The Nowadays Girls in the Adirondacks or, The deserted bungalow on Saranac Lake
"This must be seen to," Sylvia declared, with energy. "We can't have
any white magic like this going on without making an investigation.
Come on, Rose."
She started wading toward shore.
"Better wait until we pull Rose in, and then we'll fling you the rope,"
advised Alice.
"Oh, I don't need the rope, I can walk without that," declared Rose.
"Better not try," suggested Sylvia. "There may be some deep holes
between here and shore. Keep hold of the rope, then I'll use it. And
after that we'll see if our canoe has taken unto itself wings and flown
away."
There was no need for the line from shore, as it developed, and soon
Rose and Sylvia, after safely wading to the bank, joined their more
fortunate companions. Alice and Hazel made fast their canoe, and Rose
and Sylvia wrung as much water as possible from their skirts, then all
four started toward the place where the canoe had been observed to so
oddly nestle amid the underbrush.
The girls found a fairly good path along the shore, and following this,
they turned in and out, as the trail led, bending itself to the curves
of the stream, until they suddenly emerged into a small clearing.
And there, sitting by the canoe, which had been turned in a most
favorable position so that the sun might dry it out, was a bronzed
young man who was gravely contemplating his wet and dripping legs that
were clad in khaki trousers.
"Oh!" exclaimed Sylvia, faintly, as she saw the young man slowly turn
his head in the direction of the sound caused by the girls pushing
their way past the bushes that overhung the trail.
"So, _that_ was what made the canoe behave in such a mysterious way!"
murmured Hazel.
"He must have pulled it out of the water," suggested Alice.
Rose stood looking at the young man, saying nothing.
As for the youth himself, he rose to his feet, thereby disclosing the
fact that he was rather tall. He wore no hat, but a half-military
salute toward his brown, curling hair made up for what doubtless would
have been a deferential removal of his head-gear had he worn any.
"Are you looking for a lost, strayed or otherwise missing canoe?" he
asked, at the same time motioning toward the one on the grass near him.
"Yes, that is ours," said Sylvia. "We had an upset in the rapids."
"I guessed as much," the stranger said. "I was about to go in search
of the owners, fearing some accident might have happened, but you have
saved me a journey. Perhaps I can be of some assistance?"
"Thank you, I believe we are all right now," Sylvia said. "We held on
to our paddles. We----"
She started forward, as though to prove her claim to the canoe by
exhibiting the paddles, but Rose pulled her back.
"Don't go!" came the half-frantic whisper. "You're a sight, and so am
I! Let Hazel and Alice walk ahead. They aren't dripping wet and their
hair isn't hanging seven ways for Sunday. Let them go ahead!"
"Oh!" exclaimed Sylvia, comprehendingly. "Yes, I guess you're right,
Rose. We don't look exactly presentable."
The young man had waited inquiringly as this little discussion was in
progress, and if he understood the nature of it he gave no sign.
Concealed by the friendly and effectual screen of bushes the change
was made, bringing Alice and Hazel into the vanguard, and letting
Sylvia and Rose take up a position in the rear. A hasty glance over
the trail they had come showed no enemy at their backs, and they were
sufficiently guarded by underbrush on either side of the path to
prevent a flank attack.
"I'll put the canoe back in the stream for you, in a few minutes," the
young man went on. "I was letting the water drain out of it. I was
fishing just about here," he said, "when I saw it coming down-stream. I
guessed what had happened and waded out to get it. Then I put it over
my head and took it to shore."
"Oh! That was what made it look so funny!" exclaimed Hazel.
"Funny?" the young man questioned.
"We could only see the boat from where we were," explained Alice, "and
it looked as though it were floating on top of the bushes, upside down."
"Oh, I see," he went on, comprehendingly. "You couldn't see me because
my head was under the canoe, and you couldn't see the rest of me
because the bushes formed a screen. Yes, it must have been rather odd."
"It was," said Sylvia, and she could not restrain a merry laugh.
"Oh!" exclaimed the young man, and it seemed as though the laugh had
come in answer to some question he asked himself. And the question
might have been in regard to the disappearance of the two wet and
dripping girls he had first observed, for Alice and Hazel were now in
front of Rose and Sylvia.
"It was very good of you to save the canoe," Hazel said. "It might have
been dashed to pieces on the rocks."
"Oh, it was past the danger spot when I got it," the youth said, with a
smile that seemed to illuminate his brown face. "Don't credit me with
too much. I just grabbed it as it was floating past."
"I'm afraid we spoiled your fishing," said Alice, at the same time
voicing to her chums a hoarsely whispered aside to the effect: "Why
don't you two do something? Going to leave it all to Hazel and me?"
"What shall we say?" demanded Rose.
"Oh, say 'pleased to meet you,' if you can't think of anything else,"
retorted Alice.
"Are you sure I can't do anything for you?" the youth asked, as he
prepared to put the canoe over his head and shoulders, in the most
approved guide "carry" position, and start for the water with it. "I'd
like to help you."
"Thank you, we are all right," Alice said. "We are going back to camp."
"Oh, then you are camping here?" he asked, and Rose said afterward that
his voice had a "hopeful" sound.
"Just for a little while," Hazel answered, waving her hand indefinitely
toward the woods.
"Ah, I see. I'm a camper also," he added, but he gave no further
information about himself.
"If I might suggest," he said, as he shouldered the light canoe, "it
might be better for me to take this for you past the rapids. They are
rather hard to traverse up-stream, and they are high from the rain. You
won't have any trouble once you get past the rough place, however. Let
me put the boat in the water for you a little farther up."
"Oh, that is entirely too much trouble!" protested Sylvia.
"No, indeed!" he said, quickly. "I'm glad to be able to help you."
The girls turned to go back along the trail they must follow in order
to get past the rapids. This turn brought Sylvia and Rose in the rear,
and directly behind them was the youth with the canoe.
"Oh!" exclaimed Rose, as she thought of her dripping garments and
dishevelled hair. It was the very thing they had sought to avoid.
"He can't see us with the canoe over his head," declared Sylvia. "If
we change now he'll laugh! Go on!"
And go on they did.
The other canoe was found safely floating in the deep eddy where it
had been moored, and a little later the one that had overturned, now
righted and comparatively dry, was put in the stream at a point past
the rapids.
"Now I'll carry the other one there for you, and you won't have much
trouble paddling back," the young man said. And in spite of the rather
half-hearted protests of the girls, this he did.
By this time the warm sun and the wind had done much toward drying
the garments of Sylvia and Rose. And they had managed to put up their
hair in some sort of fashion that, though they did not realize it, was
wonderfully becoming.
"Now I think you'll be all right," the young man said, when the four
girls, in the two boats, were ready to paddle back.
"Yes, indeed. And thank you _so_ much!" said Sylvia, warmly. Her thanks
were echoed in a chorus by the others.
Again with that graceful, half-military salute toward his bared head,
the bronzed youth watched them paddle away. And it was not until they
were around the bend of the stream that Alice exclaimed:
"Oh, we never asked his name!"
"Nor told ours!" added Hazel.
"Why should we?" demanded Sylvia.
"Oh, I don't know," was Hazel's slow retort.
They paddled slowly back to camp, where Mrs. Brownley was not a little
exercised over the upset.
"It was nothing!" Sylvia said. "We get used to such things nowadays."
This was really the only little accident that marred the camping
outing, and that did not so much mar it as it marked it. Two or three
days afterward the girls went canoeing, and successfully passed the
rapids. But they saw nothing of the young man. Indeed, though the eyes
of all four roved through the woods and along the wilderness trails,
not one would admit that she was looking for anything or any one in
particular.
Then came the day when they went back to the Antlers. They had spent a
glorious week in the woods.
As the campers reached the porch, to be made welcome by their hotel
friends, they saw a group gathered about the bulletin board.
"I wonder what that means?" asked Rose.
"Let's look," suggested Sylvia.
They found it was an announcement of a masquerade dance to be given two
nights hence.
"Oh, we simply must go to that!" cried Hazel.
"Surely!" agreed Alice.
"But what about costumes?" asked Rose.
"We'll make our own. Masks will be easy to get, I fancy," Sylvia said.
"We'll make inquiries."
They found that masks of various sorts were easily obtainable, and
some costumes also, though most of the ladies were going to make their
own, out of simple materials.
Preparations for the masque fête went merrily on, and none took more
interest in it than our Nowadays Girls.
"The usual penny," said Rose, suddenly, one day, as the four sat in
Sylvia's room, sewing. Rose looked at Hazel as she thus challenged her.
"Penny? For what?"
"Your thoughts, of course. You're in a brown study and the shade
doesn't at all match your dress."
"Oh, I was thinking----" Hazel stopped suddenly.
"She was thinking of the young man of the woods," declared Sylvia, with
a laugh.
CHAPTER XX
THE MYSTIC MOON
Softly the musicians played behind a bank of palms. Softly shone the
mystic moon outside, brighter even than the lights of the ballroom,
for they had been turned low, since it was not yet the hour to trip
the light fantastic. The melody came only in haunting strains, a
ripple from the piano as the player tried the keys in some snatch of
a onestep, the half-sobbing voice of the violin in a haunting, dreamy
waltz, the mellow trill of the flute, and the more military sound of
the French horn. The musicians were making ready.
Now and then, through the corridors of the hotel flitted strange
figures. Figures whose faces were concealed by masks. They glided here
and there, into rooms and out again.
And of mysterious import were many whispered messages that floated up
and down the corridors.
"Have you any more powder?"
Surely a strange "engagement" that needed powder on a night like that.
"I want some pins!"
"I shall have to take a tuck in it."
"My slippers will never stay on when I get to dancing!"
"Use a rubber band around your instep. It won't show much!"
"Do you think he'll know me?"
"Never--not in that!"
"Oh, but he saw me getting it!"
"He thought it was for me. He'll take me for you and----"
"Oh, I don't know that I want that!"
And so on.
It was the night of the masquerade, a night full of promises of
surprise, a night of mystery, of mystic moonlight. The big hotel was
thronged, for invitations had been general, and from many other camps
and places in Raquette Lake had come the merry-makers and dancers.
"Well, are you almost ready?" asked Sylvia, as she slipped into the
room of Alice, not wearing her mask, for the Nowadays Girls and Mrs.
Brownley had a private hall to themselves.