Chapter XVIII: Good News Travels Fast

A perfect delirium of happiness reigned at Kill Kare that morning. From being an abode of deep gloom, it had suddenly been transformed into a corner of Paradise.

For Cora was back again! Here she was, a little trembly about the mouth, a little teary about the eyes, her hands and arms bearing the marks of scratches where they had come in contact with thorns, her garments torn from pushing her way through the underbrush, but with no damage that a warm bath and a good breakfast and a long sleep would not repair.

They brought her in triumph into the house and seated her at the breakfast table that they had just deserted, while Aunt Betty and the maid hurried about to prepare her something hot and comforting.

"I ought to go to my room first and freshen up and change my clothes," the girl objected, her purely feminine instincts coming to the fore, now that she was once more in touch with civilization. "I must look a perfect fright."

"Just at this moment you are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," declared her brother fervently.

"That's what!" confirmed Walter. "We've been wanting to see you so badly that now we can't bear to take our eyes off you."

"You're not going to get out of our sight again in a hurry," maintained Paul.

As for Bess and Belle, their voices broke so when they tried to speak that they had to content themselves with pats and hugs.

As for Aunt Betty, she went around hardly knowing, as she declared, whether she was awake or dreaming, while she laughed and cried at the same time.

"Such a hideous nightmare as this has been!" ejaculated Jack, as he hugged his sister for the twentieth time.

"You must be nearly starved to death, you poor darling!" exclaimed Bess.

"Haven't you had anything to eat since yesterday noon?" asked Belle.

"Not enough to give me indigestion," laughed Cora--she could laugh now, though a few hours before she had thought she could never laugh again. "A soup cube and a chocolate tablet can hardly be called overfeeding, though I did have a few blackberries to help out. But even at that I have some provisions left," and she took the remaining soup cube out of her pocket.

Bess pounced upon it.

"One of the two I slipped into your pocket for a joke yesterday morning!" she exclaimed.

"It was a very lucky joke for me," smiled Cora. "I'm going to have this one framed as a memento of my escape."

There was something more nourishing and abundant before her now, and she did it full justice, while the others looked on happily.

Then, when she had partially satisfied her hunger, questions poured in upon her in a flood, and she had to narrate all the details of her experience from the moment she had been beguiled by the shamming mother bird to the never-to-be-forgotten moment when she had heard the humming of the aircraft motor in the sky.

"If help ever came from heaven it did that time!" she said tremulously, and they all agreed with her most fervently.

"And, oh, girls," she said to Bess and Belle, "if you only knew how I felt when she spoke, and, almost at the same moment, I saw those two braids on the aviator's head and realized that I was talking to a woman!"

"We know," the girls assured her soothingly.

"She's a dandy!" exclaimed Jack emphatically.

"You bet she is!" declared Walter.

"She's as plucky as they make 'em," said Paul. "I only hope she beats the record."

"I'd like to be there at Governor's Island to greet her when she comes down," said Jack.

"Even if she puts the men in the shade by beating their time?" asked Bess mischievously.

"Even so," said Jack stoutly.

"Cora's got the start on all of us now," laughed Bess. "We're only motor girls but now she's an aviator girl."

"Weren't you frightened just a tiny bit when you felt yourself going up in the air?" asked Belle.

"Not a bit," replied Cora. "Possibly I might have been if the circumstances had been different. But I was so delighted to get away from those dreadful woods that nothing else mattered. I think I'd have ridden on a lion's back, if he'd promised to bring me home."

The girls took charge of Cora now, and although the boys remonstrated, she was borne away to her room to rest and bathe and change her clothes.

"And now," said Jack, drawing a long breath, "it's up to us to get busy and call off the searching parties. I suppose I ought to have done it the moment Cora landed, but for the life of me I couldn't tear myself away."

"You're excusable," laughed Walter. "But you stay right at home, old man, with your sister. Paul and I will get on the job and attend to everything."

Jack protested, but they would take no denial. They jumped into the car and whizzed down to the sawmill.

They found the foreman and Baxter deep in consultation. The latter saw at once from the boys' faces that they had good news, and hurried to meet them.

"We've got her!" cried Walter.

"Safe and sound at Kill Kare," added Paul.

"You don't say!" exclaimed the foreman with a broad smile.

"Bully!" cried Baxter in great relief.

"Where did you find her?" asked the foreman.

"We didn't find her at all," grinned Paul. "She found us."

"Came back by the sky route," chuckled Walter.

Then, as they saw the mystified looks, they hastened to explain.

"That aeroplane!" exclaimed Baxter. "We were watching it fly over here a little while ago."

"It was too far up for us to see that there were two in it," remarked the foreman. "Well, I guess Miss Kimball can claim that she's the only person that has ever been brought out of the woods in any such way as that."

"And by a woman aviator, too," observed Baxter. "I've never had much faith in women taking up flying, but I'm glad now they have. It beats the Dutch what the women are doing these days."

"They'll make us men take to cover if we don't watch out," laughed Walter. "But now we've got to hustle and call off the men who are beating the woods. We can't thank you folks enough for all you have done for us."

"We'd like to leave some money with you to pay the men for their trouble and time," added Paul.

"Not a cent," said the foreman decidedly. "Their wages go on just the same, and they'd only feel hurt if you offered it. It's just a case of common humanity, and they've all been glad to volunteer."

"Well, anyway," said Paul, "we'll have a big open air spread on the lawn at Kill Kare to celebrate Miss Kimball's safe return, and we want all the sawmill crew up there to the last man."

"That's different," grinned the foreman. "They'll all come to that. But you're taking a pretty big contract if you undertake to give a spread to my lumberjacks."

"You can't frighten us," laughed Walter. "We'll fill them up to the chin."

Baxter undertook to telephone the news to all those whom he had previously called upon for help, and the boys, leaving their car at the mill, hastened to the rendezvous in the forest.

Joel was in charge, and a number of weary searchers who had dragged themselves in were sitting about, munching sandwiches and drinking coffee.

The boys whooped out a yodel as soon as they came in sight, and waved their hats.

The men jumped to their feet, and Joel came running out to meet the bearers of good news.

"Thank the good Lord!" he exclaimed, as he saw their jubilant faces. "I don't need to ask what's happened. You've found 'er."

"We've got her," beamed Paul.

"An' wuzn't she hurt none?" asked Joel.

"Nothing but a few scratches."

The men crowded round with eager questions, and their delight was unbounded, for none knew better than they what risks Cora had run in those trackless woods.

One of the men volunteered to stay behind and notify the other searchers as they should come in, and then, with hearts light as thistledown, the boys and Joel retraced their steps to the mill, jumped into the car and "burned up" the road on the way to Kill Kare.

They had gone perhaps half the distance when they saw a figure on the side of the road that somehow seemed familiar.

They slowed up a little as the man approached, and then Paul gave a low whistle.

"It's that old pirate that took the gypsy girl away from us the other morning!" he ejaculated.

"So it is," replied Walter, as he took a closer look. "I wonder what the old rascal is doing around here."

"Up to no good, I'll be bound," remarked Joel, his old antipathy toward the vagrant people asserting itself.

"I've a good mind to speak to him," said Paul, who was driving, as he slowed up a little.

"What's the use?" replied Walter. "You won't get anything out of him that he doesn't want to tell you. And that'll be mighty little, or I miss my guess."

The gypsy had looked up as the car approached, and it was apparent that he had recognized the boys, for the same scowl came over his face that they had seen on the first occasion of meeting.

"Hello, friend," said Paul, as the car stopped close beside the gypsy.

The man looked at him sullenly, but did not respond.

"Is your camp anywhere around here?" asked Walter.

The man shrugged his shoulders.

"No understand," he said blankly.

They tried again with the same result, and as there was evidently no chance of getting an answer, they drove on.

"If we'd promised to give him a five dollar bill, he'd have understood all right," laughed Walter.

"I'll bet he's prospecting around to find a good location for the camp," observed Paul.

"It's time then to put double locks on houses and barns," growled Joel. "I'd hoped thet I'd never see hide nur hair uv them light-fingered varmints ag'in."