Chapter 8 AN ANXIOUS NIGHT

Huddled together in the darkness, Phil and Madge endeavored to relieve the strain of the situation by talking, but the very sound of their voices dismayed them and they became silent. Finally Eleanor, who had been leaning against Madge's shoulder, laid her head in her cousin's lap and went to sleep. A little later Lillian, after receiving Madge's assurance that she and Phil intended to keep watch, went to sleep also.

"Madge," Phil's voice trembled a little, "what do you suppose poor Miss Jones will think? She won't have the least idea in which direction to look for us. Goodness knows how long we may have to stay here. We may never get out." Her voice sank to a whisper.

"Why, Phil," Madge feigned a hopefulness which she did not feel, "I am surprised at you. You haven't given up hope. It is just the darkness and being hungry that makes things appear so dreadful. I have been thinking about our plight, and when daylight comes I am going to try to climb up the wall to the window. The mud has broken away between some of the logs, so that I can get my foot in the opening. We shall have to dig it away in other places too."

"But what can we dig with, Madge? We haven't a knife."

"With our fingers and hairpins, if we must, Phil. Sh-sh, Nellie is waking. I want her to sleep on till daylight."

Toward morning, however, the two girls' eyes closed wearily. In spite of their resolve to keep awake, the gray dawn creeping in at the windows found them fast asleep. It was Phil who first opened her eyes. She touched Madge, who sat up with a start, then springing to her feet exclaimed, "I'm so glad it's morning. Now for my great circus stunt."

"You can't possibly climb up there without hurting yourself, Madge. You will surely fall," expostulated Eleanor. "Please, please don't try it."

"Please don't discourage me, Nellie. It is the only way I know to get out of this dreadful place. Phil, if you will try to brace me, I can climb up and dig in the mud farther up."

Eleanor was feeling down in her pocket. Suddenly she gave a little cry of surprise. "O, girls! I have something that may help. Here is a little pair of scissors. You can dig with them, Madge."

The girls hailed the scissors with exclamations of joy. They were very small embroidery scissors, but they were better than nothing.

Lillian, who was bent on a foraging expedition around the room, came back a moment later with a few big, rusty nails and an old brick she had picked up out of the tumbled down fireplace. "If you can hammer these nails in the wall, Madge, you will have something to hold on to as you climb."

For two hours Madge alternately dug and climbed. In each hole that she made between the big logs she would set her foot, then hammer a nail above her head and dig a new opening. At last she actually did climb up the side of the wall, but her hands were scratched and bleeding, and her hair and face were covered with mud. She had taken off her dress skirt, too, as she could climb better in her petticoat.

The three girls below held their breath when she came to the final stretch, and let go the last rickety nail to fling herself on to the window sill.

"Eureka, girls!" she called down cheerfully, when she got her breath. She was holding tightly to the window frame with both hands and endeavoring to make her voice sound gay, though she was nearly worn out with the fatigue of her dangerous climb. "Now I shall surely find a way out for us. Please don't be frightened, Nellie, darling, if I have to jump. It is not so bad." She gave a little inward shudder as she looked through the tiny window frame. She could easily wrench the broken bars away. That was not the trouble. But the window was so small and the sill so narrow that Madge realized she could not get into the proper position for a forward spring. However, she had made up her mind; she might break her leg, or her arm, but she would open that barred door if she died in doing it.

With determined hands she wrenched at one of the window bars. It gave way. She seized hold of another, clinging to the sill with her other hand, her feet in their insecure resting places.

"It's all right, chilluns," she smiled, as she swung herself up to the window, "I'm going to jump."

Eleanor had closed her eyes. Phil and Lillian watched their friend, sick with apprehension.

Madge gave one look down at the ground, at least fourteen feet below her. Then she uttered a quick, sharp cry, and dropped back to her resting place, her feet, almost by instinct, finding the open spaces in the wall.

"Come down, Madge," called Phil sharply. "I was afraid you'd find the distance too great. Don't try it again."

"No, no, it is not that," replied Madge, gazing through the window. "I don't believe I shall have to jump. I am sure some one is near."

Sniffing the ground, near the side of the cabin, she had spied a dog with a soft brown nose, a shaggy, red brown body and a tail standing out tense and straight. It was a brown setter, and Madge knew he was probably hunting for woodchucks. Surely the presence of the dog meant a master somewhere near.

Her tired, eager eyes strained through the thick foliage of the woods they had traversed so happily only the afternoon before.

Yes, there was a man's figure! He was coming nearer. A young man in a hunting jacket, with a gun swung over his shoulder, was tramping along, with his eyes on the ground.

A pleading voice apparently came from the sky: "Please unbar the door of this old cabin. We are locked inside."

The young man stopped short. He took off his cap and ran his hand through his thick, light hair. He was too old to believe in fairies or elves. But he heard the voice again even more distinctly. "Oh, don't go away! Do open the log cabin door."

The young man looked up. There was a little, white face as wan and pale as the early daylight, with an aureole of dark red curls around it, staring at him through the broken window frame of the old log cabin that he had seen deserted a dozen times in his hunting trips through these woods.

"If there is some one really calling to me, please wave your hand three times from that window, so I will know you are not a spook," called the young man, "otherwise I may be afraid to open the door."

"I can't wave. I shall fall if I let go the window sill," answered Madge, trying to keep from bursting into tears. "Please don't wait any longer. We have been locked in all night."

The stranger drew back the heavy wooden bolt. He started when he saw three white-faced girls staring at him. But the face he had seen at the window was not among them. Clinging to the old window frame, her slender feet stuck in the cracks between the logs, was the witch who had summoned him to their rescue.

"Won't you please come help me down, Phil?" asked a plaintive voice.

"Just let go the window frame and drop," ordered the stranger quietly. "Don't be afraid. It is the only possible way."

Without hesitating Madge did as directed. "Thank you," she said coolly, when she got her breath. Then she staggered a little, and Phyllis and the young man who had come to their rescue caught her.

"We have been locked in so long," explained Phil. "No, we have not the least idea who could have played such a trick on us. We arrived in this neighborhood only yesterday afternoon."

Phil gave a short history of the houseboat, introducing her three friends and herself to him. "We must return to our chaperon at once," she added. "The poor woman will be dreadfully worried. Do you girls feel strong enough to walk? You see"-this time Phil turned to their rescuer-"it is not only that we have been shut up here for nearly fourteen hours, we are so hungry! We have had nothing to eat since yesterday at luncheon."

"Your poor, starving girls!" exclaimed their liberator, reproachfully. "At last I am convinced you are not fairies. And for once I am glad that my mother is always certain that I am on the point of starving."

He reached back into his pocket and brought out a package and a flask. "Here is some good, strong coffee. I am sorry it is cold, but it is better than nothing." He turned to Madge, who looked exhausted.

She shook her head, though she gazed at the flask wistfully. "I won't drink first. I don't need it as much as the other girls."

Eleanor took the bottle from his hands and held it to Madge's lips. The exhausted girl took a long drink. Then the others followed suit, while the young man watched them, smiling with satisfaction. He was tall and strong, and not particularly handsome, but he had fine brown eyes, a firm chin and thick, curly, light hair. After the girls had finished the coffee he broke open his package of sandwiches and found exactly four inside.

"Please take them," he urged, handing the open package to Lillian.

"We mustn't take them from you," protested Lillian. "We thank you for the coffee. That will do nicely until we get back to our boat."

The stranger laughed. "See here," he protested, "not an hour ago, when I left the hotel, where my mother and I are spending the summer, I ate three eggs, much bacon, four Maryland biscuit and drank two cups of coffee. Fragile creature that I am, I believe I can exist on that amount of refreshment for another hour or so. But whenever I go out on a few hours' hunting trip, my mother insists that the steward at the hotel put me up a luncheon. She is forever imagining that I am likely to get lost and starve, a modern 'Babe in the Woods,' you know. By the way, I haven't introduced myself. My name is Curtis, Thomas Stevenson Curtis, if you please, but I am more used to plain, everyday Tom."

The girls acknowledged the introduction, then by common consent they began walking away from the cabin.

A short distance was traversed in silence, then Madge said abruptly, "Who do you suppose locked us in, Mr. Curtis?"

"I don't know," answered Tom Curtis darkly, clenching his fist. "But wouldn't I like to find out! Have you an enemy about here?"

Madge shook her head. "No; as I said, we came to the neighborhood only yesterday. We have met only the farmer and his wife, who allowed us to land."

"I'll make it my business to find out who served you such a dastardly trick, Miss Morton," Tom returned. "I expect to be in this neighborhood all summer. My mother isn't very well, and we like this quiet place. Our home is in New York. I was a freshman last year at Columbia."

Only the day before Tom Curtis had informed his mother that he found the neighborhood too slow, and that if she didn't object he would be glad to move on. But a great deal can happen in a short time to make a young man of twenty change his mind.

"Thank you," replied Madge sedately. "I'll be on the lookout for the wretch, too. Now we must hurry back to our chaperon, Miss Jones. I won't ask you to come with us this morning, but we shall be very glad to have you come aboard our boat to-morrow. We haven't named her yet, but she is so white and clean and new looking that you can't possibly mistake her. She is lying on an arm of the bay just south of these woods."

"I'll surely avail myself of the invitation," smiled Tom Curtis as they paused for a moment at the edge of the woods. Below them the blue waters of the bay gleamed in the sunshine. And yes, there was their beloved "Ship of Dreams."

"Oh, you can see her from here!" exclaimed Madge, her eyes dancing with the pride of possession. "See, Mr. Curtis, it is our very own 'Ship of Dreams' until we give her a real name."

"She's a beauty," said Tom Curtis warmly, "and I really must have a closer look at her."

"Then come to see us soon," invited Phil audaciously.

"I will, you may be certain of it. Good-bye. I hope you won't suffer any bad effects from your strenuous night." The young man raised his cap and, whistling to his dog, strode off down the hill.

"What a nice boy," commented Lillian.

Madge, however, was not thinking of Tom Curtis; her mind dwelt upon their chaperon, and the long, anxious night she had spent alone on the houseboat.

Poor Miss Jones! Her vigil had indeed been a patient one. From the time the hands of the little cabin clock had pointed to the hour of six she had anxiously awaited the girls. She had cooked the dinner, then set it in the oven to warm. At seven o'clock she trudged up the hill to the farmhouse to make inquiries. No one had seen the young women since they passed through the fields early that afternoon. At nine o'clock a party of farmers scoured the country side, but the extreme darkness of the night had caused the young men to discontinue their search until daylight.

At dawn Miss Jones flung herself down on her berth, utterly exhausted. She would rest until the search party started out again, then she would hurry to the nearest town and inform the authorities of the strange disappearance of the girls. As she lay with half-closed eyes trying to imagine just what could possibly have happened to her charges, a familiar call broke upon her ears that caused her to spring up from her berth in wonder.

"We've come to see Miss Jennie Ann Jones," caroled a voice, and in the next instant the bewildered teacher was surrounded by four tired but smiling girls.

"We were locked up all night in a log cabin in the woods," began Madge. "Do say you are glad to see us and give us some breakfast, Miss Jennie Ann Jones, for we were never so hungry in all our lives before, and as soon as we have something to eat, we'll tell you the strangest story you ever heard."

With her arm thrown across the teacher's shoulders Madge made her way to the houseboat, followed by her friends. At that moment, to the little, impulsive girl, Miss Jennie Ann Jones seemed particularly dear, in spite of her mysterious ways, and Madge made mental resolve to try to believe in their chaperon, no matter what happened.