The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest Part 8

"He couldn't be the fire-bug!" protested Louise.

"I don't believe he could either," went on Grace, now really serious.

"But I thought I ought to mention about the papers."

"And the boat man's boy said he lived over on the island," mused Cleo.

"I'm glad we got out of leaving our names. He might come around to thank us--and he might carry--a torch!"

This sally revived the girls' spirits to the extent of producing the first laugh they had enjoyed since the accident; and to demonstrate the possible torch bearing, Cleo paraded on ahead with a long stick up-raised, while Grace and Louise followed with the crabs squirming in their basket.

"Now, we shall divide the spoils," said Margaret, when the town was reached, and the group should separate for their respective cottages.

"How many are there?" queried Cleo.

"Any one may have my share," offered Julia. "I don't ever want to see a crab again as long as I live," and her face fell to positive freezing point.

"Now, Julie dear, don't take on so," teased Grace. "No telling what our Wise Willie may turn out to be, and just think--you held his foot when we dragged him in."

"Grace, just you stop, I am nervous," pleaded Julia, "and I didn't hold his foot, it was his hand."

If Julia was really nervous, the laugh and merry-making that followed her nave remark must certainly have dispelled the quakes, for presently she was shaking with laughter rather than with nerves.

"But the crabs!" insisted Grace. "Let's draw for them," and she dragged the girls over to a little terrace where they unceremoniously squatted down.

"Here are nice long and short straws," offered Louise, breaking off some tall gra.s.s ends. "Julia, you can say which wins, long or short?"

"Please don't ask me to decide anything about those crabs," protested Julia. "And if you don't mind I'll just run along. Mother expects folks to dinner. I had a lovely time--" she stopped to allow the girls' laugh time to penetrate. Force of habit in "having a good time" seemed too absurd now, when all were just recovering from the accident shock.

"Oh, we know what you mean, Julia," teased Grace. "You had a lovely time holding Willie's foot--hand I mean, I forgot it was his hand."

But Julia was off, down the avenue, her light hair floating like a cloud about her shoulder, and her slim figure--the girls called it svelt--still proclaiming her the little girl, in spite of her grown up manners. Every one liked Julia; she was pensive and temperamental, but distinctively individual withal.

"No use my winning those crabs," said Margaret, "we haven't any one to sh.e.l.l them, or cook them, or do anything with them."

"You can put them in a tub of water and let them grow up," suggested Cleo, drawing a long straw, when a short one would decide the crabs.

"There, Louise, you have them. Take them! I hope they make you a lovely salad, and that they don't make you sick."

CHAPTER VIII

AT WEASLE POINT

"ISN'T it queer how no one seems to know any one else?" remarked Grace, with more words than meaning.

"You mean every one seems a stranger to every one else," added Cleo, affecting the same ambiguity.

"Yes; to put it collectively, the whole town is being populated by rank 'furriners,'" said Louise, "but I can explain the a.n.a.logy. You see, when summer comes the natives pack up and leave their homes to rent them profitably. That means only the post-master, and store keepers stay put."

"I have asked more questions and got fewer answers since I came to Sea Crest than I would have believed possible to ask and not receive,"

declared Cleo. "But what is your special trouble, Grace?"

"I asked a couple of girls who our queer Letty was and they didn't know.

Now, they were barefoot and peddling clams, the kind they dig up in the sand, and does it seem possible they would not know that girl?"

"They may come in from another town," suggested Louise. "It is quite possible they wouldn't know a thing but clams. I have found that out.

But let's hurry off. I've got the lunch, and we are not to go farther than the Point. I have learned that girls go out there with perfect safety, and there's a nice little ice cream place tended by a perfectly prim, gray-haired lady, who keeps an eye all over the Point. It must be a very small point, or the woman must have a long distance eye,"

finished Louise.

"We are going in the launch, of course," asked and answered Cleo. "I had to a.s.sure mother that the man who runs it has a brand new license, and I almost promised to bring back the number. Mother is so afraid of all sorts of motors."

Ready for the excursion to Weasle Point, Grace, Cleo, and Louise, garbed in their practical scout uniforms and armed with fis.h.i.+ng rods and a lunch box, started off in time to take the River Queen on its first trip of the afternoon. A few other pa.s.sengers embarked with the girls; a mother with a small son and daughter, two business men, and the boy with supplies for the island fruit stand.

This number seemed to satisfy the captain who, after counting heads, started off. Across the river, then into the bay that widened as it neared the ocean, the River Queen glided gracefully over to the little strip of land jutting out, with its clump of deep green pines, and the ever present picnic sign.

"Isn't this lovely?" exclaimed Louise. "I am so sorry Julia had to go to the city."

"And that Mary is not down yet," added Cleo, "but we can come again.

It's a perfectly lovely sail."

Landing at the improvised dock the girls quickly found the most secluded corner of the little grove, and although they had lunched at home, the sail was a potent appetizer, and the proposed spread was eagerly arranged.

It was very quiet on the strip of sand selected by the little party.

Like a narrow ribbon the Point lay on the waters, and the deeper woodlands were evidently unpopular and little traversed, for not even a path greeted the scouts in their rambles.

"I wonder why the place is called Weasle Point?" questioned Cleo. "Are we supposed to hunt weasels out here?"

"I don't even know what the beast looks like," replied Grace. "Are they bearish or wolfish?"

"Neither, they are little snappy things that eat birds," said Louise.

"I've heard daddy tell of them--he's quite a hunter, you know. But I don't fancy we will be attacked."

They had disposed of their lunch, and were exploring. All sorts of odd growing things were discovered, from the almost invisible wintergreen, that hugs the earth as if fearful of standing alone, to the wide spreading sweet fern, that lords it over every other green thing under the trees.

More than once shouts of "Snake!" were sent up, and each time this proved to be a false alarm, or the snake must have made good its escape, for no horrible crawling reptile came to view, in spite of the most desperate thras.h.i.+ng of bushes, and beating of brush, following each alarm.

"Oh, see here!" called Louise, who had wandered some distance from her companions. "Here is the dearest little dove, eating our lunch crumbs.

He carried them out here to safety."

Quietly the girls stole up to a pretty soft spot in the thicket, and there found a little pigeon enjoying the last crumbs of Cleo's cake.

Although the approach meant some more crackling of leaves and sticks, the bird seemed not the least disturbed, in fact, as the scouts looked down he looked up with a perky twist of his graceful throat.

"Must be tame," suggested Louise. "I hope those children down by the water don't come romping up to scare him off."

Cautiously Grace approached in that steady, definite manner that always seems to mean still motion. The bird hardly fluttered, but when the girl threw out a few more crumbs he proudly hopped toward her.