Even the girls’ low voices had made the bird whisk out of sight again. Quiet indeed must she who follows the birds learn to be! There was no further conversation while the girls stealthily tiptoed to a vantage point and watched the thick bushes that concealed the warbler. Then—oh joy!—there were both of the mates. First the male bird flew from the bush to a tree above. On a lower limb, in plain sight, he rested for a few moments, a ray of sunlight catching the bright yellow of his breast and showing clearly the black markings of the head. But whisk—they were both there on the same limb for a second, then gone! Bird study was like that!
“Now you see them and now you don’t see them!” said Betty, wishing that she had her notebook. “Don’t let me forget, Kathryn, to put all that down for our reports, and about the little field sparrow’s nest we found at the foot of that tree. Gracious! I’m afraid now of stepping on some nest when we dash around!”
“Go on about Ramon, Betty.”
The girls stopped on the great bridge and leaned on its railing to look down at the water below. A little green heron started from a thicket close to the river and a spotted sandpiper flew close to the sands or gravel upon a “sand-bar” and kept on its low flight for some distance up the stream.
“I suppose I told you how relieved he was to hear that his mother and sister were found and all right. I tried to get him to see how much more his mother would want him than any money, but he doesn’t look at it that way.”
“Maybe there’s some reason we don’t know, Betty. Then folks are different about those things. Perhaps they do care about the jewels and their family and all more than about living, without them.”
Betty considered. “I suppose they do hate to be taken advantage of and I suppose awful things must have happened through that old scoundrel.” Betty looked around almost as if she expected to see him. “Oh, let’s forget about it. Ramon Sevilla-sky will just have to have his old adventures if he will be so obstinate. All he said in his letter was that he was still alive and on the trail. He just wrote to thank me for everything, he said, and he could write to Father later on, if he had any success.”
Kathryn, who had laughed at Betty’s combination of Ramon’s name, repeated meaningly “if he has any success!”
When the girls went back to headquarters again, they found things humming as usual in the merry beehive of activity. Bernadine Fisher, one of the dramatic group, handed them each a large scrap of brown paper, torn in irregular shape and written upon with a very black pencil. This was the invitation to a barn dance, to take place that evening. “Look as crazy as you can,” said Bernadine. “And after the barn dance we’re going to put on our masterpiece. Don’t forget, Betty, that you are the heroine that gets kidnapped and everything. Ask Miss Mercer about costume. You remember we talked about that.”
“Yes—but what do I say?”