The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery; Or, The Christmas Adventure at Carver House
shouting, a sound burst through the uncanny stillness. It was a slight
sound, but to their strained nerves it was as startling as a cannon shot.
It was merely a faint pat, pat, pat, coming from somewhere. They could
not tell the direction, it was so far off.
"It's footsteps!" said Sahwah, starting up wildly.
"No, it's only water dropping," said Justice, cupping his hand over his
ear in an attempt to locate the direction of the sound. "I wonder where
it can be."
He flashed the light and looked for the dropping water, but failed to
find it. He turned the light out again. Then in the darkness the sound
seemed clearer than before--pat, pat, pat, pat.
"It's getting louder," said Katherine.
"It _is_ footsteps!" cried Sahwah positively. "They're coming nearer!
Listen!"
The tapping noise increased until it became without a doubt the sound of
a footfall drawing nearer along the passage on the other side of the
cave.
"It's Sherry looking for us; he's found the passage!" shrieked Sahwah,
"or maybe it's Hercules!"
"Yell, everybody!" commanded Justice, "and let him know where we are."
They set up a perfectly ear-splitting shout, and as the echoes died away
they heard the snap of the lock on the other side of the door. Slim, who
was nearest, flung himself upon the door handle and in another instant
the door yielded under his hand and swung inward.
"Sherry!" they shouted, and crowded out into the passage, all talking at
once.
"Sherry! Sherry! Where are you?" Sahwah called, suddenly aware that no
one had answered them. Justice and the Captain sprang their flashlights
and looked about them in astonishment. There was no one in the passage
beside themselves.
Who had unfastened the latch and let them out?
Sahwah and Katherine suddenly gripped each other in terror, while the
cold chills ran down their spines. The same thought of a supernatural
agency had come into the mind of each. Then they both laughed at the
absurdity of it.
"It couldn't have been a ghost," declared Katherine flatly. "Ghosts don't
make any noise when they walk."
As fast as they could they ran back through the passage to the door in
the cellar wall, jerked the cable that opened the trap, and came out
through the landing just as Nyoda, arriving home, was taking off her furs
at the foot of the stairs. They never forgot her petrified expression
when she saw them coming up through the floor.
"We thought it must be nearly midnight!" said Sahwah in amazement, when
they found out that they had never even been missed. They had only been
gone from the house for two hours.
Sherry came in presently and was as dumbfounded as Nyoda when he saw the
opening in the landing and heard the tale of the Winnebagos and the boys.
"We thought you had found the passage and were coming to let us out,"
said Sahwah, "but it must have been Hercules, after all!"
"But Hercules was with me all afternoon, helping me overhaul the motor of
the car," said Sherry. "I just left him now."
"Then--who--unlocked the--door?" cried the five in a bewildered way.
"Thunder!" suddenly shouted Justice. "It was the same man that made the
footprints on the stairs! He got in through that secret passage, and
what's more, he's down there yet!"
CHAPTER XI
A CURE FOR RHEUMATISM
All wrought up over the idea of the strange midnight visitor still
lurking down in the passage, Nyoda made Sherry and the boys arm
themselves and search the tunnel and the cave thoroughly, but they found
no sign of anyone hidden down there.
"It must have been a ghost that unlatched the door, after all," said
Justice. "Most likely the ghost of the fellow that put the latch on. He's
probably detailed to look after all the latches he put on doors!--goes
around with the ghost of an oil can and keeps them from squeaking.
Yesterday must have been the date on his monthly tour of inspection. No,
it couldn't have been a spook anyhow," he contradicted himself. "There's
the can of paint and the footprint on the stairs. Ghosts don't leave
footprints. That was real paint. He's a live spook, all right."
"But where is he now?" asked Nyoda nervously. "I'm afraid to open a table
drawer, for fear he'll step out. Does he fold up like an accordion, I
wonder, or turn into smoke like the Imp in the Bottle? I declare, I'm
getting curious to see him. I'm sorry now I made you barricade the door
down there beside the ladder; I've half a notion to sit on the stairs all
night and see if he won't appear."
"I know an easier way than that," said Justice gravely. "Just grease the
stairs and then come when you hear him fall. It'll save you the trouble
of sitting up."
"You might recommend that method to the cat, instead of her watching
beside the mousehole," replied Nyoda, laughing.
Then she heard a familiar fumbling at the back door. "Here comes
Hercules," she said hastily. "Quick, close up the landing. Don't anybody
mention finding the secret passage to him, or he'll make life miserable
for me from now on, worrying for fear his old friend, the devil, will
come in and carry us all off. Come, get away from the stairway, and don't
act as if anything unusual had happened.
"What is it, Hercules?" she asked, as the old man shuffled into the
kitchen. "Is your cold worse?"
"I was jest goin' to ask yer could I have some coffee," said the old man
in a plaintive voice. "I got the mizry so bad it's jest tearin' me ter
pieces, an' when it gits like dat it don' seem like anything'll help it
'xcept drinkin' hot coffee."
Nyoda smiled at this novel cure for rheumatism, but she replied heartily,
"Why, certainly you may have some coffee, Hercules. Just sit down there
at the kitchen table and I'll get you a cup. There's some left in the
pot; it'll only take a minute to warm it up."
She heated the coffee and motioned Hercules to a seat at the kitchen
table, but he took the steaming cup and edged toward the door.
"I'll jest take it out an' drink it gradual," he said. "Never seems ter
help de mizry none 'less I drink it gradual an' keep my feet in hot water
de while. Tanks, Mist' Sher'dan, I don' need no help. I kin git along by
myself."
Hercules shuffled out to the barn with his cup of hot coffee and Nyoda
waited until he was out of earshot before she laughed aloud.
"That man certainly is a character!" she exclaimed. "Whoever heard of
curing rheumatism by drinking coffee 'gradual' and holding your feet in
water? I never know what queer notion he's going to have next. I put a
pot of bright red geraniums in his room once to brighten it up and he
promptly brought it back, because, 'Jewraniums am powerful unlucky, Mis'
'Lizbeth. I was plantin' jewraniums dat day de goat got killed.' Poor old
Hercules, he does miss that goat so! He was simply inconsolable at first,
and finally I resigned myself to a life of misery and told him to go and
get himself another goat, but he wouldn't do it. Nothing could take the
place of that fiendish old animal in his affections. I believe he'll
mourn for him all the rest of his life."
"Let's invite him in for Sylvia's birthday party to-morrow night,"
suggested Migwan. "That'll cheer him up and make him forget all about his
'mizry' for a while. Let's find a masquerade costume for him, too, so he
can be one of us."
Nyoda smiled brightly at Migwan. "Thoughtful child!" she said fondly.
"Always thinking of someone else's pleasure. Certainly we'll ask Hercules
to the party.
"Now, all you menfolk clear out of this kitchen, or we won't get any
dinner to-night!"
CHAPTER XII
THE SPIRIT OF A PRINCESS
"O Nyoda, it _can't_ be true!"
Sahwah's anguished wail cut across the stricken silence of the room.
The eminent surgeon had just made his examination of Sylvia and
pronounced the verdict that had sent all their rosy air castles tumbling
about their ears: "Nothing can be done. An operation would be useless. It
is not a case of a splintered vertebra which could be patched. The nerves
which control the limbs are paralyzed. She will never walk again."
The last five words fell upon their ears like the tolling of a sorrowful
bell. "She will never walk again." Stunned by the unexpected verdict the
Winnebagos stood mutely about Sylvia in anguished sympathy.
She lay motionless on the sofa, a white-faced, pitiful little ghost of a
princess; her glad animation gone, her radiance extinguished, her song
stricken upon her lips.
"O why did you tell me?" she wailed. "Why did you tell me I could be
cured, when I never can? Why didn't you leave me as I was? I was happy
then, because I had never hoped to get well. But since you told me I've
been planning so----" Her voice broke off and she lay back in silent
misery.
"Now I can never be a Camp Fire Girl!" she cried a moment later, her
grief breaking out afresh. "I can never go camping! I can never help Aunt
Aggie!" All the joyful bubbles her fancy had blown in the last two days
burst one by one before her eyes, each stabbing her with a fresh pang.
"I'll never be any use in the world; I wish I were dead!" she cried
wildly, her rising grief culminating in an outburst of black despair.
"Oh, yes, you can too be a Camp Fire Girl," said Nyoda soothingly. "You
can do lots of things the other girls can do--and some they can't. There
isn't any part of the Law you can't fulfill. You can Seek Beauty, and
Give Service, and Pursue Knowledge, and Be Trustworthy, and Hold on to
Health, and Glorify Work, and Be Happy! Campfire isn't just a matter of
hikes and meetings. It's a spirit that lives inside of you and makes life
one long series of Joyous Ventures. You can kindle the Torch in your
invalid's chair as well as you could out in the big, busy world, and pass
it on to others."
"How can I?" asked Sylvia wonderingly.
"In many ways," answered Nyoda, "but chiefly by being happy yourself.
Even if you never did anything else but be happy, you would be doing a
useful piece of work in the world. Just sing as gayly as you used to, and
everyone who hears you will be brighter and happier for your song. If you
cannot do great deeds yourself, you may inspire others to do them. What
does it matter who does things, as long as they are done? If you have
encouraged someone else to do something big and fine, all on account of
your happy spirit, it is just as well as if you had done the thing
yourself. Did you ever hear the line,
'All service ranks the same with God,'?
"Sylvia, dear, you have the power to make people glad with your song.
That is the way you will pass on the Torch. You already have your symbol;
you chose it when you began to hero-worship Sylvia Warrington, and loved
her because she was like a lark singing in the desert at dawning. That is
the symbol you have taken for yourself--the lark that sings in the
desert. Little Lark-that-sings-in-the-Desert, you will kindle the Torch
with your song! Instead of being a Guide Torchbearer, or a Torchbearer in
Craftsmanship, you will become a Torchbearer in Happiness!"
With these words of hope and encouragement Nyoda left her sorrowful
little princess to the quiet rest which she needed after the fatiguing
examination by the surgeon. Going into Hinpoha's room she found her lying
face downward on the bed in an agony of remorse, her red curls tumbled
about her shoulders.
"I told her, I told her," she cried out to Nyoda with burning
self-condemnation. "I couldn't keep my mouth shut till the proper time; I
had to go and tell her two days ahead. If I'd only waited till we were
sure she would never have had her heart set on it so. Oh, I'll never
forgive myself." She beat on the pillow with her clenched fist and
writhed under the lash of her self scorn. For once she was not in tears;