Directly after lunch, following Betsy’s suggestion, they donned their khaki hiking suits and started out, the would-be detective in their lead.
Suddenly she whirled about, and, holding up a staff which she had found when they passed through the grove, she announced in a mock-solemn tone: “Members of our adventurous band, we are setting forth without a plan, except to go where-ere we will and do what-ere we wish as long as our hearts find no wrong in it.”
They had left the school grounds and were following a trail that had, at one time been made, it would seem, by pastured cattle.
“If we follow this path, we will come out in some farmer’s barnyard, methinks,” Barbara put in. “And surely that would not be an adventure.”
“Oh, goodness, gracious! Don’t do that, please! I’d rather meet a three-headed dragon any day than a cow.” Sally looked so truly terrified that her companions laughed. All but Virg, who slipped an arm through that of the youngest member of their band. “If you had grown up with cattle as I did on the desert, you wouldn’t mind them in the least. I never heard of a cow attacking anyone unless, indeed, someone tried to take away its calf.”
They had reached the brow of a meadowland knoll, and Margaret, looking over, announced: “Babs is right! There is a farm directly below here and this trail leads right to the neat red barn.”
Betsy, with a little squeal of joy, pounced upon something that was caught in a bush. “Lookee!” she called. “Here is a scarlet feather fallen from some bird of passage. I have an idea! Let’s toss it to the air again; let it fly away in the breeze, and follow where it leads.”
As she spoke, the little red plume went soaring, and, as the breeze was a brisk one, it took the girls on a merry chase, for the little feather followed no trail, but led them through wiry grass and stubbly bushes away from both school and farm, and toward the sea.
“We’ve never been in this direction before,” Margaret announced, when the feather dropped to the ground and the girls paused to rest. “That, in itself, is an adventure, I think, don’t you?”
“I certainly do,” Babs replied. “I’ve often wondered what lay beyond that rocky promintory over there. We can see it from our window. I think since we are so near, it would be all right for us to climb to the top of it and see what lies beyond.”