The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery; Or, The Christmas Adventure at Carver House

Even I've got a gloomy hunch that fate has the cards stacked against us this time. From Hercules' account, I don't think Dr. Phillips will live to reach South America." "How unutterably tragic that would be!" sighed Katherine, beginning to feel a load of world-sorrow pressing on her heart. What a dismal business life was, to be sure! Sherry interrupted her doleful reverie. "But tell me, Katherine, what, in the name of all that's fantastic, were you doing here in this neighborhood at this time of night?" Katherine explained briefly, and in her overwrought state, burst into tears at the mention of the watch. "And you say there was a footpad actually following you?" asked Sherry in consternation. "You were running away from this man when you fell under the car? Where is he now?" Katherine shook her head. "I don't know. He slipped and fell just before I did, and I don't know what became of him after that." Sherry gave a long whistle, and, thrusting his head out of the taxi, gave a look around. "There's a man coming up the street now," he said. "He's limping badly. Is that the man? He's probably trying to slip away quietly in the excitement." Katherine raised her head and glanced out. "That's the man," she exclaimed. "He's the same one that followed me. Why, he's coming over here toward us!" she said, in a tone of surprise. "How queer! Is he going to hold us all up, I wonder?" The man in the light overcoat, limping painfully, crossed the curb and approached the car standing, temporarily disabled, in the middle of the street. Sherry thrust out a belligerent face, at the same time looking, out of the tail of his eye, for his driver and Hercules. Both were out of sight, kneeling on the ground at the other side of the raised engine hood. The stranger limped up and hesitated before Sherry. Katherine, looking over Sherry's shoulder, noticing with a start of surprise that the man had snow white hair. Although the long, light coat and the visor cap were the same as those she had seen on the man in the flower shop, this was an entirely different man. His blue eyes were mild and pensive; his whole bearing was gentle and retiring, and, standing there with the electric light behind him making a halo of his white hair, he looked like some little, old, melancholy saint. "The young lady that you just picked up," said the stranger in a voice mellow with old-fashioned courtesy, raising his cap politely. "I have been following her for some time, trying unsuccessfully to catch up with her. I saw her drop this bag on the street, some two hours ago, and since then have been attempting to restore it to her, but have not been able to reach her. As soon as I saw her drop the bag I picked it up and hurried after her, but she suddenly disappeared like a conjurer's trick. I walked around for some time, looking for her, when all of a sudden the street lights went out, and in the darkness I mistook my way and wandered down into the factory district, where it was not long before I was hopelessly lost. The only place that showed any signs of life was a saloon down on a corner, and, although I have my opinion of those places, sir, I went in and asked the proprietor the way out of the neighborhood. It was not long afterward that I saw this same young lady who had dropped the handbag not far ahead of me in the street, having evidently wandered down there in the darkness just as I had done. I hurried after her, but she became frightened and began to run. I ran, too, thinking to overtake her and explain the reason for my pursuit, but just when I was nearly up to her I slipped and fell on the sidewalk. I must have lain there stunned for several minutes, for when things had become clear again I saw this car standing here and you gentlemen carrying the young lady into it. She is not badly hurt, I trust? Here is the bag I spoke of." He spied Katherine looking over Sherry's shoulder at that moment, and held out the handbag, again lifting his cap as he did so. At sight of the precious bag Katherine gave a shriek of joy, and seizing it with trembling fingers, looked inside to see if Nyoda's watch was still there. She almost sobbed with relief when her fingers closed upon the little velvet case, from which a faint ticking came to reassure her. "Then you aren't the man I saw in the flower shop at all!" exclaimed Katherine, covered with confusion. "When I saw your light coat and that cap I was sure it was the same." The two men laughed heartily. "Isn't that just like a woman, though?" said Sherry. "They think that every man walking on the streets at night is a burglar, as a matter of course. It never occurs to them that an honest man could possibly have any business on the street after dark." "I'm awfully sorry," said Katherine sheepishly, "but I really was frightened to death when you began to run after me. You say you have been following me ever since I dropped the bag? Where did I drop it?" "Along by that iron fence on --th Street," answered the old man. "That's where I was taken with the dizzy spell," said Katherine. "I must have dropped it without knowing it when I caught ahold of the fence to steady myself." "But where did you go right after that?" asked the old man curiously. "You disappeared as suddenly as if the earth had swallowed you. I put up my umbrella for a few minutes to shield my face from the rain and when I looked out from behind it you were nowhere in sight." "That was where I went into the dark doorway of a church, and sat down to wait for the dizzy spell to wear off," replied Katherine. "I must have fallen asleep, for the first thing I knew a clock was striking a quarter to eleven. When I discovered the bag was gone I ran around like mad looking for it, and the first thing I knew I was lost, and the lights were out, and there I was down in those awful factory yards. I saw you coming out of that saloon and thought you were the man who had watched me take out some bills out of an inner pocket earlier this evening, and hid behind a fence until you had gone by." "But fate evidently intended that our paths should cross again," resumed the old man, with the faint flicker of a smile on his pensive countenance, "for it was not long before you were just ahead of me again. The lights came on then, and I saw you plainly." "And I saw you, and started to run," finished Katherine, joining in Sherry's burst of laughter. Just then Hercules straightened up from the ground and came around the front of the car. "Kin we have yo' pocket flasher, Mist' Sherry?" he asked. Then his glance fell upon the stranger standing beside the car. His eyes started from their sockets; his jaw dropped, and for a moment he stood as if petrified. Then he gave a great gasp, and with a piercing cry of "Marse Tad!" he sank upon his knees at the old man's feet. CHAPTER XX THE END OF A PERFECT DAY "Daggers and dirks!" exclaimed Sherry, weakly sitting down on the car step when it was finally borne in upon him that Katherine's highwayman was none other than Sylvia's father, Hercules' "Marse Tad," the man for whom he and Hercules had been futilely fine-combing the earth for the last twenty-four hours. "Am I awake?" he continued, "or is this all an opium dream? First Katherine, whom we thought at home at Carver House, materializes before us out of thin air; then Dr. Phillips, whom we thought on a ship bound for South America. What's happening here to-night, anyway? Is it witchcraft?" "O, Marse Tad," quavered Hercules, still on his knees, "we shore thought you was gone on dat South Ameriky boat. We bin a-lookin' for you so. Mist' Sher'dan an' I bin down to N'Yawk all day." "You have been looking for me?" asked Dr. Phillips in surprise. Hercules, trying to tell the story all at once, became utterly incoherent in his excitement, and Sherry saw that he would have to step in. And so there, in the light from the lamps of the disabled taxicab, with the fitful explosions of the reviving engine drowning out Sherry's speech every few minutes, Tad Phillips heard the great news that would lift the crushing load of anguish from his heart, and would turn the world once more into a place of laughter, and light, and happiness. "It was a miracle, my deciding to stay over for the next boat," he declared solemnly, a few minutes later, after nearly wringing Sherry's hand off in an effort to express his joy and gratitude. "It was the hand of Providence, sir, nothing less than the hand of Providence. I had fully made up my mind to go on that boat yesterday; then for no reason at all I suddenly decided to wait until next week before sailing." His voice sank away into a whisper of awe as he repeated, "It was Providence itself, sir, nothing less than the hand of Providence, that made me change my mind about sailing yesterday." "You may have been inspired by Providence to change your mind about sailing," rejoined Sherry, "but if it hadn't been for Katherine, here, we never would have found you, for it never occurred to us that you were still in Philadelphia. It's all Katherine's doing--her losing that handbag." "But if I hadn't eaten those lobster croquettes and gotten sick I wouldn't have lost the handbag," said Katherine comically. "It all comes back to the lobster croquettes. Providence and lobster croquettes! What a combination to work miracles!" It was a rather dishevelled, but altogether triumphant quartet that arrived at Carver House some few hours later. Katherine's hair had escaped from its net and hung in straggling wisps over her eyes; her hat had been so completely crushed by its contact with the wheel of the taxi that it was unrecognizable as an article of millinery, and hung, a mere twisted piece of wreckage, in a dejected lump over one ear. Her coat was plastered with dirt from neck to hem, and her gloves were stiff and discolored. One eye was closed in a permanent wink by a black smudge that decorated her forehead and half of her cheek. Blissfully unconscious of her startling appearance, she burst into the library, where the household were waiting to welcome the returned wanderers. "O Katherine," cried all the Winnebagos in chorus when they beheld her, "now you look natural again!" The tale of Katherine's adventure, with its astonishing ending, left them all staring and breathless. "Katherine surely must have been born under a different sign of the Zodiac than those you see in the ordinary almanacs," said Nyoda. "There is some special influence of planets guiding her that is denied to ordinary mortals." "Must be the sign of the Lobster, then," laughed Katherine, gratefully sipping the hot milk Migwan had brought her, and allowing Justice to draw the hatpins from her hat and remove the battered wreck from her head. "How's Sylvia?" asked Sherry. "Very much improved," replied Nyoda, "but her heart is still acting queerly. I don't know how she is going to stand this excitement." Dr. Phillips agreed with her that he must not appear before Sylvia too suddenly, or the shock might be fatal. Impatient as he was for the recognition to take place, he knew that it would have to be brought about with caution. There was too much at stake to make a misstep now. Nyoda must prepare her gradually, first telling her that her father was alive, and letting her recover from the excitement of that announcement before breaking the news that he was actually in the house. The Winnebagos looked at Dr. Phillips with a surprise which it was difficult to conceal. This mild-eyed, white-haired gentleman was utterly different from the picture they had conjured up of the bold intruder who had so determinedly made his entrance into Carver House. They had