MYSTERY ON A SAND BAR
"I—I thank you."
Harriet, placing the right hand over the heart, bowed low, and the ceremony was complete. The voices of the Wau-Wau Girls were raised in singing, "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." Then they ran forward, fairly smothering Harriet with their embraces and congratulations.
"You forget that I am the real hero," Tommy reminded them; whereat they picked up the little girl and tried to toss her back and forth, with the result that she was dropped on the ground.
The guardians added their congratulations as soon as they succeeded in getting close enough to Harriet to do so. Grace also came in for her share of congratulation and praise, with which she was well content.
"Come, girls," urged Miss Elting, "you know we have to make our beds, and the hour is getting late."
"I'm not thleepy," protested Grace, "I could thtay awake for ageth."
"You will be by the time we find our sleeping place. It is some little distance from here." Harriet glanced at the guardian inquiringly.
"Yes, it is the cabin," answered Miss Elting. "Mrs. Livingston lost no time in arranging for us to occupy it, though I am not at all certain that it is the wise thing to do under the circumstances."
"Under what circumstances?" asked Harriet.
"Storms."
"But they can do us no harm."
"We shall have to take for granted that they will not. Mrs. Livingston sent to town to ask permission of the owner, who readily granted it. He had forgotten that he owned the cabin. It seems that no one has occupied it in several years. Mrs. Livingston also obtained some new blankets for us, but for to-night we shall have to put up with some hardships. To-morrow you girls can fix us bough-beds; then we shall be quite comfortable. But we shall have to cook out-of-doors, there being no stove in the cabin."
"We shan't be able to cook on the bar. The breeze from the sea is so strong there that it would blow the fire away."
"We must come to camp for our meals, then. Perhaps that would be better after all. We don't wish to run away by ourselves; and besides this, you are now a Torch Bearer and must take a more active part in the affairs of the Camp, even if you are of the Meadow-Brook group," reminded the guardian.
Harriet nodded thoughtfully.
"How good and kind Mrs. Livingston is! And think of what she has done for me. It is too good to be true."
"What is too good to be true?" questioned the Chief Guardian herself.
"Everything—all that you have done for me."
"We are still in your debt. Now you had better be getting along. Will you need a light?"
"No, thank you. Harriet ith an owl. She can thee in the dark jutht ath well ath in the light," answered Tommy, speaking for Harriet.
The Meadow-Brook party, after calling their good nights, started toward the cabin, Harriet with the thought strong in her mind that only one rank lay between her and the highest gift in the power of the organization to bestow. She determined that one day she would be a Guardian of the Fire, but she dared not even dream of ever rising to the high office of Chief Guardian. Harriet's life would be too full of other things, she felt.
They trooped, laughing and chatting, along the beach, and, reaching the Lonesome Bar, followed it out. The bar was a narrow, sandy strip that extended nearly a quarter of a mile out into the bay. About half way out the cabin had been built and for some time occupied by a Portsmouth man, who occasionally ran down there for a week-end fishing trip. The cabin, as a camping place, possessed the double advantage of being out of the mosquito zone and of being swept by ocean breezes almost continuously. A fresh breeze was now blowing in from the sea, and the white-crested rollers could be seen slipping past them on either side. It was almost as though they were walking down an ocean lane without even wetting their boots. The water was shallow on either side, so that even though they stepped off they were in no danger of going into deep water.
"We have forgotten all about a lamp!" exclaimed Harriet as they neared the cabin.
"That has been attended to," replied Miss Elting.
"You know we have been thleeping, Harriet," reminded Tommy—"thleeping our young headth off. Ithn't it nithe to be able to thleep while other folkth do your work for you?"
They had hurried on and Tommy was obliged to run to catch up with them. Miss Elting was lighting a swinging lamp when they entered the cottage, which consisted of one room, above which was an attic, but with no entrance so far as they were able to observe. Six rolls of blankets lay on the floor against a side wall ready to be opened and spread when the girls should be ready for bed. One solitary window commanded a view of the sea. Tommy surveyed the place with a squint and a scowl. There was not another article in the place besides the blankets.
"There ithn't much danger of falling over the furniture in the dark, ith there?" she asked.
"Not when we have a Torch Bearer with us," answered Buster, from the shadow just outside the door.
"Thave me!" murmured Tommy.
"Oh, my stars! We'll laugh to-morrow, darlin'. It's too dark to laugh now. Come in and sit down, Buster. It isn't safe to leave you out there. No telling what you might not do after having given out such a flimsy 'joke.'"
"Where shall I sit?" asked Margery, stepping in and glancing about the room.
"Take the easy chair over there in the corner," suggested Harriet smilingly.
"But there isn't any chair there."
"That ith all right. You jutht thit where the chair would be if there were one," suggested Tommy.
"No sitting this evening," declared the guardian. "You will all prepare for bed. At least two of you need rest—I mean Harriet and Tommy."
"Yeth, we alwayth need that. I never thhall get enough of it until after I have been dead ever and ever tho long."
"I am not sleepy, but, of course, being a leader now, I have to set a good example," said Harriet lightly.
Tommy squinted at her inquiringly, as if trying to decide whether or not it were prudent to take advantage of her now that Harriet was a leader officially. She decided to test the matter out at the first opportunity, but just now there was a matter of several hours' sleep ahead, so Tommy quickly prepared for sleep, after which, straightening out her blanket, she twisted herself up in it in a mummy roll with only the top of her tow-head and a pair of very bright little eyes observable over the top of the blanket.
Harriet waited until her companions had rolled up in their blankets; then she opened the door wide so that the ocean breeze blew in and swirled about the interior of the cabin in a miniature gale. The girls did not mind it at all. They thought it delicious. This was getting the real benefit of being at the sea shore. Harriet rolled in her blanket directly in front of the door with her head pillowed on the sill. To enter the cabin one would have to step over her. She went to sleep after lying gazing out over the sea for some time.
"What's that?" Harriet started up with a half-smothered exclamation. A report that sounded like the discharge of a gun had aroused her, or else she had been dreaming. She was not certain which it had been. The other girls were asleep, as was indicated by their regular breathing. Harriet listened intently. She had not changed her position, but her eyes were wide open, looking straight out to sea. Nothing unusual was found there. She was about to close her eyes again when a peculiar creaking sound greeted her ears. Harriet knew instantly the meaning of the sound. It came from the straining of ropes on a sailboat.
Unrolling from the blanket and hastily dressing, the Meadow-Brook Girl crawled out to the bar, wishing to make her observations unseen by any one else. Now she saw it again, that same filmy cloud in the darkness, towering up in the air, moving almost phantom-like into the bay to the south of the cabin on Lonesome Bar.
"It's a boat. I believe it is the same one I saw in there before. But I can't be sure of that. I don't know boats well enough; then, again, the night is too dark to make certain. I don't know that it would be anything of importance if a boat were to run in here to anchor for the night. That evidently is what they propose doing," she thought.
That Harriet's surmise was correct was evidenced a few moments later when the boat's anchor splashed into the waters of the bay and the anchor chain rattled through the hawse hole. Harriet tried to get a clear idea of what the boat itself looked like, but was unable to do so on account of the darkness. Now the creak of oars was borne faintly to her ears; the sound ceased abruptly, then was taken up again.
"They are putting a boat ashore!" muttered Harriet, who was now sitting on the sand, her hair streaming over her shoulder in the fresh, salty breeze. "I hope to goodness none of them comes out here. The girls would be terribly frightened if they knew about this. I don't believe I shall tell them, unless—"
Harriet paused suddenly as the sound of men's voices was heard somewhere toward the land end of the bar. She walked around to the rear of the cabin, peering shoreward. She made out faintly the figures of two men coming down the bar. They were carrying something between them—something that seemed to be heavy and burdensome, for the men were staggering under its weight.
The Meadow-Brook Girl realized that she was face to face with a mystery, but what that mystery was she could not even surmise, nor would she for some time to come. She determined to act, however, and that, if possible, without alarming her companions. Hesitating but a moment, Harriet stepped out boldly and started up the bar to meet the mysterious strangers with their heavy burden.