Bare feet instantly pattered on the bare boards. The night light was reached and turned up and the tent flap “unlocked.”
And there was Peg with her Aunt Carrie!
“Oh, do come in,” begged Miss Mackin, anxiously. “What has happened?”
“Nothing,” replied Peg a trifle cynically, “but we were afraid something might happen to these,” she indicated a box she carried and also an armful of what seemed to be rolled cardboard.
Quickly the girls made the night visitors welcome, and with skill acquired from a similar previous experience, they were now preparing to “double bunk.”
Miss Ramsdell (Aunt Carrie) sighed deeply and sank down with very evident relief.
“I insisted that Peggie come down to you,” she explained. “Ever since we got back from the hills yesterday afternoon, mysterious men have been prowling about our cottages,” she explained.
“Perhaps just to frighten us,” added Peg. “At the same time these papers are so precious I was very glad to bring them down, if we don’t upset you too much?”
“We are simply delighted to have you come,” said Corene, sincerely. “And we never could have induced you to if something like this had not happened.”
“But I wanted to come more than you can ever know,” said the girl with the wonderful black eyes and the glossy crow-black hair. “You see, I was guarding daddy’s treasures. When he went there was no one left but me, and I was to finish his life’s work. I have been trying to do it.” Her voice tapered to a whisper, and no one attempted to intrude upon it.