“Ask the Gem,” she shouted above the noise of the motor. “I was fussing with the engine and I accidentally touched a wire. You see the result! Good-by, we’ll see you again as soon as we can.”
Mollie and Grace stood on the shore waving as long as the motor boat was in sight, then, feeling rather lonely and forlorn, they turned back to camp.
“How quiet everything seems without the Little Captain,” sighed Grace, as they went to the familiar work of cleaning up. “I wish she was coming back to-day.”
“So do I,” answered Mollie, and then stopped suddenly, cocking her head to listen. “Did you hear that?” she asked. “It sounded—Oh, Grace, I’m getting as bad as Amy!”
CHAPTER XIV
THE PROWLER
So sure had Mollie been that she had heard a sound like somebody creeping stealthily through the woods that for a long time she was uncomfortable and nervous, though she strove to hide her uneasiness from Grace.
After the first scare, they had combed the woods thoroughly in the direction of the noise that Mollie thought she had heard, but had found nothing—and no one.
“Funny how a person’s ears can play strange tricks sometimes,” said Mollie, as, their morning’s work done, they wandered down toward the little brook. “I could have sworn I heard a heavy body crashing through the brush. And yet I couldn’t have heard it at all. After this,” she added with chagrin, “I’ll never dare laugh at Amy again.”
They reached the brook and lay down lazily on the carpet of thick moss which lined its banks while Grace invitingly opened the box of fudge. There was about half of it still left, and so they set to work with a will, the remaining pieces disappearing like snow before the sun.