The Girl Scouts at Bellaire Part 14

"I'll see if Auntie has finished," Cleo answered, running back to the house. Mary arranged a safer place for her pitcher plant, out where insects might find its fatal honey. Then, gathering up the basket, she, with the others, hurried back to the veranda. They found the three men just leaving, and as Mrs. Dunbar smiled frankly it was easy to guess the result of their interview had not been altogether unpleasant.

Michael had also been in the conference, and he delayed a moment to speak privately with Mrs. Dunbar.

"How is Shep?" she asked aside, so that her voice could not reach the girls.

"Coming around all right," replied the man, gladly. And he brought in a clew to his enemy. "Step inside and look at this." He took from his pocket a handkerchief. It was yellow in color, silk in texture, and was bordered with drawn work. Mrs. Dunbar examined it closely.

"Foreign, of course," she replied. "Those people seem to be pretty well organized. Take care of that, Michael; we may easily match it up later. Now I have to see what we are going to do about Professor Benson. The girls seem to need very little a.s.sistance, but we must watch closely to see they make no mistakes. This is more of a plot than I supposed, but our police are glad to get on the track of these men. Here are the children. If they ask for Shep make some reasonable excuse."

The wonderful story of the pitcher plant, of how it ate breakfast of flies and bugs, also what especial value it was--this and much more was poured into the ears of Mrs. Dunbar before she had a chance to grasp the meaning of the newest excitement.

"Wonderful! wonderful!" replied the hostess, really deeply interested in the "fly catcher." "I have always wanted to see one of those plants act."

"I am going to give you this one--please, Mrs. Dunbar," said Mary, timidly. "Janos, that is Reda's brother, has been watching for it. He said a New York woman had offered him a lot of money for one. That is why I brought this one with me. Will you--accept it?"

"Oh gladly, Mary dear. It is a real curiosity, and when Mr. Dunbar comes home he too will be delighted with it. But now I have such good news about Professor Benson. He is getting much stronger. The doctor saw him this morning, and thinks he has been suffering from shock and fear. He advised, however, that we leave him quiet this morning. I knew that would be a disappointment to you, Mary dear, but you wouldn't want to delay his progress."

"Oh, no indeed," and the two hands clasped excitedly. "If only he can recall--get back his memory," Mary corrected hurriedly, "perhaps after all it might all come back."

"You will be able to help the doctors in a day or two, I am sure,"

suggested Mrs. Dunbar. "It appears to be a case of stagnated memory.

Something registered in his brain as extremely important is simply clogged there. When he is stronger, then suggestion may be the key to open that congested memory valve."

"I know--yes--I know," replied Mary, and the far-away look in her own eyes gave the girls a hint which they were sure to follow promptly.

They immediately changed the subject.

CHAPTER XIV

AT THE STUDIO

"You don't mind my running away again, girls?" Mrs. Dunbar asked, folding the yellow telegram into the most unnecessarily minute squares.

"It is such a nuisance, but I have to see some of those delegates safely out of New York. Mere artists are not always prudent tourists."

"Auntie dear, we hate to have you go." Cleo dipped her head in the quaint bird-like perk. "But we can have a lovely time here even alone--I mean without you. Oh, no, not without you----" And the burst of laughter that applauded her confusion was like a full colored ill.u.s.tration of a verbal mistake. "Now, you all know what I mean," she finished, pouting prettily.

"Of course we do," acceded her aunt. "You can have a perfectly lovely time without me, and get into the most delicious mischief, tagging poor Jennie along. I have given her orders, you know, to report to me by phone if you take a notion to go up in an airship, or tie a kite by hand to the moon, so don't venture too far from good old earth. Mary, you are getting rosy already. It seems to me, for an old nurse your Reda has rather suddenly given up her charge, not to have inquired for you this morning."

"Oh, Reda wouldn't. She is dreadfully afraid of strangers," replied Mary.

"Why--pray?" asked Mrs. Dunbar simply. Mary shifted uneasily, shrugging her shoulders in the only foreign mannerism she carried, and answering with nothing more than a fleeting expression of annoyance.

"Oh, Reda is so queer, Aunt Audrey," Grace a.s.sisted, "she would run like an Indian if you just looked at her square in the eye."

"Is she Indian, Mary?" pressed Mrs. Dunbar gently.

"Yes, that is, she is from a Pacific Island outside of Central America.

You see, we were there when Loved One--went away."

Jennie was dusting the rails of the porch, and the little family kept moving about to accommodate her brush and polishing cloth.

"I must take a bag this time," Mrs. Dunbar said, reverting to her necessary New York trip. "I rather envy you chickens running around with no other cares than the next hour's adventure. Mine are all cut and antiseptically dried."

"And we never know what ours are going to be," remarked Madaline who was vainly trying to trap a feeble little fly, to feed to the pitcher plant.

"Come on," suggested Grace, "if we are not going to the Sanitarium let's go to the village. I haven't spent every single cent of my allowance yet, and I should hate to have my princely remittance overlap."

"Whackies on the nut-sundae!" cried Madaline. "I am bankrupt till my ship comes in."

"And I have to send home my Scout Sacrifice," said Cleo. "I promised mother I would not forget a little personal contribution to a charity case we are interested in. A child has to have an operation on her eyes, and we scouts are providing the comforts."

"Oh yes, Mumsey gave mine. She was afraid I would disgrace the troop by forgetting to remit," confessed Madaline.

"And daddy turned mine in, likely for the same reason," said Grace.

"Cleo, you are the only one trusted to do her part at this distance.

Mary, when you are a scout, you will better understand all our secrets.

They're just deli-cious," and she rolled her round eyes till they threatened to take tucks in her dimples.

It required some coaxing to induce Mary to go to the village with them, but they finally won out, and when Mrs. Dunbar embarked for her train, the four little girls waved a happy good-by, interspersed with reiterated promises to be good, and all mind Jennie.

"Can you come to my house now?" asked Mary after the luxury of nut sundaes, purchased with the combined balance of Madaline's and Grace's cash on hand had been disposed of, and the girls faced the early afternoon on Bellaire Center.

"I don't know," faltered Cleo. "We didn't ask Jennie."

"But I am so anxious to see if our things are all right," Mary almost begged. "You needn't be afraid of Reda, I am sure she is gone away."

"How do you know?" Grace asked frankly.

"She would be too frightened to remain at our house after last night.

Besides she often goes to New York with Janos. She gets all my clothes there."

"Doesn't she take you to see them, or be fitted?" asked the literal Madaline.

"Oh no, I am not allowed to go on trains. Someone might see me."

Everyone laughed at this, and Mary saw the joke herself. Nevertheless, she made no attempt to explain why she was not supposed to be seen by people outside of the little mountain town.

"I am afraid I shall have to go alone, if you girls feel you ought not to come," she said presently. "I really have to attend to some important things, and we all left in such a hurry last evening."

"Oh, if you have to go we simply must go with you," Cleo decided promptly.

"Surely, Captain Cleo," spoke up Grace. "You see, Mary, Cleo is our captain when we are away from headquarters. Oh, Mary, I do wish you were a scout, you would just love it."

"I am sure I should, I know it takes a lot of courage, and one must do many n.o.ble deeds to keep up to the pledges. I should just love to know all about it, and I hope you will tell me some day. Still," and she shrank a little in that timid self-conscious way, "I don't want you to take any risks with me, on account of your scout pledge."

"Please don't think that way, Mary," begged Madaline, always ready with sympathy. "We all just love you, and want to be with you, it has nothing to do with scouting."