“She told me how you wanted to feed her every half hour.”
“Yes,” laughed Leslie, “and I tried all the good recipes in the cook book, almost.”
But the girls walked out on the point a little distance, then returned, while Leslie, from her memory of her father’s plan, pointed out the place behind a windbreak of rocks where Elizabeth thought he intended to build the “Eyrie.” Strolling back from the Point, across an open space partly grown with straggling weeds and grass, the girls entered the pine woods, which was the thing of beauty upon the Secrest land. There Beth was seated upon a box, watching Dalton build a fire.
“Ever and anon that lad shakes a finger at me, girls, to keep me from doing anything,” Beth said, in explanation of her idleness.
“Good for Dal,” said Leslie. “Sarita and I are the chief cooks and bottle-washers around here. Just sit there, Beth, and tell us what to do, if we can’t think of it ourselves. I see that you brought water, Dal. Shall we boil it before drinking?”
“No; this is from the prettiest spring you ever saw. I opened some boxes and set up the tables, so you can go ahead. I’m going to get a supply of wood handy. We’ll fix up our portable stove to-morrow, but I want to have it in good shape, and then I thought that you girls would like a camp fire tonight.”
“Oh, we do!” cried Leslie and Sarita almost with one voice. “We’ll have hot wieners and open a can of beans. They’ll heat in a minute. Dal, that is a fine arrangement, fixing those stones for us to rest our pan on.”
It was Leslie who finished these remarks, as she and Sarita busied themselves with the work of supper and Dalton went back into the woods again for more wood. They heard the sound of his hatchet as they put a cloth on the little folding table and set it in a convenient place outside of the tent. “The table will make a good buffet, but I want to take my plate and sit on the pine needles.”
“You will be obliged to, for want of chairs at present,” said Elizabeth, jumping up and insisting on being allowed to help. What a new atmosphere it was! Here they were, off in the “wilds” and their own wilds at that, with all sorts of happy experiences before them.
Dalton, whistling a popular song went about hither and yon, gathering a supply of wood, lopping off undesirable portions of old limbs here and there. Looking up at a sound, he was surprised to see a rough-looking man approaching him. He was ill-featured, dark, grim, and of stalwart build. Dalton, rather glad of his hatchet, stood his ground, waiting to be addressed.
“What are you folks doing here?” the man demanded.
“This is our land, sir,” replied Dalton, “and we have just come to camp here for the summer.” He felt like adding, “any objections?” but thought that he would not be the one to start any trouble by impertinence. He did not like the man’s tone, however.
“How do we know that you own this land? I’d not heard of its being sold.”
“It can easily be proved. Our name is Secrest. My father bought this several years ago.”
“Is your father here?”
“Well, excuse me, sir, would you prefer to ask your questions of my father? Are you the mayor of the village?”
“No; but any of us have a right to know what strangers are going to do.”
“Perhaps you have, sir,” said Dalton, in a more friendly way, “but it’s a free country, you know, and we own this piece of ground. I’m expecting to camp here all summer, and to build a more permanent home, or start one, for our summers here.”
The man nodded. “Well, if that is so, and if you mind your own business, you may like it. But it ain’t healthy around here for snoopers, nor folks that are too cur’ous. That’s all.” The man stalked away, tying more tightly a red handkerchief around his neck, and hitching up the collar of his rough coat. The ocean breeze was growing a little chilly.
But a thought occurred to Dalton and he spoke again to the man. “Wait a moment, please. How about these woods and the places around here—are they safe for my sisters and our friend?”
“Yes, safe enough. It’s too far from the railroad for tramps and thieves and there ain’t no good roads for the fellers with cars. The folks over at Steeple Rocks growl about that.”
“We have neighbors over in that direction, then?”
“So you didn’t know that. H’m. You don’t know much about this place, if your father did buy it.”
“No. None of us were ever here before.”
“And your father’s dead.”
Dalton looked up surprised at that, for he had purposely avoided answering that question about his father. The man grinned a little. “I reckon a kid like you wouldn’t be talkin’ about buildin’ a cabin himself if he had a father. Have you got a boat?”
“No, but we’re going to have one.”
“Remember what I said, then, about minding your own affairs.”
Having no good reply to this, which Dalton resented, he curbed his rising anger at this rude acquaintance and watched him stride in the direction of the road, which wound through the woods some distance away. “Well, your room is far better than your company,” thought Dalton, as he picked up his sticks, making a load of them. He wondered whether this were one of the fishermen or not. He did not have the same speech as that of the other New Englanders whom they had recently met. The man who had brought their goods from the station had been most friendly, answering their questions and volunteering all kinds of interesting information about the country. It was odd that he had not mentioned the people at Steeple Rocks, but it had so happened.
With such thoughts, Dalton went through the woods, whose wonderful pines had so delighted them, and finally joined the girls, arranging his firewood at a convenient distance. Leslie found little things for Dalton to do and supper was hurried up. The table was used for buttering bread and fixing sandwiches; then each with a loaded plate sought a place around the fire, which Dalton heaped with firewood till it blazed as hotly as was safe.
There was some scrambling around when the wind veered and blew the smoke in the wrong direction, but the camp was more or less protected from the direct breeze. Happy and hungry, the campers disposed of a good meal in the midst of considerable fun and joking. Long acquaintance had made Sarita like a member of the family. She and Leslie recounted amusing incidents of their school year just ended, or consulted Dalton about their plans for the camp and the Eyrie. Elizabeth woke to something like her old fire and announced that she intended to go back to “sweet sixteen” and play with the rest of them.
“Oh, Beth, bob your hair, then!” urged Leslie, running her fingers through her own curly brown mop.
“Not much she doesn’t!” Dalton objected. “I can’t imagine Beth without her piles of pretty hair. Who was that beau, Beth, that wrote about your ‘waves of burnished gold’?”
Beth laughed. “I was very mad, then, when you infants discovered that poem.”
“Beth’s hair is just a little too dark to be called‘golden,’” reflectively said Sarita. “You might braid it and wear it over your shoulders, Indian fashion.”
“It would be in my way, my dear.”
“Bob it, Beth!” again said Leslie. “Dalton is just like the rest of the men about a girl’s hair. Think how fine it will be not to have so much to dry when you go in swimming.”
“Don’t you weaken, Beth,” spoke Dalton, eating his last sandwich. “Think of the ‘artistic Miss Secrest’ without her ‘wonderful hair.’”
“Come now, folks, it’s my hair. I’m not doing anything at all about it, and what a waste of time and opportunity to discuss such a subject here! Come on, girls, we must fix up the beds. Dal, please help us with the cots, and did you think what a fine dresser that big box will make, girls? It has a division in it, you remember. We’ll set it on end, put a cover on it over some paper, tack a curtain across, and there will be our dressing table, with a big shelf behind the curtain. I’m wasted in the schoolroom, Sarita. I ought to be an interior decorator. To-morrow some of those pretty spruce limb
s will make a fine background for our mirror!”
“Beth! Did you honestly buy that mirror in the store by the station? Dal, it’s the funniest thing you ever saw and we look crooked in it. Beth must have liked it because it makes her look fat!”
Springing up, the party of four piled their plates and cups on the table, where Sarita busied herself in repacking the food in its containers and the others went into the larger tent. There trunks and boxes had been left in confusion.
In a short time Dalton had the three cots up and took another to his own tent, which stood opposite the larger one. Leslie had suggested the arrangement, insisting that they must live on an “Avenue.”
Elizabeth and Leslie were now drawing both woolen and cotton blankets from a big trunk of supplies, together with four warm bathrobes. Sarita came in just in time to seize upon hers with an exclamation of welcome. “We’ll probably want to sleep in ’em,” she said, with an exaggerated shiver, putting on the garment over her sweater while Leslie laughed at her.
Trunks were pulled around into place, boxes piled out of the way, flashlights and the convenient bags or cases, with which they had traveled, found and placed by their owners’ cots. On the rude dresser, to be made more attractive in the future, a candlestick, candle and a box of matches stood ready if needed, “And if anybody lights the candle, let him beware of burning up the place!” warned Beth.
“Her, not ‘him,’ Beth,” corrected Leslie. “The only ‘him’ has a tent of his own. I’m going to see, too, that Dal has enough blankets on his bed and everything. No, keep out, Beth. Don’t worry; I’ll think of just exactly what we have that he must have, too. Say, what did we do with those towels? Thanks. Dal is grand to do things for us, but when it comes to fixing up himself—” Leslie ran across the boulevard, which Sarita now called the space between the tents, and the girls smiled as they heard her arguing with Dalton about something.
“Listen, Dal! It gets cold up here. I’ve known girls that camped in Maine. I know that you’re hot-blooded and all that. I’ll just tuck these blankets in at the foot, and I know that you’ll want to draw them up by morning.”
Some bass murmur came from her brother, and then the girls heard Leslie’s more carrying voice.
“No, I’ll brace them back on this box and then they won’t be too heavy on your feet. Well, have it your own way, then, but if you freeze, I’ll not be responsible!”
Leslie was grinning herself, when she came into the girls’ tent and saw Sarita shaking with laughter, as she sat on the edge of her cot undressing. “We couldn’t help hear, Les!” she said. “The boulevard should be wider. What was it beside the blanket discussion?”
“The last thing he said to me was ‘Can’t you let a guy go to bed?’—but he was laughing and lifted the flap of the tent for me with a most ridiculous bow. Dal’s the funniest thing!”
“All the same I’d be scared to death, going to bed away off here, if it wasn’t for Dal across there.”
“I imagine that I would be, too, though Beth and I have gotten used to taking care of ourselves. Now you in bed first, Beth. You must get out of the way of ‘going over the house’ to see if everything is all right. I will boss somebody!”
“You can boss me all you please, Leslie. You may even tuck me into bed,” said Beth, looking so sweet with her long, light braids, that Leslie walked right over, turned back the blankets on Beth’s cot, almost lifted the slight figure into place, tucked her in snugly and kissed her soundly.
The first day in camp was over. Dalton had purposely said nothing about the man of the woods. He would mention it to Leslie and Sarita in the morning, but on the whole he expected no trouble. The fishermen reached the bay, as a rule, from the ocean itself, rather than from the high cliffs. There was little to bring anyone in that direction, except possibly someone of their neighbors from Steeple Rocks. His question to the man had been more to test his purposes, than for information, and Dalton was sorry that he had not mentioned the target practice which he had induced the girls to take up more as a safe means of defence than as a sport, though he had not told them that.
But Dalton Secrest was of no timid sort. This was a new adventure and promised much. What it was to include he did not yet know. There were to be some moments not exactly “healthy,” as the man had warned, though Dalton himself was not responsible for unraveling the mystery of Steeple Rocks.
CHAPTER II
PEGGY DESCENDS
Elizabeth, Dalton and Leslie Secrest were intelligent young people of some culture and background, though that impression might not always be given when Dalton or Leslie fell into the modern school vernacular. Elizabeth, two years out of college, was more careful, inasmuch as she was teaching drawing and other lines of school art to children and was also the head of their little family.
It had all happened very suddenly, the death of the parents and the plunge into partial self-support. Interest from the invested life insurance furnished part of their income, and what Elizabeth called her “munificent salary” the rest. Dalton earned enough outside of school hours to help considerably. Elizabeth had insisted that he must finish high school and now thought that he should take enough of their principal to see him through college. This was a subject of argument between them, for Dalton considered that out of the question. He had just been graduated from high school and had prevailed upon his sister to take the money for this adventure, particularly with the purpose of finding out how valuable the property was for a possible sale.
Plans were all a little vague, but when the doctor ordered Beth somewhere for change and rest, Leslie and Dalton executed the whole affair, with Beth’s advice and assistance. Enthusiasm had grown when they came upon a letter outlining their father’s plans for building what he called the “Eyrie” and now that they were here, seeing upon the spot their few but beautiful acres, and the limitless sea by which they lay, values went up, mentally at least.
Beth of the “burnished locks,” was not beautiful, but her golden-brown hair crowned a delicate face with fairly regular features, steady blue eyes, dreamy when they had a chance to dream, and a sensitive mouth. She was slight and of medium height, twenty-three at her next birthday.
Dalton, eighteen on the day of his graduation, was most fortunately a tall, strong lad, with a very practical turn. Vocational training had fostered this and young as he was, Dalton expected, with some help, to build a very respectable log cabin from the timber on the place. His last two vacations had been spent in helping a carpenter and small contractor. While his experience might not apply to handling logs, it would help.
Leslie, like Dalton, was more of the brunette type, though not dark. Brown hair and lashes, grey eyes, good features with a pleasing mouth, laughing or firm as circumstances might demand, were her assets. She was taller at not quite sixteen than her older sister, and according to her own statement could not “draw a crooked line”; but she could play on ukelele or guitar as well as on the piano at home, and she and Sarita knew all the songs, old and new, that their generation afforded.
Sarita, brown-haired, brown-eyed, demure, pretty, half a head shorter than Leslie and a few months younger, was the fortunate one of the party in having a father. An easy-going step-mother let Sarita do very much as she pleased, a delightful, though not altogether safe method of management. But Sarita’s pleasures were always harmless ones and included those of her chum Leslie. Both girls were active, energetic and capable, with many an enthusiastic scheme or ambition originating in their fertile minds. Dalton sometimes called them the “self-starters.”
After a trip with Dalton to view the little lake and to help him bring water from the spring, the girls spent the morning of the second day in arranging their camp quarters. Elizabeth, when challenged to bring forth her curtains for their “dresser,” surprised Leslie and Sarita by producing them, deep ruffles that had once graced some home-made dressing table. “They were in a trunk in the attic,” Beth explained, “and I thought that we could use them here
in the Eyrie, if it ever gets built.”
The cots, trunks and the beruffled box took up most of the room in the larger tent, but some perishable supplies were stored there; and Dalton set about making what the girls called a chicken coop, to keep their boxes of food stuffs from harm, all to be covered with a huge piece of waterproofing.
While he was doing this, he had an opportunity to tell Leslie and Sarita about his inquisitive visitor of the evening before. He described the man and gave details of the conversation.
“What do you suppose he meant, Dal?” asked Sarita in some excitement, her brown eyes growing larger. Leslie, too, was alert, scenting some secret.
“Oh, I imagine that there is a bit of rum-running, perhaps,” replied Dalton, driving another nail. “We’d probably better take his advice about minding our own business, though I will admit that it made me hot to have a chap like that laying down the law. I’ll make a few inquiries among the fishermen. I’ve got to see about getting a boat, too. I wouldn’t do this, but we have to make our stuff safe from rain or little foragers. What a waste of time it is to work here, Sarita.”
“Yes, it is. Poor you, Dal—let’s not have an Eyrie.”
“Oh, I’ll like building that, when I get at it. It isn’t going to take so long, when the materials come and the man who is to help me comes with his helpers. I’m going through the woods some time today to mark the trees that I want.”
“Don’t take the big lovely ones, Dal,” said Leslie.
“No, I’ll not. I shall select the trees with less symmetrical limbs or placed where thinning out will be good.”
“Do you know all about old-fashioned ‘log-raising,’ Dal?” Sarita asked.
“No, I don’t know ‘all’ about anything, Sairey, but this man helps build the new-fangled log houses that they have in the north woods, so I have hopes. There! That’s finished!”
“Look, Dal,” suddenly Leslie said in a low voice, and Dalton turned to see a gentleman riding among the trees and coming toward them.
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