The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point Part 31

"Oh, that ain't nothin'," he denied, fidgeting uneasily, while Mollie hastily sorted the letters. "I ain't never finished tellin' you what happened to Luke Bailey--"

He was off again, and the girls were vaguely conscious of his voice rambling on and on while they eagerly scanned the handwriting on their letters.

Then suddenly Betty gave a little cry and stumbled back against the table, holding on to it for support.

"Betty! Honey! What is it?" cried Amy. "You look as white as a ghost."

"A letter," she gasped, holding out an envelope with the familiar red diamond in the corner. She was shaking from head to foot. "Girls, oh, girls, it's from Allen!" Then she turned and fled from the room.

Luke Bailey's biographer stared after her stupidly while the girls gasped and looked wildly at one another for confirmation of what they had heard.

"A letter!" she had said. "From Allen!"

Then he was not dead--their dazed brains comprehended that fact. And he could not be missing either. After a minute that stupefying fact became equally clear.

Then slowly they regained the use of their tongues.

"Did you hear what I heard?" asked Mollie, looking from Grace to Amy and back again.

"I think I'm awake," Grace answered, with the same incredulous look in her eyes.

"She said," Amy repeated slowly, "that she had received a letter from Allen. Then the report that he was missing must have been a mistake."

"It looks that way," said Mollie, two spots of color beginning to burn in her face. Then she turned to the boy who was still staring stupidly from one to the other of them. Even the story of Luke Bailey had been temporarily driven from his mind.

"Miss Nelson," Mollie explained, taking pity on his bewilderment, "has received the most wonderful news, and we can't thank you enough for bringing it to her. Can't we get you a cup of tea or something?" she offered, rather vaguely.

But the boy refused, and seeing that they were all tremendously excited about something, he finally took his leave, feeling very much abused that his story of Luke and his adventures had not been listened to with the attention it deserved.

Once the door was closed behind this angel in disguise, the girls rushed after Betty and were met and nearly bowled over by that delirious little person herself.

"He's not missing--never was!" she cried, waving the letter wildly in the air, beside herself with relief and joy. "He's just as well as ever he was, and Grace darling, and Amy, too, he says, he says--"

"Oh, what?" cried Grace, her face growing white while Amy clutched the back of a chair.

Betty tried to pull herself together. She turned the pages of the letter in search of a particular place. Finding it, she began:

"He says that Will--Oh read it," she cried, thrusting the letter into Grace's hands. "There it is--that paragraph. Read it aloud, Grace. Oh, I think--I think--I'll die of joy!"

CHAPTER XXIV

HIS THREE SWEETHEARTS

Grace's eyes filled with tears of sheer weakness, but she brushed them away impatiently. Then she read, brokenly at first, then radiantly as the marvelous truth came home to her.

"'Poor old Will certainly did have a narrow escape,'" she read, "'but thanks to the G.o.ds he is out of danger now. I went to see him yesterday--got leave for the first time in weeks--and he was looking mighty chipper. No wonder, with the good looking nurse he had.'"

Amy gave a little involuntary sound and then blushed scarlet when the girls looked at her.

"Never mind!" cried the joy incarnate that was Betty, putting an arm about her. "Just wait till you hear what he says later on. Go on, Gracie."

"'But do you know what that old boy said when I happened to comment upon the excellent nursing he must have had?'" Grace read on, while Amy tried hard to look unconcerned. "'He reached under his pillow and pulled out three pictures. "Those are my three girls," he said, and I swear there was moisture in his eyes. "You probably won't believe me, old man, but there isn't a girl or woman over here who could make me look twice at her unless she resembles one of those," and he pointed to the photographs I still held.

"'And when I opened them there was Mrs. Ford's face smiling up at me as sweet as life, and Grace with her best Gibson Girl expression--you can tell her from me that that is some picture of her--And who do you think the third was?'"

Grace paused again and looked over slyly at Amy, who turned away her face, only just showing the tip of one furiously blus.h.i.+ng ear.

"'It was Amy Blackford,'" Grace read on, "'And it was one fine picture of her too. Gosh, I didn't know it was as serious as all that, did you, little girl? But then the war does make a fellow feel about ten years older than he really is, and the girls at home suddenly seem the most desirable and necessary things on earth. And Amy did look so sweet and comfy and altogether like home that I couldn't blame the old chap.

"'Then I pulled out the picture of the most beautiful girl in the world and we talked about home and--other things, you know--until we were ready to weep on each other's shoulders and the handsome nurse put me out.

"'Do you know what I'm going to do the first minute I reach good old U. S. A. territory, Betty de--'"

But the sentence was never finished, for with a quick movement, Betty s.n.a.t.c.hed the letter away and hugged it to her breast while her face flamed.

"That's all you get," she cried, "the rest belongs to me. Oh, girls, did you ever hear such wonderful news? Allen strong and well and Will recovering splendidly, and both of them so sweet and loyal. Oh, I could kiss that beautiful red-haired angel who brought all this happiness to us. Where is he? Has he gone back again?"

"Yes, he has, and what do we care!" cried Grace wildly, her face radiant. "Amy, you little goose, you're not crying are you? Don't you know there isn't a thing in the world to cry about? Come on--laugh, you sweet, comfy, little thing. Don't you know that Will is getting better and keeps our pictures under his pillow? That darling, wonderful, adorable boy. Great heavens!" She stopped suddenly and a dismayed expression crept over her face. "Excuse me, please," and she was racing up the stairs, leaving the girls to look after her, bewildered.

"What in the world," began Betty, when Amy lifted a face, s.h.i.+ning radiantly through her tears.

"Don't you know?" she said with an understanding born of her wonderful happiness. "Grace has gone to tell her mother. You really can't blame her for being in a hurry."

A few minutes later Grace called down to Amy.

"Come on up, Honey," she commanded. "Mother wants to speak to you."

After Amy had left the room, Mollie and Betty looked at each other questioningly.

"I wonder if Mrs. Ford is going to welcome Amy into the family,"

chuckled Mollie.

"I hardly think so, since there isn't anything definitely settled yet,"

said Betty absently. She was thinking of Allen and what he had said in the part of his letter she would not let Grace read. Her eyes shone mistily and her heart sang. Allen, her Allen, was safe, and, oh, those wonderful things he had said!

"It must be nice to be as happy as they are," Mollie said, with a little sigh, and with a start Betty came out of her preoccupation.

"Oh, Mollie, dear, I--I forgot," she confessed, putting an arm about her chum. "I was so selfishly taken up with my own happiness that I didn't think!"

"It isn't your fault," said Mollie, smiling bravely. "You just can't be happy enough to suit me. You know that, don't you, Betty?"

"Of course I do, you perfect brick!" said Betty, hugging her fondly.

"But we can't any of us be really happy until we know you are. But even that is coming out all right, I'm sure of it," she finished gayly, her old optimism fully restored.