Chapter 10 ISLAND ADVENTURES

The Marigold loafed along within sight of the beaches that evening and the girls and their friends reclined in the deck-chairs and watched the parti-colored electric lights that wreathed the shore-front. Jessie was careful to keep Henrietta near by. She began to realize that looking after the freckle-faced little girl was going to be something of a trial.

Henrietta finally grew sleepy and Jessie and Amy took her below, helped her undress, and tucked her into a berth. The Roselawn girls' mothers were much amused by this. Their daughters had taken a task upon themselves that would, as Mrs. Norwood said, teach them something.

"And it will not hurt them," Mrs. Drew agreed, with an answering smile. "Amy, especially, needs to know what 'duty' means."

"Anyway, we'll know where she is while she is asleep," Jessie said to her chum, as they left the little girl.

"If she isn't a somnambulist," chuckled Amy. "We forgot to ask Mrs. Foley or Bertha that."

The ground swell lulled the girls to sleep that night, and even Henrietta did not awake until the first breakfast call in the morning. Through the port-light Jessie and Amy saw Burd Alling "bursting his cheeks with sound" as he essayed the changes on the key-bugle.

The Marigold was slipping along the coast easily, with the northern end of Station Island already in sight. The castle-like hotel sprawled all over the headland, but the widest bathing beach was just below it. Next were the premises of the Hackle Island Gold Club, with its pastures, shrubberies, and several water-holes. It was to a part of these enclosed premises that Mr. Norwood said little Henrietta Haney was laying claim.

"And I believe she will get it in time. Most of the land on which those summer houses beyond the golf course stand is also within the lines of the Padriac Haney place."

He explained this to them while they all paced the deck after breakfast. The yacht was headed in toward the dock near the bungalows, some of which were very cheaply built and stood upon stilts near the shore.

The tall gray staff of the abandoned lighthouse was the landmark at the extreme southern end of the island. The sending and receiving station of the commercial wireless company was at the lighthouse, and the party aboard the Marigold could see the very tall antenna connected therewith.

The yacht landed the party and their baggage about ten o'clock. Mrs. Norwood's servants were at hand to help, and a decrepit express wagon belonging to a "native" aided in the transportation of the goods to the big bungalow which was some rods back from the shore. There were no automobiles on the island.

"Is this my house?" Henrietta demanded the moment she learned which dwelling the party of vacationists would occupy.

"It may prove to be your house in the end," Jessie told her.

"When's the end?" was the blunt query. "How long do I have to wait?"

"We can't tell that. My mother has the house for the summer. She has hired it for us all to live in."

"Who does she pay? Do I get any of the money?" continued the little girl. "If this island is going to be mine some time, why not now? Why wait for something that is mine?"

It was very difficult for Jessie and Amy to make her understand the situation. In fact, she began to feel and express doubts about the attempt that was being made to discover and settle the legal phases of the Padriac Haney estate.

"If I don't get my money and my island pretty soon somebody else will get it instead," was the little girl's confident statement.

"Oh, Jess!" exclaimed Amy under her breath, "suppose that should be so. You know Belle Ringold's father is trying to prove his title to the same property."

"Hush!" said Jessie. "Don't let little Hen hear about that. She is getting hard to manage as it is. Henrietta! Where are you going now?" she called after the little girl.

"I'm going out to take a look at some of my island," declared the child, as she banged the screen door.

"She's sure to get into trouble," Jessie observed, sighing.

"Oh, let her go," Amy declared. "Why worry? You can't watch her every minute we are here. She can't very well fall overboard from this island."

"I don't know. She manages to do the most unexpected things," said Jessie.

But there was so much to do in helping settle things and make the sparsely furnished bungalow comfortable that Jessie did not think for a while about Henrietta. Besides, she was desirous of setting up the radio instruments at once and stringing the antenna.

Darry and Burd helped the girls do this last. They worked hard, for they had first of all to plant in the sands some distance from the house an old mast that Mr. Norwood bought so as to erect the wires at least thirty feet above the ground.

The antenna were not completed at nightfall. Then, of a sudden, everybody began to wonder about Henrietta. Where was she? It was remembered that she had not been seen during most of the afternoon.

"Oh, dear!" worried Jessie. "It is my fault. I should not have let her go out alone that time, Amy."

"She said she wanted to see her island, I remember," admitted her chum, with some gravity. "And this island is a pretty big place, and it is growing dark."

"She could not get into any trouble if she stayed on Hackle Island," declared Darry. "What a kid!"

"And she certainly couldn't have got off it," suggested Burd.

"We must look around for her," said Jessie, with conviction. "Don't tell Momsy. She will worry. She thinks I have had my eye on the child all the time."

"You certainly would have what they call a roving eye if you managed to keep it on Henrietta," giggled Burd Alling. "She darts about like a swallow."

Jessie felt it to be no joking matter. The four young people separated and went in different directions to hunt for the missing child. Station, or Hackle, Island at this end was mostly sand dunes or open flats. A little sparse grass grew in bunches, and there were clumps of beach plum bushes. Towards the golf course the land was higher and there real lawn and trees of some size were growing.

The low sand dunes stretched in gray windrows right across the island. Jessie tried to think what might have first attracted Henrietta at this end of the island. She did not believe that she would go far from the bungalow, although Amy wanted to start at once for the hotel. That was the object that attracted her first of all.

Jessie ran toward the far side of the island. It was growing dark and everything on both sea and shore looked gray and misty. The seabirds swept overhead and whistled mournfully. Jessie shouted Henrietta's name as she ran.

But she began to labor up and down the sand dunes with difficulty. It frightened Jessie Norwood very much whenever Henrietta got into mischief or into danger. No knowing what harm might come to her on this lonely part of Station Island.

Nor was this fear in Jessie's mind bred entirely by the feeling that it was her duty to look out for Henrietta. The child was an appealing little creature, though she had had little chance in the world thus far to develop her better and worthier qualities. The pity that Jessie Norwood had felt for the untamed girl at first was now blossoming into love.

"What would I ever say to Bertha and Mrs. Foley if anything happened to the child!" Jessie murmured.