Who had unfastened the latch and let them out?
Sahwah and Katherine suddenly gripped each other in terror, while the cold chills ran down their spines. The same thought of a supernatural agency had come into the mind of each. Then they both laughed at the absurdity of it.
“It couldn’t have been a ghost,” declared Katherine flatly. “Ghosts don’t make any noise when they walk.”
As fast as they could they ran back through the passage to the door in the cellar wall, jerked the cable that opened the trap, and came out through the landing just as Nyoda, arriving home, was taking off her furs at the foot of the stairs. They never forgot her petrified expression when she saw them coming up through the floor.
“We thought it must be nearly midnight!” said Sahwah in amazement, when they found out that they had never even been missed. They had only been gone from the house for two hours.
Sherry came in presently and was as dumbfounded as Nyoda when he saw the opening in the landing and heard the tale of the Winnebagos and the boys.
“We thought you had found the passage and were coming to let us out,” said Sahwah, “but it must have been Hercules, after all!”
“But Hercules was with me all afternoon, helping me overhaul the motor of the car,” said Sherry. “I just left him now.”
“Then—who—unlocked the—door?” cried the five in a bewildered way.
“Thunder!” suddenly shouted Justice. “It was the same man that made the footprints on the stairs! He got in through that secret passage, and what’s more, he’s down there yet!”
CHAPTER XI
A CURE FOR RHEUMATISM
All wrought up over the idea of the strange midnight visitor still lurking down in the passage, Nyoda made Sherry and the boys arm themselves and search the tunnel and the cave thoroughly, but they found no sign of anyone hidden down there.
“It must have been a ghost that unlatched the door, after all,” said Justice. “Most likely the ghost of the fellow that put the latch on. He’s probably detailed to look after all the latches he put on doors!—goes around with the ghost of an oil can and keeps them from squeaking. Yesterday must have been the date on his monthly tour of inspection. No, it couldn’t have been a spook anyhow,” he contradicted himself. “There’s the can of paint and the footprint on the stairs. Ghosts don’t leave footprints. That was real paint. He’s a live spook, all right.”
“But where is he now?” asked Nyoda nervously. “I’m afraid to open a table drawer, for fear he’ll step out. Does he fold up like an accordion, I wonder, or turn into smoke like the Imp in the Bottle? I declare, I’m getting curious to see him. I’m sorry now I made you barricade the door down there beside the ladder; I’ve half a notion to sit on the stairs all night and see if he won’t appear.”
“I know an easier way than that,” said Justice gravely. “Just grease the stairs and then come when you hear him fall. It’ll save you the trouble of sitting up.”
“You might recommend that method to the cat, instead of her watching beside the mouse hole,” replied Nyoda, laughing.
Then she heard a familiar fumbling at the back door. “Here comes Hercules,” she said hastily. “Quick, close up the landing. Don’t anybody mention finding the secret passage to him, or he’ll make life miserable for me from now on, worrying for fear his old friend, the devil, will come in and carry us all off. Come, get away from the stairway, and don’t act as if anything unusual had happened.
“What is it, Hercules?” she asked, as the old man shuffled into the kitchen. “Is your cold worse?”
“I was just goin’ to ask yer could I have some coffee,” said the old man in a plaintive voice. “I got the mizry so bad it’s just tearin’ me ter pieces, an’ when it gits like that it don’ seem like anything’ll help it ’cept drinkin’ hot coffee.”
Nyoda smiled at this novel cure for rheumatism, but she replied heartily, “Why, certainly you may have some coffee, Hercules. Just sit down there at the kitchen table and I’ll get you a cup. There’s some left in the pot; it’ll only take a minute to warm it up.”
She heated the coffee and motioned Hercules to a seat at the kitchen table, but he took the steaming cup and edged toward the door.
“I’ll just take it out an’ drink it gradual,” he said. “Never seems ter help the mizry none ’less I drink it gradual an’ keep my feet in hot water the while. Tanks, Mist’ Sher’dan, I don’ need no help. I kin git along by myself.”
Hercules shuffled out to the barn with his cup of hot coffee and Nyoda waited until he was out of earshot before she laughed aloud.
“That man certainly is a character!” she exclaimed. “Whoever heard of curing rheumatism by drinking coffee ‘gradual’ and holding your feet in water? I never know what queer notion he’s going to have next. I put a pot of bright red geraniums in his room once to brighten it up and he promptly brought it back, because, ‘Jewraniums are powerful unlucky, Miss ’Lizbeth. I was plantin’ jewraniums that day the goat got killed.’ Poor old Hercules, he does miss that goat so! He was simply inconsolable at first, and finally I resigned myself to a life of misery and told him to go and get himself another goat, but he wouldn’t do it. Nothing could take the place of that fiendish old animal in his affections. I believe he’ll mourn for him all the rest of his life.”
“Let’s invite him in for Sylvia’s birthday party to-morrow night,” suggested Migwan. “That’ll cheer him up and make him forget all about his ‘mizry’ for a while. Let’s find a masquerade costume for him, too, so he can be one of us.”
Nyoda smiled brightly at Migwan. “Thoughtful child!” she said fondly. “Always thinking of someone else’s pleasure. Certainly we’ll ask Hercules to the party.
“Now, all you menfolk clear out of this kitchen, or we won’t get any dinner to-night!”
CHAPTER XII
THE SPIRIT OF A PRINCESS
“O Nyoda, it can’t be true!”
Sahwah’s anguished wail cut across the stricken silence of the room.
The eminent surgeon had just made his examination of Sylvia and pronounced the verdict that had sent all their rosy air castles tumbling about their ears: “Nothing can be done. An operation would be useless. It is not a case of a splintered vertebra which could be patched. The nerves which control the limbs are paralyzed. She will never walk again.”
The last five words fell upon their ears like the tolling of a sorrowful bell. “She will never walk again.” Stunned by the unexpected verdict the Winnebagos stood mutely about Sylvia in anguished sympathy.
She lay motionless on the sofa, a white-faced, pitiful little ghost of a princess; her glad animation gone, her radiance extinguished, her song stricken upon her lips.
“O why did you tell me?” she wailed. “Why did you tell me I could be cured, when I never can? Why didn’t you leave me as I was? I was happy then, because I had never hoped to get well. But since you told me I’ve been planning so—” Her voice broke off and she lay back in silent misery.
“Now I can never be a Camp Fire Girl!” she cried a moment later, her grief breaking out afresh. “I can never go camping! I can never help Aunt Aggie!” All the joyful bubbles her fancy had blown in the last two days burst one by one before her eyes, each stabbing her with a fresh pang. “I’ll never be any use in the world; I wish I were dead!” she cried wildly, her rising grief culminating in an outburst of black despair.
“Oh, yes, you can too be a Camp Fire Girl,” said Nyoda soothingly. “You can do lots of things the other girls can do—and some they can’t. There isn’t any part of the Law you can’t fulfill. You can Seek Beauty, and Give Service, and Pursue Knowledge, and Be Trustworthy, and Hold on to Health, and Glorify Work, and Be Happy! Campfire isn’t just a matter of hikes and meetings. It’s a spirit that lives inside of you and makes life one long series of Joyous Ventures. You can kindle the Torch in your invalid’s chair as well as you could out in the big, busy world, and pass it on to others.”
“How can
I?” asked Sylvia wonderingly.
“In many ways,” answered Nyoda, “but chiefly by being happy yourself. Even if you never did anything else but be happy, you would be doing a useful piece of work in the world. Just sing as gayly as you used to, and everyone who hears you will be brighter and happier for your song. If you cannot do great deeds yourself, you may inspire others to do them. What does it matter who does things, as long as they are done? If you have encouraged someone else to do something big and fine, all on account of your happy spirit, it is just as well as if you had done the thing yourself. Did you ever hear the line, ‘All service ranks the same with God’? Sylvia, dear, you have the power to make people glad with your song. That is the way you will pass on the Torch. You already have your symbol; you chose it when you began to hero-worship Sylvia Warrington, and loved her because she was like a lark singing in the desert at dawning. That is the symbol you have taken for yourself—the lark that sings in the desert. Little Lark-that-sings-in-the-Desert, you will kindle the Torch with your song! Instead of being a Guide Torchbearer, or a Torchbearer in Craftsmanship, you will become a Torchbearer in Happiness!”
With these words of hope and encouragement Nyoda left her sorrowful little princess to the quiet rest which she needed after the fatiguing examination by the surgeon. Going into Hinpoha’s room she found her lying face downward on the bed in an agony of remorse, her red curls tumbled about her shoulders.
“I told her, I told her,” she cried out to Nyoda with burning self-condemnation. “I couldn’t keep my mouth shut till the proper time; I had to go and tell her two days ahead. If I’d only waited till we were sure she would never have had her heart set on it so. Oh, I’ll never forgive myself.” She beat on the pillow with her clenched fist and writhed under the lash of her self scorn. For once she was not in tears; her misery was far deeper than that. “I didn’t mean to tell her that day, Nyoda, I knew you’d asked us to keep it a secret, but it just slipped out before I thought.”
“Hinpoha, dear,” said Nyoda, sitting down on the bed beside her and speaking seriously, “will it always be like this with you? Will everything slip out ‘before you thought’? Will you never learn to think before you speak? Will you be forever like a sieve? Must we always hesitate to speak a private matter out in front of you, because we know it will be all over the town an hour later? Are you going to be the only one of the Winnebagos who can’t keep a secret?”
Hinpoha’s heart came near to breaking. Those were the severest words Nyoda had ever spoken to her. Yet Nyoda did not say them severely. Her tone was gentle, and her hand stroked the disheveled red curls as she spoke; but what she said pierced Hinpoha’s heart like a knife. A vision of herself came up as she must seem to others—a rattle brained creature who couldn’t keep anything to herself if her life depended upon it. How the others must despise her! Now she despised herself! Above all, how Nyoda must despise her—Nyoda, who always said the right thing at the right time, and whose tongue never got her into trouble! Nyoda might have nothing more to do with such a tattle tale! In her anguish she groaned aloud.
“Don’t you see,” went on Nyoda earnestly, “what suffering you bring upon yourself as well as upon other people by just not thinking? You could escape all that if you acquired a little discretion.”
“Oh, I’ll never tell anything again!” Hinpoha cried vehemently. “I’ll keep my lips tight shut, I’ll sew them shut. I won’t be like a sieve. You can tell all the secrets in front of me you like, they’ll be safe. Oh, don’t say you’ll never tell me any more secrets!” she said pleadingly. “Just try me and see!”
“Certainly I’ll keep on telling you secrets,” said Nyoda, “because I believe they really will be safe after this.” She saw the depth of woe into which Hinpoha had been plunged and knew that the bitter experience had taught her a lesson in discretion she would not soon forget. Poor impulsive, short-sighted Hinpoha! How her tongue was forever tripping her up, and what agonies of remorse she suffered afterward!
Hinpoha uncovered one eye and saw Nyoda looking at her with the same loving, friendly glance as always, and cast herself impulsively upon her shoulder. “You’ll see how discreet I can be!” she murmured humbly.
Nyoda smiled down at her and held her close for a minute.
“Listen!” she said. From the room where Sylvia lay there came the sound of a song. It began falteringly at first and choked off several times, but went bravely on, gaining in power, until the merry notes filled the house. The indomitable little spirit had fought its battle with gloom and come out victorious.
“The spirit of a princess!” Nyoda exclaimed admiringly. “Sylvia is of the true blood royal; she knows that the thoroughbred never whimpers; it is only the low born who cry out when hurt.”
“Gee, listen to that!” exclaimed Slim, sitting in the library with Sherry and the other two boys, when Sylvia’s song rang through the house, brave and clear. The four looked at each other, and the eyes of each held a tribute for the brave little singer. Sherry stood up and saluted, as though in the presence of a superior officer.
“She ought to have a Distinguished Valor Cross,” he said, “for conspicuous bravery under fire.”
“Pluckiest little kid I ever saw!” declared Slim feelingly, and then blew a violent blast on his nose.
“Sing a cheer!” called Sahwah, and the Winnebagos lined up in the hall outside Sylvia’s door and sang to her with a vigor that made the windows rattle:
“Oh, Sylvia, here’s to you,
Our hearts will e’er be true,
We will never find your equal
Though we search the whole world through!”
CHAPTER XIII
THE MASQUERADE
“I don’t suppose we’ll have the party now,” observed Gladys, after Sylvia had fallen asleep. “It’s a shame. We were going to have such a big time to-night.”
“Indeed, we will have the party anyhow!” said Nyoda emphatically. “We’ll outdo ourselves to make Sylvia have a hilarious time to-night. The time to laugh the loudest is when you feel the saddest. Gladys, will you engineer the candy making? You have your masquerade costume ready, haven’t you? The rest of you will have to hurry to get yours fixed, it’s three o’clock already. There are numerous chests of old clothes up in the attic; you may take anything you like from them. And that reminds me, I must go and bring out my old Navajo blanket for—” “Goodness!” she said, stopping herself just in time, “I almost told who is going to wear it. Now everybody be good and don’t ask me any questions. I have to bring it down and air it before it can be worn because it’s packed away in mothballs.”
She ran lightly up the stairs, chanting:
“There was an old chief of the Navajo,
Fell over the wigwam and broke his toe,
And now he is gone where the good Injuns go,
And his blanket is done up in cam-pho-o-or!”
She trailed out the last word into such a mournful wail that the Winnebagos shrieked with laughter.
A few minutes later she came down the stairs with a mystified face. “The blanket’s gone!” she announced. “Stolen. I had it in the lower drawer of the linen closet off the hall upstairs, all wrapped up in tar paper. The tar paper’s there in the drawer, folded up, with the mothballs lying on top of it, and the blanket is gone. Did any of you take it out to wear to-night?” she asked, looking relieved at the thought.
No one had taken it, however. Slim was the only one who wanted to be an Indian, and he was waiting for Nyoda to fetch the blanket for him. Without a doubt it had been stolen. So the midnight visitor had been a thief after all! But why did he take a blanket and nothing else? It was a valuable blanket, but the silverware and jewelry in the house were worth a great deal more. The mystery reared its head again. What manner of man was this strange visitor?
“My mother always used to keep her silver wrapped in the blankets in a clothes closet,” said Gladys, “and burglars broke into our house and found it all. The policeman that papa rep
orted it to said that was a common place for people to hide valuables and burglars usually searched through blankets. This burglar must have been looking for valuables in the blanket, and got scared away before he looked anywhere else, but took the blanket because it was such a good one.”
“That must have been it,” said Nyoda. “I’ve heard of cases before where valuables were stolen from their hiding places in blankets and bedding. Well, we were lucky to get away as we did.
“Slim, you’ll have to be something beside an Indian chief, for I haven’t another Navajo blanket. It’s too bad, too, because you had the real bow and arrows, but cheer up, we’ll find something else. The trouble is, though,” she mourned, “we haven’t much of anything that will fit you. The blanket would have solved the problem so nicely.”
“Let him wear the mothballs,” suggested Justice. “He can be an African chief instead of an Indian. A nice string of mothballs would be all—”
Slim threw a sofa cushion at him and Justice subsided.
The stolen blanket remained the chief topic of conversation until late in the afternoon, when Katherine made a discovery which furnished a new theme. She was up in the attic, hunting something from which to concoct a masquerade suit, and while rummaging through a trunk came upon a photograph underneath a pile of clothes. It was the picture of a young girl dressed in the fashion of a bygone day, with a tremendously long, full skirt bunched up into an elaborate “polonaise.” Above a pair of softly curved shoulders smiled a face of such witching beauty that Katherine forgot all about the trunk and its contents and gazed spellbound at the photograph. In the lower right hand corner was written in a beautiful, even hand, “To Jasper, from Sylvia.”
Katherine flew downstairs to show her find to the others.
“O how beautiful!” they cried, one after another, as they gazed at the picture of the girl Uncle Jasper could not forget. The small, piquant face, in its frame of dark hair, looked up at them from the picture with a winning, friendly smile, and looking at it the Winnebagos began to feel the charm of the living Sylvia Warrington, and to fall in love with her even as Uncle Jasper had done.
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