Dorothy Dale's Camping Days Part 6

"What's your hurry!" demanded Nat.

Dorothy felt like sinking down. The relief was almost as overwhelming as had been her fear.

"Oh, do hurry!" she called rather feebly. "I am almost dead!"

CHAPTER V

THE SEARCH

When Dorothy told her folks of what had happened, the boys could scarcely believe the strange story. That any one should actually make such a wild-west attempt at robbery, within reach of the Cedars, certainly did seem incredible. However, there was no disproving the marks on the girl's arms, where they had been rudely tied, nor could any one deny that in the attempt to remove her bracelet her delicate wrist had been badly bruised. At first it was thought best to at once notify the police, but, upon further consideration, Major Dale advised keeping the matter quiet, hoping that some one in the neighborhood would fall upon a clue to the daring young highwayman.

"I do hope the mystery will be cleared up before I leave for camp,"

remarked Dorothy, as the family sat in the beautiful library at the Cedars, discussing the strange affair. "I should never be satisfied with a written account of what may happen, when you find the culprit."

"Oh, we can tell you that right now," declared Nat, warmly. "When we find him we will lynch him, burn him at the stake, and have him imprisoned for life. When that sentence shall have been served we will make a fresh charge against him, and perhaps----"

"Put him in a reformatory until he is twenty-one," finished Ned.

"Well, he deserves it! And to think that we should be almost within call! Dorothy, I am inclined to question the wisdom of your silence.

Why didn't you yell like thunder?"

"And have him put some terrible gag down my throat?"

"And get all sorts of germs therefrom," added Joe. "Doro, you did just right, and we are thankful that you got off as well as you did," and her brother shook his head proudly, as if to say that a mere cousin could hardly know how a closer relative would feel on such a matter.

"I wish I could have seen him," mused Roger, to whom the whole story seemed like a wonderful tale of the West.

"Just for effect," put in Nat, with a laugh. "Roger is rather sorry he missed the show--he always falls for the scary part."

But Dorothy did not mind the child's natural curiosity. In fact she told him again just how the strange robber was dressed, and how fierce he looked at her through the holes in the red handkerchief.

"Maybe he'll come around to the camp," said Roger hopefully. "I'm going to have my rifle all ready."

"And I haven't yet told you of the adventure we had at Glenwood, just before school closed," went on Dorothy, realizing fully how delighted Roger would be with the tale of the hay wagon accident, as well as that of the scattered sheep. "We very nearly all lost a week's vacation through it, the princ.i.p.al was so indignant."

With splendid description, and with nothing startling left out, Dorothy went over the story. Even the larger boys became interested, and when she mentioned about the queer man, who sprang from nowhere, and who did things so unlike other people, Ned and Nat exchanged sly glances.

"You say he rode horseback like a real Indian?" queried Nat. "And that he sort of made up to my old friend Tavia?"

"I knew you would be jealous, Nat," answered Dorothy. "But you really must put Tavia out of your heart."

"Never!" and Nat struck a most tragic att.i.tude. "Tavia will ever be the queen of my heart!" and he made a thump toward that organ, with seeming suicidal intent.

Dorothy laughed merrily. She knew very well how devoted Nat really was to her own best girl friend, and she also knew that Tavia fully appreciated the friendship of the handsome young cousin.

"When's Tavia coming?" asked Roger, another special friend of the girl without wisdom.

"I hope she will be here before I start for the Lake," replied Dorothy. "She always enjoys the Cedars more than she does any other summer place."

"Hope she does, too," replied Nat, with unhidden warmth. "I want to put a flea in her ear before she runs any further risks with the knight of the horse."

"Really," said Dorothy, aside to Ned, when she had an opportunity of speaking privately, "there is something very mysterious about that man. I have an uncanny feeling regarding him, and Cologne told me he had written a letter to Tavia."

"Did, eh?" and Ned, the elder of the White boys, instantly put on a defensive air. "Well, whoever he may be, he had better be careful. We happen to have a----"

"Children," called Major Dale, "if you are going out to look for your bandit, you had best be at it. He will have all his best holding-up-ing done and be off to his cave with the spoils before you--beard him outside of his lair."

Just what Ned was going to confide in Dorothy about the strange man was left unfinished much to Dorothy's disappointment, for she felt that the boys had some important clue as to the ident.i.ty of the queer character. However, there was no time for further confidences, and she was obliged to run off to her little personal duties, while the boys made ready to explore the woods.

They proposed to lie in wait for the bandit for some time, and, if he did not put in an appearance, they planned to explore the woodland for at least half a mile around. They felt sure that they would come upon his tracks not far from the spot where Dorothy had been attacked, for it seemed reasonable to them, that any boy, or man, dressed as he was described to have been gotten up, would not attempt to go far from his hiding place.

With the White boys were two college friends, also home in North Birchland on their vacation, so that when the party actually started out they made up quite a squad.

"All got your guns?" asked Ned, as they sketched out their separate lines of advance, and made secret marks to show the starting points.

"Yep," replied Ben Nichols, the biggest boy in all North Birchland, whose particular "gun" was a golf driver.

So they started off. Roger insisted upon going, so Ned took him under his protection, while Joe kept within safe distance of Don Aikins, the young man from Bergen who claimed to be able to do anything, and any one, in the athletic world. He swung his light stick expectantly at the underbrush. Evidently he would be very pleased to have a swing at the boy with the roped-on armor.

It was splendid to have something real to hunt for--what boy, or girl either, would not have enjoyed the prospect--when there was not a question of being held up, but of holding up?

Then they separated.

Meanwhile Dorothy was very anxious. What if the boys should really come upon this daring young villian? What if little Roger should run off, and be overtaken? She almost wished she had never told the whole story, for as she believed it all a wild whim of some foolish boy, she also felt that he would quickly see the danger of his sport. It was the morning after her adventure, and she was able now to regard it with less terror. Still her wrist did pain and she still trembled when she recalled how the knife had slipped, and how easily it could have severed her own vein, instead of severing the skin of the masked bandit.

She was thinking this all over, while shaking the creases from her lately-packed clothes, brushing the walking skirt, in which she had traveled to North Birchland, and generally putting her things in order, when Mrs. White, gowned for the street, entered the room.

"My dear," she began, "I am afraid you will lose the out-door joy of this delightful morning. Why not slip into your riding habit, and take a run on Cricket? He would be so glad to do it himself, poor pony! The boys are so busy with their camping that they forget a young horse wants some fun too."

"I should be glad to, Auntie, but I feel I must get my things straightened out. The night I was packing up, the girls cut up so I had to hurry everything into my boxes in all shapes," replied Dorothy.

"But I will take a canter as soon as I have finished," and she gathered up the pieces of broken crockery that had remained in her box after the "fall of China," as Tavia designated the accident to her tea set. "How lovely you do look, Aunt Winnie," exclaimed the girl, gazing with sincere admiration at the superb figure in rose broadcloth. "I do believe you have grown taller!"

"It's the style of this gown, my dear. These lines affect the Venus length. Ned declared when he first saw me in this that I was put together in sections--couldn't possibly be all in one piece," and she laughed in the deep, velvety tone that, perhaps, more than anything else about her interesting personality, proclaimed her the woman of unmistakable culture.

When she was gone, and Dorothy looked out into the inviting sunlight, she hurried with her unpacking, and was soon dressed in the simple tan-colored riding habit, that so well matched herself, as to make her look like a shade of the morning, when she mounted the pretty little bay pony, and set off at a canter along the North Birchland roads.

She soon forgot the fright of her boy-bandit, although she did wonder just where the boys were, and if they had found any evidence of that person's depradations.

"Come Cricket," she spoke to her pony. "We must try a cross-cut. I want some mandrakes."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I DON'T WANT TO STRIKE YOU," SHE SAID, "BUT YOU KNOW PRISONERS MUST OBEY." _Dorothy Dale's Camping Days Page 54_]

The horse p.r.i.c.ked up his ears in response. Dorothy turned into a field where she thought the plum-shaped fruit would be found.

Dismounting, she threw the reins over Cricket's head and allowed him to nibble at the sweet gra.s.s. Yes, there were the mandrakes with their finger-shaped leaves. And they were turning yellow. Dorothy gathered a few, then stood up to look about her.