The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna Part 17

There certainly did come to their ears a chattering sound.

"That's no squirrel," announced Otto. "I haf been hunting enough for them alretty."

"No squirrel was ever so noisy as that, Chet," said his sister.

"There! I see it again," cried the quick-eyed Bobby.

"My goodness, gracious me!" gasped Purt, who was craning his neck to see into the tree tops so that the back of his high collar sawed his neck.

"I--I thought it looked like a blue-jay."

"Say!" exclaimed Lance. "You're looking in the wrong direction."

"It's a monkey!" cried Dora Lockwood, at that moment.

"It's Tony Allegretto's monkey," added her twin.

Some of the others caught sight of the animal then. It was truly the large monkey the friends had seen only the week before at the amus.e.m.e.nt park at the other end of the island.

"He's run away!" cried Laura.

"I hope he has," Dorothy Lockwood said. "That Italian didn't treat him kindly. What was his name?"

"He called the monk 'Bebe'," said Lance.

"Let's see if he will come down to us," suggested Laura, crossing the hollow.

"Now, keep back, the rest of you," commanded Lance. "If anybody can get the little beast, Laura can do it."

"Sure!" chuckled Bobby. "Mother Wit can charm either boys, or monkeys--and right out of the trees!"

But they gave way to Mother Wit and she went alone to the foot of the tree in which Bebe was swinging. He chattered when she came near, and swung upright on the branch. But he did not appear to be much afraid.

Laura found an apple in her pocket, and she offered it to the monkey, calling to him soothingly. Whether his monkeyship was fond of apples, or not, he was curious, and he began to descend the tree slowly.

He was dressed in a part of his odd Neapolitan suit; but it was torn and bedraggled. A cord was fastened to his collar, but it had become frayed and so was broken. His queer, ugly face was wrinkled into an expression of doubt as he approached Laura, and his little eyes snapped greedily.

The apple tempted him.

"Come down, Bebe," coaxed Laura.

"Talk Italian to him--he understands that better," giggled Jess.

Bebe chattered angrily.

"Hush!" commanded Lance. "She'll get him yet, if you'll let her alone."

The monkey did seem, when all was quiet, to be about to leap into Laura's arms.

"Come, Bebe," she coaxed, and finally the chattering creature timidly dropped from the branch of the tree and snuggled down into her arms, grabbing the apple on the instant and sinking his sharp teeth into it.

At the very moment of her success there were crashing footsteps in the bushes and into the opening rushed Tony Allegretto, the monkey's master.

"Ah-ah!" cried the Italian, his face glowing and his black eyes snapping. "You try-a to steal-a da monk! Come to me Bebe--or I break-a da neckl!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "AH-AH!" CRIED THE ITALIAN, "YOU TRY-A TO STEAL-A DA MONK!"]

He rushed toward the girl holding the monkey. The animal chattered angrily and cowered in Laura's arms.

"Hold on," said Chet, stepping forward. "n.o.body's stealing your monkey, and don't you say we are. He was up the tree there and my sister got him down for you. I reckon if you treated him half decently he wouldn't run away from you."

"You! Ha!" sputtered Tony. "You one o' dem fresh boys, eh? Give-a me da monk!"

"Let him have the creature, Laura," said Chet.

"He'll beat him. See how frightened poor Bebe is!"

"Can't help it," said her brother. "He belongs to the dago----"

"Calla me da dago, too!" stammered the angry Italian. "I fix-a you for dis!" and he shook his fist at Chet.

"Come on and do your fixing right now," advised the big boy, easily.

"You won't find me as easy as Bebe, I bet you!"

"You 'Merican boys and girls want to steal my monk--want-a spoil-a da act!" cried Tony. He grabbed Bebe out of Laura's arms, although the monkey shrieked his protest at the exchange. But Tony did not beat the little beast, and it clung to him with one arm around Tony's neck while it finished the apple.

"You ought to thank us for finding your monkey for you," said Lance Darby, in disgust.

Tony growled something in Italian and started off up the side of the hollow. Before he got out of sight he was joined by a man who stepped out of hiding in a clump of brush.

"Did you see that?" cried Lance, eagerly, in Chefs ear. "There's another of 'em here."

"Another monkey?" laughed Chet.

But Dora whispered to Dorothy: "That man has whiskers. Do you suppose he is our lone pirate?"

"I'd like to see this piratical individual you girls are talking about,"

laughed Laura, who was nearest to the Lockwood twins.

At that moment Lance and Chet were walking back toward the entrance to the cave.

"Say, old man," Lance asked his chum, "what were you searching that chamber in the cavern for? What did you expect to find?"

"I don't know that I expected to find anything," answered Chetwood Belding. "But I'll show you what I _did_ find," and he drew from his pocket an old knife and placed it in Lance's hand.

The latter turned it over, and whistled under his breath. "I ought to know this old toad-stabber," he said. "Broken corkscrew--yes; small blade broken short off, too. Why, Chet, that's Short and Long's knife!"

"That's right."

"And you mean to say you picked it up in the cavern?"