The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest Part 22

"Where did you put the things?" Cleo called to Grace. "I don't see them here."

"Left them exactly against the third post from the steps, coming toward the shoe black stand," Grace indicated.

"That would be all right on an income tax blank," sang out Cleo, after a fruitless search, "but it does not betray the boots. They're not here."

"Oh lands, hurry!" begged Elizabeth. "We shall be all alone with Davy Jones or Mr. McGinty or whoever it is who janities the ocean by night.

Let's all look."

No need for this proposal for all were looking; they needed pumps and stockings, but none could be found.

"Are you sure you left them here?" asked Louise again.

"Positive," replied Grace.

"And I saw them when I went for my bag," said Elizabeth. "I remember now, I left the pocket flash light burning--forgot to turn it off."

"You left a light in the sand by our things!" exclaimed Cleo. "Brilliant Betty! Well, why wouldn't the small boys walk off with them, either for fun or profit."

"I see nothing to do but play hop scotch home," said Helen dolefully.

"And they were my best patent leathers."

"My silk stockings broke the family bank," chimed in Louise. "Mother had just declared they would be the very last pair."

"Let's go to the pier and beg matches," suggested Isabel. "I don't fancy skipping all the way to Third Avenue 'as is,' whatever way that may be, but I believe it applies to any sort of goods not up to the best mark, and with bare feet I don't feel quite par excellence."

"Still you do the Greek dances beautifully," consoled Louise. "Let us take this philosophically. We have lost our booties and we must go home.

Now let's----" and she raced off with all the barefoot scouts after her.

Not that they minded that in the least, but the loss of silk stockings and pumps was not a good joke, even to the jolly True Treds.

Danger of broken gla.s.s and alighting on sharp pebbles varied the hopping, skipping and jumping, until the last scout dusted her toes and tried to explain the bare-foot stunt to surprised relatives.

Early next morning, that portion of the beach where the clothing had been lost was visited, first by one, and then another, until without arranging to do so, the whole party had again a.s.sembled.

"What shall we do about it?" asked Grace. "No use allowing any one to get away with five pairs of pumps and stockings."

"Besides a flash light and my bag," inserted Elizabeth.

"I guess we will have to put a sign on the post office," suggested Cleo.

This was met with a howl of ridicule.

"Can you imagine everybody devouring a neat little sign that stated five pairs of stockings----?" Grace asked.

"Oh, don't," begged Helen. "Let's do without them and wear sneaks. If we all set in to wearing them folks will think they are the very latest thing in footgear," she said pompously.

"Look what I dug up," Cleo exclaimed, displaying a rather disfigured pair of tennis shoes. "Jerry decorated them last summer, when he was trying out some new water colors. See that emblem there?" pointing to something like a wish-bone design. "Well, that's his frat emblem," she told her companions.

"Then it's decided we let the shoes go, and all our poor luck with them," said Isabel. "But I do feel rather mournful about my pretty buckles."

"Let's hie to the bungalow, and talk over our delayed plans to further invade Luna Land," called out Louise, poised on a treacherous sand heap.

"I'm just dying for another try at that mystery."

In the conclave it was decided to ask Neal for a ride in his lovely new motor boat.

"That will be the safest way to go," said Louise, "as it would afford the quickest chance of getting away."

"Nothing to be afraid of," Cleo said disdainfully.

"How do we know?" argued Isabel. "Just because no bears jumped out at us is not proof there were none up the trees."

"Bears don't climb the trees," retorted Elizabeth.

"Well, _we_ might have to and it's just the same," insisted Isabel.

"Do you know," said Cleo. "I wouldn't be surprised if some little child over there is playing Peter Pan!"

"That's nothing. Every child plays Peter Pan," cut in Margaret. "Didn't you tell us Mary Dunbar went up a tree at Bellaire?"

"Yes, but I mean a child who is living out the character, if that explains it more clearly," said Cleo.

"Nothing startling about that either," commented Helen, who admitted she was fairly "sizzling" for a mystery.

"Maybe Bentley wrote those signs," said Julia.

"Bentley!" exclaimed Grace. "That big boy wrote 'Take me to mama'!

Julia, Julia, Julia! Are you as far gone as that?"

"He could write them for fun, couldn't he?" fired back the much tantalized girl.

"Well, he could, of course, but how would he get the fun out of doing a thing like that? No, we have to look either for a freak or a poor neglected child. Now, True Treds, take your choice!" advised Louise.

"I choose the freak," decided Cleo. "Freaks are funny."

"And I take the chee-i-ld!" trilled Grace, "children need to be cared for, and True Treds should help."

"Whatever will Captain Dave think when he hears we have been on the forbidden ground?" asked Louise. "I care more for his opinion than for anything else."

"Guess we all do," said Margaret seriously. "We wouldn't like him to think we actually defied him."

"But wasn't it the most delicious joke," Grace reminded them. "When I didn't die a sudden death as Neal called out 'Why, that's Luna Land!' I will tell you girls, I am doomed to a ripe old age."

"Suppose we go right down now, and tell Captain Dave all about it?"

proposed Louise. "I shall feel better when the dark secret is off my conscience."

"A wise plan," declared Margaret, "but I don't like these slippers for a walk at this hour, too near bathing time. Anybody going in to-day?"

"Surely, but there's plenty of time yet," argued Grace. "All in favor of a trip to Captain Dave's--run."