The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point

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"Tell the truth," added Grace.

"Both of us," yelled Mollie.

"Or neither," Betty answered, getting to her feet and walking the rest
of the way in toward them. "We couldn't have done better team work if we
had tried. Oh, isn't it glorious?"

"We don't know yet--we're not even all wet," returned Mollie, adding, as
a great comber came rushing toward them: "Come on, Gracie, here's a good
one. Let's get under it."

And "get under it" they did, cleaving the water prettily, and in another
minute were up on the other side of the big wave. They shook the water
from their eyes and struck out merrily.

"Don't go too far," Mrs. Ford called after them, and two bare gleaming
arms waved back at her.

The hours that followed were just one long delight, and the girls looked
surprised and a little abused when Mrs. Ford reluctantly called them in.

"Why, it can't be more than eleven," protested Grace.

"And we haven't seen the water for, oh, ages," added Mollie.

"Please, can't we have half an hour more?" Amy added.

Mrs. Ford looked smilingly from one to the other and then at Betty.

"Well, haven't you any petition to make?" she asked of the latter.

"I was thinking," said Betty squinting up at the sun, "that Grace was
wrong when she said it wasn't more than eleven. It seems to me to be
after twelve."

"It is," said Mrs. Ford firmly. "Quarter past."

"Well, let's go!" cried Betty, starting toward the bluff. "I don't know
about the rest of you, but I'm starving to death."

"But we'll want to swim again after lunch, won't we?" protested Mollie.

"Of course."

"Well, then," she argued reasonably, "we don't want to change our
clothes just for lunch, and we can't very well go up to the house in
dripping bathing suits."

The girls groaned.

"Then we'll have to wait for lunch until we've sat here for hours and
dried off," wailed Grace.

"And she hasn't even a box of chocolates!" Betty mocked her. "It is a
desperate case, Grace."

With another groan Grace sank into the soft, warm sand while the others
followed suit, looking so mournful that Mrs. Ford was moved to take pity
on them.

"I dried off long ago," she said, adding, as they looked at her
hopefully: "I tell you what I'll do. I'll go up and open a couple of
cans of tongue and make some sandwiches and bring down the cake we
bought yesterday. And we can have some milk to drink, for I had the boy
leave a couple of extra quarts this morning. How will that do?"

"Do!" the girls echoed, while Grace hugged her mother with vigor. The
eyes of the girls followed her gratefully as Mrs. Ford started off on
her work of rescue--at least, that is the way the hungry girls regarded
it.

"You know, I have a better appetite than I've had in weeks," announced
Mollie, as she dug her toes into the warm sand. "I haven't been eating
much lately."

"I hadn't noticed it," commented Grace dryly.

"Well, mother did," returned Mollie spiritedly. "She said she was glad I
was going away because she thought the change would do me good. I really
should have stayed at home, I suppose, and helped mother take care of
the twins," she added thoughtfully. "I never saw two children with such
an absolute genius for getting into mischief. But when they're caught,
they're so cunning and dear and say such quaint things that it is almost
impossible to get angry with them."

"They're adorable," agreed Betty, while all the girls smiled fondly at
thought of the twins.

"Just the same," remarked Grace, "although I love them, I'm glad I'm not
their sister, for I'd never be able to eat a candy in comfort," and the
girls laughed at her.

"It seems so wonderful and peaceful here," said Amy, after a short
pause, "and we seem so awfully far away from the rest of the world. It
almost makes one believe that the war 'over there' is a dream--"

"Or a nightmare," interpolated Mollie.

"Well, it isn't," said Grace, adding, as she dug her toes more deeply
into the yielding sand: "And if we don't hear more news of Will pretty
soon, I'll just die, that's all. I can't stand it!"

"There's your mother," cried Betty suddenly, glad of an excuse to change
the subject. "I think she's calling us, too. Come on, let's go."

Nothing loath, they got to their feet, shook the sand from their suits,
and hurried to the bluff where Mrs. Ford stood awaiting them.

As they clambered up toward her they noticed that she looked excited and
was holding a yellow envelope in her hand.

"The trunks have come," she said, as they ran up to her. "A big
lumbering red-haired fellow brought them from the station a few minutes
ago. He also brought this," indicating the envelope in her hand.

"What is it?" they cried, a strange premonition of evil tightening about
their hearts.

"A telegram for Mollie!"

Mollie turned a little pale under her tan and took the yellow envelope
gingerly, as though it had been poisoned, or contained some T. N. T.
explosive.

"Who on earth--" she began, then interrupted herself, and with trembling
fingers tore the envelope open. The girls watched her, wide-eyed and
tense.

"It's from mother," she cried, then crushed the paper in her hands and
looked around at the sympathetic faces with eyes grown dark with fear.
"Girls," she said, "I--I'm afraid to read it--I--"

CHAPTER XVI

THE SHADOW OF DISASTER

Betty put a steadying arm about Mollie and asked gently:

"Would it make it any easier if I were to read it, dear?"

"No, oh, no!" cried Mollie, then smoothed out the crushed paper and read
the telegram through while her face grew whiter and her lips closed in a
tense line. With a queer little sound in her throat she turned away and
handed it to Betty.

"Read it," she commanded in a choked voice.

Mrs. Ford put an arm about Mollie while Betty read aloud and the girls
crowded closer.

It was a brief, paralyzing message the telegram contained.

"Twins are gone. Were not home last night, and am
wild with anxiety. No need your coming home. Am
doing everything possible to find them. MOTHER."

"The twins!" gasped Amy.

"Gone!" added Grace, stupefied. "Oh, Betty, are you sure you read it
aright?"

For answer, Betty handed her the telegram and turned to comfort Mollie,
who was sobbing bitterly.

"I knew I shouldn't have gone away," she was saying over and over again.
"I knew I should have stayed at home."

"But your staying at home probably wouldn't have made any difference,"
argued Betty soothingly.

"And by this time they may have been found, anyway," added Mrs. Ford,
gently leading Mollie toward the house, Betty at her side, while Grace
and Amy followed, mute with sympathy.

"Yes; or by this time they may be dead!" sobbed Mollie, refusing to be
comforted. "They must have met with some accident or they wouldn't have
stayed away all n-night."

"Maybe they ran away," suggested Grace, trying hard to think of
something cheering to say. "They've done it before, you know."

"Yes," agreed Mollie, sinking into a porch chair and searching
desperately for a handkerchief in her pocketless bathing suit. "But they
always came home before night. I know it must be something awfully
serious to keep them away over night."

Mrs. Ford was very much worried and disturbed, but she nevertheless
managed a bright smile.

"As you say, they probably ran away," she said. "Only this time they
have wandered too far and haven't been able to find their way back. But
if your mother has notified the police, as she surely has by this time,
they are sure to be found. And now," she added, rising briskly and
making for the door, "since everything seems a good deal worse than it
is on an empty stomach, I'm going to give you some lunch and we'll
decide what to do afterward."

Left alone, the girls gazed helplessly at each other. Mollie had stopped
sobbing and was staring moodily out at the ocean, her eyes and nose
swollen with weeping.

"I'll have to go home, of course," she said suddenly, breaking a silence
filled with unhappy thoughts. "I don't know that I'll be any good, but I
can at least comfort mother. I'm sorry," she gave them a wistful,
apologetic little glance that went straight to their hearts and brought
the tears to their eyes, "to break up the party."

"You darling," cried Betty, trying to laugh and not making a very great
success of it, "do you think we care a rap about our old party? Only,"
she added thoughtfully, "as you say yourself, I don't see that you can
do very much good by going home."

"I could comfort mother," repeated Mollie, in a flat tone, as though she
were repeating a lesson.

"But she said not to come," suggested Grace. "She said she was doing
everything possible--"

"I know," interrupted Mollie, wearily. "Of course she would say not to
come. And I suppose," she added, dabbing impatiently at her eyes, "all
I'd do would be to weep anyway, and make things about ten times worse."

"Do you want your lunch inside or out here?" Mrs. Ford asked from the
doorway and the girls jumped to their feet.

"Here we are, letting you do all the work again," cried Betty
self-reproachfully. "I guess we'd rather have it out here, but we'll
bring it out ourselves. Please go over there, get into the swing, and
don't stir until we say you may." Betty had a pretty manner, half of
deference, half of _camaraderie_, with older people that made them love
her. Mrs. Ford patted her cheek with a little smile and obeyed her
command while the three girls ran into the kitchen to bring out the
sandwiches and cake that she had already prepared.

And all the time Mollie sat motionless, staring out over the ocean,
apparently unconscious of everything that was going on around her.

"Little Dodo and Paul," she said over and over to herself. "What has
happened to them? Oh, I must go home, I must!"

"Come to your lunch," called Betty.

After lunch Mollie began to take a less gloomy view of the situation and
hope, which in youth can never long be forced into the background, began
to revive.

"In the first place," Betty argued, as she began to clear away the
dishes and Amy rose to help her, "it couldn't have been an accident, or
your mother would have read about it in the papers. The children are old
enough to tell their names and where they live."

"I know," said Mollie, while the troublesome tears welled to her eyes
again. "But it's possible they may have been unconscious, and then they
wouldn't be able to tell anything."

"But there would have been at least an announcement describing the
children," Amy argued in support of Betty.

"And, anyway, pretty nearly everybody in Deepdale knows the twins,"
Grace added.

"Well, then, there are only two or three things left that might have
happened," said Mollie, her lips quivering. "It's barely possible they
may have wandered off into the woods and gotten lost. In that case
somebody will have to hurry up and find them or they will just stay
there and s-starve! And that's almost worse than being run over."

"Well, with everybody in Deepdale, civilians as well as police,
searching for them," said Betty confidently, "I don't think there is
very much chance of their starving to death. If that's the solution, I
shouldn't wonder but that they are safe at home now with everybody
rejoicing."

Mollie's face brightened a little at this picture, but almost
immediately clouded over again.

"But we don't know that," she said. "And until we do, I'm not going to
let myself get too happy."

"I wonder," she said suddenly, after the girls had cleared away the
lunch and had perched themselves on the porch railing, "just what I
ought to do first. Send a telegram to mother, I suppose," answering her
own question.

"Yes, I think I would," said Betty, adding, as Mollie got up with
characteristic impulsiveness and started for the house: "Do you mind
telling us what you are going to say in it--about going home, I mean?"

Mollie paused uncertainly.

"I--I don't just know," she admitted. "One minute I think there's no
question but what I ought to go, and the next, I wonder if I wouldn't
only be in the way."

"There's another thing to consider," Mrs. Ford put in. "It is almost a
certainty that the children will be found in a day or two, perhaps are
found already, and in that case you would have all your trip for
nothing. I don't like to advise--"

"Oh, please do," Mollie begged, adding with a pathetic little smile: "I
feel so awfully lonesome, trying to decide everything all by myself."

"You poor little girl," said the woman tenderly, then fearing lest
sympathy would only make the girl feel worse, added hurriedly: "In that
case I should most strongly advise that you wait a day or two at least
and give things a chance to straighten out. At the end of that time, if
they haven't been found and you still think you ought to go, we'll pack
up everything and go along with you, of course."

"That's what I'll do then," agreed Mollie, relieved to have the question
settled for her. "And now," she added, making for the door once more,
"I'm going to get into my street things and wiz down to that station in
record time. Who wants to come with me?"

It seemed everybody did, and in a very short time the girls had changed
from their bathing suits to their street clothes and were ready for the
dash to the station, which was about two miles from their house.

They all climbed into Mollie's car, and the big machine started slowly
backward down the steep incline.

"Better hold on," Mollie warned them. "I've never done quite so steep a
hill as this backward, and the old boy may balk. Take your time, old
man," addressing the car, as it showed a tendency to pick up speed too
rapidly. "Of course we're in a hurry, but we don't want to land on our
ears. That's the way--gently now. All right--we're off!" as they reached
the foot of the hill in safety and swung around into the road. "Now
let's see how long it will take you to reach that station."

As a matter of fact, it took scarcely any time at all, for the demon of
speed seemed to have taken possession of Mollie, and she drove so
recklessly that even the girls, who were used to her daring, were
startled.

Yet something about the young driver's straight little back and tightly
compressed lips kept them from protesting.

However, the wild ride came to an end without accident, and the girls
tumbled out of the machine and on to the station platform. They looked
about them, but the only person in sight was an unpromising looking
person with a bald head--though he could not have been over
thirty-five--beaked nose, and small red-rimmed eyes.

This decidedly unattractive individual lounged against the door of the
waiting room and eyed the girls with insolent admiration.

"Anything I can do for you?" he asked, as he saw that they hesitated.
"Always willing to oblige the ladies," he added.

The girls exchanged a glance, then Betty approached the lounger who had
the grace to straighten up as she addressed him.

"We want to send a telegram," she explained coldly. "We understood we
could send one from here."

"Sure! That's me," he responded with alacrity. "Right this way, ladies."

The girls followed him reluctantly into a little square booth-like
place, and Mollie scribbled a telegram on the blank he gave her. Then
they hurried out to the machine again. A little way down the road Amy
turned and looked back. The fellow had resumed his lounging position and
was looking after them with his little red-rimmed eyes.

"Ugh! wasn't he awful?" said Betty, as Mollie rounded a turn in the road
on two wheels. "I'm glad we don't have to see him often, he'd give me
the nightmare."

But Mollie did not answer. Her mind was once more on the twins, and she
was repeating over and over the same old question.

"What has happened--what has happened? What could have happened?"

"Betty," she said aloud, so suddenly that Betty started, "there's just
one thing we didn't think of as being a solution. It's strange, too, for
it is the most probable solution of all."

"What?" asked Betty anxiously.

"Suppose--" said Mollie, her voice so low that Betty had to bend forward
to catch the words. "Suppose they have been kidnapped!"

CHAPTER XVII

JOE BARNES AGAIN

"Well, we've got to do something. There's no use sitting around looking
at each other!"

The girls started and looked reproachfully at Mollie.

It was several days after the telegram had come which had so upset them
and their plans, and they were sitting dejectedly on the sand at the
foot of the bluff trying to read. The attempt had proved a failure,
however, and one after another the books had dropped to their laps while
they stared disconsolately out over the water.

"What would you suggest?" asked Grace listlessly, in response to
Mollie's statement.

"Can't we go in swimming again?" asked Amy mildly.

"No!" Mollie was very positive. "The boy will be coming with the
provisions and letters in a little while, and there may be a telegram or
something from mother. If there isn't pretty soon, I'll go mad."

"Let's take a walk then," suggested Betty.

But again Mollie would have none of it.

"Too warm," she said.

"Well, I thought you were the one who wanted to do something," said
Grace, getting up and shaking the sand from her dress. "I guess the
trouble is," she added, "that you don't know what you want."

"Yes I do," said Mollie, while the tears rose to her eyes and she shook
them away impatiently. "Only the one thing I want more than anything
else I can't get."

"Maybe you forget," said Grace, while her own voice trembled a little,
"that I'm very nearly in the same fix."

"No, we don't," cried Betty quickly. "But the only way we can hope to
bear the horrible things that are happening to us is to get busy at
something and try to occupy our minds."

"It's all very well for you to talk," Mollie retorted, in her nervous
state saying something she never would have thought of saying under
normal conditions, "but nothing terrible has happened to you yet. Wait
till it does. Then maybe it won't be so easy to get your mind off it."

The thoughtless speech stung, and Betty turned away to hide the hurt in
her eyes.

"Perhaps you're right," she said quietly. "Nothing very terrible has
happened to me yet, personally. But perhaps you forget that we girls
always share each other's troubles--"

But Mollie would not let her finish. She was down on her knees beside
her chum, penitent arms about her shoulders and was pouring out an
apology.

"I ought to be tarred and feathered," she cried breathlessly. "I don't
know what made me say such a thing, Honey."

"I know," said Betty gently, "and that's why it didn't go very
deep--what you said."

"You're a darling!" cried Mollie. She gave the Little Captain another
bear's hug, then sat down in the sand again with her arms clasped about
her knees. "It's this everlasting uncertainty and the feeling of
helplessness that gets on one's nerves so. I always did hate to wait for
anything--especially with my imagination."

"What's that got to do with it?" asked Amy, surprised.

"Why, it--the imagination, I mean--just goes running around in circles,
thinking up all the horrible things that might have happened until I
almost go crazy. If I only didn't have to think!"

"You never used to have any trouble that way," said Grace, with a weak
attempt at a joke that ended in dismal failure.

"Isn't that the boy with the mail?" asked Betty after a minute, as the
rumble of an antiquated vehicle and a masculine voice addressing in no
uncertain tones a pair of invisible mules came to their ears. "Perhaps
he's bringing good news to us. Come on, we'll meet him half way."

Relieved at the prospect of action, the girls sprang to their feet,
dusted off the clinging sand, and scrambled up the bluff. A minute more
and they were running down the hill pell mell toward the oncoming team.

They had scarcely reached the bottom of the hill when the long-eared and
long-suffering animals rounded a turn in the road and ambled slowly
toward them.

The driver, the same gauky, red-headed country lad who had brought them
their trunks, drew rein as the fleet-footed girls reached him and swept
off his crownless hat with a gallantry that left nothing to be desired.

"I'm bringing your provisions," he began, adding loquaciously, for he
loved to talk and seldom got the opportunity: "Sorry I couldn't get 'em
to you yesterday, but Abe up to the store took sick and he says to me,
'Jake,' he says, 'guess mebbe you'll have to be storekeeper an' delivery
boy both to-day. Shake a leg,' he says, 'an' I might mebbe give you a
dollar extry. You never can't tell,' he says. He's that generous like,
Abe is," the boy shook his head sadly at the thought of Abe's
generosity, "that he'd give a whole chicken to a kid dyin' of hunger,
pervided he knowed the chicken had the pip."

The girls chuckled at this last sentence, uttered with a sort of
ferocious sarcasm, even though they had been standing on one foot with
impatience during the rest of his long speech.

Now, seeing that he was about to begin again, Betty cut in quickly.

"It didn't bother us a bit, you're not coming yesterday," she said,
adding, as she leaned forward eagerly: "What we do want to know is--did
you bring any mail?"

"Sure," he said, good-naturedly, reaching behind him for a small package
of letters which Betty took eagerly. "An' there was a telegram too, came
yesterday--"

"Yesterday!" Mollie interrupted with a groan. "And I'm just getting it
to-day!"

"But I was telling you," he started all over again patiently, "as how
Abe took sick and says to me: 'Jake--'"

"Yes, yes, we know," interrupted Mollie, reaching impatiently for the
crumpled yellow envelope which he took from his pocket, smoothed out
carefully, and handed to her with maddening deliberation. "Oh, if
anything terrible has happened I'll never forgive myself for not going
to the station yesterday!"

"But it was raining so hard, and we expected the boy any minute." Amy
thus tried to console her but it is doubtful if Mollie even heard her.
She had torn open the envelope and was devouring the message whole while
the girls looked at her anxiously.

The red-headed orator, seeing that his presence was no longer in demand,
clucked to his team and jogged off reluctantly. A telegram is rather a
rarity in Bluff Point and they might have taken pity on a fellow and
given him at least a hint of its contents. But there, he didn't want to
know anyway--wouldn't if he could! Still, these out-landers were mighty
mean, close-mouthed folks!

"Nothing," said Mollie, in response to the unspoken question of the
girls. "They haven't found a trace of either of them yet, but the police
are confident that it is a case of kidnapping and that they will be able
to round up the criminals in a short time. Poor little Dodo! Poor little
Paul! If nothing worse happens to them they will be scared to death. Oh,
if I could only get hold of those kidnappers I'd--I'd kill 'em!" She
clenched her hands passionately and her lips shut in a straight, grim
little line.

"I guess we'd all be glad to," said mild little Amy, with a look in her
eyes that showed she meant it.

As they started back down the road Betty suddenly remembered the packet
of letters in her hands. The excitement about the telegram had put them
completely out of her mind.

"To think I could forget letters!" she marveled, as she distributed them
to their rightful owners. "Here's one for you, Amy, and two for you,
Grace. One for Mrs. Ford and one for Mollie and--and--two for me--"

She looked so surprised that they paused in the act of opening their own
letters to look at her.

"What's the matter?" Grace asked.

"Why here's one addressed to me in a perfectly strange hand," she
answered, turning the letter over and over in her hand. "I can't
imagine--"

"What's the postmark?" asked Amy.

Betty looked and then colored prettily as she realized who her unknown
correspondent was.

"Why--why," she stammered, amazed at her own confusion, "it's sent from
Bensington, but--"

"Bensington!" Grace echoed, then her eyes twinkled as the truth came to
her. "So it's as bad as that, is it?"

"I don't know what you mean," said Betty, trying to look dignified and
failing utterly, while Mollie and Amy continued to stare their
amazement. They had forgotten completely that night spent under the
hospitable roof of Mrs. Barnes, and even her son's engaging personality
had faded from their minds. There had been so many things to think about
and worry about. So now they both said together:

"What in the world are you two talking of?"

"Do you mean to say you really don't know?" queried Grace in a superior
tone. "Have you so soon forgotten our knight of the wayside, Joe
Barnes?"

"Joe Barnes," they repeated weakly, then turned their astonished gaze on
Betty.

"Well, I can't help it," retorted Betty, feeling vaguely the need of
defense. "I didn't ask him to."

"But how did he get your address?" asked Mollie, still staring. "Who
gave it to him?"

"I told him where we were going," cried Betty desperately, driven into a
corner. "But I had no idea he was going to write to me until--until--"
hesitating as a picture of Joe Barnes, standing beside her car and
asking if he might tell her "how things were with him" came vividly
before her eyes.

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