Part 25 (1/2)

”Jimmy and Arnold--my sons, my little boys!” Then, turning fiercely to Betty, he cried: ”You're not lying to me, are you? Because I'll throw you into the river! I'll cut you into little pieces!”

As the man advanced menacingly, Grace screamed and Mollie ran forward with some wild idea of protecting her chum, but Betty waved them back.

”I'm not lying to you,” she told the crazy man, looking straight into his glaring eyes. ”Your boys were wounded, but not seriously, and they sailed a few days ago for this country on a hospital s.h.i.+p. They want to see you more than anything else in the world,” she added, playing on the sudden softness that had crept into his wild eyes. ”And they sent their love to their dad.”

At sound of the old loving name all the fight went out of the old man and he sank to his knees on the gra.s.s, sobbing horribly.

They let him alone for a moment, then Betty motioned to Mollie, and together they lifted him to his feet. The sight of his tear-stained, unkempt old face, creased and lined with suffering, but with the wildness gone out of the eyes, stirred a profound pity in the girls and they wished more than anything in the world to make him happy again.

”We are going to take you home, Professor Dempsey,” Betty told him soothingly, as with Mollie's help she half led, half carried, him through the woods toward the spot where they had left the boat, Amy and Grace following awed and silent behind them. ”And as soon as your boys reach home we will bring them to you. Be careful of this big rock. Ah, here's the boat.” And talking all the time, softly and soothingly as one would to a child, Betty at last succeeded in seating the derelict old man in the equally derelict old boat.

The girls tumbled in after him, and with a prayer in her heart Betty pushed off from sh.o.r.e.

That ride back across the river was as weird and unreal as any nightmare the girls had ever lived through. Their queer pa.s.senger, seeming the most unreal of all, was quiet for the most part but occasionally he would sit up and look about him wildly and could only be soothed back to reason by Betty's sweet voice telling him of his boys--Jimmy and Arnold.

Somehow they reached the opposite sh.o.r.e, and, after pulling the boat up among the bushes once more, they started back, the old man with them, to Wild Rose Lodge.

Chapter XXV

The Old Crowd Again

Mrs. Irving, who had been worried by their prolonged absence, met the girls at the door as they stumbled with the almost exhausted old man up the steps of the porch.

At sight of the latter she grew deathly pale, and leaned against the door for support. She felt that all the world was growing black----

”Oh, please, please don't faint!” she heard Betty's young voice calling to her desperately as it seemed from a long distance. ”We've depended upon you to help us.”

With a great effort she fought off the dizziness and drew herself away from Betty's supporting arm.

”It's all right,” she said dazedly. ”The shock, I guess. Betty what--who--is that----”

”Oh, please don't ask any questions now,” Betty begged feverishly. ”Just help us, and we will tell you all about it later. This is Professor Dempsey,” she added, turning to the broken old man who stood staring at them uncomprehendingly. ”He can have Mollie's and my room, can't he, Mrs.

Irving? and we will bunk somewhere else.”

Mrs. Irving nodded automatically, still too dazed by the suddenness of the thing even to think, and they helped the old man into Betty's room and laid him on the bed. The tired, ragged, unkempt old head had hardly touched the pillow before its owner had sunk into a heavy sleep.

For a moment the girls were startled, for it almost seemed as though he were dead, but Betty put her hand on the ragged old s.h.i.+rt above the heart and found that the action was strong and regular.

”Perhaps it is the very best thing that could happen to him,” she said softly, and, laying a light cover over him, tip-toed from the room, followed quietly by Mrs. Irving and the other girls.

Once in the other room, with the need for action over, the girls felt weak and spent, and it was only then that they realized that they had been through a terrible ordeal.

In broken sentences they told Mrs. Irving all that had happened and as she listened she more and more appalled at the risk they had run and the danger they had gone through.

”Girls, girls,” she cried when they had finished, ”I was half wild about you as it was. But if I had known the truth I think I should have gone crazy. Just the same,” she added and her eyes shone with pride in them, ”it was a glorious thing for you to do--an unselfish, wonderfully courageous thing. I'm proud of you!”

In spite of the fact that they were tired out, the girls insisted upon standing watch and watch that night. They felt that some one should be with Professor Dempsey all the time in case he should wake in the night with his old madness upon him. It was the longest night any of them had ever spent, and the morning dawned upon a hollow-eyed, worn-out set of Outdoor Girls.