The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp Part 27

"Why, boy, your sleeve is soaked in blood," exclaimed Miss Campbell.

"And you're as white as a ghost. Sit down here quick. Alberdina, a basin of water. Billie, some bandages. Hurry, all of you. Why are you standing around like a lot of wooden images?"

Phoebe was too inexperienced to join in the general rush for bandages, peroxide of hydrogen, absorbent cotton and witch hazel: all the first-aid-to-the-injured the camp afforded. She stood at the foot of the couch and watched Richard Hook with large innocent eyes. His own eyes, very dark gray, wide apart and extremely intelligent, returned her gaze with a kind of amused admiration.

In the meanwhile, Miss Helen Campbell snipped up his shirt sleeve with a pair of small scissors and Billie, overwhelmed with contrition, stood ready to bathe the wound, which was more b.l.o.o.d.y than serious.

"I call this pretty nice," remarked Richard, glancing at the circle of anxious faces leaning over him. "It's worth being shot to have so many ministering angels about one; and a Seraph with a flaming sword at the foot of my couch to guard me," he added, glancing again at Phoebe, now holding a lamp high with a perfectly steady arm, so that the others could see to work.

Having washed and bound the wound, they propped his head on two pillows and drew their chairs about the couch. Never was a young man so coddled before.

"You haven't explained to us yet, Mr. Hook, how you happened to drop down from the skies," said Miss Campbell.

"I dropped up and not down, on the contrary, Miss Campbell. The van isn't so very far away. The girls wanted to put up for the night at the foot of the mountain, but I was stubborn for once and we worked old Dobbin until his limbs refused to go any farther. After they had got settled for the night, I thought I'd take a stroll. I supposed you would all have gone to bed but I had a feeling I'd like to see Sunrise Camp by starlight. I wouldn't have found it, however, if I had not heard the calls for help on the bugle. There wasn't a light to be seen from the road."

Elinor felt a secret pride at this statement. It was she, then, who had brought the rescuer! Billie felt sure it was her own strong wish that had drawn Richard to them in their great need, while Phoebe, filled with the conviction of her faith, believed he had been sent in answer to her fervent prayers.

If Richard had been consulted about this and had spoken the truth from his heart, could he have explained the irresistible impulse that had urged him to climb the steep road up the mountain on that dark night?

At this juncture, Ben and Percy, more dead than alive from running, almost fell into the room.

"Great Caesar's ghost," Percy e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in a weak voice, "but we have had a fright about you, and here you are giving an evening reception!"

"Nothing has happened, then?" Ben managed to gasp.

"That little arch fiend led us into a jungle and lost us," went on Percy. "We heard the bugle calls for help. Gee! But we have had a run."

"And you're all right? You're safe?" cried Ben, counting them over. "And Mr. Hook has been protecting you? Thank heavens for that."

"My dear young man," observed Miss Campbell with some irritation, "will you please to turn around and look at that front door or slide or whatever you call the thing? I wish you to know that we have had one of the most exciting evenings of our lives. This house was attacked and broken into by a dozen ruffians and if it hadn't been for Alberdina, there, who has the mind of a general and knew exactly how to build a barricade with trunks, Phoebe would certainly have been tarred and feathered, even before Mr. Hook came to our rescue----"

"He heard my bugle," announced Elinor.

"I wished for him," thought Billie.

"I prayed for him," said Phoebe in a low voice.

"If Richard Hook had not appeared and permitted himself to be shot by Billie without uttering a sound----"

"Oh, I let out a yell," broke in Richard.

"We would have all been murdered, like enough."

"But where are your sister and Miss Swinnerton?" asked Ben.

"I suppose I had better be getting back to them," said Richard, who had quite forgotten that he had left two unprotected maidens asleep in a traveling van on a ledge half a mile below.

Percy and Ben offered to go back for him, but he would not consent, and Billie, solicitous and full of contrition for her reckless shooting, had the "Comet" out in a jiffy although Richard had asked to be allowed to walk. They found the van dark and quiet. Evidently the girls had heard nothing of the rumpus on the mountain and had felt no uneasiness about Richard, who was accustomed to taking strolls at untimely hours.

It did not take long to bring the motor car back to camp and before midnight a peaceful calm had settled over the log hut.

Phoebe, stretched on her cot in the living room, lay staring up into the darkness of the unceiled roof. She tried to think of her father somewhere out on the mountain, but always her thoughts reverted to the new young man with the kind, smiling eyes. Once she chanted in a low voice:

"'How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings!'"

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MORNING AFTER.

Miss Campbell felt no ill effects from the visit of the mountaineers.

She had not even thought of ill effects, in fact. Somehow, the presence of Phoebe, unruffled and calm through all the danger, had had its influence on all of them. Even Alberdina's emotions had been hushed by contact with that peaceful nature.

It was well past six o'clock before the exhausted household awakened next morning at Percy's trumpet call. Hurrying down before the others, Billie was amazed to see the traveling van drawn up in a clearing at the edge of the grove. Old Dobbin, tethered to a rope, stood nearby peaceably munching his breakfast from a wooden pail. Amy Swinnerton was seated in front of an easel sketching the log cabin and from inside of the van came the crisp voice of Maggie Hook, singing:

"'I loved a la.s.s, a fair one, As fair as e'er was seen; She was indeed a rare one, Another Sheba Queen: But, fool as then I was, I thought she loved me, too: But, now alas! she's left me, Falero, lero, loo!'"

"Good morning!" cried Billie, running over to the van. "You must have m.u.f.fled old Dobbin's feet to have crept in so quietly. How is Ri--Mr.

Hook?" she added, all in one breath.

Maggie popped her head out of the front of the van. She reminded Billie of a little bird peeping from a bird house.

"Not 'Mister,'" she called, smiling brightly. "Remember, Billie, that we brothers and sisters of the road never use t.i.tles."

"Oh, yes, I mustn't forget that I'm one of the fraternity," answered Billie, smiling.

"'--Gypsy blood to the Gypsy blood Ever the wide world over,'"

called Maggie, with much animation, from the top step of the van.

"You'll have to know her better to understand her dual nature, Billie,"

observed Amy Swinnerton, glancing up from her easel. "After she's been a good housewife and got things shipshape and free from the dust of the road she loves so much, she's ready to turn Gypsy and muss them all up again."

"I never mussed anything up in my life," broke in Maggie. "I only clean up other people's musses."

"But how is your brother Richard?" persisted Billie. "You see I feel some natural anxiety because I was the one who shot him last night. Has the wound been dressed?"

"Shot him?" repeated the other girls.

"That was why he made me drive old Dobbin this morning," said Amy.

"And to think he never told," broke in Maggie, "and he's gone off now, goodness only knows where."

"And he didn't tell you about the attack and how he saved us?" demanded Billie.

"Not a word."