Chapter VIII: Crazy Jane's "find"

Tommy, having been unable to free herself from her blanket, had rolled over and over until she reached the opposite side of the tent. Margery Brown, not having got out of the way, had been hit on the head by a tent-pole, which knocked her down and so dazed her for the moment that she lay whimpering where she had fallen.

Of this Harriet and Miss Elting were unaware. Their efforts were directed toward getting out of the tent to learn what had occurred. They could hear the canvas ripping; and the noise of the floundering hordes just outside was still going on. Together the two women fought their way out from under the canvas.

"Catch 'em! Catch 'em!" Jim was yelling at the top of his voice. "The horses are getting away!"

"Yes, and they have taken a good part of the tent with them," called Harriet.

The men had halted, not knowing whether they should proceed or not.

"Come on! come on!" cried Miss Elting. She could not see the horses, but she could hear them crashing through the bushes whinnying in terror. There was something sinister in this sudden outbreak, something that neither Miss Elting nor Harriet Burrell understood. Jane, having crawled from beneath the overturned tent, came running to them.

"What a mess!" she cried in dismay. "I feel as though I had been in a railroad wreck. What was it?"

"The horses," answered Harriet.

"Is that all? Didn't anything fall on us?"

"I think we had a narrow escape from being trampled by the horses."

The guide came running to them.

"Was any one hurt? What, the tent down?"

"Yes. The animals ran into it and tore it down," replied the guardian. "I don't understand it at all. Do you, Mr. Grubb?"

"I swum, I don't!" he exploded. "Run into the tent? Why should they do that?"

"They must have been terribly frightened," averred Jane McCarthy. "Now, what could have frightened a pair of horses enough to make them so blind they couldn't see a tent? Will you tell me that?"

The guide kicked the embers of the campfire, and piled on some light wood. At this juncture Hazel came out, leading Margery, who had both hands pressed to her head.

"Something fell on her head," explained Hazel.

Miss Elting took Margery to the fire and made her sit down. Margery had no need to be urged. She sat down, all in a heap, and would have toppled over had not the guardian held her up. A lump as large as a horse chestnut had risen on the stout girl's head.

"Oh, my dear! You did get a bump, didn't you?" cried the guardian. "Sit right where you are. I will bring some liniment. Fortunately, the skin is not broken. Mr. Grubb, won't you please see what you can do with the tent? I fear it is seriously damaged."

"I want to look at those halters, first, if you can wait a minute."

Miss Elting nodded, then hurried to the collapsed tent, under which she burrowed and groped about in the dark in search of her medicine kit, which she finally found and brought to the fireside. Margery's swollen head was treated until the soreness had become eased a little. Harriet and Jane supported her to a blanket that they had brought from the tent, and, after tucking her in, left the unfortunate Margery to doze and rest. Tommy crept over and kissed her on the forehead.

"I'm tho thorry, Buthter," she whispered sympathetically. "I withh it might have been me who got the bump on the head. But never mind; you will be better pretty thoon. Don't you think tho?"

Margery's answer was a moan. Tommy crept away with a troubled look in her eyes.

"The horses broke their halters," Janus was saying as Tommy joined her companions. "Can't understand what skeered them into doing that. Jim must be having a chase, or he'd have been back before this. Want to quit?"

"Certainly not," answered Miss Elting with emphasis. "But we should like to know what it means."

"Might have been a bird or something. Doesn't take much to startle a horse when he's asleep. I've known a partridge to fly up before a sleeping horse and cause the animal to break away and rip things up generally. You'll find, if you find at all, that it was something like this skeered Jim's nags."

"I gueth it wath a two-legged bird," observe Tommy wisely.

"That would be strange, indeed," answered Miss Elting. "How many legs do birds ordinarily have?"

Tommy flushed.

"That ith tho. I wath thinking a bird had four legs, jutht like a table."

Margery groaned.

"Oh! Are you feeling badly again, dear?" called Miss Elting.

"Yes."

"What is it? Does your head pain you?" questioned the guardian.

"No, it's Tommy. She gives me a pain."

"Tommy, come help us put up the tent," urged Harriet. "Maybe it will fall on your head next. That will make Margery feel well again, won't it, dearie?"

Margery, in a weak voice, agreed that it would. Tommy retorted that she didn't care if it did.

The tent was found to have been quite badly torn. The hoofs of the horses had left great rents in it. After examining the canvas it was decided not to try to repair it that night, but to leave it as it was until morning, when the girls would be better able to see what they were doing.

They had once more raised the tent, having been obliged to cut one new pole, when Jim returned leading the horses. They were very nervous and kept tossing their heads, rearing and plunging at the slightest unusual sound.

"Something wrong with them. I don't know what it is," he said, in answer to the guide's glance of inquiry.

"Lead 'em up here. Well, I swum!"

"Wha--at is it?" demanded Margery, sitting up.

"Look at that, will ye?"

The girls got as close to the animals as was prudent. Janus parted the hair on the hip of one horse and pointed to a small wound. The other horse bore a similar wound.

"Oh, they have hurt themselves. Isn't it too bad?" sympathized Hazel.

"Hurt themselves!" exploded the guide. "Those wounds were made with some sharp instrument, maybe a knife. I don't know. Now, can you blame them for running away and taking the tent down? This business is moving too fast! What are we going to do?"

"You are the guide, sir. You are the responsible head of the party," replied Miss Elting.

"I thought I was, too. But, I swum! I don't know which from t'other any more. Jim, what do you think about that?" pointing a finger at the horses and indicating their wounded hips. "Did they get them themselves, or did somebody do it to them? I can't make up my mind."

"Some one did it, Jan. The hosses never did that themselves."

"But how could they?"

"Maybe tied a knife to a long stick. Didn't mean to do any serious work or would have cut deeper. Just went through the skin, that's all, but enough to set the critters crazy. See any one about these parts?" questioned the driver, turning to the girls.

"No, sir. We were under the tent. We saw nothing," answered Harriet. "I think it must have been the squealing of the horses that awakened us. The next we knew we were being trampled on and the tent was down about our ears. Have you looked about here carefully, Mr. Grubb?"

"For what?" returned Janus quickly.

"For thpookth," Tommy replied pertly.

"Pshaw!"

"I mean have you looked where the horses were tied," explained Harriet. "You did examine the halters. You say they were broken, not cut. I think we should look further."

"Yes. I agree with Harriet that we ought to make a careful search of the ground about the camp," said Miss Elting. "We cannot afford to miss opportunities that might solve this mystery. I wish you and the driver would make a start," she urged.

"All right. Where's the lantern?" demanded Janus.

"It went down with the bridge," Harriet informed him. "We have another, a smaller one, but I hardly think it will be of much use for our purpose. I'll tell you what. Why not use some of the dry pitch pine roots that you gathered?" suggested Harriet. "They are ready to burn and will make excellent torches. We have plenty of kindling wood without them."

"An excellent idea," approved the guardian.

Janus glanced at Jim and nodded. "I told you so," chuckled the guide. "I knew she could suggest something."

Janus gathered up some roots, whittling one end of each stick into a sunflower-like bunch of shavings. These ends he lighted, whereat the torches flared up into flickering, smoking flames. The guide led the way, followed by the entire Meadow-Brook party, Margery Brown having become so interested as to forget her troubles for the moment, though the lump on her head was still large and painful.

Just before reaching the trees where the horses had been tied, Miss Elting suggested that all save the guide and Harriet stop where they were.

"If so many of us go forward we shall not only be likely to miss any clues there are, but perhaps destroy them altogether. I have an idea that we are going to find something that will enlighten us," she added.

"That's good, common sense," agreed the guide, nodding his approval.

"Is there anything you wish us to do, Mr. Grubb?" asked Miss Elting.

"Little Brownie is the pilot," replied Janus jocularly, waving a hand in Harriet Burrell's direction. "Whatever she suggests, we will do. We can't do any better than to follow her lead."

Harriet's cheeks flushed. She had taken a torch and began slowly to circle the trees to which the horses had been tied upon arriving at the camp site. At first her circle was a wide one, Janus following her example by beginning well out beyond the trees. Harriet's smoking torch was held close to the ground, sweeping from side to side, the torch bearer assuming a crouching position with head well lowered, body bent almost double.

"Look out!" shouted Tommy, as Harriet came abreast of her party.

"Wha--at?" Harriet straightened up sharply. "What is it!"

"You will burn your nothe, if you don't look out."

"Oh, Tommy!" Harriet laughed merrily. "Is that all?"

"I was thinking the same thing," chuckled the guide. "Wish I could bend over like that. But don't bother us, little one. This is our busy night, and right serious business it is, too." The laughter disappeared from his face and Janus bent low to his task.

The others of the party had either seated themselves on the ground or leaned against trees. They chatted while the guide and Harriet Burrell sought for the true trail, but it was not very encouraging work.

The two torches flickered and smoked weirdly, now and then becoming mere glows like distant lamps in a fog, as the bearer slipped behind a tree or was masked by an intervening growth of bushes whose foliage was very thick and dense.

"Oh, Mr. Grubb, who of our party has brass-headed tacks in his boot heels?" called Harriet.

"I have. Why?"

"I found a heel mark that gave me that impression," answered Harriet laughingly.

"Well, I swum!"

"It was a guess about their being brass-headed, though," she admitted.

"You would have made a prize sheriff, Little Brownie," declared the guide, gazing at her admiringly. "If I'd had you to nose the trail when I was after Red Tacy and Charlie Valdes it wouldn't have taken me a matter of two months to get them."

"Who are they?"

"A couple of outlaws who turned things upside down in these hills some years ago. But I got them both. They are serving terms up at Concord now. Find anything?"

"No, sir."

The circles were steadily narrowing, though the man and the girl were working slowly and deliberately, really covering the ground by inches, so thorough was their search for clues of the supposed night visitors. No spot of the size of a hand escaped the keen scrutiny of one or the other of them. They could not have answered had they been asked what particular thing they had hoped to find, but in some vague way each felt that a clue to the mystery would be turned up as a result of their search. If a person had stolen into camp under cover of the night, wounding and stampeding the horses, it was probable that footprints or other evidences of his presence had been left behind, a tell-tale clue to the recent visitor. As yet, not a single trace had been found by the searchers. They continued with their work until they finally brought up facing each other in front of the trees to which the broken ends of the halters were still tied.

Harriet glanced up into the perplexed face of the guide and laughed. Janus gave back a glum look and muttered, "I swum!"

"Have you two sleuths finished your work?" called Crazy Jane.

"It certainly looks as though we had," replied Harriet. "What do you think, Mr. Grubb?"

"I reckon we're beaten."

"Yes. We haven't found a clue of any consequence. Perhaps we have imagined too much, but I do not think so."

"Give me a torch; it's my turn now. Let's see what Crazy Jane can find," said Jane McCarthy. "My grandfather was the champion shamrock hunter of the Emerald Isle, and my Dad says I'm a pocket edition of my grandfather. Just watch me while I show you a few things."

Harriet handed her torch to Jane, and, walking over, sat down by Miss Elting.

"Did you really fail for once, Harriet?" questioned the guardian in a teasing voice. She understood Harriet's peculiarities, knowing that the girl was not given to talking when there was real or fancied reason why she should not.

"I should say I did; that is, I did not discover anything that I could feel certain about. But some one has been here. There was just one footprint in a bit of soft dirt, but some one had most provokingly stepped on it, nearly obliterating it. From what I could make out of the original footprint it wasn't made by any of our party. That is all I found, but enough to verify our suspicions. Where is Jane going?"

Jane McCarthy was moving away from camp, apparently following the trail made by the party when they came up from the river to make camp among the trees.

"That's a good idea, too," she added approvingly, instantly catching the significance of Jane's action. "I never thought of trying it."

"I don't know just what you mean, but anything not thought of by you I shouldn't consider worth bothering about." Miss Elting laughed softly, patting the brown head beside her. "There! She is returning, and empty-handed like yourself, I'll warrant."

"Do not be too certain of that. On the contrary, Jane has discovered something."

"Why do you think that?"

"I can tell by the swing of her shoulders. Miss Elting, Crazy Jane has beaten us all; you see if she hasn't. Hoo-e-e-e!"

"Jane! Oh, Jane! Did you find something?" cried Tommy, in a shrill, high-pitched voice that Margery declared might have been heard a mile away. "What did you find?"

"Did I find thomething?" mimicked Jane. "Does Crazy Jane McCarthy ever fail to get what she goes after? Yes, I did find something; something, too, that will make you girls open your eyes. And you too, Mr. Grubb! Sh-h-! Not a word," she warned dramatically. "Come over by the campfire, where we can see, and I'll show you all----"

"Thomething," finished Tommy Thompson.

"Yes, 'thomething,'" answered Jane with a nod, then hurried toward the camp. Her companions raced after her, Janus Grubb bringing up the rear in long strides, the fingers of one hand clutched in his abundant whiskers. Jim stood gazing after them, his underjaw drooping. Jim hadn't yet quite come to an understanding of this most unusual company. He stood there wondering until the girls had passed out of his sight, after which the driver, with hands thrust deep in his pockets, walked slowly campward, trying to make up his mind what had happened.