Dorothy Dale's Camping Days Part 33

"Come on, Cologne," said Dorothy. "I see a path to the place. It must be somebody's camp."

"Why not wait for the boys? Give me your whistle. I must call them.

Where can they have gone to?"

"I am not going to wait one moment," declared Dorothy. "She may be suffering!"

The bent gra.s.s and weeds showed the way, Dorothy hurried along, only stopping to listen for the hoped-for voice. But there was no word from Tavia.

Cologne was almost behind Dorothy, but she could not conquer her fear.

She hesitated to make the first attempt to reach the tent.

Jumping over a small stream, Dorothy was beside the camp furnace. The next moment she stood looking at Tavia!

"Tavia!" she exclaimed.

"Hush!" whispered Tavia. "We must not wake her. Oh, Dorothy!"

Like a poor, crushed bird Tavia fell at Dorothy's feet. She sobbed convulsively, but choked back every possible sound.

"Darling!" whispered Dorothy. "What is it?"

"The sick girl! She has almost died!" sighed Tavia. "Oh, I dared not answer again. She was so frightened at my voice!"

"Run back, Cologne, and meet the boys," said Dorothy. "Tell them to go for a doctor!"

Glad to get away, Cologne turned, just as the boys came racing over the hill. They stopped, at her raised hand of warning, but Nat would not go back when he heard that Tavia had been found. Softly he made his way along, Ralph following at some distance, while Ned and Jack hurried to the sh.o.r.e near where they had left their boats. They knew that just across the river they would find a camp, in which might be found Dr. Ashton, from New York.

It was almost pitiable to see how Tavia clung to Dorothy, never suspecting, of course, that Dorothy had herself gone through an experience more trying than her own.

"Let me see her," suggested Dorothy. "I will be very careful."

She stepped within the tent. Instantly she was struck with the resemblance between herself and the girl who lay on the cot.

The sick girl opened her eyes.

"Tavia!" she murmured.

"What, dear?" asked Dorothy, for Tavia had not yet recovered herself.

"I--am so--much better. I would--like to--sit up."

"Not just yet, dear," soothed Dorothy, putting her hand to the hot forehead. "It will be better to rest to-night."

"But you--must not stay--longer--from your friends," she said. "Leave me, and look for them. Then come back."

"We are here," ventured Dorothy, aware that the girl was worrying about Tavia. "We have come to take you both home."

"Not back there!" and the girl sat bolt upright, and looked into Dorothy's pale face.

"No, to camp, with us, with Dorothy and with Tavia. Then we will send for your mother."

"Oh, I am so glad," she sighed, lying back on the pillow.

Nat had Tavia in his arms. She was now almost hysterical, and like the Nat he had always been, he turned the tables by accusing Tavia of having all the camping to herself.

"While we were digging up frog ponds looking for you," he scolded, "here you had set yourself up in one of the best establishments in the State."

"Oh, Nat," she sobbed. "If you only knew!"

"Every girl says that," he replied. "I suppose it would be a first rate thing if a fellow did only know--about a girl like you." He was doing his best to quiet her, and he knew that to scold is a good sort of treatment for too much nerves.

Meanwhile Cologne and Ralph had ventured nearer. They seemed afraid that a voice would harm some one, and Cologne only whispered.

"Tavia dear," she said, "whatever has happened?"

"She has promised to tell me first," said Nat, again showing his good sense in saving Tavia just then. "And we are not to hear one word until we get back to camp."

"Here come Ned, and Jack, and Doctor Ashton," interrupted Ralph. "Who is sick?"

"A friend of Tavia's, with whom she was stopping," said the wily Nat.

"That was why she could not get word to us. Her friend was very sick, and her folks were all away."

Tavia looked her grat.i.tude into Nat's manly face. The boys and the doctor had reached the tent.

"Wait here," ordered the doctor as he stepped within.

And it was Dorothy Dale who took up her place by the physician's side, as he did all that he could to unfold the case of Mary Harriwell.

"And how ever did you find this camp, one of the best for miles around?" asked Nat of Tavia, as they awaited the doctor's verdict.

"We fell into it. Whose is it?"

"Why the Babbitts left in a hurry last week--some one ill. They have not sent down for their things yet."

"Lucky for us," remarked Tavia. Then they heard the doctor moving about in the tent, and lowered their voices.

CHAPTER XXVIII

GOOD NEWS

"Oh, such good news!" exclaimed Dorothy, emerging from the tent. "It is worth all our trouble."

"What!" asked a chorus.

"She will be better! She has recovered her reason. The doctor says some shock----"