The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point
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Laura Lee Hope >> The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point
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"I'm sorry," Betty was saying, her voice still tremulous from the
sudden fright she had received. "I thought--"
"Yes, an' I thought too," he interrupted, in a gruff, rude tone that
whipped the color to her face. "It would be a heap better if some
folks'd think before they done things. Durned old gasoline wagons."
And, still muttering, the angry man turned and whipped up his team while
the girls stared after him dumbly.
CHAPTER XIII
OUTWITTING A CRANK
"Old grouch," cried Mollie, shaking a vindictive little fist after the
departing farmer. "If it hadn't been that you would have killed yourself
too, Betty, I almost wish you had hit him."
"Well, I don't," said Grace ruefully. "Nobody ever thinks of poor me."
"I guess we had better be a little more careful in the future," said
Mrs. Ford, a worried line between her brows. "Better to be a little
longer reaching Bluff Point than to endanger our lives and perhaps the
lives of others."
"It almost looks as if we shouldn't have any choice," said Mollie, and
they looked at her in surprise.
"Well, we can't hope to pass that wagon," she explained, indicating the
vehicle that was now some hundred feet in front and was waddling along
at a snail's pace. "There isn't room, with the ditch on one side and the
drop on the other."
"It will be easy enough if he moves to one side of the road," suggested
Amy.
"He'll move over if we toot at him," added Grace.
But Mollie shook her head doubtfully.
"I'm not so sure," she said. "It would be just like him to try to get
even with us by blocking the road."
"Get even with us?" repeated Betty indignantly. "I might just as well
say I want to get even with him for being in the road when I wanted to
pass. How ridiculous."
"Of course it's ridiculous. That's probably the reason he would think of
it," insisted Mollie. "I know these farmers," she added, nodding darkly.
They laughed at her, and Betty cried gayly: "Well, we won't get anywhere
by standing here in the road. I move we follow the old fellow and see
what he's up to. And if he gets too ridiculous," she added, as she
climbed back into the car, "I know how I'll fix him."
"How?" they asked.
"I'll bump him," she responded ferociously, and amid more fun and
laughter they climbed back into the cars and started on again.
"You know, even his back looks stubborn," remarked Grace, when, coming
close to the wagon and tooting the horn vigorously, the driver refused
to budge from the middle of the road. "I guess perhaps you will have to
carry out your threat, Betty."
"Well, I declare if I won't," exclaimed the Little Captain, her cheeks
flushing and her eyes blazing at the stubborn insolence of the man. "It
would give me great pleasure to bump him clear down the side of the
mountain."
"It's getting late, too," worried Grace. "Can't you do something,
Betty?"
"Will you please suggest something?" cried Betty, exasperated. "There's
nothing in the rules for driving a machine that covers this difficulty.
I don't know what to do, unless-- Did you bring the pistol?"
Grace started.
"Goodness! you're not going to kill him are you?"
"Not unless I have to," replied Betty, and at her expression, Grace
laughed weakly.
"Yes, I brought the pistol," she said. "But it's down in the bottom of
the bag that is underneath all the other bags in the tonneau of Mollie's
car."
Betty groaned.
"And it isn't even loaded," added Grace, as an afterthought. "Mother
said it made her feel safer to have it along since there aren't going to
be any men with us, but she wouldn't have it loaded."
"What good is it then?" queried Betty.
"Just to scare people with."
"Well, that's what I want to do to that--man," cried Betty, trying to
think of something bad enough to call the cranky farmer, who still urged
his team along squarely in the middle of the road and refused to give an
inch. "Only I'd like to scare him to death. My conscience wouldn't even
hurt."
"It would be murder just the same," Grace suggested, with a little
hysterical laugh, "whether you shot him or scared him to death."
Betty was silent for a minute or two, crawling along behind the wagon
while her blood boiled and her anger surged. For Betty came from a race
of fighting ancestors who were not in the habit of submitting to
indignities.
"Grace, I've got to do something!" she burst out at last, gripping the
wheel so tightly her knuckles showed white. "It isn't so much the
valuable time we're losing, but it's an absolute necessity to show that
fellow where he--"
"'Where he gets off,'" Grace finished slangily. "I know dear, but how?"
Betty shook her head helplessly and just glared.
Then suddenly Grace uttered a little cry and sat up straight in her
seat.
"I have it!" she cried. "I know what we can do."
"Tell me," demanded Betty.
"Why, I know this road pretty well," Grace explained, speaking quickly.
"We're not much more than ten miles from Bluff Point."
"Yes, yes," cried Betty impatiently.
"Well, there is a short detour road that juts off from the main road
just a little further on, and after running parallel to the road for
half a mile or so, crosses it again."
"Yes," cried Betty again, beginning to understand the plot.
"So we'll take the detour," Grace finished triumphantly, "and come out,
in front of the farmer."
"And then--" said Betty with a chuckle and a gleam in her eye.
"The rest will be up to us," finished Grace. "Shall we know what to do
then?"
"I'll say we shall," chortled Betty, adding with a glance over her
shoulder at Mollie's car that was creeping along some twenty feet behind
them: "Of course the next thing will be to tell Mollie. Will you run
back Grace?"
For once Grace did not object, and without waiting for Betty to stop the
car, and indeed it was hardly necessary at the rate they were going,
jumped out and ran back, waving an excited hand at Mollie.
Betty heard a whoop of delight from the rear, and in a minute Grace was
back in her place.
"How far is it from here?" asked Betty, scanning the road ahead eagerly.
"I hope," she added, as a horrid fear assailed her, "that he doesn't
turn off on to the other road, too."
"Heavens, I hope not! Oh, there it is!" she cried a moment later, as a
turn in the winding road brought the crossroads to view. "Now, if he
only doesn't turn down it!"
Eagerly they watched and drew a sigh of relief as the driver jogged
steadily on down the main road.
"Now's our chance," exulted Betty, as she changed gears with a
challenging roar and slipped off merrily down the detour road.
Sullenly the driver watched them go and then with a shrug of his
shoulders, turned once more to his team.
Gayly the two cars sped along the road, bearing four Outdoor Girls bent
upon revenge. The going was rough and bumpy, far worse than the main
road, but the girls never noticed it.
"That was one time Grace had a good idea," Mollie was exulting as they
flew along. "I never thought she was particularly brilliant before, but
I have changed my mind." Then catching Mrs. Ford's eye, she added with a
little laugh: "You see that's the way Grace and I talk about each other.
Only," plaintively, "she says much worse things about me!"
"It will be fun," cried Amy, her eyes shining with anticipation, "to get
in front of him and give that old crank a taste of his own medicine."
"He certainly deserves it," agreed Mrs. Ford, for she was as indignant
as the girls at the man's insolence. "Didn't Grace say something about
pretending we were stalled?"
"She did," cried Mollie gleefully. "And as luck, I mean bad luck, will
have it, the mean old engine will choose the very center of the road to
do it's stalling in. Bless it's little old heart," and even Mrs. Ford
chuckled with her.
As Grace had said, the detour was not over half a mile long, and they
soon came out on the main road again. Then they backed the cars several
hundred feet down the road so as to effectually block all passage.
Betty tooted gleefully to Mollie, and Mollie tooted gleefully back
again. Then they jumped from the machines and met in the middle of the
road for a consultation.
"He will be coming in sight any minute now," Betty explained hurriedly,
"so we must decide on some definite plan of action."
"That's easy," said Mollie. "One of us will get down underneath the
machine and pretend to be tinkering--"
"Goodness, that lets me out," said Grace in dismay. "I wouldn't get down
in the dirt for fifty idiotic wagon drivers."
"Well, nobody's asking you to," cried Mollie impatiently. "I fully
intend to put on my overalls and do it myself."
"Better hurry up," cried Amy, who had been glancing uneasily down the
road. "He may come along any minute now and we don't want him to catch
us here."
So amid much hilarity and giggling Mollie got into the begrimed overalls
and proceeded to wriggle her small self beneath the car.
"I hope he hurries," she cried in a muffled voice. "It isn't exactly
what you might call comfortable down here. Betty, get off my foot," as
Grace wickedly stepped on her toes.
"Just hear her," cried Betty plaintively. "Everything just naturally
gets blamed on me."
"Well, if you didn't, who did?" queried Mollie fiercely. "Tell me her
name--"
"Betty, Betty, don't give me away," pleaded Grace, at which the girls
laughed while a satisfied chuckle came from under the car.
"I knew I'd find the guilty one," Mollie was beginning when Betty cut
her short with a warning cry.
"He's coming," she said, adding, as she vainly tried to straighten the
corners of her mischievous mouth: "And please remember, girls, this is a
very solemn occasion!"
CHAPTER XIV
BLUFF POINT AT LAST
Very anxious the Outdoor Girls looked as the grouchy old farmer came
toward them. Mollie was making all sorts of noises under the car,
apparently tinkering with its mechanism, while the girls kept up a
running fire of questions.
"What is the matter, Mollie?"
"Can't you find the trouble?"
"Better let me get under and take a look."
"If we don't get started pretty soon, we'll not get to Bluff Point
before dark."
These and other remarks like them met the suspicious ears of the driver
as he jerked his team to a standstill.
"Hey, what's the matter with you?" he hailed them. "Have you got to
stand right in the middle of the road? Can't you move over some?"
At this Mollie wriggled out from under the car and stood up, facing him.
Her face was flushed from restrained mirth, but it might well have been
the flush of indignation.
"If we could don't you suppose we would?" she queried, rather
incoherently. "Do you think I'm doing this for fun?" Then she abruptly
disappeared from sight again. The abruptness was caused by the terrible
fear that if she stood looking at that sour old visage another moment
she would have to spoil everything by laughing.
As for the other girls, they were slowly turning purple in an effort to
maintain the solemnity demanded by the occasion. A strange noise from
beneath the car, promptly followed by a choked cough, didn't help them
any, and they were relieved when their victim turned his suspicious gaze
from them to the shallow ditch at the side of the road which was still
muddy from the rain of the night before. The only hope he had of getting
around them was to drive through this mud.
Without a word or a glance in their direction, he whipped up his team
and started for the ditch. This was something the girls had not
foreseen, and they were of no mind to let him get ahead of them again.
Grace and Amy flashed a distress signal to Betty, who stooped over
Mollie's feet, the feet being all that could be seen of her, and cried
with a peculiar inflection:
"I think you must have found the trouble by this time, Mollie, haven't
you?"
Mollie took the hint and scrambled hurriedly to her feet.
"I think so," she said, then as her eyes swiftly took in the
situation--the grim old man already struggling through the ditch intent
on getting ahead of them--she jumped to her seat and started the engine.
"All right," she cried gayly. "Come on, girls, jump in."
The girls jumped in with alacrity and Betty and Grace ran to the car in
front. Then while the man whipped up his horses and called to them in
terms far from gentle, the two cars sprang forward and were off down the
road.
They turned once, to find the man urging his team to the road and
shaking his fist after the "gasoline wagons." The girls waved to him
merrily, before the turn in the road shut him from sight.
"I guess that will teach him a lesson," said Grace, settling back
comfortably.
"Shouldn't wonder," agreed Betty absently, adding with a rueful little
smile. "It was great fun, of course, but I hope we shan't meet many more
of his kind, or we'll never get to Bluff Point."
"We're almost there now," said Grace. "All this part of the country is
almost as familiar to me as Deepdale. When I was a little kiddie, I used
almost to live with Aunt Mary."
"It's wonderful how little children love the woods and brooks and all
wild things," mused Betty, adding, as the picture of Dodo and Paul,
hiding in the machines and begging to be taken along, came back to her:
"I almost wish we could have brought the twins with us. They would have
so loved it."
"And we would have spent all our time trying to keep them from falling
into the ocean," added Grace dryly. "Besides," she added, "I don't
believe Mrs. Billette would have let them come. They are such little
mischiefs, and she is always afraid something will happen to them."
"Yes, and they're good company for her," agreed Betty thoughtfully;
"especially when Mollie is away."
After a few minutes of silence Grace suddenly clutched Betty's arm,
making the Little Captain jump.
"Betty," cried the former excitedly, "we're almost there. Just around
that curve--"
"Well, you needn't scare me to death," protested Betty, taking one hand
from the wheel to rub the arm Grace had clutched.
"But I love it so," Grace cried, standing up only to be jerked back into
her seat as Betty swung round the curve. "It's such a wonderful place!"
"Is that it up on the hill?"
"Yes," answered Grace, standing up in earnest now. "Turn up the
drive--it leads to the garage at the back. And, Betty, the house stands
on a little bluff looking out over the ocean. Do you hear it--the ocean
I mean, not the house, Silly!"
The road that they had traveled from Deepdale to Bluff Point had led
across country, Deepdale being in the interior, so that the girls had
scarcely realized how close they were coming to the coast.
Now, as Betty stopped the car at the back of the quaint little cottage,
that sound of romance and mystery, the soft lapping of water with the
deeper undertone of waves against rock came up to her and she threw back
her head with a little bubbling laugh.
"I don't wonder you love it, Gracie dear," she said. "I do already. It's
glorious."
They jumped out and ran back to meet Mollie's car, which was puffing
like an old man up the steep grade.
"The ocean! The ocean!" cried Betty ecstatically, as she opened the
doors and the girls tumbled out. "Do you smell it? Do you hear it? Oh,
girls, hurry up, I can't wait to feel it!"
"Goodness, are you going to commit suicide?" cried Mollie. "If that's
what you want, I don't see why you bothered to come away up here."
"Mother, Mother, give me the key, quick," demanded Grace, as they ran
around the side of the house and Betty made a face at Mollie. "You
haven't forgotten it, have you?"
"No, I tied it on a ribbon around my neck," said Mrs. Ford, with a
smile. "I had no intention of forgetting it. Here it is."
"Thank you."
Grace fitted the key in the lock and opened the door, but when she
turned, expecting to find the girls at her back, she found that they had
deserted her.
They were standing, gazing out over a gleaming white stretch of sand to
the shimmering water beyond, absolutely oblivious to everything but the
beauty of the scene.
The bluff on which they stood sloped gently down to the beach below.
Once down there, the girls knew they would feel as though they were
isolated from all the rest of the world, for the beach was in the form
of a semi-circle, surrounded on three sides by rocky bluffs and blocked
off in front by the ocean.
"How beautiful!" breathed Betty, as Grace stole up and joined them.
"We've seen a great many wonderful views, but I never saw one to equal
this. Just look at the reflection of the sun out there."
"Blood red," murmured Mollie. "That looks like a hot day to-morrow."
"All the more excuse for taking a swim," put in Amy, adding longingly:
"I wish it weren't too late now."
"I'm afraid it is," said Mrs. Ford, seizing her opportunity. "We still
have to put the cars away and get our provisions and cook supper--"
"Who said 'supper'?" Mollie demanded hungrily. "Mrs. Ford," she added,
as they started for the house, "won't you please make Betty make some
biscuits?"
"But you make as good biscuits as I do," protested Betty.
"No, I don't, Darling," denied Mollie, putting an arm about her chum.
"And, anyway," she added convincingly, "I can eat more when I don't have
to make them!"
The girls were almost as pleased with the interior of the house as they
had been with its surroundings. There were odd little passages and
unexpected window seats such as Betty had dreamed of having in her own
little home some day.
The thought brought back the picture of Allen as he had gone away,
gallant, hopeful, brave--oh, so brave--and involuntarily she uttered a
little sigh.
"Please don't do that," said Grace, as they entered the room they were
to have together. "I'm trying my best not to be as gloomy as I feel. But
if you begin to sigh, I'll just have to give up and spoil the party."
"I won't," said Betty, trying a little smile before the mirror and doing
it pretty successfully. "I didn't mean to that time, only, I was--just
thinking."
"I know," said Grace a little petulantly, as she pulled off her hat and
threw it on the bed. "It seems to me that's all I'm ever doing--'just
thinking.' If I could only really do something! Some time I'll scream
aloud!"
"Well, don't you think we're all pretty much in the same fix?" suggested
Betty gently, coming over and putting an arm about her.
"I suppose so," she answered, eyes fixed moodily on the floor. "Only the
rest of you have only one to worry about, while I--" she stopped,
flushed, and began letting down her thick hair. "If I could only cry!"
"I imagine that might help us all," said Betty wistfully, adding, with a
touch of her old gayety: "Perhaps I can arrange it after supper."
"What?" asked Grace.
"A cry party," she answered, and the absurdity of it made them both
laugh.
In spite of the shadow hanging over them, dinner that night was a great
success. Everybody pitched in, and, having acquired ravenous appetites
on their long ride, did the cooking in record time, and of course
everything tasted ambrosial.
After dinner they wandered out on the veranda, which was almost as big
as the rest of the house put together. It was a wonderful night, with
the moon so bright that it shed a magic silver radiance over everything
while the lapping of the water came softly up to them.
Suddenly Mollie's hand slipped into Betty's where they stood together
looking out.
"On such a night as this," breathed Mollie, scarcely above a whisper,
"there should be nothing but peace in the world."
"Should be--yes," agreed Betty, a little bitterly. "But things are not
always as they should be!"
CHAPTER XV
THE TELEGRAM
The morning dawned gloriously bright, and at the first ray of the sun
the girls were up and dressed and ready for the fun of the day.
"I don't know what I'll do if our trunks don't come," worried Amy, as
she took a rather creased white skirt and waist from her suitcase. "I
brought only one change and a bathing suit."
"Well, as long as you brought the bathing suit, it's all right,"
returned Mollie, sticking one last pin in her hair. "I intend to live in
mine to-day."
"And, anyway, we can't possibly expect the trunks till this afternoon,"
put in Grace; "so I don't see any use in worrying about them now."
"If they don't come to-day, either Mollie or I will go down to the
station and see about them," offered Betty, who was looking as sweet and
fresh as the morning itself. "We'll probably have to go down and get
them anyway, since we expressed them through by train and came by motor
ourselves."
"Oh, well, who cares," cried Mollie, stretching her arms above her head
and breathing deep of the salt-laden air. "When we get down on that
wonderful beach, that looks too good to be true, we'll be away from all
the rest of the world and we won't need any clothes but a bathing suit."
"Mother's up," cried Grace, as they stepped out into the hall and
smelled the welcome aroma of coffee. "I thought I heard somebody go
downstairs a little while ago."
"But we shouldn't have let her get the breakfast," cried Betty. "We
brought her up here for a rest, not to wait on us."
"She probably didn't sleep very well," said Grace, thinking of Will. "It
really isn't any wonder."
However, Mrs. Ford greeted the girls with a bright smile when they
entered the kitchen, and when they remonstrated with her for getting up
so early she merely laughed at them.
"Why, I haven't cooked for so long, it's just fun for me," she said
lightly, but Grace's loving eyes saw how pale she looked and how sad her
eyes were when she was not smiling.
"Game little mother," she whispered to herself.
However, after they had cleared the remains of a remarkably good
breakfast away, they asked Mrs. Ford to put on her own bathing suit and
take a dip with them.
After a minute's hesitation she agreed, and they ran upstairs eagerly to
get ready. They all had black suits, and all but Grace wore snug-fitting
rubber caps, designed more for use than looks. Grace wore a rakish
little Scottish cap affair that was immensely becoming but not at all
comfortable to swim in.
"How do I look?" she demanded complacently, when she turned from a
prolonged survey of herself in the mirror and pirouetted slowly before
them.
"Beautiful, but foolish," Mollie commented succinctly.
"Do you really expect to swim in it, dear?" asked Amy mildly.
"The effect would be altogether stunning," suggested Betty judicially,
her head on one side, "if you cocked it just a little further over one
eye so as to obscure the sight completely."
There was a ripple of laughter.
"Oh, you're all jealous," remarked Grace, not at all disturbed as she
turned back to the mirror once more to pull a curl a little more
fetchingly over her ear. "I might have known you would be."
"Goodness, anybody would think she was at Palm Beach or some other show
place," cried Mollie, pulling her own plain little cap a trifle lower
over her ears. "If you expect an audience, Gracie, I'm afraid you will
be disappointed."
"Here I am, trying to give you something good to look at--"
But they would hear no more and hustled her with scant ceremony away
from the mirror and out of the door.
"Come on!" cried Betty, taking the stairs two at a time. "Let's see who
gets to the water first. I'm betting nine to one on myself."
"Goodness, she's as conceited as you are, Gracie," gasped Mollie,
following hard on Betty's footsteps. "Here's my chance to take some of
it out of her!"
Grace and Amy, following at not quite such breakneck speed, came out on
the porch in time to see two slender, black-clad figures with vivid red
and green caps scrambling down the side of the bluff that led to the
beach.
As they started after them Mrs. Ford joined them and they ran together
to the edge of the bluff. The slope was not quite so gentle as they had
thought on the night before, and Mollie and Betty were puffing
considerably when they reached the bottom--which they did at almost the
same minute.
Then, fleet-footed, they sped across the sand toward the inviting water
beyond, while Mrs. Ford, Grace, and Amy clambered down the bluff in
their turn.
At the bottom they turned, saw Betty and Mollie reach the water's edge
at the same instant--or so it seemed to them--and dash into the green
depths. A moment more and the two black figures were lost to sight and
only two vivid caps bobbed on the surface of the water.
"Do you suppose it's quite safe?" asked Mrs. Ford. "I wish the girls
hadn't been in such a hurry."
"Oh you needn't worry about them," Grace assured her. "Betty and Mollie
are regular fish in the water, and you know there aren't any mean
currents around here. The beach slopes gradually down so that they can't
get caught in water holes either, so don't worry, Mother," and she
slipped an affectionate hand into her mother's and received an answering
smile in return.
And, oh, how good that water did feel!
As they waded into it up to their waists, Mollie and Betty came swimming
back, shaking the water from their eyes and cleaving the big combers
with long, powerful strokes.
"Well, who won?" Amy challenged them, as they came within shouting
distance.
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