THE MAN IN THE AUTO.
Cautiously Katherine and Hazel withdrew from the path into a thicket and thence retreated along the path by which they had approached the house. They continued their retreat to the point where the path joined the automobile road and where grew the thicket within which they had discovered the frightened runaway child.
“Now, I tell you what we ought to do,” Katherine said. “We ought to follow this road about a mile, maybe, to get a view of the lay of the land and then return to this spot, or near it. We can get the information we want after we learn more of the camping possibilities of this neighborhood and can talk intelligently when we begin to make inquiries.”
“And when we get back,” Hazel added, “we’ll go to some neighboring house and ask all about who lives here and who lives there, and, of course, we’ll be particular to ask the name of the family where that icy bottle of perfume lives.”
“That’s the very idea,” Katherine agreed enthusiastically. “But we haven’t any time to waste, for it is nearly 12 o’clock now, and we have only a little more than an hour to work in if the motorboat arrives on time. We’d better not try to walk a mile—half a mile will be enough, maybe a quarter—just enough to enable us to talk intelligently about the lay of the land right around here.”
They walked north along the road nearly half a mile, found a path which led directly toward the lake, followed it until within view of the water’s edge, satisfied themselves that there were several excellent camping places along the shore in this vicinity and then started back. They had passed three or four cottages on their way and at one of these they stopped to make inquiries as planned.
A pleasant-faced woman in comfortable domestic attire met them at the door and answered their questions with a readiness that bespoke familiarity with the neighborhood and acquaintance with her neighbors. Katherine and Hazel experienced no slight difficulty in concealing their eager satisfaction when Mrs. Scott, the woman they were questioning, said:
“The people who have the cottage just north of us are the Pruitts of Wilmington, those just south of us are the Ertsmans of Richmond, and those just south of the Ertsmans are the Grahams of Baltimore, I think. I am not very well acquainted with that family. I am sure we would be delighted to have a group of Camp Fire Girls near us and you ought to have no difficulty in getting permission to pitch your tents. This land along here belongs to an estate which is managed by a man living in Philadelphia. He is represented here by a real estate man, Mr. Ferris, of Twin Lakes. He probably will permit you to camp here for little or nothing.”
The girls thanked the woman warmly for this information and then hurried away.
“We don’t need to call at the Graham cottage now,” Hazel said as they hastened back to the road. “We have all the preliminary information that we want. The next thing for us to do is to get back to the Point and meet the boat when it comes in and have a talk with the other girls. I suppose our first move then ought to be to go to Twin Lakes and get permission from that real estate man, Ferris, to pitch our tents on the land he has charge of.”