“When I got back to the cottage there was Leonore Fairbanks trying to make friends with Shag. If she could have gotten in the cottage, you see, she hoped to find the drawing and plans for the invention,” explained Peg. “Then parts of the machine also are hidden in our house, and if she could have obtained any single part of that machine the men might have been able to guess at its principle.”
“Oh, that was why you kept folks away from your house, was it?” asked Grace.
“Yes. Daddy charged me to protect all that work of his until I could turn it over to his brother, my Uncle Edward. He has been abroad and I expect to hear any day that his steamer is in New York. What a relief that will be,” she sighed.
“What steamer is he on?” inquired Julia.
“The Tourlander. He was in Egypt when daddy died and could not come until he finished his business there.”
“The Tourlander is the very steamer my Aunt Marie is on,” said Julia, “and it was sighted yesterday. Daddy had a message; mother told me about it when we went for the mail.”
“Sighted! Oh, Aunt Carrie, did you hear? The Tourlander is coming in! It has been sighted!” Peg exclaimed gleefully.
“Really, my dear!” and that message had an electrical effect on Miss Ramsdell. “If Uncle Edward is coming in we must be stirring. How strange it all seems? That I should sleep in a tent again! I have always loved camping, and since Peggie’s mother died we spent quite a lot of time traveling about. You see,” she explained to everyone, “my brother was a geologist, and at one time was employed by the government to sample ores. That was how he came to be interested in these hills. He insisted there were valuable zinc veins up here. Come, Peggie dear, I feel so anxious now. Won’t it be splendid if your Uncle Edward comes just now when things seem to be so critical?”
“We need him, Auntie mine,” replied the girl, who was partially succeeding in freeing herself from the girls who vainly tried to hold her for a fuller story.
“I’ll tell it all to you, every single bit,” she promised. “But we really must hurry back to the log cabin. Suppose we have been bombarded during the night? Then, what would we do for a house and home?”