Part 2 (2/2)

”I think this is a darling place and I'm having the time of my life. I wonder who he is?”

”He seemed kind of scared just now, didn't he?” chuckled Mollie, feeling her shoe to see if it was drying out any. ”It was funny the way he bolted out of the room.”

”Poor old dear--no wonder he was scared,” commented Grace, as she took off her hat and tried to do something with her hopelessly bedraggled locks.

”The way we look we're enough to scare anybody. Oh, dear, hasn't any one a comb?”

”Why, of course, we carry a complete beauty parlor outfit just for your benefit, dear,” giggled Mollie. ”The rest of us don't need it though, We are too beautiful naturally.”

”You know I like him a lot, the queer little man, I mean,” said Amy, evidently following out her own train of thought. ”He seems kind of fussy and peculiar but he has an awfully nice smile.”

”Trust Amy to find the smile,” said Betty, putting an arm fondly about the younger girl. ”And of course we all like him,” she added seriously. ”If it hadn't been for him we probably wouldn't be feeling so happy right now.”

”Yes, we would probably be in some hospital with our unhappy relatives weeping over our mangled remains,” said the irrepressible Mollie, and laughed at the shriek that went up at her gruesome remark. ”There probably wouldn't have been enough of us left to recognize,” she added by way of good measure, and they shrieked again.

”For goodness' sake, let's talk of something pleasant,” said Grace, rising suddenly and going over to the window. ”If you want to sit on that old bench all day, you can.”

It appeared that the girls had no intention of sitting on the bench all day. They got up and sauntered about the room, examining the skins on the walls and looking, but without much curiosity, at the rifles. They lingered longest before the shelves of b.u.t.terflies and beetles, for some of the specimens were really beautiful and very rare.

After they had examined everything in sight they began to grow restive.

They must have been in the place nearly an hour and it suddenly occurred to them to wonder where their host had been keeping himself all this time.

”I wish we could get started,” worried Mollie, looking out upon the sodden landscape. The rain was apparently coming down just as hard as ever. ”I hate to leave the car all by itself out there. Somebody might steal it.”

”I wish I knew where that man was,” said Grace nervously. ”I never trust strange men. He may set the house on fire for all we know.”

The words were hardly out of her mouth when the door opened and the topic of conversation himself entered, carrying a tray so big and heaped so high with sandwiches that one could scarcely discover the man behind it.

Betty and Amy ran to his a.s.sistance, and between them they got the tray safely to the bench. In one delighted glance the girls saw that not only sandwiches, but a steaming pot of coffee and the remains of what had been a great, three-layer chocolate cake were on the tray.

At thought of the fussy little man taking all this time and trouble, for it must have taken a good deal of work to make all that formidable array of sandwiches--the girls were sincerely touched and regarded their host with a new interest.

”There, there,” he was saying, regarding the heaped-up tray with evident pleasure, ”you must sit down and eat at once. You must be nearly starved--famished. I hope this will be enough.”

He looked at them so anxiously that Betty felt like hugging him--and nearly did it.

”Enough! Well, I guess it is enough,” she said heartily, as the other girls seated themselves on the bench either side of the tempting tray and began enthusiastically to help themselves. ”It would be plenty for an army. We can't thank you enough.”

”Indeed we can't,” added Mollie.

”It's awfully good of you,” said Grace, as she took a bite of her ham sandwich.

”Awfully good,” added Amy, like an echo.

The little man waved aside their thanks and drew up the one chair in the room, talking all the time in his quick, jerky fas.h.i.+on.

”It was no trouble, I am sure,--no trouble whatever,” he said, adding as though he wished to change the subject: ”You didn't tell me your name--”

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