The Motor Girls at Camp Surprise: or, The Cave in the Mountains

“It’s worth looking into,” he said. “I won’t say anything, but the first chance I get I’ll have a peep at the fall. I think I can get behind the water curtain.”

“Oh, Walter! don’t take any risks.”

“I won’t, Cora. But come on. The others will wonder what we find to talk about and look at here. Not that I wouldn’t want to stay talking a great deal longer, but, well – ”

“I understand,” and she smiled.

“We’re going berrying,” cried Bess, as Walter and Cora came up to join the others. “That is, unless you two want to stand there on the edge of ‘Lovers’ Leap’ and think sad thoughts.”

“Is that place called Lovers’ Leap?” asked Cora.

“Well, it might be if any lovers ever jumped off there. Do you want to go berrying?”

“Surely,” said Cora, and Walter nodded assent.

The berry hunt was not very successful, though a few early ones were found. However, it served as an incentive to call the young folks farther afield and up the mountainside, and they found new beauties of nature at every step.

“This is the nicest place I was ever in,” declared Hazel.

“I like it, too, almost as well as any place we ever picked out for our vacation,” said Belle. “My hair doesn’t get so slimpsy as at the beach.”

“We’re getting beautifully tanned, instead of the lobster-red I always turn at the shore,” said plump Bess.

“Say, hadn’t we better begin to think of turning back?” asked Cora, after a while, when the few berries that had been gathered had been eaten, though Jack begged that they be saved for a pie.

“Yes, it’s getting late,” said Paul, looking at his watch. “And we have a few miles to go.”

“I should say they were a few!” chimed in Walter. “Seven at the least back to Camp Surprise.”

“Don’t say that!” begged Bess. “You’ll have to carry me.”

“All right. We’ll make a litter of poles and drape you over it in the most artistic fashion,” said Paul. “Do you prefer to be carried head or feet first?”

“Feet, of course. Riding backwards always makes me car-ill.”

“It’s down hill, that’s one consolation,” came from Jack. “Well, come on. All ready! Hike!” and he marched off, swinging a long stick he had picked up to use Alpine-stock fashion.

There was a patch of woodland to go through, a fairly good path traversing it. The party of young people went along, talking and laughing, occasionally breaking into song as one or another started a familiar melody.

“Say, Jack,” remarked Cora at length, “aren’t these woods pretty long?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean oughtn’t we to be out of them by this time? Are you sure you’re going the right way?”

“Well, I never was here before,” said Jack, “but I set our course by compass,” and he indicated the little instrument on his watch chain.

“We started to walk due west,” he said, “up the mountain. Now we are going east, as you can see, because the setting sun is at our backs. So we are going toward camp.”

“But we swung off to the right as we came up the mountain,” Cora went on.

“Exactly, a sort of northwest course,” agreed Jack. “And now we are heading southeast, which is exactly the reverse. Look for yourself, Sis.”

He held out the compass, the tiny needle vibrating as the instrument rested in his hand. Cora was enough of a navigator to see that Jack was right.

“Well, the only thing to do is to keep on,” she said. “But I should think, by this time, we’d be somewhere near the camp.”

“Oh, not yet!” declared Jack. “We’ve got miles and miles yet to go!”

“You horrid creature!” cried Bess. “Oh, my feet!”

“This is the best exercise for reducing you could have,” laughed Paul. “Come on, I’ll race you.”

“Run? Never!” wailed the plump one. “I can only hobble.”

They tramped on. The afternoon shadows were lengthening now, and Cora’s face wore a somewhat anxious look. They entered another patch of woodland, and as they emerged into a clearing Cora cried:

“Look at the sun!”

“What’s the matter with it?” Belle demanded. “I think that is a perfectly good sun.”

“But it’s in front of us,” said Cora. “It’s in front of us!”

For a moment the others did not realize what she meant. They stared at the big red ball which was sinking to rest amid a bank of gorgeously colored clouds. Then Jack exclaimed:

“By Jove! you’re right, Sis. The sun should be back of us. We were going east, but we’ve got turned around, and are going west.”

“Unless the sun has changed,” put in Paul, with a laugh, “and is coming up in the morning. We may have been walking all night and didn’t know it.”

“It’s no joke,” said Cora, seriously, as the others laughed. “Jack, we’re lost!”

CHAPTER XVII – TWO MEN

Naturally enough Cora’s words were echoed aloud by some of the party.

“Lost!” cried Belle. “How do you know?”

“We’re going in the wrong direction,” Cora said. “Don’t you know when persons get lost in the woods they always go around in a circle? Nearly always they turn to the right, as we have done. I forget the explanation, but it has something to do with the right side of the body being stronger than the left. And that’s what we’ve done. We’ve wandered around in a circle, so of course we’re lost.”

“That doesn’t follow at all,” declared Walter.

“Why not?” challenged Cora.

“Because the path may have been shifting. We’ve only followed the trail through the woods. We haven’t gone off it.”

“That’s so,” chimed in Paul. “We’re still on the path, and it must lead somewhere.”

“Perhaps it’s a cow-path,” suggested Bess. “It’s narrow enough for one.”

“Well, even a cow-path leads somewhere,” said Hazel. “We’ll end up at a stable.”

“Or a dairy,” added Jack. “Some bread and milk won’t go bad if we miss our supper.”

“Oh, we won’t miss it,” declared Walter. “We’re bound to end up somewhere, and even if we come out a mile or more from our camp. And if we see a house, we can hire a farmer to drive us over, if we’re too tired to walk.”

“Yes, we could do that,” Cora assented. “But what plan is best to follow now? Shall we keep on the way we are going, on this path, even though it leads west and our camp is to the east? Or shall we go back until we find a path extending in an easterly direction?”

“Whew!” whistled Jack. “That sounds like a question in my old school geography. What’s the answer, Cora?”

“I wish I knew,” said his sister. “Let’s take a vote on it.”

They discussed the matter a little while, and the general opinion was that it was better to go on than to retreat.

“We didn’t see any houses in all the distance we came,” said Walter, “and it is getting so late now we may have to appeal to a farmer to drive us back. I say go ahead, even if the direction seems to be wrong. We may reach a house this way.”

“I guess you’re right,” admitted Cora, “though it seems illogical to go deliberately away from, instead of toward, our camp.”

“Perhaps it isn’t called Camp Surprise for nothing,” suggested Hazel.

“What do you mean?” asked her brother.

“I mean it may surprise us by appearing when and where we least expect it.”

“You always were a hopeful child,” laughed Paul. His sister blushed. “You believed in Santa Claus long after I had detected our respected parents sneaking down the back stairs with the presents,” he continued. “Hope on, foolish one.”

“She may be right at that,” said Jack, championing Hazel’s cause. “If the sun insists on appearing where we think it oughtn’t to be the camp may take a notion to do the same thing. Come on! Forward!”

A little anxious, they kept on, rather tired, but not greatly discouraged. Youthful hearts are not made for discouragement, fortunately.

“Anything left to eat?” asked Jack after a bit, when the path seemed to be shifting somewhat toward the east.

“A little,” announced Walter, who was carrying the basket. “But you can’t have any.”

“Why not?” demanded Jack, indignantly. “I have as good a right as you. Who delegated you to carry the rations?”

“Nobody else seemed to want to. Now I’m in charge of the commissary department, and I’m going to put you, and myself included, on short rations. We may have to stay out all – ”

“Ahem!” interrupted Paul, giving Walter a nudge. “Do you see anything like a house through the trees? Cut out that talk about having to stay out all night, if that’s what you were going to say,” he added in a quick whisper.

“It was,” Walter admitted. “But I’ll cease.”

“You’d better. We don’t want the girls to get nervous.”

“I don’t see any house,” Jack reported, having looked in the direction indicated by Paul.

“I thought I saw smoke, and where there’s smoke there’s generally a house or a camp,” Paul said. “However, I may have been mistaken.”

It was evident that he had been, but a little later, as they once more emerged from the woods, Cora gave a joyful cry and called out:

“There it is!”

“What, our camp?” asked Belle.

“No, a house! See it?”

They looked to where her finger pointed. Undoubtedly, it was a farmhouse, located on the farther edge of the clearing in which they had halted. There was a vacant space about it, and several barn-like structures. But there was a curious lack of life around the place.

“I don’t believe any one lives there,” said Jack.

“Don’t be a pessimist,” urged his sister. “Let’s go and find out.”

They hurried toward the house, but the nearer they approached it the more it seemed that it was not a farmhouse in the ordinary sense of the word. Though in the midst of cleared fields that must at one time have been part of a farm, there were no growing crops. The fields were overgrown with weeds, there were no horses or cattle to be seen, and no challenging dog rushed out to bark at the boys and girls.

“Still some old man or woman may live there who can put us on the right road,” Cora suggested. “We won’t give up yet.”

Confirmation of Jack’s idea that the house was uninhabited was given as they went up the weed-entangled front path. And the sight of broken windows, a door sagging open on fractured hinges gave further aspects of abandonment.

“Anybody home?” called Walter, knocking on the door, which swayed as though it wanted to part company from the only hinge that held it up. “Who’s in here? Hello inside!”

An echo was his only answer, though as they had approached the place Paul had said he heard a noise inside.

“Nobody home,” said Jack. “But this is at least encouraging. We are getting ‘warm’ as they say in hunt the thimble. Let’s go around back. Maybe they don’t use the front door.”

He started around a side path, followed by Cora, Bess and Belle. The others straggled along in the extreme rear. As the four in the lead turned around an ell of the house, Cora uttered a cry and pointed to two men who were running out of the barn, not far off.

“Look, Jack!” she cried.

Jack stood still, quite taken by surprise, and then Belle added:

“Why, Cora! I declare! One of those men looks like one of the two who ran off with your car!”

“Are you sure about that, Belle?” demanded Cora’s brother. “I don’t want to make a mistake.”

“I only saw their backs, of course,” explained Belle, quite excited. “But that one on the left looks like the one who took the wheel and steered Cora’s auto away from the tea room. The coat is just the same.”

“Well, it’s pretty slim evidence on which to chase after two strange men,” said Jack, “but here goes. Come on, boys!” he called to Walter and Paul. “Tally-ho!”

“What’s the excitement?” asked Walter, as he and Paul came running around the corner of the house. “Dog after you, Jack?”

“No, but we want to get after those two fellows. See ’em?”

He pointed to the fleeing men.

“Who are they?” Paul queried.

“Belle thinks they’re the ones who took Cora’s auto. It’s a rather slim identification, but we’ll take a chance.”

“Yell at ’em,” suggested Paul.

“Good idea,” commented Jack. “I say there – you two! Hold on a minute, we want to talk to you!” he cried.

The two men, running away, never heeded nor looked around. They ran on toward the woods, the boys following, while the girls stood in a group near the deserted house.

CHAPTER XVIII – REAL SURPRISES

“They aren’t going to stop,” observed Paul, as he ran along beside Jack, watching the fleeing men.

“No, and that makes me suspicious. Why should those men run away just because we hailed them? They don’t know us – that is, they haven’t any reason to suppose we represent the girl whose auto was taken. They have never seen us.”

“And they didn’t have a chance to get a good look at Cora and the other girls, even supposing they are the thieves who took the auto. According to what Belle says, the men didn’t once look around as they got into the car and drove off.

“Though they must have been hanging around the Spinning Wheel for some time to have disposed of the tickets,” said Walter. “They might have seen the three girls, and again recognized them as they came along now.”

“Possibly, but not probably,” declared Jack. “They are either tramps, who have been sleeping in the barn and think we own this place and have come to drive them out, or they are the auto thieves, and naturally would run.”

“I’m inclined to the tramp theory,” declared Paul. “They don’t look like knights of the roads, though.”

“I guess we won’t have much further sight of them,” commented Jack. “They’re almost at the woods, and going strong.”

The men, indeed, were distancing the boys, running fast with never a backward glance.

“Give ’em another hail!” cried Paul. “All together. Tell ’em we only want to ask the way from them. Now yell!”

The three lads united their voices in a loud shout, but it had no effect, and, a moment later, the two fleeing men plunged in among the trees.

“Shall we follow?” asked Paul, bringing his run down to a walk.

“Hardly worth while,” commented Jack. “We’d never find them in the woods.”

“Besides, we don’t want to leave the girls alone,” added Paul.

“They are evidently determined not to be left alone,” commented Jack with a smile. “There they come after us.”

Cora and her chums were advancing across the weed-grown field that lay between the house and the woods, and over which the unsuccessful chase had taken place.

“Come on, we’ll give it up,” Walter said, as he started back to meet the girls.

“We didn’t like to stay there all alone,” confessed Cora.

“So we observe,” remarked Jack.

“You didn’t get them?” questioned Cora.

“They wouldn’t even hesitate,” laughed Walter. “Now for an inspection of the barn and house.”

“Are you going in?” asked Hazel.

“Why not? We may find some valuable evidence that will put us on the track of Cora’s auto. We may even find some hermit living in the house who can put us on the right road. Let’s try the barn first, though, as it was from there the men came.”

The girls would not go in, but Walter and Jack did, leaving Paul to stay with his sister and her friends.

“Just keep your eyes open, Paul,” suggested Jack. “Those fellows may come back while Wally and I are inside.”

“Trust me,” observed Hazel’s brother.

But Jack and Walter found little to repay them for their inspection of the barn. It was a dilapidated building, almost tumbling down in fact, and contained nothing save some wisps of hay and straw. In one corner, though, was a pile of old feed bags, arranged as a rude bed.

“Tramps been sleeping here,” observed Walter. “Maybe those two men.”

“Maybe,” agreed Jack.

But that was all they could gather, and they came out.

“Now for the house,” suggested Walter.

“There’s some sort of lane over there, leading to the cow shed,” said Cora. “Suppose you look in that building.”

“Might as well,” agreed Jack. And it was in approaching the smaller farm building through the grass-grown lane that they made a discovery.

“There’s been an auto in here!” cried Paul, as he saw some depressions in the ground. “An auto has been driven in here and out again. I can see two sets of wheel marks plainly.”

“Did one tire have a vulcanized patch on?” Cora asked eagerly. “Mine had.”

“The marks aren’t plain enough to decide that,” said Paul. “If there were dust or dirt here I could tell, but grass and weeds don’t take a good enough impression. The auto was put in the shed, evidently.”

That proved to be a good guess, for the marks of the big-tired wheels went up to the shed, which was roomy enough for a car.

“Yes, one’s been in here!” cried Jack, as he swung open the door. “See the tire marks on the boards.”

“Was it mine?” asked Cora, eagerly. But again the impression left was too faint to show the vulcanized patch.

“Maybe some autoists, caught out in a storm, put in here,” suggested Walter. “We mustn’t build up too hopeful a theory on a slender basis of fact.”

Traces of the automobile wheels were lost a short distance down the lane, and none appeared in the road which ran in front of the house – near which the highway did not seem to be much traveled.

“And now for the house itself,” said Jack. “Come on, boys!”

“And girls, too!” exclaimed Cora. “We’re not going to be left outside.”

They entered the old farmhouse, calling aloud to ascertain if in some distant room there might not be an occupant. But their voices were answered only by echoes, with which their footsteps mingled.

The house was typical of many another deserted farm residence, of which there are many throughout New England.

Windows were void of glass, doors hung uncertainly on one hinge, moldy wall-paper drooped down from the ceiling like unlovely Spanish moss, and in many of the rooms the dampness and rain had loosened the plaster which had fallen.

There were some old boxes, a broken chair or two, and a moldy horsehair settee that, in bygone days, must have graced the closed-up parlor, opened only for marriages or deaths. Or, perchance, on its glossy and slippery surface, lovers had sat long ago.

“Ugh!” exclaimed Cora, with a little shudder. “Come on out. It gives me the creeps in here.”

“Yes, I guess there’s nothing to gain by staying,” Jack remarked. “Nobody home, and there’s no use wasting time.”

“I wish we were home,” said Belle.

“And I. At least, back in camp,” added her sister.

As they went from the house they saw out in the road a man driving a horse attached to a farm wagon.

“Oh, there’s something human at last!” cried Cora. “Wait, please, we want to ask you something!” she called impulsively.

But the man had already stopped of his own accord, and a look of surprise came over his face as he saw the party of young folks come out of the abandoned house.

“Can you tell us the way to Mountain View?” asked Jack.

“Yes, I’m going that way myself,” the man answered. “At least within a mile of it. Want to ride?”

“Oh, do we!” exclaimed Bess with such a sigh of relief that the others laughed.

“Pile in,” invited the farmer. “You aren’t thinking of buying the old Mellish place; are you?”

“Is that what this is called?” asked Walter.

“Yes. Zeb Mellish used to own it, but he went crazy and hung himself and nobody’s lived here since; ’ceptin’ maybe tramps.”

“Yes, we saw two run away from the barn as we came up,” stated Jack.

“Humph!” commented the farmer. “I’ll have to speak to the constable about ’em. Too many of us have been losin’ chickens lately. I suspected it was tramps. Which way’d they go?”

The boys told; also narrating the details of their little picnic and of their becoming lost.

“Well, that ain’t surprisin’, considerin’ how th’ cow paths in the woods twist to and fro,” commented the farmer, who gave his name as Anthony Wale. “So you’re from one of the bungalows in the Mountain View property; eh?”

“Yes, Camp Surprise,” said Cora.

The man seemed to start, and looked sharply at Cora.

“Camp Surprise; eh!” he exclaimed.

“Know anything about it?” asked Walter. “We have been expecting to be surprised, but haven’t been, so far.”

“I know they tell queer stories about it,” said Mr. Ware, “but that’s all I do know. Maybe the surprise party hasn’t started yet.”

“Well, if it’s bound to happen, I wish it would get over and done with,” said Cora. “It’s awfully good of you to give us a lift this way.”

“Glad to do it,” said Mr. Ware. “There’s room on the seat with me for two of you gals – at least the thinnest ones – not meanin’ anything against you,” and he looked at Bess, half smiling.

“Oh, I’m used to it now,” she declared. “You can’t hurt my feelings. I’ll be glad to sit on one of the boxes.”

The wagon contained several crates, and these were utilized as seats, Hazel and Belle, as the “thinnest gals,” sitting on the seat with Mr. Ware.

He drove them to within a half mile of their own camp and they were soon at the bungalow, just as Mr. and Mrs. Floyd were getting anxious about their charges, and were talking of going in search of them.

“What happened to you?” Mrs. Floyd inquired.

“Lost,” explained Jack, sententiously.

The adventures of the day were gone over again at a joint supper, the boys being invited in by the girls.

“You aren’t doing any housekeeping at all,” Cora complained to Jack, afterward.

“What’s the use when you girls are such good cooks?” he asked with a laugh. “We’re thinking of hiring a chef, anyhow, and then we’ll reciprocate and give you a good feed.”

A trip down the mountain stream to where it widened into a lake was the plan for the next day, and an early start was made, Mrs. Floyd and her husband stating that they had to go to town to do some shopping, and would not be back before night. They started before the young folks left, and the girls locked their bungalow as they came out.

Nothing of moment occurred on the trip to the little lake, if the fact that Jack fell in up to his knees, while trying to get some pond lilies for Hazel be excepted.

“Well, I wonder if anything happened while we were away?” asked Cora of Walter, as they neared their camp on the return trip.

“Why do you suggest that?” he queried.

“Oh, I don’t just know. I have a funny sort of feeling ‘in my bones,’ as mother used to say.”

Cora had the key and opened the door. The boys were coming in, as they usually did, and stood waiting for the girls to enter.

As Jack’s sister threw back the door she gave one look in the living room, and exclaimed:

“It’s here!”

“What?” asked Walter, quickly.

“The surprise! Look!”

CHAPTER XIX – WHERE’S MY LIGHT?

Crowding up behind Cora, the others peered over her shoulders. The setting sun, streaming in through the windows, revealed a strange sight in the big living room. Several chairs were overturned, a large couch that had been against the wall was out in the middle of the floor, a table that had been piled with magazines and books was turned on its side, and turned upside down on the overturned table was perched a chair, as though children had been playing some simple game, like stagecoach or steamboat, with the table and chair to represent make-believe articles of locomotion.

For a moment surprise and wonder held them all dumb, then Jack burst out with:

“Say! who did this monkey-business, anyhow?”

“Monkey-business?” repeated Cora.

“It’s the surprise!” exclaimed Belle, and her voice was not quite steady. “We’ve been expecting this. The ghosts have paid one of their visits. Oh dear!”

“Don’t be silly!” exclaimed Bess, who, perhaps because her nerves were better protected, did not give way to emotion so readily as did her thinner sister. “Isn’t this just what we’ve been looking for – and hoping for?”

“Hoping for?” asked Paul. “Well, I must say it’s a queer sort of hope!”

“Oh, I don’t mean that, exactly,” Bess went on. “But we knew something like this was bound to happen, and this is the first manifestation.”

“No, not exactly the first,” Cora said.

“What do you mean?” asked Bess. “Isn’t this the first time anything has been upset in our bungalow?”

“Yes, but it isn’t the first manifestation,” Cora went on. “Shall we tell, Belle?” she asked.

“Yes,” nodded the slim Robinson girl.

“Though how you can connect the queer noise with what has taken place here I don’t see,” put in Walter who had been looking curiously about the upset room, which none of them had ventured yet to enter.

“What! Does he know about it, too?” asked Belle.