The Girls of Central High in Camp: or, the Old Professor's Secret
The Barnacle began to bark vociferously, all of a sudden. Lizzie, up at the lighted cook-tent, squealed.
Up rose the boys with a great whoop. “Go for it!” yelled Lance. “Sick ’im!” which seems to be the approved way to set a dog on anything living.
Barnacle was barking his foolish head off. He dashed across from the cook-tent to the woods, and then back again. The boys all urged him on. The girls ran together in a frightened group, Lil moaning:
“Oh, he’s here again! that dreadful man is here again!”
“Hush you!” commanded Liz, in disgust. “’Tain’t no man. ’Tain’t even a ha’nt. I seen it. It’s a black and white kitten–”
“Oh, Chet! call him off! call him off!” begged Laura.
“Quick, Chet!” added Jess. “Don’t let that horrid dog hurt that kitty.”
“Chetwood!” shrieked Laura again, knowing more about the inhabitants of the woods than her chum. “Chetwood! Stop it! Come back! That’s a polecat!”
“What?” gasped all the girls, and then Bobby began to shriek with laughter. It was too, too funny – with Jess begging the boys not to let the Barnacle hurt “kitty.”
It was impossible, however, to call the dog off the trail. That camp scavenger, the American skunk, is the mildest mannered little creature in the world – providing he is left strictly alone. Being timid and otherwise defenseless, God has given him a scent-sack which–
“Nobody can tell me that the skunk only brought a cent into the Ark,” declared the exhausted Bobby. “That fellow has a dollar’s worth himself!”
“Why – why did the Creator ever make such a horrid beast?” demanded Lil.
“You ask that and wear those furs of yours in the winter?” said Nellie, laughing. “The pretty little fellow that the Barnacle has so unwisely chased away from our vicinity is becoming very valuable to the furriers. There are people who raise the creatures for the market–”
“Excuse me!” gasped Bobby. “I’d want a chronic cold in the head, if I had to work on a skunk farm.”
As Barnacle and his quarry went farther from the camp the odor that had risen drifted away, too; but for two days thereafter the girls could easily tell in which part of the island Barnacle was running game, by the way in which the odor came “down wind” to them.
Liz fed him at the edge of the wood; the girls chased him from the vicinity of the tents whenever he appeared.
The Barnacle did not mind much; for he had struck a dog-hunter’s paradise. He was a fiend after small game and there had not been a dog on Acorn Island for some years, in all probability.
He was running and yapping all day and pretty nearly all night. How many groundhogs, chipmunks, muskrats, coons, and other small animals, besides the rabbits, he chased and caught there was no telling. Perhaps he did not kill one.
But he barked to his heart’s desire and when he finally had driven everything to cover, he came back to the tents, purified in soul as well as in odor, and was willing to sleep during the day and sit up on his haunches at night (when they tied him to the corner of the cabin) and try to howl his head off at the moon.
The girls – even Lil and Nellie – lost their fear of a second visit from the mysterious “kleptomaniantic.” Nobody would land upon the island to disturb them while that crazy dog was about.
So they fished, and swam, and picked berries, and hunted flowers and herbs, and went out sailing with the boys in the powerboats, and drove their canoes up and down the lake, having a fine time every hour of the day.
Mrs. Morse got on famously with her book, and allowed the girls to do about as they liked. They got into no mischief, however; but they all grew brown, and strong, and even Lily began to put on flesh.
At this season there were few fishermen at Lake Dunkirk. Some days there were long processions of barges sailing past the island, making for Rocky River and the ports down stream. And sometimes puffy tugs drew other barges westward, against the current.
None of the crews of these boats disturbed the campers. Acorn Island had been placarded for years, and it had always been necessary to get a permit to have even a picnic there.
Just one couple of fishermen came within range of the girls’ vision that first week or ten days. And that couple, in their clumsy canoe, were never near enough for the girls of Central High to see their faces.
“I wonder where they camp at night?” said Laura thoughtfully one evening as she and Jess were paddling in for supper, being the last of the scattered girls to make camp. She had sighted the strange fishermen off the western end of Acorn Island again.
“Bet they are the fellows who took our food!” exclaimed Jess, suddenly.
“And have hung about here all this time? Nonsense!” returned Laura. “But don’t let Lil and Nellie hear you say that.”
“All right. But I bet they are.”
“I’m more worried by that cloud yonder,” said Laura. “We’re going to have a tempest.”
“Hope not till supper’s over,” said the hungry Jess.
“We’ll peg down the tents to make sure as soon as we get in,” said the careful Laura.
They did so. Half through supper the first drops of the storm fell. Then the thunder rolled nearer and a tall tree was riven on the mainland, within sight of Camp Acorn.
That pretty well settled the supper for most of the girls. Even the bravest had never experienced a thunder storm under canvas before.
So they all ran into Mrs. Morse’s cabin. It did not seem so bad there.
In the midst of the downpour, however, and in a lull between thunder claps, Barnacle, who had been tied to the corner of the hut and had crawled under the floor for protection, suddenly broke out with a terrific salvo of barks. He rushed out into the rain and leaped at the end of his rope, barking and yelping.
“Somebody’s about the camp,” murmured Mrs. Morse. “The dog’s nose – if not his eyes – tells him so.”
“It’s Liz,” ventured Jess, for the maid-of-all-work had not come with them to the cabin.
Laura threw the door open, in spite of the flashing lightning. Lil shrieked and even some of the other girls cowered as the lightning played across the sky. But before the thunder burst forth again, Laura heard another sound – and it was not the Barnacle baying.
Lizzie Bean, in the cook-tent, was screaming in a queer and stifled way.
CHAPTER XVI
WHERE THE BARNACLE’S NOSE LED HIM
The rain descended in torrents before the cabin door. E’er Laura could plunge into it, Jess dragged her back and slammed the door.
“Don’t be a goose, Laura!” she cried.
“She – she–Something is the matter with Liz,” declared Laura.
“Of course not!”
“I tell you, I heard her. And there’s the dog barking again.”
“You can’t go through that rain–”
“I will!” declared Laura, and she wrenched open the door once more. Jess could not hold her. Mother Wit plunged out into the storm.
Never having deserted her chum but once – and then involuntarily at a certain occasion long ago – Jess was not going to be behind now. She dove likewise into the storm.
The rain beat upon the two girls in a fashion to almost take their breath away. Never had they been so beaten by the elements.
They staggered, almost fell, clung together, and then bent their heads to the downpour and pressed on. The flickering lantern still illuminated the cook-tent. The awning was dropped and the canvas heaved and slatted against the poles.
The rain made so much noise that they did not hear Liz now. Or else, she had ceased crying out. Laura and Jess pressed forward and – it being but a few yards, after all, to the tent – they burst into the kitchen in a moment more.
“Liz! Liz!” gasped Laura, almost breathless.
There was a noise behind the fluttering canvas partition. Was it the girl in the sleeping part of the tent?
“Oh! somebody’s there!” muttered Jess, clinging to her chum’s hand.
Laura sprang forward and jerked apart the flap. She only feared that something was the matter with Liz.
And there was, apparently. She was crouching down, against the far wall of the tent, her hands over her face, and trembling like a leaf.
Afterward Laura thought over this scene with wonder. Lonesome Liz did not seem like a girl who would be so terribly disturbed about a thunder storm. She had shown no fear when the tempest began and the other girls had scampered for the cabin.
But now she was moaning, and rocking herself to and fro, and it was some moments before they could get a sensible word out of her.
“Oh! oh! oh!” wailed Liz. “I want to go back to town. I don’t like this place a little bit – no, I don’t! Oh, oh!”
“Stop your noise, Liz!” exclaimed Jess, suddenly exasperated. “You can’t go back while it is storming so. And when it stops you won’t want to.”
But Laura was worried. She looked all about the tent. What had the Barnacle barked so about?
Nor was he satisfied now. The storm held up after a time; but the dog kept rushing out and barking as though he had just remembered that there had been a prowler about, and he had not had a chance to chase him.
Laura understood that rain, or wet, killed the scent for dogs and like trailing animals. This that had disturbed the Barnacle must have been a person who had come very close.
They took Liz to the cabin, and left her there after the storm was over and the six Central High girls went to their own tent. But although Laura did not say much about it, she was as dissatisfied as the dog seemed to be.
In the morning she was up earlier than anybody else in the camp. The grass and brush was drenched with the rain. There were puddles here and there. The sun was not yet up and it would take several hours of his best work to dry up the wet places.
Laura had not won her nickname of “Mother Wit” for nothing. She had inventiveness; likewise she had a sane and sensible way of looking at almost any mysterious happening. She did not get scared as Nellie did, or ignore a surprising thing, as Jess did.
Now she was dissatisfied with the outcome of Liz Bean’s “conniption,” as Bobby had termed it the evening before. The maid-of-all-work had shown no fear of thunder and lightning when the tempest began and the other girls were frightened.
Then, why should she wait until the storm was nearly over before showing all the marks of extreme terror? And, in addition, Liz seemed to be fairly speechless about the matter, whereas she was naturally an extremely garrulous person.
“Why did the Barnacle bark so?” demanded Laura, when she stood, shivering, in the gray light of dawn before the cook-tent. “Not just for the fun of hearing his own voice, I am sure.”
The ground before the cook-tent was soft, and trampled by the girls’ own feet. Laura went carefully around to the rear, stepping on firm ground so as to leave no marks.
There was a rear opening to the cook-tent – out of the part Liz had been sleeping in. But these flaps were laced down.
However, there were marks in the soft ground right here – footmarks that could not be mistaken. They were prints of a man’s boot – no girl in the crowd wore such footgear as those that made these marks!
The boot-prints led right from the laced flaps of the tent toward the woods. Laura could see fully a dozen of the marks, all headed that way. The man had come from the inside of the tent, for there were no footprints showing an approach to the tent from this end.
“I knew that girl did not cry because of the thunder and lightning,” was Laura’s decision. “This man burst into the tent while she was alone. And for some reason she is afraid to tell us the truth about him.
“Of course, she hasn’t really told a falsehood. She just let us believe that it was the storm that had scared her.
“Now, who is the man? Is she sheltering him because of fear, or for another reason?
“And what did he want? Why did he come to the tent in the storm? For shelter from the rain? Not probable. I declare!” thought Mother Wit, “this is as puzzling a thing as ever I heard.”
She said nothing to anybody before breakfast about her discoveries. She did not wish to disturb Mrs. Morse, for that lady had come into the woods for a rest from her social duties, and for the writing of a book. Why should she be troubled by a mere mystery?
The detective fever burned hotly in Laura Belding’s veins on this morning. From Jess she could not keep her discovery for long; but she swore her chum to silence.
Then she took Bobby Hargrew into her confidence. Despite the younger girl’s recklessness, she was brave and physically strong.
“We’re going to run down Lizzie’s ‘ha’nt,’ if the Barnacle has a nose,” declared Laura, after the trio had discussed the pros and cons of the affair.
So they loosened the dog, Laura holding him in leash, and slipped away to the woods when none of the other members of the party were watching. Laura knew that the scent would not lie very strong after the pelting rain; but they could follow the trail by sight for a long distance.
It led straight toward the far end of Acorn Island – the end which they and the boys had so carelessly searched the day after the larder had been robbed. Here and there they came upon the print of the unknown man’s boots in the softened soil.
“Gee, Laura!” gasped Bobby. “Suppose he turns on us? We don’t know whether he is a robber or a minister. What will we do when we find him?”
“That depends altogether upon what he looks like,” said Laura. “Now hush, Bobby. The Barnacle is pulling hard; he really smells something.”
“I hope it isn’t another black and white kitten,” chuckled Bobby.
They went down a slope to a small hollow, well sheltered by trees and rocks. There was a faint odor of wood smoke in the air.
“A camp,” whispered Jess, having hard work to keep her teeth from nervously chattering, despite the heat of the day, “Who do you suppose is here?”
“We’ll see,” whispered Laura in return, and slipped the dog’s leash.
The Barnacle ran down into the dale at once. The three girls followed, cautiously parting the branches. They came in sight of the fire.
It was the remains of a late breakfast-fire, without doubt. There was a single figure sitting at one side of the smoldering wood. Barnacle was running about the encampment, snuffing eagerly for broken bits. He paid the figure by the fire no attention, nor did the man look at the dog.
The man stooped, and his face was buried in his hands. He wore a shabby frock coat, and a disreputable hat.
“That’s one of those two fishermen we saw in the canoe,” whispered Jess.
“Wonder if you’re right?” breathed Bobby.
Just then the man raised his head and turned so that the three girls from Central High could see his face. It was unshaven and the man looked altogether like a tramp. But there was no mistaking him for anybody but Professor Dimp, the Latin and history instructor of Central High!
CHAPTER XVII
A PERFECTLY UNSATISFACTORY INTERVIEW
“Goodness gracious!” gasped Bobby, the first to find her breath. She fell limply against Laura and Jess. “What do you know about that? Say, girls! Do you see the same thing I do, or am I going crazy?”
“Hush!” commanded Jess, hoarsely.
“Don’t be ridiculous, child,” advised Laura, rather sharply. “He will hear you–”
“Will that be a crime?” demanded Bobby, still in a whisper.
“It may be,” said Laura, slowly. “We don’t know why the professor is here.”
“To commune with nature, I judge,” said Jess, drily.
“I can’t imagine Old Dimple communing with nature – not as a pastime,” giggled Bobby.
“He surely has some good reason for being here,” Laura murmured.
“We won’t accuse him of robbing the camp that time, I suppose?” asked Jess. “Or being up there last evening in the storm?”
“That trail came this way,” declared Bobby, suddenly forgetting to laugh.
“Barnacle’s nose might have deceived him,” said Laura.
“I haven’t faith in much of that dog but his nose,” declared Jess. “He showed particular intelligence in following the trail down here. Why should we suddenly suspect him of being foolish, just because we found what we didn’t expect.”
“Clear as mud!” exclaimed Bobby. “‘Didn’t expect’ is good, however. If you had asked me a minute before we saw him, who was the most unexpected person to find at the end of our walk, I should have said Old Dimple.”
“Why!” gasped Jess, “it couldn’t be Professor Dimp.”
“You mean he couldn’t have been the kleptomaniantic thief?” chuckled Bobby.
Laura began to laugh softly herself. “Nor could he have been the person we – and the Barnacle – have been trailing,” she said, suddenly.
“Why not?” demanded Jess and Bobby together.
“Did you ever notice Professor Dimp’s feet?” asked Mother Wit.
“Horrors! No. Never saw him barefooted,” said Bobby.
“Miss Smartie! His shoes, then?” proceeded the unruffled Laura.
“I – I–Why, no,” admitted Bobby.
“Look at them now. He’s not a big man, but he has plentiful understandings,” chuckled Laura. “See?”
“Plain!” exclaimed Jess, peering through the branches.
“And those footprints we followed were of a person who wears a narrow, small boot. Small for a man, I mean. I don’t believe the old Prof. ever could get into such shoes.”
“Hurrah for Mother Wit – the lady detective!” cheered Bobby, under her breath.
“I am going to ask him–”
“What?” demanded Jess, half frightened as Laura started to press through the fringe of bushes.
“If he knows anything about that young man.”
“What young man?” demanded the startled Jess.
“The young man who scared Liz last evening in the storm. The same young man who took the things from our camp – and left the ten dollar bill.”
“The kleptomaniantic!” breathed Bobby, tagging close behind.
“Then it’s the man who has been fishing with the professor?” gasped Jess.
“You’ve guessed it,” said Laura. “They are together. This is a camp for two. You can see the fish-heads lying about. There are two tin-plates and two empty cups.”
“Are you sure the – the old Prof was one of those fishermen we saw in the boat?” asked Bobby.
“I recognize that old coat and hat,” said Laura, firmly. “I do not see why I did not recognize Professor Dimp, in spite of his disguise, before.”
“Well!” sighed Jess. “I am thankful one of our fellow-inhabitants of the island is nobody worse than Professor Dimp.”
“But why?” demanded Bobby, wonderingly.
“We’ll find out what it means,” said Laura, with more confidence than she really felt. Of course, she was not afraid of any physical violence. But the old professor was so terribly stern and strict that it took some courage to walk across the glade, where Barnacle was chewing fish-heads, and face the shabby old gentleman.
“What, what, what?” snapped Professor Dimp, rising up from the log on which he had been sitting. “Girls from Central High, eh? Ha! Miss Belding – yes; Miss Morse – yes; Miss Hargrew – yes. Well! what do you want?”
He seemed grayer than ever. His outing in the woods (if he had been here ever since school broke up) had done him little good, for he was wrinkled and troubled looking. His thin lips actually trembled as he greeted the three girls in characteristic manner. His eyes, however, were as bright as ever – like steel points. He looked this way when the boys had been a trial to him in Latin class and he was about to say something very sharp.
“We are sorry to disturb you, Professor Dimp,” said Laura, bravely. “But we are in a quandary.”
“A quandary, Miss Belding?”
“Yes, sir. Our dog has been following a man who came to our camp last night and frightened us. The dog led us right here to this spot. Have you seen him?”
“Seen the dog?” demanded the old professor. “Do you think I am blind?”
“I mean the man,” said Laura, humbly.
“What does he look like? Describe him,” commanded the professor, without a change of expression.
Laura was balked right at the start. She had no idea what the young man looked like, whom she believed Liz Bean knew, and whom she believed had come to the camp at the other end of Acorn Island twice.
“I only know what his boots are like,” she said, finally, and looking straight into the old professor’s face.
“Well, Miss?”
“I think you can supply the rest of his description,” said Mother Wit, firmly.
“What do you mean, Miss?” snapped the old professor.
“He wore narrow boots, and his footprints lead directly to this place,” said Laura. “Surely you must have seen him.”
“Why should I?” demanded the professor.
“Because you have had a companion here. Two men made this camp – have eaten more than one meal here. Where is your companion, sir?”
“Miss – Miss Belding!” exclaimed the professor in a tone of anger. “How dare you? What do you mean?”
“I don’t mean to offend you, sir,” said Mother Wit, while Jess tugged at her sleeve and even Bobby stepped back toward the fringe of brush. The old gentleman looked very terrible indeed.
“I don’t mean to offend you, sir,” repeated Laura. “But that man has been twice to our camp. He has disturbed us. He was there again last night and frightened our little maid-of-all-work almost out of her wits. We have got to know what it means.”
“You are beside yourself, girl!” gasped the old gentleman, and instantly turned his head aside so that they could not see his face.
“Liz calls him ‘Mr. Norman,’” Laura pursued. “If you do not tell me who he is, and what his visits to our camp mean, I shall find out more about him —in Albany!”
Professor Dimp did not favor them with another word. He walked away and left the trio of girls standing, amazed, in the empty camping place.
CHAPTER XVIII
AN EVENTFUL FISHING TRIP
Jess and Bobby were both disappointed and disturbed over the interview with Professor Dimp. Laura said so little about it that Jess was really suspicious.
“Can you see through it?” she demanded. “What do you think the Dimple means?”
“I haven’t the least idea,” said her chum, frankly.
But there was another thought which Laura Belding was not so frank about. She spoke of this to neither Jess nor Bobby.
They agreed, as they went back toward their camp, with Barnacle, that they would take nobody into their confidence about the professor being up here at Lake Dunkirk, fishing. Suspicious circumstances had attached themselves to the old gentleman’s presence here; yet the girls could not believe that Professor Dimp had anything to do with the raid on their larder, or the frightening of Liz Bean the evening previous.
However, Laura took Liz aside when they arrived at the camp and endeavored to get the truth out of her.
“Liz,” she said to the sad-faced girl, who seemed gloomier than ever on this morning, “who was the man who scared you in the rain last evening?”
The maid-of-all-work did not look startled. Perhaps she had nerved herself already for just this question.
She merely stared at Laura unblinkingly and asked. “What, Ma’am?”
“Don’t pretend that you don’t know what I mean, Liz,” said Laura, impatiently. “I found the man’s tracks and the Barnacle found his camp for us. The man came right into this tent last evening in all that storm, and you let him out at the back and laced down the flaps.
“Of course, there was no harm in it. And there may be no harm in the man himself, or his reason for being here on Acorn Island.
“But if the girls hear of it – all of them, I mean – they are going to be scared again, and it will break up our outing and spoil all our fun. Now! I want to know what it means, Liz.”
“Don’t mean nothin’,” declared the girl, sullenly.
“Why, that is no answer,” cried Laura.
“Then there ain’t none,” said Liz, shrugging her narrow shoulders, and she turned to her work again.
“You absolutely refuse to talk to me about him?” demanded Laura, rather vexed.
“I ain’t got nothin’ to say,” muttered Lizzie Bean.
“Then I’ll find out about him in some other way. It is that Mr. Norman you spoke about before – I am sure of that. And I shall write to Albany and learn why he is up here and what he is doing. Of one thing I am sure: he has no business on this island frightening the girls. The island is private property and is posted.”
If Liz was at all frightened by this threat, she did not show it. And, to tell the truth, it was an empty threat. Laura Belding did not know whom to write to in the city. She did not know the address at which Liz had worked there, and at which the mysterious Mr. Norman had been a boarder.
