CHAPTER VII

OVERBOARD

There was a hurried search in the room where the girls then were, a search that extended even to the pitcher of lemonade. But the gleaming emerald was not found. Alice was becoming more and more upset every moment, for, while the ring was hers, it was a very valuable one and she knew her family would be most distressed at its loss.

"Oh, it must be found!" the girl cried.

Her chums were with her now. There was a little lull in the dance, and refreshments were being sought.

"Whom were you with when you missed it?" asked Sylvia.

"I wasn't with any one exactly when I missed it, but I was dancing with that Tupson fellow just before," and she related to Hazel and Rose what she had previously told Sylvia.

"We must tell Aunt Theodora at once," was the decision the three girls reached for Alice, since she was too nervous to decide for herself.

Mrs. Brownley raised her eyebrows in surprise when told of the circumstance. She did not say, as she well might have done, at least in her own opinion, that Alice should not have worn the ring in the first place to a public dance, and in the second, she ought not to have danced with a young fellow to whom she had taken a dislike.

But that was over and done with. The matter now uppermost was how to recover the jewel, and that at the least cost of embarrassment.

"You don't dare ask him baldly whether he saw it, or felt it slip from your finger," said Hazel.

"No-o-o-o," replied Alice, slowly, her eyes roving about the floor as if she might see in some nook or corner the golden circlet with its wonderful green stone.

"We must speak to the proprietor about it, and have him make an announcement," decided Mrs. Brownley. "He can do that without giving offence to any one. He can say that a valuable ring has been lost--dropped, if you like--on the dancing-floor. No one can be offended at that, not even the servants, and they are very quick to take umbrage at the slightest imputation on their characters."

"That's very true," agreed Alice. "Yes, an announcement of that kind can do no harm. Oh, isn't it horrid! And there's a lovely onestep starting now," and in spite of her distress she could not refrain from humming some of the airs in the medley the musicians were then playing.

"You girls stay here, and leave this to me," said Aunt Theodora. "I'll speak to the proprietor," and she went out in her most majestic manner, fairly sweeping her way along.

The music stopped with a crash, and the dancers out on the waxen floor looked wonderingly one at the other.

"What is it?" was on the lips of all.

The Nowadays Girls looked out from the little room where they had been refreshing themselves with lemonade. They saw the hotel proprietor advance to the middle of the floor, and at once an excited whisper ran around.

"They think he's going to stop the dancing, because--well perhaps because it is too 'advanced' for this wilderness," whispered Hazel.

"Listen!" urged Rose.

The announcement was made, with the request that if the ring were found it be left at the hotel office. Then the music began once more, and the dancing was resumed.

"Come on, Alice, aren't you going out again?" asked Rose, for Alice sat down in a chair, her face having lost all its brightness.

"Oh, I don't feel a bit like dancing. I must find my ring!"

The other girls were out on the floor now, near the doorway of the little refreshment room. A group of young men, who had been telling their companions what wonderful dancers our friends were, came fairly swarming up to claim partners. Among them was young Tupson, and there was an eager look on his face.

"I say, Miss Harrow!" he began, catching sight of Alice in spite of her effort to draw back, "whose ring was lost? Not yours, I hope? Not that one with the green stone?"

"Yes, that's the one," she answered. She almost hated herself for the ugly suspicion that came unbidden into her mind.

"Why, I saw that on your finger just before we danced the last encore," he said. "I'm sure you had it on then."

"Yes, I know I had it," Alice said, "but now it's gone."

"Oh, I say now, that's too bad! We fellows will help you look for it. I say Watson, Craig--let's organise a searching party!"

"We can look while we're dancing; can't we?" suggested the youth who had been whirling about with Rose. He liked her style and was anxious for another turn on the excellent floor.

"It will be best to look when the dancers are off," said Sylvia. "Besides, the ring might be stepped on, and how hard are emeralds, anyhow?" she asked, generally. "Are they as hard as diamonds, so they can be stepped on with impunity?"

"Oh, I shouldn't want my ring stepped on!" gasped Alice.

"I should say _not_!" chimed in Tupson. His was not a personality that attracted any of the girls. It was what, slangily, might be called "fresh," yet he seemed anxious to do all he could, and he totally ignored the suspicion that might have attached to him, since he, admittedly, was the last one to be with Alice before the ring was missed.

"I'll tell you what we ought to do, fellows," he went on. "Ask every one to get off the floor for a while--the dancers, musicians, servants, every one. Then we'll organise a committee, get brooms and sweep the place. That ought to find the ring if it's here."

"That's the idea!" declared his friend Watson.

"It would be most excellent, I think," said Mrs. Brownley. "If it can be done----"

"I'll see to it," went on Tupson, who seemed to have plenty of assurance. He hurried over to the proprietor, talked with him a few minutes, and the latter made another announcement. The floor was to be cleared to allow a search for the ring, in order that it might not be stepped on.

A little later the corps of young fellows, armed with brooms, were carefully going over the dancing-floor, while, from the porch outside, and from adjoining rooms and halls, the dancers watched.

But the ring was not found, and Alice had much ado to keep from falling the tears that brimmed into her eyes. The dance was resumed, though a little spirit of depression seemed to have settled over it.

"Aren't you going out again?" asked Rose of Alice, when the former came to a chair to rest after a rather strenuous fox trot.

"I wasn't--no--yes, I am, too! I'm going to be game! I'm not going to let them see that I care. After all, it isn't so much the value of the ring, as the associations connected with it. Mamma will feel dreadfully, of course, but father couldn't bear emeralds. I loved it, though, it was so quaint, and----"

"It matched your hand so well," added Hazel.

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of that," Alice said.

And she did go out again and dance, not heeding the many eyes that followed her, for it was whispered about that she was the owner of the lost ring, and its value mounted by hundreds (in gossipy dollars) until it was said to be worth a king's ransom.

Furtive looks were cast at the dancing-floor the rest of the evening, but the emerald was not discovered, and Alice was again rather in the "dumps" when she and her girl chums went to their rooms.

"Well, there's one thing sure," decided Sylvia, "we won't go on with our trip to-morrow. I'll cancel that order for canoes and guide-boats. We'll stay here a few days."

"Why?" asked Rose.

"Until we see if we can't find Alice's ring," was the answer. "It may come back in some mysterious way. Jewels lost in hotels have a way of doing that if you make fuss enough over them."

"I was going to say that I would like to stay over," remarked Alice, "but I didn't like to propose it, and keep you all back."

"It will not be any great hardship," Sylvia said. "It is lovely here, as it is all over the Adirondacks, and we can play golf and canoe here for a day or so, and have all the fun possible. I'll just tell the men we engaged that we have postponed our trip for a week, perhaps less."

"I'm so sorry," began Alice.

"You needn't be," Hazel declared. "This is a lovely dancing-floor."

"And there is a nice golf course not far away," Rose added. "I can keep up my game."

"Stay, by all means," agreed Mrs. Brownley. "You are out for pleasure, and half of that consists in doing things when you want to, not when you have to. And I do hope you find your ring, Alice."

The girls were sitting in the private parlour, with which their rooms were all connected, hair down, in comfortable dressing-gowns, discussing a thousand and one things just before retiring for the night, when there came a knock on the door.

"Who is it?" asked Mrs. Brownley.

"The chambermaid. The lost ring has been found!" was the reply.

Electrified, the girls fairly jumped to their feet.

"My ring found? Where? Oh, where is it?" Alice cried.

"The proprietor has it down in the office," came from the voice on the other side of the door.

"Oh--I----" Alice began.

"I'll get it," said the chaperon. She had not yet made herself "comfortable," and was soon following the maid down to the main office. There a much-relieved proprietor exhibited the wonderful emerald ring.

"Yes, that is it," Mrs. Brownley said, for she knew Alice's jewel well. "Who had it?"

"No one, Mrs. Brownley. That is, the one who had it didn't know he had it," and the hotel man smiled.

"What do you mean, sir?" and the Southern lady rather drew herself up in wounded dignity.

"Why, it was this way. The young fellow with whom Miss Harrow was dancing wore his trousers turned up at the bottom, in a style the young men affect nowadays. Well, it seems the ring was found in the folded-up part of his trousers. It fell out on the floor when he went to his room, and he brought it here at once."

"Why, isn't that remarkable!" exclaimed Mrs. Brownley. "I have heard of such things, but have never experienced them. But we are very glad to get back the ring."

"And I'm glad you have it," the hotel man agreed. "I'll sleep better to-night."

Mrs. Brownley hurried back to the girls, who were anxiously waiting for her, the ring and the explanation.

"Did you ever!" exclaimed Rose.

"How interesting!" was Hazel's contribution.

"Just like a story or a play," added Sylvia.

"I don't care how or what it was, as long as I have my ring back!" Alice said. "And I can very well understand how it happened. The ring slipped from my finger and lodged in the gaping, upturned fold of his trousers. It is lucky it didn't fall to the floor, to be stepped on. Oh, I'm _so_ glad you came back to me!" and she kissed the green stone before she slipped the golden circlet onto her slim finger.

"Well, don't lose it again, please," begged Aunt Theodora.

"I won't wear it while we're up here in the woods," Alice promised.

Young Tupper sought the earliest opportunity next morning to speak to Alice. He described how he had found the ring.

"And I say!" he exclaimed, boyishly, eagerly, "I hope you don't think I did it on purpose?"

"On purpose?" echoed Alice, her cheeks getting warm under his gaze.

"Yes, for a joke, you know."

"Oh, certainly not!" and Alice gave unnecessary emphasis to the words.

"Then you'll forgive me?"

"Of course! There's really nothing to forgive."

"Well, I'm glad of that. I say now, I hear you girls are to stay here for some time longer."

"Well, we were going to, on account of my lost ring, but now it has been found----"

"Oh, don't say that, or I'll be sorry I gave it back to you," he laughed. "But I saw some of the guides, and they told me the men you had engaged to take you through Fulton Chain had been disengaged, and had taken another party up. So that meant you would stay, and----"

"I'm not at all sure what we shall do," said Alice, evasively. She wished some of her chums would come along, but Tupson had her alone in one corner of the big veranda.

"Well, if you do stay, even to-day, won't you let me take you out in my canoe?" he pleaded. "I have a large one. It's perfectly safe."

"I--I'll see," Alice gasped. "Oh, Sylvia!" she called, pretending she had seen her chum at the hall entrance, and she fled with a rustle of skirts.

There was a little conference of the Nowadays Girls that morning. Sylvia had carried out her half-formed plan of the night before, and dismissed the boatmen for an indefinite time. So the travellers decided to remain at least a few days at Old Forge, and see the surrounding country.

"Then there's no reason why Alice can't have her canoe ride," said Hazel. "We all know how she is pining for one."

"Baby, if you----!" began the annoyed one.

"Oh, well, I don't mind admitting that I have an invitation also," drawled Hazel. "Now let's hear from the others."

It developed that each girl had been asked by her dancing partner of the night before to come for a canoe ride on the first of the six lakes that morning, and, with Mrs. Brownley's consent, they prepared to go.

It was a glorious day, and when the girls were comfortably seated in the much-cushioned canoes, afloat on the blue waters of the lake, with the forests and low mountains stretching off on either side, it seemed that they had begun to spend a most ideal vacation.

The canoeists were to keep together in a little flotilla, and proceed up First Lake for a short distance, go ashore and have a little lunch.

"Am I completely forgiven?" asked Tupson, of Alice, as he poised his dripping paddle.

"Of course," she said, a trifle coldly. She did not want to encourage him too much, even though he was a good dancer.

The little party indulged in quips and merry jests, shooting them back and forth from canoe to canoe, as they advanced. They were skirting the wooded shore when Sylvia proposed that they cross to the other side, where she had been told there was a spring of refreshing water.

Headed by the canoe in which were Alice and young Tupson, the little flotilla was paddling diagonally across the body of water, when there came down it a big canoe, propelled by a number of young men, who seemed to be training for some aquatic event. The water bubbled and boiled at the bow of their craft.

"Look out for them!" called the youth with Sylvia. "They are regular speed-maniacs!"

"Give them plenty of room," urged Hazel.

Just as the big canoe came opposite that containing Tupson and Alice, one of the paddles in the racing boat broke. The youth who had been wielding it pitched forward. The canoe slewed to one side, and shooting off its course, headed straight for the craft in which sat Alice.

"Look out!" cried many voices.

Tupson tried desperately to do so, but there was not time.

An instant later his canoe tipped over, spilling both him and Alice into the lake.