The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills Part 2

CHAPTER II

MISS ELTING'S MYSTERIOUS CALLER

"Come back here!" shouted the guide. Harriet halted. She hesitated at sight of the black shadows there rather than at the command. She distinctly heard some one floundering over a high board fence that shut in the rear yard of the store and post-office. Ja.n.u.s's hand was on her arm.

"Well, I swum!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, that's too bad. He got away," cried Harriet ruefully. "I was too slow. I could have caught him just as well as not, had I not been so stupid as to wait."

Harriet and the guide walked to where her companions were standing, not certain what they ought to do, not quite sure what had occurred.

"This one's all right," chuckled Ja.n.u.s. "She's got the s.p.u.n.k, but she needs watching. She'll get the whole outfit in trouble. Tell me about it," he concluded, turning to Harriet.

"You saw it, sir?" asked Harriet quickly.

"I didn't see anything," returned the guide. "The man was standing on the spot where you are standing at this moment. He was listening to what we were saying, but for what reason I can't imagine. I made the mistake of calling to you. I shouldn't have done that. When you started for him he disappeared."

"Yes, we saw him; then we did not," added Miss Elting.

"You didn't stop to think. You were too excited, and, besides, I was nearer to the man than were the rest of you girls. He simply dropped down on all fours and ran off the porch like a dog or a cat."

"Well, I swum!" muttered the guide.

"Mr. Grubb, I don't like this," declared the guardian severely.

"Neither do I, Miss," he replied in a tone that made the girls laugh.

"I am not certain what I ought to do, Mr. Grubb," continued Miss Elting. "If it means that my girls are to be annoyed and disturbed, we shall be obliged to look for another guide. You know I have a personal responsibility in this matter. I shall have to think it over. Unless you can give me reasonable a.s.surance that these incidents will not be repeated, then I shall have to make some different arrangements. You will please send the luggage to the hotel as suggested. I will see you early in the morning, at any rate. Come, girls."

Ja.n.u.s, somewhat downcast and very thoughtful, led the way to the Compton House, a short distance down the street from the post-office and grocery store. The girls began talking almost as soon as they had left the store porch.

"Please, please don't discharge him," begged Hazel. "He is such a nice man."

"And thuch nithe whithkerth," added Grace Thompson. "He lookth jutht like an uncle of mine, who----"

"I agree with the girls, Miss Elting," interjected Harriet. "We are able to take care of ourselves. Perhaps this is simply another crazy man, of whom we shall be rid as soon as we leave the village for the mountains in the morning. Please don't dismiss Mr. Grubb."

"I shall have to think this matter over," was the guardian's grave reply. "We do not care to repeat last summer's experience. You remember what came of relying on the a.s.surance of a stranger." Miss Elting referred to the manner in which they had been tricked by the man who had charge of her brother's houseboat the previous summer, and whose treachery had caused them so much annoyance.

None of the Meadow-Brook Girls made reply. They were as fully puzzled in this respect as was their guardian. Miss Elting, however, pondered over the mystery all the way to the hotel. They found the Compton House a very comfortable country hotel, rather more so than some others of which they had had experience during their previous journeys.

Arriving at the hotel, they hurriedly prepared for supper, for they were late and the other guests of the house had eaten and left the dining room before the Meadow-Brook Girls had even entered the hotel.

By the time supper was finished, their luggage had come over from the station. Ja.n.u.s Grubb, went home, not a little troubled as well as mystified by the occurrences of the evening. Who the man could possibly be he had not the remotest idea. He tried to recall who of his acquaintances might be guilty of playing such a joke on him. To the mind of Ja.n.u.s the incident could have been only a prank, though he questioned the good taste of any such interference between himself and his customers.

On the contrary, Miss Elting and her young charges attached more serious meaning to the performances of the man who had regarded them through green goggles. They regarded the incident with suspicion and agreed to proceed only with the utmost caution.

None of the readers of this series need an introduction to Harriet Burrell and her three friends, who figured so prominently in "THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS UNDER CANVAS." It was in this narrative that the four chums made their first expedition into the Pocono woods and for several happy weeks were members of Camp Wau-Wau, a campfire a.s.sociation of which the girls became loyal members. At the end of their stay in camp they decided to walk to their home town, sending their camping outfit on ahead.

The story of their journey home on foot was told in the second volume, "THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS ACROSS COUNTRY," in which an Italian and his dancing bear, a campful of gipsies and a band of marauding tramps furnished much of the excitement. Then, too, the friendly aid and rivalries of a camp of boys known as the Tramp Club furnished many enjoyable situations.

It was in the third volume, "THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS AFLOAT," that Harriet Burrell and her friends were shown as encountering a considerable amount of adventure. The girls led an eventful life on the old houseboat on one of the New Hampshire lakes, and also encountered a mystery which, with the help of the Tramp Club, was run to earth, but the solving of it entailed the loss of the "Red Rover,"

their houseboat.

And now the Meadow-Brook Girls were about to spend a few weeks among the "Marvelous Crystal Hills," as the White Mountains in New Hampshire have been aptly termed.

Much time and thought had been spent in preparing properly for this long vacation jaunt. Camp equipage had all been overhauled, and much that would serve excellently where there was transport service had been discarded for this journey into the hills.

Resting for a while after finishing supper, the girls began to make up neat packs containing such bare equipment and food supplies as they believed to be indispensable. Then there were the tent, blankets and cooking utensils to be looked after. Of course, the guide would carry much of this dunnage, yet our girls were no weaklings, and no one of them expected to shirk carrying her fair share of the load.

It was after nine o'clock when Harriet and her chums finished the making-up of the packs. Soon after a clerk knocked on the door of Miss Elting's room.

"There's a man below who wishes to speak with you," the clerk informed her.

"It must be Mr. Grubb," guessed the guardian, and left her packing to go downstairs. She glanced into the lobby of the hotel; then, not seeing Ja.n.u.s there, stepped into the parlor. A man, a stranger, was sitting near a door that led out to the hotel veranda. In the light of the kerosene lamp that hung suspended from the ceiling she was not able to make out his features at first. She saw that he wore a heavy black beard, that he was rather roughly dressed, but that his hands were white.

"Are you the man who wished to speak with Miss Elting?" she asked, confessing to herself that she did not wholly like the appearance of the man.

"Yes," he answered, rising. Now that the light fell on his face she noted that he had a low, receding forehead. His beard covered the greater part of his face.

"About what do you wish to speak with me?"

"Well, it's rather a delicate matter, Miss," the man made reply, gazing down at the carpet, twisting his soft felt hat awkwardly. "I--I wanted to ask if you needed any a.s.sistance."

"What do you mean?"

"You are going into the mountains?"

"Yes, sir."

"You will need to have some one to show you the way and look after you and your party."

"We already have engaged some one to do that. You mean a guide, I suppose?"

He nodded.

"May I ask your name?"

"John Collins."

"Do you live here?" she asked, curious to know more about the man, whom she began to distrust.

"Not now. I live over in the next village. I was in town and heard that you folks wanted a guide. I know more about the White Mountains than any other man in the State of New Hampshire. I can show you more, and take better care of your party, than anybody else you could find."

"Do you know Ja.n.u.s Grubb?"

"Ye--yes," Collins twisted uneasily, "I know him."

"He is to be our guide. The arrangements were made some time ago by the father of one of our young women. Mr. Grubb starts with us tomorrow morning, unless there should be some change in the arrangements."