“Humph,” grumbled Laura, who was feeling tired and cross, “you talk as if mysteries were just hanging around loose begging to be found.”
“Well, I think maybe we’ll manage to enjoy ourselves, even without mysteries,” said Billie gayly. Nevertheless, she could not help thinking to herself: “Oh, dear, I do wish there was some way I could find out about Miss Arbuckle and those lovely children and poor lonely, sad Hugo Billings. I should like to help if I only knew how!”
“Billie, wake up! Wake up—it’s time to get off!”
She must have been very sound asleep because it was several seconds before she fought her way through a sea of unconsciousness and opened heavy eyes upon a scene of confusion.
“What’s the matter?” she asked sleepily, but some one, she thought it was Laura, shook her impatiently, and some one else—she was wide awake enough now to be sure this was Vi—put a hat on her head and pushed it so far over her eyes that she temporarily went blind again.
“For goodness sake, can’t you put it on straight?” she demanded indignantly, pushing the hat back where it belonged. “What do you think you’re doing anyway?”
A little anger was the best thing that could have come to Billie. It was about the only thing in the world that would have gotten her wide awake just then. And it was very necessary that she should be wide awake, for the train was just drawing into the station where they were to get off to take the boat to Lighthouse Island.
She took the bag thrust into her hands by Laura, and the girls hurried out into the aisle that was crowded with people. A minute more, and they found themselves on a platform down which people hurried and porters rolled their baggage trucks and where every one seemed intent upon making as much noise as possible.
Billie and Laura and Vi felt very much bewildered, for they had never done any traveling except in the company of some older person; but with a confidence that surprised them, Connie took command of the situation. For Connie had traveled this route several times, and everything about it was familiar to her.
“Give me your trunk checks,” she ordered, adding, as the girls obediently fumbled in their pocketbooks: “We’ll have to hustle if we want to get our trunks straightened out and get on board ourselves before the boat starts. What’s the matter, Vi, you haven’t lost your check, have you?”