The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery; Or, The Christmas Adventure at Carver House
left no doubt of his having come from within. In the bright glare
Katherine recognized the long light coat and visor cap of the man who had
stood beside her that evening in the flower shop where she had purchased
Veronica's violets, and who had looked with such a covetous eye upon the
roll of bills she had taken from her inside coat pocket. The bills were
still there, and it seemed to her now that they made a very telltale
bulge over her right breast. The man was coming toward her; in a few
minutes he would see and recognize her, and then----
Katherine darted into an alleyway which opened near her, and on through a
half-open gate in a low, solid wooden fence, and crouching there behind
the fence in the darkness, she waited until the footsteps had gone
past,--creak, creak, creakety-creak, with a rhythmic squeaking of shoes.
Not until the sound had died away completely did she venture forth from
her hiding place, and then she stood perfectly still and looked
cautiously about her in every direction before she made a move to
proceed. With the knowledge that the danger had passed, her feeling of
panic began to leave her, and her native coolness began to assert itself.
She took a careful stock of her situation and tried to think up a way to
escape from her predicament. That she was hopelessly lost in this
wilderness of streets whose names meant nothing to her, even if she had
been able to see the sign boards, she realized full well; instinct warned
her not to betray her situation to anyone she might meet in this
neighborhood--providing she met any one, for the wind seemed to have
blown all pedestrians off the streets; and the lateness of the hour made
it extremely unprobable that she would find a telephone. She stood on one
leg in the storklike attitude which always indicated deep thought with
her, and pondered all the phases of her dilemma with the calm
deliberation which invariably came to her in moments of great stress.
"The only time Katherine is composed," Sahwah had said once, "is when she
is in a pickle." And if Katherine was now in the biggest pickle she had
ever experienced, by the same token her brain had never worked so coolly
and logically before.
"When lost in the woods," she said to herself, going over in her mind her
knowledge of woodcraft, "the first thing to do is to climb a tree and get
your bearings. That's all right for the woods, but there aren't any trees
here to climb. I might climb a telegraph pole," she thought whimsically,
as her eye fell upon one nearby, "and see if I can locate myself. No,
that wouldn't do, either, for the whole city is dark, and I couldn't see
anything if I did get up. So much for rule number one.
"Now for rule number two. 'Establish your directions by observing and
reading the signs of nature. Moss always grows on the north side of
trees.' Hm. Trees again, and telegraph poles won't do as substitutes this
time. Moss doesn't grow on the north side of telegraph poles. There isn't
any difference between the north side of a telegraph pole and any
other----"
Katherine's train of thought was suddenly interrupted by her glance
resting on the pole in question. One side of it, she could see in the
light from the saloon, was glazed with ice where the driving rain had
frozen in the chill wind. That wind was now coming from every
direction--north, south, east and west--at once, and it was therefore
impossible to judge from the whirling gusts which was north; but earlier
in the evening, when the rain was falling, the wind had blown steadily
from the north. Accordingly, the strip of ice on those poles carried the
very same message as the moss on the trees in the woods. Katherine
exclaimed aloud in delight at her discovery. In a twinkling she had her
bearings.
"North, south, east, west," she said triumphantly, pointing in the four
respective directions. "Not a bad piece of scouting, that. What's the
difference, whether it's moss or ice?--it's the same principle. Talk
about your _pole_ stars!
"I believe I know approximately where I am," she continued, her brain
keeping up its logical working. "We turned south from B---- Avenue to go
to the Music Hall, I remember hearing Veronica say so; therefore, not yet
having come to B---- Avenue in my wanderings, I must still be on the
south side of it, and by going due north will come to it eventually. The
way is as plain as the nose on your face; just follow the ice on the
telegraph poles. I can feel it in places where it's too dark to see. All
aboard for B---- Avenue!"
Katherine set off as fast as she could go through the darkness, whistling
in her relief, and confidently keeping her feet pointed toward the north.
As if acting upon the principle that the gods help them who help
themselves, the street lights came on again just at that moment, showing
up the corners and crossings, and making progress very much easier. She
had gone some half dozen blocks, and was once more passing the long row
of gloomy, windowless warehouses which she remembered having seen before,
when it became apparent to her alert senses that she was being followed.
For the last two or three blocks she had heard the sound of a footfall
behind her, turning the same corners she had turned, taking the same
short-cut she had taken through a factory yard, and gradually drawing
nearer. "Creak, creak, creakety-creak!" Through the still night air it
sounded with startling distinctness; the same squeaking footfall that had
passed her ten minutes before, when she had crouched, with wildly beating
heart, behind the fence in the dark alley. Filled with prophetic
apprehension, she turned and looked around, and in the light of a street
lamp several hundred yards behind her saw the figure that had loomed so
large in her fears all evening. It required no second glance to recognize
the long, light overcoat and the visor cap drawn low over the eyes. For
an instant, Katherine's feeling of alarm held her rooted to the spot,
even while she noticed that the man had increased his speed and the
distance between them was rapidly lessening; then the power of locomotion
came back with a rush and she began to run. Her worst fears were
confirmed when she heard the man behind her start to run also.
Katherine doubled her speed and fled like a deer, slipping wildly over
the icy sidewalk and expecting every minute to fall down, but by some
miracle of good luck managing to retain her balance. Yet, run as she
might, she realized that her pursuer was gaining; the footsteps pounding
along behind her sounded nearer and nearer every minute. Her long coat,
winding about her knees, caused her to slacken speed; her breath began to
give out; she developed an agonizing pain in her side. She knew that the
race was lost; in a moment more she would be overtaken. She had just
summoned breath for a last final spurt when she heard a crash behind her
and the sound of a body falling on the sidewalk; she dashed on without
slackening speed. The next minute she slipped on a sheet of ice in the
middle of a crossing and fell headlong to the ground, just as a taxicab,
coming out of the side street, turned the corner. Katherine heard a
hoarse shout and the jamming of an emergency brake, then, before she had
time to draw breath, the car was on top of her. A blinding light flashed
for a moment in her eyes; her ears were filled with a deafening roar;
then all of a sudden light and sound both ceased to be.
Hearing came back first with returning consciousness. The roaring noise
no longer sounded in her ears, and from somewhere, a long distance off,
came the sound of a voice speaking.
"Can't you lift the car? She's pinned underneath the wheels. No, you
can't back up; you'll run over her head. Don't you see it's right behind
that left wheel? Got a jack in your tool box? All right. Here----
Now----"
Gradually the weight that was pinning her to the ground was lifted, and
she opened her eyes to find herself beside, and no longer under, the
quivering monster with the hot breath. Three figures were moving about
her in the light of the head-lamps, and now one of them knelt beside her
and laid a hand on her head.
"She isn't killed," said a voice which sounded strangely familiar in
Katherine's ears, a voice which somehow carried her back to Carver House
and the library fire.
Carver House. Nyoda. Nyoda would be worried to death because she did not
come home. Poor Nyoda, how sorry she would be about the watch!
Unconsciously Katherine groaned aloud.
"She must be pretty badly hurt," continued the voice beside her ear.
"Help me lift her now and we'll get her into the car. A hand under her
shoulders--so. I'll take her head. Easy now."
Katherine felt herself being lifted from the ground and carried past the
glare of the headlamps. Suddenly there came an explosive exclamation from
one of the rescuers--the one who had done the talking--and the hand that
supported her head trembled violently.
"Good God! It's _Katherine_."
Katherine opened her eyes fully and looked up into the dumfounded face of
Sherry.
"Fo' de lan' sakes!" came an echoing exclamation from beside Sherry, and
the black face of Hercules shone out in the light.
"Hello Sherry," said Katherine, in a voice which sounded strange in her
own ears.
"Katherine!" cried Sherry in terrified accents, "are you badly hurt?"
"I d-o-n-'t k-n-o-w," replied Katherine thickly, through a mouthful of
fur from the collar of her coat.
"I guess not," she resumed, after Sherry had laid her on the back seat of
the car. "Nothing cracks when I wiggle it. My nose is skinned," she
supplemented a minute later, "and there's a comb sticking straight into
my head. I guess that's all."
"Oh," breathed Sherry in immeasurable relief. "It's a miracle you weren't
killed. I thought sure you were. It looked as though both front wheels
had gone over you."
"One went over my hat and the other over the tail of my coat," replied
Katherine cheerfully. "They just missed me by a hair's breadth."
"Are you sure your head isn't hurt?" Sherry continued anxiously. "You
were unconscious when we lifted the car off of you, you know."
Katherine solemnly felt her head all over. "There _is_ a bump there--no;
that's my bump of generosity; it belongs there. Anyway, it doesn't hurt
when I press it, so it must be all right," she assured him. "I must have
fainted, I guess, when the car came on top of me. It came so suddenly,
and it made such a terrible noise. You can't think how awful it was."
"It must have been." A shudder went quivering through Sherry's frame at
the thought of it. "I can't get it out of my mind. I thought those wheels
went right over you. It's nothing short of a miracle that they went on
each side of you instead of over you," he said, repeating the sentiment
he had just uttered a moment before. "It all happened so quickly the
driver didn't have a chance to turn aside. There was no one in sight one
minute, and the next minute we were right on top of you. That driver out
there's so scared he can't stand up on his legs yet."
"How did you happen to be in that taxicab?" Katherine inquired curiously.
"We're on our way home," replied Sherry. "We missed the Pennsylvania out
of New York and had to take the Nickel Plate, which meant we had to
change from one station to the other here in Philadelphia. We were going
across in a taxi."
"So you were too late to catch Dr. Phillips?" said Katherine soberly.
"Yes," replied Sherry gloomily. "The boat had gone yesterday."
"How did Hercules stand the disappointment?" asked Katherine, with quick
sympathy.
"He's pretty badly cut up about it," replied Sherry. "He had quite a bad
spell with his heart on the train. He says he's had a 'token' that he'll
never see Marse Tad, as he calls him, again. I'm afraid he won't, myself.