The Girl Scout Pioneers Part 15

"Got something the matter that makes him hide out there, and you don't mind exposing me to it?" Hal was laughing good-naturedly. He evidently was just as keen on the adventure as were the girls.

"Now, you have promised to keep our secret, you know, Hal, and we are sure we will find out something awfully interesting if he answers this letter."

"Suppose he gobbles me up?" returned the big boy, thrusting out his right arm expectantly.

"Oh, you know you have scoured and scouted these woods lots of times, and I suppose you know every squirrel by name," Madaline said. "But go on, Hal, and we'll wait here for you till you come back. There may be another letter under the stone," and her cheeks fairly burned in antic.i.p.ation.

"Well, so long! Take a good look at me, girls. Your cave man may turn me into a monkey or some other forest creature," and waving his free hand, Hal Crane sped off like the modern boy-scout courier he was.

"Nothing could possibly happen to him, do you think?" Grace asked just a little anxiously. The memory of her own thrilling experience in those woods had grown to something like a big black shadow that dragged from her the bag supposed to contain Mrs.

Johnston's wash. And Grace also recalled the mysterious note pointed out the fact that the writer still held on to the historic piece of rope Grace had left around the figure at the tree, and, just suppose the man should take revenge on Hal!

"Oh, goosey!" Cleo replied to her expressed fear. "Don't you suppose a boy scout like Hal can take care of himself! Why, when the men went out hunting for little Angelo Botana, Hal was the very bravest of all. He even waded in the swamp knee deep when the men couldn't manage the big drag nets. Why, Hal is as strong as any man," Cleo valiantly insisted.

It was not now a simple matter for the scout girls to occupy their time while awaiting the return of the messenger, even walking the stone wall, and jumping the breaks, usually a popular pastime, seemed flat and uninteresting now to them.

"Let's hunt four-leaf clovers," suggested Madaline, "and we will give any we find to Captain Clark as a new pledge, like our own clover-leaf badge."

"But ours are three-leaf, not four," Cleo reminded her. "Suppose we hunt the oddest, the prettiest, and the biggest number of varieties? See these lovely variegated ones. They come with the pink blossoms. We might mount a whole display of leaves on one of brother's b.u.t.terfly gla.s.ses. I think it would do for a nature study, also."

"Oh, yes, that's a perfectly splendid idea," applauded Grace. "I haven't added a single discovery to my list this whole week."

So absorbed did they become in this newly invented task no one noticed a wheel-chair being driven along the pleasant country footpath. In the chair was a little girl about the age of the scouts--perhaps fourteen years. Her pretty face betrayed not the slightest hint of the infirmity which compelled her to recline in that chair, in fact her cheeks were as pink as the much-lauded color Grace was so often complimented upon, but which to herself seemed rudely healthy.

Directly in line with the three scouts who were crawling through the gra.s.s, hunting clovers, the nurse propelling the chair drew her little pa.s.senger to the roadside and stopped.

All the girls hunched up on their knees like human "bunnies" and the little girl in the wheel chair laughed outright.

Cleo stared her surprise.

"Oh, please excuse me for laughing," spoke the child, "but you look too cunning--just like--like colored animals," she faltered.

Cleo smiled her forgiveness, while at that moment Madaline shouted the find of the first four-leaf clover.

"And such a lovely big fat one!" she qualified, now skipping over the tall gra.s.ses quite kangaroo fashion.

"A four-leaf clover!" exclaimed the girl in the wheel chair as her nurse moved on.

"Oh, why didn't we show it to her!" lamented Cleo. "She can't walk to pick them!"

"But she didn't tell us who she was," objected Grace.

"I don't care. I'm just going to run after her and give her this four-leaf clover," declared the warm-hearted Madaline. "I think we were awfully stiff and snippy," and without waiting for approval she hurried after the disappearing chair, just as it turned into the avenue.

"Would you like this!" offered Madaline, almost breathless as she overtook the two strangers.

"Oh, I should love it!" exclaimed the little girl, the sincerity in her voice and expression vouching for the truth of her simple words.

Madaline wanted to say something else, but feared to touch on the delicate subject of the little girl's infirmity. So she merely smiled, and said she could find plenty more, and that she was a girl scout doing a little nature work.

"Oh, a girl scout!" exclaimed the little invalid, her eyes fairly blazing enthusiasm.

"Yes," replied Madaline, edging away. "We have a lot of fun being scouts. Good-bye!" and she ran off without affording herself a chance to say anything else.

"Did she take it!" asked Grace unnecessarily.

"Yes, and she just loved it. But I couldn't think what to say, and I said we had fun in being scouts, when I saw she couldn't move for any kind of fun. Wasn't that awful?" wailed Madaline.

"No," the practical Cleo a.s.sured her embarra.s.sed companion. "It is always well to speak of scout work. Perhaps she will take an interest in it now. But look! Here comes Hal. Oh, I wonder what news he has!"

The girl in the wheel chair was quickly forgotten with the approach of the boy.

"Oh, he has a letter! See how he wags his head!" exclaimed Grace.

"Yep, I got one!" the boy called, now near enough to make himself heard. "Do I hear the good news?" he inquired, handing over the yellow envelope.

"It's for me!" Grace insisted, making sure of the prize.

"It's addressed to the 'Scout Bandit'" announced Hal. "I don't know that I would stand for that, Grace," but the girl, nervously attempting to open the yellow envelope, paid no attention to the insinuation. "Thank you so much, Hal," Cleo had the politeness to express. "Come on over to the bridge, and maybe we will tell you what's in the letter."

"No, thank you," he refused. "I'm due at a baseball practice and late now. So long, girls. Hope you make your points, whatever they are, by all that woodland stuff," and with commendable disregard for possible thrills, Hal turned his wheel in the direction of the ball field.

Now what girl could possibly have resisted the chance of sharing the woodland secret? Yet, being a boy, Hal ignored the offer and happily raced off to his belated ball practice.

"We can all squat down in this patch of gra.s.s," suggested Madaline, who, as yet, had not even glimpsed the envelope Grace had pa.s.sed on to Cleo. "Do let's read it!" she begged impatiently.

"All right!" and Grace did squat down beside the others on the little patch of gra.s.s that hung over the deep gutter. "Now listen!" (Needless admonition.)

"'Little Bandits,'" she began, "'if you find this I will know you are going to play our game. First I must tell you I have to keep my ident.i.ty secret for some time yet. My reason for doing so is a worthy one, which I will some day make clear to you. But I am not a lazy tramp, nor a wild woodsman in the ordinary sense, so, if you will keep faith, we can play a wonderful game.'"

Grace paused and breathed audibly.

"There!" she exclaimed. "I knew he would be nice."

"After you decided not to have him a horrid old tramp," teased Madaline.

"Oh, read it, Grace," Cleo insisted. "What does he want us to do?"

She resumed reading the rather broad sheet that might have been called typewriter paper, if the girls had been familiar with its style.

"Let me see. Oh, yes. 'Will you do something for me?'" she continued reading. "'If you have any little book of your rules and plans, and if you will leave one in the hollow stone for me, some day I will repay you for your confidence.

"'Your victim, "'THE MAN BY THE TREE.'"

"Oh, what can he want a scout book for?" eagerly asked Grace, folding the letter.

"We couldn't give it, without permission--unless, it would be too bad to give away our secret to get permission," pouted Grace.