfere!"

"Now, you know, dear, Vita means no harm," Jerry broke in, always eager
to smooth things out. "But there really doesn't seem any cause for all
this anxiety."

"I would say, please," ventured the housekeeper, "a little girl might
get scared up in that black garret," and she made her dark eyes glare,
plainly with the intent of frightening Nora out of her plans.

"Then it will be over, anyhow," spoke up the child, "and I might as well
get scared tonight as any other night," she concluded loftily.

"Right-o!" sang out Jerry. "I can tell sure thing, Kitten, that you and
I are going to have a heap of fun in these diggings. When you get
through with one scare we'll invent another, and in that way we'll be
able to keep things interesting."

Vita threw back her head, rolled her eyes again and made a queer sort of
gurgle. Then she swished her dish towel in the air with such a jerk it
snapped like a whip, and realizing further argument would be useless,
she turned back into her own quarters.

As she went out, man and wife exchanged questioning glances. They
plainly asked each other why their maid should be so concerned, but with
Nora present it was unwise to put the query into words, so it remained
unanswered.

Nothing but sheer pity prevented Mrs. Jerry Manton, better known as Ted,
from bursting into delicious laughter at the sight of Nora in her
boudoir finery, as, an hour later, she picked her way up into that
attic.

Jerry kept discreetly at a distance, but he too saw the figure, so like
the model of an old time master painting, as she climbed the stairs,
unlighted candle in hand, with Cap at the little pink heels that just
peeked out from under a very beautiful, dainty night-robe.

Her candle was not lighted--Cousin Ted, (the latest name given the
hostess) would not permit the lighting, as she argued it was dangerous
to carry the little flame so near to the flimsy robe: never-the-less,
Nora wanted the candle, and she carried it along to complete the
picture.

At the door Ted touched a button and the convenient big electric bulb,
ordinarily used by Jerry when he went to the attic workroom, showered a
welcome light over the dark rafters and the queer eerie, lofty quarters.

"Isn't it wonderful!" said Nora, in a voice so shaky the wonder part
seemed rather awful.

"If you get the least bit nervous, dear, you come right down to the
yellow room," cautioned Ted. "We will leave the hall lights on, and Cap
wanders about all night. So if you hear him don't be alarmed."

"It would be nice----" Nora paused, then continued, "if Cap would sleep
up here on this lovely landing. Couldn't we give him a pillow?"

"I'm sure he wouldn't stay long," objected Ted. "Our Cap is a wonderful
night watchman and has a regular beat to cover. He will be sure to visit
you more than once before morning." She was turning away reluctantly.
The circumstances exacted full strength of her own courage--to leave
that little wisp of a child up in the lonely attic just to satisfy a
whim.

But Ted knew the only sure way to effect a cure for the fanciful
nonsense was to let it burn out: it could never be successfully
suppressed. Hence the decision and the attic quarters.

"Good night, cousin Ted," said Nora bravely. "And don't worry about me.
I'm sure to sleep and dream beautifully in that nice, fresh bed."

"It is fresh; I changed it all as Vita seemed so opposed to letting you
come up here," said Ted, thoughtfully. "But while Vita is very queer in
some respects, she is loyal and faithful, always."

Nora threw her small arms around Ted's neck impulsively.

"If only Nannie liked housekeeping," she sighed. "Couldn't we have
perfectly lovely times in a little house of our own?"

"Your mother is sure to change her ideas when she grows stronger,"
replied the young woman, charitably. "Naomie has what is termed the
artistic temperament. As a rule it is greatly and sadly in need of
discipline."

Nora sighed and pressed a loving pair of trembling lips on Mrs. Manton's
brown cheek.

"I'm so glad I found you, anyhow. And Cousin Jerry is just the very
loveliest big jolly man! I'm sure I'm going to be very happy here," she
finished with an impressive sigh.

"I know you are, dear. We have more kinds of things to do in this big
woodland! Just wait until you go out surveying with us!" Ted promised,
"then you will see some of the wonders of the great outdoors. There's
Jerry's whistle now. I must run away and get him his bread and milk.
Would you believe that great, big baby has a bowl of milk and two cuts
of home made bread every night? He says his mother always told her
children a story when they took this extra meal, and he insists he would
break up the family circle if he failed to take his nightly supply."

"Break up the family? Do they come here?"

"Oh, bless you, no. Jerry just fancies the other two brothers in Canada
and the sister who is a nurse in the mountains, all eat bread and milk
at nine-thirty P. M." She laughed a little, caressing ripple. Even Nora
knew that this young wife cherished any filial view held up by her
husband.

Ted was gone, and presently it was time to turn out the big bulb light
that dangled from the rafters. Nora peered into the looking glass at her
own little face to make doubly sure of herself. Then she made a complete
survey of the room.

"Just to know that any noise isn't here," she apologized to herself,
poking her yellow head into a nest of cobwebs and jerking back with a
little gasp.

"Oh!" she panted, "Cousin Jerry wants cobwebs for his surveying
instruments. I must be sure to remember where that nest is."

Over by the chimney a line of paper bags hung and these now seemed
"spooky" in the shadowy light. Other hanging things in the low parts of
the attic that were set away from the center, the latter which was
forming the unfinished bed room, all added to the grotesque outline.

"But I've got to do it," declared little Nora, crawling at last under
the fresh bed covering Cousin Ted had provided.

"I'll leave the light on for a little while just to try it," decided
Nora, her yellow head buried so deeply beneath the covers that it was
quite impossible to tell light from darkness.

A little click from somewhere brought her up straight in the bed, a
moment later. She listened with all her alert senses but nothing else
happened. With a new feeling, somewhat akin to disappointment, Nora once
more settled down, first, however, she actually turned off the light,
and only the slim streak from the far away hall showed a single beam
that framed the chimney line.

Being brave--as brave as all this--was really a new experience to Nora,
but she had promised herself to "hold out"; and then Cousin Jerry had
seemed so proud of her pluck she would never disappoint him.

"Makes me feel almost as big as a boy," she encouraged herself, "and
won't I have a wonderful story to write Barbara."

Now she thought of Barbara, the tom-boy girl at school: she who could
climb and romp, laugh and cry, defy the prim madams who conducted the
school, it was certainly conducted not "run," and the Misses Baily were
types of teachers such as the most carping critic might depict, black
string eye-glasses and all.

The vision flitted before the blinking eyes of Nora. She was so glad to
get away from school restrictions and perhaps--well perhaps Cousin Jerry
and Cousin Ted might get to love her so fondly they would not send her
back.

What was that!

Over by the big chest!

Quickly Nora struck a match and lighted her candle.

A figure moved, there was no mistake about it, a person, a real live
person was surely over by the spook cabinet.

Nora almost stopped breathing.

She was afraid to call out and still more afraid to remain quiet.

There it was again!

"Oh! Oh! Cousin Ted!"

She did call, but in such a thread of a voice she scarcely heard it
herself.

The next moment Cap sniffed his big, warm nose up under her arm.

"Oh, Cap, I'm so glad! Stay with me. I'm frightened!" she whispered,
drawing his tawny head closer.

Then it occurred to her that the big dog had not barked. She knew he
could scent a stranger in any part of the house, and she was equally
sure a real person had moved over by the cabinet. Who could it be?

Her first sudden fright was now giving place to reason. The intruder
must be human, and perhaps whoever it was, he was giving Cap something
he liked. But that would not account for his submission, for Cap was not
a dog to take things from strangers.

Horrible thoughts of chloroform stifled the girl. She even fancied she
did detect a strange, depressing odor. What if she should be drugged!

An attempt to move found her too frightened to put one foot over the
side of that bed. Why had she waited so long? A sickening fear was
coming on. Oh, suppose it should be unconsciousness?

There was a stir. Cap was knocking things about. Now he dashed over and
was surely bounding up on someone.

"Down!" came the command.

It was given in the voice of Vita!




CHAPTER IV

TRANSPLANTED


Nora was too surprised now to even think coherently. That Vita should be
up in her attic!

"Down, down Cap!" the housekeeper was ordering, while the dog, evidently
realizing something very unusual was occurring, added his part to the
confusion.

"Vita!" called Nora in a subdued voice, "Come over this way!"

"Hush! Don't wake the folks," cautioned the maid, now beside Nora's bed.
"I--just--come to--shut the window----"

"Oh, is there a window over there?"

"A little one," evaded Vita. "But why do you come up to this dirty
place?"

"It isn't dirty, and I like attics." Nora's was confident now and her
voice betrayed some resentment.

"You like it?" Vita sniffed so hard the candle almost choked to death.

"Why yes; why shouldn't I? I'm romantic you know."

"Roman----"

"Oh, you don't understand. I'm sort of booky, like a story, you know,"
explained Nora loftily. "I love things that are like the parts of a
story."

It was difficult to make certain that this lusty Italian understood; but
even in the dim light, her dark eyes seemed kind and full of smiling
glints, and her ruddy cheeks dimpled all over like a big tufted pin
cushion, giving Nora a feeling of security mingled with curiosity.

Why did Vita come up? There was no draft from any window. Was there even
a window?

"I tell you, baby," the woman began, as if answering Nora's silent
questions, "you be a very good little girl and go down to the pretty
sun-gold room; yes?"

The big warm arm was cuddling the little form in the bed, and Cap was so
happy he put both paws gingerly on the coverlet, snapping a very short
bark of a question right into Nora's face.

"Quiet, boy!" whispered Nora. "We are having a lovely party but we must
not wake our neighbors."

The big shaggy head burrowed down into the covers, and Nora felt like a
little queen on a throne with her servants bowing at her feet.

"Go on, Vita," she ordered grandly.

"I tell you a nice little story, then you go downstairs on tippy toes,
yes?"

"But Vita dear, I did so want to stay up here," pouted Nora.

"It is no good up here. All crazy like, and make you scared--awful."
This was said in a very positive tone.

"Why? What should I be afraid of? I slept alone at boarding school and
the winds made dreadful noises sometimes." protested Nora.

"Never mind. You be Vita's good baby and Vita give you nice--very good
cake tomorrow," coaxed the woman, who now seemed anxious to leave the
attic herself. She stirred uneasily.

"Well," sighed Nora, "I suppose I can't have any peace if I don't." She
threw down the coverlet. "But see, my little clock says eleven, and I
don't want to disturb anyone on my very first night. You go down
whatever way you came up, Vita; and I'll creep down the front way."

The woman's relief was so evident Nora scarcely knew whether to be
grateful or suspicious.

"Now everything be all right," whispered Vita happily, "and you sleep
just like the angel. Here Cap, you go very still," and she patted the
dog with a little shove that urged him toward the door. He understood,
evidently, for very quietly indeed he shuffled down, his four feet
softer than velvet slippers, as he carried his huge body down the
darkened stairway.

Nora first poked her head out to make sure the coast was clear, then
with a motion to Vita, who stood with candle in hand at the attic door,
she swept down the stairs and entered the yellow room, into which a soft
light from the hall fell in a welcoming path.

The bed covers were turned down--Vita must have been determined that
Nora should use that bed, and the window was properly opened, for the
soft breeze stirred the scrim curtains, and a wonderful woodland scent
stole into the room.

"It is much better down here," Nora was forced to admit as she snuggled
into the gold and blue coverlet. "I guess I was a nuisance to be so
obstinate."

A few minutes later a step in the hall glided to the electric light
button, and the click that followed turned off the light.

That must have been Ted, of course, and she must have known that Nora
was now safely tucked in the comfortable bed in the guest room.

"She was waiting for me too," mused Nora with a twinge of compunction.
"I do wonder why they made such a fuss about me staying in the attic?"
It was delicious to have every one anxious about her,--so short a time
ago no one but the Circle Angel at the Baily School seemed to care
whether she slept in her bed or out on the old, tattered hammock, that
Barbara wanted to make a tree climber out of; and now in this lovely
little bungalow, called The Nest, there were so many beds for her she
couldn't choose.

All the same, with the insistence of her fancies, visions of goblins and
goo-gees up in the attic pranced through her excited brain and made the
queerest pictures. She shivered as she remembered them.

"But Vita is nothing like a spirit worker," mused the child. "And she is
so kind and seems so fond of me." Then she had an inspiration.

"I have it," she all but exclaimed aloud. "Vita knows what is wrong and
is afraid I will find out. She is not frightened at it or she would not
go prowling around in the dark," continued the reasoning, "but she has a
secret and it is in that attic."

As if this conclusion settled all disturbing doubts, Nora humped over
once or twice and then gave in to the sleep her tired little self was so
sorely in need of.

It was the end of a long and too well filled day. She had left the
select school with all the instructions of the Misses Baily fairly
hissing in her ears. Then there was Barbara's fun making, in the way of
a train letter with all sorts of wild premonitions (they were funny but
somehow the train incidents took on the threats of danger Barbara had
outlined). But after all, no one had kidnapped her and here she
was--yes, asleep in the big fluffy bed in the lovely yellow room.

A whistle--Jerry's--brought her back. The daylight was streaming in
through that wonderful dew laden vine. And oh, the scent!

It was not flowers but woodlands. A bird chirped a polite good morning,
and without the usual eye rubbing Nora was sitting up straight and
silently thanking the Maker of good things for such a wonderful day.

For the first time in her life she felt that her clothes were not
appropriate, and it was some moments before she could decide just which
little gown to appear in. They really seemed out of place in that rugged
country--her laces and ribbons and fine fussings.

"I suppose the Girl Scouts do wear practical things," she reflected,
"but that horrid khaki!" The thought sent a little shudder through the
small, frail shoulders, and Nora, donning her Belgian blue, with brown
sandals and two colored socks, was ready, presently, to meet her newly
adopted relations. Cap was at her door when she opened it, and this,
more than anything else, sent a thrill of joy to her heart. Even a
wonderful big dog to welcome her when any dog would surely want to be
out doors with Jerry on such a morning!

"Come along, Bob," called a man's voice from the lower hall. "We can
hardly spare time to eat--there is so much to see this morning."

Nora was beside him as he continued:

"The kittens are tumbling out of their box, the puppies are fighting
over a feather, the chicks are testing their strength on a nice, lively,
fat little worm, and oh yes! the calf jumped over the moon--the moon
being Ted's home made gate," he finished, with that boyish laugh that
always made the house ring merrily.

Vita was just coming into the dining room with the muffins as Nora
passed her. There was no mistaking the sly wink--the big dark eyes
fairly sparkled glints as the maid signalled Nora not to say anything
about the attic episode. Nora smiled and nodded, and then the muffins
were placed before Mrs. Ted.

"Sleep well, dear?" asked that lady presently.

"Wonderfully," replied Nora, just a bit cautiously.

"I heard you come down stairs and was rather glad you changed your
mind," continued the hostess, while she poured Jerry's coffee. "It is
much pleasanter on the second floor."

For a moment Nora wondered whether this was being said to disguise the
real happening. Did Mrs. Manton know that Vita had gone up to rouse her?

"Maybe rain today," interrupted the maid, although the sun shone
brightly at the moment.

"Now Vittoria!" objected Jerry. "You ought to know better than to say
rain when I have to go away out to the back woods, and I want to have
some real work done today." He glanced over his shoulder at the
streaming sunlight. "You're a fraud, or else you are not awake yet," he
went on. "There is no more sign of rain than of snow."

"I agree with you for once, Jerry," chimed in Ted. "The grass was
knitted with cobwebs, the sun came up grey, and besides all that the
jelly jelled. Now Vita, you see you are completely left. It is not going
to rain."

Vita laughed good naturedly. "Then I say it is goin' to shine," she
added, and Nora now felt certain her talk had been made to interrupt the
comment on the night before.

Breakfast passed off in a gale of pleasantries. The home of the Mantons
seemed jollier every moment, to Nora.

"How about the woods?" asked Jerry, while they lingered over the coffee.

"I'm ready," replied Ted, "and I'm sure Nora will want to come."

"Oh yes," with a glance at her inadequate costume. "Will this dress be
all right?"

"If it's the strongest you have with you," replied Ted. "But we have
some very saucy briars and brush. We must see about a real woodsy outfit
for you." She paused a moment, then continued, "I am sure you will like
the Girl Scouts when you get to know more about them. I know a group of
the girls and to my thinking they are the real thing in girls."

Nora flushed slightly. One point she had made up her mind on. She was
not going to lose her identity by joining in with a group of girls who,
she imagined, just did as they were told, and apparently had no ideas of
their own. Nora had seen some of the Girl Scout literature and it had
not impressed her favorably. It was plain and practical, while she
longed for novelty.

"Well, Bob is going to be my scout, at any rate," chimed in Jerry, quick
to sense possible embarrassment. The shade of Nora's cheeks gave him his
cue. "We won't talk about the regular Scouts until--well, until later,"
he finished, in the foolish way he had of making a boy of himself. It
was rather foolish, but so jolly. He would wind up everything in just
the way Nora never expected, as if his words said themselves.

The visitor was conscious now of something unpleasant stealing in upon
her. Would Mrs. Manton oblige her to be different? Couldn't she dream
and play and fancy all the wonderful things she had been storing up for
so long? Wasn't this her dream vacation?

Nannie, that play mother of hers, _she_ knew would not want her to
change her peculiar characteristics.

This sort of reasoning flashed before her mind as the party prepared for
a day in the woods.

So the little girl in Belgian blue went along with the big man in his
knickers and brown blouse, and with the young woman in her service
uniform.

Nora made an odd little figure, but she was, as she had always been, a
picture of a girl.




CHAPTER V

THE WOODS AT ROCKY LEDGE


Out in the woods!

Forgotten was the dread idea of a Scout uniform or the possible program
of a Scout ritual. Nora romped with Cap, discovering new delights at
every few paces and only pausing to exchange salutations with birds,
bees and butterflies. The sky was as blue as her gown, and her eyes
matched the entire scheme. Her golden hair tossed in the wind like new
corn silk, and when Jerry and Ted slyly inspected their charge at a safe
distance, a most comprehensive nod of a pair of wise heads told volumes
to the woodlands and the surrounding Nature audience.

Yes, Nora would do. Now life at the Nest seemed complete. Even this
dreamy, romantic little bit of humanity was a real child, and to the
pair of adopted parents she seemed as beautiful as a wild flower.

"Now Ted, you just hold back on that Scout stuff," Jerry had the
temerity to suggest. "We don't want to scare her off, first shot. And
you can see she's opposed."

"She doesn't understand," replied Ted. "But, of course, there is no need
to urge her. No hurry, at any rate."

"I don't know as I like the tom-boy idea," continued Jerry. "She's very
pretty just as she is."

Ted laughed knowingly. "You're the boy who pulls down the shades rather
than say 'no' to the peddlers," she reminded him. "It is easy to
understand why you are opposing the Scouts."

He adjusted his tripod and seemed to have found something very absorbing
at that moment. Nevertheless, his big shoulders shook, and his curly
head wagged a little suspiciously.

They were surveying the end of a big strip of woodland. All over the
young forest could be seen the yellow stripes that marked the trees that
were to be spared, while those unmarked were doomed for the woodman's
ax. Birds liked the yellow-banded trees best, to judge from the perches
they made upon such, but of course, they could not have known that the
other, not so fortunate, needed their musical sympathy to make less
gloomy the approaching execution.

"See! Just see!" Nora called, running back from the wild grape-vine
cave. "Do come over and see this--little play house. It's perfect as can
be, with vine draperies, and moss carpet, and real wild-rose decoration.
Cap led me to it, I guess it's his secret place." She was panting with
sheer joy. The woods were new to the girl from the boarding school,
where walks were confined to the limits of neuritis and neuralgia as
"enjoyed" by the Baily Sisters.

"Cap'll show you," replied Jerry. "He has nothing to do but hunt while
Ted and I work for our living."

"Oh, could I help?" Nora felt like an intruder upon their industry.

"Not just today, but pretty soon. Perhaps the day after." This was
another of Jerry's characteristic replies. Nora understood them better
now.

"But it is real fun--fun to look through that spy glass. Do you have
cobwebs in there?"

Asking this brought back to her mind the cobweb nest in the attic.
Jerry's reply, however, forestalled further reflection in that direction
at the moment.

"Some day, pretty soon, perhaps the day after tomorrow," he laughed
again, "I'll show you all about this and the cobwebs. Ted has some town
stuff to attend to; and listen, Bobbs" (he stepped over and whispered in
Nora's ear), "Ted is a perfect terror if she is held too late in the
woods. She would starve us to death, like as not, if I didn't get back
before the clock cooled striking. So you and Cap just run along and find
out what the fairies want from the village, while we mark a few more
spots."

Was there ever such a jolly man? Once again he had quickly avoided
embarrassment to Nora. He would not even let her think she should be
useful.

"Yes," called Mrs. Manton from her position astride a small white birch,
"you and Cap have a good time, Nora. He will teach you to explore."

Willingly Nora ran back to the bower she had discovered. Surely it had
been fashioned by elves and fairies, for it was perfect in every detail.
Unconscious of time, she flitted about making a little window in the
wild grape vine, and fashioning a door between the hazel-nut boughs.

A murmuring song escaped her lips, while Cap now and then yelped
sharply, impatient to be understood and receive attention.

"Why, Cap!" asked Nora in reply to one of these outbursts, "I don't
quite understand your language. What is it?"

The big dog was vainly trying to make Nora see a nest of late sparrows.
The tiny feathered babies could just stretch their little heads above
the rim of the straw cup of a nest they cuddled in, and when Cap found
them he knew he should notify somebody. The bush was so low, although it
was safely sheltered by the thick vines, and a wild trumpet vine loaned
two beautiful flowers to cheer the little birds during their mother's
absence. Still, Cap felt certain it was dangerous for such tiny
creatures to be there in the very path of any wild, rough animal
happening by.

Nora had never seen such baby birds before. First, she wanted to fondle
them, but Cap gave warning and she desisted. Then, she wanted to feed
them, as if birds could eat the black berries she offered them. But
presently the mother bird flew into the bower with such a wild, shrill
call, Nora knew her own presence was not desired so near the baby birds,
so she followed Cap out into the clearance. As she did she saw
approaching a group of girls, and they wore the Girl Scout uniform.

At the sight something within Nora seemed to tighten up. The girls were
coming straight to the bower and their laughing voices had the strange
effect of all but chilling Nora.

Without waiting to exchange so much as a smile she called Cap and ran
off to the surveyor's camp.

"Well," she heard one girl exclaim, as she sped away, "one would think
we were--Indians."

Nora's ears stung as her cheeks flamed.

"There! Wasn't that just what one might expect? As if a girl couldn't do
just as she pleased in the woodlands! And they were her own Cousin
Jerry's lands too," Nora scoffed.

"What's the matter, Nora?" asked Mrs. Manton, as she panting, sank down
on a freshly-cut stump. "You don't mean to tell me you are actually
afraid of those little girls, just because they wear uniforms?"

"Oh, no, Cousin Ted, I am not afraid of them," her voice would shake
somehow, "but I didn't know them."

"I see. Well, we must all get acquainted in these pretty parts. The
birds and the furry things never wait for an introduction," replied Ted,
kindly.

"Come along with me, Bobbs," called Jerry, who was packing up his
instruments. "I need help with this chain; it is bound to snarl."

"Jerry!" called out Mrs. Ted rather sharply. "You really must not
interfere every time I attempt to tell Nora something useful. I want her
to know the Girl Scouts, and the sooner she makes up her mind to do so
the happier she will be. The Scouts are all over this place you know,
Jerry," and the laughter of the girls up at the bower attested to the
truth of that statement. "Anyone who is not interested in Scouting will
have a poor chance of a real vacation in the woodlands," concluded Mrs.
Manton.

"But we are going to scout," insisted the man with the tripod on his
shoulder. "The only thing is, we are going to do it in our own way.
Isn't that so, Bobbs?"

Young and simple minded as was Nora, she was fully conscious of a
difference of opinions regarding her management. Jerry was surely siding
with her, even in her whims, whereas Ted, mother-like, felt the
necessity of giving advice.

That was it. She had never before known anything the least bit
mother-like. Would she find the relationship too irksome?

There was the hint of a tear in her blinking eye when she pulled the
kinky tape out for Jerry and felt it snap back into its leather case.
After all, things were not exactly as she had pictured them at the Nest.
First, she was dragged down from her attic--she felt now she had been
dragged down in the very middle of the night by that great, big Vita,
and now, there were those horrid Girl Scouts being held up as examples
for her to follow and imitate. Well, she would never be a Scout. Each
time the question presented itself she felt more decidedly against it.
She would always have big Cousin Jerry to stand by her, and if Cousin
Ted----

"Want to come to town with me, dear?" called the owner of the name she
was opposing.

"Sure she does. She is going to ride Cyclone. Aren't you, Bobbs?" This
was from Jerry.

"I couldn't ride a big horse," faltered the confused girl.

"We will go in our handsome ca--our little tame flivver," interrupted
Ted. "When you want to ride a horse you will have plenty of time to
practice." Mrs. Manton had assembled her tools. Nora marvelled at the
strong hands that could so skillfully wield the sharp hatchet and the
dangerous-looking trimming knife. Into the loop at her belt Ted
carelessly slipped the glittering tools, and as she did so Nora recalled
the sight of the dainty hands she had been accustomed to admiring. What
would the ladies who visited the school say to a person like Cousin Ted?

They were ready to leave for the cottage. Over the hill the Girl Scouts
were calling their mysterious "Wha-hoo," and to Nora it sounded like a
call to battle. What had at first been merely an indifference was now
assuming the proportions of actual dislike. How was Nora to know she was
a very much spoiled little girl? And how was she to guess what the cost
of her change of heart would mean to her?

She was a total stranger to the word "snob." Her training had been one
straight line of avoiding this, that, and the other thing; but as for
doing this, that and everything, no place was given in the curriculum.

Mrs. Manton, herself a product of the most modern college, knew the
weakness of little Nora's character at a glance, but to introduce
strength and purpose! To bend the vine without crushing the tendrils!

This very first day was marked with a danger signal. If Nora slighted
the Scouts, they who came almost daily to Ted for information and
companionship, there was sure to be trouble. It was this surety that
prompted Ted to say with decision:

"The sooner Nora gets acquainted the happier she will be."

Meanwhile the girls of Chickadee Patrol had all but forgotten about the
stranger. They were after specimens and had discovered more than one new
bird's nest. Cameras were clicking, notes being taken, and so many
interesting matters were being attended to, it was not strange that the
sight of one little girl in a pretty blue frock, with a disdainful
expression on her otherwise attractive face, might have been forgotten
for the time.

If there were really fairies in those woods they should have intervened
just then, for it would have been so much easier for Nora to have met
the Scouts as companions, whereas she, holding away from the very idea
of organization, kept building up a dislike which threatened to cause
her much unhappiness.

The woodlands were broad enough for both to roam, but it was inevitable
that both should meet some day, and, under what circumstances?




CHAPTER VI

A PRINCE IN HIDING


When Nora wrote to Barbara she drew word pictures of the beauties at
Woodland Wilds. She shed a tear of real joy when writing about Cousin
Jerry and Captain, and when she fondly recited the virtues of Cousin Ted
she felt she put more in that one word "Motherly" than could otherwise
have been conveyed.

It was in the writing of that letter that she took account of her actual
self, for in wording it she had naturally summed up.

"I am not just sure whether I entirely suit or not," she told Barbara.
"Sometimes I feel so different. Of course they all love me, even Vita
the cook, and I love them fondly, but don't you know, Babs, you always
told me I saw 'foohey' and you would not explain what it was to be that
way? But I guess I am, whatever it is, for a lot of alterations have
already been ordered," she wrote.

"My new outdoor clothes have arrived," the letter ran, "they are of
brown cloth" (she avoided the use of the word khaki) "and they will
stand a lot of hard wear. Cousin Jerry says we get them that color and
so we won't scare the birds and other woodland creatures. They are
supposed to think we are part of the landscape."

Nora then told of the attic, and its chest of treasures, and added she
expected to try on a couple of outfits the very first day she was free
from accompanying the surveying party.

All of which showed the visitor was "taking root," as Jerry would have
said.

A long tramp out in a marshy territory was to be undertaken by the two
veterans, Ted and Jerry, but because of the bad footing Nora was not
asked to go along. This provided the very opportunity Nora had been
waiting for, and hardly had the reliable old flivver "fluvved" away,
then she hurried up to the attic in search of a costume.

"Come on, Cap," she whispered, eluding Vita, but unwilling to go up in
the attic alone. She had not forgotten the suspicions of her first
night.

Too glad to obey, Cap led the way, and presently Nora forgot even the
"spook cabinet" in her interest over the open costume chest.

Things were mussed and musty, rumpled and wrinkled and crinkled; but
what colors and what a lot of bright tinsel!

"Oh joy," she exclaimed, dragging from the tangles a real Fauntleroy
costume. "I have always wanted to see how I would look dressed in this
sort of outfit," she thought, for the black velvet "knickers," the
little velvet jacket, and the lace blouse were all there, and yes, there
was a wonderful, bright silk scarf to go around the waist.

The cap was prettiest of all, and it was resting on Nora's yellow curls
before Cap could possibly make out what the whole proceedings meant. He
stood over in his corner and blinked, but Nora insisted on having his
opinion.

"Isn't it wonderful, Cap? And don't you like Nora in it?" she demanded.
He gave one of his peculiar exclamations rather louder than she had
expected, and to prevent the sounds from reaching Vita's ears, Nora put
both arms around Cap's neck and hugged him into silence.

She was very much excited. Ever since her arrival at the Nest she had
been planning a private masquerade, and now the time had come for her to
indulge in it.

Fanciful dream child that she was, the character of little Lord
Fauntleroy had always strongly appealed to her, and as for most girls
the boy's costume had a peculiar charm for her heroic ventures into the
world of make-believe.

"We'll take them down stairs," she told Cap. "We can dress much more
comfortably in my room."

Poking her head out to make sure Vita was not around, she tucked the
velvets and laces into her arms and hurried to the next floor. Seldom
had she locked the hall door, but she did so now, dismissing Cap
peremptorily, for there was no need of his protection on the second
floor.

"I suppose it's too big," she reasoned, when the little knickers were
pulled up as high as the button and button hole line. Yes, it was big,
this costume had been worn by a gay lady at a big country club dance,
and little Nora was scarcely a sample of the personality for which the
jaunty outfit had been created.

But mere size did not worry her. It was effect that she craved. The lacy
blouse fell into place quite naturally, and it did look boyish, while
the overblouse of black velvet completed the Fauntleroy picture.

"If the buckles would only stay buckled," she sighed, trying for the
third time to fasten the knee straps and keep them that way. It was not
pretty at all to have them slink down below her knees, like an untidy
schoolboy; and a pin had no possible effect on the heavy, velvety
finish.

"I know," breathed Nora, "I'll roll them." And she did that skillfully;
for in the season just past many and many a sock had she rolled and they
had stayed, although Barbara never could acquire the same knack.

It was all finally finished, and she inspected herself in the mirror,
slanted to the very last angle to show the full length. A pat of the
cap, a brash of the tie and a swish of the flying scarf gave the
finishing touches.

Really Nora made "a perfectly stunning" little Lord Fauntleroy. Had she
been more accustomed to the sayings of the day she might well have
exclaimed, "All dressed up and no place to go," but her culture admitted
of no such expressive parlance. Instead, she asked herself in the
looking glass: "Wonder if I dare go outside? It is so comfortable to
wear this style"; and she skipped around as every other girl on earth
has ever done the very moment she felt relieved of the trammel of
skirts.

The morning was unusually quiet. Vita must be away picking greens, the
surveyors were miles out, and there was no one but Cap to criticise. Why
shouldn't she stroll out grandly in her princely costume?

She did. The birds twittered and the rabbits scurried and the pet
squirrel stood up and begged. But Nora was not feeding the animals this
morning, instead, she flounced her lace sleeve in a most courtly gesture
and passed on to the cedar tree grove. Cedars seemed more appropriate
for velvets than did the other wild trees; besides, no underbrush grew
in the cedar grove, and it was much safer for costly finery.

On the rustic seat Nora felt exactly as she had felt the day Miss Baily
took her to sit for her picture, except that she crossed her legs
comfortably now, whereas, then, she was not even allowed to cross her
hands.

Presently the actress removed her (his) cap and poised it on the arm of
the chair. Did Lord Fauntleroy go out in his grounds alone? Perhaps she
should have called Cap to go along.

Then came thoughts of Nannie. Why must she, little Nora, always be so
far away from that pretty mother? And why did the picture life--the
make-believe--charm her like some secret failing? Did other girls really
like the horrid brown uniforms never pictured in books, that is, never,
until very lately? So raced her unruly thoughts.

Everything was so still, but Nora was not lonely--her own reflections
kept her such noisy company that isolation had no terror for her. Just
outside the cedar grove a strip of road waited for traffic. Few persons
passed, but even woodlands must have roads, just as skies must have
clouds.

Feeling more at home in her costume every moment, Nora stepped proudly
outside the grove into the clearance. A fat little hoptoad crossed the
path, but otherwise the prince was lord of all he surveyed. The whole
world was busy, evidently, and even a visiting prince attracted no
attention in the wild woodlands.

Nora wanted to whistle. She felt a prince, with hands in pockets
inspecting his domain, would surely whistle, but she had never made much
of a success at the wind song--it was Barbara who did all the whistling
for both. Still, she tried now, and the sound wasn't any worse than the
cracked call of the blue-jay, except that it did not carry so far.

What would Barbara say to this game of characters? A companion would add
to the possibilities of good times, Nora secretly admitted, but what
companion could she find in these wilds?

Just as a sense of loneliness came creeping over her she heard the
leaves somewhere crackle. The next moment a girl appeared a few paces up
the road, and called to her quickly: "Oh, I say boy! Have you seen the
Girl Scouts----"

The voice stopped as suddenly as it had started. The girl in uniform
looked so surprised, Nora was conscious of scrutiny, even at the
distance between them. She turned her head instinctively and so evaded a
direct look; but presently the girl called again:

"I am looking for the girls who are going over to the Ledge. Did you
happen to see them pass this way?"

"No," faltered Nora, in a voice not her own. "I just came along. I'm
looking for a car----"

"Oh, I saw one. It drove down the turn----"

"Thanks," jerked out Nora, taking the cue to escape, and waving her hand
in lieu of further conversation. She dodged behind the heavy elderberry
bush and almost gasped in fright. What would a Girl Scout think of her
in such a costume? Of course, she had no possible opportunity of seeing
her face, and she surely could never recognize her again. Making
positive she could get back to the Nest without again stepping out into
the roadway, Nora sped back as quickly as her feet could carry her. It
was always these Scouts; a sense of humiliation was now added to that of
dislike. Would they all talk about her? Perhaps make fun of her or think
her odd and foolish?

Too inexperienced to realize that the entire blame was her own, Nora
crept up to the flap-jack path that led directly to the cottage door.

Here she was stopped again, for Vita sat out by the big stump, either
counting or selecting something from her apron. So engrossed was she in
her task she did not hear Nora's footfall, and this gave the "prince"
another chance to escape detection. She darted back into the arbor and
waited. The only other way to enter the house was at front and she might
meet almost anyone in that way.

Her game was losing its charm. She would have given much to be free of
the finery and garbed again in her own simple clothes. It was rather
mortifying to be considered queer, and that one saving grace, a sense of
humor, was entirely lacking in the girl's make-up. Otherwise she might
have jumped down from a tree and frightened Vita out of her wits, thus
making a lark out of a difficulty.

She waited impatiently. What could Vita be doing that so held her
attention? Then the attic memories flashed back to Nora's mind and she
wondered.

"Cousin Ted leaves too much to that maid," she was deciding. "I might be
able to help by keeping a lookout."

But for what? Vita was surely trustworthy and even extremely kind to
Nora, the intruder.

A burr pricked the knee that refused to hold fast to the buckled finery.
It must have been rather a nuisance to dress like that. Nora rolled the
band tighter and lost her fancy hat in the effort.

Voices!

Girls' laughter. The Scouts, of course, and coming back toward the
cottage!

Without waiting to consider Vita's opinion, Nora sprang from her hiding
place and darted up the path into the cottage.

Voices within as well as without!

Cousin Ted was back from the woods and had company. How could Nora reach
her room without being seen?

She crouched behind the kitchen cabinet, hoping the voices would leave
the hall and enter the living room, but, evidently, there was a reason
for delay, and the big seat was right at the foot of the stairway!

Now Vita's flat slippers patted the stones and she was coming into the
kitchen.

Disgusted with the entire affair, Nora turned into the back stairway.
She had never mounted those stairs, they were used only by the maid, but
just now there seemed no other avenue of escape. She heard the shuffling
feet of Vita as she climbed the bare treads.

They were narrow and dark, only a small window cut in an opening
somewhere allowed enough light to penetrate to make sure the steps were
those of stairs. A narrow landing marked the line where the second floor
must be. Then there was another turn, a sort of sharp twist in the queer
ladder-like climb.

Nora was too far up now to hear Vita's step in the kitchen.

"But this must lead to the attic," she reasoned. "I may as well go on up
as to go--down."

Cobwebs a-plenty here. She jerked back from their tangles, fearing
spiders and other crawling things.

"Oh," she exclaimed. "I do wish I had not come this way. It's
so--spooky!"

At every step the darkness increased and the light dwindled. Reaching a
good-sized platform, Nora stood, thankful to draw an easy breath. She
could just about see that she had only one short flight of steps to go
to reach a door.

"I would never have believed this house was so high," she pondered. "I
feel as if I came up from a cellar to a tower."

Then, resolutely, the pilgrim started on again. Only a few steps and she
found herself face to face with two doors. They were unpainted and each
stood at angles from the landing.

"Which?" she asked instinctively; for, while she wanted to reach the
attic, she was careful to remember which way she had come in this
crooked, gloomy place. Besides this, the attic was a mysterious part of
that pretty house, Nora realized.

"It must be all right to go in here--all of the rooms are ours and
Cousin Ted said they were all kept clean."

With this caution she pushed open one of the unpainted doors and stepped
inside.

She gasped! The place was in almost total darkness!




CHAPTER VII

CAP TO THE RESCUE


Where was she? What could be so black?

Nora gasped--it was so stifling. Fumbling in the strange place her hand
found the door and as she pressed against it she heard it shut!

"Oh mercy!" she exclaimed aloud. "I'm shut in this awful place!"

Now her eyes could make out the rafters. It was the attic, but what part
of it? The faintest gleam of light breaking in from above followed the
rough beams. The frightened girl fell back breathing hard and feeling
faint. To faint in the attic! Surely that would be romantic! But she
didn't want to faint all alone up there and maybe die and not be found
for years, as she had read happened once to a bride who went up to look
for her grandmother's quilt.

She was so dizzy. She really must sit down. Not even a hazy fear of rats
roused her, for it was unbearably hot and stuffy.

"O-o-o-h!"

That was the end of Nora for the time being. She succumbed to the first
faint she had ever performed, and there was no one to see her, no one to
rescue her, not one even to know where she was!

Such a little prince!

Velvets and ribbons brushed cobwebs and dust, as she slumped down,
down----!

Of all her life's dreams what she dreamed when she breathed again seemed
the strangest. But it was all broken up like pieces of stars mashed into
flashes of dazzling light, and there was no more head nor tail to it.
All she could think of was how tired she was, and she knew she just had
to sleep.

If spiders had any talent for observing, those in that cubby hole would
have had a wonderful story to tell to the crawling things in roof and
rafters, but even they did not so much as try, with a web, to arouse the
half-conscious child, and one lacy net was so near Nora's face her gasps
of breath swayed and rocked the baby spider in its cradle.

So there she was asleep now, and glad not to know!

Downstairs supper had been prepared and everyone was waiting for Nora.

Who had seen her? Where had she spent the afternoon?

"Vita," said Jerry sharply, "you know you were not to let the child go
off these grounds alone."

"I no see her, never. She no come out from the house," protested the
frightened Vita.

"Well, we have got to search," decided Ted, her bronzed face plainly
showing alarm, and her brown eyes blinking with unnamed fears.

"Where has Cap been?" again demanded Jerry. "He should have been with
her."

"He went with the Scouts; they asked for him, and of course, I let him
go as usual. I did not know Nora was going out, in fact, I thought she
was going to write to her school mates," replied Ted. "But don't let us
waste time. I'll take the north way, Vita you go by the Ledge, and
Jerry, I suppose you will jump on a horse and scout every way."

"Yes, I'll take Cap and send him on ahead." All the laugh was gone from
Jerry's voice now. How quickly the cloud of Anxiety can darken the
brightest home?

More than an hour later all three searchers returned to the Nest and
admitted they could not find Nora.

"She couldn't be in the house, could she?" asked Ted, disconsolately.

"We looked hastily, but it was best to do all the outdoor looking
first," replied Jerry. "Do you suppose she went to visit anyone? Did she
make friends with Alma and Wyn, our pet Scouts?"

"I wish she had. There's that about the Scouts, they go in groups,"
answered Ted, with feeling. "Let us look over the house more carefully.
But why should she hide?" A loud bark from Cap answered that question.

"Here! Cap knows where she is. Let him find her," exclaimed Jerry,
joyfully.

"It's at the kitchen door," added Ted, hurrying in that direction.

"Quick, open the door, Vita!" commanded Jerry, while the dog barked
wildly.

Vita put a trembling hand on the door that led to the back stairs and
opened into the kitchen. No sooner had she done so than Cap bounded past
her, and the next moment the big dog and the forlorn little prince
tumbled into the room.

"Nora!" exclaimed both Jerry and Ted.

"It isn't! It can't be!" faltered the surprised maid. "This is boy----"

"Boy nothing!" almost shouted Jerry, so glad to see Nora in any guise
that her strange costume interested him not at all.

"The poor little darling," cried Ted, gathering the black velvet form up
into her arms. "What ever happened to you, dear?"

Nora brushed a dusty hand over her blinking eyes. "Oh, I am so glad I am
saved. I thought I would surely die."

"Up attic. Why baby! No one could die in our attic. Cap knew you were up
there and if you had not tumbled down just when you did he would have
gone through the wall to find you, wouldn't you, old fellow?" Jerry
asked fondly.

The Saint Bernard was in his native element at the rescue work, and he
licked Nora's hand contentedly. Ted had gathered the child up into her
arms and Vita was already busy getting a refreshing drink. Jerry,
manlike, just looked on, happy beyond words, for in the bad hour
previous he was a prey to keen anxiety, and during the process made up
his mind in the future to keep Nora closer to the family circle at all
times.

Nora had not yet come to the point of talking. Her swoon and its
consequent haziness left her in a daze, and with the mother-like arms
about her, and the breath of Cap reviving her, and Cousin Jerry's big
soft eyes encouraging her, the relief from her fright was slowly
creeping over her and it was so delicious she had no idea of dispelling
it with mere words.

"I know," said Teddie softly, "you were playing parts, dressing up in
the duds from the big chest."

"Did you go to sleep in the trunk?" ventured Jerry, slyly.

"No, I don't know just where I was--I was----" faltered Nora, now
beginning to feel a little foolish in her boy's outfit.

"She went up wrong stairs and I guess, maybe, she got lost in the big
open attic," Vita volunteered, apparently anxious to forestall further
questions.

"No, it was not opened. It was shut tight--very tight," snapped Nora.
She resented Vita's explanation. Somehow she felt Vita was to blame.

"Then you must have struck the spook closet," said Jerry, his old happy
tones ringing through the small kitchen. "Say Ted, let's get into the
other room. Can you walk, Bobbs, or shall big Cousin Jerry carry you?"

"Oh, I can walk all right," replied Nora, slipping to the floor from
Teddie's lap. "But I was so stiff and cramped and--I guess I must have
fainted."

"You must have been up there all the time we were hunting for you, and
the attic is always hot," added Ted. "I never thought of looking there."

"But Cap did. He knew where you were the moment he came in the house,"
said Jerry proudly. "I tell you, Cap is a regular life-saver. He will
have to get another medal for this; even if he didn't drag you out of
the spook cabinet, he did tumble in the kitchen with you."

Both Jerry and Ted were too considerate to show surprise at Nora's
appearance, but Vita could not or did not attempt to hide her
astonishment.

"Guess she thinks the fairies had you," said Jerry softly, when Vita
stood in the doorway, her hands on her capable hips and her mouth wide
open in a gasp of surprise. But Nora had an uncertain feeling that Vita,
as sole tenant of the back stairway, should have made better
arrangements than to have a door that would spring shut like that, right
at the very top of the dark place.

It was at this point a mistake was made. Nora did not express herself
and Vita had no idea of explaining. Mr. and Mrs. Jerry were supposed to
know all about the Nest, but did they! In the excitement of finding
Nora, the actual hiding place was not being considered.

Quickly as the little girl recovered her self-possession and took part
in the conversation, everyone enjoyed a good hearty laugh, naturally led
by Jerry.

"What special kind of prince were you, Bobbs?" he asked jovially. "I did
not know they hid in dark attics."

"Oh, yes they did," contradicted Ted. "Don't you remember the princes in
the tower?"

"I don't, but it doesn't matter. They must have been in a tower or you
would not have included the fact in your college course," replied Jerry,
always ready to tease on that score. Whenever Ted found a new specimen
in the woods, or questioned about a strange bird, he would invariably
ascribe the matter to "her college course."

Nora was anxious to get out of the ill-fated costume. She wanted to run
upstairs and change, now that her knees had stopped shaking, but Ted
insisted she take her supper just as she was, and readily made a merry
time out of the near catastrophe. Again Nora missed the point--no sense
of humor was a sad lack in so active a girl.

Cap regarded her with an eye almost twinkling. Did he know the attic
secret that she had been unable even to realize was a secret?

"Your clothes fit pretty well," said Jerry, "but I think I like you best
in your Little Girl Blue dress. Guess, after all, girls really shouldn't
wear----"

"Now, there you go again, Jerry Manton," interrupted Ted. "As if the
costume had anything to do with Nora getting lost."

And all the while Nora was thinking: "If they only knew." But she had
never had any one to confide in, except Barbara, and now she did not
know exactly how to tell her story. Besides, how silly it would be to
say she had actually been out in the roadway in the Fauntleroy clothes?
And if they ever knew she had been seen and spoken to by a Girl Scout!

The fear of humiliation crushed back any desire to tell the whole story
and so it remained as it appeared, an incident of no more importance
than a case of being lost in the attic.

All the horrors of the black hole, all the terrors of her fright and
faintness, besides what actually happened when she finally burst through
that door and all but fell head-long down the dark stairs--this Nora
crushed back from her lips, and only dared to think of it as something
she would write in her secret diary.

Perhaps she would tell Barbara. It was too thrilling to remain a secret
with no one but herself to ponder upon it.

A refreshing bath, more beef tea and a bedtime story told by the
affectionate Cousin Teddie one hour later, all but dispelled the trying
memory.

The story was one read from a favorite woodland series, in which
children, birds and furry things found days of happiness in the carefree
hours, far away from artificial restrictions of "Do" and "Don't."

The girls mentioned in the story were not spoken of as Scouts, but Nora
suspected they must have been very much like such in ideals.

"You see," said Teddie gently, when she had finished the interesting
story, "girls who love nature find real joy in studying the woods and
learning to love the woodland creatures. You have had no chance to know
what such pleasure means, dear."

"No," said Nora faintly. And at that moment she decided to put on her
new uniform the very next morning, and then go forth with Cousin Ted and
Cousin Jerry in quest of the adventures promised.

"I guess," she began timidly, "it is better, Cousin Teddie, for me to go
along with you every day, if you don't mind."

"Why, I can't bear to leave you home, either with Vita or to your own
resources," declared Ted. "But I didn't want to urge you. Your
experience today may be a good thing in the end--it may help to cure you
of the artificiality you have been absorbing so deeply. I will have to
write your mother a bit of advice. I do not believe her little daughter
is getting the sort of education best for her. Now, roll over and go to
sleep." She pressed a fond kiss on the warm cheek. "And Nora love, don't
bother about dreaming," finished Mrs. Jerry Manton, in a tone of voice
not learned during her famous "college course."




CHAPTER VIII

THE STORY ALMA DID NOT TELL


Under a canvas tent sheltered by a particularly broad chestnut tree and
surrounded by a group of beautiful white birch, the girls of Chickadee
Patrol, Girl Scouts, were listening, all attention, to the very wildest
tale they had ever given ears to.

Alma was talking. "Honestly girls," she insisted, "he was a real prince,
dressed in black velvet and a beautiful jaunty cap----"

"Alma! Alma!" shouted her companions in derision.

"Where did you see the fairies? Just imagine in broad daylight in the
woodlands----" teased one.

"Then, I shall not tell you anything more about it," desisted the abused
one. "As if I wasn't surprised. Why, I was so dumfounded I could not ask
him if he saw you, and I was miles behind the crowd."

"Now girls, let Alma tell," chirped Doro, in her lispy voice. "Go ahead,
Al. _I_ believe you saw Prince Charming."

"Was he old enough to ride a horse?" asked Laddie, christened Eulalia.
She was defying her dentist on a piece of fudge two days old.

"Honestly, girls," began Alma again, "I never saw a boy so beautiful.
Light curls----"

"Oh!!!" came a chorus that stopped the narrator and sent her pouting
over to the bed couch, where she pouted still more.

"Then, all right, I am absolutely through," she declared quite as if she
meant it.

"Now just see what you have done," mourned Treble. She was so tall the
girls always considered her in that clef. "Don't you mind them, Allie. I
know perfectly well there are even flying cupids in the big woodlands,
and I fully expect to bring a couple home to lunch----"

Cushions in one big bang stopped Treble. At this rate Alma's story would
never be published, orally or otherwise.

In the Scout tent the evening was being spent in recreation: hence the
fun they were having with Alma. At a table fashioned from an upside-down
packing case, with real hand carved legs where the boards were knocked
out and the hatchet braces left standing, sat three of the Chickadees,
discussing the new Girl Scout stories.

"I just love the first," insisted Thistle whose name was as Scotch as
the emblem. "I liked the mill story and I just loved that wild, exciting
time the girls had trying to win back--was it Dagmar?"

"Oh, yes, I remember," chimed in Betta. They were referring to the first
volume, "The Girl Scout Pioneers," but others of the group spoke up for
their particular choice of the series, naming, "The Girl Scouts at
Bellaire" and "The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest."

"You may have those," offered Doro, "but I perfectly love this." She
held up the last book published. It was entitled "The Girl Scouts at
Camp Comalong."

"Why is that such a prize?" inquired Pell.

"Oh, haven't you read it? Well, it is a real story of the most
interesting girl, Peg of the Hills."

This brought about a general discussion of the entire series, and
although the method being used is not usually employed to remind readers
of the other books of a series, perhaps, since the girls were speaking
for themselves, it will be accepted.

Alma was whispering her Prince Charming story into the ears of Doro.
Doro was accredited the very best listener among the Chicks and she had
not the faintest idea of interrupting the story teller. Of course, it
was Nora whom Alma had encountered, and it was not difficult to
understand why her companions should discredit the tale. A prince in the
woodlands, indeed!

"Louder, Alma," begged Treble, catching only enough of the story to make
her curious.

"Well, you won't believe me."

"We will! We will! Hear! Hear!" shouted Betta, whose full appellation
was none other than Betta-be-good, given because she had a habit of
lecturing.

"She did see a real prince," chimed in Doro. "And he did wear buckles
and laces and everything."

"Where, oh where, fair maid? Lead me thither and hither and yon," moaned
Pell Mell. "Next to a movie star I love a prince best," she finished
dramatically, although it was common knowledge that Pell loved nothing
so well as rushing about and falling over adventures. She actually fell
over the Ridge, that is as far down as the big flat rock, before her
chums decided she was hereafter to be known as Pell Mell.

"That is all there is to tell," announced Alma, in a tone tinctured with
finality. She knew perfectly well the girls would never rest until they
had sought out the darling prince, and she also knew it would be lots of
fun to make them "sit up and beg" for the details they had been scoffing
at.

"Where, Alma?"

"Near the bend, Alma?"

"Wasn't it over by the Nest, Al?"

"She said she saw him over by the Ledge."

All this and much more was thrown out as bait, but in the parlance of
the tribe, Alma did not "bite," she merely picked up a discarded book
and proceeded to read.

"Well, there was a prince, I'm sure of that," persisted Pell, determined
to make Alma repeat her story.

"Let's go prince hunting tomorrow," suggested Betta.

"With Treble's moth scoop?" joked Wyn.

"I suppose none of you happen to know that Mrs. Jerry Manton has a
visitor," spoke Doro. She gave the statement a tone implying: "Why
wouldn't the prince be the visitor?"

"Oh, that's so," drawled Thistle. "Maybe it's the duke."

This brought out a new shout of nonsense.

"Duke!" roared Betta. "Keep on and we'll have him on the throne."

"There are no more thrones," informed Pell. "Don't you know the war made
every thing democratic?"

This turned the joke into a serious moment, for even the rollicking
Scouts did not feel inclined to enlarge upon so serious a thought.

Presently everyone was speculating upon the possibility of the little
stranger being the one entertained by the Mantons.

"Couldn't we call?" suggested Wyn. "Mrs. Manton is always lovely to us,
and if she has such a little cherub on her hands we ought to help her
care for him."

"Cherub, Wynnie! Why, we would have to get a cage for anything like that
in this camp. He would be eaten by bugs, moths and beetles." A dash at a
flying thing confirmed this opinion from Treble.

"Now, if you all have finished your skylarking I would like to study,"
announced Alma. "I have to learn all that new class lesson, and I hope
to get out of the Tenderfoot tribe before next week. No fun swimming in
a barrel." She referred to the water restrictions of "Tenderfoots."

"Hush girls! Alma is thinking," joked Pell. "Please don't interrupt the
spell----"

Poor Alma could stand the teasing no longer. She picked up her manual
and headed for the tent occupied by those very studious Scouts who chose
the company of the leader to that of the distracting girls.

"Chickadees never scratch," fired Betta as Alma stepped over protruding
feet and reached the tent flap. "Now Chick-a-dee, Peep! Peep! Pretty for
the ladies----"

But the girl with the manual was gone.

"What do you make of it?" asked Pell, when the titters subsided.

"She saw something different, that's sure," replied Treble.

"She told me all about it," put in Thistle proudly. "And it was really a
wonderful child all done up in black velvets and ribbons," she declared.

"I see nothing to do but ask Mrs. Manton about it," suggested Wyn. "It
looks like a first class lot of fun."

"Ask her if she is entertaining a boy in velvet pants?" said Treble, so
foolishly, the girls all but rolled under the table and the oil lamp
shook dangerously in the merriment.

"When they're velvet they're never pants," spoke Wyn, as soon as
speaking amounted to anything.

"Trousers," amended Treble.

"Nor those," objected Pell. "When they have cute little buckles and go
with a jaunty cap----"

"They're knickers," finished Betta.

"Not a--tall," shouted Treble. "I know better than that myself. You're
thinking of golf. Didn't I see Lord Fauntleroy play his Dearest?"

"Did you really? Well, what did _he_ call call them?" demanded Thistle.
She had been so busy enjoying the fun that this was her first attempt at
making any.

"I have it," sang out Laddie. "They're bloomers."

"Oh no, rompers," insisted Thistle. "Rompers are much prettier."

"What ever would you girls have done this evening if Alma's little story
did not furnish you with debate material," scoffed Doro.

"The story Alma never told," chanted Lad.

"All the same," declared Treble, "it is perfectly delicious. Who's going
to make the call on Mrs. Jerry Manton?"

The shout that followed this question brought a protest from the next
tent where candidates were studying manuals.

"Let's take a vote on it," suggested Thistle, when quiet seemed
possible. "Since every one wants to go and we haven't heard the Mantons
were going to give a picnic or anything like that--why--the best thing
to do is to draw lots."

"How tragic! Draw lots! I say we make it numbers from Doro's cap. Here
girls, get busy and numb."

A page of note paper was quickly numbered and torn into squares. Then
the lot was tossed into Doro's cap--it was the deepest for the little
girl did not wear her hair bobbed. When the cap was filled she was the
one chosen to hold it, and upon the highest chair she presently stood
while the girls jumped for numbers. The four highest were to constitute
the committee and the lot fell to Betta, Pell, Wyn and Thistle.

It was arranged that these four should go in the morning to call upon
Mrs. Jerry Manton, their good friend and erstwhile preceptor in
woodlore, and it was fully expected that the young visitor would then
naturally be introduced.

And this was the very day that Nora donned her new service suit.




CHAPTER IX

A MISADVENTURE


The idea of meeting a prince (the girls easily believed the pretty boy
in the velvet suit was at least a near-prince) brought to the Chickadees
a delicious thrill.

"You know," reasoned Thistle next morning, "the Manton's are government
people, and there are lots of foreign nobles down at Washington."

"That's so," agreed Doro. "He might have come up to the woods for his
health."

The tent was quickly made ready for inspection and when the woodcraft
class was dismissed, the girls were free to make the all-important call.

It was but a short distance from Camp Chickadee to the Nest, and the
four girls, constituting the committee, covered the ground speedily.

Vita answered the knock and told Pell, who was spokeswoman, that: "Mrs.
Manton no come back yet."

Nora not only heard the voices but she had seen the girls coming, and
feeling that she, as a member of the family, should "do the honors," she
summoned courage to greet the callers.

"Cousin Teddie will not be back before lunch time," said Nora sweetly.
"Won't you come in and wait?"

"Oh, no, thank you," faltered Thistle, observing one truant curl that
had escaped the confines of Nora's field hat. "We may come over later in
the afternoon--after drill," finished the Scout.

Pell was more composed. "Are you visiting Rocky Ledge?" she asked
cordially.

"Oh, yes. I expect to stay quite a while," replied Nora. She liked the
roguish smile Pell bestowed upon her--it was, somehow, a little like
Barbara.

"Then perhaps you would like to visit camp," pressed Thistle. "We love
callers, don't we, girls?"

This provided an opportunity for general conversation, and presently, no
one knew just how it happened, but the Scouts and Nora the rebel, were
having a perfectly splendid time on the side porch, talking about the
things girls love to discuss, but which always appear to the onlooker or
listener as a series of giggles and gasps.

Nora was so glad she wore the khaki suit. All her old love of finery
was, for the time, lost in the joy of feeling "in place" instead of "out
of place." And the girls at close range did look very well in their
uniforms. Betta and Thistle especially were just like models--Nora
remembered that wonderful Girl Scout poster, and her former dislike for
the uniform now threatened to turn to keen admiration. Just so long as
anything "made a picture" the artistic little soul was sure to be
satisfied. Changing an opinion was as simple a task for Nora as changing
a hair ribbon, but it had been rather unpleasant to have the Scouts
always held up as paragons.

Admitting she had not yet visited the Ledge, Nora was straightway
invited to do so, as the four Scouts expected to meet the other troup
members out gathering sweet fern there.

"Vita," she called back to the maid in the kitchen, "you keep Cap home,
I'll be back in a little while."

"Oh, no," objected Vita. "Mr. Jerry, he say you don't go never without
Cap----"

"But I am with the girls now," declared Nora a little sharply. She was
so afraid the others might guess that it was she who wore the velvets!
Looking very closely at each, however, she had not recognized the one
who accosted her on the fatal dress-parade day. Alma was not in the
party this time, so of course, Nora was correct in her opinion.

"Doesn't Mr. Manton like to have you go out alone?" asked Thistle,
innocently.

"Well, you see," stumbled Nora, "I am not very well acquainted yet."

"Was there a little boy visiting the Mantons the other day?" ventured
Betta. She was almost consumed with curiosity, and as they turned their
backs on the cottage the chance for unravelling the prince mystery
seemed lost to them.

"A boy? No," replied Nora. "I am the only one who has been here." A
flame of color swept her face and although she stooped to pick up an
acorn at the moment, at least two of the Scouts noticed the flush.

"Light curls," whispered Wyn. "She has very pretty ringlets----"

"Lots of girls have, of course," scoffed Betta. "You surely don't think
she's twins?"

"No," faltered the other, never dreaming how much closer than twins Nora
was to the little prince.

But Wyn was not easily satisfied. What was the sense of being appointed
a committee to investigate and not do it? She picked a wonderful spray
of pink clover before she asked Nora again:

"Do you ever see a little boy, a very fancy dressed boy, around the
cottage? One of our girls dreamed she saw one and we have been trying to
persuade her she had a vision."

A sigh of relief escaped Nora's lips. It should be easy to laugh the
story over, since only one girl had seen her and that one had but a
glimpse of her. She felt she would die of embarrassment now, if ever she
were really found out. And only a few days ago it had seemed so trifling
a thing! As she was about to reply to Wyn her hat fell off and down
tumbled the curls.

"What wonderful curls," exclaimed Wyn innocently. "Why do you hide them
under a hat?"

"Oh, I don't," replied Nora bravely, shaking out the golden cloud that
tossed about her ears. "But when we go into brambles it is more
comfortable to have one's head tidy," she finished.

"Say, Wyn," charged Thistle, "do you suppose Nora has no other interest
than in your visionary prince and yellow curls? Please allow her to
listen to some of my woodland lore."

"Oh, yes," mocked Betta. "Tell her all about your little fish in the
brook that wouldn't go near Treble's hook."

A scamper brookward responded to this sally.

"Oh, there's Jimmie," cried Thistle. "Hey Jimsby!" she hailed to a small
boy in a big boat. "Wait for us. We are going up to the Ledge. Give us a
row?"

Everyone, including Nora, ran towards the edge of the stream that
rippled through willows. Jimmie with his boat was rare good fortune to
come upon, and the Scouts were instantly eager to procure seats in the
big, old skiff.

Nora's timidity forced her to hold back, but she was too self-conscious
to admit it.

"Come on, little Nora," called out Thistle good naturedly. "I have a
place for you right alongside of me."

"Oh yes. Thistles never sink, you know," added Wyn.

Nora's heart heat fast. Could she say she would so much rather walk to
the Ledge?

"Hurry up, Sister," sang out Betta. "Thistle wants to get out of rowing
and you are her excuse."

Taking her fright literally in her hand and casting it into the brook,
Nora stepped into Jimmie's boat, smiling as if she were expecting the
best good time of her life. A thought of her nervous mother barely had
time to shape itself before all were seated, and the freckled faced
Jimmie handed over the oars, without so much as uttering either a
protest or agreeing to the piracy.

"Don't you love a little lake like this?" asked Betta, noticing how
silent was her companion.

"I have never been on the water," said Nora truthfully. "At our school
we are not allowed to take part in any dangerous sports."

"Oh," exclaimed Thistle. "How you must miss good times."

"But we have many lovely parties and dances and all that sort of thing,"
explained Nora. Her voice was entirely friendly and the difference of
opinions by no means clashed.

It was delightful. The girls sang, whistled, shouted and coo-heed, as
occasion demanded, the occasion being that of answering bird calls from
shore. Imitating birds was counted as the latest outdoor sport, and the
Chickadees vied with one another in the accomplishment.

"She's leakin'," said Jimmie without warning or apology.

"I should say she is!" cried Wyn, jerking her feet up from the bottom of
the boat. "Jimmie Jimbsy! Why didn't you say so?"

"Oh, you didn't give me a chance," replied the lad frankly.

"Oh, is it dangerous?" gasped Nora. Her cheeks went pale instantly.

"No, just gives us a chance to show who is the best swimmer. You can
swim, of course?" asked Wyn.

"No, not a stroke," replied the frightened Nora.

"Don't you mind Wynnie, Nora," spoke up Betta. "There's no possibility
of any one having to swim. This boat would sail the rapids, wouldn't
she, Jimmie?"

"Here's another hat," offered Thistle. "Say, Jim! At least you ought to
bring a tin can," she said in her jolliest tone.

They were actually bailing out. The water managed to make cold little
puddles in the bottom of the boat, and with the "large party aboard" as
Pell charged Wyn because she happened to weigh a few more pounds than
the others, the inflow threatened to bear the little craft down to the
water's edge, uncomfortably close.

But the girls were making a lark of it. Every time a hat emptied a shout
went up, and every time a hat leaked a groan moaned out.

"All in a life time," boomed Thistle. "But don't any one dare tell that
story about the philosopher and the boatman."

"Never heard it," responded Betta, lifting a particularly well filled
hat to the boat's edge.

Jimmie was now rowing. "Assisting him in that capacity," as Pell
expressed it, was Wyn.

"We gotta reach the Ledge," joked Thistle, "and I for one hate walking
on the water."

"We betta----"

"Betta-be-good," went up the shout as Betta attempted to preach. She
never got farther than that first mispronounced two syllables nowadays.

Nora was now regarding the situation with more calmness. After the first
fright it did not seem so dangerous, and the skill with which the jolly
Scouts handled the task of bailing, was fascinating.

But suddenly something happened; no one shouted, no one even spoke, but
in a twinkling the entire boatload of girls were scrambling in the
water.




CHAPTER X

A NOVEL INITIATION


"Quick girls! Get Nora!"

This was the order given by Pell, who in emergencies assumed leadership.

"Here Nora," called Betta, "just put your hand on my shoulder. We can
almost walk in. Don't be frightened."

But Nora was terribly frightened. That water! And not being able to swim
a stroke!

"Look!" called out Thistle, who was now standing in the more shallow
water, "it is only up to my shoulders. Just bring Nora out here and she
can wade in," announced the Scotch girl.

The sight of Thistle actually standing on her feet brought to Nora the
first free breath she had breathed since that awful thing happened. Now
she had courage to stop choking and do as she had been told.

"Why, you swam that time," puffed Betta to whom Nora had struggled. Did
she really swim? She felt herself buoyed up for a moment somehow, in
fact she had never gone down.

Before that supporting move had lost its endurance her hand was safely
on Betta's shoulder, and both were moving slowly but securely towards
the bank.

"That's it," Pell encouraged. "No need for any trouble if you just
keep--cool!"

"Cool enough," grumbled Thistle. "I hate lakes for that," she continued
to call out.

"How's that!" asked Betta when she reached the shallow water from which
point all were wading in.

"Wonderful!" exclaimed Nora. Her relief was so great it seemed to her
pure joy.

"Your first?" asked Wyn.

"First?" repeated Nora.

"First ducking," added Wyn. "If so it is your official initiation. You
are now a full fledged member of the Chickadees."

It was easy for Nora to laugh--she felt she would never do anything but
laugh, it was so good to be safe within reach of shore once again.

Thistle and Wyn threw their wet heads back and emitted a "coo-hee." The
call was taken up by the others, and instead of the incident being of an
alarming nature it was thus turned into a lark.

"Coo-hee! Coo-hee!" sounded along the little lake basin, while shouts of
laughter and expressions of opinion about bobbed heads after an
unexpected ducking, were snapped from Scout to Scout as the party waded
in.

So near the edge they were loath to emerge. No possibility of getting
any wetter or spoiling anything more generally, but there was a
possibility of more fun.

"Where's that Jimbsy boy?" demanded Pell. "We didn't leave him to the
sharks, did we?"

"Look," replied Thistle, pointing to a little slash in the lake's
outline. It was a pocket full of water just about big enough to float
the upturned boat that Jimmie was pushing in through it.

"Poor boy! And we never asked him what he was out after," reflected
Betta. "Maybe he had an order to bring a boat load of passengers from
the Ledge."

"We'll take up a collection for him," proposed Pell.

"What'll we collect?" asked Wyn.

"Opinions," replied the first. "They're most plentiful."

Nora was out of water and shaking herself like a poodle. Now that it was
all over, the thrill was unmistakable.

"Look who's coming!" called out one of the girls, and turning around
Nora glimpsed Ted coming down the narrow path.

"Quick, Nora, hide!" exclaimed Wyn. "Then spring out and surprise her."

Obeying, Nora jumped behind a big bush.

Even in the excitement she realized what companionship meant. It was so
much more fun than playing at foolish dressing up and imagination games.
Could she have but understood more clearly she would have recognized in
that situation the theory of having girls "do" to learn, and that active
sport of the young is one of the standards of Scout teaching.

She listened as the girls greeted Mrs. Manton. No gasps of alarm nor
expressions of fear were exchanged, for Cousin Ted was of the Scout
calibre herself.

"Better hang on the hickory limbs and dry, before your leader sees you,"
she cautioned. "Those uniforms won't be fit for parade."

"And mine was all beautifully pressed," whimpered Pell.

"So were all our suits, Mrs. Manton," asserted Thistle, "because we were
calling on you first."

"Really! Did you see my little girl?"

"Oh, yes," drawled Betta.

"I so want her to grow into scouting," continued Mrs. Manton, and at
that Nora felt she could make her presence known. But a quick snap of a
stick from Betta, as she swished it back of Nora's bush, kept her from
stepping out.

"Does she like the water?" asked Wyn, with a suppressed giggle.

"I am afraid she has had little chance to get acquainted with it,"
replied Ted. "Nora has been developed at one angle. This sort of
experience would probably give her nervous prostration."

That was the cue. Nora jumped out!

"Child!"

"The very same!" pronounced Thistle grandly, waving a dripping arm.

Mrs. Manton was too surprised to do more than look at Nora. Her brown
eyes were twinkling and her mouth twitching in a broad grin. Presently
she jumped past Betta and threw her arms around Nora.

"You darling baby!" she exclaimed, all unmindful of the water she was
blotting up from Nora's new suit. "How ever did you--come here and
get--like--this?"

"Chick-chick-chick-Chickadees!" sang out a chorus. "Cluck! Cluck!
Cluck!"

If one could look pretty after a ducking in a strange lake, Nora did.
Her curls liked nothing better, and her cheeks pinked up prettily, while
her eyes--they were as blue as the violets that listened in the
underbrush.

"You don't mind her initiation, do you, Mrs. Manton?" asked Wyn.

"Why no. In fact, I'm delighted," replied the young woman. "But why the
secret? I have been left out in the cold," she said, genially.

"Only candidates are informed," said Wyn, keeping up the joke.

"Was that really it? Was this a private initiation, and am I intruding?"

"All over," sang out Betta. "The bars are down and the guests welcome."

"Betta be goin' up the hill a bit," suggested Thistle. "This is no place
for dripping chicks."

"The sun _would_ be helpful," agreed Pell. "I don't mind the water when
it's fresh, but I hate to get mildewed."

"Hey!" came a call from somewhere. "Wanta get in again?"

"We certainly do not," yelled back Wyn. "Jimbsy James, you're a fraud.
What ails your yacht, anyway?"

"All right, then," called back Jimmie good naturedly. "I'll be goin'. So
long!"

"So long yourself," called back Wyn, "and send your bill to
headquarters."

"Were you--in his boat?" asked Ted, a light beginning to break through
the girls' perpetual nonsense.

"We were, momentarily," replied Betta. "But we needed exercise so we
decided to walk," she finished. Nora saw how friendly the girls all were
with Ted, and felt a pang, not of jealousy, but of regret. Why had she
never known such companionship?

"I must go back to my trees," said Mrs. Manton, when the girls had found
a clear path of sunshine. "I have some important marking to do. Nora,
you follow directions and you need not fear earth, sky or water. These
little Scouts are impervious to all catastrophes."

And Nora had almost expected to be sent home for a rub down, a hot drink
and all the other coddling!

"Oh, I'm all right," she hurried to reply. "I'll be home----"

"When the ceremonies are over," interrupted Thistle. "We are due at the
Ledge long ago, and if we don't soon make it I am afraid we will all be
kept in tonight."

"In those wet things?" protested Wyn. "Not for me. I'm going back to
camp and change. Come along Nora. We have an extra outfit in our box and
we'll lend it to you. Thistle is a regular fish, she is never happy when
dry skinned."

Mrs. Manton had disappeared in the winding path and Nora was secretly
glad of Wyn's invitation. She could not as yet actually enjoy wet
clothes. The girls had managed to save their hats and caps, but even
these still dripped and could not be comfortably worn to keep off the
strong sun's rays that beat down in the clear spots along the lake's
edge.

"We'll have some trouble explaining to the general," remarked Thistle as
they started back to camp. "And this was the day we were to finish our
collection."

"But look, what we did collect," answered Wyn under her breath,
referring to Nora. "Did you ever see anyone so pleased as our friend?"

"She looked happy," assented Thistle. "But say, Scoutie; whatever are we
going to tell the girls about the prince?"

"Let's say we drowned him," suggested Wyn, foolishly. "That will give
Alma a lovely murder mystery to work upon."

Nora overheard the word "prince" and surmised correctly it was meant for
her Fauntleroy. She longed to turn back to the Nest rather than meet the
other girl who might recognize her.

"It's so near lunch time----" she began.

"Oh, no girlie," protested Betta. "You are the only specimen we have
collected today, and if you don't come back with us we will all get
dreadful marks. Come along. Be a sport and help us out."

"Yes, we will be considered life savers, perhaps," added Thistle. "Of
course, we won't say we did anything noble----"

"Nor say we didn't," drawled Wyn.

Thus urged, Nora had no choice, so she set off with her new companions
towards Chickadee Camp.




CHAPTER XI

TOO MUCH TEASING


Swept off her foolish feet of fancy and landed safely on the more
practical ground of girls' life, Nora presently found herself in the
canvas tent, actually donning a Scout uniform.

No ivory dressing comb nor shell-back mirror, instead a wooden box for a
dressing table, and a bowl of cool, clear water fresh from the
velvet-rimmed pool, and a glass--the piece that fell from a wagon and
was splintered up so no one would touch its "bad luck," so Pell rescued
it and painted a four-leaf clover on its jagged edge! That was a Scout
mirror.

It was a revelation to the pampered child. And like so many others who
are blamed for their circumstances, Nora was fascinated with the glimpse
given of a real world. Here girls lived as human beings privileged to
invent their own tools which would be used in modelling the skilled game
of a happy life.

"Of course," explained Pell, "we go through quite some formality before
we really become Scouts, but necessity knows no law, and this is
necessity."

"It's just wonderful," admitted the stranger, all the while fighting
down a sense of guilt that she should ever have disliked the Scouts and
their standards.

"Now we want you to meet Alma," announced Wyn. "She's one of our little
Tenderfoots, and so romantic? She will be sure to want to adopt you, for
just wait until you see if Betta doesn't say we found you in the lake!"
she predicted.

Alma came from the leader's tent. She had been studying--those tests
were soon to be held.

"Just see our little pond-lily," began Thistle, while Nora, now somewhat
accustomed to the girls' jokes, managed not to blush too furiously.

"Oh!" began Alma, then she stopped.

Nora felt in that moment she was discovered and that the prince would
soon cease to be a mystery.

"Well, Alma, this is Nora--Nora----"

"Blair," added Nora, realizing her full name had not been given the
girls before.

"Oh, how do you do?" faltered Alma. "I thought at first I had met you
before."

"No. Nora is the visitor at the Mantons," explained Wyn, "and we all had
a ducking--we initiated Nora and had a lovely time. You missed it, Al."

"Sorry," said Alma, still eyeing Nora.

"But we spoiled our uniforms," rattled on Wyn. "That wretch, Jimmie
Freckles, dumped us right out into the lake."

"And I was brought back to your camp to be redressed," Nora managed to
say. She felt if she did not say something the girl with the lovely,
glossy, brown hair, who was staring at her, would penetrate her secret.

"Alma has visions," went on Wyn. "She saw a real prince in your woods
one day; didn't you, Alma?"

"I saw a little boy in a velvet suit----"

"And he had curls."

"And he had dimples."

"And he had lovely gold buckles on his slippers."

"And he had----"

But Alma turned on her heel and left the girls to finish their
description without her aid.

Nora was greatly relieved when she left.

"Honestly," explained Thistle, "Alma insists she did see a little boy in
your woods. Did you ever come across such a child?"

"Never," replied Nora, then, "I really must hurry home, I am afraid I am
late for lunch now."

"Won't you stay? We are to have----"

"Thank you, Pell, but Cousin Ted and Cousin Jerry will be so anxious to
hear all the news----"

"But you must keep secrets--make secrets if you haven't any to keep,"
advised Betta, who had taken a fancy to Nora. In fact all the girls
showed unusual interest in the little visitor.

"Oh, I know how to do that," Nora replied truthfully.

Then, with many invitations and a number of suggestions as to spending
some days and even a few evenings, Nora finally managed to race off
toward the Nest, after Betta walked with her out of the camp grounds and
watched while she hurried down the road. It was a very short distance to
Wildwoods, and before Betta turned back to Camp Chickadee she had seen
faithful Cap run out to meet Nora.

"Now, are you satisfied, Alma?" asked Wyn. "You would insist the visitor
was a boy."

"It may be her brother," replied the brown-haired one, "but honestly,
girls, and no joking, he had curls just like hers," said Alma.

"But isn't she sweet?" asked Wyn.

"Princes aside, I like her most as well as Alma's vision," declared
Thistle. "And did you notice how matter-of-fact she donned Bluebird's
outfit? What are we going to say to her if she happens back tonight?"

"Gone to the tailor's to be pressed," suggested Pell, glibly. "There
come the others. Now for a lecture."

But instead, Miss Beckwith, the leader, came up smiling. "We heard all
about it, girls," she began. "Met that precious James Jimmie Jimsby of
yours, and he said it was in no way your fault."

"Bless the boy!" murmured Pell. "We shall certainly have to adopt the
list of Jays. First we capsize his boat and then he pleads for us. Now
isn't that gallant?"

"But Becky," began Thistle, sidling up to the popular leader, "we have
had such a wonderful experience. We have converted a real rebel."

"Rebel!" exclaimed Wyn. "How do you know Nora was anything like that?"

"Well, Mrs. Ted Manton said as much, didn't she?"

"She didn't," replied Pell crisply. "She merely said that Nora had very
little experience in girls' sports."

"I know," interrupted the leader. "Mrs. Manton has mentioned her to me,
and I am very glad you have succeeded in interesting her. I fancy she is
a very capable child, with too much time on her hands."

"Oh," sighed Betta. "If we had only known it we could have borrowed
some. What ever shall we do to get in a day's work now?"

"Lunch first and then do double quick duty," suggested the young leader.
"It has been rather a lost day, counting by the usual results, but then,
we have to figure in the new friend."

"You're a love, Becky," declared Treble. "I am sure you are going to
help me with my basket. It has to be done tomorrow, if I am to get full
credit for it."

"Where's Alma?" asked Miss Beckwith, suddenly.

"Pouting," replied Wyn. "You are not to know it, of course, but Alma's
in love!"

A shout corroborated the statement. "She may be hanging up wet clothes,"
suggested Pell. "When they're in love they do foolish things like that,
I've heard tell."

"Girls! Didn't you hang up your wet things yet?" Miss Beckwith asked in
real surprise.

A rush to the back of the tent, where the garments had been hastily
heaped, gave response. Presently there was a contest being held to see
who could hang up the most material in the smallest space and with the
fewest clothes pins; at least that appeared to be the attempt the happy
four were making; but when the lunch bell sounded, each and all were
ready for the fresh corn, new potatoes, string beans and macaroni--a
menu especially designed for culprits who fall in lakes and forget to
hang up their uniforms to dry.

Everyone talked of the little stranger, and also everyone praised her
beauty. She was so cute, so sweet, so adorable, and Pell even went so
far as to whisper to Thistle that she was "peachy," although all slang
was taboo at the table.

"And Alma," confided Wyn, "we were so sorry not to be able to locate
your prince----"

"Girls," Alma exclaimed. "If you say prince to me again I'll scream."

"You did this time," said Betta, "and we don't mind it at all. You
scream really prettily."

"Hush," spoke Doro. She was down at the far end of the table and had not
been with the girls on their eventful trip. "I think we have teased
enough, really. Let the poor little prince rest."

"Good idea," chimed another who also had missed the expedition. "We have
a new plan to propose, and with all that prince stuff we can't get your
attention. Becky is going to take us to the Glen tomorrow morning, and
we want volunteers to make up the lunch baskets."

"Call that a new plan?" mocked Wyn. "Why, that's as old as the Scouts.
First thing I ever did was to volunteer to make up a basket for my big
sister, and she picked it up and walked off with it."

"Didn't even thank you?" asked Miss Beckwith, who always took part in
the girls' fun.

"Well, she may have," replied Wyn, "but that didn't impress me. It was
those sandwiches and those cakes----"

"You didn't make those, Wynnie?" demanded Treble. "If you did we won't
ask for volunteers. We'll wish the job on you."

Alma was quiet during all the merry chatting, but Thistle, who could not
resist one more thrust, said next:

"Thinking of him, dearie?" she asked. "And his little velvet coat----"

But the joke had a most astonishing effect. Alma sniffed, breathed in
quick little gasps, and the next moment asked to be excused from the
table.

"She's crying!" declared Betta.

"Horrid girls!" murmured Doro. "I told you she had had enough of
princes."

"But to cry! Alma isn't like that," said Wyn in real surprise.

Miss Beckwith, who had reached the end of her lunch and was waiting for
the others to finish, slipped away after Alma.

This left the girls to wonder, and they did that in all the ways known
to girlhood.

Then it was definitely decided the first girl who mentioned the word
prince should be made to pay a heavy fine.

All felt truly sorry for little Alma, but it was the wise and
understanding Janet Beckwith who gathered the sobbing girl into her arms
and soothed the sighs, tears, and protestations.

"Just teasing, dear," she insisted. "You must not mind their nonsense.
They, every one, love you dearly."

"But I did see a real prince, Becky. And--and they won't believe me,"
sobbed out Alma.

Miss Beckwith wondered. "A real prince?" she repeated.

"Yes. I was near enough to see all his pretty--things," Alma paused in
her sobbing to relate. "He had all velvet clothes, and such a pretty
black cap. Oh Becky!" she sobbed afresh, "can you ever imagine what it
is to have the--girls--all making fun of you?"

"Now, Alma dear," again soothed the leader, "I am really surprised that
you should take this so seriously. You know the girls are not making fun
of you----"

"They--said I had--a vision," she sobbed as heavily as ever. "And I am
determined to find out who that was--and prove it to them."

Miss Beckwith was sorely puzzled. Naturally she supposed the girl was
romancing. But why should she take it so seriously?

"Come, now, dear," she urged. "We have talked it all out and the only
thing that worries you is that the girls do not believe you, isn't it?

"Yes, that's the worst of it."

"Then, let's sleep over it and see what the morrow will bring in the
way--of light." Becky scarcely knew just what to propose so she threw
the responsibility on the "morrow."

Alma was over her "spell" presently. But the prince had, by no means,
lost his real personal identity to the sensitive little Scout.




CHAPTER XII

A DIVERSION NOBLY EARNED


Ted's pleasure, shown when Nora's transformation was revealed to her in
a dripping little "pond lily" on the edge of Mirror Lake, was not to be
compared with Jerry's joys when he first beheld his Bobbs in the Girl
Scout uniform. They were waiting for Nora when she returned at lunch
time.

"Pretty kipper, nifty, all right and no kiddin'." These were some of the
exclamations he gave vent to.

"But I thought you didn't like little girls in anything but skirts," Ted
reminded him.

"I didn't but I do," he replied Jerry-like. "Now what do you say Bobbie,
to a try at horse back ridin'?" He always dropped his g's when perfectly
happy.

"I'd like to try it," admitted Nora proudly. She might not have realized
it but the trim little service costume had already emancipated her. She
was no longer the creature of catalogued toilet accessories, "send no
money" and "we guarantee money's worth or money back," etc. The new Nora
was like a butterfly leaving its cocoon--although the drying process had
been facilitated by the loan of a new blouse and bloomers from the
Chickadees' wardrobe.

Vita came out to announce lunch and she stood dumbfounded. Vita was not
Americanized to the point of diplomacy.

"You lose your good clothes? Those t'ings not yours?" she asked blandly.

"I have one like this," replied Nora. She did know how to respond to
interference, and had not yet quite forgiven Vita for the attic episode.

"Don't you like it, Vita?" asked Jerry, his brown eyes twinkling. "We
were thinking of getting you one like it--for your tramps through the
woods, you know."

The Italian woman scowled. She lacked a sense of humor as well as some
other details of Americanization.

"Don't tease her, Jerry," Ted ordered. "He is only fooling, Vita," she
assured the perplexed maid, while visions of the fat woman in a jaunty
little Scout uniform filtered through the brains of both Ted and Nora.

During lunch time conversation ran to the important occurrence of the
morning, but Ted did not know all about the ducking in the Lake, and
since Betta had cautioned Nora to keep secrets and if necessary to make
them, it seemed unwise to tell every single detail: thus Nora reasoned.
So it happened neither Ted nor Jerry knew whether the first swim was
intentional or accidental, and both respected the "secrets of the
order," as Jerry put it.

"The girls are coming over this afternoon with a manual," the candidate
said as tea was finished, "and then I'll have to do some studying."

"I see where Cap and I will have to paddle our own canoe hereafter,"
lamented Jerry. "That's just the way with you girls. I get you all broke
in and you race off and join up with the Indians. Well," he sighed
deeply, "I suppose Ted and I and Cap will have to go on our picnics
alone, in spite of all our plans."

"Oh, Cousin Jerry! Did you have a picnic planned!" eagerly asked Nora,
leaving her place at the table to join Jerry on the big couch.

"I did but I haven't," he replied, with pretended disappointment. "What
good are picnics for Girl Scouts? They want big game with real guns and
elephant meat for supper," he finished pompously.

"Oh, Cousin Jerry!" pouted Nora. "If you really had a picnic planned
couldn't we have it, and couldn't I invite my Scout friends?"

"'Course you could, Kitten," Jerry gave in. "I'll fix up the finest
little picnic those Scouts ever heard tell of. Just you wait and see."

"But we are going to celebrate privately this evening, Nora," Ted added.
"How would you like to go to a picture play?"

"Oh, I'd love it, of course. I do so love motion pictures, and the
Misses Baily are so fussy about letting any of us go."

"I'll bet," agreed Jerry. "Want you to see Mother Goose and Little Jack
Horner----"

"Both of which are each," interrupted Ted. "Guess you had better read up
your nursery rhymes, Jerry."

"Well, I didn't take your college course, Theodora, but I went to Sunday
School a lot--had to," he admitted, shamelessly.

"Then, it's all settled for this evening," continued Ted, quite as if
there had been no break in the conversation. "We will ride into Lenox
and see the 'movies.' I know it's a good picture this week and it isn't
Mother Goose either."

"Glad of that. I hate the old lady myself," scoffed Jerry. "This
afternoon I must go out to moorlands, Ted," he said next, seriously.
"Suppose you and Nora take the day off and loaf? You did a lot of hard
work this morning----"

"But I want to finish pegging off the west end," Ted interrupted.

"Oh, could I help you, Cousin Ted?" begged Nora. "I would just love to
do some real surveying."

"And I would love to have you, certainly. We will rest for one full
hour, then I'll let you carry the chains and drops, and off we go to the
West End. How's that?"

"Lovely. Will Cap come?"

"Sartin sure," declared Jerry. "I never let the youngsters go out on
location without the big dog, do I Cap?"

Cap brushed his plumy tail against Jerry's elbow and made eyes at his
master, agreeing with everything he said, as usual.

Later, when the hour's rest had been taken, Nora and Cousin Ted made
their way to the grounds that were to be surveyed. Nora carried the
"chain" which she wanted to call a tape line until Ted explained that
carpenters had tape lines and surveyors used "chains," and the term
really meant an exact land measurement. The heavy instruments were
already in position, and when the work of measuring the land with her
eye, as Nora declared the process to be, was actually begun, the
apprentice was quite fascinated.

"Now, show me the cobweb," she insisted as Ted adjusted the delicate eye
piece.

"There. Do you see that mark outside the little drop of alcohol?" asked
Ted.

"The very small line like that on Miss Baily's thermometer?"

"Yes, the line that frames the drop," explained Ted, "that's the finest
substance we can get, and it's cobweb."

Nora peered through the telescope. She was seeing a drop of alcohol
shift from level to level as Ted moved the transit, but she was thinking
of the night she discovered the cobwebs in the attic. Somehow attic
fancies clung to her, tenaciously, and had she been at all superstitious
she surely would have called the attic unlucky. Just see the trouble
that Fauntleroy acting got her into.

"It wouldn't take many webs to make such tiny marks," she said finally,
as Ted moved off to "spot a tree." "I guess I won't have to gather many
for Cousin Jerry for that little marking."

Ted had moved off and with her small hatchet was hacking a piece out of
the bark of a tree--spotting it, as she termed it. Then she returned to
the telescope and sought the level.

"What's the little weight on the string?" Nora next asked.

"Oh, that's our plumb-bob," replied the surveyor. "Bob shows us just
when a line is straight. Now watch."

Over a peg in the ground Ted swung the heavy little pendulum, first to
right then to the left, and so on until it fell directly on the mark.

"Now see, that is plumb," said Ted.

Nora gazed intently at the drop. "Everything has to be just exactly,
hasn't it?" she queried, wondering why. "First, you strain your alcohol
with cobwebs, then you drop your bob on the little peg straight as the
string----"

"That is just where we get the expression from," her companion assured
her. "Nothing can be straighter."

"And how do you get the mark on the tree?"

"Look through the glass again."

So the first lesson in surveying went on. It was fascinating to Nora,
and when Ted decided enough land had been "chained off" Nora wanted to
mark a few trees for her own use.

"Couldn't I chop a nick in this one? It is so beautiful, and when we
come another day I can add another nick--just like a calendar."

Mrs. Manton readily agreed, so long as Nora did not use a mark that
might confuse the surveyors; and so interesting was the work, time flew
and the afternoon was soon waning.

While in the woods more than once Nora had reason to be thankful for her
practical Scout uniform, for she climbed trees, sought wild grapes from
high limbs, gathered wild columbine and enjoyed the wildwoods as only a
novice can. Birds scarcely flew from the path, and she marvelled they
were so tame, but Ted explained they had no cause for fear, as the woods
were their own and danger would be a new experience to them.

When finally Cap came back from his rambles and it was decided that no
more surveying nor "play-veying" should be indulged in, instruments were
gathered again, and reluctantly Nora followed Mrs. Manton out into the
path, newly beaten down by those who had been following spots, bobs,
cobwebs, chains, telescopes, compasses, transits and all the other
skilled implements used.

"Are you really a surveyor?" she asked Ted, just wondering what she
would call herself in Barbara's letter.

"Yes, that or a civil engineer," replied Ted. "That is really what I
studied in the famous college course Jerry is always teasing about."

"It is sort of artist work, isn't it?"

"A wonderful sort. Just see what good times I have out among birds,
flowers, wildwoods, and the whole clean, untamed world," said Theodora
Manton. "Some women may like indoors, but give me the woods and the
fields and all of this," she finished, sweeping her free brown hand
before her with a gesture that encompassed glorious creation.

Nora pondered. How many worlds were there after all? How different this
was from that which she knew at school? Would she ever enjoy the other
now, after all this? She glanced at her scratched hands and smiled. What
manicuring would erase those, and yet how precious they would seem when
Cousin Jerry would hear what she had done to help with his wonderful
surveying?

"And we must fix up and look pretty for tonight," said her companion, as
if reading Nora's thoughts. "I so seldom want to go out evenings I
really have to think what to wear."

"Do we dress up?" queried Nora.

"A little, that is we don't wear these," indicating the khaki. "But all
the Lenox folks are professionals in one line or the other, and you know
dear, they always claim a social code of their own."

Nora was not positive she entirely understood, but she guessed that
professionals, if they were anything like her Cousin Ted, would wear
just such clothes as they liked best and felt most comfortable in, and
she wondered how such would look in a theatre.

"Another rest, then an early dinner and we'll be off," announced Mrs.
Manton when they reached the Nest. "Nora darling, you have made me very
happy today," the brown eyes embraced Nora while the hands were still
burdened with instruments. "I will write at once to your mother and ask
her----"

But a shout of Jerry's interrupted the most interesting clause.




CHAPTER XIII

CRAWLING IN THE SHADOWS


"You jump in the car and wait a few minutes," said Ted to Nora.

It was almost dusk and the moving picture party was about to set out for
Lenox in the trim little car which, Ted insisted, was tamed, educated
and "fed from her hand" when it went out of gas.

Nora willingly complied with the order to take her seat and wait. Dark
shadows fell from the trees to the narrow roadway, and while alone there
Nora was just wondering if everything was going to happen in one single
day.

Cousins Jerry and Ted had many things to look after before setting out,
for while Vita was a capable houseworker, she knew nothing of home
management. Some minutes passed and the others had not yet come to the
car where Nora sat so quietly that the squirrels had no idea a single
human being was in the black car. One gay little furred skipper had the
audacity to hop on the running board, but Nora from the depths of her
cushions, never stirred.

A rustling of the leaves, much heavier than the tread of squirrels could
possibly have been, gave her a start. She just peeked out in time to see
something crawl across the road and continue on toward the path to the
cottage.

"Oh, what was that!" Nora barely whispered. Then she raised her head and
gazed intently at the crawling thing, that now was not more than an
outline in the coming darkness.

For the moment she was too surprised to jump out and follow. Could it be
a bear or some big animal? Certainly it was no small woodland creature,
and as it passed the car she could hear queer, jerky breathing.

Being so near the house there was no need for alarm as to her personal
safety, so she did jump out now and ran to meet Ted and Jerry who were
just turning in from the barn drive.

"Oh," Nora exclaimed breathlessly. "Did you see--anything?"

"Anything?" repeated Jerry.

"I mean did you see--anything queer?"

"Why no," replied Ted. "But Nora, you look as if you had."

"I did, really. Something stole out of the bushes and crept across the
path, toward the kitchen." Nora was still short of breath from her
fright.

"Now Bobbs! You don't mean to say that some wild, roaring lion----"

But Nora interrupted Jerry. "Honestly Cousin Jerry," she declared, "I
did see something, and we can't go out and leave Vita alone until we
find out what it was."

"Bravo! Spoken like a Scout!" sang out the irrepressible Jerry. "Now
let's all have a look."

"Over there," directed Nora, and while neither Mr. nor Mrs. Manton
appeared to take the matter seriously, they did, never-the-less, follow
Nora's directions and quietly prowl along the path.

"There," exclaimed Nora. "I saw it again!"

"I thought I saw something scamper off myself," admitted Ted. "What do
you suppose it can be?" She stepped out squarely in the driveway and
stood watching.

"Give me a look and I'll announce," said Jerry, his cap in one hand and
a great stick, more like a tree limb he had hastily snatched up, in the
other. He was going to have some fun out of it, at any rate. He never
could miss a chance like this.

Thrashing down the bushes from the drive to the garden path took but a
few moments, then they were within sight of the door.

"What's the matter?" called out Vita. "You find big snake?"

"No, we're looking for it," answered Jerry. "Did he come your way?"

"I no see, not any," said Vita fully. She never depended upon the scant
Englishothers were apt to employ. While speaking she kept moving from
one spot on the path to another, and her actions seemed so absurd Ted
questioned the maid again.

"Now Vita, you know perfectly well you have seen something," she
insisted. "And we are not going away until we find out what is around
here. Just look at Cap sniffing! He knows," continued Mrs. Manton,
moving up nearer to Vita and closer to the house.

"Nothing a-tall. Everything all right--good," persisted Vita backing to
the doorway.

"Say Vi," called Jerry in his cheeriest voice, "who's your friend? Are
you trying to hide him behind your skirts? I told you, Ted, she should
wear a uniform."

"Oh, Jerry, do stop your nonsense," begged Ted. "We shall be late for
the pictures. Just run in and look around the house. Of course
everything is all right, but we don't want Nora worrying while we're
away and Vita's alone."

Nora had been looking sharply from one dark spot to another but no
further disturbance appeared.

"Nothing could get into the house with Vita right at the door," she
reasoned aloud. "I suppose it was just something from the woods. Maybe
one of those 'possums you told me about, Cousin Jerry."

"Maybe, and again maybe not," he answered. "But just wait until I shake
this stick over the premises. Vita will feel a lot safer when I wave the
wand of warning over the place," and he entered the house with Vita so
close to his heels that both Nora and Mrs. Manton looked surprised.


"Queer, how she acts," admitted Mrs. Manton. "I just wonder---- But of
course she is only hurrying to get us off. She knows we will miss the
first show if we do not get away at once."

Jerry was soon out, stick in hand, and a broad grin on his handsome
face.

"Nary a thing," he announced. "Nora, I am afraid your scouting has gone
to your head. That, or you are seeing things."

Before Nora might have replied Ted insisted they hurry off or give up
the trip to Lenox, entirely.

"I'm ready," Nora said, instead of commenting on the moving shadow. "I
shouldn't like to miss that picture."

"All aboard!" sang out Jerry, and when the little car shot out of the
woods into the splendid turnpike--the pride of all motorists for many
miles around--Vita might have entertained her mysterious visitor (if she
really had one) to her heart's content, for all of the party bound
cityward.

Since her arrival at Woodlands Nora had little chance for auto rides,
there were so many more interesting things to do, so that the short trip
to Lenox now seemed something of a luxury.

But the evening's entertainment was even more delightful. The attractive
little theatre was so prettily made up with colored paper flowers over
the lights, with breezy electric fans and such simple contrivances as,
in the larger city, Nora had not seen, it all appeared new, novel and
attractive. It was quaint and cosy, and such an effect was ever
delightful to the fanciful daughter of a woman who called herself Nannie
instead of mother.

All about them people greeted the Mantons, and it was plain they were
held in high esteem by many, farmers as well as more cultured folks,
plain or dressed up--all had a pleasant word or a cordial greeting for
the government surveyor and his attractive wife.

Nora wondered if the Girl Scouts ever came in to see the pictures, but
Ted expressed the opinion that when they did come they came in a crowd
and made a regular party of the occasion.

"But they have so many pleasures of their own for evenings," she told
Nora, "I shouldn't fancy they would want to come under an ordinary roof
often during the summer months."

After the big picture with all its wizard scenes had been enjoyed, they
started back towards Wildwoods. It was then that the fear of that
crawling thing again crowded down on Nora and caused her to shiver until
she actually shook.

"Too cool?" inquired Ted, unfolding a soft knitted scarf from her end of
the seat.

"No, just shivery," truthfully answered the imaginative Nora.

It was very dark along the country road, and only the flashing lights of
passing cars penetrated the dense blackness of the tree-tunnels through
which the party rode. It may have been this or it may have been the
accumulated fatigue of her big, full day, but at any rate, Nora felt
very much inclined to huddle up to Cousin Ted and hide.

The humming of the motor was like a lullaby, and the voices of Ted and
Jerry mingled so evenly that presently Nora forgot, then she forgot to
think, and then she stopped thinking.

She was sound asleep in the cosy comfort of Theodora Manton's encircling
arm.

"I'll lift her," she heard a voice whisper.

It had seemed only a minute since she entered the car and here she was
home, at the very door, with Vita standing there, lantern in hand.

"Oh, thank you, Cousin Jerry," spoke up Nora bravely. "I am wide awake
now. How perfectly silly to fall asleep?"

"How perfectly sensible," he contradicted. "I wish you had not awakened.
I should have had a great joke to tell your Girl Scouts," he teased.

Nora laughed lightly. She was on the ground and anxious to get into the
cottage. Why she felt so timid was not clear even to herself, but
somewhere within her dread lurked, and when Ted proposed lemonade and
crackers Nora excused herself on the grounds of being deliciously
sleepy. For once she accepted Vita's offer to light her lights and make
the window right for the night.

"You go quick asleep?" Vita remarked, turning down the soft summer
covering from the little bed.

"Oh, yes. I fell asleep in the car," returned Nora, yawning.

"That's good. Then you hear no storm----"

"But there is no sign of a storm, Vita."

"Oh, but maybe. Or maybe, yes, some big birds fly and make screech----"

"Vita!" exclaimed Nora sharply. "What ever are you talking about? Are
you trying to--scare me?"

"Oh, no. No get scared at--any t'ing." mumbled Vita while her own
excited manner seemed real cause for alarm. "I just like to know when my
little girl sleep very good, like baby."

Truth to tell Nora was too sleepy to argue, otherwise she might have
demanded an explanation. Vita was plainly excited, and this fact coupled
with that of her strange actions earlier in the evening was
unquestionably enough to cause suspicion; but rest to a girl afflicted
with "nerves" is a precious thing, and when it came to Nora she had no
idea of risking its loss by any sort of argument.

But Vita seemed to want to linger longer. First she looked at one
window, then at another. She even plumped a cushion--as if that were
necessary to a night's comfort!

"Where do you sleep, Vita?" asked Nora, drowsily.

"Oh, in a good bed, in the little room by kitchen," replied the maid.

Nora recalled the maid's room. It was on the first floor just off the
kitchen. So it could not have been Vita who slept in the attic.

"Would Vita get you a nice cold glass of water?" asked the solicitous
one, still anxious to please.

"Oh, Vita," a yawn interrupted, "I am so sleepy----"

"Then I go----"

"Yes, you go. Good night, Vita," said Nora sweetly, "and I hope I sleep
as soundly as I threaten to and as well as you want me to," finished
Nora. "Isn't that being a very good girl?"

"Very, very good," said Vita happily. Then she went out quietly and left
Nora to her coveted slumber.




CHAPTER XIV

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE


But being converted to scouting could not at once cure Nora of her dream
habits. Being so long alone in school, and having a brain insatiable for
creative material, she usually went to bed to think and she went to
sleep to dream.

"I never felt so deliciously tired," she murmured. "But I do wonder what
ailed Vita."

Presently blue eyes cuddled in their white satin blankets with brown
fringe borders (a way Nora had of describing eye lids and lashes), and
then the panorama began.

First it was the Scout memory. She, as the bravest Scout that had ever
joined a troup, dramatically saved someone from drowning. Next, Nora as
the actress in the picture shown at Lenox, performed the daring feat of
swinging from the great rock with strikingly better effect than had she
whose name graced the program. The third dream installment had to do
with something very indistinct but horribly terrifying. It revealed a
crawling thing that first crossed the path, then climbed the morning
glory vine right up to Nora's window, and now--yes now--it was choking
her!

Had she screamed?

She found herself sitting up straight in bed and she felt as if her very
curls had straightened out in fright.

There--was a noise! She listened, put her hand out and switched on the
light. It was nothing in her room, but seemed somewhere--Yes, there it
was again and it surely was up in the attic!

Was that someone moaning?

Dream dizzy still, Nora could form no definite resolve, either to call
or to remain quiet. She simply lay fascinated with fright. The noise
ceased. Still she lay--listening. Then other sounds penetrated the
night. That was feet--shuffling of feet and they seemed just above her
head! Quickly Nora reached out again and touched the button that
switched off the light. She would rather lay hidden deeply in the bed
clothing than be exposed to whatever was prowling in the attic, should
it come down the stairs.

Then she thought she heard whispering, but that might have been her
excited imagination. She drew the covers closer and with her head buried
from sound she could no longer listen, and not possibly hear.

But after, what seemed to the frightened girl, a very long time she
ventured to poke her head out again, just as she heard a stealthful step
on the stairs.

"Oh!" she gasped aloud. Then "Vita!" she called faintly.

"Yes, I come. Sh-s-!"

Nora had not expected to hear that voice. She merely called Vita because
she did not want to call Cousin Ted, and she felt the intruder was
dangerously near. But there was Vita!

"What is it? You have bad dream?" asked the maid in a whisper, standing
now beside the bed.

"No, it was no dream." Nora's voice was not very low, in fact she was
angry. "I did hear things and there's no use telling me it was the wind.
It wasn't," she snapped.

"Sh-s-!" again Vita warned. "It is no good to wake cousins. I was up the
stairs for that old window. It slam--you hear it?"

"What could slam a window tonight?"

"I do-no!" in the way foreigners have of not understanding when
ignorance is more convenient. "I must go to bed now. You all right?"

"Say Vita!" charged Nora. "If you don't tell me the truth
I'll--I'll--just shout!"

"No, not too much noise," coaxed the big woman, who in her night robe
looked like a masquerade figure. "What do you want I should get you?"

"Nothing. I don't want anything but for you to tell me who is up in that
attic!" demanded Nora sharply.

"Me--Vittoria, is up attic."

"Who was with you?"

"Cap."

"Where is he now?"

"He go down--back way."

"Now Vita--" Nora stopped. She was baffled. This woman could confuse her
so and then walk off demurely, just as she had done that other night.
Finally Nora began again:

"All right, Vita, but you just listen." She was shaking a small finger
toward the face with the black flashing eyes. "If you don't tell me all
about your secret I shall tell Uncle Jerry. Now do you understand?"

"Secret? What is 'secret'?"

"The thing up in the attic is a secret," persisted Nora, although she
feared her voice might disturb the others now.

"That thing big Cap. He always at night sniff so much," said Vita. "Now,
I go to bed," she spoke this very emphatically. "I go to bed and you go
to sleep."

"All right, go," ordered Nora. "And don't you dare go up in that attic
again tonight. I was just having the most----"

But her audience had vanished and the house was empty, so to speak, so
why orate or harangue?

All sleep and its delightful attributes had flown. Nora was so wide
awake she felt she would never sleep again, and worse still, she was
angry. What did that old Vita mean by her attic tricks? If it were she
who was up there why did she moan? And if it were something else why did
the woman try to conceal it?

"Now, I have a Scout duty," Nora promised herself. "I must fathom that
mystery and protect Cousin Theodora and Cousin Gerald from that
unscrupulous woman." Visions of crimes hidden in the attic, memory of
her own incarceration there when the trap door, as she now regarded the
door with the spring lock snapped shut, filtered through her excited
brain, and when she remembered how she had almost died up there, and how
it might have been years before her skeleton would have been discovered,
just as so many others had fared on secret attic trips, it did seem to
Nora that she should arise at once and immediately start her
investigations. Humor and tragedy hopelessly mixed.

"But it's so late," she figured out, "and would it be fair to wake
Cousin Ted when she is so tired and after her taking me to that
beautiful picture?"

Convincing herself that this was why she did not immediately begin her
brave Scout work, she once more attempted to quiet her nerves by
thinking of all the sheep Miss Baily had recommended to skip over fences
and lull one to sleep.

But sleep was far out of the reach of frisky sheep, and Nora lay there
thinking of so many things, her head threatened to ache and a miserable
day promised to dawn upon her if she did not soon succumb.

"Perhaps I wronged poor Vita. There may not have been anything wicked in
the attic after all," she soothed herself. "Why couldn't she go up there
if she wanted to? And maybe she stubbed her toe."

It was not very consoling but the best Nora could work up in the way of
consolation. One thing certain, Vita was honorable. She was a trusted
servant, and in the short time Nora had been at the Nest, many small
favors, peculiar to good cooks, had come Nora's way through Vita's
intervention.

Such happy thoughts finally dispelled the other unfriendly mental
visitors, and when Vita stole past the door again and looked in through
the darkness, all she heard was the even breathing of little Nora Blair,
who might or might not have been dreaming of horrible attic noises.

The day brings wisdom, and when Nora again dressed in the borrowed khaki
suit (she had suddenly taken a dislike to her own fancy dresses), the
glorious sunshine of the bright summer morning mocked the terrors of the
night.

A step in the hall. "I bring your fruit," said Vita kindly through the
open door; and there she stood with a small dish of such delicious
berries to be eaten off stems by hand--surely Nora had wronged this
kind, tender-hearted foreigner.

Nora was somewhat conscience stricken as she accepted the peace
offering. "Oh, thank you, Vita," she exclaimed. "I was just coming
down."

"But the Jerries are out early and you no need hurry," explained Vita.
"I make nice breakfast when you come."

"Cousin Ted gone out?" asked Nora.

"Yes, she say you stay home, not go after them, they must 'bob swamp.'"

"Bob swamp? Oh, you mean use the plumb-bob in the swamp. I understand,
Vita." It was really remarkable how well both understood today and how
dense both had been last night. "Very well, I'll eat my fruit here by
the window, and later try your lovely biscuits," said Nora, with a smile
rarely used outside the family.

The housemaid shuffled off. Looking after her, Nora wondered.

"I do believe she is trying to keep on good terms with me for
something--something queer," she decided. "Certainly she is afraid I
will tell Cousin Ted about the attic business." She paused with a big
red strawberry half way to her lips. "Well, I have a secret, anyhow,"
she decided, "and I like Alma, she makes me think of myself--she is sort
of shy and sensitive. Perhaps I shall make her my confidante."

Of all the Scouts Alma seemed most congenial, and having a real secret
was the first definite step in Nora's summer career. But are secrets
wise and are they safe to carry around in so big and open a place as
Rocky Ledge?




CHAPTER XV

WAIF OF THE WILDWOODS


It was so much better than dreams. Not only did Nora feel the importance
of having a real secret, but she also realized that the same
circumstance had actually made Vita her abject slave. Not a wish was
expressed by the visitor in Vita's presence but the maid would, if it
were possible at all, see to its fulfillment.

"I believe I'll tell Alma," Nora decided one morning after a visit and
return to and from Camp Chickadee. Almost daily she made those trips and
the Scouts had become such friends with her she was now regarded quite
as one of their number.

Expecting to join formally as soon as the other candidates of Rocky
Ledge were ready and the Counsellor should come down from the city, Nora
studied her manual and prepared for the honor. In the meantime she was
privileged to enjoy many of the Scout activities.

But "the secret" was really more engrossing just now. It provided her
with a personal importance--what girl does not enjoy the possession of a
knowledge others have not and everyone would love to have?

It was thrilling. Alma, the Tenderfoot Scout, who from the first had
espoused Nora's cause and even confided in her the real story of the
woodland prince, met her daily at a wonderful rendezvous, and there the
two girls, away from teasing companions, enjoyed confidences and built
air castles.

"I'll tell her today," the resolve was repeated as Nora started out.

She arrived first, and while waiting had a race with Cap all the way to
the Three Oaks and back again.

"Dogs have to run faster," explained Nora breathlessly, when Cap won by
more than he needed to establish his claim. "If you could not run faster
than human beings, Cap, you could never have been made a Red Cross
messenger, as you were in the awful war."

The arrival of Alma cut short the encomium. Salutations were brief for
both were eager to "tell each other a lot of things."

"Alma, do you think you could keep a secret?" The question was so trite
and time worn Alma smiled before answering in the affirmative.

"Because," continued Nora, "this is the biggest secret I have ever had,
and Barbara and I have had a great many."

"I have to have secrets," returned Alma, "because none of the girls seem
to understand me. They tease, you know, they almost made me homesick one
night; they kept teasing and teasing about the prince; and Miss Beckwith
had a hard time to make me stop crying."

Nora winced. "Well, this isn't that sort of a secret," she said
presently. "It's about our attic."

"What about it?"

"Oh, it's a lot to tell. We had better sit on the big log under the
chestnut tree and be comfortable before I start."

Then began the story of the first night at Wildwoods when Nora was
determined to sleep in the attic. Many an exclamation of surprise was
thrown in by the more practical Alma, but this in no way turned the
narrator from her course. She sent thrill after thrill up and down
Alma's spine, and she even voiced a suspicion that Vita might have a
member of "some den of thieves hidden in the attic, although she is the
soul of honesty," Nora was particular to state.

But it was the incident that occurred the night they went to Lenox that
really caused Alma to exclaim tragically:

"Nora, you should tell Mrs. Manton! It is not safe to hide anything so
serious as that. Suppose the Thing comes crawling down some night and
Vita is not there to drive it back?"

"Oh, she doesn't drive it back," Nora had not actually visualized the
terror in that way. "She just kept me from finding out----"

"What?" interrupted Alma when Nora paused from sheer excitement.

"I don't know what!"

"What do you think?"

"Well, maybe it's a--really Alma, I don't dare think. I did not know how
frightened I was till I started talking about it. Why, I am just all
creeps," admitted Nora. "Here Cap," she shouted, as the dog attempted to
wander off, "don't go away. Come on, Alma. I guess we had better go out
by the road. Why, I am just as frightened as if the--Thing were around
here!" she gasped.

"Maybe it is," said Alma cruelly, picking up her knitting upon which she
had not taken a stitch, and following Nora out of the little woodland
into the more open field that flanked the narrow roadway.

They hurried. Alma tripped and Nora almost screamed.

"Why, what is the matter?" asked the Scout. "You haven't seen anything?"

"No, but I feel so queer. You know, Alma" (she loved an audience), "I am
queer and I do believe I sometimes feel things in advance. Miss Baily
always said I did."

"She must have been queer herself," retorted Alma. "I had those wild
ideas, too, until I joined the Scouts. That's the reason Mother had me
join. She said I was too much alone----"

It was difficult to talk while hurrying over newly-cut stumps with which
the field was so thickly strewn. The surveyor's men had hewn many a fine
young birch and numbers of ambitious young maples there, for this was
one of the forests lately cleared.

"Here come the girls," exclaimed Nora, as they looked down the road.
"Alma, promise not to say a single word----"

"Why, Nora Blair! As if I would divulge a secret----"

"Excuse me, Alma. I did not mean just that. But when one does not
realize the importance----"

"I do realize it. But it's all right, Nora. I know just how you feel,"
conceded Alma, amiably. "There. I have to go with Pell to get some
grasses from the Ledge. I'm sorry I can't walk home with you. You don't
mind----"

"Not in the least, Alma. I was just jumpy while we talked--that way.
Besides, I always have Cap. Good bye. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

"Won't you wait for the girls?"

"I'm afraid if I do I'll stay talking. Hello," she called out as Pell
and Thistle came up. "Alma and I have had such a lovely time out in the
oak woods I am late for my--chores," she finished, laughing.

"What do you chore, Nora?" asked Pell. Her face was beaming with the
health of camp life and her voice vibrated youth and happiness.

"She chores chores of course," Thistle assisted. "I am sure the Nest is
a lot nicer place to live and work in than Camp Chickadee--when Pell
Mell is our inspector," she finished, with a pout.

"Nora, would you believe it that wretched girl left her shoes outside of
camp last night and this morning they were gone--to a goat preserve
somewhere," explained Pell. "She has my second best 'sneaks' on now, yet
she will malign me----"

"Why and whither away?" interrupted Thistle, seeing Nora about to
escape.

"Oh, I really must. I'll see you later," promised the blonde girl, whose
hair, always so fair, seemed to have taken on a shade of pure gold since
exposed to the open sunshine of Rocky Ledge.

So with paths divided they separated, and that was how it came to pass
that Nora was alone when she encountered the wonderful adventure.

Taking to the lane path, a walk she seldom thought of following, Nora,
keyed up with her excitement following the telling of her story to Alma,
felt she must get off somewhere and "collect herself" before going back
to the house.

Perhaps her head was down, and she may have ventured along as do much
older and more serious folk when engaged in some perplexing problem, at
any rate Nora was down the lane and into a strange grove before she
realized it.

She looked up with a start. "Where ever am I?" she said, if not aloud,
certainly loud enough for her own hearing.

The place was a veritable camp of low pines, and so dark it was beneath
the thickly woven boughs, Nora felt as if she had stepped from day to
night.

"But so pretty," she commented. Then she looked about for Cap. It would
not be wise to stray into such a lonely place without his reliable
protection. He marched up with a very military air as she called his
name. Evidently the place, strange to Nora, was familiar to him, for he
did not so much as raise his shaggy head to glance around him.

"Stay here," she whispered. Then, turning to survey the place, she
almost froze with fright. Over in under a very low tree she saw
something move--it was like a bundle of rags and it--yes, it had a head!

"Oh, mercy!" she gasped. "What's that?"

The black bundle rolled over and sat up. Two big, brown eyes glared at
her! The head was covered with a shawl. Was it a woman?

Frozen now with genuine fright Nora tried to move, but felt more like
sinking down.

"Oh!" she breathed. Then she saw how small it was. There! It was humping
up. Like a queer sort of animal the bundle took shape on huddled
shoulders, and from the outline eyes glared.

It was not more than twenty feet from where Nora stood, but the almost
night darkness of the grove helped make illusions terrifying.

Now it was on knees and now it stood up!

"Oh," cried Nora. "Who are you?"

A little girl--a poor little ragged girl, evidently more frightened than
Nora herself.

"Oh, do come here," cried Nora, as soon as she saw how she had been
deceived. "I won't hurt you."

The child was now standing. What a sorry little figure! The part that
was not eyes seemed just rags, and two bare feet pressed upon the brown
pine needles like chunks of withered wood. Her head was covered with an
ugly gray scarf and yet the day was warm enough to feel the sun's rays
even through the dense trees.

"What's your name, little girl?" asked Nora, venturing a step nearer.

The eyes rolled and then a smile broke over that frightened face. "I'm
Lucia," replied the child, and her voice was as pretty as her name.




CHAPTER XVI

LADY BOUNTIFUL JUNIOR


Hearing that small, fluty voice Nora sighed with relief.

"Come here, little girl," she said gently. "I won't hurt you."

"Please, I can't. I must run----"

"Oh, no; don't run," begged Nora, as the child showed every sign of
escaping. "I am all alone. I just want to talk to you."

"But I must not. I have to run," insisted the other.

"Why?"

"Because----" the voice had dropped many tones.

"Will any one hurt you if you don't?" This was merely a chance question
of Nora's. She could not think quickly of just the right thing to say
and was anxious to detain the child.

"Yes, no, maybe," a shrug of the small shoulders proclaimed foreign
mannerisms. Her dark eyes also bespoke the alien.

"Well, I won't let anyone hurt you," declared Nora bravely. "I'm a Girl
Scout, do you know what that means?"

"Yes, I know. It means crazy," promptly replied Lucia.

"Crazy?" Nora was somewhat taken back. Then it dawned upon her that
foreigners had a way of saying things--perhaps--"crazy" meant something
else to the child.

"Why do you say 'crazy'?" Nora asked next.

"Oh, they dress funny, and they run all over and they climb trees
like--crazy," said Lucia. Nora saw she was correct in her free
translation. Crazy was a comprehensive term to Lucia.

"Don't you like them, the Scouts?" pressed Nora.

"The little one--I like. The big ones chase me one day," came the
indifferent answer. "I have to go, I must run sure now," declared Lucia,
putting out her small hands to make a hole in the bushes through which
to escape.

"Oh, please don't go yet," begged Nora. "I have just found you and I
want to--know you."

"I don't dast," replied Lucia. "I have to hide now," she was getting
through the break when Nora took hold of the long skirt. At this Lucia
looked around sharply, and her dark eyes flashed dangerously.

"Are you hungry?" Nora asked. This was a tactful thing to ask and
offered immediate postponement of flight for Lucia.

"Sure," she replied, beaming. "What you got?"

"Nothing--just now," faltered Nora. "But I can bring you lots of good
things. You wait here----"

"Oh, no, I get caught," interrupted the woods wraith. "Then I
ketch--it."

Nora was sorely puzzled, but being Nora she had no idea of allowing such
an interest to escape. She said next: "If you tell me where to leave
things for you, I'll bring them and you can get them when no one is
around. Would that be all right?"

"Maybe," replied the exasperating Lucia. "But when you get it?"

"Oh, any time, I live near here and I can just run over and be back
before you have to go. Where do you go to?"

"I can't tell," answered Lucia with more foreign tone than she had yet
assumed.

"You mean you do not dare tell me where you live?"

"Yes, that's what I mean."

"Why?"

"I don't dast," again came that quaint, childish negative.

"Who would do anything to you?"

"Nick."

If Nora was eager to talk, surely Lucia was determined to be very brief.
What could she mean by "Nick."

Again Lucia held the bush back into an open gate. And again Nora tugged
at the skirt.

"If I bring you a lovely sweet pie will you come back and talk to me
here?" begged Nora.

"Where will you put the pie?"

"Can't you come and get it?"

"I don't know."

It was aggravating. The child seemed purposely obtuse. Nora had an
instinctive feeling that somehow she was the object of abuse. Her
cringing manner indicated oppression.

"Now, Lucia," she began again, "if you come here every day I'll come all
alone, except for Cap, and I'll bring you lovely things to eat. Wouldn't
you like that?"

"Sure."

"Then you will come?"

"What time?"

"In the morning--about this time. Would that be all right for you?"

"If Nick is gone."

"Who is Nick?"

"Very bad man. I hate Nick." This last sentence was so purely American,
that even Nora guessed the child had come from mixed surroundings.
Holding to her shawl Nora could feel, she imagined, a shudder pass
through the slim frame at the very mention of the name Nick.

Lucia dragged her scarf off a bush. "I go now," she said with just a
tinge of politeness. "You bring pie?"

"Yes, a big pie. Don't forget to come."

"I come--sure."

The queer figure stood for a moment out in the clear sunlight, and Nora
had a chance to see her features. She was pretty, strikingly so, in
spite of her pinched cheeks and her too lustrous eyes.

"Please--you don't tell anybody?" came the appeal. "I work all day and
pull weeds, but like to sleep little bit by the big trees, sometimes."

Then Nora guessed. "You mean you are sick and come here to rest?"

"Please."

"Well, you just come here whenever you want to, Lucia," said Nora with
feeling. "The idea of a tiny tot like you working at pulling weeds! And
with all those heavy rags on you! It's a shame!" she declared
indignantly.

"You don't tell?" the child persisted anxiously.

"No, Lucia. I'll never tell. I have a lot of secrets, and this one I
won't even tell Alma."

"Good bye."

Like a frightened animal the waif sped across the field and dodged into
the next clump of shrubbery.

"She is afraid of being seen," reasoned Nora. "Who ever saw such a
pitiful little thing?"

Then it dawned upon her that Cap had not even sniffed suspiciously.

"Did you like her, Cap?" she asked, patting the patient animal, that all
during the broken conversation had lain at Nora's feet without so much
as a single growl. "Did you feel sorry for her, too, Cap?"

He may have or there may have been some other reason for his
indifference, but now he was willing and anxious to go home. It was
lunch time and Cap never needed an announcement.

Nora followed him. She was too astonished to know even what to think.
That a little beggar girl should hide in the bushes to rest from hard
work!

"I'll bring her the nicest things Vita can bake," she concluded. Then
came the thought: How would she get Vita to give her the supplies
without making known the use she was to put them to?

Picnics were common. These would surely supply an excuse for carrying
out food, and, after all, wouldn't it be a picnic for Lucia?

Nora's heart was fluttering.

"I never knew what a vacation was before," she told Cap. "Here I am
having a love of a time and doing things worth remembering."

How different from the fashionable summers she had been accustomed to!
Nowadays she hardly had time to look in a glass, and yet she was
enjoying every hour. It was like discovering something new continually,
and did Nora but know the secret of the adventure it was simply that she
was discovering her own resources--she was getting acquainted with Nora
Blair.

But miracles are not common, and Nora was not yet completely transformed
from a sensitive, secretive girl, to an honest, frank, fearless Girl
Scout.

Even the new discovery of Lucia and her sad plight was now locked up in
her breast.

But should it have been?




CHAPTER XVII

A PICNIC AND OTHERWISE


A rush of events followed. Chief among them was that of a Girl Scout
picnic, inaugurated by Ted and Jerry, carried out by Nora and enjoyed by
all.

It was a delightful hike out to the Ledge, that big, rugged rock that
leaned over a pretty, disjoined lake, made up of tributaries from
springs and rain flows. Rocky Ledge was exactly that--narrow, rocky; a
table or shelf that leaned out just far enough to form a little portico
over the frivolous waters beneath. It was a charmed spot, with many
thrilling legends to its credit, and being different from the entire
scenery surrounding, it gave the place its name--just like one girl
different from her companions will stand out as an example, if she
happens to be that kind of different that is interesting.

Not that other parts of this territory were commonplace. No, indeed.
There was a fertile farm country, Jerry's precious forests, Ted's
wonderful butterfly haunts and even Nora's cedar groves; but these did
not touch the high spot enjoyed by that novel little ledge; hence the
whole territory was known as Rocky Ledge.

The picnic marked midsummer's festivity. Chickadee Patrol invited
members from other camps out to the Ledge, and when Pell insisted that
Thistle and her aids "do up enough grub" for those invited, a strike was
narrowly averted.

"You know, Pell Mell, the Mantons will bring barrels of things to eat,
so why should we make samples of our miserable home-cooking failures?"
demanded Thistle. Betta was standing hard by egging her on.

"They will bring the lunch, that is, The Lunch, but what about a little
four o'clock snack? There are silver springs out there with water cress
on the cob, and I know our girls are never loath to nibble a bite or two
when out on location," Pell reminded her mutinous crew. That was Pell.
She had a way of getting things done and at the same time making a joke
of it.

"Is Nora going to be inducted?" asked Betta. Next to Alma, Betta was the
most avowed champion of the girl from the Nest.

"Yes, we had a letter today and Becky told us we would have a business
meeting Wednesday, when your precious Babe Nora will be led to the
stake. She will accept the halter of allegiance to Pell, Betta and the
rest of the mob----"

"If you feel so frisky, Pell, I wish you would work off some of the
extra on this tin can. I am supposed to open it with a souvenir trick
can opener. I am sure Betta brought it from the state fair, B. C. 150.
It has all the ear marks of antiquity without any of the teeth,"
declared Wyn, who was struggling with an implement, curious and
wonderful.

"That's a perfectly good can opener," defended Betta. "Jimbsy purloined
it from his own mother's table----"

"Which supports my theory," interrupted Wyn. "His mother's table is none
other than antique. But there! It did cut--my hand into the bargain,"
and she defied all her first-aid rules by sticking a finger in her
mouth. "Glad it cut something."

"Where's Alma?" asked Laddie. "She always gets out of the drudgery."

"Alma was tagged along to town to buy things," explained Thistle. "Becky
is hearing her lessons on the way. Alma is our little freshman, you
know, girls, and while she doesn't wear mourning, she is often in
sorrow."

"She has a great time with Nora, I notice," remarked Doro. "I fancy
between the two of them they have fixed it up about the prince.
Shouldn't be a bit surprised if they invited him to the picnic."

"Now, remember," ordered Wyn, "don't dare say prince. Say duke if you
must, but spare Alma's feelings on the princeling. But honestly, girls,
wasn't it a joke?"

"Not to Alma," answered Treble. "She certainly had a vision if she did
not see a prince. Here she comes. Look at the bundles! Land sakes alive!
If it's more grub I'm going to duck. My fingers are mooing now from
spreading butter," and Treble plastered a slab of the yellow paste on a
square of bread, quite as if it were intended as mortar for a
sky-scraper.

An hour later they were on their way. Nora might have ridden out to the
Ledge in the little runabout, but she preferred to walk with the girls.

"I'm so excited about joining," she confided to Betta and Alma, her hike
partners. "I feel as if I were going to have my final exams."

"You don't want to," advised Betta. "You know your manual perfectly, and
have nothing to worry about. But we shall all be so glad, Nora, when you
are really a Scout. It is all well enough to be a lone Scout out in the
wilderness, but while we're around there is no sense in such isolation."

"The Lone Scout! Oh, I was fascinated reading about the provisions for
such an individual arrangement. Just imagine being a troop of one," said
Nora.

"About as interesting as Laddie's collection of one piece of genuine
mica," replied Betta. "As much as I detest the girls" (she gave Alma's
arms an affectionate squeeze in explanation), "still, I would rather be
pestered with them than to be a Lone Scout on the Big Mountain. There,
Nora! That would make a stunning title for your coming book."

"What book?" demanded the unsuspecting Nora.

"The one that is coming next," serenely replied Betta. "But let us
hasten! See yon girls are turning into the other yon road," she went on.
"We betta----"

A warning chuckle from Alma, cut short her "Betta." Until this
attractive girl learned to respect the all-American R she would never
know peace with her companions.

Joining the others the merry party hiked along; singing, whistling,
calling, laughing and making noises peculiar to girls out on picnics
bent.

Mr. and Mrs. Manton rode to the Ledge, deposited their treat and were
ready to be on their way and leave the girls to their own good time,
almost as soon as the party arrived.

"Oh, stay," besought Pell. "We are counting on having you in for our
games----"

"I wish I could," replied the big brown Jerry. "But the fact is this
wife of mine has planned a little picnic all of her own. You see, when
she got me in on this she knew I could not back out on hers. Yes," he
sighed affectedly, "she has made me promise to take her out canoeing,
and I am not sure what terror she has set for me at the end of the
stream."

"Oh, are you really going down the stream?" cried Treble. "I have just
longed for a ride down through the rapids----"

"Well, you best not take it," spoke up Mrs. Ted. "I am going down the
stream only to explore. And I would not go without the strong arm of a
man at the keel."

"Oh, Jimbsy, where art thou?" wailed Thistle. "Why didn't we treat you
right! Your gallant craft----"

"Get the water there, Cicero," shouted Doro. "This lunch is to have
lemonade a la carte, and there isn't a drop of water in the house. Sorry
to disturb the oration----"

"Gimme the pail," snapped the interrupted Thistle. "I never yet started
anything that Doro didn't finish."

But even the delightful lunch, served on a grassy table with every girl
holding down her own table cloth, for a light little breeze flirted
outrageously with the service--even all this did not tempt the Scouts to
tarry long from the delights of the great, wild open; and before the
normal eating hour had passed the girls were formed in groups and
circles, to suit their individual and collective tastes, and through
field and glen their laughter supplied the marching tune.

Nora was clinging to Alma, with a motive. She had seen the great field
of corn just behind the Ledge, where fertility could be depended upon,
and she was wondering, secretly, if little Lucia might pick weeds out
there?

"Could we go over to those gardens?" she asked the leaders, when the
other girls had all chosen their points for exploration.

"Why, certainly. I am glad to see that you are interested in real
gardens," replied Miss Beckwith. "Those are called the Italian gardens
because Italians work there, not because they bear any resemblance to
the wonderful gardens of Italy."

The temptation was strong within Nora to tell Alma just why she wanted
to go up close to the big women with hoes and rakes; but the memory of
Lucia's dark eyes, that looked so like dewy pansies when the child
begged: "You will never tell," that memory sealed Nora's lips, while she
eagerly sought out any small figure that might be that of the little
slave of labor.

"I don't like those horrid women," said Alma. "Why don't you want to go
over the other way, out into the pretty woodlands, Nora? Come on and
let's run back. I am almost afraid of that ugly creature coming over
that dug-up place," Alma declared.

"I don't like her, either," admitted Nora. "I only wanted to see--them
work--close by."

"Going in for scientific gardening when we make you a real Scout?" Alma
continued, as they both hurried back to the uncultivated territory.
"Lots of girls are trying it, but it's wickedly hard on the hands."

"Oh, I hadn't thought of that, Alma. But I just----" She stopped and
looked frankly into Alma's gray eyes. "Alma," she began again with an
unexpected sigh, "would you think me mean if I asked you to do something
to help me without, well, without explaining fully?" she floundered.

"Why, no, certainly not, Nora. You must have good reason for not wanting
to confide----"

"I do want to confide," Nora quickly took up the charge. "But this is
not my own affair. I have promised not to tell."

"Then don't bother to explain," said Alma, generously. "I'll do all I
can to help you. I am sure it's for a good cause."

"The noblest charity----" Nora checked herself. "I'll tell you. I want
to take my picnic lunch to--some place----" It was next to impossible to
go on without going all the way.

"Nora, darling! You are truly a brave Scout!" declared the admiring
Alma. "There you haven't touched your lovely lunch. Saved it for a
secret charity. Just you wait until you are received into the band of
Chickadees! I'll be your sponsor if I am allowed it, and I'll find a
way----"

"Alma! Alma!" gasped Nora, tragically. "You really must do nothing of
the kind. As happy as I am now at the idea of being a Scout, I shouldn't
even join if I thought that in any way this secret would become known."
She was breathless at the very thought, and had jerked Alma to a
standstill right in the middle of a mud patch, in her excitement.

"Oh, don't worry," soothed Alma. "I had no idea of telling any part of
the secret, that, of course, I really don't know anything about. I was
just planning what I might say to your especial credit if the promoter
should call upon me," she finished with a tinge of disappointment.

"Then help me carry my lunch back to--the woods near our house," said
Nora while the glance she exchanged was a unspoken volume.

"I hope you are not going to give it away to some wild animal," Alma
could not refrain from remarking.

"Oh, no indeed," Nora assured her companion.

"Then why do you not eat it?"

"I have promised----"

"Maybe it's Jimmie," said Alma, with a sly little chuckle.

"Jimmie! Why I have never spoken to him!"

"Oh, you should," the Scout assured her. "He is such a nice, useful
boy."

"Does he work on the farms?" asked Nora seriously.

"I guess he doesn't really work any place in particular, but almost
every place in general," replied Alma. "But let's hurry. The others will
think we got hoed in with the corn."

So they did hurry back to the picnic and back to their strategy.




CHAPTER XVIII

THE LITTLE LORD'S CONFESSION


It was all over. Nora had been made a Girl Scout. To celebrate the
enrollment Jerry and Ted gave a "large party" at the Nest, and of all
her memorable social functions, this to Nora seemed most delightful.

Every one came, even Becky the patrol leader, and in their uniforms all
freshly pressed out, the white summer blouse being allowed for the
festive occasion, the party looked quite novel, and the girls had a
wonderful time, dancing, playing games and inventing new fun provokers
at every turn. Nora as the guest of honor was honored indeed, and
accepted her compliments most gracefully.

"It was all a matter of opportunity," said Ted aside to Jerry, referring
to Nora's change of heart. "She is just as good a Scout as any of them."
This was a proud boast.

"The woods are full of them," said Jerry the champion of all girls,
Scouts and near Scouts. "Just give them the chance."

But up in her own room Nora was pondering. "It's just like getting
married," she reflected. "That is, I guess it is," she amended wisely.
"One must clear up every secret and fix all the old troubles when one
gets married, and one must clear up all the old worries and secrets when
she joins the Scouts," concluded the systematic, little self-appointed
conscience cleaner.

There was that matter of the prince. Never did Alma mention it nor never
did Nora hear any of the other Scouts refer to it without feeling
guilty.

"I just ought to tell Alma the whole truth," she was now deciding. It
was the day after the great event.

But came the thought of Alma's certain surprise that she, Nora, her true
friend and confidante, should have deceived her so long.

Pride did not melt into humility with the bestowing of the pretty Scout
emblem, so Nora did not see her way clear to tell that silly story of
her Lord Fauntleroy escapade. She was repeating her Scout promise "To do
my duty to God and Country and to help others at all times," and she
mentally made the promise again.

"To help others." That clause charged her. Was she helping Alma? Did she
not know, really, that the one glimpse of the person in velvets had left
kind and considerate little Alma guessing ever since, and also that it
had put her in a ridiculous position with her companions?

"I know, I'll write her a letter." The inspiration satisfied, and thus
started the most remarkable correspondence--but let others tell it.

"She got a letter!" exclaimed Wyn.

"What's wonderful about that?" asked Betta.

"It's from the prince, that's what," declared the first speaker.

"Prince!"

"The very same," chimed in Treble, stretching her long self from the
bench to the boat swing.

"What nonsense!" scoffed Betta. "Alma may be romantic, but she is not
crazy." (Lucia to the contrary.)

"Just ask her," suggested Wyn. "She's hugging that letter as tight as
tu' pence. I always told you Alma was madly in love----"

"Hush!" Doro's warning suspended operations along that line. Alma was
upon them.

"Letter?" asked Wyn, innocently.

"Yes, and if you like you may read it. It's from----"

"The prince?" blurted Treble, shooting her hand out.

"I'm corporal," said Thistle, pompously. "Let me have it, dear."

"Perhaps I should read it myself," said Alma, pettishly, thus prolonging
the agony. "It is so--personal."

"Yes, do," begged Wyn, coiling and uncoiling in sheer expectancy.

"Here's a seat," offered Betta.

"The sun's there," warned Thistle amiably. "Take this seat, Alma," and
she moved over so generously, the bench all but tipped end on end.

Every one waited. Alma took out her letter--it was in her crocheted bag
and one could see how she treasured it.

What a thrill!

But Treble pinched Betta and almost spoiled the start.

"I received it this morning," said Alma, "and, of course, it didn't come
through the mail."

"How?" asked Wyn.

"Jimmie!" replied Alma.

"Oh-o-o-o-oh!"

The shout was mortifying, Betta came to the rescue.

"Jimmie isn't your prince--Alma?" she asked sweetly.

"Jimmie!" Alma's tone was caustic. "As if that freckled face----"

"Here! Easy on the Jimbsy!" warned Treble. "He's a perfectly fine little
Scout, and if ever this patrol extends to co-ed----!"

"Let Alma read her letter," ordered Thistle, the corporal.

"How'd you say you got it?" persisted Wyn.

"Jimmie brought it."

"Where did he get it?" again asked the irrepressible Wyn.

"He was pledged not to tell, but just see the stationery." The envelope
was passed around; all commented favorably.

"You see," began Alma, "this was written as a confession."

The older girl shouted again. Treble nudged Wyn almost off the bench.

"Don't mind them, Alma, I'm listening," said Betta sharply.

"Oh, we all are," chimed in Doro.

Alma folded her letter. "If you are--going to--tease----" she faltered.

"Here!" yelled Thistle, quite uncorporal like, "The very first one that
speaks will be dumped into the lake. Proceed Alma."

From that point things went along better. Again Alma looked promising.

"As I said, the letter is a confession." Then ignoring a number of
subdued interruptions, she went on. "It is signed 'Your loving prince.'"

Could you blame them for howling?

"Your loving--prince!!!!" repeated Wynnie. "And is there a Jimbsy to
that?"

"I told you," said the offended Alma, "the only thing Jimmie had to do
with it was to deliver it."

"So far as you know," interjected Doro, "But Jimmie is a far-sighted
lad."

"Let me read it, Alma," said Thistle in desperation. "I can't see why
some girls can't have more manners."

"And why some can't have some?" retaliated Treble.

"Once more, shall I read it?" asked Alma, sighing.

"You shall," declared Betta. "The first one that interrupts---- Oh, I
say girls, it is almost time for drill. Have some sense and let's hear
it."

Murmurs approved.

"'I feel constrained to write this, dear,'" Alma actually read,
"'because I feel I have done you a great injustice.'" (Moans.)

"'After you saw me and I fleed----'" Alma paused. "He means flew, of
course."

This started another outburst, and what he didn't mean by "fleed" simply
wasn't worth meaning.

"Go ahead, Alma, we know he--fleed," prompted Betta.

"'After I ran'" (prudent Alma), "'I never had the courage to make myself
known to you,'" she perused. "'But when I heard your companions taunt
you----'"

"There! Taunting her! I told you to be good----" Wyn's interruption was
inevitable.

"It is no use in my trying to be sociable," said the sensitive Alma.
"But I thought you would all be interested."

"There is not much more to read," announced the popular member. "He just
says that soon--soon he will come."

"Oh, joy!" shouted Doro, rolling over in the grass. "Let me know in
time!"

"They're just idiots, Alma. Come on with me and leave them to guess the
rest," proposed the astute Betta, the confidante of girls. "_I_ want to
hear it if nobody else does."

Without even a giggle they jumped up and seized Alma. One could not be
sure whose arm was most restraining, but she changed her mind about
going with Betta. Instead she opened the famed sheet again and read:

"'My conscience has troubled me ever since, dear, but I was forced to do
as I did. Drop your answer----'" She paused. "I don't intend to read
that part," she calmly announced, and no amount of coaxing would induce
her to relent. No one should know where the letter to the prince was to
be mailed, Alma was determined on that point at least.




CHAPTER XIX

A DESERTED TRYST


Nora was disconsolate. For two days the dainties left for Lucia had
remained untouched. The bread box which Vita had given her to play with,
and into which the food was deposited for Lucia, stood upon the tree
stump with the sliced lamb, the piece of cake, and the big orange which
comprised the last installment offered by the sympathetic Nora, just as
she had left it.

"Can anything have happened to her?" Nora asked herself. She was almost
too disappointed to sit down and rest in the cool, quiet shade. Cap
sniffed the box but did not put a paw up to beg, and even the big noisy
blue-jay scorned a few crumbs that lay on a fallen leaf.

"Suppose he--murdered her!"

It was not unusual for a girl like Nora to think the very worst first,
in fact the normal, childish mind is very apt to leap at a sensation,
but only the high spot is sensed, the detail is always conspicuously
lacking.

"Of course she is deadly sick. Oh, why didn't she let me know where she
lived," Nora wailed secretly. "I could visit her and bring her all sorts
of lovely things----"

She lifted the paper napkin that covered the food offering.

"What's this?" she exclaimed. A stiff little green leaf made of very
shiny paper appeared, and with it, Nora found, was an old fashioned
nose-gay, the sort beloved by the Italians and the Polish peasantry.
Nora picked up the spray. It was tied with a green ribbon and somehow
gave Nora a distinct shock.

"Oh! She's dead, this is what they--have at funerals!"

Tears welled up into the blue eyes, and hands holding the silent message
trembled. Nora sat down and Cap nosed up to her; he knew something was
the matter.

Such a pathetic little bouquet! One stiff pink rose, one yellow daisy,
two bright red carnations and three very stiff green leaves, all made of
a sort of oil-cloth paper.

A tear fell into the heart of the rose. If it were not really a flower
it was at least a good picture of one, just as a photograph can so
vividly remind one of the original.

Nora went back to the box. "When can she have put it here?" she
wondered. It was under the paper plate.

Then she recalled that this last donation had been hastily deposited in
the box, for it was late and Nora had to hurry back to get ready for her
own tea at the time she placed it there.

"I must have it put right on her flowers," she pondered. "Poor, abused,
little Lucia!"

Picking up the untouched food Nora discovered a slip of soiled paper
beneath it. There was writing on it, a scrawl of some kind. She carried
it to the light out from under the dense trees.

"Yes, it's a note," murmured Nora, as if Cap, her only companion,
understood. And it just says "'Goodbye, with love.'"

Nora read and reread the scribble. It was written, she decided, in
Lucia's hand, for it was such a crooked, uneven scrawl. The paper was a
leaf torn from a book, and this assured Nora that at some time Lucia
must have gone to school.

"After all my joy, the party, the enrollment and everything, this has to
come," thought the discouraged girl. "I hoped today I could induce her
to come over and see Ted and Jerry."

It was too disappointing. For the first few days Nora had felt it was
safer to allow Lucia to have her way, and when she waited and waited,
until the Italian girl appeared, then coaxed and urged that she come
over to the cottage, Lucia showed signs of real fright. She would have
run from the tree-tent and never returned, if Nora had not promised to
agree to her secrecy. After that the benefactor brought the food but was
never able to get more than a fleeting glimpse of Lucia, as she scurried
off like a little black rabbit with her precious food and her strange
secret. And now she was really gone and had said goodbye.

"Why didn't I tell Alma?" sighed Nora, regretfully. "She might have
known a better way to have helped her."

Too late to reason thus, Nora with a heavy heart again covered the tin
box, hoping something would bring Lucia back; then she took the quaint
floral token and started for the Nest.

Her plans to help Lucia had included everything from a change of home to
a complete change of identity, for Nora felt the stranger must have been
in sore need, and why couldn't she induce Cousin Ted to adopt such a
pretty, forlorn child?

It was characteristic of Nora to decide on the most dramatic course, for
such a possibility as a mother, father, or family in the background of
Lucia's life was not thought of.

And was this to be the end of her precious secret? She squeezed the
paper bouquet until the humble ribbon wrinkled into a sad bit of stuff,
and then decided to put the token away with her most precious
belongings. Maybe Lucia would come back, and if she ever did Nora
decided positively she would then tell someone about the child, even
tell Cousin Ted if need be, and, certainly, Alma.

"And now I must go to my letter box," she told Cap, the faithful.

Looking up and down, in and out, far and near, to make sure no one saw
her, Nora followed the trail to the bent willow--the hiding place of
Alma's correspondence with the fabled prince.

She had been there, the moss was a shade lighter where feet had pressed
the velvet nap, and the leaves of the bushes were still "inside out"
from a hasty brushing made to clear a path to the bent willow.

Under the stone, as directed, Alma had placed her answer to the prince's
letter, and finding it there she quickly hid the envelope in her deepest
blouse pocket. She would read it in more comfort, enjoy it more at home,
with the door locked.

"What an exciting vacation I am having, really!" she reflected. "When I
came all I could think of was pretty things."

Had she been that Nora once so filled with foolish fancies that life,
brief as it had been to her, seemed too full of nonsense to admit of
real joys with girl companions, and any number of adventures?

"A real vacation indeed," concluded the girl in khaki, holding close
Lucia's flowers and Alma's letter. She was sorely tempted to peek into
the latter, but that would spoil the delicious secret reading, which to
be complete would have to be made in solitude.

It had been days since she went out "on location" with the
cousins--Jerry always called surveying "doing location," as the moving
picture folks termed their work, but so many other things claimed her
attention it seemed difficult to get them all in. Cousin Ted was very
busy herself, but had managed to write Nora's mother. A glowing account
of the Scout interests was surely given in that letter, and Jerry was
disappointed when Ted refused to ask permission for Nora to stay during
the winter. To this, woman-like, Mrs. Jerry Manton had not agreed,
because to go to school in the wilderness is always more picturesque
than practical.

But Nora had endeared herself to those generous hearts, and even the
thought of that real mother with an unreal name did not thrill her as
did the knowledge that she had "made good" with these devoted friends.

Home now--that is to the Nest, Nora rushed up to her room to devour
Alma's letter. She ignored Vita's appeal to come see the wonderful
flowers sent from some one for Mrs. Manton. She must read the letter
before going down to dinner.

In the biggest chair by the open window beyond locked doors she unfolded
the precious page.

"She writes a pretty hand," was the first comment. Then she read:

    "'Camp Chickadee.

    "'My dear Prince:

    "'How wonderful to get a letter from you! As you have
    guessed I did think of you ever since. Please tell me who
    you are and where you live? We Scouts would love to know you
    and perhaps we can tell you some interesting things about
    America, if, as I surmise, you are a visitor here.'"

"Oh mercy," gasped Nora. "I have only made matters worse. She actually
believes I am a prince. What ever shall I do?"

The letter lay mute and yet accusing. Nora had written Alma a first
letter to prepare her for the second. True, she did not explain--but she
fancied somehow Alma would come to the tree, and then perhaps they would
meet and settle the whole troublesome business.

"But it's worse, heaps worse," sighed Nora. The call from down stairs
was unanswered, for she must plan something else and that quickly.

First she thought of writing another letter with a complete and full
confession, but she dreaded it, shrank from it and finally abandoned the
idea.

"If it only were not Alma," she sighed. "I would almost enjoy the joke
on some of the others, but Alma!"

Nothing could be worse than this nagging at her conscience. She must
conquer it. And here was the new trouble about Lucia!

"I always thought secrets were such fun, and yet these are
positively--tragic," she thought. "If only I could tell Alma about
Lucia, at least that would be a comfort."

Another call from Vita. Cousin Ted and Cousin Jerry were in now. The
cheery whistle and the joyful "Whoo-hoo!" must be answered.

"Oh, dear me!" sighed Nora. "I suppose things always happen that way."
She gave Lucia's flowers an affectionate squeeze, dropped them into her
ivory box, slipped Alma's letter under the cushion and went down to
dinner.




CHAPTER XX

THE WORST FRIGHT OF ALL


It was growing dusk--the sunset seemed in a great hurry to get away, and
day time was evidently going to the same party. The Mantons failed to
induce Nora to accompany them on a "bug hunt," Jerry's term for Ted's
moth expedition. Vita too seemed in haste to get somewhere, and
altogether the evening was especially popular to make escapes in.

Nora was going over to camp, she announced, and would be there long
before dark. The girls would come home with her, she had assured the
prudent Ted.

So everything was settled and the Nest would be unoccupied, with Cap as
guard, for that evening.

Not a smile broke the serious look on Nora's face. It was evident the
program for the evening included something very important.

"Goodbye," called out Ted. "Be sure to go over to camp, right away, or
the dark will--catch you."

"Yes'm," echoed Jerry, "and Mr. Dark knows no distinctions at Wildwoods.
He throws a big black blanket over the whole kaboodle."

Nora replied, but even the joke did not cheer her. A few minutes later
she stood at the foot of the attic stairs, drew a long breath; then
dashed up.

Over to the chest that contained the costumes long ignored, she
literally dashed, yanked up the lid and dragged out the Lord Fauntleroy
outfit.

She counted the pieces, waist, jacket, knickers, sash--where was the
cap?

Nervously she fumbled over the tangle of garments, but did not find it.

"I had better dress first," she decided, "and come up again for the cap.
I am--so--nervous----"

No need to make the confession, for even her hands, young and usually
steady, actually dropped the velvet coat right on the dusty attic floor.

No time for looking in the mirror. The knickers were kept up with round
garters now, a Scout acquisition, and the thin white blouse that went
under the jacket, went under very quickly--fullness and strings jabbed
in wherever space allowed.

In a remarkably short time she was inside the entire outfit. One glimpse
in the glass assured her she was again garbed as the fickle prince. Then
for the cap.

"I have time to run and get it," she assured herself. "Of course, I must
have that cap."

Back to the attic, now a shade darker, and then again into the mysteries
of the costume chest, she rummaged.

"Oh, dear," she sighed. "I'll be--here it is! Thank goodness!" She just
jabbed it on her head. A sound startled her. She stood still, every
sense alert.

"What was it?" she instinctively asked.

Again. It--was--a low--moan!

Pausing only long enough to make sure her nerves were not fooling her,
Nora heard again, distinctly, a sound, a human or inhuman moan! Then she
rushed down the stairs, kept on rushing until she reached the street
door, and realizing no person was upon the premises, ran down the road,
straight for Chickadee Camp.

No thought of her appearance concerned her; she must get the girls to
come back and find out what was in the attic!

Only once she stopped, just to make sure the cap was not going to fall
off her yellow head.

Voices and laughter came to meet her. That was Thistle and Wyn----

Gulping back a choking, nervous gasp, she rushed on. The next minute she
dashed into Chickadee Camp and stood before an amazed group of Scouts.

"The prince!" went up a shout.

"My prince!" corrected Alma.

"Why, it's Nora----"

"Girls!" gasped the intruder. "Listen, please, I am no prince----"

"You are indeed. Just look at the dandy outfit. Alma, we most humbly
apologize----"

"Wyn," shouted Thistle, "please listen! Can't you see there is something
the matter?"

"Oh, there is really, girls," panted Nora. "Come quick! There is
someone--dying in our--attic!"

"Dying?"

"I was up there--getting these things, and I--heard the awfulest
moans----"

"Maybe it was Cap," suggested Treble. Her eyes had not wandered from the
surprising spectacle.

"Oh, no, he was outside," said Nora, "and no one is home, not even Vita.
Oh, please do come! I know someone is in agony," and her voice trailed
off into agony of her own.

"I'll lead," volunteered Thistle. "Come along, every one. Alma, you can
take care of your--prince," she could not resist injecting.

"Oh Alma," sighed Nora. "I was planning to come to explain to you----"

"You don't need to," and a most affectionate and all encompassing look
went from Alma to Nora. "I know all--about it now, and you are my
prince, just the same."

"Come along, you two lovers," ordered Thistle the leader. "You had a
'crush' on Nora from the first, Alma. Now we all know why. Fall in
there, Betta. No need to wait for guns----"

"I am not going without some weapon of defense," declared Betta. "Nora
knows her own attic, and she knows when someone is moaning. It may be a
lunatic. There is always an asylum in a pretty place like this."

"Oh, is there?" cried Nora. "I would be afraid to face a--lunatic in
that big, dark, attic----"

"I should think you would, lunatic or just plain, human being," agreed
Laddie. "You look delectable enough for anyone to just eat you up----"

"Can't you girls realize this is an emergency, not a debate?" snapped
Thistle. "We don't suppose Nora is dying of fright just for fun. Betta,
run over and tell Becky."

"Oh, don't let's have her along," interrupted Treble, bent on making the
most of the adventure. "You know she would have to do something we
wouldn't."

"Right," agreed Wyn. "Come along Scouts! 'Jeuty' calls us."

They had been "coming along" all the time. These expressions merely gave
vent to pent up energy.

Nora, although thoroughly frightened, was thankful that the dark helped
hide her dismay. Alma had her arm, and Alma was thinking in terms of
"prince," even the pretender was conscious of that.

The girls giggled and talked, as they always did, and as Betta took time
to remark, "they would be apt to do it at their own funerals." There was
no suppressing Wyn, and Treble fell but a peg below in volubility.

"Look out there!" called Thistle.

Everyone halted.

"What?" demanded Wyn.

"A puddle," replied the heartless leader. "And I'm responsible for the
shine on your shoes, lunatic or no lunatic," she declared loudly.

"When my turn comes to lead for a week I'll have that wretched girl up
every day at dawn," threatened Betta. "She has the cruelest way of
raising one's hopes."

"Had you hopes for the lunatic in the mud puddle?" demanded Laddie.

"You had better get your sense valve working," suggested Doro. "We are
almost there."

"Right," added Treble. "I can see the gate light now."

"How ever will we go up there in the dark?" Nora asked Alma. "I will be
afraid to go into the house."

"Don't you worry, dear," Alma was still under the influence. "We will
all go in together, and Thistle isn't afraid of man or beast."

Arrived at the Nest Nora was confronted with a light at the back of the
house.

"Someone home?" suggested Thistle.

"There shouldn't be," declared Nora. "Everyone is out for the evening."

"Where is Vita?" asked the same leader. They had stopped at the natural
hedge, and now stood under the picturesque, homemade arc light--Jerry's
lantern with the red globe.

"Vita went out somewhere. She often does, and you see I was going over
to camp, so there was, really, no one at home."

"Your dying princess has come down stairs to die," suggested the
irrepressible Wyn.

"Princess?" scoffed Nora.

"Or was it merely a maid in waiting--excuse me, your _man_ in waiting."

"Wyn," shouted Laddie, "can't you see you are making yourself ridiculous
at a time like this?"

She probably couldn't for she went off into a gale of laughter and had
to go behind a bush to enjoy it.

"There is someone in the kitchen," declared Treble. "Here she comes!"

She did; she came right out and greeted them.

It was Vita!




CHAPTER XXI

STRANGE DISCLOSURES


For a moment no one spoke--they were all so surprised.

"Hello!" called out Vita. "What's this? A party?" Her English was
perfect.

"No, it isn't Vita," Nora managed to answer. "I was almost scared to
death----"

"Let me tell her, Nora," interrupted Thistle, the leader.

"I'm not going in that house with her until Cousin Ted comes home,"
declared Nora. "Vita is always putting me off. She knows what that noise
up in the attic is."

"Have you heard it before?" asked Betta.

"Yes, a number of times----"

"Then, if the moaner did not die before, Nora, what makes you think the
present attack would be fatal?" Wyn came out from the bush to inquire.

"Land sakes, Wyn! Will you hush? Fun is all right in its place but this
is serious," warned Pell.

"Looks it," whispered the same Wyn, into Betta's unwilling ear.

"Nonsense, standing here like a----"

"Serenading party," finished Laddie. "Let's begin."

"Serenading?" An uncertain and feeble whistle followed, but in the dark
no one owned up to it.

"You coming in? No?" asked and answered Vita.

"No. We are not coming in," declared Nora, who had stepped up to the
door at which the spacious Vita stood. "We heard a noise up in the attic
and we were coming in to investigate, but we won't now."

The girls were audibly disappointed. They said so outright.

"Perhaps she doesn't know a thing about it," suggested Laddie. "Don't
you think, Nora, we ought to go in and look around?"

"No, I don't. She is in the plot, or secret or whatever it is," declared
Nora aside. "When I first came here I heard it----"

"Why didn't you tell us?" demanded Doro. The parade had come to a
useless halt.

"I don't know," murmured Nora. "You know I had queer ideas at first,"
she faltered, unconsciously smoothing down the pretty little velvet
knickers and slipping a nervous hand into an inadequate pocket.

"We know, but we all have--at first," admitted Laddie. "I used to think
I would love Thistle, and see what she has done to us with her old
bossing." The challenge went unanswered.

"Can't we go to the bench and talk it over?" suggested Betta, unwilling
to leave the scene thus unsatisfied.

"Oh, no, please don't," begged Nora. "I don't know just what I fear, but
actually, girls," she did whisper this, "I am as much afraid of Vita now
as I am of the thing up in the attic."

"Your nice, fat, good natured Vita?" asked Pell in surprise. The person
spoken of had gone indoors discreetly.

"I don't mean that I am afraid of her all the time," Nora hastened to
correct. "She is as good as gold, generally, and I am sure Vita is
honorable. But it is that attic affair--she is in some way connected
with that, and I am not going to take a chance of getting frightened
again tonight. You have no idea how I felt, up there all alone, in fact
I was all alone in the house when I heard that groan."

"Groan?" Wyn could not resist. "I thought it was a moan?"

But no one paid any attention to the remark. Betta suggested they agree
with Nora and all go back to camp.

"We can bring Nora back home about the time she expects her Cousin
Jerry," Betta's suggestion included. "There is no sense in subjecting
her to more terror with the Italian woman."

"For once I agree with you, Betta," answered Thistle. "March back to the
Chickadee, every Scout of you, and see that you don't wallow in that mud
puddle."

"But the prince?" inquired Wyn. "Is he to walk through ordinary mud
puddles?"

"No. Of course not. You and the other big girl, Treble by name, are to
carry him. Avaunt!" ordered the leader.

"Oh please----" protested Nora; but in vain. She was upon the shoulders
of Wyn and Treble before she had a chance to finish her useless appeal.

"Put your royal arms around me," chanted Treble.

"If you don't you may be dumped," warned the other slave.

"Listen!" ordered someone. "Here comes the whole camp! Are we out after
hours?"

"If we are we can plead emergency," explained Thistle. "How could we
wait for permission when someone was moaning to death?"

They took up the march in real earnest. As faithful Scouts they always
kept to regulations and found pleasure in doing so. Only Nora's call of
distress had lured them away as darkness was setting in.

"Please let me walk," begged Nora. "I know you must get back as quickly
as you can, and I am sure I have given you enough trouble."

"We love to carry you," insisted Wyn. "Besides, we know it's our last
chance. Alma will be unconscious in the throes of love from this on,"
she finished with a lurch that brought the erstwhile prince to "his"
feet in spite of their intentions.

A few more accidents, minor and major, according to the way said
accidents were accepted, and the squad arrived at Chickadee. Nora was
now more embarrassed than ever. How could she again go in among all
those sensibly-clad girls in that ridiculous costume? Besides, now she
was bound to tell the whole miserable story.

"Where have you girls been?" began Becky, who stood waiting. "Did you
not know this was story night?"

"We have been out scouting, and we did," replied Thistle in her most
docile tone. "Becky, love, we have the bravest thrill of our entire
career to unfold."

"Begin, please, by explaining the infraction of hours," said Miss
Beckwith, although her manner belied her demand, and the summer twilight
lasted.

"The thrill is none other than someone, anyone, dying of moans," said
Wyn. "We have with us tonight----"

At this she craned her neck over the tallest of them to locate little
Nora. But she, the guest of honor, was hiding behind Treble.

"When you hear the whole wonderful tale," promised Pell, "you will only
be sorry you were not along. We have been out gunning for attic ghosts."
After more talk of this variety Nora was dragged forth.

How pretty she looked in the camp light! A glow from the fire that had
been lighted for stories, surrounded the little prince, and, as the
picturesque figure stood in the center of the group of admiring eyes,
even the glory of the modern Scout uniform was threatened with eclipse.
In the late twilight the effect was entrancing.

"Isn't she darling?"

"Just look at those--panties?"

"Oh, don't you remember----"

"Sweet Alice Ben Bolt."

"No, not Alice, but the night we fought over those bloomers," recalled
Treble.

"They're not bloomers. They're rompers."

Then began that whole foolish debate which ended up by Thistle declaring
they might be overalls for all it mattered, if only the girls would let
Nora tell her story. Pell and Treble agreed. The introduction was
briefly outlined for Becky's benefit, then Nora was allowed to tell it
as it appeared to her--that is, she was allowed to begin to tell it that
way, but what with the interruptions, the suggestions, the questions,
and the qualifying clauses, it was small wonder the willing culprit made
poor headway.

As the story took the shape of a confession Nora seemed to be the
culprit, but judging from the approval voiced by the multitude they all
had little regard for _her_ brand of "crime." In other words, Nora only
imagined she had offended, the entire detail made a most interesting
story as it was told around the campfire blaze of Chickadee Patrol.

She admitted frankly that her early notions were anything but practical,
she bravely recounted her weakness for fancy things, including ivory
bureau sets and pink ribbons, to which more than one Chickadee added her
own little admission, in fact, Pell said she always did and always would
love pink; brown khaki and smoked pearl buttons to the contrary
notwithstanding.

The telling of her attempt at attic tenancy brought forth peal after
peal of laughter, in which Nora joined. Then she told all about her
disguise as the fabled and famous prince.

"I think it is all too jolly for words," insisted Laddie, "and what do
you say, girls, to our adopting Prince Adorable for our mascot?"

This precipitated more trouble. Nora was put on the table, that long box
used when weather was pleasant and drenched when weather was wet, and
from that grandstand, or throne, she was called upon to make silly
speeches, prompted by Wyn and interrupted by Betta.

Alma objected. She insisted Nora had hinted to her something she ought
to tell the others. And she further maintained it was a matter serious
enough to put a stop to all nonsense, and "if the girls aren't willing
to listen quietly, I shall take Nora over to the other tent, where she
can tell Becky in peace," threatened Alma.

This put a soft pedal on all unnecessary sounds: even Wyn desisted.

"Tell us, Nora, please do tell," begged Wyn. "We have had fun enough to
give our poor jaws a rest. Mine are aching from laughing."

So Nora began.




CHAPTER XXII

THE DANGER SQUAD IN ACTION


It was a fascinating tale. Every detail told by Nora took on new value
as it was silently applauded by her eager audience. Thus encouraged she
waxed eloquent, and when she finished all about the wearing of the
Fauntleroy costume, then her desire to tell Alma the truth, when she
knew the Scouts were teasing the Tenderfoot, the recital might well have
been called a credit, even to the girl who felt guilty of its secrets.

"You see," she said naïvely, "I was always so much alone. I had no
companion but Barbara, and she agreed with everything I said."

"What a change this must be!" murmured Wyn.

"Hush!" warned Betta. "Funny as you are, Wynnie, you _can_ be rude."

"And now, girls," said Nora in a brand new tone of voice, "as I have
told you all of that, I feel anxious to tell you something else. I have
another secret and I think it is much more serious than anything else
that has happened on this wonderful vacation."

"Out with it," begged some one, but Nora did not hear the thoughtless
phrase.

Miss Beckwith sat with the girls, encouraging their confidences, and the
usual safety in numbers was surely a clue to the satisfaction of the
novel meeting. Secrets were best shared by the multitude, then what one
was not wise enough to know, some one would surely be clever enough to
guess--so far as solution of the problem went.

"One day when I was wandering around--it was the day we had such a
wonderful time----" Nora started.

"When you learned to swim?" prompted Wynnie.

"I think it was. Well, I just walked along a lane I had never found
before," continued the prince--for she was still that noble character,
"and under a cave of pines--they grew so thick I could hardly see there,
it was almost as dark as night; and right there, in a bed of leaves I
saw something move."

Just who was it that choked back Wyn's interruption does not matter, but
presently Nora continued:

"At first, of course, I thought it was a dog or something like that, but
all of a sudden it sat up!"

"Oh!" exclaimed the sympathetic Alma.

"Yes, it sat up and looked at me with eyes like coals of fire."

"Nora!" shouted Laddie. "I am all goose flesh, please tell us who had
the eyes."

"I'm trying to," said Nora, realizing the value of pauses. "I was so
frightened I wanted to run, but before I could do so the creature showed
how frightened she was----"

"She!" This was Betta.

"Yes, it was a poor, miserable little girl, all rags and eyes, and so
sad looking! Really girls, my heart went out to her," declared the story
teller in her most Nora-esque manner.

Titters barely tinctured the atmosphere. Miss Beckwith begged the girls
to listen politely.

"I managed to get her to tell me her name," said Nora next. "And it was
Lucia."

"Lucia," repeated a chorus in perfect time, pronouncing it "Luchia."

"Yes, a poor, neglected, little Italian girl, who has to work on one of
the big farms----"

"There!" almost shouted Alma. "I knew when you saved your picnic lunch
it was for something noble. It was for Lucia, wasn't it?"

"Yes, but after bringing her food for days she suddenly disappeared."

"What happened to her?" asked Pell.

"How can I tell?" sighed Nora. "I have done everything to find out. I
have even had Cousin Ted drive me around the big farms hoping to get a
glimpse of her, but I never saw any one who even looked like her. Then,
I haven't told you the most pathetic part," she paused again. "The last
day I went to fetch her a lovely piece of pie, you know I used to put
food in a big tin box Vita gave me; well, there was all that I had left
the day before. Of course, I was awfully disappointed and I felt
so--sorry I had not told you girls----"

"If you had, Nora," said Miss Beckwith, gently, "we might have found a
way to help the child."

"I know that, Becky, and I am telling this now partly to----"

"Ease your conscience," prompted Pell.

"Yes; I don't want any more secrets. They are more worry than they can
possibly be worth," said Nora tritely.

"You were telling us about the box," prompted Alma.

"Oh, yes; but I must hurry, I have to go home very soon. It is time the
folks were back."

"Tell us the rest and we won't interrupt once," promised Wyn in a
contrite tone, and she seemed to mean it.

"I found a little paper bouquet in the box," Nora continued. "And a
scribbled bit of paper."

"What was on it?" Betta could not help asking.

"Just a few words, 'Goodbye, I love you.'" Nora stopped suddenly.

"The poor, little thing," commiserated Alma. "And could you find no way
to tell who she was or where she lived?"

"I didn't dare ask anyone outright," answered Nora, "because you see, I
had promised not to tell anyone about meeting her. She was in terror of
a man she called Nick."

"Nick?" repeated a number.

"Yes; she would only say he was a bad man, and I know she feared him for
she would tremble so when she mentioned his name."

Miss Beckwith had remained in the background. If she knew a way to solve
the mystery, evidently she did not think the time had come to disclose
it.

"But when I found she was gone--I knew what a mistake I had made in not
telling anyone about it. Even if she was afraid, I could surely have
trusted--Alma," sighed Nora.

In the semi-darkness none could see the look of affection Alma threw
out. Her sensitive soul had found solace in the companionship of the
almost equally sensitive Nora.

"I must go," insisted Nora. "The folks will be home and I am going to
tell them about that attic noise tonight, Vita or no Vita."

"You are perfectly right in that," said Miss Beckwith. "Come along,
girls, we will all see Nora home this time."

They wanted to carry her back, but costumed and all that she was, Nora
felt little like partaking in their frolic. She feared something. That
moaning was human, of this she was certain; and it was equally certain
that Vita was in too good health when she appeared at the door, to have
been in any way implicated, physically.

"If your folks have not returned will you come back and stay all night?"
suggested Betta. "We could leave a message for them and you know you
have not stayed a single night at camp yet."

"I am sure they are at home, I see the light in the living room,"
responded Nora. "But thank you, just the same, Betta. I shall love to
stay a night soon, I have been counting on having that treat before this
vacation is over."

They had rounded the curve and the Nest was now in full view. Presently
they were at the door and Nora touched the knocker.

There was no immediate response and she wondered. "I can see inside, the
curtain is up, and I don't see a soul," she declared.

"Nor hear a sound," added Pell who was listening at the keyhole.

Here was another cause for wonderment. Nora rapped the knocker until the
sound seemed doubly loud, reverberating in the dusk.

But there was no answer. "What can it mean?" asked Nora anxiously. "I am
sure some one lighted the lights, can they have gone out looking for
me?"

"Can't you get in?" asked Miss Beckwith.

"Yes. I know where to find the emergency key. But I don't think I'll go
in." Nora seemed doomed to spend the night at camp after all.

The girls crowded around. Plainly any excitement was a welcome diversion
for them.

"Maybe the groaner lighted up," suggested Wyn, facetiously. "She seems
to like traveling."

"You are so brave, Wynnie," said Miss Beckwith, "I wonder would you be
brave enough to go in and investigate?"

"Certainly," came the quick rejoinder. "I'd like nothing better.
Volunteers?" she called out.

"Hush!" begged Nora. "It may be that Vita is upstairs and has not heard
us, although she must have heard that knock."

Again she rapped the knocker.

"Hark!" said Betta. "I honestly thought I heard a cry."

Everyone was now breathless.

"I do hear some one crying," declared Alma. "Whoever can it be?"

"That up-attic person, I'm sure," said Wyn. "Better get the key, Nora.
We can't let them cry to death while we are all here, listening in."

"I think I heard crying," said Miss Beckwith. "Perhaps you had better
open the door, Nora."

From under the fern dish Nora procured the key.

Miss Beckwith took it, and presently the door was open. The hall was
flooded with light, but everyone instinctively stepped back.

There was no sound.

"Where's Cap?" asked Nora. "We left him here."

"There is really nothing to fear," said Miss Beckwith. "Here we are, a
half dozen of us. I think we had better go inside. Maybe poor old Cap is
locked in somewhere and held captive."

"Oh, that's so," replied Nora. "He has a habit of getting in closets and
he might have sprung the door shut. Sometimes he moans----"

That was enough to excite practical sympathy, and everyone promptly
stepped inside. Once within, it did not seem so fearful. Pell prowled
around and Wyn made foolish noises; but Nora hung back.

After satisfying themselves there was nothing wrong on the first floor
they decided to investigate the second.

"I can always hear it right over my room," said Nora when the band of
Chickadees inundated that territory. "There! Did you hear that?"

"Yes, someone is crying upstairs," declared Miss Beckwith, "and we must
see who it is."

"But suppose----"

"Here's Cap. He would not let anyone touch us," declared Nora. "But
Becky----"

"Come along, girls, that is not the voice of a man or woman. Come, we
must do something. It sounds like----"

Bouncing up on Nora, Cap whined. "There, he knows, he wants me to go up.
What is it, Cap?" Nora asked again, and again the dog whined piteously.

Now, everyone was willing to lead, yet they formed quite an orderly
drill.

This was an emergency and emergency always means order for Scouts.




CHAPTER XXIII

RAIDING THE ATTIC


No one could tell just how they got there, but realizing that some one
was suffering they had all followed Cap to the attic, and there waited
again for the sound that was to lead them to the victim.

"There's a cabinet over there," Nora whispered. "A person might hide in
that."

She was holding on to Alma and looked odd, indeed, still dressed in that
gorgeous velvet costume.

"Here's another light--this will show us the far end there," said Miss
Beckwith, snapping on the extra bulb.

"There it is!" gasped Pell. "Oh, it is somewhere--yes, come over here,"
she cried. "Surely that's a child!"

The faint cry, that was almost like a sob, sounded again. It must be
over under the low beams.

Nora forgot her terror now, for she knew the secret place of the long,
rumbling attic, and no sooner had she heard the distinct cry than she
brushed past all the others, dragged up a big dust curtain, then
stopped.

"Here! Here!" she called frantically. "It's a little girl. Bring the
candle!"

Thistle was beside her with the extra light. "Oh, mercy!" gasped Nora.
"It's Lucia."

"Lucia," repeated the others.

"Yes, my own little darling Lucia. Oh, child," she cried out, "what has
happened to you? How ever did you get here?"

"Go away. Please, go away. I can't tell you. Oh, where is Vita? Vita
come!" begged a voice, while Nora tried in vain to soothe her.

"Let me there!" ordered Miss Beckwith. "The poor little thing!" she
continued. "She evidently has had a fit of hysteria. Just see her gasp!
Keep quiet, dear," she said gently. "You are all right now. We will take
care of you. There! Stop sobbing. Don't you know the girls?"

"She knows me, don't you, Lucia?" asked Nora, anxiously. "Oh, I am so
glad we found her. She might have died."

"Don't let us waste time in talking. Here girls. Use your first aid,
now. We must carry her down stairs to the air," ordered Miss Beckwith.

They carried her down carefully and laid her on a couch by the window.

"Where is this?" the girl murmured. Then she looked into Nora's face and
something of the terror left her own. "Angel," she said simply, blinking
uncertainly.

"You know this little girl, don't you, Lucia?" pressed Becky now,
anxious to arouse her.

"Yes," she said.

Nora cast a look of appeal at the director. She wanted to speak to the
sick girl. Becky motioned she might do so.

"Lucia," began Nora, very gently, "where did--you--come from?"

"I run away from--Nick," she gasped, and again that look of terror
flashed across the little pinched face.

"Don't be frightened; you are here with me, Nora, now," said the girl in
the velvet suit. "No one can touch you here."

"Where--is--Vita? She not come back, bring doctor?"

That was it. Vita had gone for a doctor.

"She'll be here soon," soothed Miss Beckwith. The Scouts stood spell
bound. How wonderful to have found the poor little waif right in Nora's
own attic!

There was a sound below. Vita came stamping up the stairs.

"What is it?" she panted. Then seeing the crowd. "You come--save my poor
little Lucia!"

"Yes, Vita, we are here," replied Nora, sensing now the part that Vita
had been playing. "We brought her down."

"Poor Lucia. Vita's baby--Vita's bambino," crooned the woman, as she
leaned over the couch and chaffed the trembling hands.

It was a pathetic picture. The brilliantly-lighted room was like a stage
with this strange drama being enacted upon it. The row of Scouts were
unconsciously standing like a patrol at attention, while Nora in
Fauntleroy dress, stood at Lucia's head; and the woman in the quaint
peasant attire bent over; and then, there on the soft, bright couch, lay
the inert figure with the great eyes staring out from under the bandage,
evidently put on the hot forehead by Vita.

No questions asked, every one could see the child was kin to Vita, but
not her own child, perhaps her granddaughter.

"She will be all right now, I think, Vita," said Miss Beckwith. "She
just had a spell of hysteria, didn't she?"

"Oh, she have a fit very bad," whispered the woman. "I run for doctor,
quick, but he is no place----" her voice droned off into a low sound of
foreign words, lamentation and wailings.

"Why was she shut up there?" asked Nora.

"She beg for dark--she never go in light when fit comes," Vita managed
to make them understand. "I always hide her--she runs from Nick like
anything. But he no hurt her, never. Just one time he scare her. She
always cry so much he t'ink she might get better, and he scare her.
Lucia run away and come to Vita, every time."

"He didn't really hurt her," Miss Beckwith was both asking Vita and
explaining to the girls. "Hysterical children must have a dread of
something, and I suppose she seized on that."

Lucia now sat up and looked about her. All the fear had left her, and
her black eyes shone with relief.

"She's all right now, aren't you, Lucia?" Thistle ventured to ask. The
other girls were still spellbound.

"Lovely," replied the child, actually rubbing her brown hand on the soft
couch cover almost as if she were saying, "Nice! Nice!"

"There come Cousin Jerry and Cousin Ted!" exclaimed Nora. "I'll bring
them right up."

"What Mrs. Jerry say?" asked Vita, anxiously.

"Oh, that will be all right, Vita," said Nora, running along. "She'll
understand everything."

It is marvelous what sympathy can explain. No need for words to fill out
the gaps.

"Well, what a reception!" exclaimed the surprised Ted. "I never expected
such a party as this." Her eyes fell upon Lucia. "A refugee?" she asked
kindly.

"Vita's little girl, Cousin Ted," said Nora, promptly. "We found
her--sick." She did not say where.

"She is in good hands now, I am sure," said Mrs. Manton, glancing around
at the patrol. "We were detained with our fractious car--should have
been home ages ago. Did you need anything? Have you had a doctor?"

"She seemed merely hysterical," explained Becky. "I don't think she
needs a doctor tonight. She will probably sleep well after the
excitement--and exhaustion," she added in an undertone.

"Well, of all things," exclaimed Mrs. Manton, suddenly getting a good
look at Nora. "Have you been having a masquerade?"

"A little Scout party," Miss Beckwith replied, to save Nora
embarrassment. "This has been an eventful evening."

"Must have been," agreed the hostess. "Shall we all go down and leave
the child to rest?" she proposed.

"_We_ must go," assured the leader. "It is not ten o'clock, I hope?"

"No, and we'll run you over in our car--if the car will run. Mr. Manton
is out tinkering with it. That's how he missed the excitement," Ted
explained.

Nora hung back with Lucia. She felt she had found her after so much
anxiety, she was almost afraid the child would be spirited away if she
should lose sight of her now.

"How nice!" said Vita, and the relief in her own voice proved that the
big woman had been suffering no little anxiety, herself.

"I go home now, Vita," said Lucia, humbly. "I'm sorry, Vita."

"Oh, you don't have to go home, Lucia," Nora hurried to interrupt. "You
can stay right here. You don't want to go hide in the dark any more, do
you Lucia?"

"But I don't want to make the trouble."

"She is so good when the fit is gone," said Vita, affectionately. "Poor
Lucia, she can no help it."

"Of course, she can't. I'll tell you, Vita, we'll ask Cousin Ted and I'm
sure she'll let us fix Lucia up in that nice attic bed. Would you like
that, Lucia?" enthused Nora.

"She love the attic," said Vita. "She come every time, and I must hide
her. But I no like to make the bother----"

"And that was why you kept it secret!" said Nora. "Well, Vita, I did
think you were--mean," she paused to soften the word, "but now I know
why. And I am so glad to find Lucia again. You see, I knew her before."

"You bring her the cakes----"

"And you knew that, too?" Nora's secrets were fast evaporating. "Well,
at any rate, Vita, you gave me a nice tin box and all the good things
you could make, so I won't blame you. I'll run along and ask Cousin Ted
about the attic. Dear me! What a blessing the girls came over with me!
We might have been going on this way--for weeks and not have found out,"
she added. "But the girls have to hurry off; it is getting time to
answer the night roll call. I'll be back in a minute, Vita," she was
talking fast. "Don't let Lucia move until I tell you," she warned.

"All right, little Nora," replied Vita fondly. "I have two little girls,
now; yes, Lucia?"

"The girls have to leave without hearing this whole wonderful story,
Nora," said Ted, as they crowded out to the car, "but I have asked them
to come over tomorrow. They will die of curiosity in the meantime if
Miss Beckwith does not keep them too busy to get into such mischief,"
added the young woman jocularly.

"Oh, Nora!" called out Wyn, "you come right over about daylight, will
you? We'll leave a tent flap loose and you can crawl in. I would have
nervous prostration if I had to wait until after inspection to hear the
sequel. Good night!"

"Good night! Good night! everybody!" went up the customary shout, and
when the reliable little car, so recently called fractious by its owner,
rumbled out into the roadway, the Scouts were actually singing their
camp song.

How wonderful to be girls! And how wonderful to be Girl Scouts!




CHAPTER XXIV

FULFILLMENT


"Of course, she'll come over. Didn't I say I'd leave a flap up?" asked
Wyn. It was so early that the very Chickadees, after whom the patrol had
been named, were still asleep in their own tree-top scout tents.

"As if she could get out of bed----"

"Why couldn't she? After last night I wonder if she will ever feel safe
in bed again. Seems to me," said the incorrigible Wynnie, "she could do
lots more good sitting up--raiding attics and things like that."

"But Chicks," said Thistle from a rumpled pillow, "isn't that child a
dream?"

"You mean didn't that child dream----"

"No, I do not. I think she is the most adorable thing. Why, she looks
exactly like a painting we have----"

"There--there," soothed Treble.

"Don't get homesick," Pell called out. "We have a few more days to go
before time to break camp and you want to be in at the big party, don't
you?"

"I think the prince part simply the most marvelous story I have ever
heard," said Treble, under her breath. It was too early to join in a
general wake-up.

"Leave it to Alma," whispered Laddie. "I always said these quiet little
girls have the most fun. I heard Wyn groaning in her sleep after every
one else was aslumber. That's the kind of fun _she_ has."

"Looks as if Nora had not walked in _her_ sleep, at any rate," put in
Betta. "I move we get up and slick things up early. How do we know but
the myth flew away in the night?"

"We don't, but she didn't," replied Treble crisply. "But hark to a
familiar sound. It calls arise----"

Then began the duties, and in spite of their anxiety to get over to the
Nest, the Scouts did succeed in performing their tasks with the usual
accuracy and unusual alacrity.

At nine o'clock they were free.

No need to ask what anyone was going to do that morning. Every Girl
Scout who had been in "the raid" was ready to run before the day's
orders had been read from the bulletin.

They headed for the Mantons' cottage.

"Did you ever?"

"No, I never!"

This was a part of the meaningless contribution in words offered as the
girls came up to the Nest. They had seen the tableau on the front porch.

"Hello!" called out Nora.

"'Lo, yourself," sang back Thistle.

"Too early for a fashionable call?" asked Treble.

"Come along, girls," Mrs. Manton welcomed them. "I am sure Nora has been
anxiously waiting for you. I'll let her tell you the news," she
finished, indicating the chairs for the party.

Lucia was in a big steamer chair. It almost swallowed up the tiny
figure, but she had a way of reclining, quite gracefully.

"How are you today, Lucia?" asked Alma.

"Oh, I'm all right," replied the child, pinking through her dark skin.
She looked very pretty in one of Nora's bright rose dresses, with the
same color hair ribbon, and her feet encased in a pair of white
slippers. No wonder she was "all right."

"She's going to stay," said Nora proudly. "We've adopted her."

"Quick work," remarked Laddie. "But I don't blame you. She looks as if
she grew right here in this lovely big wild wood. Don't you like it,
Lucia?"

"Lots, much," said the child.

"We found out all about it, of course," continued Nora. "Lucia won't
mind if I tell you?" she questioned.

"No," said the stranger. The single word indicated her timidity.

"You see, she is the daughter of Vita's daughter who died last year,"
Nora explained. "She has been living with cousins, and the man Nick, of
whom she was so frightened, is the cousin's husband."

Lucia now seemed to shrink back, and at that sign Nora signaled the
girls to leave the porch and adjourn to more convenient quarters for
their confidences.

Once away from the restriction, words flew back and forth in questions
and answers, until Wyn wanted to know if it was all a duet between Alma
and Nora, or could they make it a chorus?

"And he didn't beat her?" demanded Pell.

"And she is really related to Vita, not kidnapped?" asked Betta.

"You didn't find her all bruised up----"

"Now girls," scoffed Nora. "I know perfectly well you don't think
anything of the kind. You all know Vita was always kind and
generous----"

"Whew!" whistled Wyn. "How we can change! I thought she was a regular
bear this time yesterday morning."

"I think your cousins are perfectly splendid," said Betta, sensibly. "Is
she really going to adopt the child?"

"We had a doctor this morning," said Nora with an important air, "and he
advised change of scene----"

"Let's take her over to Chickadee!" interrupted Thistle. "That would be
a distinct and decided change."

"Oh, hush," begged Alma. "What else did the doctor say, Nora?"

"She is hysterical--all came from the fright of her mother's sudden
death," continued Nora. "But girls, I don't know how much to thank you,"
she broke off. "Being a Scout has done much for me."

"We believe you," said Wyn in her usual bantering way. "But say, little
girl, are you going back to that school where they teach you to wear
silk underwear in the cold, blasty winter weather? Couldn't you make out
to get adopted at the Nest yourself?"

A laugh, then a set of laughs, followed this.

"You are coming over to camp tonight, remember," said Alma, seriously.
"We have not initiated you yet, you know."

"How about that first formal ducking, with Jimbsy in the background?"
Pell reminded them. "That seemed all right for an initiation."

Mrs. Manton was coming down the path with the inevitable letter. Was
there ever a story finished without "a letter"? Mr. Jerry followed up.

It was, as you have guessed, from Nora's mother, and she did grant
permission for her to stay.

"So," said Mrs. Teddy Manton, otherwise Theodora, while the real Jerry
looked over her shoulder at the letter, and Cap sniffed approvingly at
Nora's khaki skirt, "we expect to have Nora go to school in town this
winter, and perhaps next summer we will all be back again at Rocky
Ledge."

"This was a real vacation," sighed Nora, "the best I ever had."

"Three cheers!" yelled the Scouts; and Lucia from her porch was truly
sorry she had ever called those girls "crazy."

It was all so comfortable and safe now. Even her "bad fit" was gone with
the winds, and how lovely to be out in the sunlight and have nothing to
fear!

Again came a riotous shout from the girls on and off the bench.

"Chick! Chick! Chick-a-dees!" they yelled. And it must have been Wyn who
echoed:

"Cut! Cut! ka-dah! cut!"

Girl Scouts are many and their adventures equally numerous, from
mountain to valley, over hill and dale, and their further activities
will be told of in the next volume of this series, which will be
entitled: The Girl Scouts at Spindlewood Knoll.

THE END.


THE GIRL SCOUT SERIES

By LILIAN GARIS

12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors

Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid

The highest ideals of girlhood as advocated by the foremost
organizations of America form the background for these stories and while
unobtrusive there is a message in every volume.

1. THE GIRL SCOUT PIONEERS, _or Winning the First B. C._

A story of the True Tred Troop in a Pennsylvania town. Two runaway
girls, who want to see the city, are reclaimed through troop influence.
The story is correct in scout detail.

2. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT BELLAIRE, _or Maid Mary's Awakening_

The story of a timid little maid who is afraid to take part in other
girls' activities, while working nobly alone for high ideals. How she
was discovered by the Bellaire Troop and came into her own as "Maid
Mary" makes a fascinating story.

3. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT SEA CREST, _or The Wig Wag Rescue_

Luna Land, a little island by the sea, is wrapt in a mysterious
seclusion, and Kitty Scuttle, a grotesque figure, succeeds in keeping
all others at bay until the Girl Scouts come.

4. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT CAMP COMALONG, _or Peg of Tamarack Hills_

The girls of Bobolink Troop spend their summer on the shores of Lake
Hocomo. Their discovery of Peg, the mysterious rider, and the clearing
up of her remarkable adventures afford a vigorous plot.

5. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT ROCKY LEDGE, _or Nora's Real Vacation_

Nora Blair is the pampered daughter of a frivolous mother. Her dislike
for the rugged life of Girl Scouts is eventually changed to
appreciation, when the rescue of little Lucia, a woodland waif, becomes
a problem for the girls to solve.

Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue

CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers, New York


THE RUTH FIELDING SERIES

By ALICE B. EMERSON

12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid

Ruth Fielding was an orphan and came to live with her miserly uncle. Her
adventures and travels will hold the interest of every reader.

    RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL
    _or Jasper Parloe's Secret_

    RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL
    _or Solving the Campus Mystery_

    RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP
    _or Lost in the Backwoods_

    RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE
    POINT _or Nita, the Girl Castaway_

    RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH
    _or Schoolgirls Among the Cowboys_

    RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND
    _or The Old Hunter's Treasure Box_

    RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM
    _or What Became of the Raby Orphans_

    RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES
    _or The Missing Pearl Necklace_

    RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES
    _or Helping the Dormitory Fund_

    RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE
    _or Great Days in the Land of Cotton_

    RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE
    _or The Missing Examination Papers_

    RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE
    _or College Girls in the Land of Gold_

    RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS
    _or Doing Her Bit for Uncle Sam_

    RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT
    _or The Hunt for a Lost Soldier_

    RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND
    _or A Red Cross Worker's Ocean Perils_

    RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST
    _or The Hermit of Beach Plum Point_

    RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST
    _or The Indian Girl Star of the Movies_

    RUTH FIELDING ON THE ST. LAWRENCE
    _or The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands_

CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers, New York





