A TRIP TO STONY POINT.
Miss Ladd and Violet returned in about twenty minutes and reported that satisfactory arrangements had been made for a trip up the lake. They were to start in an hour and a half.
Then Katherine and Hazel engaged an automobile for a few hours’ drive and before the motorboat started with its load of passengers, they were speeding along a hard macadam road toward the point around which centered the interest of their interrupted vacation plans at Fairberry and their sudden departure on a very unusual and very romantic journey.
Twin Lakes is a summer-resort town located on the lower of two bodies of water, similar in size, configuration, and scenery. The town has a more or less fixed population of about 2,500, most of whom are retired folk of means or earn their living directly or indirectly through the supplying of amusements, comfort, and sustenance for the thousands of pleasure and recreation seekers that visit the place every year.
Each of the lakes is about four miles long and half as wide. A narrow river, strait, or rapids nearly a mile long connects the two. Originally this rapids was impassable by boats larger than canoes, and even such little craft were likely to be overturned unless handled by strong and skillful canoemen; but some years earlier the state had cleared this passage by removing numerous great boulders and shelves of rock from the bed of the stream so that although the water rushed along just as swiftly as ever, the passage was nevertheless safe for all boats of whatever draught that moved on the two lakes which it connected.
The lower of the twin bodies of water had been named Twin-One because, perhaps, it was the first one seen, or more often seen by those who chose or approved the name; the other was Twin-Two. Geographically speaking, it may be, these names should have been applied vice versa, for Twin-Two was fed first by a deep and wide river whose source was in the mountains 200 miles away, and Twin-One received these waters after they had laved the shores of Twin-Two.
The road followed by Katherine and Hazel in their automobile drive to Stony Point was a well-kept thoroughfare running from the south end of Twin-One, in gracefully curved windings along the east border of the lake, sometimes over a small stretch of rough or hilly shoreland, but usually through heavy growths of hemlock, white pine, oak, and other trees more or less characteristic of the country. Here and there along the way was a cottage, or summer house of more pretentious proportions, usually constructed near the water or some distance up on the side of the hill-shore, with a kind of terrace-walk leading down to a boat landing.
The trip was quickly made. Stony Point the girls found to be a picturesque spot not at all devoid of the verdant beauties of nature in spite of the fact that, geographically, it was well named. This name was due principally to a rock-formed promontory, jutting out into the lake at this point and seeming to be bedded deep into the lofty shore-elevation. Right here was a cluster of cottages, not at all huddled together, but none the less a cluster if viewed from a distance upon the lake, and in this group of summer residences appeared to be almost sufficient excuse for the drawing up of a petition for incorporation as a village. But very few of the owners of these houses lived in them during the winter months. The main and centrally located group consisted of a hotel and a dozen or more cottages, known as “The Hemlocks”, and so advertised in the outing and vacation columns of newspapers of various cities.
On arriving at “the Point,” Katherine and Hazel paid the chauffeur and informed him they would not need his machine any more that day. Then they began to look about them.
They were rather disappointed and decidedly puzzled at what they saw. Evidently they had a considerable search before them to discover the location of the Graham cottage without making open inquiry as to where it stood. First they walked out upon the promontory, which had a flat table-like surface and was well suited for the arousing of the curiosity of tourists. There they had a good view up and down the bluff-jagged, hilly and tree-laden coast.
“It’s 11 o’clock now,” said Hazel, looking at her wrist-watch. “The motorboat will be here at about 1 o’clock, and we have two hours in which to get the information we are after unless we want to share honors for success with the other girls when they arrive.”
“Let’s take a walk through this place and see what we can see,” Katherine suggested. “The road we came along runs through it and undoubtedly there are numerous paths.”
This seemed to be the best thing to do, and the two girls started from the Point toward the macadam highway. The latter was soon reached and they continued along this road northward from the place where they dismissed the automobile. Half a mile they traveled in this direction, their course keeping well along the lake shore. They passed several cottages of designedly rustic appearance and buried, as it were, amid a wealth of tree foliage and wild entanglements of shrubbery. Suddenly Katherine caught hold of Hazel’s arm and held her back.
“Did you hear that?” she inquired.
“Yes, I did,” Hazel replied. “It sounded like a child’s voice, crying.”
“And not very far away, either. Listen; there it is again.”
It was a half-smothered sob that reached their ears and seemed to come from a clump of bushes to the left of the road not more than a dozen yards away. Both girls started for the spot, circling around the bushes and peering carefully, cautiously ahead of them as they advanced. The subdued sobs continued and led the girls directly to the spot whence they came.
Presently they found themselves standing over the form of a little boy, his frightened, tear-stained face turned up toward them while he shrank back into the bushes as if fearing the approach of a fellow human being.