CHAPTER XIV

GORDON’S DISCOVERY

The sun was streaming radiantly in at Bab Winters’ window when she awoke. All her fears of the night before had vanished into a vague and unreal mist.

With a bubbling sense of joy in life and the prospect of adventure, she slipped noiselessly out of bed and went over to the window.

About her spread a gleaming, rain-washed world, trees and shrubs and tangled weeds reflecting back the rays of the sun in myriad dazzling rays of color.

The moist, sweet-scented breath of the wind fanned her cheeks and brought the roses glowing to them.

Things were going to happen to-day, she felt it--wonderful, splendid things!

The first of them was Gordon Seymour. She saw him just below her window. He was clad in khaki breeches and puttees, and a scarlet sweater atop this outfit gave a flare of color that, in some mysterious way, added to the joy of Barbara’s mood.

Eyes dancing, she leaned from the window and called to him softly.

His mood seemed to match her own and he looked up quickly, beckoning to her.

“We’ve the world to ourselves,” he called softly. “I have something to show you.”

“Down in a minute!” Bab waved and disappeared.

It was all she could do to keep from singing as she jumped hastily into her clothes--sturdy, low-heeled sport shoes, khaki skirt, white middy and fluffy white sweater. She hesitated a minute and then, as an impish afterthought, added a wider scarlet tie. It gave her a rakish, jaunty look that caused her to chuckle softly under her breath.

“I’m stealing Gerry’s thunder,” she told her radiant reflection. “She always looks like a naughty little gypsy in red.”

One glance at the bed to make sure that Gerry was still asleep, and Bab was out the door and flying lightfootedly down the stairs.

No one heard her, and the next moment she stood poised in the doorway, regarding Gordon with dancing eyes.

The boy came toward her with hands outstretched, unstinted admiration in his eyes. Bab’s bright color became a little brighter and her eyes fell to the gay hue of his sweater.

“You looked so sort of frivolous,” she chuckled, “that I thought I’d put on something to match.”

“Well, if you knew how _you_ look!”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter how I look, Don. It’s how I feel that counts.”

With a little, unrestrained gesture she flung out her arms to the wild beauty of the woodland about them.

“I’m going to make each day tell while we’re up here, Gordon. And who knows what day--” She paused on a long-drawn breath and stared straight before her, seeing, not the immediate future, but some inner vision of her own.

The boy, watching her intently, took a step closer.

“You mean--the money, Bab?”

“The will, that queer codicil--the possibility of finding a fortune here in this queer, terrible, old house. Of course I’m thinking of it! How could I think of anything else? How could I?”

Gordon gave the girl a keen look, then drew her hand, big-brother fashion, through his arm. Bab’s color was almost too high, he thought, her eyes a trifle too bright.

“You’re going to think of something else, just the same--at least until it’s time for breakfast,” he told her as he led her along an almost invisible path up the hillside and into the woods.

“But where are we going?” asked Bab, submitting willingly enough.

It was nice to be alone with the boy next door in that early morning world of sweet scents and rainbow hues. The days of their childhood disputes seemed far in the past. They understood each other so well these days, Bab and the boy next door, that there was seldom need of explanations between them. Their comradeship was a very complete and satisfactory thing.

“I’m taking you to my discovery,” said the boy, in answer to her question. “Once you’ve seen it I’m much mistaken if I ever get you back to the house in time for breakfast.”

“Your discovery will have to be pretty wonderful then,” Bab warned him. “For I’ve an earnest appetite!”

Gordon’s discovery, when they came to it, proved to be a rather unimpressive body of water. Even at flood times it could not have seemed more than a good-sized creek. Now, in shallow places, the water could not have been more than a few inches deep.

“It broadens out farther down, though,” Gordon explained. “And at one place it looked deep enough for a swim.”

“Oh, it’s nice,” said Bab, for the music of the water, as it rippled over the stones, was sweet to her ears. “I wish we didn’t have to wait.”

“What for?” queried Gordon.

“Our swim! Oh, dear!”

Bab Winters sat down disconsolately on an old, moss-covered stump. Her face expressed such utter dismay that Gordon was alarmed.

“Now what is it?” with a glance over his shoulder. “See a wildcat or a bear?”

“No,” said Bab mournfully. “But if I had a mirror I’d see an idiot.”

“A good looking one, anyway,” suggested Gordon.

But Bab refused to be consoled.

“It isn’t a joking matter,” she assured him reproachfully. “Do you realize that with all this beautiful water and everything, we haven’t a bathing suit among us?”

“Speak for yourself, young woman,” said Gordon, pegging stones into the water with aggravating unconcern. “Do you think I’d go away to the country for the summer without packing the trusty old suit away somewhere among my belongings? I wouldn’t be such a sap!”

“Oh,” sighed Bab, addressing a small gray squirrel who peeped at her curiously from about the trunk of a tree, “now I suppose he’s calling me names!”

Gordon glanced at her sideways, grinned, relented and flung himself on the ground at her feet.

“You and Gerry can probably get one at the village store----”

“One wouldn’t do.”

“Two then,” he went on, with admirable patience. “They usually have a general store in these little towns where they sell everything from buns to bathing suits.”

“They’d surely be too long, or short, or old-fashioned, or something.”

“You could probably sew them up,” soothed Gordon, with characteristic masculine vagueness. “They’d be better than nothing, anyway.”

There was a short silence while Gordon pegged stones and Bab stared contentedly out over the water.

“We’ll need some sort of a boat,” she said after a while. “Do you suppose we can buy that at the village store too?”

Gordon grinned.

“Shouldn’t wonder. But if we can’t we’ll make something, if it’s only a Robinson Crusoe raft,” he promised. “With all the good material around here, I’d feel sorry for us if we couldn’t knock together something that would float. We’ll set Charlie to work,” he added, with a chuckle.

It was only when they had started back to the house that the mysterious events of the day before crowded again into Barbara’s mind.

Impulsively she told Gordon about the experience in the library. When she had finished the boy regarded her with mingled amazement and indignation.

“But why didn’t you tell us before?” he demanded. “What was the idea of being so secret?”

“Then you think it’s really important--about the footsteps?” she asked eagerly.

“Important! I should say so! Provided you are sure you really heard anything,” he added dubiously.

“We could hardly be mistaken.” Bab was sure about this. “We both heard the same thing.”

“Might have been mice or rats.”

Bab sniffed.

“I’ve heard mice and rats before,” she said. “If this was a mouse, then I’m a parrot!”

When they reached the house they found it impossible to satisfy Gordon’s eager curiosity and go at once to the library.

Gerry and Charlie Seymour, dressed and eager for the day’s fun, were just starting in search of them as they came up on the porch. Mrs. Fenwick was fluttering like a distracted hen who has lost two of her chicks and Rosa Lee was grumbling in the kitchen because the breakfast was getting cold.

By this time, with Mrs. Fenwick’s aid, Rosa Lee had scraped at least a nodding acquaintance with the oil stove; the result being that the bacon and eggs, while not up to her usual standard of perfection, were very savory as well as plentiful.

However, there were at least two in the room who were not sorry when the meal was over, good as it was. They were free at last to escape into the library without rousing the suspicions of the cook.

Bab and Gordon were speedily followed by the others. In the intimacy of the book-lined room, Bab repeated, for Charlie’s benefit, the story she had told Gordon earlier that morning.

But Charlie was inclined to hoot.

“Sounds like a lot of buncombe to me,” he yawned. “Just a woolly ghost story.”

Bab flushed and started to speak, but Gerry stopped her with a quick gesture.

“Keep still!” she cried. “Listen!”

At the moment, so distinct as to defy all skepticism, came the soft rush of something behind them!

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