The Outdoor Girls Around the Campfire by Laura Lee Hope (free novel 24 txt) 📖

of her Betty could not see what this had to do with the Old Maid of the Mountains. But she said nothing, merely wrinkling up her nose in bewilderment as Allen rushed on.

“In his younger days,” continued Allen, “he was in partnership with a man named James Barton. Now it seems that this old man, this client of mine, had a bitter quarrel with his partner.

“People who knew both the men when they were young—and I have had occasion to talk to quite a few of them in connection with the case and in hope of clearing up the mystery—say that no one knew the cause of the quarrel and neither of the two men would say a word about it one way or another.”

“But what has that to do——” began Betty, becoming more and more puzzled.

“I’m telling you,” insisted Allen. She had never known him to be so impatient of interruption before. “Just about here enters the sister of Luther Weeks.”

“Weeks! Weeks! Luther Weeks!” repeated Betty, gazing wide-eyed at Allen. “Who was he?”

“Luther Weeks was the name of the old man who just died—my client,” explained Allen, trying hard to be patient.

“Oh!” exclaimed Betty, and then as the thing came to her with full force she gripped his arm excitedly. “Allen,” she cried, “that is the name of our old lady—our Old Maid of the Mountains! Isabella Weeks!”

“Then that practically settles it,” returned Allen, the light of great relief in his eyes. “By Jove, but this is luck!”

“You haven’t really told me anything,” cried Betty, shaking his arm, for it was her turn to be impatient. “Even if our Old Maid of the Mountains is the sister of your dead client, I don’t see——”

“That’s the romantic—and pathetic—part of it,” said Allen, softly. “In her youth Isabella Weeks was engaged to be married to James Barton, the partner of her brother, Luther Weeks.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Betty, then clapped her hand over her mouth, waiting eagerly for Allen to go on.

“When the partners quarreled,” the young lawyer continued, slowly, “Luther Weeks commanded his sister to give up Barton.”

“And did she do it?” asked Betty, with all the incredulity of a modern girl for such weakness. “Surely she wouldn’t give her lover up because her brother told her to.”

“No,” answered Allen, with a shake of his head, “I imagine she wouldn’t have sent James Barton away if that had been the only reason.”

“Then what other was there?” asked Betty, adding with an impatient shake of the head: “Oh, Allen, you are so slow!”

“Give me time,” protested Allen, with a smile for her impatience. Impatience was marvelously becoming to Betty. “It seems,” he went on, “that Luther Weeks got it into his crusty head that James Barton had mishandled funds belonging to the firm.”

“Oh,” said Betty, softly, with a swift pang of pity for the Isabella Weeks of that time. “And had he, Allen?”

Allen shook his head soberly.

“That’s just the pity of it,” he said. “After Luther Weeks had done all the damage he could do by his accusations—driving his sister from him and separating her from the man she loved—he found out that Barton had been perfectly sincere and upright in all his transactions.”

“And what had happened to him then—to James Barton, I mean?” asked Betty breathlessly.

“He had disappeared,” said Allen. “Went to some other country, perhaps, to start life over again.”

“And Isabella never saw him again?” asked Betty, pityingly.

“Never, so far as any one knows,” replied Allen, adding grimly: “I tell you Luther Weeks has had a good deal to answer for.”

“And so that is what he—Luther Weeks, that is—had on his conscience?” Betty rather stated than asked. “What about his will, Allen?”

“His will makes restitution as far as restitution is possible,” returned Allen. “He left all his money to his sister, Isabella Weeks, in case she could be found.”

Betty’s face lighted joyfully.

“Oh, Allen,” she cried, “did he leave much money?”

“It isn’t a fortune, but it’s enough. Forty thousand dollars.”

Betty drew in her breath sharply.

“Allen,” she breathed, “do you realize what that will mean to our Old Maid of the Mountains? Not a fortune! It will seem limitless wealth to her. Oh, I’m so glad—I’m so glad!”

They heard the voices of the other girls and boys directly ahead of them and, taking Allen by the hand, the Little Captain dragged him eagerly forward.

“Oh, hurry, hurry!” she begged. “I can’t wait to tell them!” She paused, eyeing Allen half doubtfully. “It will be all right to tell them, won’t it?” she asked.

“Perfectly,” said Allen, cheerfully. “I don’t care how many of them know about it now. The more the merrier.”

So Betty experienced the unutterable delight of breaking the glad news to the girls. And, even before she had finished, they were all, by mutual consent, starting in the direction of the cabin of the Old Maid of the Mountains.

“I can’t believe it yet,” said Mollie, her eyes looking as if they were about to pop out of her head with wonder and delight. “And to think that just the other day we were wondering what we could do to help her.”

“I can’t wait to see her face when we tell her,” said Grace, smiling in happy anticipation. “I reckon she will turn all rosy and pink, the way it does sometimes when she forgets to be sad.”

“It seems too wonderful to be true,” said quiet Amy, adding in a soft little voice as if she were half ashamed of what she was saying: “Sometimes it does seem that if you try very hard to help some one and wish very hard for their happiness, something beautiful happens in the end.”

“It surely seems that way,” said the Little Captain.

Will took Amy’s hand in his for a moment saying, with an adoring look:

“Any one is lucky to have you rooting for him, Amy Blackford.”

And so absorbed were they all that no one noticed they had taken the wrong path until they had gone for a considerable distance into the woods.

This was the easiest kind of mistake to make, for at one point the two woods paths intersected, going on from the point of intersection almost at right angles, one to the other. In their pre-occupation, the young folks had taken the wrong path.

“A perfectly simple thing to do,” Roy declared. “But not a very serious mistake except in that it will take us a little longer to reach the Old Maid of the Mountains with the glad news.”

In their present state of impatience, however, any sort of delay seemed almost tragic, and the girls grumbled considerably as they turned to retrace their steps.

They had gone only a few feet when a call from Frank brought them to a startled standstill. There was something in his voice that made them turn quickly toward him.

“Look,” he said in a cautiously lowered tone, as he pointed ahead into the woods. “See that smoke over there? Means a camp of some sort.”

“Let’s go and investigate,” said Will immediately, feeling a sudden terrific thirst for battle. “It was just a little further on that those tramps attacked us the other day. Maybe—say maybe——” He said no more but began running full speed through the woods toward the spiral of smoke that curled upward through the trees.

The girls had almost forgotten about the tramps by that time, but Will’s excitement and lust of battle communicated itself to them and they followed him hotfoot, careful the while to make as little noise as possible.

“We’re probably following a false scent again,” gasped Mollie. “There isn’t one chance in a hundred there are tramps anywhere around here.”

As they approached closer to their goal they could distinctly hear the sound of voices, and their approach became still more cautious. Creeping closer, they saw through the trees the most curious little structure they had ever laid eyes on.

It was a hut, hardly more than a lean-to, made of logs and piled together in haphazard fashion. Grass and leaves had been used to stuff up the cracks, and on one side—the side nearest the girls and boys—was a small opening, evidently intended for a window.

“I wonder what they do when it rains,” Betty whispered to Mollie, who had pressed up close beside her. “They haven’t thought to put glass in their window.”

“Maybe,” said Mollie, with a suppressed chuckle, “it never rains on this side of the house.”

But Will had stolen near enough to the cabin—if such it could be called—to look in through the window. Now he crept back to them holding up a cautioning hand.

“They’re in there!” he whispered, his eyes black with excitement and eagerness. “The roughnecks who robbed us and a couple of others as well!”