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                    THE RADIO GIRLS AT FOREST LODGE

[Illustration: “DON’T MOVE, JESS. I AM COMING UP.”]

                    THE RADIO GIRLS AT FOREST LODGE
                                   OR
                      The Strange Hut in the Swamp

                                   BY
                            MARGARET PENROSE

          AUTHOR OF “THE RADIO GIRLS OF ROSELAWN,” “THE RADIO
                GIRLS ON STATION ISLAND,” “DOROTHY DALE
                  SERIES,” “MOTOR GIRLS SERIES,” ETC.

                              ILLUSTRATED

                                NEW YORK
                         CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
                               PUBLISHERS

                            BOOKS FOR GIRLS
                          By MARGARET PENROSE
                      12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.

                           RADIO GIRLS SERIES

                   THE RADIO GIRLS OF ROSELAWN
                   THE RADIO GIRLS ON THE PROGRAM
                   THE RADIO GIRLS ON STATION ISLAND
                   THE RADIO GIRLS AT FOREST LODGE

                          DOROTHY DALE SERIES

                    DOROTHY DALE: A GIRL OF TO-DAY
                    DOROTHY DALE AT GLENWOOD SCHOOL
                    DOROTHY DALE’S GREAT SECRET
                    DOROTHY DALE AND HER CHUMS
                    DOROTHY DALE’S QUEER HOLIDAYS
                    DOROTHY DALE’S CAMPING DAYS
                    DOROTHY DALE’S SCHOOL RIVALS
                    DOROTHY DALE IN THE CITY
                    DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE
                    DOROTHY DALE IN THE WEST
                    DOROTHY DALE’S STRANGE DISCOVERY
                    DOROTHY DALE’S ENGAGEMENT
                    DOROTHY DALE TO THE RESCUE

                           MOTOR GIRLS SERIES

                  THE MOTOR GIRLS
                  THE MOTOR GIRLS ON A TOUR
                  THE MOTOR GIRLS AT LOOKOUT BEACH
                  THE MOTOR GIRLS THROUGH NEW ENGLAND
                  THE MOTOR GIRLS ON CEDAR LAKE
                  THE MOTOR GIRLS ON THE COAST
                  THE MOTOR GIRLS ON CRYSTAL BAY
                  THE MOTOR GIRLS ON WATERS BLUE
                  THE MOTOR GIRLS AT CAMP SURPRISE
                  THE MOTOR GIRLS IN THE MOUNTAINS

                         CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
                         Publishers    New York

                          Copyright, 1924, by
                         CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
                   The Radio Girls at Forest Lodge
                          Printed in U. S. A.

                                CONTENTS

                          I. Great Expectations
                         II. The Counterfeit Bill
                        III. Henrietta
                         IV. An Accusation
                          V. To the Rescue
                         VI. The Start
                        VII. The Wrecked Bridge
                       VIII. Risky Business
                         IX. On the Hunt
                          X. Ghosts
                         XI. Phrosy
                        XII. Queer Actions
                       XIII. The Race
                        XIV. In the Mud
                         XV. Lost in the Woods
                        XVI. From the Swamp
                       XVII. Payment of a Debt
                      XVIII. Alarmed
                        XIX. In Danger
                         XX. The Fire
                        XXI. A Terrible Battle
                       XXII. The Escape
                      XXIII. Suspicion
                       XXIV. Imprisoned
                        XXV. A Capture by Radio

                    THE RADIO GIRLS AT FOREST LODGE

                               CHAPTER I

                           GREAT EXPECTATIONS

“I don’t know much about your Aunt Emma, Burd, but I am quite certain I
shall adore her.”

Burd Alling, pudgy and good-natured, looked at Amy Drew and slowly
grinned.

“Good for you, Amy,” he said, returning to his plate of ice cream with
renewed vigor. “People either hate Aunt Emma or love her. I am glad you
have decided on the latter.”

“She must be a strange sort of person, your Aunt Emma,” said Jessie
Norwood, the third of the little party seated around the table at the
Dainties Shop. “I like people who have positive characters.”

“Oh, Aunt Em is positive enough, if that is what you like,” chuckled
Burd. “The worst thing about her is that she doesn’t seem to approve of
that characteristic in others.”

“You say this Aunt Emma of yours owns this place called Forest Lodge?”
Jessie interrupted eagerly. “Where is it, Burd?”

“In a forest, I suppose,” murmured Amy Drew.

“How bright you are,” scoffed Burd. “Forest Lodge is on Lake Towako,
about forty miles from New Melford,” he added to Jessie. “Aunt Em wants
to spend a week or two up in the woods, and she was bemoaning the fact,
by letter, that she had no one to go with her. I mean, no ladies. Of
course, I’m already booked to go.”

“How about us?” interposed Amy, smiling her sweetest. “Wouldn’t we do?”

“Would you like to?” cried Burd, his face lighting up over the idea.

“Amy, how could you propose such a thing!” interposed Jessie, demurely.
“Don’t you know you practically asked for an invitation?”

“Leave out the practically and you will have it,” returned Amy,
unabashed. “Besides, didn’t you hear Burd say his poor dear aunt would
be lonely away up there in the woods by herself? Be charitable, Jessie!
Be charitable.”

“But, say, if you girls really think you would like to go, I know Aunt
Em will be more than glad to have you,” said Burd. “She will greet you
as gifts from heaven.”

“Well, Jess may look like an angel, but I am sure I don’t,” remarked
Amy, paying fond attention to the remaining portion of her George
Washington sundae. “Never mind the compliments, Burd. Tell us more about
your aunt.”

“Do you think Nell Stanley could go too?” broke in Jessie, eagerly. The
prospect of a two weeks’ added vacation at Forest Lodge was becoming
alluring.

“Sure thing! The more the merrier,” Burd answered, heartily. He finished
his ice cream and motioned to Nick, the clerk, to bring more George
Washington sundaes. “She is a jolly old soul and never is happy unless
completely surrounded by young folks.”

“Oh, is she so very old?” asked Amy.

“We-ell, not so old as to be exactly decrepit,” said Burd, judicially,
though his eyes were merry. “She can still hop around pretty lively when
occasion requires. But I will not tell you another word,” he added, his
round face as severe as so habitually merry a countenance could ever
become. “Whatever else you learn about the lady, you will have to learn
from her personally. I refuse to give away a blood relative.”

“But, Burd, all this is so very wonderful!” cried Jessie. “I never dared
hope we would have another chance for fun this summer before school
opens.”

“Oh, Jess, remind me not,” commanded Amy, with a groan. “As Miss Seymour
would say, ‘Why intrude so gloomy a thought upon this joyous hour?’”

The Miss Seymour of whom Amy spoke was a teacher of English in the high
school which Jessie and Amy and their friend, Nell Stanley, attended.

The Radio Girls had returned from a wonderful vacation on Station Island
only a few days before this story opens. And now had come this
possibility of spending the short remainder of their school vacation at
a typical hunting lodge in the heart of a forest. Small wonder that with
this alluring prospect before them they could not bear the mention just
then of school and studies, for to their eager minds the possibility of
the visit looked like certainty.

“Have you told Darry yet?” Jessie asked, and Burd favored her with a
look that was almost pitying. Darry, or Darrington Drew, to give him the
benefit of his full name, was Amy’s brother and Burd Alling’s closest
chum. The two boys, though utterly unlike in looks and disposition, were
inseparable.

“Sure, I’ve told Darry,” he said, in reply to Jessie’s question. “His
enthusiasm over the project knows no bounds. Says it has been his
lifelong ambition to get in close contact with the forest rangers and
study their methods of fighting forest fires.”

“Oh, do they have fires up there, too?” queried Amy.

“Wherever there is a forest, there are bound to be fires once in a
while,” Burd informed her, from the heights of his superior wisdom.
Darry and Burd, being in college, were several years older than the high
school girls, and it was seldom that they missed an opportunity to
impress that fact upon Jessie and Amy. “That’s where the forest rangers
come in. And, believe me, sometimes they have their work cut out for
them, too.”

“Oh, Burd, please tell me more about it,” begged Jessie.

“I can’t tell you much,” replied Burd, modestly, “because I don’t know a
great deal about the work of the forest rangers—nothing, in fact, except
what I have read. But I know there is one thing that will interest you
girls mightily.”

“Bet you another George Washington sundae I know what it is,” said Amy,
quickly, and when Burd laughingly took her up she pronounced the one
word “Radio!” with proud emphasis.

“Oh, I know,” broke in Jessie, before Burd could speak. “I heard Daddy
Norwood talking about it one night to Momsey, and it was awfully
interesting, even though at that time I was not particularly interested
in radio. They use it—radio, I mean—fighting fires and things, don’t
they?”

“Especially things,” agreed Burd, with a grin. Then, becoming suddenly
conscious of the check at his elbow, he looked up and found Nick’s
worried gaze upon him. The Dainties Shop was filling up and their table
was needed.

The girls took in the situation at a glance and rose laughingly while
Burd went over to settle with Nick, much to the relief of the latter.

Burd seemed to be having some trouble getting his change, and while they
waited for him outside the door of the Dainties Shop the girls gayly
discussed this new prospect.

“I am dreadfully anxious to meet Aunt Emma,” Amy was saying when she
felt a slight touch on her arm and turned sharply about.

A tall, slender girl was standing there, and on her face was a dead
white pallor that amazed and shocked the robust girls.

She was holding toward them a five-dollar bill and Amy, the
irrepressible, laughed suddenly as her gaze fell upon it.

“Thanks, so much,” she murmured; “but I don’t happen to need it just
now.”

“Oh, Amy, hush!” cried Jessie, as she saw the mouth of the strange girl
set in a thin straight line and her eyes grow hostile.

“I wanted to ask you if you would change this for me,” said the stranger
in a colorless voice that matched the pallor of her face. “But if you
don’t care to——”

She turned away, but Jessie caught her quickly by the sleeve.

“Oh, wait a minute, please,” she said. “I am sure I can change the bill
for you.”

She fumbled in her bag, but Amy, instantly regretting her flippant
speech, found the money first in her own small bag and handed it with an
apologetic smile to the girl.

“I’m sorry I was rude,” she said. “I didn’t understand.”

This apology meant a great deal, coming, as it did, from Amy, but the
tall, pale girl seemed scarcely to notice. She accepted the five
one-dollar bills, giving her own five-dollar note in exchange. Amy
stuffed the bill in her pocket, and with a muttered word of thanks the
stranger turned and walked off swiftly. She did not turn back, and in
another moment a street corner hid her from view.

“I must say she isn’t very polite,” grumbled Amy, as Burd joined them.
“After humbling my perfectly good pride in the dust and everything.
Imagine me apologizing!”

“If I had not seen it I certainly would not have believed it,” agreed
Jessie, cheerfully, and Amy shot her an injured look.

“You mean heard it,” she corrected frigidly. “If I cared to be unkind,
my dear, I might remind you that an apology can never be seen!”

Burd went with them as far as the Norwood place in Roselawn. There he
left them, intimating that he and Darry had important business in town
and would not see them till later.

“Make it as much later as you like,” Amy told him cheerfully. “We shan’t
pine away and die in your absence.”

As a matter of fact, the girls were far too busy for the remainder of
that afternoon to give the boys more than a passing thought. They
chattered like magpies of the possible trip to Forest Lodge while, with
skilful fingers, they overhauled the radio set which Jessie and Amy
themselves had set up in the pretty and spacious living room of Jessie’s
own suite of rooms in the Norwood house. Jessie had brought a new
detector from town and was bent upon trying the effect of it upon her
set without delay.

“We must be ready for the special radio concert to-night,” Jessie
reminded her, when Amy protested against the “hard labor” her friend
imposed. “It wouldn’t do to miss it, and you know this detector is
working badly.”

Mrs. Norwood, known fondly to her daughter, and to most of her
daughter’s intimate friends as well, as “Momsey,” was away from home
that afternoon—a matter of great regret to Jessie, who had hoped to talk
over with her at once the invitation for Forest Lodge and ask her
consent to the project.

It was late before she returned, and by that time the girls had “jacked
up” the radio set until it was working perfectly. They fell upon Mrs.
Norwood simultaneously, bombarding her with facts and questions until
Mrs. Norwood laughed in helpless bewilderment and begged them to begin
all over again from the beginning and “go slowly.” This they did, and
had hardly finished when the telephone bell rang.

“Miss Alling would like to speak to you, Mrs. Norwood,” announced the
maid, coming into the room.

The girls could hardly wait for the telephone conversation to come to an
end, and, in their eagerness, did no more than stutter their questions
when Mrs. Norwood returned, a smile on her face.

They were overjoyed to find Mrs. Norwood pleasantly willing to give her
consent to the Forest Lodge project, especially now that Emma Alling had
given them her personal invitation to accompany her. It seemed that at
some former time Mrs. Norwood and Miss Alling had worked together in
some benefit scheme, and Mrs. Norwood had been strongly attracted to the
rather eccentric but good-hearted woman.

“All of which is very lucky for us,” remarked the irrepressible Amy.

“Though I must say,” Mrs. Norwood added, with a smile, “I don’t
particularly envy Emma Alling her present undertaking!”

Jessie’s eyes twinkled as she said reproachfully: “Don’t you think that
is rather hard on us, Momsey?”

Amy hastened home to gain permission to make the visit at Forest Lodge,
but was persuaded without much difficulty to return for dinner, and as
soon as the meal was over, the girls ran up to Jessie’s room to “listen
in” on the special concert that was scheduled for that evening.

They tuned the set to the wave length of the broadcasting station of the
Stratford Electric Company and almost immediately heard a man’s voice
speaking. The first words were sufficiently unusual to catch and hold
their attention.

“Before proceeding with the program, we wish to make a special
announcement,” said the voice. “There is positive evidence that a
counterfeit five-dollar bill is in circulation in this locality. The
bill has a small v-shaped notch in one corner of it and the marking on
the under side is indistinct. We wish all who hear this announcement
to-night to be on the lookout for the counterfeit money, so that any one
finding it in his possession may report it to the authorities.” That was
all.

The girls removed their head phones and stared at each other intently
for a moment. It was evident that they were both thinking of the same
thing. That five-dollar bill which the strange girl had asked Amy to
change that afternoon!

Amy reached for her purse and opened it.

“If that girl wished a counterfeit five-dollar bill on me,” she
declared, “I will pursue her to the ends of the earth and get it back.”

“Quick! Let me see that bill,” urged Jessie.

Together, heads almost touching, they examined the greenback which had
come so strangely into their possession. To their inexperienced eyes
there was nothing wrong with the marking. Then Jessie suddenly uttered
an exclamation. She pointed to a tiny, v-shaped notch in one corner of
it.

“Amy, it is, it must be, one of the counterfeits!” she breathed.

                               CHAPTER II

                          THE COUNTERFEIT BILL

Eagerly Jessie and Amy scrutinized the bill again and, with the v-shaped
notch to help them, they saw, or thought they saw, that the marking on
the under side of the bill was a trifle blurred and indistinct.

Even then they were not satisfied, but must run down to show the note to
Mr. Norwood, who sat chatting with Momsey in the living room.

“Daddy Norwood, if you tell me this bill is a counterfeit, I will never
forgive you,” was Jessie’s greeting to her father, as she dropped on the
arm of his chair and thrust the bill into his hand.

“What’s this, what’s this?” exclaimed Mr. Norwood, smiling at the two
girls. “What is all this talk about counterfeits? Am I to understand, my
daughter, that you have turned criminal?”

“And she is so young, too,” murmured Amy, beneath her breath.

“Please look at it, Daddy Norwood,” urged Jessie, indicating the bill
which dangled carelessly from her father’s hand.

“Well,” said the latter, mildly, “I am looking at it. Now suppose you
tell me what all the excitement is about.”

Between them the girls told him of the announcement by radio of the
dangerous counterfeit five-dollar bill that was in circulation.

As they proceeded, the lawyer’s face became grave and he examined the
bill carefully and with a sudden intense interest.

“Hm! I have heard about this counterfeit money,” he said, after a pause
during which the girls, and Mrs. Norwood, too, regarded him expectantly.
“And it is a very serious matter, let me tell you.”

“But is this bill counterfeit?” asked Jessie, impatiently.

Mr. Norwood looked up at her with a peculiar smile, then down at the
note again.

“It certainly is a remarkably clever imitation,” he said.

“Then it is a counterfeit!” declared Jessie, and turned to face Amy,
whose expressive face was a mirror of conflicting emotions.

“Now I will have to keep my vow,” wailed the latter, “and follow that
wretched girl all over the world!”

“What for?” asked Mrs. Norwood, with an indulgent smile, for she was
well used to Amy’s extravagances.

“To recover my perfectly good five dollars, of course! Oh, dear, what a
bore!”

“Oh, so a girl palmed this off on you! Suppose you tell me some more
about it,” said Mr. Norwood. “I am intensely interested.”

Jessie and Amy told him about the strange girl who had accosted them
before the Dainties Shop and gave as faithful a description as they
could of her. Then they suddenly remembered the interrupted radio
concert and dashed off to Jessie’s room to enjoy what was left of it.

Madame Elva, a great favorite of the girls, at the broadcasting station
of the Stratford Electric Company, gave several charming selections and
the remainder of the program was so unusually fine and interesting that
the girls became completely absorbed and forgot for the time all such
matters as tall thin girls and troublesome five-dollar bills.

It was not till the following morning that Jessie revived the subject.
The four of them, Jessie, Amy, her brother Darry, and Burd Alling were
sitting on the Norwood veranda talking over plans for the trip to Forest
Lodge. The girls had already, earlier in the day, talked with Miss
Alling over the telephone.

It was a fine morning and the handsome Norwood estate had never looked
pleasanter and more luxurious than it did in the full glare of the
morning sunlight.

The smooth sweep of lawn, sloping down to the broad, shaded boulevard,
was dotted with flowering shrubs. Beside the house and a little to the
rear, began the beautiful rose gardens which were the pride of Mrs.
Norwood’s heart, and of all Roselawn as well.

In fact, this section where the Norwoods and the Drews lived had been
dubbed Roselawn by reason of the beautiful and gorgeous rose gardens
that abounded in that district.

On the farther side of Bonwit Boulevard was the home of the Drews, a
rambling old house which had once been a farmhouse but had been
remodeled by Mr. Drew into an up-to-date and handsome building. There
dwelt Wilbur and Sarah Drew, the parents of Amy, Amy, herself, and her
brother Darrington—the latter, however, only on those rare occasions
when Yale “relaxed her grip on him.”

The four young people had had many good times together and since Jessie
and Amy had “discovered” radio their adventures had been replete with
thrills and excitement.

The two girls had astonished their friends and relatives by successfully
installing a radio set in Jessie’s room.

Then one day had come a mysterious call out of the air, and how the
girls went to the rescue of a girl wanted as a witness in an important
law case has been told in detail in the first volume of this series,
entitled “The Radio Girls of Roselawn.”

Since that time the girls had made the acquaintance of the owner of a
large sending station and through him had been permitted to get “On the
Program,” much to their satisfaction. Then they had gone to “Station
Island,” and later had taken a trip on board the _Marigold_, a steam
yacht willed to Darry by his uncle. The vessel took fire, and how the
young folks had to fight to escape in safety is related in the volume
before this, called “The Radio Girls on Station Island.”

It was of this last adventure that they were thinking and talking now as
they sat in idle luxury upon Jessie Norwood’s porch.

“The poor old _Marigold_ is almost a total loss,” Darry said,
regretfully. “I have laid her up for repairs, and, judging from the
amount of work there is to be done on her, it looks as if she would be
in dry dock a considerable time.”

“Oh, dear! No more chance to inspect the bottom of the sea!” sighed Amy.
“I think you are too mean, Darry Drew.”

“Well, say,” interrupted Burd, rising from the depths of a comfortable
chair and stretching luxuriously, “loth as I am to break up this happy
party, I fear I must be going.”

“He has a date and won’t let us in on it,” remarked Amy, reproachfully.

“I sure have,” chuckled Burd, unabashed. “And wait till you see the
lady!”

Darry raised his eyebrows and grinned.

“Aunt Emma, Burd?” he asked.

Burd nodded and started for the steps.

“Promised to meet her at the train in the old bus,” he said. “And if
anything should make me late I should never hear the end of it. Coming,
Darry?”

The latter laughingly shook his head.

“Go ahead, old lad,” he said. “I am not looking for punishment just
yet.”

“Why, don’t you like Miss Alling?” asked Jessie, surprised.

“I do. She is the salt of the earth,” replied Darry, emphatically,
adding with a rueful smile: “The only trouble is, she doesn’t like me.
Has a fixed opinion that I am a bad influence for Burd, or something of
the sort.”

“Well, aren’t you?” asked his sister, maliciously, adding quickly, as
Burd seemed about to depart: “Oh, let me go along, Burd, I feel a severe
attack of curiosity coming on. I must meet Aunt Emma.”

“All right, come on—but your blood be upon your own head,” warned Burd,
with a grin.

After they had gone Jessie and Darry looked at each other and laughed.

“I am almost as curious as Amy to meet Aunt Emma,” confessed Jessie.
“She must be a very unusual person.”

“She is kind-hearted and full of pep and fun, but as domineering as they
make ’em,” pronounced Darry. “Just the same, this trip to Forest Lodge
is a mighty fine idea. I prophesy we won’t have a slow minute while we
are up there.”

“How do we go, and when?” asked Jessie, with a mounting impatience to
start on this adventure.

“As soon as you girls are ready, I suppose,” returned Darry. “And as for
our means of transportation, I gather from what Burd has let drop that
we will drive up in Miss Alling’s car—Aunt Emma driving,” he finished,
with a chuckle.

“Well, as long as Aunt Emma doesn’t try to put up our radio set for us,
we won’t complain,” laughed Jessie.

                               HENRIETTA

“Speaking of radio,” Jessie said suddenly, the matter of the five-dollar
bill coming to her mind, “have you heard anything about the circulation
of counterfeit money, Darry?”

The latter shook his head and looked surprised. Jessie told him of the
special radio announcement that had come to them the night before and of
their subsequent finding that the five-dollar bill in Amy’s possession
was a counterfeit.

Darry listened with interest, but his chief concern seemed to be for Amy
and the loss of her five dollars.

“Hard luck,” he laughed. “Now she will have to do without George
Washington sundaes for the next six months to make up.”

“But the poor girl who gave her that five-dollar bill——”

“Poor girl!” exploded Darry, sitting up straight in his seat to stare at
Jessie in astonishment. “I am used to your kind heart, Jess, but this is
more than I could expect, even of you. Why pity a girl who passes a
counterfeit bill? She probably is one of a gang of counterfeiters.”

“Oh, I should hate to believe that,” said Jessie, quickly. “Somehow, she
didn’t look exactly dishonest.”

“Yet she gave you—or Amy, rather—a counterfeit bill in exchange for five
good ones,” Darry argued. “That doesn’t seem exactly honest, you know.”

“Just the same, I don’t intend to believe any one guilty until the guilt
is proved,” said Jessie, stoutly, and Darry, from the superior heights
of his age, bent upon her a tolerant smile. Despite his slightly
patronizing manner, Darry really regarded this chum of Amy’s as one of
the squarest, most companionable girls he knew. For her age, he
conceded, magnanimously, she sure was a wonder!

“All right,” he said. “Believe anything you like. And now, to change the
subject to something more pleasant, Miss Alling told Burd that you girls
would set the time to go; so, just when will you and Amy be ready for
the trip to Forest Lodge?”

That, indeed, was the all-important question to the Radio Girls in the
days that followed. Although they had numerous costumes for all
occasions, they suddenly discovered that their wardrobes contained
nothing that was really suitable for a vacation in a real,
honest-to-goodness forest. This sad state of affairs, they decided
unanimously, must be remedied immediately.

“Because one cannot possibly have a good time,” Amy had argued,
flippantly, “until one has the proper kind of clothes.”

“It will be a dreadful bore to have to go shopping just now,” said
Jessie, who was impatient of anything that would delay the wonderful
trip. “But if we must, we must.”

“You always have such a clear way of putting things, honey,” said Amy,
irrepressibly. “And, oh, I saw the darlingest sports suits and things in
Letterblair’s window.”

Letterblair’s was a fashionable shop in the downtown district of New
Melford where the girls and their mothers did most of their shopping. It
was from this shop that Jessie had won a beautiful sports coat, offered
as a prize to the girl in New Melford who could think up the cleverest
and most unique idea for a charitable bazaar that was to be held on the
lawn of the Norwood estate. Jessie’s idea—the prize one—had been the
devoting of one “concession” on the bazaar grounds to radio. The radio
tent had been a tremendous success and, oh, how Jessie had enjoyed
wearing that sports coat!

So now it was to Letterblair’s that they went in search of suitable
apparel for this newest outing.

On the way to town they determined to stop and see Nell Stanley.
Although they intended to urge her to accompany them on their trip to
Forest Lodge, they had very little hope that she would be able to go.

Nell was the eldest daughter of the Reverend Doctor Stanley, a minister
much beloved in New Melford. “The Reverend,” as Nell affectionately
called him, was a widower with four children, three younger than Nell.
Although the income of the Stanley family was small, Nell managed
wonderfully. Strong, healthy and capable, the young girl presided
cheerfully over the parsonage and cared for her two younger brothers and
her little sister, to whom she was elder sister and mother as well.

Because of her many responsibilities, it was only upon rare occasions
that Nell could share in the fun of the other two girls. But, in spite
of all this and hard as her life might seem to some, no one had ever
heard Nell Stanley complain.

Nell herself greeted them as they came up to the parsonage. She was
wearing a clean gingham dress and a dust cap and her handsome face was
shining with health and hard work.

“Hello!” she cried gayly. “You two look like conspirators. Come in if
you can find room,” she invited, leading the way into the cluttered
front room of the parsonage. “Sally and the two boys muss things up more
quickly than I can straighten them out, I think.”

Nell listened sympathetically while the two girls told her of the trip
to Forest Lodge, but shook her head regretfully when they said Miss
Alling wanted her to accompany them.

“I don’t see how I could manage it,” she said, adding thoughtfully:
“Though I might get Mrs. Tompkins to take care of the children and keep
house——”

“Nell, you have a wonderful mind,” said Amy, with conviction. “Mrs.
Tompkins was the very person I was about to suggest!”

“I suppose the children would run wild,” said Nell, hesitating.

“Let ’em. It would do them good for two weeks,” said Amy.

“Nothing very bad could happen in that short time,” Jessie added,
pleadingly. “And, Nell, we would have such fun.”

“Don’t you suppose I know it?” retorted Nell, longingly. But she added,
as she picked up a few of the scattered playthings in an attempt to
restore the room to order: “I will ask the Reverend about it, anyway;
and if I can get Mrs. Tompkins I may go with you yet. Now run along
downtown like good children. And you might bring us some ice-cream cones
on the way back. The young ones would appreciate it particularly.”

The girls agreed gayly, after winning from her a promise that she would
come over some evening soon and “listen in” with them.

“And bring Fol with you,” Amy added, as they went off. “He is a rather
nice boy, considering his age.”

In answer to this sally Nell laughed good-naturedly and made a face at
Amy, an action—and Nell herself would have been the first to admit
it—that was not at all a good example to set her ever-watchful and
imitative little sister, Sally.

Once at Letterblair’s, the girls discovered numerous other needs which
had not occurred to them before, and it was past noon when they had
successfully finished their shopping.

“Now for home and lunch. Jess, I have an idea—” Amy paused and regarded
her chum meditatively. “Why not run into that darling little new
restaurant down the street and have a bite to eat there? It will be a
lark.”

“Suppose we do,” agreed Jessie. “I feel as though I would not be able to
walk home without partaking of some nourishment first.”

“I declare, it is late,” said Amy, as she glanced from the store clock
to her wrist watch. “If I had had any notion you were going to keep me
so long in this place, Jess Norwood, I would not have let you come with
me.”

“I like that!” laughed Jessie. “Especially since I have been waiting for
you to get through for the past half hour.”

“So are the righteous slandered,” sighed Amy. “My friends have formed
the habit of putting all the blame upon my frail shoulders— Hello, what
have we here?”

She brought up short just outside the door of the shop and Jessie,
following hurriedly, nearly ran into her.

“Why the sudden halt?” she inquired. And just then came a shriek,
whether of joy or anguish it would have been hard to tell.

The next moment a small cyclone flung itself upon Jessie and held on to
her, still shrieking—much to the delight of the passersby.

“Help, call out the reserves!” chortled Amy, her voice choked with
laughter, while Jessie tried vainly to disengage herself from the
clutches of the small cyclone. “Henrietta Haney, do stop that shrieking.
Oh—oh, you will be the death of me, yet!”

By this time Jessie had been able to push her small assailant away from
her, and, by holding very tightly to a pair of waving arms, found it
possible to look into a small pointed face upon which every freckle
stood forth.

“Henrietta Haney—Hen,” admonished Jessie, with what severity the
occasion permitted. “Do stop making so much noise, my dear. Why,
everybody is looking at us.”

“Well,” said this surprising child, “I shouldn’t mind their lookin’, if
I was you, Miss Jessie. Ma Foley always says no amount of lookin’ ever
hurt no one.”

Jessie shot a helpless look at her chum, who was convulsed with mirth.
Little Henrietta Haney, who had first introduced herself to the Radio
Girls as a little waif from Dogtown—a down-at-heel district encroaching
upon Roselawn—in search of her missing cousin, Bertha Blair, had since
figured largely in their adventures. Owing to the interest of Mr.
Norwood and Mr. Drew—both lawyers—the little girl had recently come into
possession of part of Station Island. Henrietta, or “Hen,” as she was
familiarly called, was inordinately proud of her inheritance and seldom
overlooked an opportunity to make reference to “her island.”

Now Jessie and Amy moved the child to a less conspicuous spot and
questioned her concerning her presence there.

“You surely did not come to New Melford all alone, Hen,” said Jessie, in
concern, for she really would not have been greatly surprised at
anything the wild child might do. “Isn’t somebody with you?”

“Well, Bertha come with me,” said the child, complacently; “but I left
her.”

“You what?” gasped Amy.

“I left her,” repeated Hen, patiently. “We was comin’ along, and all of
a sudden I looks over and sees you and Miss Jessie and I just run
through the crowd and left Bertha. I didn’t knock over more than one
person, either,” she finished proudly. “And he was a little fat boy it
didn’t hurt none.”

“It only goes to show there is good in everything, even fat,” cried Amy,
in a strangled voice, and even Jessie had to smile.

“And you haven’t the least idea where Bertha is now?” questioned Jessie,
searching the passing crowds for a familiar face.

“Oh, she’ll turn up, Miss Jessie. She always does,” said the child,
confidently, adding with the first trace of anxiety she had exhibited:
“But I hope she don’t take too long. I got an awful ache where my tummy
is. I’m gettin’ hungry, I guess.”

Amy went off into a fresh paroxysm of mirth while Jessie questioned the
child closely as to the exact location of Bertha and herself when the
little girl had first seen the two Radio Girls. Being able to extract
but the vaguest information from Hen, Jessie came to the conclusion that
the only sensible thing to do was to wait just where they were until
Bertha found them.

“It was very naughty of you to run away so, Henrietta,” she scolded
gently. “I hope you will never do a thing like that again.”

“But, Miss Jessie!” the child protested, with wide-eyed surprise, “if I
hadn’t run away from Bertha I couldn’t have caught you. I just had to
run away.”

At this logic Jessie shook her head helplessly while Amy regarded the
remarkable child with unfeigned delight. As a matter of fact, Henrietta
Haney was a perpetual joy to the fun-loving Amy—“better than a box seat
at the circus,” she herself expressed it.

“There’s Bertha now!” shrieked the child, suddenly, and made another
wild dash through the crowd, bumping into half a dozen indignant
pedestrians as she went.

Amy, watching this progress with delight, chuckled softly.

“Thank goodness she is in Bertha’s charge, not ours!” she said.

                               CHAPTER IV

                             AN ACCUSATION

Bertha Blair had been at one time a mystery to the Radio Girls. A
witness in a very important law case being tried by Mr. Norwood, she had
been spirited off by unscrupulous persons and kept in captivity in order
that her testimony might not be forthcoming.

How the girl managed to reach a sending set in the tower of the old
house where she was kept captive and send out a cry for help over the
airways, and how the Radio Girls heard the cry for help over their own
receiving set and hurried to the rescue, formed an incident of thrilling
interest. Later, this same Bertha Blair had been revealed to the girls
as the niece of Mr. Blair, superintendent of the Stratford Electric
Company.

At that moment Jessie saw Bertha coming toward them, holding the
freckle-faced child by the arm and looking decidedly angry and out of
sorts.

“Henrietta is certainly ruining my disposition,” was her greeting to the
two sympathetic girls. “I never know where she is from one moment to the
next. I would rather take a nest of hornets shopping than Hen.”

“That seems kind of foolish, Bertha,” remarked the strange child,
gravely. “’Cause, you know, hornets don’t need clothes near as much as
me!”

Seeing that Amy was about to go into another paroxysm of mirth, Jessie
hastily suggested lunch, a suggestion received with relief by Bertha and
exuberance by Henrietta.

“Miss Jessie seems to know just the sort of thing a body wants,”
remarked the child, and Bertha, looking at Jessie, smiled.

“I really don’t know what I shall do with her,” she said, in a low tone,
as, after Jessie and Amy had each telephoned that they would stay in
town for lunch, they all walked toward the restaurant. “She used to be
bad enough, that’s a fact, but now there is no doing anything with her.
Since she found out she owns that island——”

“I own a island, I own a island, I own a island,” chanted the child,
catching the last part of Bertha’s low-spoken sentence. “I own a island,
I own a——” But the last words had risen to so shrill a tone that people
were glancing curiously at them and Jessie felt called upon to
interfere.

“Even if you do own an island, or part of one,” she said gently, “you
don’t need to tell everybody about it, dear.”

“Well,” said the child, wrinkling up her funny little nose, “I don’t see
why I shouldn’t tell everybody as long as it ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed
about.”

“Oh, Henrietta, Henrietta!” laughed Amy, gleefully. “How dull this life
would be without you!”

“Yes’m,” agreed Henrietta, dutifully.

Bertha explained her presence in New Melford and then asked the girls
why they had come downtown. When they told her about the proposed trip
to Forest Lodge little Henrietta’s face fell woefully.

“Then I won’t get to see you for two whole weeks,” mourned the little
girl. But she soon added, with a sudden brightness of countenance: “I
don’t suppose it would be noways possible to take me along, would it?”

“I am afraid not, dear,” said Jessie, slipping an arm about the wistful
little thing while Amy stifled a laugh at thought of what the boys would
say if they proposed “ringing little Hen in on the trip.” “You will have
to be at hand, anyway,” she added with sudden inspiration, “in case
anything comes up about your island.”

Little Hen’s face immediately lost all trace of wistfulness. Her small
countenance assumed the expression of importance it always wore when any
one mentioned “her island.”

“That’s so, Miss Jessie,” she agreed gravely. “I just couldn’t go and
leave my island.”

Henrietta’s appetite had long been a marvel to the girls, but on this
occasion it seemed to them she put to shame all previous records.

However, the girls noticed with approval—for they were really fond of
the wild little thing—that Henrietta’s arms and legs had lost somewhat
their resemblance to very thin broomsticks. Prosperity was agreeing with
the child. She was actually taking on flesh.

The girls remarked this aloud, and to their surprise Henrietta looked
more worried than pleased.

“I don’t know what I would do if I was to get fat like Mrs. Foley,” she
complained. “Mrs. Foley always said she was skinny just like me when she
was a kid, and she didn’t begin to put on flesh till she was forty. Just
think, if I was to get fat like her, I couldn’t never wear no more
stylish clo’es!” and she gazed at the girls with tragic eyes.

“You are right, you couldn’t!” laughed Amy, adding in an undertone to
Jessie, “Just imagine Mrs. Foley in a coat suit!”

As they started to leave the restaurant, Amy suddenly turned and made as
though she would retrace her steps.

“What’s the matter?” asked Henrietta, solicitously. “See a snake or
somethin’?”

“Something lots worse,” returned Amy, with a giggle, and pointed to a
group of girls who had just turned the corner and were coming toward
them. “Here come Belle Ringold and Sally, Jess. Can’t we dive into a
hole somewhere until they get past?”

“Too late,” sighed Jessie, with a sure knowledge of unpleasantness to
come. “If we had only known we could have stayed in the restaurant and
avoided them. Well, come along. We can’t get away from them now.”

Belle Ringold and Sally Moon were two very unpleasant girls whom most of
the people in New Melford disliked intensely. Belle and Sally had few
friends, and those only the kind whose friendship can be bought with
money and good times.

Because Jessie and Amy, on the other hand, were popular with their
townspeople and belonged to the class of girls who “do something,” Belle
and Sally centered their spleen upon them, and the girls rarely met but
what unpleasant words were passed. For that reason Jessie and Amy
avoided the unpleasant girls whenever it was possible to do so. Now,
however, it seemed that a meeting was inevitable.

Jessie and Amy, with Bertha and Hen beside them, quickened their pace in
order to pass Belle Ringold and her “crowd” as soon as possible.

It was plain that Belle welcomed the meeting as much as the other girls
disliked it, for quarreling, especially with such foes as Jessie and
Amy, was the breath of life to her. So, instead of stepping aside to let
them pass, she stopped directly in front of them, making it impossible
for them to get by without walking into the street.

Jessie clasped little Hen’s hand tightly in her own, for the child hated
Belle Ringold with a consuming hatred and was accustomed to declare this
feeling with appalling frankness. Even now, upon stealing a sidewise
glance at her, Jessie could see that the child was bristling like a
ruffled hen.

“Well, it is all very well for you to look so innocent, you two,” cried
Belle Ringold, charging hotly into the fray. “But perhaps you wouldn’t
if you knew what I know about you.”

“Anything new?” queried Amy, with deceptive sweetness.

“Oh, nothing much,” declared Belle, with a toss of her head. “Only a
little thing, like passing counterfeit bills!”

                               CHAPTER V

                             TO THE RESCUE

This charge was so absolutely from a clear sky that the Radio Girls
remained motionless for a moment, staring incredulously at the slanderer
and her smirking companion. They were thunderstruck. It seemed
impossible that even Belle Ringold should have said such a thing to
them.

It was little Hen who recovered first, and with a shrill shriek of rage
she charged to the attack.

“You horrid old thing!” she cried, one hand clenched and making frantic
gestures in the air while the other tugged wildly in a vain attempt to
free itself from Jessie’s grip upon it. “You know that’s a wicked fib,
you do! That’s why you said it! Oh, just wait till I get at you!
Oh—oh——” Jessie’s hand closed firmly over her mouth, choking off the
furious words.

“Stop it, Henrietta!” she commanded. “You only make it worse by talking
like that. Come on, Amy, let’s get away from here.”

“Going to meet Darry and Burd, I suppose,” sneered Belle, not moving
from the path.

“I think it is simply disgraceful—” added the sharp voice of Sally Moon,
who could always be depended upon to back up the girl she fawned upon,
“I think it is a shame the way you kids run after those two boys——”

“Especially since one of them happens to be my brother,” said Amy,
disgustedly. “Really, you girls are too absurd.”

Seeing that Belle and Sally were just warming up to a fresh display of
rudeness and knowing that Amy would soon lose her temper completely,
Jessie started once more to pass Belle. The latter did not budge an
inch, but looked at Jessie with such sneering disdain that even her mild
temper gave way to exasperation.

“Are you going to let me pass, Belle Ringold?” she asked, in a low tone.

“I would like to know why I should,” retorted the other girl, with an
impudent toss of her head. “I don’t see why I should get out of the way
for a person who passes counterfeit bills. As a matter of fact, I expect
them to get out of my way.” This was too much for Henrietta. Her face
was red with fury and every freckle seemed to stand out upon it in a
little brown blotch.

“Let me go, Miss Jessie! Just let me get at her! I’ll scratch her eyes
out, I will, the mean old thing!”

“Oh, Henrietta, Henrietta, hush. Don’t say any more.” And while she
tried to quiet the frantic child Jessie was conscious of Amy’s voice,
saying furiously:

“If you don’t get out of the way and let us by, Belle Ringold, I’ll——”
But the threat was destined never to be finished.

There was the familiar growl of a motor horn, and as the girls looked
around they saw the long low body of a touring car glide up to the curb
and slow to a standstill. At the wheel was Burd Alling, a grin upon his
cheery countenance, and in the tonneau was Darry and a lady whom the
girls did not recognize. However, it was sufficient that, at that
moment, they recognized Darry and Burd!

“Hello!” sang out the latter in a tone that showed he had estimated the
situation perfectly. “Just in time to give you a lift, girls.”

“What did I tell you?” snapped Belle, chagrined at the interruption.
“Didn’t I say they had a date with Darry and Burd?”

“Always tagging around,” Sally Moon’s voice reached them, as, without
another word, the Radio girls, with Bertha and Henrietta in tow, turned
toward the car. “Just like big kids——”

“Sorry we can’t take you all, girls,” called Burd to Belle and her crowd
as he shifted the lever to low and the car moved slowly forward. “But,
you see, we have a pretty good load as it is.”

Darry introduced the strange lady as Miss Alling, “Aunt Emma,” and the
girls were delighted at this opportunity to make her acquaintance. The
lady who was to chaperone them on the two weeks’ jaunt to Forest Lodge
was not at all the type of person that the inconsequential chatter of
the boys had led them to expect.

To be sure, Miss Alling was thin, but hers was not the thinness of the
dried-up spinster but rather the slenderness of an athletic woman who
has kept herself physically fit. Her face was not handsome, but it was
humorously alert and alive. Only around her mouth was a hint of the
obstinacy for which Burd gave her credit.

Miss Alling was unmistakably enthusiastic about having the young folks
with her at Forest Lodge, greeting them, as Burd had prophesied, as
“gifts from heaven.”

When they were nearing Nell Stanley’s house, Jessie suddenly remembered
the ice-cream cones they had promised to bring the young ones at the
parsonage, and insisted that the boys stop long enough to pay a visit to
a convenient candy store.

By that time little Hen was once more becoming an “empty void,” or at
least she declared herself to that effect, so the entire party trooped
into the store for ice cream.

Later they stopped at the parsonage, but did not stay long as “Aunt
Emma” Alling declared herself in a tremendous hurry to get home. But
Miss Alling met Nell and gave her in person a cordial invitation to join
the party at Forest Lodge.

They saw Henrietta and Bertha to the very door of Mrs. Foley’s shack in
Dogtown (for Henrietta had evinced a strong desire to visit her former
guardian), thereby arousing a good deal of interest and admiration on
the part of the dwellers there. “My, but that Henrietta Haney had come
up in the world, with her fine friends, and all. Her ownin’ an island
and visitin’ on it and drivin’ around in automobiles and the like. It’s
a credit to the neighborhood, she’s getting to be.” So tongues clacked
and heads wagged in Dogtown.

As for Henrietta, you would have thought she was a princess at least by
the way she held her freckled little nose to the sky upon entering the
humble abode of Mrs. Foley.

The girls chuckled as the machine left the squalid streets of Dogtown
and entered the exclusive residential district of Roselawn.

Jessie, Amy and Darry alighted at the gates of the Norwood estate, after
gaining a promise from Miss Alling that she would visit Jessie the
following evening and see the wireless set “in action.”

When the car bearing Burd and “Aunt Emma” had departed, the three young
people turned with common consent toward the Norwood porch.

“What were Belle Ringold and Sally Moon up to?” queried Darry, as they
reached the house. “They looked mad enough to bite nails when we first
caught a glimpse of them.”

“Humph, I guess we were the ones who should have looked mad,” grumbled
Amy as she settled herself comfortably in one of the big chairs on the
porch. “Belle Ringold has called us just about every name in the
calendar, but to-day she thought up a new one.”

“She said we were passing counterfeit money,” added Jessie, a shadow
crossing her face as she thought of that accusation.

“She said what?” asked Darry again, staring. And when Jessie repeated
Belle’s words he threw back his head and roared with laughter.

“Well, that is rich!” he said, when he had recovered his breath.

“I don’t see anything to laugh about,” said Jessie, seriously. “We did
not feel very much like laughing at the time.”

“We were more inclined to throw bricks,” agreed Amy. “Those girls are
getting impossible, Darry!”

“I know they are,” returned the young fellow, seriously. “But what I was
wondering about,” he added, curiously, “was how in time they got hold of
the information that Amy got stung with the counterfeit bill!”

“I don’t know,” said Amy, indifferently, adding with a chuckle: “I’m
sure there is one girl who hasn’t told about it, and that is the tall
thin girl who gave the bill to me.”

“I have been wondering about her a good deal,” Jessie confessed. “I have
a feeling that that girl is in trouble——”

“Well, if she isn’t, she ought to be,” returned Amy, vehemently. “Just
think of my five dollars and you won’t pity her so much.”

“But she looked sick—almost as if she hadn’t had enough to eat,”
insisted Jessie. “She was so tall and thin, and that white face against
her coal black hair looked ghastly.”

“Hold on a minute!” cried Darry, leaning forward and regarding Jessie
intently. “Did this girl have blue eyes and unusually long, black
lashes?”

“Good gracious, Darry! do you suppose we studied the length of the
girl’s lashes at a time like that?” drawled Amy. “Do have a heart!” But
Jessie had made an impatient gesture.

“She did have long lashes, Darry—black like her hair,” she said,
eagerly. With a low whistle Darry sank back in his chair.

“Gosh,” he muttered, “I wonder if that could have been Link’s sister!”

                               CHAPTER VI

                               THE START

“Darry, what do you mean?” Jessie cried breathlessly. “Do you know this
girl?” Darry regarded her strangely for a moment, then replied with a
forced gayety that did not deceive Jessie for a moment:

“How can I tell? You must admit your description has been meager. There
are millions of girls in the United States with blue eyes and black
eyelashes, I suppose.”

“There are more in Ireland,” murmured Amy.

From that time on, try as Jessie might to break his silence, Darry
remained absolutely dumb on the subject of the girl who had given Amy
the counterfeit bill. Jessie knew instinctively that this very silence
meant that he knew—or suspected—a great deal more than he wished to tell
about this girl, and in exact proportion as his silence lengthened, her
curiosity increased. She was piqued, too, to think that Darry could be
so secretive. He had always seemed so frank and open in all his actions.
He must, she decided unwillingly, think a great deal of this girl to be
so careful to shield her from curiosity—even the kindest and best
intentioned curiosity like hers.

The day after their meeting, Miss Alling kept her promise to the girls
and appeared at the Norwood home promptly at eight o’clock to “listen
in” on the wonders of Jessie’s radio set.

She came, she frankly admitted, in a skeptical mood, for she could not
bring herself to believe that two such young girls could erect with any
degree of success so complicated an apparatus as a radio receiving set.
Miss Alling belonged to the type of person who, while believing she can
do nearly everything herself, has a good-natured contempt for the
accomplishments of most of her sex.

However, the girls proved to her that such a feat was indeed possible,
and, after looking the radio set over, Miss Alling pronounced herself
converted.

During the course of the evening Nell Stanley appeared, bringing with
her Folsom Duckworth, a high school boy all the others knew well.

“I fixed it up at home so that I can go to Forest Lodge with you,” said
Nell.

“If you three girls are going, what’s the matter with having Fol along?”
suggested Burd. “That will make it three and three.”

“Yes, do come with us,” urged Miss Alling cordially. And so, after some
talking, it was arranged. The young folks all liked Fol, even though he
was rather of the quiet sort.

After that the whole party grew merry at the thought of the good times
ahead. As a fine orchestra was now giving dance music over the radio, a
loud speaker was adjusted and soon one couple after another got up to
dance.

Burd’s Aunt Emma, like all athletic women, danced wonderfully well, and
soon the boys were “cutting in” on her dances.

“She is more popular than us—I should say we—young things,” Amy
whispered gleefully in Jessie’s ear. “I will never be afraid of getting
old again, after this.”

“I think she is wonderful,” returned Jessie, in a low tone. “After this
I am prepared to love even her obstinacy!”

Altogether, the party was a huge success and there was not one among
them more sorry than Miss Alling when the lateness of the hour forced it
to break up.

“May I come again?” she asked of Mrs. Norwood, as the latter accompanied
her to the door.

“My dear, I wish you would,” returned Mrs. Norwood, with genuine
cordiality. “I haven’t felt so young for years!”

“And now,” sighed Jessie, after the last one—even Amy—had gone and she
was left alone with her radio set, “to-morrow I shall have to take you
all down, you dear old thing, wires and everything, and pack you up
neatly so that you can go with us up to Forest Lodge. I wonder if you
will like the trip as well as we expect to. Oh, radio, dear, we are
going to have a lovely time!”

Then, almost before they realized it, the morning of departure had come.
The radio set had been dismantled skilfully by Jessie and Amy and was
ready for its forty-odd mile trip up into the mountains.

Besides the radio apparatus, the girls carried very little luggage.
Since they were to make the journey in Miss Alling’s touring car—with
the exception of the three boys, who were to “tag along after them” in
Darry’s roadster—it would be necessary to travel as light as possible.

“Anyway,” Amy had remarked philosophically, “we’ll practically live in
our outing suits during the two weeks and we’ll need very little else in
the way of clothing.”

“Except our bathing suits,” Jessie had laughingly reminded her. “Burd
says that the lodge is right on the shore of Lake Towako, you know, and
there ought to be plenty of chances for fine swimming.”

The morning of departure dawned gloriously bright. Jessie, waiting with
her mother on the porch, heard the roar of an exhaust, and the next
moment saw Darry’s black roadster leave the garage on the Drew place and
back down the drive into the broad, shaded boulevard.

This was about ten o’clock. Mr. Norwood, who was taking a half-holiday,
came out, morning paper in hand, to say good-bye to his daughter.

“Be a good girl and an honor to the Norwood name,” he said, with a
twinkle in his eye, and Jessie flung her arms about his neck and gave
him a bear-hug.

“You know I always am, Daddy Norwood,” she cried gayly. “Good-bye,
Momsey dearest. Write to me, won’t you? I only wish you were coming
too.” She was off down the walk, waving her hand gayly to Darry and Amy,
who were already “honking” for her before the gate.

“Here come Burd and Aunt Emma now,” Amy called out to her, pointing down
the road.

Miss Alling was driving at a merry pace, Burd lounging in the seat
beside her with hands folded conspicuously on his chest. In a moment the
big car drew up beside the little roadster.

“Glad to see you ready, girls,” said Aunt Emma, briskly. “Hop out, Burd,
and you and Darry pile the luggage in the tonneau. I have an old salt’s
nose for a storm, and I scent one brewing in the distance. The sooner we
get started, the better it will be for all of us.”

Spurred on by this injunction, the boys in a short time had everything
ready for the start.

“We’ll have to stop and pick up Fol and Nell,” Jessie reminded them.
“But that won’t take long if they are only ready for us.”

“Let’s hope they’ll be,” returned Darry, adding, as he stepped on the
starter: “Lead on, Miss Alling. We can do no better than follow in your
footsteps.”

Nell and Fol were waiting on the porch of the parsonage, and so they met
no delay there. The weather was ideal for such a trip, and, as Miss
Alling said, barring accidents, there was no reason why they should not
reach Forest Lodge on Lake Towako in time for lunch.

Aunt Emma was an excellent driver, and the handsome car covered mile
after mile of macadam road with a smooth, softly-purring motion that was
tonic to the action-loving girls. Nell sat beside Miss Alling, and Amy
and Jessie occupied the roomy tonneau which seemed not in the least
cluttered by the luggage that had been piled in it.

“Oh, isn’t this air wonderful?” sighed Jessie, happily, after a time.

“And the scenery!” murmured Amy. “Look at that mountain rising straight
ahead of us. Did you ever see anything more glorious?”

“There is a bridge at the foot of this hill,” Aunt Emma threw over her
shoulder. “Wait till you see the view from there.”

For some time they had been traveling straight up into the mountains.
The road had been almost one steady ascent. Now, however, the road
dipped sharply, and the car—Aunt Emma rarely used any brake but the
brake pedal, even on the steepest hills—slid downward with dizzy speed.

“Good gracious, but this is reckless!” Amy gasped.

Just then Jessie suddenly seized her arm in a grip that hurt.

“Amy, look! Look!” she screamed. “Right ahead of us! The bridge is
down!”

                              CHAPTER VII

                           THE WRECKED BRIDGE

“We’ll go into the river!” gasped Nell.

“We can never stop!” came from Amy. “Oh, what shall we do?”

“Keep your seats, girls. Don’t try to jump out,” came crisply from Miss
Alling. “Hold tight, all of you!”

The bridge spanning a small river at the foot of the hill had collapsed,
leaving an unprotected embankment and a four-foot drop to the water
below. At the rate of speed at which the car was going, it seemed as
though nothing short of a miracle could prevent a tragedy.

The girls clutched each other frantically, and Miss Alling’s fingers
tightened on the wheel. With swift presence of mind the lady swerved the
big car from the road, driving it into the woods, crashing recklessly
through bushes and undergrowth. They had missed the drop to the river by
the narrowest of margins.

Behind them they heard Darry cry out, heard another car crash through
the bushes. Their own car, still commanded resolutely by Miss Alling,
bumped along for several yards, careening drunkenly over boulders and
bushes in its path, bringing up finally in about a foot of water and
soft oozing mud. They had met the stream again where it changed its
course and wandered through the forest.

Amy released her tense grip upon Jessie’s arm and straightened up. From
the front seat there came a sound between a sob and a laugh. The author
of the sound was Nell. Miss Alling herself seemed not in the least
perturbed.

“Nasty business,” she said disgustedly, as she eased herself from behind
the wheel and felt for a footing in the wet grass. “Might know I would
end up in a mud hole like this. Well, I guess there is nothing for it
but for us all to get out and push. Give you girls an appetite for
lunch,” she added, with a chuckle.

“Just now I feel as though I would never be able to eat again,” remarked
Nell, the usually calm and collected.

They heard the boys calling to them and the next moment Burd, Darry and
Fol appeared, looking extremely anxious.

“Why the lengthy faces?” cried Amy. “You needn’t look as if we had
already shuffled off this mortal coil. Cheer up, boys, there is lots of
kick in us yet.”

“What shocking slang,” reproved Jessie, with a chuckle. “And just when
you should be making a good impression upon Miss Alling, and
everything.”

“My dear,” spoke up Aunt Emma absently, “if I never had anything worse
than slang to worry about, I should be a very lucky woman. This car! Now
I ask you! Just look at it! Sunk a foot deep in mud and water!”

“It is a rather sorry-looking spectacle,” agreed Burd, adding with a
grin: “But it would be looking a heap worse if it had gone over that
embankment.”

“So should we,” replied Jessie, with a forced laugh.

“The appearance of none of us is likely to be improved at once,” Miss
Alling informed him, with a merry twinkle in her eyes. “You will
probably be liberally spattered with mud—and bad temper—before we get
this car on the state highway again. We’ll have to ford the river.”

“Ford the river!” repeated Jessie, wonderingly. “Is it shallow enough
for that?”

“That remains for us to find out,” returned Miss Alling. “I believe
there is a comparatively shallow place a little further on through the
woods, though.”

“Get a car through this jungle!” groaned Darry. “From where I sit it
looks as impenetrable as an African forest.”

“Well, would you rather sit here and look at each other—or go back
home?” asked Miss Alling, and at this suggestion, which smacked of a
threat, the Radio Girls were stirred to sudden action.

“I should say we don’t want to go home!” said Jessie, stoutly. “We are
going to ford this river if there is a place where it is less than four
feet deep. Tell us what to do, Miss Alling, and we will do it.”

Aunt Emma looked at her approvingly.

“Good!” she said. “That is the kind of talk I like.”

“The first thing to do is to get this car backed out of the mud, I
guess,” suggested Nell, thoughtfully, and Aunt Emma nodded briskly.

“Right you are,” she said. “Bring up the roadster, Darry. And you two
boys,” turning to Burd and Fol, “can help me get some rope from the car.
The rest of you,” she added to the girls, “will have to push!”

Darry brought up the little roadster, puffing and snorting, to within a
few feet of the big car. By this time Burd and Fol had succeeded in
finding a piece of good stout rope under the back seat of the touring
car. It took them only a short time, working together, to fasten the big
car securely to the little one.

“Puts your little bus on its metal, sure enough, Darry,” Burd remarked.
“It will have to pull some to get this big jumbo free.”

“Huh!” cried Aunt Emma, hopping nimbly into the big car and seizing the
wheel with determination, “this big jumbo, as you call it, has a mighty
fine engine. I reckon the strain won’t come altogether on Darry’s
roadster.”

But the undertaking, simple as it had seemed in the beginning, assumed
gigantic proportions as the work progressed. The big car, in reverse,
snorted and roared and puffed—and that was all. The wheels could get no
purchase in the slimy mud. They slid and skidded and accomplished
nothing.

The little roadster, doing its gallant best, was at a disadvantage also,
for the ground was wet and slippery, being sodden because of a recent
storm. Also, the shore sloped sharply down to the edge of the stream, so
that the roadster was trying to carry its heavy load up grade.

The girls and boys put their shoulders to the car and pushed with all
their might, but still it would not budge.

“Well, I guess we are doomed to spend the rest of our natural lives in
this spot,” said Amy, at last, stopping to wipe the perspiration from
her brow. “In the last ten minutes we have not moved the fraction of an
inch. Startling speed.”

“I have an idea,” cried Jessie, suddenly, as the rest stopped for a
moment’s breathing spell. “Why can’t we get that big log over there and
put it in front of the wheels of the roadster. That would keep the car
from slipping backward, anyway.”

“Might try it,” agreed Burd, grudgingly. “But I don’t suppose it will do
much good. What we need is a team of good farm horses,” he added
ruefully.

However, Jessie’s idea of the log did work surprisingly well. It not
only prevented the roadster from slipping, but gave it something to push
against when starting in reverse.

“Now, all together!” cried Jessie, as she once more leaned all her
weight against the car. “It will have to come this time. One, two,
three—go!”

There was the staccato roar of the engine, and with all their strength
Jessie and Amy and Nell and the two boys, leaned against the car.

The roadster, insured against slipping by the log, pulled the rope taut.
Slowly, but steadily and surely, the big car crept backward. The mud and
slime loosed its hold upon the wheels. A moment more, and the big
machine had reached solid ground. The wheels dug savagely into it,
sending the car backward with such force that Miss Alling was forced to
bear down heavily upon the brake to prevent a smash with Darry’s car.

“Hooray, the day is saved!” shouted Burd. Then he added, with a grin, as
he looked at Jessie: “And it was Jessie’s log that saved it.”

“Who cares whose log it was—we’re out! That’s the big thing!” returned
Jessie.

“Sure thing, we’re out!” cried Amy. “Three cheers, boys and girls!
One—two—three——”

The cheers were given, Miss Alling adding her voice to the six more
youthful, and more vociferous, ones.

                              CHAPTER VIII

                             RISKY BUSINESS

“And now to cross the river!” said Amy.

“Out of the frying pan into the fire,” laughed Nell. “We just succeed in
getting out of the river, and we immediately make plans for getting into
it again.”

“Does seem rather foolish, doesn’t it?” agreed Jessie. “However, we can
only hope that the river bottom isn’t mud all the way.”

“It is not,” Miss Alling assured her, as the boys unfastened the rope
that bound the two cars together. “As the stream becomes more shallow
the river bed becomes more pebbly. I really think we won’t have any
trouble getting across.”

The knots in the rope that had bound the two cars together had been
drawn taut by the strain upon them and the unfastening of the knots
required time and patience. Miss Alling insisted that the rope should
not be cut.

“We never can tell when we may need the rope again,” she reminded them.
“Better spend a little extra time just now than lose a good deal later
on.”

At last the final knot was untied, the rope stowed away in the tonneau
awaiting the next emergency, and they were ready for the start. In the
meantime Darry had gone back and posted a warning on the road leading to
the broken bridge.

“Where do we go from here, boys—or rather, Aunt Em?” queried Burd, as
the boys climbed back into the roadster. “We let you take the lead
before, and I suppose we shall have to again. Though I don’t know
whether we should,” he added judicially, “after the place you led us
to.”

“Better here than into the river,” retorted Miss Alling, and stepped on
the starter.

It was necessary for them to proceed at a snail’s pace, for, though
there were traces of an old wagon road following the banks of the stream
at this point, the woodland was dense with vines and undergrowth, and
the road was fairly overgrown with rank grass and bushes.

It seemed an endless time to the impatient girls before Miss Alling
stopped the car and, pointing out toward the stream, declared that she
was confident they would be able to cross it at that point.

They got out to have a closer look at the water, and Darry, having
stopped his car a few feet behind them, joined them with Fol and Burd.

“All set for the big act?” asked Darry, and Miss Alling nodded
thoughtfully. They had reached the water, and at the point where the
stream encroached upon the shore it was only a few inches deep. Also,
the bottom was, as Miss Alling had prophesied, hard and dotted with
small boulders and rocks.

“Pretty rough going, but a good sight better than mud, at that,” was
Fol’s verdict. “I vote we get started.”

“But how do you know the stream is fordable at this point?” asked Darry.

Miss Alling had started back toward the cars, evidently intent upon
following Fol’s suggestion without delay, but at Darry’s question she
turned and looked at him squarely.

“My dear boy, I _don’t_ know,” she told him. “The world is full of
gambles. This is one of them.”

“I don’t want to gamble,” wailed Amy, as they followed Aunt Emma. “I
only want to live. Jessie, I give you my word I feel ten perfectly good
years of my life slipping away.”

“I have heard that people actually do die of fright sometimes,” said
Jessie, cheerfully, and Amy shot her a reproachful glance.

“Mean old thing,” she said. “I don’t believe you are frightened in the
least, Jessie Norwood.”

“Why should I be?” returned Jessie, with a laugh. “It isn’t as though we
hadn’t been close to drowning before. Barry’s yacht, the _Marigold_, for
instance.”

“Well, just because we nearly drowned once isn’t to say that I ought to
enjoy it the second time,” grumbled Amy. The next moment she gripped
Jessie’s arm. Miss Alling had turned the car and had headed it straight
toward the river.

“Here goes,” sang out Nell. “Hold your hats, everybody!”

The water swished about the wheels as the car pushed forward, and Amy’s
grip upon her chum tightened.

“In just about a minute we are due to stumble into a hole,” she said,
and Jessie giggled.

“Cars don’t stumble,” she said. “They plunge. If you are not careful I
will tell Miss Seymour on you.”

“O-oh, there we go!” gasped Amy, shutting her eyes as the water swished
up higher about the wheels. “Let me know when it reaches my chin. I
shan’t die without a struggle.”

“Silly, open your eyes,” laughed Jessie. “If you think you can drown in
two feet of water, go ahead.”

Luckily for them, the opposite shore was not steep, and the big car took
the ascent with ease. Miss Alling stopped the car long enough to make
sure that the boys were following them safely, then turned about and
headed back through the woods toward the roadway.

They were again on an old road running through the woods, but it was one
seldom used and was filled with stumps and creeping vines, and they were
once more forced to proceed at a crawl. But with the river successfully
crossed, the girls did not chafe so much at the slow pace and were
pleasantly surprised when at last the highway appeared through the
trees.

Once upon this highway, they waited for the roadster to catch up to
them. Somebody suggested that they have lunch before they went any
further. The broken bridge had delayed them more than they realized, and
Darry found upon consulting his watch that it was long past lunch time.

Miss Alling, however, insisted that they continue on for a few miles in
an attempt to make up the time they had lost.

“We have a long way to go yet,” she reminded them. “And the last part of
the trip is by far the harder. We turn off from the main highway several
miles away from Forest Lodge, and the lake road is steep and rocky. I
have no notion,” she ended decidedly, “of taking that road after dark.”

The young folks reluctantly consented to go on although the basket lunch
which Alma, the Norwood’s cook, had packed with dainties, was the cause
of much yearning speculation on the part of the girls and boys. The
lunch was one Alma had insisted on their taking along, saying there was
no telling what a motor car might do or when it would get them to their
journey’s end.

The next hour passed uneventfully, and Miss Alling, as though to make up
for every second of wasted time, burned up mile upon mile of smooth road
beneath the wheels of her powerful car.

They came at last to a road marked: Detour—Road Closed for Repairs.

Miss Alling stopped the car so swiftly that the girls were thrown
forward in their seats. As Amy afterward remarked, nothing save the
luggage kept her and Jessie from being tossed over the heads of the two
in front.

Their chaperone regarded the annoying sign with furrowed brow.

“I know this detour,” she said, with a sigh. “It means a half dozen
miles out of our way on a most disagreeable stretch of road. Now we
surely will be late reaching Forest Lodge!”

“Well, if we are going to be late, anyway, we might as well eat,”
suggested Jessie, and Darry, who, with Fol and Burd, had strolled up to
inspect the sign, seconded the suggestion with extreme heartiness. The
others joined in and made such a clamor that for the sake of peace their
chaperone was forced to give in.

Besides, as she admitted later between bites of a chicken sandwich, she
had been actually famished herself.

After the hamper had been emptied and they were on their way once more,
the boys and girls found out that Aunt Emma had not exaggerated when she
classed the detour as a most disagreeable stretch of road. It was all of
that, as Burd remarked, and “then some.”

They came at last to a village, a straggling, shabby little place with
one main street, a shabby motion picture theater, and a few
uninviting-looking stores.

“This is Gibbonsville, and it marks the end of the detour,” said Miss
Alling. “Just beyond here we come upon the lake road again.”

“That is lucky,” said Amy. “One more mile of that road, and I shouldn’t
have had a tight tooth in my head.” Her voice died off vaguely. She had
started forward in her seat, her gaze suddenly fixed and staring.

“What is it?” cried Jessie.

“There is that girl! The one who gave me the counterfeit bill!”

                               CHAPTER IX

                              ON THE HUNT

“Oh, stop the car, Miss Alling, please!” cried Jessie, on impulse, and
automatically Miss Alling responded.

The car slowed to a standstill before the store upon the porch of which
Amy had seen the strange girl.

“She is gone, worst luck!” cried Amy, as she opened the car door and
leaped to the ground. “Did you see the look she gave me, Jess?” she
added, as her chum followed her and together they approached the store.
“Just one long stare, and then the disappearing act.”

“Oh, hush,” cautioned Jessie, as she laid a hand upon the crazily-swung
screen door at the entrance to the store. “She may be just inside, and
we don’t want her to know we are talking about her.”

But the strange girl was not within, as Jessie and Amy soon found out,
and a guarded questioning of the languid storekeeper brought forth no
information as to her whereabouts.

There was a door at the rear of the store, and to this Amy ran, opening
it and peering out into the littered yard. Jessie followed more slowly,
for she had no desire to arouse either the curiosity or the suspicion of
the sleepy-eyed storekeeper.

Back of the small cleared space that served for a back yard and which
was crammed with old packing boxes and rubbish of all kinds, was a
vegetable garden and beyond that, the woods. If the strange girl had
fled in this direction there would be scant chance of finding her.

Disappointed, the girls turned away and Jessie stopped to buy a box of
crackers and some sorry-looking candy from the man behind the counter,
who seemed as if about to be shocked into wakefulness by their peculiar
actions.

“There was a stairway going up from the back of that store. I saw it,”
Amy said in a low tone to her chum, as they returned to their curious
companions. “If that isn’t the way that girl disappeared, then I am no
good as a detective.”

“We could hardly have gone up those stairs without being arrested for
housebreaking,” Jessie argued reasonably, but Amy shook her head.

“I would be almost willing to risk spending a night in the county jail
for the pleasure of talking to that girl again,” she said.

Nell and the three boys greeted them with curious questions when they
returned and listened with interest when they told of their fruitless
search for the girl who had passed the counterfeit bill.

Darry was obviously excited and upset, and asked them so many questions
that Amy finally snapped out at him with:

“For goodness’ sake, Darry, we have told you all we know about four
times over. Now, if you want to find out anything else, you will have to
turn sleuth yourself.”

“I intend to,” retorted Darry, with decision adding, as he turned toward
the store: “Excuse me for a few minutes, folks. I have a consuming
curiosity to talk with the owner of this place.”

The girls and boys looked after him until he had disappeared within the
store, then exchanged curious glances.

“Darry sure seems all ‘het up’ over this girl,” remarked Burd, with a
chuckle. “Never knew him to take so much interest in a stranger before.”

“Maybe he is in with the gang of counterfeiters,” suggested Fol,
grinning, “and is afraid this mysterious young thing may give him away.”

“Here comes Darry now. Let him speak for himself,” said Amy.

But Darry seemed to have no intention of speaking for himself or for any
one else. He looked as black as a thundercloud as he flung down the
steps, and had hardly a word to say in answer to their eager questions.

“I found out a good many things that don’t help me any,” he said, taking
Burd and Fol by the arm and heading them back toward the roadster.
“Let’s get started. Something tells me we are wasting more time than is
necessary.”

The only one who agreed with him was Miss Alling. Mildly interested in
the account of the counterfeit bill and the girl who had passed it, Aunt
Emma was much more vitally concerned with the passage of time and that
stretch of mountain road that they would have to cover at the end of
their journey.

So as Darry herded the boys into the roadster she stepped on the starter
and Jessie and Amy had no alternative but to climb hastily into the car
before she released the brake and threw in the clutch.

Amy looked regretfully at the blank face of the store as they moved
away.

“I have an idea there are just slathers of mystery surrounding that
girl, Jess,” she said, in a low tone. “I hate to go away and leave it
all unsolved.”

“Perhaps we can come back here some day before long,” remarked Jessie,
absently. Her mind was busy with the problem of Darry and his strange
behavior. “Gibbonsville can’t be such a very long drive from Forest
Lodge.”

“Humph, by the time we get back here that girl will have had a dozen
chances to escape.”

“Provided she wants to escape,” said Jessie, thoughtfully, and her chum
looked at her in surprise.

“Why, of course she wants to escape! Isn’t she a counterfeiter?”

“I don’t know that and neither do you,” retorted Jessie, to the further
mystification of her friend.

“But she gave me a counterfeit bill!” Amy protested, with exasperation.
“You saw her do it.”

“That doesn’t prove that she was dishonest,” returned Jessie, earnestly,
“any more than it’s proof that you are dishonest because you happen to
have a counterfeit bill in your possession.”

“What are you two girls fighting about?” asked Nell, half-turning in her
seat. “I feel as though I were missing all the fun.”

“We aren’t fighting,” laughed Amy. “We are only calling each other
names.”

“As though that weren’t the same thing!” retorted Nell. After a moment
she added, curiously: “What do you suppose made Darry act the way he
did? Does he know that girl, Amy?”

“Don’t ask me! Did you ever hear of a brother telling his sister
anything?” returned Amy, in an aggrieved tone that betrayed the fact
that she, like Jessie, had attempted to “pump” Darry on the subject of
the strange girl and failed. “I suppose, like Belle Ringold, he thinks
me a mere child and not worthy of his confidences,” she added
flippantly.

As they climbed farther up into the hills and the scenery became wilder
and more picturesque, Miss Alling became expansive, recounting stories
of people who lived in that locality and telling amusing anecdotes of
her own experiences that kept the girls in gales of merriment.

It seemed only a short time to them before they turned off the main
highway and entered the rough and narrow mountain road. In spite of the
discomfort of that last part of the journey, the girls thoroughly
enjoyed it.

Aunt Emma, intent upon her driving, relapsed once more into silence.
Indeed, there were some spots along that road where she needed every
atom of skill she possessed. At one point the narrow road hugged close
to the side of the mountain while to the left of them the ground dropped
sharply downward, disclosing a ravine some hundred feet in depth.

“Good it isn’t raining,” said Amy, as the car crawled cautiously along
the perilous strip of road. “One skid, and we would be but a dim, faint
memory. Look behind you, will you, Jess, dear, and see if the boys are
still right side up?”

Jessie obeyed and reported that Darry was being cautious for once in his
life.

At last they descended from the narrow road to one that led straight
through the heart of the forest. Ahead of them through the trees the
girls presently caught a glimpse of rippling water.

“Lake Towako,” announced Nell, joyfully. “Doesn’t it look pretty?”

“It is pretty,” said Miss Alling, with conviction. “And my lodge
commands a view of the prettiest part of it. There is the house to the
right of us. Thank fortune we reached it before dark.”

The girls saw a long, low, rambling building with many windows and an
air of rusticity that was delightfully in keeping with the surroundings.

The front windows commanded a full view of the lake, which was charming
with its irregular shore line and picturesque, verdure-clad islands.

A small dock jutted out into the water, and close by were racks bearing
several bright-colored canoes. Beside the dock, bobbing gently on the
serene water, were two rowboats.

“I can see where we don’t spend much time on land,” said Amy, as Miss
Alling turned in back of the lodge and silenced the motor. “I feel the
call of those canoes already.”

“Lake Towako will be here to-morrow, and so will the canoes,” Aunt Emma
reminded her, smiling. “I imagine we shall have enough to do to-night
just to put the rooms in order. I wired Phrosy to come down here, but
the deserted condition of the house leads me to believe that Phrosy has
failed me.”

“Who is Phrosy?” Jessie asked, but at that moment the door at the rear
of the house opened and the entire breadth of the doorway was blocked by
a towering black figure.

“Phrosy, why didn’t you come out to meet us?” asked her mistress,
severely. “I thought you had not come.”

“Ah begs yo’ pardon, Miss Alling, I sho’ does,” said the big black woman
in a rich and mellow voice. “But Ah done think you was de ghosts fo’
sure.”

“Ghosts!” cried the girls, and Phrosy turned her solemn visage upon
them.

“Dey comes f’om dat swamp,” she said, and pointed with a shaking finger.
“Dey does, as sho’ as Ah lives.”

                               CHAPTER X

                                 GHOSTS

“Nonsense, Phrosy, what a ridiculous thing to say.”

Miss Alling’s tone was sharp as she pushed past the colored woman into
the house.

“But, Miss Emma, I done tell yo’ Ah knows what Ah’m talkin’ about,”
persisted Phrosy. “’Taint no ’magination. Ah done heered ’em
screechin’.”

“Well, suppose you light a lamp or two,” Miss Alling suggested, adding
dryly: “Ghosts don’t like light, you know. Probably they will wait till
we go to bed to bother us.”

Phrosy groaned and the girls giggled nervously.

“Den I don’t nebber go to bed no mo’e, Miss Emma,” said the colored
woman, while she went about lighting the rooms to a mellow cheerfulness.

“You could take a lamp to bed with you, Phrosy,” suggested Amy.

“Wouldn’t take dose ghosts more’n one second to put out dat light, li’l
missy. An’ den where’d Ah be?” she said darkly.

“What is this we hear about ghosts?” asked a laughing, masculine voice
from the doorway, and the girls turned gleefully to greet the boys.

“Come on in, do,” cried Jessie. “There is one attraction here that we
didn’t bargain on. Phrosy says there are ghosts in the swamp.”

Miss Alling, who had been putting lamps in the other rooms, returned at
that moment and confronted the black woman.

“Still talking ridiculous nonsense, are you, Phrosy?” she said severely.
“Well, let me remind you that ghosts are not good to eat, and we are all
very hungry after a long ride. I hope you followed my instructions and
laid in a good stock of eatables.”

“I done follow yo’ instructions, Miss Emma,” grumbled the black woman,
as she moved toward the small lean-to that served for a kitchen. “I mos’
always tries to do my duty, but Ah’s goin’ away f’om here fust thing in
de mo’nin’ sho’ as mah name am Euphrosyne Black. Ah kin stand mos’
anything, but Ah caint stand fo’ ghosts.”

“Phrosy, what is that you say?” cried Miss Alling, in a tone that
brought the big black woman up short. “You don’t mean to tell me you
actually intend to leave here in the morning?”

“Yas’m, Ah sho’ does,” said Phrosy, firmly. “Ah stayed here las’ night
an’ Ah gives you mah word, Miss Emma, Ah nebber done close mah eyes.”

“Come here to me, Euphrosyne Black,” commanded Miss Alling, in a tone
that proved her determined to get at the root of this nonsense. “What
was it you heard last night, or thought you heard?”

“Ah done hear it wiv mah own ears, Miss Emma,” said Phrosy, her voice
quivering with suppressed emotion and her eyes rolling till there was
scarcely anything visible but the white eyeball. “A screechin’ an’ a
moanin’ an’ a wailin’ like all de ghosts in de world was ober by dat
swamp. It done make mah hair stand clear on end, Miss Emma. Ah’m tellin’
you de truf.”

“What did you do then?” asked Jessie.

“I bet I can tell you what she did,” interrupted Burd, with a grin. “I
bet she just took down one of these guns I see hanging on the walls and
went gunning for the ghosts.”

“Ah would need mo’ dan a gun to kill a ghost, yassuh,” said Phrosy,
earnestly, and once more Miss Alling broke in impatiently.

“I suppose what you actually did was to put your head under the covers
and shiver for the rest of the night,” she said, and Phrosy nodded her
head and rolled her eyes in admiration of this remarkable logic.

“Yas’m, dat’s jest what Ah did. But Ah don’t expects to do it no mo’e,”
she added, with a return to stubbornness. “Sho as de mo’nin’ comes, Ah
done take de fust boat what leaves dis place.”

“Phrosy, I do hope you won’t be so foolish and unkind,” said Miss
Alling, resorting to argument and cajolery. “You know there are no such
things as ghosts. And have you stopped to think how I could get along
without you?”

“Ah’s sho sorry, Miss Emma, but dis place ain’t gwine see me no mo’e
after de mo’nin’. If dat ghost stays, Ah gits.”

Regretful, but obviously determined, Phrosy stalked off into the
kitchen, having enjoyed the advantage of the last word.

The young folks exchanged amused glances, then looked at Aunt Emma. Her
face was a study of conflicting emotions, but the most dominant among
them seemed to be an intense irritation.

“That is what you have to suffer from being partial to black servants,”
she said, in a voice lowered so that it might not reach the ears of
Euphrosyne Black. “They are so superstitious they carry their ghosts
along with them. I don’t know how I will ever manage if Phrosy leaves
me.

“Where is this swamp where the ghosts live?” asked Amy.

“There is a swamp over there beyond the lake,” responded Aunt Emma,
waving her hand in an easterly direction. “It is a miserable, dreary
place and is avoided by every one in the locality. I have heard that it
can be crossed if one knows how to find the solid ground, but unless my
life depended upon it I wouldn’t care to try it myself.”

“Dreary, you say, and deserted,” murmured Amy, adding with an
irrepressible chuckle: “Just the ideal spot for a ghost. I think I will
have to visit this swamp before long.”

“I think you had better be very careful how you visit in that
neighborhood,” retorted Miss Alling, briskly. “More than one person has
gone to the swamp never to return.”

“Oh, how thrilling,” cried Amy. “That explains Phrosy’s ghosts, doesn’t
it? Maybe she didn’t imagine those noises after all.”

“Good gracious, Amy, I wish you would stop,” said Nell, with a shiver.
“I declare, I feel creepy already.”

“No wonder—listening to Phrosy’s wild stories,” said Miss Alling.
“Suppose we change the subject. For instance, how do you like my lodge,
now that you are here?”

The change of subject was a fortunate one, and it was not long before
Phrosy’s ghosts had been forgotten in the delight of inspecting the cozy
interior of the lodge.

There was a combination living room and dining room opening off from the
kitchen, and it was into this room that Phrosy had ushered them. By the
light of the oil lamps they could make out the picturesque roughness of
the raftered ceiling and side walls.

The walls were almost completely covered by handsome animal skins and
rifles, and at one spot over the open fireplace depended the huge
antlered head of a deer.

Woven rag rugs covered the rough boards of the floor, and at each side
of the fireplace was a wooden settle. A large table surrounded by
cushioned, comfortable chairs completed the furnishings of the room.

“All the comforts of home,” said Darry, and grinned at Aunt Emma. “My, I
am glad you invited us.”

“You don’t live here,” retorted the lady. “The lodge isn’t big enough to
accommodate all of you, so I have commandeered a small cabin just back
of us. It has only two rooms, but as you boys will probably spend most
of your time here I guess the cabin will be large enough for you.”

“They want to get rid of us! It is a put-up job!” complained Burd.
“Imagine them giving us a two-room cabin and keeping the lodge all to
themselves.”

“It is the day of women,” sighed Darry. “We really should be thankful
that they let us live at all.”

Accompanied by the complaints of the boys and the flickering light of
lanterns the girls inspected the rest of their quarters.

There were three bedrooms and a little closet-like affair that was
Phrosy’s room. The rooms were a fair size and contained comfortable
beds, despite the fact that the walls and floors, like those of the
living room, were rough and unplastered.

The girls noticed with pleasure—and a feeling of relief which they would
not acknowledge even to each other—that the two rooms assigned to them
by Miss Alling were connected by a door.

“One of us will have to sleep alone,” Nell said in a low tone, as they
followed Aunt Emma back to the living room. “I don’t mind telling you
that I would rather not.”

“Why, Nell, don’t tell me Phrosy’s ghosts have got you scared,” laughed
Amy. “Didn’t you hear Aunt Emma say there weren’t no sech animal?”

However given to superstition Phrosy might be, there could be no
discount on her ability as a cook. The dinner she prepared that night
tasted like ambrosia and nectar to the famished young folks. It was with
evident reluctance that the boys finally left the table and declared
their intention of seeking their own quarters.

Aunt Emma and Phrosy escorted them to the cabin while the girls stood in
the doorway and waved them good-bye.

“Oh,” said Jessie, turning away and yawning wearily, “I never was so
tired in my life.”

“There is only one known remedy for that,” commented Amy. “I am glad
those beds are comfortable.”

Half an hour later all was quiet at Forest Lodge. Even Phrosy had
consented to put out her light and go to sleep.

Nothing to break that serene stillness save the mysterious night sounds
of the forest. Hours passed with still nothing to break that silence.
Then——

Jessie sat up in bed, her eyes straining wide to pierce the darkness,
her heart hammering. What was it that had waked her? Some sound? Her
hand flew to her throat to press back the startled cry.

From out of the depths of the woodland it came again—a long, low,
agonized moan, like the cry of a soul in torment.

                               CHAPTER XI

                                 PHROSY

Trembling, Jessie sprang out of bed, slipped a negligee about her
shoulders, and ran noiselessly to the window.

She stood there shivering. It came again—that sound—more eerie, more
terrifying than before.

The echo had barely died away when there was a terrific shriek within
the house, and Phrosy, scantily clothed and wild-eyed, rushed from her
room.

“Dat’s de ghost! Dat’s de ghost!” she chattered, terrified. “I done tell
you he was ’roun’ dis place! Ah’m gwine leave here in de mo’nin’!”

“Hush, Phrosy, please,” ordered Miss Alling. She, as well as Amy and
Nell, had been awakened by the hubub, but she alone had had the presence
of mind to light a lamp.

Now, with this illumination to sustain them, they gathered in Jessie’s
room, Miss Alling doing her utmost to reassure and pacify the terrified
Phrosy.

“Ah’m gwine git mah things on dis minute an’ go straight away f’om
here,” protested the latter through chattering teeth. “Ain’t nobody
gwine hold me here no longer.”

“Don’t be absurd, Phrosy,” said Aunt Emma, in a voice that showed her
patience was deserting her. “You know very well you can’t leave here
now. There are no boats running till morning, and I am certainly not
going to get out the car and try the mountain road after dark. Do you
intend to walk?”

“No’m, reckon Ah don’t,” returned Phrosy, somewhat impressed by this
argument but still in the grip of panic. “Reckon dere ain’t no gittin’
away till to-morrow, but I sho intentions to take dat mo’nin’ boat. Ah
wouldn’t stay in dis place any mo’e nights, no’m, not fo’ a million
dollars, Ah wouldn’t.”

“Nobody is likely to offer you that much, anyway, Phrosy,” retorted Miss
Alling, adding, as she turned to Jessie: “Do you know what all this is
about? I haven’t heard anything.”

“Neither have I,” said Amy, standing beside the shivering Nell. “I am
afraid Nell and I missed the show.”

Jessie hesitated. It was evident that she was the only one besides the
colored woman who had heard that agonized moan from the direction of the
swamp. Subconsciously she had been expecting to hear it repeated, but no
sound had greeted her strained attention. If she should tell them that
Phrosy was not the only one to be frightened by that strange and eerie
cry, would they not perhaps laugh at her, as they were now laughing at
Phrosy?

Her hesitation was short-lived, however, for, besides the advisability
of telling the truth at all times, she felt that she owed it to the
groaning Phrosy to admit that there was something queer going on down by
the swamp.

“I heard a noise,” she said.

The girls and Miss Alling stared at her in surprise, while even Phrosy
stopped groaning long enough to bestow upon her a look of awe.

“Why, Jessie, you didn’t really!” cried Amy, delightedly. “What kind of
noise?”

“It was a horrid sound,” said Jessie, slowly. “Like a wailing moan——”

Phrosy let forth another hair-raising shriek and began to rock herself
to and fro, hands lifted beseechingly to heaven.

“Dat’s de ghost what Ah heard! Dat’s de ghost what Ah heard?” she
chanted over and over, until Miss Alling was forced to silence her and
her voice dropped to a wailing monotone.

The girls were wildly excited and even Miss Alling looked worried.

“I don’t know what to say,” she confessed at last, regarding Jessie
seriously. “I had supposed that Phrosy’s imagination was running away
with her, but if you heard it too, Jessie——”

“It came twice,” said Jessie. “And it was after the second time that
Phrosy yelled——”

“Oh! What’s that?”

It was Nell who spoke, and the girls jumped nervously.

“Praise de Lord! Praise de Lord!”

“Phrosy, be quiet—do!” from Miss Alling. “What was it you heard, Nell?”

“It was like a whistle—soft and repeated three times.”

“Oh, that was Darry’s call,” broke in Jessie, feeling wonderfully
relieved.

“The boys have heard the commotion and have come to find out if we are
still alive,” suggested Amy, as they started toward the door, dragging
the still-trembling Phrosy with them.

Though she was sure that no one but the boys were behind that door,
Jessie waited until she heard them speak before opening it.

As their voices reached her reassuringly she flung the door wide,
beckoning them eagerly to come in.

The boys looked about them eagerly and with undisguised relief as they
realized that the girls and Miss Alling—and even black Phrosy—were alive
and well.

“You girls shouldn’t scare us like that,” complained Burd. “From the
noise, we thought a lion had been let loose among you, at least.”

“It was Phrosy who did the screaming,” said Jessie. “She thought she
heard a ghost.”

“Ah done heard dat ghost an’ Ah done see him wiv mah own eyes,” asserted
Phrosy stubbornly. “Ah done see dat ghost walkin’ down near de swamp
plain as Ah sees you all here in dis room.”

The boys started to scoff at this, but when they heard that Jessie had
heard the moaning cry down near the swamp, their incredulity changed to
wonder and, finally, to alarm.

“May be some poor fellow down there in need of help,” said Darry, and
immediately proposed that the three boys should investigate the cry.

The girls were opposed to the idea, and did not want the boys to go. But
the boys insisted and finally had their own way.

After two hours of fruitless search during which the girls sat together,
talking in low tones, Darry and his companions returned, declaring that
they had heard and seen nothing to excite the least suspicion.

“If you ask for my private opinion,” said Miss Alling, “it is that we
had all better go back to bed for the present and talk this thing over
in the morning. Shoo yourselves back to the cabin, boys, and if you hear
any more noises, don’t pay any attention to them.”

After some good-natured grumbling the boys did as she suggested. But
when, a few minutes later, the girls tried to coax Phrosy back to bed,
they found her adamant in her intention to sit up for the rest of the
night.

“Ah’s goin’ to keep dis lamp burnin’ an’ sit just where Ah is,” she
declared. “An’ in de mo’nin’ Ah’m gwine away f’om here an’ nothin’ an’
nobody ain’t nebber gwine git me back, no suh, not so long as Ah lives!”

So they left her there, perforce, and in the morning found her sitting
in the same place, the lamp burned out and her black head bobbing upon
her breast.

But everything looks more cheerful in the daylight and this seemed true
even of Phrosy’s ghosts. Between them, and using the argument that
whoever or whatever was down by the swamp had not yet attempted to harm
them, they finally persuaded Phrosy not to desert them just then.
However, her decision to stay was provisional upon the behavior of the
ghosts. The next time the “ha’nts” spoke, Phrosy left. That was certain.

The first day passed so swiftly in and about the lodge that night found
the Radio Girls unprepared—and their radio set not yet erected.

So it happened that the following morning Jessie got them all up early
and set them all to unpacking the various parts of the set while she
herself got ready for the hardest part of the work, the erecting of the
aerial.

The boys came around, humbly begging to be allowed to work, but, except
in the assembling of the parts, Jessie gently but firmly denied their
petition.

“We want to show Miss Alling that we are as good sports as she is and
really are of some use in the out-of-doors,” she said, smiling at the
chaperone, who was interestedly inspecting the various parts of the set.
“She wouldn’t believe that we erected the set at home practically by
ourselves.”

“I will believe it now when I see it done,” said Miss Alling, crisply,
but pleasantly.

“We are the greatest little demonstrators you ever saw,” murmured Amy,
handling the detector with fond care. “Watch us and learn.”

“They are altogether too sure of themselves, these girls,” said Fol, in
an injured tone. “I guess there is no room for us around here, fellows.”

“We’ll come in handy when they start to string up the aerial,” remarked
Darry, in a stage whisper. “I reckon they haven’t the least idea how
they are going to do it.”

“Trees!” said Jessie, laconically.

“Humph! Do you suppose you are going to be able to climb into a tree far
enough to fasten your aerial wire?”

Jessie squinted calmly up into the giant oak whose foliage-weighted
branches spread themselves above the lodge.

“As Amy so aptly remarked a few moments ago, watch and learn!” she said,
and Darry walked off in high dudgeon.

Burd and Fol, feeling sure that the girls’ resolution would weaken as
they watched Barry’s departure, lingered expectantly for a few moments.
Then, as no requests for help were forthcoming, they followed Darry,
declaring that they intended to linger no longer in a spot where their
room was so evidently preferred to their company.

Left alone, the girls worked like beavers, setting up, assembling, and
getting ready for the hardest part of all, the erection of the aerial.

At last all the work was done that could be done upon the ground, and
the girls turned to the tree from which they intended to string their
aerial. It was a convenient distance from the house, and the wires,
reaching from the top of the tall tree to the lodge, should be able to
record messages from a considerable distance.

Miss Alling, standing at the foot of the tree, watched the ascent with
an ever-increasing interest. She was an extremely athletic person
herself, and yet she doubted if she would have had the nerve to climb to
the top of that tree, even in the service of radio. Now and then she
cheered them on with shouted words of encouragement. By the time they
were two-thirds of the way toward their goal she was fairly prancing
with excitement.

The girls, intent on their work, heard her only vaguely and saw her not
at all. As a matter of fact, they were not particularly anxious to look
down. It was easier—and safer—to look up, for something told them they
had gone a considerable distance from the ground.

Jessie, in the lead, her tool kit slung over one shoulder, climbed
laboriously into a crotch of the tree, holding tightly to the coil of
wire. With her free hand she beckoned to Amy, who, from various
scrabbling sounds, she knew to be directly beneath her.

“Shouldn’t wonder if this would do all right,” she called. “Think we are
high enough?”

“I think we are far too high,” Amy’s voice answered her. “Don’t move,
Jess. I am coming up!”

The next moment a leg was flung over the branch and Amy took her place
on the precarious perch beside Jessie. The two chums looked at each
other and laughed.

“Nell is making heavy weather of it,” remarked Amy. She moved closer to
Jessie, who was already busy with the wire. “I passed her on the way up,
and she was wedged tight between two branches. She said there was one
good thing about it, anyway. There was no possible danger of her
falling. But I could tell by her face that she wasn’t exactly enjoying
herself. Now what first, Jess?”

“Help me fasten this thing,” returned Jessie. “I have to hold on with
one hand which leaves me only one to work with and I have need of at
least six.”

“I suppose my one wouldn’t do you any good then,” said Amy, giggling.
“But such as it is it is at your service.”

At that moment Nell called to them, and they looked around to find her
peering at them from below.

“Any room on that perch?” she asked. “Looks kind of precarious to me.”

“Climb up on the other side, can’t you?” suggested Jessie. “You will do
more good there. And, Nell dear, please hurry. We need an extra hand
badly.”

At last it was done. One end of the wire was fastened neatly and
securely to the tree while the other dangled earthward, ready for
attachment to the roof of the lodge.

They started downward cautiously, aware that the descent was more
difficult and perilous than the upward climb. Slipping, scrambling,
clinging when the footing failed them, inch by inch, foot by foot, they
made their way downward.

Suddenly something happened. Jessie cried out sharply. Her foot had
slipped. Her hand, flung frantically out, grasped nothing. A sea of
green leaves and waving branches flew up to meet her. She struck upon
something heavily, clutched it, hung there gasping, eyes closed——

                              CHAPTER XII

                             QUEER ACTIONS

It was Amy’s voice, frantic, terrified, that roused Jessie to a more
immediate sense of her great peril. Her foot had caught in a crotch of a
branch as she fell, and by this she hung, head downward, hands clasped
desperately about the branch that had stopped her descent. In that
position she could neither let herself down nor draw herself up. And she
was still a dangerous distance from the ground.

Amy had climbed up to her, had taken in the situation in one startled
glance. Nell, who had been following Jessie, clung to a branch, staring
down, weak and sick with fright.

“Hang on, Jess, honey,” begged Amy. “We will get you out all right. Hold
on for just another minute.”

Jessie held on desperately while Amy tugged at her foot, and Nell,
mastering her fright, descended slowly. Miss Alling was calling out
advice and commands. A horrible dizziness was engulfing Jessie. She felt
as though all the blood in her body was pounding in her ears. The sight
of the ground so far below set her senses reeling, made her fingers feel
like putty.

“Are you holding hard?” she heard Amy’s voice asking as though from a
long distance. “I have your foot loose, Jess and Nell is waiting below
to catch you and let you down easy. Can you hold on?”

Jessie must have said yes, though she never afterward remembered having
done so, for the next moment she felt her foot released, felt herself
swing downward, felt Nell catch her in one strong young arm and hold her
tight against the tree the while Nell’s voice urged frantically:

“There, put your foot on that branch—to the right—to the right!”

She felt it at last—something solid under her foot! She clung there,
fighting the dizziness that swept over her again, thankful for Nell’s
supporting arm.

The vertigo lasted for only a moment, and with the help of the girls she
managed somehow to make the rest of that descent and reach the ground.
There Miss Alling caught her in her arms and half led, half carried her
into the lodge.

Phrosy, all whites-of-eyes and sympathy, made her a cup of tea and
fussed over her until Jessie declared she would begin to think herself
an invalid before long, instead of a perfectly healthy outdoor girl who
had met with a simple accident.

“If that was simple, I hope I never meet anything complex!” was Amy’s
comment.

In spite of the dreadful fright and shaking up they had had, the girls
insisted upon finishing the work of installing the radio before the boys
returned.

“For, after all our boasting, they must never know how near I came to
grief,” was Jessie’s decision, and in this both Amy and Nell heartily
agreed with her. It was easy to win Miss Alling and Phrosy over to their
side, and it was solemnly vowed that absolute silence should be kept
concerning the accident.

They worked feverishly after that, hoping to make up for lost time. The
dangling aerial wires were attached to the roof of the lodge. Amy and
Nell took charge of this, laying down the law that Jessie was to do no
more climbing that day. Jessie herself adjusted the lead-in wire.

At last all was in readiness and the girls sat down to “listen in” with
a pride and pleasure that more than paid them for their exertion.

Aunt Emma’s interest was also flattering, although she had a few sharp
things to say about the inconvenience of using head phones.

They were thoroughly enjoying themselves when the boys came back,
declaring that they had had a most delightful hike through the woods.
They were really surprised to find the set erected and in working order
in such a short time, and very heartily said so. In fact, everything was
going splendidly when Darry made the announcement that he and the other
boys intended to take a short run to Gibbonsville.

“But, when?” asked Amy, staring at him.

“Why, right away. It won’t take long,” returned Darry, at which his
sister quite pointedly turned her back on him.

“You may all go when you like and stay as long as you please,” she
informed him icily.

A few minutes later the girls stood watching Darry’s car as it
disappeared in a cloud of dust down the road.

“I reckon I know why Darry has gone to Gibbonsville,” said Jessie,
slowly. “He has gone to see that girl!”

“You mean that girl who passed the bad five-dollar bill on me?” demanded
Amy.

“Yes.”

“But why should he go to see her?”

“I don’t know. It is certainly a mystery,” answered Jessie, and turned
away. Somehow, she felt that she did not care just then to say more. She
went in and set to work to adjust the radio set so that they might
listen in with greater ease and clearness. She had found that she could
always “lose herself” when working over the radio.

“I think it is mean of the boys to desert us,” said Amy, some time
later, as she got into her snug-fitting black bathing suit and pulled a
rubber cap over her heavy hair. “There! how do I look?” she added,
turning slowly around so that Jessie and Nell might admire the effect.

“Stunning. You always do,” answered Nell, as she laced up her bathing
shoes. “But I am wondering how long that suit will last in the water.”

The girls had felt the lure of the cool waters of the lake as they had
not felt it since their arrival. They wanted, as Amy said, “to swim and
swim and keep on swimming.”

So now they ran down to the dock, debating whether to take out one of
the canoes or to swim around near the dock.

“Might as well swim close to home,” said Nell, as she stood close to the
edge of the dock, hands over her head in a diving posture, and regarded
her reflection in the water. “Then we’ll be on hand to keep a lookout
for the boys.”

She leaned a bit too far out over the water and lost her balance. Jessie
and Amy saw her fall forward suddenly and heard her give a little cry
that was more of astonishment than fear. Then the water closed over her.

The two girls ran forward, laughing, for the water at this point was
only four or five feet, and it was impossible for a swimmer like Nell to
drown in that depth.

What they had not seen was this—that, as she went down, Nell struck her
head upon the edge of the dock. They saw only that she had not come up.

“She must be swimming under water,” said Jessie, not yet seriously
alarmed. “Run around to the other side of the dock, Amy.”

Amy obeyed, and still no sign of Nell. As she came running back she saw
that Jessie was already poised for a dive. There was a splash. Jessie
disappeared, then rose to the surface, shaking the water from her eyes.

“She—must be—under the dock!” she gasped, and disappeared again.

“Under the dock!” thought Amy, a swift fear at her heart. She had heard
of people swimming around and around under a dock, unable to find their
way out, drowning because they could not come up for air. But this was
such a little dock! Almost with the thought she also struck the water.

She came up for air and saw Jessie dragging something inert. She caught
one glimpse of a white face and turned sick with dread.

Together they got Nell on the dock.

“She is dead!” sobbed Amy, as they worked over her feverishly. “No live
person ever looked like that!”

“See that bruise on her forehead?” whispered Jessie. “Amy, I think, I
believe, she was unconscious when she struck the water.”

The bruise was up close to her hair, swollen and turning black. It stood
out startlingly in the pallor of her face.

Panic-stricken, Jessie was about to rush to the lodge for help and some
stimulant from the medicine chest when Amy called to her.

“She moved! Oh, Jess, come here quick! There is color in her face.”

Jessie returned and sank quickly to her knees, taking Nell’s cold, inert
hand in both her warm ones.

“Nell, Nell, open your eyes!” she begged. “Tell us you are all right!”

As if that urgent call could not be denied, Nell opened weary eyes and
looked vaguely about her.

“What is the matter?” she asked faintly, sitting up and putting a hand
to her head. “I fell—I can’t remember——”

“Don’t try, dear. It is all right now,” said Jessie, soothingly, while
the happy tears ran down her face.

“Just rest and don’t worry,” said Amy, surreptitiously wiping the tears
from her own eyes. “You did give us a terrible scare, Nell.”

A sharp rumble of thunder broke the stillness of the forest, and the
girls realized with a shock of surprise that the sun had gone under a
cloud and the sky was overcast.

Nell struggled slowly to get to her feet, the girls helping her. She was
shivering, either with weakness or the sudden chill that had crept into
the air. The wind had risen and was sighing ominously through the trees.

They supported Nell back toward the lodge, but before they reached the
shelter of it the sudden storm increased in fury. The wind rose to a
tempest, the lightning flashed vividly, streaking in jagged rents across
the sky. There came a crash of thunder that made them shiver with the
impact of the noise upon their ears.

“Our radio!” cried Jessie, suddenly remembering. “We have no lightning
arrester. Oh, girls, let’s hurry!”

They needed no urging. Even Nell, alive to the danger from the
lightning, momentarily forgot her narrow escape from death.

They dashed into the lodge, pursued by the menacing roar of the
elements. They slammed the door shut behind them and turned to confront
Aunt Emma and the shuddering Phrosy.

“Fo’ de lan’s sakes, Ah is glad to see you young ladies back agin. Ah
sho did t’ink dose storm debbils done carry yo’ off fo’ fair!” After
delivering herself of this comment, poor Phrosy was sent off into the
kitchen by the relentless Miss Alling, there to suffer in silence.

Jessie and Amy rushed to the radio set, while Nell sank into a chair,
covering her eyes with her hand.

“What are you going to do?” asked Amy, as Jessie produced a pair of
scissors.

“Cut the in-wire!” she said, and, a moment later, had suited the action
to the word. The danger from lightning was past, for that time, at
least.

“What is that?” cried Nell, starting nervously from her chair.

There came a terrific flash of lightning, a reverberating thunder clap,
a crackling as though the forest were on fire, a thud and a slithering
sound as of a heavy body striking the roof.

“De end of de world am come, it am fo’ sure!” shrieked Phrosy, dashing
in upon them, her eyes rolling wildly. “Ah’m gwine away f’om here! Ain’t
nobody gwine stop me! Ah’s gwine!”

                              CHAPTER XIII

                                THE RACE

No one tried to stop Phrosy in her threatened flight. In fact, the
impulse of them all was toward flight, and they followed that impulse.

“Something fell on the roof!” cried Amy, starting to open the door and
shrinking back against it as another clap of thunder reverberated
through the forest.

“Open the door!” cried Jessie, impatiently, as she pushed Amy aside.

“Yes, we had better get outside,” put in Miss Alling, trying to keep
calm. “For all we know, the roof may come down on top of us.”

The door flew open with a bang and a tremendous gust of wind fairly blew
them against the opposite wall.

“What a gale!” gasped Nell. “We’ll never be able to get out there!”

“I am going!” declared Jessie, and with lowered head dashed into the
open. The other girls, gathering courage from her example, followed, and
brought up short at the sight that met their eyes.

A giant tree, half dead at the top, had been struck by the lightning and
uprooted. In its fall the outermost branches had brushed the roof of the
lodge.

“Lucky it did not fall across the roof,” said Amy, shivering. “That
would have meant good-bye lodge for fair.”

“Struck pretty close to us, at that,” said Nell. “Lucky you cut that
in-wire, Jess.”

“Better get inside again,” said Miss Alling. “We shall be soaked in a
moment.”

For the rain had begun in earnest, coming down in a swishing torrent
that drove them on a run for the shelter of the lodge. And there they
stayed until the storm blew itself out.

So quickly did the time pass after the departure of the boys for
Gibbonsville that it was the second day before the girls began to feel
anxious about them.

They were just beginning to imagine all kinds of dreadful things that
might have happened to them when Burd and Fol returned, in Darry’s
roadster, but not with Darry.

Upon relentless questioning Burd admitted that Darry had lingered in
Gibbonsville.

“You see, it was this way,” Burd tried to explain, as the girls showered
him with questions. “We were not able to find out anything satisfactory
about this girl of mystery who saddled you with an unpassable
five-dollar bill, Amy, and so, when we got discouraged and said we were
coming back before we had missed all the fun, Darry said we would have
to go back without him.”

“But you shouldn’t have let him do anything so perfectly ridiculous!”
said Amy, vexed. “There were two of you to one. Couldn’t you have made
him come back with you?”

Burd chuckled.

“If you have ever tried to make your brother do anything he didn’t want
to do, you know how easy it is,” he remarked. “I would just about as
soon try to teach a wild elephant to dance. Nothing doing! When Darry
acts like that the one thing to do is to give him his head.”

“But he must have been terribly interested in—that girl—to do a thing
like this,” said Jessie, slowly, and Burd looked at her queerly. He
seemed about to speak, but changed his mind.

“If you ask me,” said Fol, “I think he was just plain off his head.”

“And you didn’t catch sight of that awful girl?” asked Amy.

“We didn’t,” replied Burd, with just the faintest possible emphasis on
the we.

“Then my five dollars is gone forever unless Darry succeeds in getting
it back for me!”

“I haven’t the least idea it is the five-dollar bill Darry is worrying
about,” said Burd, significantly, and thereafter not all Amy’s bribes or
threats could bring from him an explanation of the cryptic sentence.

It was some hours later that Burd took Jessie by the arm and drew her
aside from the others.

“See here, Jess,” he said. “I don’t like the way Darry is acting, at
all.”

“What do you mean?” queried Jessie, all her fears of the morning once
more active.

“He hasn’t been like himself——”

“I have noticed that,” broke in the girl, impatiently. “You have
something special you want to tell me about Darry, Burd. Please don’t
keep me waiting.”

Burd hesitated.

“I am telling you this,” he said, at last, “because you are level-headed
and not apt to go off the handle like Amy. Jessie, I have reason to
believe that Darry saw that girl when we were in Gibbonsville.”

“What makes you think that?” asked Jessie, faintly. Suddenly the world
seemed all upside down.

“He managed to dodge away from Fol and me when we weren’t looking,” Burd
answered, stirring up some loose stones with his foot and looking
extremely uncomfortable. “And later on when we were looking for him we
came suddenly around a corner and saw him talking with some one. His
companion dodged out of sight when she saw us, but Fol and I saw that it
was a girl, and, from the description you gave of her, it seemed pretty
sure that she was the same one you and Amy are after.”

“What did Darry say when he knew you had seen him? Did he—explain?”
asked Jessie, slowly.

“There is the most peculiar part of it,” Burd answered reluctantly. “He
not only refused to explain but acted as though angry and was unpleasant
about the whole thing. Accused us of trying to spy on him and of several
other crimes that were farthest from our minds. He even went so far as
to say that we had ‘spoiled it all.’”

“What did he mean by that?” asked Jessie, puzzled and speaking more to
herself than to Burd.

“That is what I would give a good deal to find out,” returned Burd,
ruefully, then adding, with a chuckle: “You should have heard him when,
in an evil moment, Fol asked him for an explanation. Near chewed Fol’s
head off.”

Jessie shook her head slowly. The situation was even more mysterious
than she had thought it, and with each of Burd’s startling revelations
she became more hopelessly bewildered.

“Did he say when he was coming back?” she asked, after a long reflective
pause. Again Burd shook his head.

“He wouldn’t tell us anything,” he said, adding with a frown: “I don’t
mind admitting to you he got me pretty sore.”

Jessie smiled slightly and murmured that she “didn’t wonder.”

“I don’t know what we can do about it,” she added, after a moment, as
they turned and started back toward the others. “I am sure Darry has
good reasons for acting as he does, and when he comes to explain
everything to us we shall see that he could not have acted differently.”

But in spite of her brave words she was troubled, and, partly to get
Darry and his strange behavior out of her mind and partly to give
herself something absorbing to do, she suggested that they “listen in”
on a concert.

All the rest of that afternoon and evening the girls and boys and Miss
Alling spent at the radio. Toward evening they had the luck to tune in
on the airway of the forest ranger station.

Some one at the station was giving a talk on the prevention of forest
fires by radio, and they listened with interest.

“I suppose they wouldn’t stage a little forest fire for us,” said Amy at
the end of the talk, removing the phones and rubbing her head where they
had pressed. “It would be great fun to see one.”

“It would be more fun not to!” said Burd, decidedly. “That station isn’t
far from here. What do you girls say to taking a run over there, soon?”

“We say ‘yes,’” was the enthusiastic response from all.

“The sooner the better,” added Jessie.

Darry came back the next day, but he positively refused to give any
reason for his prolonged stay in Gibbonsville. After two or three
attempts even his sister gave up questioning him, and Amy was
persistent.

“Might just as well try to get information from a wooden idol,” Amy said
disgustedly to Jessie. “I think that girl must have thrown a spell over
him.”

“Then I should certainly like to remove it,” returned Jessie, moodily.
“He isn’t one bit like the old Darry.”

“Who isn’t?”

They turned, startled, to see Darry himself looking down at them and
laughing. He had climbed into the branches of a huge old gnarled oak
that threw its shade before the lodge and now sat dangling his legs in
solid comfort. He had even taken a book up with him for company.

“Well, of all things! Reading on a day like this!” cried Amy. “Can’t you
think of anything better to do with your time, Darry Drew?”

“If you could suggest something sufficiently enticing,” said Darry, with
a grin, “I might be lured down from this leafy bower. You don’t know how
comfortable it is up here, really,” he said, with a sigh, as he realized
that his peaceful solitude must come to an end.

“Hear the man!” laughed Nell, who had come up just in time to hear his
last words. “His eagerness to be with us is flattering!”

“Far be it from me to be ungallant to the ladies,” said Darry, dropping
to the ground and bowing low before them. “I am at your service, fair
ones. Command me!”

“Hey, don’t be too reckless, Darry,” warned Burd, as he and Fol joined
the group. “They may ask you to repair their radio or start a forest
fire or something. I know them!”

“As if we couldn’t take care of our radio by ourselves,” said Jessie,
scornfully.

“A little forest fire might furnish some excitement,” added Amy
brightly. “We would need only a very little one, you know.”

“And what fun to see the forest rangers at work!” exclaimed Nell.

“Now, what did I tell you?” demanded Burd.

“I have an idea worth two of that,” cried Jessie gayly. “I have been
wanting to suggest it ever since we came up here. How about a canoe
race?”

“Pretty fine,” applauded Fol. “We will take three canoes, a girl and a
fellow in each boat——”

“Oh, no! That wouldn’t be any fun,” Jessie protested. “My idea was for
Nell and Amy and me to race you three boys.”

The boys stared at them for a moment and then burst into loud guffaws of
amusement.

“We certainly like your nerve,” remarked Burd, indulgently, not annoyed
in the least by the indignant glances from three pairs of feminine eyes.
“How much handicap would you like? A mile? Or would a half mile do?”

“You think you are smart, don’t you?” retorted Amy. “We will race you
fair and square from the start, and——”

“Beat you, too,” finished Jessie, decidedly.

“All right,” chuckled Darry, heading down toward the dock. “Honors are
even, and the best man—best girl—wins!”

With much merriment they selected the canoes that were to be used in the
contest. The girls chose the green craft as being the one they were most
used to and, “just to make the color scheme good,” Burd said, the boys
chose the crimson.

After some good-natured squabbling it was decided that Jessie and Nell
do the paddling while Amy should furnish the “ballast.” The latter
yielded to this arrangement only after it had been pointed out to her
that Nell was stronger than she and that Jessie was the most skilful of
the three in the handling and steering of the boat.

“I may be an important part of this race,” was Amy’s final protest. “But
I can’t see it myself.”

The boys had long since decided that Darry and Burd would do the
paddling, Fol not having had as much experience in the art as had the
two older boys.

“We will race from this dock to the big pier,” suggested Darry, when all
other questions were settled.

They agreed, and at the snappy command “Go!” from Darry, started off
right gallantly for the pier. The pier was the only one of its kind
along Lake Towako and received the incoming excursion steamers from
points farther down the lake. There was a stream connecting this body
with Lake Monenset upon which New Melford was situated. In this way it
would have been possible to travel all the way from New Melford to
Forest Lodge by water—though the girls and boys unanimously agreed that
the motor trip had been much more thrilling.

Now, as the paddles bit deep into the glassy surface of the water,
Jessie and Nell put all their strength into the stroke. The canoe shot
forward swiftly, but, alas, the boys shot ahead more swiftly still!

Before they had gone a hundred yards the boys were hopelessly in the
lead, and Burd raised a victorious paddle to wave at them tauntingly.

That gesture proved to be his undoing. The handle of the paddle,
slippery with water, slid from his careless grasp and drifted lazily
beyond his reach.

“He has lost his paddle! He has lost his paddle!” chanted Amy, bouncing
up and down in the canoe and threatening to upset them at every bounce.
“Go it, girls; go it! We’ve got ’em at our mercy!”

“I am not so sure of that,” giggled Jessie, but she leaned still harder