A VISITOR WHO WAS WELCOME
"Wake up, girls. Put on your bathing suits and jump in." Miss Elting already was dressed in her blue bathing costume, her hair tucked under her red rubber bathing cap. "We have just time for a swim before breakfast. I see the smoke curling up from the campfire already."
"I don't want to thwim; I want to thleep," protested Tommy.
"Get a move, darlin', unless you want to be thrown in," interjected Jane, who was hurrying into her bathing suit. "Margery, don't tempt us too far, or we will throw you in, too."
"I am sleepy, too," declared Harriet, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. "I can't imagine what makes me feel so stupid this morning." Then, remembering, she became silent.
"If you would go to bed with the children and get your regular night's rest, you wouldn't be so sleepy in the morning," Jane answered with apparent indifference. Harriet regarded Jane with inquiring eyes. "I wonder if Jane really suspects that I was out of the cabin in the night, or whether it was one of her incidental remarks?" she reflected. "I'll find out before the day is ended."
"Am I right, darlin'?" persisted Jane, with a tantalizing smile.
"Right about what?"
"Being up late?"
"I agree with you," replied Harriet frankly, looking her questioner straight in the eyes. "I am losing altogether too much sleep of late."
"We didn't lothe any thleep latht night," added Tommy.
"You certainly did not, my dear; nor did Margery nor any of the others unless it were Crazy Jane," declared Harriet with a mischievous glance at Jane McCarthy, who refused to be disturbed by it or to be trapped into any sort of an admission.
"Girls, girls, aren't you coming in?" Miss Elting rose dripping from the bay and peered into the cabin. "Come in or you'll be too late."
"At once, Miss Elting," called Harriet. "It has taken me some little time to get awake. I am awake now. Here I come." She ran out of the cabin and sprang into the water with a shout and a splash, striking out for the opposite side, nearly a quarter of a mile away. She had reached the middle of the bay before the guardian caught sight of her and called to her to return. The Meadow-Brook girl did so, though it had been her intention to swim all the way across the bay and back.
In the meantime the other girls had begun their swim. Jane was splashing about in deep water, Hazel doing likewise, while Margery was swimming in water barely up to her neck. Tommy, on the other hand, appeared to be afraid to venture out. Every time a ripple would break about her knees she would scream and run back out of the way.
"'Fraid cat!" jeered Margery. "'Fraid to come in where the water is deep."
"Yeth, I am," admitted Tommy.
"I told you so, I told you so," shouted Buster. "I always said she was a 'fraid cat, and now she has shown you that I am right."
"Who is a 'fraid cat?" demanded Miss Elting, pulling herself up on the beach with her hands.
"I am," answered Tommy, speaking for herself.
"Who says you are?"
"Buthter."
"Margery, I am ashamed of you. You have evidently forgotten that Grace showed how little she was afraid when she was lost at sea the other night," chided the guardian.
"Yeth, I'm a 'fraid cat. But I'd rather be a 'fraid cat than a fat cat!" declared the little, lisping girl with an earnestness that made them all smile. Harriet came swinging in with long, steady strokes, the last one landing her on the sand with the greater part of her body out of the shallow water.
"Why wouldn't you let me go across, Miss Elting?" she asked.
"You would be late for breakfast."
"Oh! I thought you feared I might drown," answered Harriet whimsically.
"Once is enough," answered Jane. "There goes the fish horn. Hurry, girls! We are going to be late."
"The fithh horn? Are we going to have fithh for breakfatht?" questioned Tommy.
"Never mind what, girls. Tuck up your blankets and get busy. Remember, you must braid your hair before going to breakfast. I don't like to see you at meals with your hair down; you girls are too old for that."
"Yes, Miss Elting," answered Harriet.
"I gueth I'll cut my hair off. It ith too much trouble to fix it every morning," decided Grace. "But, Mith Elting, couldn't I fix it the night before and thleep in it?"
"Certainly not! How can you suggest such a thing?"
Tommy twisted her face out of shape and blinked solemnly at Margery, whose chin was in the air. They were all hurrying now, for their morning bath had given them keen appetites. Miss Elting was first to be ready, then Harriet, but they waited until their companions were dressed and ready to go.
"The Indian lope to the breakfast tent," announced Miss Elting. "Forward, go!"
The girls started off at an easy though not particularly graceful lope, the guardian and the Torch Bearer setting the pace for the rest. They arrived at the cook tent with faces flushed and eyes sparkling, with a few moments to spare before the moment for marching in arrived. The Chief Guardian smiled approvingly.
"Sleeping out on the bay appears to agree with you girls," she said. "I have no need to ask if you slept well."
"Harriet is the restless one," answered Jane.
Harriet flushed in spite of her self-control; but no special significance was attached to Jane's remark, for it was seldom that she was taken seriously.
Harriet, after recovering from her momentary confusion, chuckled and laughed, very much amused over what had made no impression at all on her companions.
"I shall ask some of our craftswomen here to build beds for the cabin," announced the Chief Guardian, as they were sitting down.
"It is not necessary," replied Miss Elting. "Our girls prefer the bough beds, which they will build during the day."
"And what will our new Torch Bearer do to amuse herself after the regular duties of the day are done?" questioned Mrs. Livingston. "Will she take her group for a swim in the Atlantic?"
"Yeth, Harriet and mythelf are going to try to thwim acroth thith afternoon," Grace informed them.
"Swim across the Atlantic? Mercy me!" answered Mrs. Livingston laughingly. "That would indeed be an achievement."
"I beg your pardon, but I didn't thay 'acroth the othean'; I meant to thwim acroth the pond down in the cove yonder. Harriet could thwim acroth the othean if she withhed to, though," added Tommy.
"You surely have a loyal champion, Miss Burrell," called one of the guardians from the far end of the table. "Still, we have not heard what you are going to do to-day. I am quite sure it will be something worth while?"
"I have about made up my mind to go out in search of buried treasure," answered Harriet, with mock gravity. They laughed heartily at this. Jane regarded her narrowly.
"I wonder what Harriet has in her little head now?" she said under her breath.
"Why, what do you mean?" asked the Chief Guardian. "Buried treasure along this little strip of coast? Perhaps, however, you may mean out on the Shoal Islands."
"No, Mrs. Livingston. Right here in Camp Wau-Wau there is buried treasure. I don't know whether it is worth anything or not, but there is a buried treasure here."
The girls uttered exclamations of amazement, for they saw that their new Torch Bearer was in earnest, that she meant every word she had uttered about the treasure.
"Now, isn't that perfectly remarkable?" breathed Margery.
"Oh, do tell us about it?" cried the girls.
"Not a word more," answered Harriet. "I give you leave to find it, though, if you can. Some of you clever trailers see if you can pick up the trail and follow it to its end. At the end you will find the buried treasure, unless it has been taken away within a few hours, which I very much doubt. Now, that is all I am going to tell you about it."
"Do you really mean that, Harriet?" questioned Grace.
Harriet nodded.
"Why don't you get it yourthelf, then?"
"I may one of these days if the girls fail to find it. I wish to see if they are good trailers. But we are forgetting to eat breakfast. Just now I am more in need of breakfast than of buried treasure."
"Yes, girls, please eat your breakfast. We must put the camp to rights as soon as we finish, for I have an idea that we may have visitors before the day is done," urged Mrs. Livingston.
The Wau-Wau girls were too much excited over Harriet's words to be particularly interested in the subject of visitors just then, so they hurried their breakfast, discussing the new Torch Bearer's veiled suggestions, eager to have done with the morning meal and the morning work that they might try to solve this delightful mystery. Harriet was well satisfied with the excitement she had stirred, though having done so would rather bar her from carrying out certain plans that she had had in mind ever since the previous night.
Later in the morning, however, under pretext of wishing to get pine boughs for her bed, she, with Tommy, strolled off into the woods, but beyond locating the spot where she had lain when the man stumbled over her in the darkness she made no progress toward solving the mystery. Not the slightest trace of the box did she discover. Of course, Harriet did not hope to find the mysterious box standing in plain sight, but she could not imagine what they had done with it in so brief a time. She did not dare make much of a point of searching about, observing that Tommy was regarding her keenly during the morning stroll.
With her belt hatchet Harriet selected and cut such boughs as she desired and placed them in a pile, afterward to be carried out to the cabin on the Lonesome Bar. Later on they were assisted by the other Meadow-Brook Girls. They covered the floor of the cabin with the fragrant green boughs until Tommy declared that it made her "thleepy" just to smell it. In the meantime, those of their companions who were not engaged with camp duties were strolling about along the beach near the camp, discussing what Harriet had told them at breakfast that morning. It was all right to tell them to pick up the trail, but what trail was it, and how were they to find it? Even the guardians were not beyond curiosity in the matter, and they, too, when they thought themselves unobserved, might have been seen looking eagerly about for the "trail." All this amused Harriet Burrell very much.
With her group, Harriet was at the cabin arranging the boughs, when they were summoned to camp by three blasts of the fish horn used for the various signals employed by Camp Wau-Wau. Something had happened in camp.
"Thomebody hath found it!" cried Tommy, shooting a quick glance of inquiry at Harriet Burrell. The latter flushed, then burst out laughing after a look toward the miniature forest of spindling pines.
"I hope they have. But I may tell you, my dear Tommy, that they haven't found either the trail or my buried treasure."
"You must know pretty well where it is," said Miss Elting, eyeing Harriet steadily for a few seconds. "Come, we must not delay answering that summons."
They did not delay. The Meadow-Brook Girls responded promptly, making a run for it in good order.
"There's a motor car," shouted Jane, when they came in sight of the camp. "O darlin's, maybe it is a new car Daddy has sent down for me to take the place of the one that is drowned."
Jane leaped on ahead of her companions, intent upon reaching the camp. Harriet sprinted up beside her, almost as much excited as was Crazy Jane herself.
The two girls easily outdistanced their companions in a very few moments. It was a race between them to see who should first reach the camp. Harriet fell behind slightly as her quick eyes made out a figure sitting in front of the Chief Guardian's tent. The figure was that of a man and he was conversing with Mrs. Livingston.
Jane uttered a sudden shrill cry. She, too, had discovered the visitor and recognized him.
"It's Daddy. It's my dear old Daddy!" she screamed, and, forgetful of the lectures she had received on comporting herself with dignity and restraint, Crazy Jane threw herself—hurled herself, in fact—into the arms of Contractor McCarthy. Now, a camp chair is never any too substantial. The one on which Mr. McCarthy was sitting was no exception to the rule. It collapsed under the force of Crazy Jane's projectile-like force. Mr. McCarthy, in attempting to save himself from going down with it, lurched sideways. In doing so he bumped heavily against the Chief Guardian, and with a sharp little cry from the latter, the three went down in a confused heap.