Chapter XV: A Narrow Escape

But though Cora and Belle agreed to drop the matter of the unexplained noise, they could not dismiss it from their minds. Several times that day Cora would notice Belle in a brown study, and on taxing her with it would be met with the statement:

"I can't think what caused it."

"That noise you mean?"

"Yes. Wasn't it queer?"

"Oh, not so very. At home we wouldn't give it a second thought."

"Yes," agreed Belle, "but there are so many ways of explaining noises in town, and so few ways up here. I wonder if that is the beginning of the surprises, Cora?"

"If it is they aren't so unpleasant. Noise never hurt any one."

So they said nothing to the others about the little disturbance in the night, and the only remark the others made, having any reference to it, was that of Walter's about thunder.

"It must have been thunder," Cora said, "for if the noise had been in our bungalow the boys couldn't have heard it in theirs."

"I don't see how they could," Belle agreed.

"But, all the same, I'm going to have some way of calling to Jack and the others without screaming our lungs out," declared Cora. "It's only right to be able to summon them if we want them. One of us might become ill, and they'd have to go for the doctor. I'd rather call Jack than Mr. Floyd."

Cora spoke to her brother that afternoon.

"We should have some sort of speaking tube," he assented. "I might rig up one of the string telephones we used to make with tin baking powder boxes that served both as transmitter and receiver."

"Can you do it?" asked Cora.

"I guess so."

"I know something better than that," Paul put in. "There's a toy telephone that comes now, made of string, but the baking powder boxes are replaced by wooden cylinders with parchment tightly stretched over one end. You can hear quite well with them."

"Where can we get it?" asked Cora.

"I have one," Paul said. "I bought it just before we left to come up here, intending to give it to a kid cousin of mine, but I forgot to mail it. You can use that if you like."

"Just the thing!" exclaimed Jack. "The dear girls can't get along without us after all; can they?"

"Oh, don't flatter yourself that we're as fond of you as all that," laughed Belle. "But we do like to have you within call--especially up here."

"Why, have you seen any suspicious characters lurking around?" asked Walter.

"Nary a lurk," responded Cora. "We're just getting ready for emergencies."

The toy telephone was strung that day from the girls' bungalow to that of the boys', and it worked quite well. As simple as it was, and it scarcely could have been more simple, talk could be plainly heard over it. The string took up the vibrations imparted to the parchment by the voice, and transmitted them across space to the other end of the line. Of course the string had to be tight, and it must not touch anything in its course, or the vibrations would have been interfered with. But space was what they had most of in Camp Surprise.

"To my mind the camp isn't living up to its name," declared Paul, after the telephone had been put up and tested, the boys sending any number of foolish messages over the string. "No, sir! There hasn't been a surprise worth talking about," went on Paul. "Why doesn't something happen?"

"Give it time," suggested Jack.

"Perhaps that noise was the start," said Cora to Belle when they were alone.

"Perhaps."

The trip down to the hotel had given the young folks the information that there were dances twice a week, the Saturday night "hop" being quite an event. They were cordially invited to attend, and the first Saturday night in camp they took advantage of the chance.

The crowd was not large, but, as Walter said, it was "nice and comfortable," and the girls and boys thoroughly enjoyed the dance. The hotel proprietor introduced them to some other young folks and, as was voted by Jack and his chums afterward, "a large and glorious time was had by all."

"What a splendid moon!" cried Belle, as she walked along with Jack on the way home. "It's a shame to go to bed."

"Let's don't!" proposed Paul. "Let's go down where we left the motor boat and have a ride."

"Let's don't!" cried Cora. "Walk over that rough mountain road at this hour of the night? I guess not!"

"But look at the moon!" begged Paul. "The glorious moon!"

"You've been looking at it too long already," was Cora's retort. "I guess you're looney."

And so, laughing and joking, they walked on.

"This is how it goes!" said Belle suddenly, seemingly apropos of nothing at all, and, at the same time she began to step backward and forward in a peculiar manner in the road.

"What in the world----" began Hazel.

"That new Cortez step the girl in pink was doing with that nice man dancer," Belle explained. "I've been puzzling over it. I hoped he would ask me to dance, but he didn't."

"Say, I like that!" cried Walter. "Didn't I ask you?"

"Yes, but you can't do that step. I remember now how it went. I was watching that couple. It's a rocking step forward, then one back, step back with the left, draw the right and go forward again with the left, see!"

She executed it there in the road, her shadow, cast by the moon, bobbing curiously back and forth.

"It is pretty," agreed Cora. "How does it go?"

Belle and she took a dancing position and Cora had soon acquired the new Cortez step.

"Now you've got me doing it!" cried Jack. "Come on, Hazel, I'll show you."

"He doesn't even know himself," derided Cora.

"You watch!" challenged Jack.

"Why, he can do it," said Belle, as she looked at Jack and Hazel. For Hazel was a natural dancer and, it developed, she, too, had been watching the girl in the pink dress.

"Well, here we are," said Bess, as they reached their bungalow. "I'm tired."

"Is that all you're going to say, after we took you to the dance?" demanded Walter.

"Don't we get asked in to have some cake and chocolate?" questioned Jack.

"Shall we?" queried Cora.

"Please do!" urged Paul.

And they did.

The plans for the next day included a long walk up the mountain to a place where it was said a wonderful view could be had. They were to take their lunch and stay all day, for they could not get back to the bungalow by noon.

"All aboard!" cried Jack, as he and his two chums called for the girls, crossing the rustic bridge at the foot of the fall. "All aboard!"

They started off merrily together, talking and laughing. Walter had been down to get the early morning mail, and there was a letter from Cora's mother, which said, among other things, that the police had some clews to the men who took the automobile.

"Good!" cried Jack, when Cora read out this. "What's the rest of it?"

"Well, it seems that some more bogus tickets have been disposed of in places around Chelton, and the men who sold them are described as the same two who sold the coupons in the tea room. The police seem to think there is a good chance of getting them."

"They didn't see them have your car; did they, Cora?" asked Hazel.

"No such luck, I suppose. But mother doesn't mention that."

The view was voted all that had been said of it, and after admiring it for some time, preparations were made to eat lunch.

"Let's sit down here," proposed Cora, pointing to a grassy spot in the shade of a big sycamore tree. "Boys, spread the cloth and unpack the baskets. Oh, what a curious root!" she cried, stooping over toward something near a stone.

"Look out!" suddenly cried Paul, pulling Cora back so sharply that she nearly toppled over. The next moment Paul caught up a stone and threw it with all his force at the spotted root. There was an angry hiss.

"Narrow escape for you, Cora," said Paul, a trifle pale. "That was a copperhead snake!" and he pointed to the writhing, dying reptile. His stone had struck it fairly.