The Motor Girls in the Mountains: or, The Gypsy Girl's Secret

Still the water gained, and the boat was perceptibly settling. But they were near the island now, and Cora turned the bow toward a low, shelving part.

A moment more and, with a sensation of infinite relief, they felt the bow slide into the mud of the bottom. Jack leaped to the engine and stopped its chugging. Then all took a long breath and looked at each other.

The faces of the boys were white and in the eyes of the girls there was more than a suspicion of anxiety.

“Land ho!” exclaimed Jack, giving his sister a hug.

“Castaways!” cried Paul dramatically.

“But not on a desert island, thank heaven!” said Bess.

“But how are we to get on shore without getting wet?” queried Belle, a lesser anxiety seizing her, now that the greater one was dispelled.

“Can you ask that,” said Walter reproachfully, “when there are three husky sailors here who ask nothing better than to carry you to the shore?”

“It’s only a foot deep near the bow,” declared Jack. “Over we go, boys,” and he set the example, that was instantly followed by his comrades.

Each took one of the girls and landed her safely on the shore. With the exception of Bess’ wet feet, the girls were almost as fresh and unruffled as ever, but the boys with their dripping trousers clinging closely round them presented a comical picture.

“That’s right, laugh at us!” said Walter, as the girls looked at them with mirth in their eyes. “Here we risk our lives for you and that’s all the reward we get. Suppose a shark had bitten us when we were wading to the shore with our cargo of beauty. Suppose – ”

But his diatribe was interrupted by the appearance of a man who stepped from the trees that came down near to the water’s edge.

He looked at the party with a whimsical smile.

“Why, it’s Mr. Morley!”

“So it is,” echoed Bess and Belle.

“The very same,” smiled the newcomer. “And you are the young ladies that came to my help the other day when I ran my car into a tree. Who would have supposed that we would meet again so soon and under such different circumstances?”

He shook hands heartily with the girls, and then was introduced to the boys.

“You’ve had something like a shipwreck, I see,” he said, as he looked at the boat.

“Nothing very serious,” replied Jack. “Although it might have been, if we’d had much farther to go to reach shore.”

“It’s too bad,” returned Mr. Morley. “However, I’m very glad it wasn’t worse. But come up to my cabin. It’s only a little way from here. You can build a fire outside and stand about it until your clothes are dry. I live rather simply here, but I can offer you some refreshments. After that, we’ll see what we can do toward patching up your boat.”

He led the way, chatting with Cora, and the rest followed. A few minutes’ walk brought them to the cabin. It was a small, one-story structure, with three rooms. One served as a living room, dining room and kitchen combined, while the others consisted of a sleeping room and a room where Mr. Morley kept his specimens.

“‘A poor place, but mine own,’” quoted their host, with a smile. “I spend most of my summers here looking for specimens. The rest of the year I teach botany in a college. Now I’m going to bring out some cakes and tea and put the young ladies in charge, and we’ll have a regular afternoon tea.”

While the girls fluttered about inside, preparing the refreshments, Mr. Morley and the boys built a fire a little way from the door, and in a little while the youths were dry and comfortable again.

It was a gay party that a little later sat around the table where the girls had spread the refreshments. Mr. Morley seemed genuinely glad to have them with him, and the boys and girls were in the highest spirits. What might have been a disaster had developed into a lark.

While the girls were clearing up the things later, their host went down with the boys to the boat.

He had brought along some boards and oakum, together with necessary tools. His own rowboat enabled them to board the Water Sprite without getting another wetting. Once there, the boys took off their shoes, rolled their trousers to the knees and set to work. In less than an hour they had repaired the damage. Then they bailed out the water and watched anxiously to see if any more came in.

But their anxiety was needless. The work had been well done, and the boat floated high and dry on the water.

CHAPTER XI

CORA MAKES A DISCOVERY

The boys, followed by Mr. Morley, retraced their steps to the cabin and told the good news.

“And now,” said Cora, “I suppose we must go. It was awfully good of you, Mr. Morley, to take us shipwrecked travelers in and treat us so nicely.”

The others echoed this sentiment, but Mr. Morley put in a vehement disclaimer.

“It’s nothing compared to what you did for me the other day,” he declared. “And I can’t tell you how much good it has done me to have you young people here. It’s a long time since I’ve had youth in my home. But that’s my own fault. I drove it – ”

He brought himself up with a sharp turn.

“Perhaps you’d like to take a look at my specimens before you go,” he remarked tentatively.

“We’d dearly love to,” replied Cora.

Mr. Morley led the way into the specimen room.

“Just now I’m making a collection of vampires,” he remarked.

“No accounting for tastes,” whispered Walter to Paul, in a voice too low to be heard by their host.

“Do you keep them in a cage?” asked Jack.

Mr. Morley looked up in surprise.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Why,” replied Jack, “you spoke of vampires, and I thought you meant vampire bats. They’re the only kind of vampires I know anything about.”

“I was referring to the plant this leaf was taken from,” smiled their host, as he held it up for them to see.

It was a long, rounded leaf that seemed to be covered with tiny hairs, on which glistened something that resembled honey and gave forth a fragrant odor. On looking more closely they saw what appeared to be fragments of small insects.

“We call it the sun-dew,” explained Mr. Morley. “It’s common enough, and you’ve seen it in the fields many a time. But instead of living on elements drawn from the soil, it feeds on flies and other insects. They are attracted by the honey that it spreads out temptingly to bring them within its reach. But as soon as they light on it, the leaf tightens around them and crushes them to death. Then it eats them at leisure. That’s why it’s called a ‘vampire.’”

“But,” objected Cora, “any one would think from that that the plant had intelligence and knew just what it was doing, just as an animal does when it hunts for prey.”

“Exactly,” agreed Mr. Morley. “Who are we to say that plants don’t have intelligence? What proof is there in nature that they don’t suffer and enjoy, feel and plan, as men and animals do, only on a lower plane? We humans are too conceited. We assume that we possess intelligence almost exclusively. We grant some to animals, though we slur even that by calling it only instinct. But we’ve been inclined to deny it altogether to plants.

“Now I don’t agree with this at all. And there are lots more of the newer school of naturalists who feel just as I do about it. Wherever there is life there is intelligence. Plants can be cunning and patient and cruel and deceitful. If they can’t get enough of one kind of food, they hunt for another. When men and animals do these things or show these qualities, we admit that it is the result of thought. What is it, then, that makes a plant do precisely similar things with similar ends in view?

“But there,” he interrupted himself with a smile, “one might almost think that I was in my lecture room, talking to a class! It’s a hobby of mine, and I forget sometimes that others may not be so interested in it as I am.”

“But we are interested, keenly interested,” protested Cora.

“I never thought of plants in that way before,” declared Bess.

“It’s opened up an entirely new way of looking at things,” said Paul.

“Are there many kinds of vampire plants?” asked Belle.

“Lots of them,” replied Mr. Morley. “And they use all kinds of devices – hooks, claws, poison, honey, snares and shocks.”

“Desperate characters,” whispered Walter to Jack.

“Worse than gunmen,” murmured Jack.

“There, for instance,” continued their host, “is the ‘devil’s snare’ that is found in South America. It has long, snaky tentacles that sweep the ground for many yards in every direction, for all the world like the long suckers of the devil-fish. It gobbles up anything that comes within its reach, insects, mice and larger animals. Once it gets its deadly grip on a victim, it keeps on tightening and tightening until it chokes the life out of it. It has been known to grasp and kill a good-sized dog.”

“The horrid thing!” exclaimed Bess with a little shudder.

“The S. P. C. A. ought to get after it,” laughed Walter.

“There are plants, too,” continued their mentor, “that show intelligence by the way they adapt themselves to changed conditions. The bladderwort, for example, used to live on insects. Perhaps it got a hint somewhere that it could do better on water than on land. At any rate, it became a water plant. It lies just under the surface and imitates the wide-open mouth of a mother fish. The little minnows swim into it to avoid their enemies and as soon as they’re well inside, the mouth closes and the plant regales itself with a fish dinner.

“Then there are the cannibal plants. There are hundreds of trees that have the life juices sucked from them by the parasitic plants that twine around them until they give up the ghost.”

“Just as the trusts do to the common people,” observed Jack.

“Well,” said Cora, drawing a long breath, “I’ve always known that nature was cruel, but I’ve never connected that idea with plants.”

“Cruel everywhere,” assented Mr. Morley, “from man, creation’s crown, to plants, creation’s base.”

They looked with a new interest and a heightened respect at the other specimens he showed, and the time passed so quickly that they were startled, on glancing out of doors, to see how rapidly dusk was coming on.

“When I get to mooning along on my pet theories, I never know when to stop,” said Mr. Morley apologetically.

“It’s been a real treat to listen to you, Mr. Morley,” said Cora with her winning smile.

“Truth is not only stranger but more interesting than fiction,” smiled Belle.

They separated with cordial good wishes and a hearty invitation to Mr. Morley to visit them at Camp Kill Kare. He stood at the cabin door, watching them as they hurried down to their boat.

“This is the end of a perfect day,” sang Bess gaily, as they stepped on board the Water Sprite, which the boys had brought around to the little dock at which Mr. Morley’s rowboat was tied.

“It certainly has been a crowded one,” said Belle.

“Isn’t Mr. Morley an unusual man?” asked Cora. “I’m more and more convinced that there’s a mystery about him.”

“He’s a fine chap,” said Jack, “but I didn’t notice anything especially mysterious about him.”

“That’s because you’re a man,” said Cora.

“I can’t help belonging to that despised sex, can I?” inquired Jack in an injured tone.

“I suppose it’s your misfortune rather than your fault,” dimpled Bess.

“What do you suppose he meant when he said ‘I drove it,’ and then stopped so suddenly?” asked Belle thoughtfully.

“Probably thinking of his car when he drove it into a tree,” remarked Jack flippantly.

If he had not been hardened, he would have succumbed before the exasperated glare of three pairs of girlish eyes.

“Better get in out of the wet, Jack,” counseled Paul.

“Come over here and I’ll protect you with my life,” adjured Walter.

“Don’t pay any attention to those idiots, girls,” advised Cora. “We’ll wait until we get by ourselves and can talk sense without being interrupted.”

The Water Sprite, as though repenting of its lapses that afternoon, was now on its good behavior, and she kept “dry as a bone” on the short passage from the island.

They found Mrs. King a little worried at their late coming, and she threw up her hands at the story of their narrow escape from sinking.

“You’ve had a lively brood wished on you, Aunt Betty,” laughed Cora, as she threw her arm affectionately around her aunt’s waist.

“I can see that already,” was the reply. “My only comfort is that you girls seem to bear a charmed life.”

“Call it ‘charming,’” said Walter gallantly, “and we boys will agree with you.”

They had some music after dinner, but as all were tired from their strenuous day they went to their rooms early.

“Girls,” exclaimed Cora, as soon as they were alone, “I’ve found out whom that gypsy girl resembles! It’s Mr. Morley!”

CHAPTER XII

AN UGLY CUSTOMER

“Mr. Morley!” exclaimed Bess and Belle in a breath.

“Isn’t it so?” demanded Cora. “I was struck by it when we first saw him just after we got off the boat.”

“When I come to think of it, I believe you’re right,” replied Belle slowly.

“He has a way of holding his head like hers,” agreed Bess.

“But it’s the eyes,” went on Cora. “They’re blue like hers, and there are times when they have exactly the same expression. Girls, I believe we’re on the edge of a mystery!”

“Don’t talk so loud,” cautioned Belle, “or the boys may catch something of what you’re saying and they’ll tease us to death about it.”

“But, after all, what does it all amount to?” asked Bess. “It doesn’t prove that they have the slightest connection with each other.”

“And even if they have, what could we do about it?” asked Belle. “It’s like the dog running after the train. What would he do with it if he caught it?”

The girls laughed.

“It is a tangle,” admitted Cora. “We couldn’t go to Mr. Morley and tell him that we’d seen a gypsy girl who reminded us of him.”

“He mightn’t take it as a compliment,” suggested Bess.

“Or he might think we’d gone crazy,” said Belle.

“There are probably ten million people in the world that the gypsy girl looks like in one way or another,” said Bess, with difficulty suppressing a yawn. “Let’s go to bed and forget all about it.”

But Cora, as she slipped between the sheets, was far from intending to dismiss the subject in such cavalier fashion.

At breakfast the next morning, Paul proposed that they should visit an old logging camp that Joel had told him was located a few miles away.

“Of course it isn’t in operation now,” he said. “You’d have to visit it in winter to see it running full blast. But it will be interesting to see the bunk-houses and the flumes, and get an idea of the way the work is carried on.”

“We won’t have to do much walking,” said Jack. “Joel says that the road between here and there is a pretty good one for the cars. We can take our lunch along and make an all-day picnic of it.”

The girls fell into the plan with enthusiasm, and in a short time the cars were brought to the front of the house, and they were ready to start.

Joel stood by, looking on with lively curiosity, as Cora took the wheel.

“How about a little spin for a mile or two?” laughed Cora.

Joel grinned a little sheepishly.

“Come along,” urged Cora, “and I’ll show you what fast going is really like.”

“Better make your will, Joel,” laughed Jack. “That sister of mine is some speed demon.”

“I’m afraid it will put ye out in yer plans,” objected Joel, though it was plain he was tempted.

“Not a bit of it,” returned Cora cheerily. “We have all day before us. The rest will stay here, while you and I go down the road for a mile or two and back.”

Joel looked at Mrs. King, and as she smiled her approval, he climbed clumsily into the car and sat in the back seat. Cora threw in the clutch, and the car started off.

“Hold on to your hair, Joel,” Jack shouted after him.

The road was fairly good right there, and Cora increased the speed until the car was going well.

Joel gasped and held on tight to the sides of the car. He had never traveled on anything faster than the little narrow-gauge railroad train that wheezed along at about ten or fifteen miles an hour. Now he was moving at the rate of forty or more.

After about two miles had been covered, Cora eased up and prepared to turn the car.

“How about it, Joel?” she asked mischievously, as she straightened out for home.

“It’s – it’s scrumptious, miss!” gasped Joel, “but ain’t ye feared ye’ll wreck yer car? Doesn’t seem’s if anything on four wheels c’u’d stand it.”

“Don’t worry about that,” replied Cora, and again Joel was treated to a burst of speed that set his heart thumping violently against his ribs.

It was with a sigh of relief that he climbed down from the car when it had come to a full stop.

“Sufferin’ cats!” exclaimed the old backwoodsman, as he faced his grinning audience, “I’ve faced b’ars an’ painters an’ catamounts, but I wuz never so plumb skeered in all my life!

“An’ to think uv a gal havin’ the spunk to drive like that!” he muttered to himself, as he made his way back to the barn. “She suttinly is some gal!”

“A little rich for Joel’s blood, I guess,” laughed Jack, as the gay party started off.

“He’ll grow to like it, though,” prophesied Cora. “He’ll be ready for another one by the time we get back.”

The cars moved along now at a moderate pace, for they had ample time before them and were not at all anxious to reach their destination.

Suddenly Jack’s car, which was in advance, came to a full stop. He turned about and motioned for Cora to drive up as softly as possible.

“What is it?” she asked as she drew up alongside.

For answer, Jack pointed ahead, and the girls saw a big rattlesnake sunning himself in the road.

The girls gave a shriek that roused the snake. He reared his ugly triangular head, saw the cars, and with an angry rattle threw himself into position for attack or defense as the case might call for. His forked tongue played back and forth like lightning and his wicked eyes sparkled with rage.

“Beauty, isn’t he?” asked Jack.

“Oh, let’s get back!” cried Belle. “He may try to climb into the car!”

“A black snake does that sometimes, but a rattler never does,” declared Walter. “He’ll leave us alone if we leave him alone.”

“For goodness’ sake, leave him alone, then!” pleaded Bess.

“I’m going to get a closer look at him,” said Jack, preparing to jump from the car.

“Don’t, Jack, don’t!” cried Cora, and there was such fear in his sister’s voice that Jack yielded, though reluctantly.

“We’re not going to let him get away, are we?” he grumbled.

“Why not?” replied Cora. “He wasn’t doing anything to us.”

“He ought to be killed on general principles,” said Paul.

“He’s an enemy of the human race,” added Walter.

But this viewpoint did not appeal to the girls.

“He has a right to his life,” said tender-hearted Bess.

“To be sure he has,” acquiesced Belle. “Besides, you boys haven’t any weapons, and you might get bitten.”

“There are plenty of rocks and sticks around here to kill him with,” said Walter.

But the girls insisted, and while they were excitedly talking, the snake himself, seeing that he was not attacked, solved the matter by uncoiling and gliding away into the bushes at the side of the road.

“A perfectly good bunch of rattles gone to waste,” said Jack disgustedly, as they prepared to start on again.

“He’s given us a tip anyway to be on the lookout,” warned Walter. “Where there’s one there may be others. Joel says they’re not very plentiful about here, but he does run across them sometimes. I wonder what Joel would say if he knew we had a chance to kill one and didn’t do it.”

“It doesn’t matter what Joel thinks,” said Bess. “I’m glad we let him go.”

“You can’t help handing it to the old boy for pluck,” said Jack, with grudging admiration. “He was ready to fight the whole six of us.”

“If it had been a regiment, it would have been just the same,” remarked Paul.

“He kept that old buzzer of his working overtime,” laughed Walter. “No striking on the sly for him. He keeps telling you just what he hopes to do to you.”

“It’s the first time I’ve met a rattler under such circumstances, and I hope it will be the last,” said Bess.

“I guess his snakeship feels the same way about us, so honors are even,” laughed Paul.

The party kept a sharp lookout from that time on, but no other snakes were encountered, and a few minutes later the logging camp came into view.

CHAPTER XIII

A MOMENTOUS STEP

The camp, which consisted of a sawmill, an immense bunk-house capable of accommodating more than a hundred men, and a number of scattered outbuildings, was picturesquely located in a depression between two great hills. A mountain stream that came tearing down the side of one of the hills furnished power for the mill. Later on, some of its waters would be diverted to the giant flumes, down which the logs would come hurtling to the valley below.

Just now it was by no means the scene of busy life that it would become in the late fall and throughout the winter. Then would come the bearded lumberjacks, hardy, red-faced giants of the woods, Swedes, Norwegians, Irishmen, Frenchmen, hard workers, hard fighters, hard drinkers, and the wood would ring with the clang of axes and the crash of falling trees.

At present there was little work going on. The sawmill, with a small force of men, was running in a languid sort of way, clearing up some of the by-products of the season before. The camp might be said to be in a state of suspended animation.

A sort of deputy foreman who was in charge gave the party a cordial greeting and showed them about the various points of interest, explaining volubly the processes through which the lumber passed from the standing tree to the shaped and finished product of the mills.

“We’ve got only a small force working in the woods just now,” he explained. “They’re nicking the trees, so that the men will know which ones are to be cut down this coming fall and winter.”

“Sort of passing sentence of death, as it were,” said Jack.

“I suppose you might call it that,” smiled the foreman.

“It seems a pity that they should have to die,” said Cora, as her eyes took in the stately trees that decked the mountain side.

“Especially after what Mr. Morley was saying yesterday about the trees being alive,” remarked Bess.

“You girls are the limit,” laughed Paul. “First you let the snake go, and now you want to save the trees.”

“They’ll be afraid to pick a nosegay after a while for fear that the flowers will bleed,” mocked Jack.

“I wish my folks had believed in that plant theory when I was a kid,” drawled Walter. “Then I wouldn’t have had to weed the garden for fear of hurting the weeds.”

“There’s not a bit of poetry in you boys,” said Belle reproachfully.

“You’re mistaken there,” denied Paul. “We love beautiful things. If we didn’t we wouldn’t be chasing after you girls.”

There was only one other visitor to the camp, a sharp-eyed reticent man, who loitered about without betraying interest in anything especially. He made no attempt to join the party, but kept by himself.

“Who is our unsociable friend over there?” inquired Jack.

“I don’t know,” replied the foreman. “He’s been hanging around off and on for several days. He doesn’t talk much to the men, but he and I have chinned a little together. About all I know of him is that his name is Baxter. He doesn’t let on about his business.”

“Maybe he’s an author in search of local color,” hazarded Bess.

“More likely a detective,” remarked Jack. “You’d better look out, girls. He’s closing in upon you, knowing you are desperate criminals.”

After the foreman had left them, they climbed the slopes of the hill, and enjoyed the magnificent view from the summit. Then, as it was nearing noon, Jack suggested lunch.

“I’m keen to see what Aunt Betty has had put up for us,” he remarked, “and what I’ll do to it will be a sin and a shame.”

“Let’s go out into the woods to eat it,” suggested Cora.

“Isn’t this woods enough for you?” asked Paul, as he looked around.

“Not while we’re in sight of the mill,” returned Cora. “I want to go right out into the wild wilderness.”

“Mightn’t we get lost?” inquired Belle rather doubtfully.