But Gyp had stopped! The girl scout had pulled him up somehow, and now Frank was there talking, and shouting, and praising the girl who had saved Tessie's life.
"And she wouldn't even give her name," he was calling to Tessie. "Some narrow escape, I'll say. Why, that express no more than shot by when you touched the gates. If you hadn't looked so dead, I might have got that girl's name, but she's in one of those cottages by now. Well, we'll beat it for home," and he turned cautiously into the broader roadway. "Gyp, you'll go on a light diet for this, see if you don't!"
But all the joy of her lovely ride was erased in the perilous experience. And again the influence of the girl scouts forced its way into her uncertain life. Truly the little heroes in that modest uniform deserved such merit badges as the one so lately given to Jacqueline Douglass.
But it would not be wise to recount to the invalid child anything of this wild adventure. This Tessie felt instinctively. Nevertheless, when that night Jacqueline was placed in her dining chair, and while chatting with her brother she proudly displayed the clover leaf pin in a new little velvet case, Tessie wondered what could have been the original feat of heroism for which this badge had been bestowed.
"And the girl who saved my life deserves the highest award," she reflected, "although no one will ever know, I suppose. She risked her own life in the attempt." Such was Tessie's decision, while that little scout was congratulating herself on having really saved a life "without anyone knowing who did it." She had HER secret now and it was delightful to cuddle so securely in her happy little heart.
CHAPTER XIX
THE FLYING SQUADRON
"Oh, Grace, what do you think?" Thus asked Madaline without hint or warning.
"Think? This is no time for thinking," answered Grace, who was busying herself with a complicated system of cords. "I'm trying to puzzle out the best way to demonstrate a sheep-shank knot," and she kept on with her endeavor, flipping the cord ends this way and that, while Madaline, all impatience, looked down at her chum.
"Trying to tie a sheep-shank!" gasped the Bearer of tidings, as she presently proved herself to be. "Why, the very idea! You passed that test long ago—you're no tenderfoot!"