The Motor Girls on Cedar Lake Part 22

"Oh," sighed Laurel suddenly. "I feel faint again."

She sank down before Cora could support her. And they were away from the little hut where the water was! Away from every thing but the pitiless night!

"Oh, how dreadful," moaned Cora. "What shall I do?"

For a long time Laurel lay there so still that Cora feared she might really die. Then at last, she managed to sit up and grasp Cora's hand.

"I have never been ill in my life," she said. "It was all from that shock the day he compelled me to go in the race."

"Then you have every chance of getting perfectly well again," Cora a.s.sured her. "If that dreadful man had only left my boat."

"Perhaps in the morning we may be able to go," Laurel said. "Now that I have made up my mind I feel it will be better for father as well as for me, for if anything happened to me I fear he would die."

A light in the distance for a time gave them hope that a boat might be coming to the island, but, like a number of others, it turned toward the pleasure end of the lake.

"I guess we will have to make the best of it for to-night," Cora sighed. "Shall I try to find the hut and get you some food?"

"And you have not eaten! In my misery I forgot you. Of course--there now--I am better, and we will have to make our way to the pine hut. But if that man comes back!" and she shuddered.

"Why does he hold such power over you?" asked Cora, as she put her arm protectingly around her companion. "Does he supply you with your things out here?"

"We supply him," replied the girl bitterly. "He is never satisfied but always demanding more, until father will soon have nothing left."

Cora was mystified but this was no time for the strange story. She must help the girl to the pine hut.

"I believe you are more weak for want of food than from illness,"

Cora said. "I hope we find something to eat."

"Oh, yes, he brought things, but he should have done so before. I am weak for food."

It was difficult to find the way back now in the darkness, but the two lonely, frightened girls trudged on. At last Laurel was able to feel the stone on the path that gave the clue to her little hut.

"Does Brentano know you?" she asked Cora suddenly.

"I know him. I have been to his shack, and I have heard a lot about him from a housekeeper who left Peters. Do you know he is a handwriting expert?"

"A hand-writing expert!" gasped the girl. "Does that mean he could copy a signature?"

"Perfectly," replied Cora, "but how you tremble? What is it now?"

"Girl! girl!" she gasped. "What that may mean to us! Oh, I must find father! He will know. I must signal to him."

"Please do not to-night," begged Cora, fearing a new collapse from the excitement. "Wait until daylight. Here, now we shall get our food."

They were within the pine hut and had lighted a lantern. A loaf of bread and some salt meat were easy to find in the rudely-made box that served for a closet.

"I am actually starved," Cora remarked, with an effort to be pleasant. "I guess your pine trees make one hungry."

"Hark!" breathed Laurel. "I heard a step!"

The next moment Cora stood at the entrance to the hut, and waited.

The step was coming closer and closer! And it was plainly that of a man!

"Oh, what can it be?" gasped Laurel. "Or who is it?"

"I--I don't know," whispered Cora, her voice trembling in spite of herself. "But we must be brave, Laurel, brave."

"Oh, yes, I will be! Oh I how glad I am that some one is with me--that you are here!"

Cora felt the other's frail body trembling as she put her own strong arms around the shrinking girl. Then Cora peered from the door of the hut. Still that stealthy footstep till the approach of that unknown. Cora felt as if she must scream, yet she held her fears in check--not so much for her own sake as for the other.

Suddenly there was a crash in the underbrush, the crackling of brushes, the breaking of twigs.

"He--he's fallen!" gasped Laurel.

"Tripped over something," added Cora. "Oh, maybe he will turn back now."

Them was silence for a moment and then, to the relief of the girls, they heard footsteps in retreat. Their unwelcome visitor was going away.

"Oh, he's gone! He's gone!" gasped Laurel in delight.

"Maybe it wasn't a man at all," suggested the practical Cora. "It might have been a bear--or--er some animal."

"There are no bears on this island," replied her companion with a wan smile--"no animals bigger than c.o.o.ns, and they couldn't make so much a noise. Besides, I heard him grunt, or moan, as he fell. So it must have been a man."

"Well, he's gone," rejoined Cora, "and, now that he's left us alone I'm going to hope that he didn't hurt himself. He interrupted our supper and now it's time we finished it," and in the dim light of the lantern they ate the coa.r.s.e food and waited--waited for what would happen next.

CHAPTER XVII

THE SEARCHING PARTY

"I know something has happened to Cora," Hazel was lamenting, "and I am afraid we have lost good time in not going with the boys. Let us get ready at once. Here Bess and Belle, you take these lanterns, Nettie carry matches--and take a strong mountain stick, and--"

"Oh, mercy!" exclaimed Belle, in terror, "why should we need a strong stick!"

"To make our way with," replied the practical Hazel. "It is not easy to get about in woods on a dark night like this," and she gave a look at the lights to make sure they were all right. "The boys were to send word here, or to leave word with Ben if they found her.

Now let's hurry."

It was a sad little party that started off from Camp Cozy. When, that evening, according to the note Cora had left on the hanging lamp, she did not appear, for some little time, there was scarcely any anxiety. Cora was so reliable, and of course they could conjecture a dozen things that might have detained her. But when an hour pa.s.sed, and she then was not to be found, Jack jumped up, Ed and Walter followed, and as they hurried off, left the word that through Ben, or by message to camp, they would report to the girls.

Now another whole hour had pa.s.sed, and there was no message.

"Which way shall we go--?" asked tenderhearted Bess.

"To the landing first," Hazel replied. She was always leader in Cora's absence.